Most cited

Posts that commenters keep linking to, ranked by how many different people have cited them in Hacker News comments. 11,903 posts.

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11402

Why Lisp Will Never Win (2003)

For 2003 OSCON I proposed to give nine five-minute talks in a 45-minute slot. To avoid confusing this with the real lightning talks sessions, Nat decided to call my talk ``Nine Views of Mark Jason Dominus''. At first I didn't like that title, which sounded too much like self-promotion. But I warmed up to it after a…

11410

Assange Hearing Day 10

The gloves were off on Tuesday as the US Government explicitly argued that all journalists are liable to prosecution under the Espionage Act (1917) for publishing classified information, citing the Rosen case. Counsel for the US government also argued that the famous Pentagon Papers supreme court judgement on the New…

11414

The Dentist Office Software Story

I’ve been telling this fictional story about Dentist Office Software for years to describe why we are so focused on our “networks” investment strategy. Yesterday I told it at a HackNY event we did at the USV office and my partner Albert provided a finishing touch that really drives it home. Since I’ve never told […]

11422

“Startup Names” by Paul Graham (2006)

[This was originally published on the now-defunct Infogami and was surprisingly hard to find online, so I put it here. I’ve added commentary, with our now internet-decades of hindsight, in brackets. I’ve also summarized the names mentioned (and alluded to) along 7 dimensions: Evocativity, Brevity, Greppability…

11423

No, RSA Is Not Broken

I have been seeing this paper by cryptographer Peter Schnorr making the rounds: “Fast Factoring Integers by SVP Algorithms.” It describes a new factoring method, and its abstract ends with the provocative sentence: “This destroys the RSA cryptosystem.” It does not. At best, it’s an improvement in factoring—and I’m not…

11427

Confiscating your ice cream cones

Hey, remember that awesome Hello City Planner video about how the Government is going to have to come and confiscate your ice cream cones? I thought the best thing about it was that it was actually created by the SF Planning Department, but I was wrong. It gets better: it turns out, it's a true story!! Before Ice…