All Topics

This cluster centers on repeated references to the adage 'the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent,' used to caution against timing markets, short-selling, or betting against bubbles in stocks, crypto, housing, and other assets.

The cluster centers on discussions about warrant canaries, including their definition, implementation in services, effectiveness as signals of secret warrants, and legal viability.

The cluster focuses on debates about police unions, highlighting their role in protecting misconduct, blocking reforms, and wielding excessive power, often contrasting them with other unions.

The cluster focuses on discussions of historical 'AI winters'—periods of hype followed by disillusionment and funding cuts—and speculations about whether another one is imminent amid current AI advancements.

Users recommend safety razors, double-edged blades, and straight razors as cheaper, more effective, and environmentally friendly options compared to expensive multi-blade cartridge systems like Gillette.

The cluster centers on discussions of the Nissan Leaf EV's battery degradation, passive cooling problems leading to reduced range, and its value as an affordable used car for short trips despite limitations.

Discussions center on the concept of Dyson spheres and swarms, debating their feasibility for advanced civilizations, detectability via infrared emissions, efficiency compared to alternatives like fusion, and why they might not be built or observed.

Cluster focuses on tech companies' transparency reports about government and law enforcement requests for user data, including skepticism over high numbers, compliance rates, reporting limitations like national security exclusions, and comparisons across firms like Google, Apple, and Twitter.

Comments focus on clarifying whether a project or achievement is affiliated with DeepMind, its acquisition and integration by Google, rebranding to Google DeepMind, and praising its scientific impact and successes like AlphaFold.

Discussions center on the controversy surrounding the deplatforming of Kiwifarms, a site accused of facilitating harassment, doxxing, swatting, and contributing to suicides, versus defenses claiming it's just a gossip forum protected by free speech.

Comments debate the predictive power of academic credentials like GPA, degrees, and SAT scores for job success, often citing Google studies showing weak or no correlations and favoring alternatives like work samples and IQ.

The cluster debates the differences between public and private sector unions, primarily criticizing public sector unions for extracting benefits from taxpayers without profit-driven constraints, leading to issues like excessive pensions, political influence, and poor incentives.

The cluster discusses Richard Stallman's controversial comments defending Marvin Minsky against allegations of sexual misconduct with a Jeffrey Epstein trafficking victim, including debates on the accuracy of accusations, Stallman's resignation from MIT, and Epstein's ties to academia.

The cluster discusses the theoretical possibilities, fundamental challenges like photon interactions and scaling issues, and potential advantages of optical or photonic computing over traditional electronic systems. Debates include whether optical transistors and fully optical chips are viable and updates on related research.

Comments focus on how beards interfere with facial recognition or identification technologies, alongside jokes, personal beard experiences, grooming advice, and enthusiasm for facial hair.

Users discuss switching to double-edged safety razors, straight razors, and shavettes from cartridge razors, sharing experiences on shave quality, cost savings, skin irritation, and techniques.

The cluster centers on debates about drawing or satirizing the Prophet Muhammad, weighing freedom of speech against religious offense and blasphemy, with frequent references to Charlie Hebdo, South Park, and violent reactions.

The cluster debates the absence of required fields in Protocol Buffers (especially proto3), weighing backwards compatibility benefits against the need for truly mandatory fields and schema evolution challenges.

The cluster discusses Japan's exceptionally low crime rates compared to the US and other countries, debating reasons like strict policing, high conviction rates, cultural homogeneity, and potential underreporting or manipulation of statistics.

Users frequently recommend the Fairphone smartphone as a repairable, sustainable alternative to mainstream phones, sharing links, personal experiences, and debating its pros like modularity and long support versus cons like parts availability and security.

Comments repeatedly compare a new personal mobility device (like an electric scooter or self-balancer) to the Segway, focusing on overhype, impracticality, high cost, and failure to revolutionize transportation.

Discussions center on the historical transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age, including tin shortages disrupting bronze production, iron's greater abundance, early smelting challenges, and why iron eventually replaced bronze despite being initially inferior.

The cluster focuses on US federal estate tax exemptions, gift tax rules, lifetime limits (e.g., $11-12M), and strategies like trusts for wealthy individuals to minimize or avoid inheritance taxes.

Discussions center on the purpose and reality of Performance Improvement Plans (PIPs) in tech workplaces, debating if they offer genuine chances to improve or serve as precursors to firing, with personal stories, managerial perspectives, and job search advice.

