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How to build a 50k ton forging press
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, a revolution took place in American military aircraft design.
Top posts
Every blog post that took off on Hacker News, ranked by the votes of its best submission. 5,273 posts.
632
Google Sheets ported its calculation worker from JavaScript to WasmGC
Calculations in Google Sheets were initially done on the server, then on the client in JavaScript, and now on the client in WebAssembly Garbage Collection. This case study explains how and why.
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Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war
Committee to Protect Journalists2024449 points807 commentscited by 3Society, Policy & Culture details
Editor’s note: In keeping with CPJ’s methodology, data will be updated as new information becomes available. See CPJ’s database for the most current data on killed journalists. As of September 24, 2026, CPJ’s preliminary investigations show that at least 247 journalists and media workers are among the more than tens…
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It’s an age of marvels
From the highly eclectic blog of Mark Dominus
635
Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics
Due to UK disclosure requirements, it's possible to examine the P&L of the privately owned/controlled OnlyFans. And the results are shocking.
636
Piet: Programming language in which programs look like abstract paintings (2002)
Piet is a programming language in which programs look like abstract paintings. The language is named after Piet Mondrian , who pioneered the field of geometric abstract art. I would have liked to call the language Mondrian, but someone beat me to it with a rather mundane-looking scripting language. Oh well, we can't…
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Write code for the web
The story is personal, but I hope readers find something they can relate to in their own life stream.
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Attackers can decloak routing-based VPNs
We discovered a fundamental design problem in VPNs and we're calling it TunnelVision. This problem lets someone see what you're doing online, even if you think you're safely using a VPN.
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The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs
A metascience post of sorts that argues we should take human capital more seriously
641
Why Scrum is stressing you out
Programming today is stressful — way more stressful than I remember it in the 90s and early 2000s when I was just starting out.
642
How to center a div in CSS
Back in the day, centering an element was one of the trickiest things in CSS. As the language has evolved, we’ve been given lots of new tools we can use… But how do we pick the best option? When do we use Flexbox, or CSS Grid, or something else? Let's dig into it.
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Enlightenmentware
Software that makes you a better programmer.
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Why do electronic components have such odd values? (2021)
If you've been around electronics for a while, you've probably noticed that components like resistors, capacitors, zener diodes and inductors come in some odd values. Looking at the chart above, there seems to be no clear rationale behind the values, but there is a pattern. 47kΩ resistors and 22μF capacitors are…
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SQLite: Wal2 Mode
"Wal2" mode is very similar to "wal" mode. To change a database to wal2 mode, use the command:
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The day I canceled my Spotify subscription
I used to be a big fan of Spotify. Today I cancelled my subscription.
647
Recall: Stealing everything you've ever typed or viewed on your own Windows PC
Photographic memory comes to Windows, and is the biggest security setback in a decade.
648
Fermat's Last Theorem – how it’s going
So I’m two months into trying to teach a proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem to a computer. We already have one interesting story, which I felt was worth sharing.
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Testing the F-35C Tailhook
Welcome to the blog. As a way to kick things off, here’s a single-page version of my thread on the F-35C tailhook.
650
Build a Low-Cost Drone Using ESP32
Use ESP32 to build a budget-friendly drone from scratch.
651
Ruby: A great language for shell scripts
It’s more than rails!
652
Visualizing World War II
If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you’ll know that maps and history are two of my favorite things. I love history because I love learning about the vast panoply of the human …
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Making USB devices – end to end guide to your first gadget
Introduction to implementing USB devices. Minimal overview of hardware and software with an example with STM32 microcontroller. Also contains an index to very detailed guides for more information.
655
Care Doesn't Scale
I met a social worker whose job was to look after four orphaned children. She’d alternate with her coworkers spending 24 hours at a time living with the kids, effectively acting as their parent. The children, unsurprisingly, had a lot of trauma and so her job was certainly not an easy one, but she found it deeply…
656
Why Gumroad Didn't Choose Htmx
In this essay, Sahil Lavingia, CEO of Gumroad, explains why the company decided against using htmx for its new project, Helper, in favor of React and Next.js. He shares the challenges faced with htmx, including issues with developer experience, user experience limitations, scalability, and AI tool support. While…
657
Cloning a Laptop over NVMe TCP
Recently, I got a new laptop and had to set it up so I could start using it. But I wasn't really in the mood to go through the same old steps which I had explained in this post earlier . I was complaining about this to my colleague, and there came the suggestion of why not copy the entire disk to the new laptop…
658
John Lasseter drew the BSD daemon logo
In my teens and early 20s I was obsessed with the history of computing and the internet. I still am, but other obsessions have reduced the relative weight of...
659
Phi-4: Microsoft's Newest Small Language Model Specializing in Complex Reasoning
Today we are introducing Phi-4, our 14B parameter state-of-the-art small language model (SLM) that excels at complex reasoning in areas such as math, in...
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