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Top posts
Every blog post that took off on Hacker News, ranked by the votes of its best submission. 3,824 posts.
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Xmas.c (1988)
The second block has more real work going on. If the character stored in the variable _ does not match the first character of the string a , the code recurses in such a way that this same block of code will again be entered. That is, t=-65 forces a return to the if (t < -50) block. The recursion steps through string a…
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Killing Community
This is a theory that’s previously been stated in log/39-normie-hypothesis.gmi, but I think it’s worth expanding on as it’s become very relevant with the recent Reddit shit-show actualizing just how bad that website has gotten along with social media in general. I think the model demonstrates how the…
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Cold-blooded software
It’s 2004 and I’m sitting in one of the largest lecture halls at my university. I’m a computer science major but I’m taking a course on natural history — plants and animals — as one of my electives.
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My personal C coding style as of late 2023
This has been a ground-breaking year for my C skills, and paradigm shifts in my technique has provoked me to reconsider my habits and coding style. It’s been my largest personal style change in years, so I’ve decided to take a snapshot of its current state and my reasoning. These changes have produced significant…
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AI is making it easier to create more noise, when all I want is good search
We use Notion for the bulk of our knowledge management at CodePen. I have no use for an AI that can write for me.
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The Small Website Discoverability Crisis (2021)
There are a lot of small websites on the Internet: Interesting websites, beautiful websites, unique websites. Unfortunately they are incredibly hard to find. You cannot find them on Google or Reddit, and while you can stumble onto them with my search engine, it is not in a very directed fashion. It is an unfortunate…
278
<3 Deno
Deno is a relatively new JavaScript runtime. I find it quite interesting and aesthetically appealing, in-line with the recent trend to rein in the worse-is-better law of software evolution. This post explains why.
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Exploiting the iPhone 4
Years ago, I was active in the iOS tweak development scene. I made many products and tools, distributed on Cydia, that modified iOS system behavior and added new functionality to SpringBoard. This was a really fun time, and gave me valuable early career exposure to reverse engineering closed-source binaries…
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Interactive intro to shaders
Demystify shaders with this beginner-friendly guide. Explore fragment shaders, signed distance functions, and metaballs through interactive code examples. Learn how to create beautiful blob animations and effects using just a few lines of code.
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My Caste
Allow me to introduce you to one of the largest population groups in India, as recognized by the constitution of India: Other Backward Classes ( OBC Category ). OBCs are estimated to comprise 40-45% of India's population, therefore, about 500 million people belong to OBC category. In other words, 1 in 16 people in the…
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The Bond villain compliance strategy
Jurisdictional gamesmanship is a common strategy for crypto businesses. Here is how it worked out for Binance and its CEO. Spoiler: poorly.
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Build your own private WireGuard VPN with PiVPN
I am frequently away from home (whether on family vacation, a business trip, or out around town), but I have a number of important resources on my home network—as any homelabber does. There are services I like to access remotely like my NAS with my giant media library, my edit server with all my active projects, and…
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CLI tools hidden in the Python standard library
Seth Michael Larson pointed out that the Python gzip module can be used as a CLI tool like this:
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Mistakes to avoid to build a better 1-person business
Choosing the right markets and the pitfalls to avoid
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Doug Lenat has died
AI has lost a giant
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test, [, and [[ (2020)
A little essay on the amusement or horror that may bring to learn that both test and [ are binaries on your typical Unix system, and that [[ is subject to completely different rules.
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The Leverage of LLMs for Individuals
Disclaimer: This article is not meant to provoke anxiety or exaggerate the power of GPT. It is merely my personal observation after using ChatGPT/GPT-
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I'm a very slow thinker (2016)
Derek Sivers official site. Thoughts on philosophy, culture, self-improvement. Author of Useful Not True, How to Live, Hell Yeah or No, Anything You Want.
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We need to tell people ChatGPT will lie to them, not debate linguistics
ChatGPT lies to people. This is a serious bug that has so far resisted all attempts at a fix. We need to prioritize helping people understand this, not debating the …
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An example of LLM prompting for programming
Generated knowledge and chain of thought prompting of an LLM can generate useful code.
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Goodbye, Twilio
As of this week and after almost four years, I'm not a Twilio employee anymore. I'm writing this while I work through a range of conflicting emotions, and try to adapt to new daily routines without…
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Want an unfair advantage in your tech career? Consume content for other roles
Learning about roles you work with can provide a meaningful competitive advantage in the modern tech world
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Dropping the SAT requirement is a luxury belief
Disguising self-interest as virtue
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Writing Python like it's Rust
You can check out a YouTube recording of a talk based on this blog post.
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I don't want streaming music, I just want to stream my music
I don't want your streaming music service, I just want the music I've collected and care about available to stream.
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Retrieving 1TB of data from a faulty drive with the help of woodworking tools
So, a while ago I built a gaming PC with the following specification: Case Dan A4 v4.1 Motherboard Z690I Strix Gaming Pro...
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Hackers claim they breached T-Mobile more than 100 times in 2022
Three different cybercriminal groups claimed access to internal networks at communications giant T-Mobile in more than 100 separate incidents throughout 2022, new data suggests. In each case, the goal of the attackers was the same: Phish T-Mobile employees for access to internal company tools, and then convert that…