541
Five Worlds
Something important is almost never mentioned in all the literature about programming and software development, and as a result we sometimes misunderstand each other. You’re a software develo…
Most cited
Posts that commenters keep linking to, ranked by how many different people have cited them in Hacker News comments. 2,396 posts.
Tech Industry & Business
Any year
542
Costs of the 20-year war on terror: $8 trillion and 900,000 deaths
A report from the Costs of War project at Brown University revealed that 20 years of post-9/11 wars have cost the U.S. an estimated $8 trillion and have killed more than 900,000 people.
543
Octoverse: A new developer joins GitHub every second as AI leads TypeScript to #1
In this year’s Octoverse, we uncover how AI, agents, and typed languages are driving the biggest shifts in software development in more than a decade.
544
A Behind the Scenes Take on Lithium-ion Battery Prices
Automakers and policy makers are increasingly voicing their belief that the passenger vehicle of the future will be powered (partially or fully) by electricity. There remains, however, a lack of consensus on the timing and speed of the transition, in large part due to differing opinions on current and future…
545
The 20 Most Expensive Keywords in Google Ads
While the minimum bid per keyword is 5 cents in Google Ads, the highest cost keywords are nowhere near that. Google can make up to $50 per click from the most expensive PPC keywords, and keyword advertising is a highly lucrative business. Learn all about the most expensive keywords for your industry.
546
H-1B visas and prevailing wage levels: A majority of H-1B employers—including major U.S. tech firms—use the program to pay migrant workers well below market wages
H-1B is a temporary nonimmigrant work visa that allows U.S. employers to hire college-educated migrant workers as well as fashion models from abroad; nearly 500,000 migrant workers are employed in the United States in H-1B status. The H-1B is an important—but deeply flawed—vehicle for attracting skilled workers to the…
547
The resolution of the Bitcoin experiment
I’ve spent more than 5 years being a Bitcoin developer. The software I’ve written has been used by millions of users, hundreds of…
548
How bundling benefits sellers and buyers
programming, philosophy, history, internet, startups
549
John T. Reed's analysis of Robert T. Kiyosaki's book Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Part 1
An in-depth, factual analysis of Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad Poor Dad. Discover the dangerous advice, factual errors, & misleading claims exposed by John T Reed.
550
Y Combinator
Y Combinator created a new model for funding early stage startups. Four times a year we invest in a large number of startups.
551
Publisher Transformation with Users at the Center
*Feb. 13 update: I posted more details about Directory Tiles here.* We believe that if you put the user front and center, you can make ...
552
Funding, Incentives, and Governance
In my first blog post I focused on the most important thing: our values. Now I turn to the next-most-important issue for our mission: funding. Here’s how we’ve gathered the necessary resources to get…
553
Does Legalized Prostitution Increase Human Trafficking?
Human trafficking leaves no land untouched. In 2013 the U.S. State Department estimated that there are 27 million victims worldwide trafficked for forced labor or commercial sex exploitation. A 201…
554
Themes are GPL, too
If WordPress were a country, our Bill of Rights would be the GPL because it protects our core freedoms. We’ve always done our best to keep WordPress.org clean and only promote things that are compl…
555
How Congress Manufactured a Postal Crisis
An unprecedented congressional mandate threatens the Postal Service's ability to continue to provide good jobs and universal service.
556
Painless Functional Specifications
When The Joel Test first appeared, one of the biggest sore points readers reported had to do with writing specs. It seems that specs are like flossing: everybody knows they should be writing them, …
557
Getting Real
The smarter, faster, easier way to build a successful web application
558
Non-Glamorous Gains: The Pennsylvania Land Tax Experiment
Since 1913, Pennsylvania has allowed cities to tax land at a higher rate than buildings. This decision has led to some unique success stories: cities that have weathered post-industrial decline and revitalized their urban cores.
559
Benedict’s Newsletter
What mattered in tech this week? A weekly email newsletter.
560
Windows 8 — Disappointing Usability for Both Novice and Power Users
Hidden features, reduced discoverability, cognitive overhead from dual environments, and reduced power from a single-window UI and low information density. Too bad.
561
How has social mobility in the U.S. changed in recent decades?
Historic data suggests that the likelihood of outearning your parents has declined over recent decades - so is the American Dream becoming a nightmare?
562
563
Joint statement from Google and Apple
Apple and Google have entered into a multi-year collaboration under which the next generation of Apple Foundation Models will be based on Google's Gemini models and clou…
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Rails is omakase (DHH)
There are lots of à la carte software environments in this world. Places where in order to eat, you must first carefully look over the menu of options to order exactly what you want. I want this for my ORM, I want that for my template language, and let's finish it off with this routing library. Of course, you're going…
566
How Trello is different
Just a few months ago, we launched Trello, a super simple, web-based team coordination system. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive and adoption has been very strong, even in its early, 1.…
567
LLM inference prices have fallen rapidly but unequally across tasks
Epoch AI is a research institute investigating key trends and questions that will shape the trajectory and governance of Artificial Intelligence.
568
Designing for People Who Have Better Things To Do With Their Lives
When you design user interfaces, it’s a good idea to keep two principles in mind: Users don’t have the manual, and if they did, they wouldn’t read it. In fact, users can’t r…
569
OpenAI's board has fired Sam Altman
Chief technology officer Mira Murati appointed interim CEO to lead OpenAI; Sam Altman departs the company.
570
Claude Fable 5
Today we’re launching Claude Fable 5: a Mythos-class model that we’ve made safe for general use.