Discussions center on the rapid drop in LIDAR sensor prices, their increasing affordability for autonomous vehicles, and debates on why companies like Tesla still avoid them despite costs falling to under $1,000.

Discussions center on Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) and their pairing with high-deductible health plans (HDHPs), covering eligibility, tax benefits, cost comparisons, employer contributions, and personal experiences with coverage for routine vs. major medical expenses.

Discussions center on Elixir's dynamic typing limitations, the role of Dialyzer and typespecs for static analysis, and ongoing developments toward gradual and static typing features.

Cluster discusses the historical accuracy of Galileo's conflict with the Catholic Church, correcting myths about his trial, house arrest, scientific evidence at the time, and science vs. religion narratives.

This cluster consists of numerous identical or similar comments repeatedly urging users not to engage in a particular behavior or posting style on Hacker News.

Comments discuss personal experiences, quality variance, value for money, and criteria of Michelin-starred restaurants, including comparisons across cities like SF and Tokyo, and the Michelin Guide's influence.

Comments discuss modeling software systems, processes, and even brains as state machines, along with various implementation techniques like recursive functions, tail calls, and transition functions in different programming languages.

Comments focus on the mismatch between nominal and actual dimensions of lumber (e.g., 2x4 boards being 1.5x3.5 inches) due to milling, drying, and planing, often comparing imperial to metric systems in woodworking and construction.

Discussions centered on debunking the 'boiling frog' analogy, with commenters repeatedly linking to Wikipedia to note that frogs actually jump out of gradually heating water contrary to the popular myth.

Discussions center on Shenzhen's rapid rise as China's Silicon Valley equivalent, emphasizing its hardware innovation ecosystem, growth from a fishing village, major tech companies like Huawei and Tencent, and comparisons to Silicon Valley amid mentions of pollution and optimism.

The cluster features repeated invocations of the 'It's turtles all the way down' idiom, expressing infinite regress or lack of foundational explanation in technical or philosophical discussions. Some comments reference literal turtles, algorithms like tortoise-and-hare, or cultural nods, but the core theme is this skeptical meme.

The cluster centers on discussions defining incels as involuntary celibates, debating their mindset, societal dangers, misconceptions, and accusations of incel-like views in the comments.

The cluster focuses on how Nazi persecution and expulsion of Jewish scientists and mathematicians from Europe, especially Germany and Hungary, caused a brain drain that boosted US scientific advancements like the atomic bomb and Manhattan Project.

Discussions center on Kalman filters, including explanations, tutorial recommendations, debates on whether specific implementations qualify as true Kalman filters, and comparisons to alternatives like particle filters.

Comments repeatedly reference and link to Tulip Mania as an analogy for speculative bubbles, often comparing it to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or NFTs. Discussions debate the historical accuracy of Tulip Mania and its relevance to modern asset hype.

This cluster revolves around debates on the exact meaning of 'zero-day' in cybersecurity, including whether it refers to unpatched vulnerabilities, exploits used before patches are available, or flaws disclosed prior to fixes.

Comments repeatedly reference and discuss Jevons Paradox, the economic principle where efficiency gains in resource use lead to increased overall consumption rather than savings. Discussions apply it to contexts like energy, computing, AI data centers, and electric vehicles.

Comments discuss Facebook's rebranding to Meta, including resistance to using the new name, jokes about the change, acronym updates like FAANG, and branding implications.

The cluster primarily features repeated 'SEEKING WORK' posts from senior QA automation engineers seeking remote part-time or full-time contracts, alongside job postings from QA-focused companies hiring for testing and automation roles.

Users recommend books, online tutorials, and courses for beginners learning Digital Signal Processing (DSP), often focusing on audio, music, and practical implementations like filters.

The cluster centers on recommendations and discussions of books about Microsoft's early history, particularly the development of Windows NT as detailed in 'Showstopper!' by G. Pascal Zachary, along with titles like 'Hard Drive' and 'Renegades of the Empire'. Users share links, personal experiences, and praise for these accounts of key figures like Dave Cutler and Bill Gates.

Comments discuss and explain Chesterton's Fence, the principle advising against removing or changing existing structures, rules, or traditions without first understanding their original purpose and rationale.

Users share experiences with the Orion web browser, praising its WebKit base, Chrome/Firefox extension support, ad-blocking, performance on Apple devices, and tree-style tabs, while noting limitations like platform availability and occasional bugs.

Discussions center on Kagi search engine's features, backend reliance on Google and other indexes, comparisons to DuckDuckGo and Google in quality and results, extensions for default browser usage, and personalization options like bangs and domain blocking.

