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I designed a cube that balances itself on a corner
This cube manages to balance itself on a corner, and can simultaneously rotate around its axis in a controlled manner. It does so using clever controls and a set of three reaction wheels.
Top posts
Every blog post that took off on Hacker News, ranked by the votes of its best submission. 49,173 posts.
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I Am Deleting the Blog
[EDIT 2/13/21: This post is originally from June 2020, but there’s been renewed interest in it because the NYT article involved just came out. This post says the NYT was going to write a posi…
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Claude Code is steganographically marking requests
I inspected Claude Code for privacy reasons and found hidden system prompt markers based on API base URL and timezone.
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Losing my son
On October 20th, my seven year old son Nikolas suffered cardiac arrest while undergoing a procedure at the hospital to treat an underlying congenital condition. The doctors performed CPR and succeeded in reviving him but ultimately he suffered catastrophic brain damage. My wife and I were in the hospital for
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The secret inside One Million Checkboxes
Teens wrote me a secret. I found them.
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Why I’m done with Chrome
This blog is mainly reserved for cryptography, and I try to avoid filling it with random “someone is wrong on the Internet” posts. After all, that’s what Twitter is for! But from …
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An AI agent published a hit piece on me
Summary: An AI agent of unknown ownership autonomously wrote and published a personalized hit piece about me after I rejected its code, attempting to damage my reputation and shame me into acceptin…
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Git commands I run before reading any code
Principal Software Engineer & Codebase Rescue20262,338 points509 commentsTools & Productivity details
Five git log commands that diagnose a new codebase before you open a single file: code churn hotspots, bus factor, bug clusters, and crisis patterns.
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Internal Combustion Engine
Interactive article explaining how an internal combustion engine works.
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When you browse Instagram and find Tony Abbott's passport number
Do not get arrested challenge 2020
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IMG_0416
Between 2009 and 2012, Apple iPhones and iPod Touches included a feature called “Send to YouTube” that allowed users to upload videos directly to YouTube from the Photos app.
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Reverse engineering Ticketmaster's rotating barcodes
"Screenshots won't get you in", but Chrome DevTools will.
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Someone is pretending to be me
One random day - someone spills the beans. They were picked to impersonate me and get a job using my information.
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.name Termination
Nearly twenty-five years ago I registered neil.fraser.name to provide a stable presence on the Internet. It has been the home of this website, my email address, and a server for APIs. It predates YouTube, Facebook, and smart phones. Minutes after my daughter was born, I also registered beverly.fraser.name .
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Uv is the best thing to happen to the Python ecosystem in a decade
Released in 2024, uv is hands-down the best tool for managing Python installations and dependencies. Here's why.
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Reflecting on 18 Years at Google
I joined Google in October 2005, and handed in my resignation 18 years later. Last week was my last week at Google.
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The newest Instagram “exploit” is the goofiest I've seen
Yesterday, a slew of Instagram accounts, including some high profile ones like the Obama White House account, seemingly got hacked.
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Cameras and Lenses
Interactive article explaining how cameras and lenses work.
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How to succeed in MrBeast production (Leaked PDF)
Whether or not you enjoy MrBeast’s format of YouTube videos (here’s a 2022 Rolling Stone profile if you’re unfamiliar), this leaked onboarding document for new members of his production company …
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MomBoard: E-ink display for a parent with amnesia
Today marks two years since I first set up an e-ink display in my mom’s apartment to help her live on her own with amnesia.
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Ken Thompson's Unix Password
Somewhere around 2014 I found an /etc/passwd file in some dumps of the BSD 3 source tree, containing passwords of all the old timers such as Dennis Ritchie, Ken Thompson, Brian W. Kernighan, Steve Bourne and Bill Joy.
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Conversations with a six-year-old on functional programming
My six-year-old son walked up to me yesterday. “What are you reading?” At the time, I was reading part of Janis Voigtländer’s habilitation thesis. Unsure where to even start, I decided to just ans…
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We should have the ability to run any code we want on hardware we own
Refuting the common and flawed argument of