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Where the goblins came from
How goblin outputs spread in AI models: timeline, root cause, and fixes behind personality-driven quirks in GPT-5 behavior.
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Life, Learning & Writing
The most popular blog posts about life, learning & writing on Hacker News. 49 posts.
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Yes, and
In this essay, Carson Gross discusses his advice to young people interested in computer science worried about the future given the advancements in AI.
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The Cognitive Dark Forest
The open web with AIs is turning into a dark forest.
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Code and Let Live
How we learned to stop worrying and love writeable root filesystems.
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Claude is a space to think
Claude will remain ad-free. We explain why advertising incentives are incompatible with a helpful AI assistant.
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Good sleep, good learning, good life (2012)
The good educator insists on exercise, play, and plentiful sleep: "the great cordial of nature."
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I gave Opus 5.5 one prompt and six hours to visualize Invisible Cities
Claude Opus 5.5 vs GPT-6 Astra one-shot Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino in Three.js: AI design, UX, data visualization and explorable explanations.
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C Is Best (2025)
Since its inception on 2000-05-29, SQLite has been implemented in generic C. C was and continues to be the best language for implementing a software library like SQLite. There are no plans to recode SQLite in any other programming language at this time.
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Music Theory for Programmers
I can't play an instrument, so I worked out music theory in JavaScript instead. Twelve notes, scales and chords, derived from scratch with code you can hear.
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Enhancing gut-brain communication reversed cognitive decline in aging mice
Aging causes changes in gut bacteria in mice, which hampers communication between the intestines and the brain. Restoring this connection helped old mice form memories as well as young animals.
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Standard Ebooks: Public Domain Day 2026 in Literature
Read about the new ebooks Standard Ebooks is releasing for Public Domain Day 2026!
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Universal vaccine against respiratory infections and allergens
Stanford Medicine researchers and their colleagues invented a new vaccine that protects mice from respiratory viruses, bacteria and allergens — the closest yet to a universal vaccine.
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Two days of oatmeal reduce cholesterol level
The fact that oats have a beneficial effect on the metabolism is nothing new. German medic Carl von Noorden treated patients with diabetes with the cereal at the beginning of the 20th century – with remarkable success. “Today, effective medications are available to treat patients with diabetes,” explains…
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NetNewsWire Turns 23
NetNewsWire 1.0 for Mac shipped 23 years ago today! 🎸🎩🕶️ Here’s where things are on this particular February 11: we just shipped 7.0 for Mac and iOS, and now we’re working on NetNewsWire 7.0.1. After a big release, no matter how careful we are, there are often some regressions to fix and tweaks to make right away, so…
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Why I Write (1946)
"What I have most wanted to do throughout the past ten years is to make political writing into an art. My starting point is always a feeling of partisanship, a sense of injustice."
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Hypothesis, Antithesis, synthesis
Introducing Hegel, our new family of property-based testing libraries.
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I made my phone slow on purpose
I bought a brand new iPhone and immediately made it slow on purpose.
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Turn And Face The Strange
Documentation and guides from the team at Fly.io.
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The Beauty of Bonsai Styles
The way in which a tree grows is often determined by their environment, and as a bonsai artist, I look to honor that environment, and the way in which that tree would grow in nature, when determining how to shape and style a bonsai.
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Dulce et Decorum Est (1921)
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs, And…
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Halt and Catch Fire
I have never watched the AMC show Halt and Catch Fire, and for a long time I only knew the title, but nothing about the show. Something about it always reminded...
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Scientists reverse brain aging, with a nasal spray
New therapy is turning back the clock in aging brains, healing inflammation, restoring memory and reshaping the future of brain age-related therapies.
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Using AI for just 10 minutes erodes your ability to persist at hard things
A UC Berkeley researcher raises profound questions about how we interact with artificial intelligence in daily life.
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Aristotle quotes on virtue, knowledge, and happiness
Find the latest news, events and updates from Campion College on our blogs page. Read about student life, future students, Campion's brag, podcasts and more.
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Thinking hard burns almost no calories but destroys your next workout
Your brain uses 20% of your body's energy just idling. Intense thinking barely adds to that. But the mental byproducts of a long cognitive day quietly sabotage your endurance in ways no amount of willpower can fix.
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GrapheneOS recommended for domestic abuse victims
Looking for a DV safe phone in Australia? This 2026 guide covers tech abuse on normal phones, what a privacy phone can and cannot do, and where to get help.
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How I play video games with spinal muscular atrophy
My name is Andrei Cebotar. I’m 37, I live in Moldova, and I have Spinal Muscular Atrophy.
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Creativity is the new moat
AI makes it fast and easy to copy what’s already out there—but your competitive edge could learn a little something from web history