Most cited
Posts that commenters keep linking to, ranked by how many different people have cited them in Hacker News comments. 405 posts.
Why Python 3 Exists
This month I invited to Q&A at PuPPy [https://youtu.be/2XviXtxWKO8?list=PL4S0lvhXvdhIV2C28Ia_DeIeloBrsQBOW] (the Puget Sound Python users group) that eventually led to me explaining why Python 3 came into existence and the whole string/bytes deal. I ended up receiving a compliment on the explanation which
Unit Economics
Commentators are looking hard for what’s wrong with startups in Silicon Valley. First they talked about valuations being too high. Then they talked about valuations not really meaning anything. ...
The Verge's web sucks
TL;DR: Did you know that The Verge delivers you to around 20 companies for advertising & tracking purposes? I didn't. That might foul up your web experience a little bit. Maybe we should try something different.
BoringSSL
We recently switched Google's two billion line repository over to BoringSSL , our fork of OpenSSL . This means that BoringSSL is now powering Chromium (on nearly all platforms), Android M and Google's production services. For the first time, the majority of Google's products are sharing a single TLS stack and making…
TSA Master Keys
Someone recently noticed a Washington Post story on the TSA that originally contained a detailed photograph of all the TSA master keys. It’s now blurred out of the Washington Post story, but the image is still floating around the Internet. The whole thing neatly illustrates one of the main problems with backdoors…
Even the LastPass Will Be Stolen
How to obtain encryption keys to decrypt the LastPass vault in different scenarios
The Apple Watch
After one week wearing an Apple Watch, my big picture thoughts and observations. It all hinges on the Taptic Engine and digital touch communication.
The Socratic Method: Teaching by Asking Instead of by Telling
The following is a transcript of a teaching experiment, using the Socratic method, with a regular third grade class in a suburban elementary school. I present my perspective and views on the session, and on the Socratic method as a teaching tool, following the transcript. The class was conducted on a Friday afternoon…
Why investors don’t fund dating
I’ve been listening to the excellent Season 2 of the podcast Startup , which gives an inside look at YCombinator startup The Dating Ring (NYT coverage here ). The episodes are all great. They talk about many important topics, but I had some specific comments on fundraising for dating products .
Toast
Toast was my first published short story collection. It's now effectively out of print — there was going to be a limited, signed, "final" edition, but I haven't seen hide nor hair of it for a year or two now — so I'm releasing it under a Creative Commons license.
Analysis of PS4's security and the state of hacking
Since there haven't been any major public announcements regarding PS4 hacking for a long time now, I wanted to explain a bit about how far PS4 hacking has come, and what is preventing further progression.
What Is Spacetime, Really?
On the 100th anniversary of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, Stephen Wolfram discusses the nature of space and time, and fundamental theory of physics.
SIMD in Rust
An overview of my work on improving SIMD in Rust.
Show HN: Clojure by Example
Clojure by Example
A conversation with Sussman on AI and asynchronous programming
A couple weeks ago I made it to the FSF's 30th anniversary party. It was a blast in many ways, and a good generator of many fond memories, but I won't go into depth of them here. One particularly exciting thing that happened for me though was I got to meet Gerald Sussman (of SICP !) The conversation has greatly…
React/JavaScript fatigue
A few days ago, I met up with a friend & peer over coffee.
Bitcoin mining on a 55 year old IBM 1401 mainframe: 80 seconds per hash
Could an IBM mainframe from the 1960s mine Bitcoin? The idea seemed crazy, so I decided to find out. I implemented the Bitcoin hash algorith...