This cluster centers on debates about the proper signature, return type, and standards compliance of the main() function in C programs, including void main(), implicit returns, entry points, and freestanding environments.

The cluster centers on debates over whether there is a genuine Nobel Prize in Economics, with most comments insisting it is not an official Nobel Prize but the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, often citing sources to correct misconceptions.

This cluster focuses on Eric Schmidt, former Google CEO, with comments referencing his statements, political involvements, controversies like hypocrisy and privacy views, and questions about his relevance and past decisions.

The cluster focuses on John Boyd's OODA loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) from military strategy, with frequent links to Wikipedia, book recommendations like Science, Strategy, and War, and discussions of its applications and extensions.

The cluster debates the use of geographic names like 'Chinese virus' or 'Wuhan virus' for COVID-19 versus official terms like COVID-19, comparing to historical precedents such as Spanish Flu and discussing racism, stigmatization, politics, and WHO guidelines.

The cluster centers on discussions about Scala's implicits, including implicit parameters and conversions, debating their power, readability issues, comparisons to other languages like Kotlin and C#, and overall merits versus drawbacks.

Discussions center on the 'vouch' mechanism for reviving [dead] comments and submissions on Hacker News, including when the link appears (e.g., for dead not just flagged items), karma requirements, and access via permalink.

The cluster revolves around the term 'enshittification,' coined by Cory Doctorow to describe the progressive degradation of online platforms and products for profit, with debates on its meaning, usage, etymology, and application to various services.

Discussions praising OpenRC and other init systems like runit as simpler, more reliable alternatives to systemd, frequently referencing Gentoo, Devuan, and BSD systems.

This cluster features comments where users express interest in the post or topic, often using 'interesting' or corrections like s/mundane/interesting/, and sometimes providing contact emails for follow-up.

The cluster focuses on discussions about India's Aadhaar program, a national biometric identification system, covering its benefits for services and deduplication, alongside criticisms of privacy risks, data breaches, mandatory linking, and comparisons to other ID systems.

Comments focus on critiquing and joking about a Venn diagram in the original post, debating its accuracy, overlaps, technical classification (e.g., Venn vs. Euler diagram), and suggesting alternatives.

The cluster focuses on discussions of apps and tools like Splitwise, Spliit, and others for splitting shared expenses, bills, rent, and costs among friends, roommates, or groups, including user experiences, comparisons, and product announcements.

The cluster revolves around discussions of Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, comparing them to AI safety rules or prompts and referencing how his stories demonstrate their flaws, ambiguities, and unintended consequences.

This cluster discusses FAA and TSA regulations on lithium-ion battery capacities (e.g., 100Wh limits) for carry-on luggage on airplanes, including fire hazards, device compatibility, and travel workarounds.

Comments discuss and correct misconceptions about the McDonald's hot coffee case, highlighting the excessively high serving temperature (180-190°F), prior burn complaints ignored by the company, flimsy cups, and why it wasn't a frivolous lawsuit.

The cluster focuses on HTTP/2 server push, including explanations of how it works, its advantages for proactive resource delivery, deprecation status, browser support issues, and comparisons to alternatives like WebSockets or early hints.

This cluster centers on discussions of the YAGNI ('You Ain't Gonna Need It') principle, advocating against overengineering and unnecessary features, often contrasted with DRY and other software development practices.

The cluster focuses on excitement about the Chicago startup and tech scene, with numerous calls to organize Hacker News meetups, share local events, and connect with Chicago-based hackers and entrepreneurs.

The cluster debates misconceptions about BlackRock buying up single-family homes and driving up housing prices, with frequent clarifications distinguishing it from Blackstone and explaining BlackRock's role as a massive asset manager holding stakes via index funds.

This cluster centers on debates about negative externalities from Airbnb rentals, including noise, safety risks, community disruption, and housing market impacts on neighbors, questioning whether these costs are properly internalized via regulations or taxes.

This cluster centers on repeated job postings for Web Engineer roles at SeatGeek, a tickets and live events marketplace, alongside similar listings from other event ticketing, music, and live experience startups seeking developers.

Developers discuss the rarity of greenfield projects compared to working on brownfield or legacy codebases, sharing experiences, challenges, preferences, and skills needed for each in software engineering careers.

Comments debate the sincerity and value of giving flowers as gifts, especially via delivery services or subscriptions for occasions like Mother's Day, questioning if it feels personal or just transactional.

