All Topics

Users debate the merits and drawbacks of Apple's MacBook Touch Bar, particularly its replacement of physical function and escape keys, lack of tactile feedback, and overall usefulness.

Users repeatedly complain about the blurry, pixelated, low-resolution images, screenshots, and demos in the article, noting artifacts, fuzziness, and poor clarity.

Discussions criticize verbose writing and advocate for clear, simple, concise prose, referencing Orwell's 'Politics and the English Language,' Paul Graham's 'Simply,' and tools like the Hemingway app, while debating brevity versus readability.

Comments in this cluster repeatedly note that various ideas, projects, or strategies have been attempted before but ultimately failed to succeed. Discussions emphasize prior unsuccessful efforts rather than proposing new solutions.

This cluster discusses how average non-technical users across generations lack basic computer skills, struggle with interfaces, file systems, and exploration, often needing help for simple tasks despite daily use.

Users inquire about and recommend various Text-to-Speech (TTS) services and models like ElevenLabs, Murf.ai, and Google TTS, often in the context of a specific project demo praising their realistic voices.

Commenters debate whether a service outage, slow connectivity, or unavailability is specific to India or global, with many Indian users reporting problems and questioning coverage.

The cluster focuses on criticisms of mainstream media outlets like NYT and WaPo for inaccurate reporting, spreading misinformation, deliberate bias, and failing to issue prominent corrections. Commenters debate whether errors are sloppy or intentional, citing examples like Iraq WMDs and Covington.

This cluster consists of comments that express strong agreement and admiration for the clarity, succinctness, and insightfulness of a specific preceding comment or statement.

This cluster focuses on programmers' challenges and advice for creating indie games, including pitfalls like building engines instead of games, motivation issues, the need for prototyping and small scopes, and experiences from game jams and solo projects.

Comments debate the environmental impact of air travel, focusing on its carbon emissions relative to other transportation like cars, its global contribution (around 2-3%), and personal choices to reduce flying.

Comments discuss the Federal Reserve's quantitative easing (QE), money printing, and zero interest rate policies (ZIRP) injecting liquidity into banks and financial markets, causing asset inflation, stock bubbles, and inequality rather than stimulating the broader economy.

The cluster focuses on speculations about why a prominent leader or executive is stepping down, resigning, or being pushed out, including theories of reputation protection, avoiding cancellation, plausible deniability, or internal pressures.

Discussions revolve around Microsoft Outlook's usability, performance, corporate integration for email/calendar/scheduling, and comparisons to alternatives like Gmail, Thunderbird, or browser-based email.

Comments focus on open source projects with names conflicting with existing tools, languages, or other projects, urging developers to choose unique names to avoid confusion and improve discoverability.

Comments focus on Facebook's acquisition of Instagram, its strategic reasons like countering Instagram's rapid growth and popularity among young users, and how Instagram competes with or influences Facebook's features.

Discussions debate the practicality of SUVs for family use, advocating alternatives like minivans, station wagons, and sedans for better space, fuel efficiency, and handling.

The cluster debates the best practices for git commits, focusing on whether developers should make small, frequent commits or larger ones, with discussions on code review, hygiene, and workflow efficiency.

This cluster features comments that repeatedly affirm the truth, accuracy, or verifiability of a statement from the parent post or comment. Users express agreement through phrases like 'that's true' or 'absolutely true,' often with surprise or emphasis.

Comments debate whether human brains are computers, Turing complete, or simulable by digital systems, challenging analogies between biological brains and computational machines.

Users post offers to collaborate, seek developers, cofounders, or hires for projects and startups, often sharing contact info, websites, or suggestions for networking.

Users recommend and discuss automatic and manual time tracking applications like Wakatime, RescueTime, and Toggl for productivity and work hour monitoring.

Users compare built-in OS search features like Windows Start Menu and macOS Spotlight, complaining about their limitations and recommending faster alternatives such as Everything, Alfred, Fluent Search, and Listary.

Comments focus on allegations of cryptocurrency scams, memecoins like $TRUMP, pump-and-dump schemes, and bribes involving Donald Trump and his associates, often linking to his social media posts and political dealings.

