Top posts
Every blog post that took off on Hacker News, ranked by the votes of its best submission. 8,148 posts.
Society, Policy & Culture
Any year
Open source can't coordinate?
I was taking a shower this morning, and was pondering yesterday's problem, where I suspect that I have an outdated version of hotspot Linux profiler, but I can't just go and download a fresh release from GitHub, because hotspot is a KDE app, and I use NixOS. And NixOS isn't a problem --- it's a solution.
Breakdown of data on homeless populations across the U.S.
Many people see a homelessness crisis, but what does the data say? We examine different locations, rates of change, types of homelessness, and mental health and substance abuse issues.
The good times in tech are over
For most of the last decade, being a software engineer has been a lot of fun. Every company offered lots of perks, layoffs and firings were almost unheard of…
It's easy to screw up on breaking news but you have to admit when you do
This week brought another self-inflected wound for trust in journalism.
Persuasion through status rather than argument
Intelligent individuals are better at understanding the reputational consequences of their beliefs
The Zizians and the rationalist death cult
What is the deal with Rationalism and cults?
The plague of emoji insertion in French docs
tl;dr A thumbs-up emoji appears each time you type a colon : in Google Docs, in french. I have just noticed that it is now possible to easily insert emojis in Google Docs! Good news? Not for french writers! This feature already exists in Outlook on the Web: when you
Spain has become one of Europe’s cheapest power markets
How wind and solar quietly pushed gas off the margin, and the wholesale price followed.
I think I hate the internet
I’ve just finished reading Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams and was equally parts shocked and unsurprised by the events she witnessed at Facebook / Met...
Real Chilling Effects
A extraordinary pattern of government censorship and threats to speech
Evading Airport Security
The news is reporting about Evan Booth, who builds weaponry out of items you can buy after airport security. It’s clever stuff. It’s not new, though. People have been explaining how to evade airport security for years. Back in 2006, I—and others—explained how to print your own boarding pass and evade the photo-ID…
Google Forcing Nest Cameras’ Visual Indicator Light To Be On
Google Forcing Nest Cameras Visual Indicator Light To Be On
Are We Welcome Entrepreneurs or Unwanted Criminals?
Almost deported in First Class
“Side Hustle” as a Sign of the Apocalypse
“Side hustle,” “mom-tech,” and “the sharing economy” are covering up something sinister
Helsinki Hacker News Meetup
A casual, roughly bimonthly Sunday coffee meetup for Hacker News posters in Helsinki. Open to anyone with 64+ HN karma.
Flurry of Calls Among Saudi Staff and Spy Coincided with 9/11 Hijackers’ Arrival
Future al Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki also connected
Facebook is a Ponzi Scheme
Quill Grid: The Starlink for AI becomes a network. An optional, opt-in distributed AI grid where idle Quill One devices share spare capacity, earn credits, and donate AI hours.
O'Reilly's Decision and Its DRM Implication
On Wednesday, I got mail from Laura Baldwin, President of O'Reilly, announcing that "as of today, we are discontinuing fulfillment of indiv...
Apple Has Begun Scanning Your Local Image Files Without Consent
Preface: I don’t use iCloud. I don’t use an Apple ID. I don’t use the Mac App Store. I don’t store photos in the macOS “Photos” application, even locally. I…
The Curse of Dialup World
An acquisition gets weird.
How Microsoft Pays Big Money To Smear Google In European Parliament
I spent this week in the European Parliament in Brussels. One of the seminars I attended was advertised as being a seminar on privacy,...
My Surreal UberX Experience
A VC's perspective on how modern tech platforms like Uber break down communication barriers and enable seamless interactions - even between hearing and deaf users.