Comments focus on North Dakota's rapid economic growth driven by the Bakken oil fields and fracking, including high production, job opportunities, infrastructure changes, harsh living conditions, and environmental concerns.

This cluster features spam comments with fake testimonials promoting spell casters who claim to restore broken marriages, bring back ex-partners, and fix relationship issues using magic or witchcraft.

The cluster centers on discussions of CBOR as a compact binary alternative to JSON for data serialization, frequently comparing it to MessagePack, highlighting its IETF standardization, features like tags, and adoption over other formats.

The cluster focuses on debates about mark-to-market accounting in banking, its accuracy, regulatory implications, comparisons to hold-to-maturity valuation, and historical contexts like SVB and Enron.

Discussions highlight incorrect facts in news articles, emphasizing that such errors have been common for years.

Users share and discuss interactive visualizations, charts, and resources for biochemical and metabolic pathways, prominently featuring the Roche Biochemical Pathways wall chart and alternatives like KEGG, Reactome, and Expasy.

The cluster discusses the Yakuza's extensive integration into Japanese business, government, corporations, and everyday life, including protection rackets, corporate-like operations, anti-yakuza laws, and their tolerated societal role.

Users compare the article's topic to scenes, quotes, and characters from The Sopranos, Goodfellas, The Godfather, and other mafia/crime TV shows and films, frequently sharing YouTube clips.

This cluster revolves around commenters identifying, explaining, and accusing each other of employing the motte-and-bailey fallacy, a rhetorical tactic involving switching between defensible and controversial positions, often with Wikipedia links.

Discussions criticize philosophies and figures like Yudkowsky, Harari, and AI doomers for extreme utilitarian views that allegedly justify killing or extinguishing all humans for a greater good, often linking to transhumanism and AI risks.

Comments repeatedly reference 'A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer' from Neal Stephenson's 'The Diamond Age', comparing the discussed technology to this fictional interactive educational device for children.

The cluster focuses on explaining the meaning of 'secular' in economics and finance, particularly as a term for long-term, non-cyclical trends, with references to dictionaries, Wikipedia, and examples contrasting it with cyclical changes.

Commenters draw parallels between the HN post's AI tool and sci-fi novels like Avogadro Corp, where an email optimization AI becomes self-aware, and Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, featuring software that retroactively justifies decisions.

The cluster focuses on banks and insurance companies' handling of deposits and profits, criticizing their profit maximization strategies, low returns to depositors, preference for debt financing, and reluctance to share gains amid record earnings.

The cluster discusses the real-life incident where Terry Pratchett's German publisher inserted unauthorized Maggi soup advertisements into his Discworld novels, with users sharing articles and noting similar practices in other sci-fi and fantasy books.

The cluster discusses the 2022 Ottawa truckers' convoy protest against COVID mandates, debating participant demographics like Sikh truckers, government actions such as account freezing, media portrayal, and cultural references like 'Trucktober'.

Comments focus on notable historical figures from Delft, Netherlands, especially Antonie van Leeuwenhoek's pioneering work in microscopy and microbiology, along with connections to painter Vermeer and other scientists like Beijerinck and van der Waals.

Comments discuss applying machine learning to web crawling tasks, such as building smart spiders, detecting spam links and crawlers, anomaly detection, and link selection using classifiers and statistical methods.

Comments repeatedly quote and reference phrases from A Clockwork Orange, such as drencrom, synthemesc sharpening one up for ultraviolence, often in the context of stylized or elegant violence.

The cluster revolves around discussions of when and why humans, animals, or simulated species decide to attack or fight, influenced by factors like aggression levels, past acknowledgments, opponent responses, and risk assessments.

The cluster focuses on the complexity, over-engineering, and importance of ID3 (especially ID3v2) metadata standards for audio files, with analogies to coding standards and software conventions.

Cluster discusses skepticism toward formal education's role in hiring decisions, favoring experience, extracurriculars, and other factors over degrees, especially for customer service and college grads.

The cluster discusses the ownership structure, funding by J. Stuart Moore, and plans for self-sustainability without investors or public sale of Arena Digital LLC's Arena.

The cluster centers on the 'About' page bio of Senthil Rajasekharan, a standup comedian from Minneapolis/St. Paul who started comedy in 2010.

The cluster explores the distinction between solutions truly manifesting (like a flower growing) versus merely becoming apparent (like fog clearing), attributing different causes to the phenomenon of solutions appearing.

The cluster features an announcement about the upcoming marketing push for Gliff, an app enabling football fans to engage in conversations using a words-and-pictures format, seeking community feedback.