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Stuff we figured out about AI in 2023
2023 was the breakthrough year for Large Language Models (LLMs). I think it’s OK to call these AI—they’re the latest and (currently) most interesting development in the academic field of …
Most cited
Posts that commenters keep linking to, ranked by how many different people have cited them in Hacker News comments. 6,985 posts.
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My adventures in medical tourism
One of the things I like most about India is it's medical system. As an American, I've experienced both the Indian and US medical systems, and at this point I have a very strong preference for the Indian one. Somewhat surprisingly, the Indian medical system is based on free market …
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OpenAI
I have some exciting news (for me, anyway). Starting next week, I’ll be going on leave from UT Austin for one year, to work at OpenAI. They’re the creators of the astonishing GPT-3 and …
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Elon Musk and the Hyperloop
For a while now there have been tantalizing hints that Elon Musk is at it again. His usual way of approaching a problem is to look at an industry, find some fatal flaw in it, fix that flaw and then leave everybody else in the dust, wondering why they didn’t do what he did. He’s one of the most interesting people on…
6127
Cartography Comparison: Google Maps and Apple Maps
Google Maps and Apple Maps . At first glance, the columns below look very similar...
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But don’t let that distract you; it was designed to kill people (2017)
I’m going to tell you about how I took a job building software to kill people. But don’t get distracted by that; I didn’t know at the time.
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The flood that filled the Mediterranean Sea - in one year
"Zanclean Megaflood? What's that, a glam-rock band?"
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Audio CD ripping – optical drive accuracy listing
Tech-Tutorials, Howtos and buying advice2022208 points161 commentscited by 3Hardware & Electronics details
Audio CD ripping - optical drive accuracy listing
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"No way to prevent this" say users of only language where this regularly happens
Xe Iaso's personal website.
6134
Just talk to it – A way of agentic engineering
A practical guide to working with AI coding agents without the hype.
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Rolling the ladder up behind us
Who will take over for us if we don't train the next generation to replace us? A critique of craft, AI, and the legacy of human expertise.
6136
Free Transactional Email Services – The Best Alternatives to Mandrill and Co
Round-up and comparison of several popular and free transactional email services and Mandrill alternatives.
6137
What about K?
k is a family of concise, fast vector-oriented languages designed by Arthur Whitney . Calling k a “family” is deliberate; there is no single definitive k, but instead a sequence of slightly incompatible versions. If you decide to stick with k, you’ll see mentions of k4 , k5 etc. Exactly what those numbers mean aren’t…
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Reddit’s database has two tables (2012)
Steve Huffman talks about Reddit’s approach to data storage in a High Scalability post from 2010. I was surprised to learn that they only have two tables in their database.
6139
New Kind of Paper
Paper & pencil are the best tools for thinking. Let's enhance them!
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The next big Wi-Fi standard is for sensing, not communication (2021)
Sometime in 2024, the IEEE will unveil a new 802.11 standard that will bring new capabilities to everyone’s favorite wireless communication standard. But the upcoming 802.11bf standard isn’t for communication — it’s for sensing. The newest version of Wi-Fi layers on the ability to sense people or objects by using math…
6142
Clearing up some things about LinkedIn mobile’s move from Rails to node.js
There’s an article on highscalability that’s talking about the move from Rails to node.js (for completeness: its sister discussion on Hacker
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The Beauty of Roots (2011)
Around 2006, my friend Dan Christensen created a fascinating picture of all the roots of all polynomials of degree ≤ 5 with integer coefficients ranging from -4 to 4:
6144
The Origin Story of Kid Pix
The history of Kid Pix by Craig Hickman
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The principle of charity: Criticize the best interpretation of an argument
The principle of charity is a philosophical principle that denotes that, when interpreting someone’s statement, you should assume that the best possible interpretation of that statement is the one that the speaker meant to convey. Accordingly, to implement the principle of charity, you should not attribute falsehoods…
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The Decoherence Trap
Of all the forms of tech debt, decoherence is the worst. It compounds exponentially with a system's rate of change, and AI is now producing it faster than ever, leading us deeper and deeper into the abyss...
6149
AI and Trust
I trusted a lot today. I trusted my phone to wake me on time. I trusted Uber to arrange a taxi for me, and the driver to get me to the airport safely. I trusted thousands of other drivers on the road not to ram my car on the way. At the airport, I trusted ticket agents and maintenance engineers and everyone else who…
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Startup Idea: User Retention as a Service
An in-depth blog post talking user retention and lifecycle email marketing for startups.