Users inquire about, identify, and debate various Unicode symbols, their display, typing methods, semantic meanings, and potential use in programming or mathematical notation.

The cluster debates whether Bitcoin has intrinsic value, its utility as a store of value or decentralized ledger, and comparisons to gold, fiat currencies, and other assets.

The cluster debates Uber's business model and valuation dependence on self-driving cars, including skepticism about timelines, competitive advantages, moats, and viability without human drivers.

Commenters debate the high standards and liability required for software in life-critical systems like medical devices, aviation, and nuclear controls where bugs can kill people, contrasting it with lax practices in non-critical software and citing examples like Therac-25.

The cluster focuses on the dangers of developers and startups building businesses on closed platforms like Apple, Facebook, and Twitter, where platform owners can undermine or clone apps at will, often analogized to sharecropping.

The cluster discusses challenges with Twitter's API, including rate limits, high costs, limited tweet access (e.g., last 3000 tweets), and the need for firehose or user account workarounds to collect data at scale.

Cluster focuses on debates about excessively harsh prison sentences for non-violent crimes like hacking and fraud, often comparing them to lighter sentences for violent crimes such as murder or rape.

Discussions center on whether GitHub stars are a reliable measure of project success, popularity, or quality, often critiquing them as vanity metrics that can be faked or misleading.

Cluster centers on personal stories of failed startups, with commenters sharing encouragement, lessons learned, and advice to persevere or recover mentally after entrepreneurial setbacks.

Comments focus on questioning the meaningfulness and reliability of various metrics used to evaluate performance, success, or conclusions, often requesting better alternatives or evidence.

Commenters debate the nature of Buddhism, contrasting Western secular interpretations focused on philosophy, meditation, and practice with traditional religious elements like rituals, deities, reincarnation, and sects such as Zen and Pure Land.

The cluster discusses vulnerabilities and security risks in NPM, such as supply chain attacks, malicious packages, blind trust issues, and historical incidents like left-pad, with debates on NPM's insecurity compared to other package managers.

The cluster centers on discussions of techniques for optimizing 3D graphics rendering pipelines, such as Z-buffering, depth pre-passes, early Z culling, G-buffers, software rasterization, and visibility culling methods compared to hardware shaders and rasterization.

Comments strongly recommending users stop relying on Google services like Gmail, Search, and Android, and switch to privacy-focused alternatives due to concerns over privacy, reliability, and corporate dependency.

Discussions revolve around cannabis consumption methods like smoking weed versus edibles, its effects on inspiration and productivity, dosage, legality, and comparisons to other substances.

This cluster centers on debates about the legality, ethics, and implications of web scraping public websites, including TOS violations, copyright concerns, and precedents like LinkedIn v. hiQ, often contrasting with Google's practices.

Users debate the reliability and longevity of Google Pixel and Nexus phones, sharing experiences with hardware failures like flash storage degradation, bootloops, battery drain, and slowdowns, while questioning if problems stem from defective hardware, untested software, or individual bad luck.

Makers and developers respond to feedback on their project websites, announcing updates, new launches, or ongoing improvements to landing pages and sites.

The cluster focuses on discussions about China's Great Firewall, its internet censorship, blocking of websites and services, and circumvention methods like VPNs and Tor.

The cluster centers on debates about parenting approaches, particularly balancing parental guidance in teaching skills and utility versus allowing children autonomy to pursue their own interests and happiness.

Users compare a newly discussed phone or device to various iPhone models, particularly the iPhone SE and smaller or recent iPhones, highlighting similarities in size, design, and features.

Discussions center on Rust's compatibility with various architectures and platforms, highlighting limitations due to its LLVM dependency, challenges with cross-compilation, and anticipation for GCC backend support to match C's reach, including embedded and exotic systems.

Commenters repeatedly reference Poe's Law to indicate that extreme or controversial statements in the discussion may be indistinguishable from sincere beliefs or intentional parody.

Discussions focus on pedestrian right-of-way laws at crosswalks, jaywalking enforcement, driver compliance issues, and safety concerns, often contrasting US practices with other countries.

