Every blog post that took off on Hacker News, ranked by the votes of its best submission. 49,218 posts.
In this post I derive the physics of pumping a swing and the physics of jumping from a swing. Then, using both pieces I compute the optimal strategy of jumping from a swing to maximize the traveled distance. I propose this game as a new Olympic sport.
Update 7 May 2022: A followup to this post containing significant conceptual advance is Xilem: an architecture for UI in Rust. I consider the Crochet experiment to be mostly negative, as there were a number of ergonomic and functional “paper cuts,” though several of the research goals were met, at least to some extent.
Creative writing by OpenAI’s GPT-3 model, demonstrating poetry, dialogue, puns, literary parodies, and storytelling. Plus advice on effective GPT-3 prompt programming & avoiding common errors.
Editorial Note: I originally wrote this post for the Infragistics blog. Head over to their site and check out the original. While you’re there, have a look at the other blog authors and their product offering. If you’re not already familiar with the concept of technical debt, it’s worth becoming familiar with it. I…
a bunch of weird and random technical stuff
It’s widespread folklore that one advantage of garbage collection is the ease of building high-performance lock-free data structures. Manual memory management for these data structures is not easy, and a GC makes it trivial.
Prior attempts to calculate Starlink’s potential for service have been theoretical. We simulate based on the actual constellation.
In remote work, we communicate primarily through writing. We send messages in Slack. We document projects in Notion. We send meeting invites with a written description of the purpose. We’re writing all the time. Many organizations are working from home at the moment. Thus, writing is even
The SMBC comic Convert included as the “Votey button” a challenge to extract a Waldo visual from the digits of π.
We recently restored an Apollo Guidance Computer, the revolutionary computer that helped navigate to the Moon and land on its surface. 1 At...
There are two types of engineers, the ones that can quickly do estimates and the ones that can’t. Are these people just smarter, or is there more to it? Enrico Fermi was a master at estimation Back of the envelope estimation is a skill that can be learned with practice. It becomes easier once you get familiar with…
Event sourcing and CQRS gained a lot of popularity recently. The advantages are obvious and they share a very peculiar symbiosis with the…
Apparently shlx is a “medium latency” (3 cycles) instruction on Alder Lake. My disappointment is immeasurable, and my day is ruined.
Baba Is You is a philosophical video game that facilitates the kind of thinking needed for frontier topics in the sciences of life and mind.
More on MMO Architecture:- MMO Architecture: client connections, sockets, threads and connection-oriented servers- MMO Architecture: Optimizing Server Performance with Lockless Queues- MMO Architec…
To understand the differences between automatic differentiation libraries, let’s talk about the engineering trade-offs that were made. I would personally say that none of these libraries are “better” than another, they simply all make engineering trade-offs based on the domains and use cases they were aiming to…
Scan your iPhone for NSO Group's Pegasus malware using Mobile Verification Toolkit (MVT) by Amnesty International
Many years ago, I built what I believe was the best-selling BlackBerry app of all-time, BBSmart Email Viewer. It feels strange to write that, and it's not something I'd say I'm really known for outside of the small niche community of BlackBerry app developers that used to exist. But of course this had a huge impact on…
Miami-based DJ, producer, and songwriter blending Dance-Pop, Tech House, and Festival energy. Latest single 'Somethin' Right' out now.
Introducing citations!
After reading countless articles about the wonders of Go, I wanted to learn more. But, learning a new language— I mean really learning it, not just getting familiar with the general capabilities and syntax—is hard. I'm sure there are tons of books that would purport to teach me all about it, but there is no substitute…
uglify the UI for non-paying consumers
Today, the European Parliament ordered new legislation to regulate credit card companies' ability to refuse service. This regulation follows the unilateral and rightless cutoff...
I love Wikipedia, but too often the articles are just not that easy to read. It’s not that my English isn’t good enough. My English good. There is Simple English Wikipedia, but it doesn’t cover as many topics and it’s not as thorough.
