Top posts

Every blog post that took off on Hacker News, ranked by the votes of its best submission. 1,099 posts.

Tech Industry & Business
2020
93

Firefox 73

Today we’ve released Firefox 73, with useful additions that include CSS and JavaScript updates, and numerous DevTools improvements. We’ve added to CSS logical properties, pushed performance forward in the Console ...

95

The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

To reach its potential, Apple needs to recognize they have made profound conceptual mistakes in the iPad user interface, mistakes that need to be scrapped and replaced, not polished and refined. I worry that iPadOS 13 suggests the opposite — that Apple is steering the iPad full speed ahead down a blind alley.

96

The Airbnbs

To celebrate Airbnb’s IPO and to help future founders, I thought it might be useful to explain what was special about Airbnb. What was special about the Airbnbs was how earnest they were. They did nothing half-way, and we could sense this even in the interview. Sometimes after we interviewed a startup we’d be…

108

Just Too Efficient

On a Spring 2019 walk in Beijing I saw two street sweepers at a sunny corner. They were beat-up looking and grizzled but probably younger than me. They’d paused work to smoke and talk. One told a story; the other’s eyes widened and then he laughed so hard he had to bend over, leaning on his broom. I suspect their jobs…

113

The new Microsoft Edge is out of preview

A little over a year ago, we announced our intention to rebuild Microsoft Edge on the Chromium open source project with the goals of delivering better compatibility for everyone, less fragmentation for web developers, and a partnership with the Chromium community to improve the Chromium engine itself. At Ignite, we…

117

Why Google Did Android

What happened was, in the late stages of my career at Sun Microsystems, as we were sliding into Oracle’s loathsome embrace, I had discovered Android. The programming language was Java, and not a dorky “ME” subset. My employer was saying nice things about it , and I’d long craved something I could both carry in my…

118

Riot is now Element

Hi everyone, We are incredibly excited to announce that Riot is now Element! In fact we have simplified all our naming: Element is also the name for New Vector (the company behind Riot) while Modular, our flagship Matrix hosting service, has become Element Matrix Services. For those discovering us for