The cluster centers on discussions about challenges in translating idioms and cultural expressions into English, often debating if they are truly untranslatable or just poorly rendered due to literal translations by non-native speakers.

Users share personal remedies and advice for overcoming insomnia, improving sleep hygiene, and falling asleep faster, such as exercise, avoiding screens and caffeine, meditation, and melatonin.

The cluster discusses free-to-play game models, microtransactions, in-app purchases, and pay-to-win mechanics versus upfront payments, debating their impact on game design, player experience, and revenue strategies. Examples include Candy Crush, Fortnite, and Rocket League.

The cluster discusses how the human brain, particularly the visual cortex, processes and constructs visual experiences, filling in gaps like blind spots and predicting reality beyond raw eye input.

Users express surprise or acknowledgment that they haven't used, seen, or experienced the discussed technology, feature, or topic in a long time, often in response to updates or changes.

Commenters highlight how Xbox consoles already feature Windows integration, PC-like capabilities, and similar gaming functionalities to those being newly announced or discussed elsewhere.

This cluster features comments asserting that users are able to perform certain actions themselves, often in response to doubts, complaints, or suggestions of limitations.

Users discuss experiences of their accounts being unexpectedly suspended, locked out, terminated, or flagged on a platform, often due to security concerns, spam detection, or hacking attempts, and share frustrations with support responses and resolution processes.

Comments speculate on why companies, individuals, or sources withhold information from the public, often citing privacy concerns, NDAs, confidentiality, or strategic reasons.

Comments debate what qualifies as authentic Christianity, questioning if certain behaviors, sects, or beliefs are truly 'Christian' while invoking fallacies like 'No True Scotsman' and referencing biblical teachings.

Users discuss their decisions to stop using Reddit, citing reasons like removed features, declining quality, account requirements, and general dissatisfaction as outlined in a related blog post.

The cluster centers on debates about firmware replaceability, security measures like signing and physical access requirements, potential attacks, remote updates, and legal issues such as DMCA violations.

The cluster centers on debates about torque, power efficiency, RPM limitations, and angular momentum losses in electric motors and flywheels used for propulsion in drones, multicopters, vehicles, and helicopters.

Comments focus on recent nuclear fusion breakthroughs, skepticism about timelines for practical energy production (e.g., 'always 50 years away'), and questions about viability compared to past experiments.

Discussions revolve around the use, benefits, drawbacks, and comparisons of Next.js for web development, with many questioning its suitability for various projects and suggesting alternatives.

The cluster centers on challenges faced by aspiring writers, especially engineers, in producing novels or books, with shared advice on overcoming writer's block, daily habits, separating drafting from editing, and tools like NaNoWriMo.

Commenters draw parallels between the current tech trend or bubble and the historical cryptocurrency hype cycles, crashes, and volatility, often predicting similar outcomes.

The cluster discusses the separation between the non-profit Mozilla Foundation and the for-profit Mozilla Corporation, emphasizing that donations to the Foundation do not fund Firefox development, which is managed by the Corporation, along with debates on where Mozilla's money is spent.

The cluster centers on debates about alleged collusion between Donald Trump and Russia, including claims of Trump being a Russian asset or puppet, election interference, and skepticism toward those accusations.

Comments reacting to Bible quotes or references in discussions, often dismissing them as irrelevant, fictional, or comparable to other texts.

Commenters repeatedly list or guess major technology giants like Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, and Netflix, often in the context of market dominance or FAANG stocks.

Discussions explore explanations for the Fermi Paradox, focusing on challenges of interstellar travel such as vast distances, speed-of-light limits, immense energy requirements, and long timescales that make galactic colonization improbable.

Users reminisce about their childhood experiences with 1970s-1990s home computers like Commodore 64, VIC-20, ZX Spectrum, and Atari, including typing BASIC programs from magazines, loading from cassettes, and learning to program.

Discussions center on reminiscing about Usenet's past, questioning why it declined, asserting that it still exists and is viable, and proposing it as a model or alternative to modern platforms like Reddit.

