1
Commoditize your complements (2002)
When I was in college I took two intro economics courses: macroeconomics and microeconomics. Macro was full of theories like “low unemployment causes inflation” that never quite stood u…
Most cited
Posts that commenters keep linking to, ranked by how many different people have cited them in Hacker News comments. 167 posts.
2
Using inflation tracking methods from 80s and 90s, inflation would be ~10%
The CPI chart on the home page reflects our estimate of inflation for today as if it were calculated the same way it was in 1990. The CPI on the Alternate Data Series tab here reflects the CPI as if it were calculated using the methodologies in place in 1980. In general terms, methodological shifts in government…
3
Don’t Let Architecture Astronauts Scare You (2001)
When great thinkers think about problems, they start to see patterns. They look at the problem of people sending each other word-processor files, and then they look at the problem of people sending…
4
Warren Buffett's bet against hedge funds at the Long Now Foundation (2008-17)
will go to Girls Incorporated of Omaha if Buffett wins, or Friends of Absolute Return for Kids, Inc if Protege Partners, LLC wins.
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1. Trends in income and wealth inequality
Barely 10 years past the end of the Great Recession in 2009, the U.S. economy is doing well on several fronts. The labor market is on a job-creating streak that…
6
AWS's Egregious Egress
Amazon’s says: “We strive to offer our customers the lowest possible prices, the best available selection, and the utmost convenience.” When it comes to egress, their prices are far from the lowest.
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Chicken and Egg Problem (2000)
The idea of advertising is to lie without getting caught. Most companies, when they run an advertising campaign, simply take the most unfortunate truth about their company, turn it upside down (…
8
Google’s FLoC Is a Terrible Idea
Update, April 9, 2021 : We've launched Am I FLoCed, a new site that will tell you whether your Chrome browser has been turned into a guinea pig for Federated Learning of Cohorts or FLoC, Google’s latest targeted advertising experiment. The third-party cookie is dying, and Google is trying to create...
9
Early Retirement (2006)
The joys, challenges, and some practical aspects of retiring young.
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Your Book Review: Progress And Poverty
Finalist #3 of the book review contest
11
Lazard’s Levelized Cost of Energy+ (LCOE+)
Lazard’s Levelized Cost of Energy+ is a widely cited report that analyzes the cost competitiveness of renewables, energy storage, and system considerations.
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No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees
I started Gumroad in 2011. In 2015, we reached a peak of 23 full-time employees. In 2016, after failing to raise more money, I ended up back where I began: a one-person company.
14
The price of lithium-ion batteries has declined by 97% in the last three decades
Batteries have become much cheaper, making energy storage far more affordable.
15
DHH: Let It All Out
Casey's reporting for The Verge brought some of the dirty laundry that helped motivate our change of direction regarding societal politics at Basecamp onto the public record. It erased part of that fine line we try to toe between sharing as much of the inner workings at the company as possible while respecting the…
16
The Ultimate Guide to Inflation
Originally Published: May 2021 Inflation is a controversial and complex topic. This article looks at 150 years of data across multiple countries to provide a general idea of what inflation is, what to look for, and how to invest with inflationary and deflationary risks in mind. Read from the beginning, or jump to the…
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A Threshold Crossed
The 213-page report, “A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution,” examines Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. It presents the present-day reality of a single authority, the Israeli government, ruling primarily over the area between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea…
19
Replit used legal threats to kill my open-source project
I received an official response from Replit and my open-source project will be back up soon; please see the bottom of the blog post for an update. The rest of the content here will remain as a historical artifact.
20
GitHub is fully available in Iran
All developers should be free to use GitHub, no matter where they live. At the same time, GitHub respects and abides by US law, which means government sanctions have limited our ability to provide developers in some countries the full range of GitHub services.
21
What’s Vivaldi’s business model?
Some browsers use your data in ad networks, push promoted content or use other invasive methods to fund their development. We don’t.
22
What’s behind the recent surge in the M1 money supply?
While the terms “money” and “wealth” often mean the same thing in everyday parlance, economists define money more narrowly as the component of wealth consisting of
23
Bitcoin's Energy Usage Isn't a Problem. Here's Why.
Updated for 2023, this report is a deep dive on Bitcoin's energy usage and long-term scaling approach, with data tables and case studies.
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Ashley's Apple Story
Ashley's Apple Saga
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The Bit Short: Inside Crypto’s Doomsday Machine
This is the story of a Bitcoin trade — the most financially impactful trade I’ve ever made in my life. It’s also the story of the…
26
Why Wolfram tech isn’t open source (2019)
Wolfram's Director of Technical Communication & Strategy, Jon McLoone, shares his thoughts on why it would not have been possible to create the Wolfram technology stack using a free and open-source model.
27
The cost of cloud, a trillion dollar paradox
The pressure the cloud puts on margins can start to outweigh the benefits you scale and growth slows. Understand how much market cap is being suppressed by the cloud to help inform the decision-making framework on managing infrastructure as companies scale.
28
Savings are now more liquid and part of “M1 money”
Money is marvelously nuanced. Because different assets can be used as money, we need several categories and definitions to keep track of it. M1 describes the most liquid and widely...
29
Merck Statement on Ivermectin use During the COVID-19 Pandemic
KENILWORTH, N.J., Feb. 4, 2021 – Merck (NYSE: MRK), known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, today affirmed its position regarding use of ivermectin during the COVID-19 pandemic. Company scientists continue to carefully examine the findings of all available and emerging studies of ivermectin for the…
30
Metakovan, the mystery Beeple art buyer, and his NFT/DeFi scheme
At the end of the day, this is a straight-up ICO-style index fund to speculate on NFTs.