This cluster focuses on debates about the total cost of ownership for electric vehicles (EVs) compared to gas-powered cars, factoring in purchase price, depreciation, maintenance, fuel/electricity, insurance, and per-mile expenses.

The cluster centers on challenges and risks of fixing bugs in complex, old, or third-party codebases, including how fixes can break dependent code, organizational barriers to maintenance, and the persistence of long-standing issues.

Commenters repeatedly invoke basic physics principles, such as Newtonian mechanics, to challenge or debunk claims about AI models' capabilities or understanding, arguing that proposed ideas violate physical laws.

The cluster discusses the business model of video game consoles, where hardware is sold at a loss or low profit to generate revenue from game sales, licensing, and vendor lock-in via closed ecosystems and DRM. Debates center on why consoles remain proprietary and the potential impacts of opening them up.

Comments primarily question and debate whether a specific feature, policy, law, or action referenced in the article is truly required, mandatory, or legally necessary, often seeking sources or clarifications.

The cluster centers on debates distinguishing between productive spending and wasteful expenditure, emphasizing spending habits over income levels, and questioning whether money should be spent, saved, or hoarded.

Discussions center on the concept of God, including its attributes like omnipotence and perfection, philosophical implications, existence debates, and occasional ties to AI or metaphors in an article.

The cluster centers on debates about widespread fraud, unreliability, and skepticism toward medical and health research, frequently referencing studies in journals like The Lancet, BMJ, and figures like Ioannidis, with discussions on whether to assume research is fraudulent until proven otherwise.

Users share reflections on their college and university experiences, often expressing regrets or wishes that they had learned certain skills, insights, or advice during their time in school.

Discussions focus on video encoding processes, lossy compression artifacts, codec efficiency (e.g., HEVC, AV1, MPEG), re-encoding quality loss, and trade-offs between speed, quality, and bandwidth.

Comments repeatedly draw parallels between the discussed topic—likely surveillance or control mechanisms—and themes from George Orwell's 1984, such as telescreens, Newspeak, and thoughtcrime. Users describe it as disturbingly Orwellian, warning of dystopian realities becoming true.

The cluster focuses on debates about the EU's regulatory actions against US big tech companies like Google and Facebook, including motivations such as privacy protection, surveillance concerns, and competition, as well as potential consequences like service restrictions or innovation stifling.

The cluster debates the proverb 'those who can do, those who can't teach,' emphasizing how teaching deepens understanding, benefits both teacher and student, and is a valuable skill even for practitioners.

Comments speculate on or confirm acquisitions of various tech companies and startups by larger firms like Broadcom, Cisco, IBM, and OpenText, often discussing the aftermath or changes post-acquisition.

Discussions center on gamma correction, color spaces like sRGB vs Rec.2020, wide gamuts, display calibration, and rendering issues in modern monitors and graphics.

Discussions center on the historical lineage of macOS and OS X as derivatives of NeXTSTEP, including its Mach kernel, BSD/UNIX foundations, and Apple's acquisition of NeXT after Copland's failure.

Discussions center on the dominance and necessity of C in embedded systems programming, including its entrenchment due to vendor libraries, tools, and industry practices, alongside mentions of alternatives like Rust or MicroPython.

Discussions revolve around a reported security vulnerability or potential exploit in a web interface or service, with users questioning its details, exploitability, severity, and requesting sources like HackerOne reports.

This cluster revolves around the consensus that HR departments prioritize and protect the company's interests over those of individual employees, often advising against trusting HR with personal or workplace issues.

This cluster focuses on advice for entrepreneurs to prioritize identifying real, painful problems that people (especially paying customers) face and are willing to solve, rather than starting with unvalidated ideas.

Users discuss and confirm unexpected redirects from a Hacker News submission link to sites like Google or dubious pages, sharing workarounds like private browsing and noting when the issue is fixed.

Comments repeatedly urging users to be polite, kind, civil, and avoid rudeness, sarcasm, or snark in Hacker News discussions.

Comments debate the use and meaning of the term 'terrorist,' distinguishing between terrorists and freedom fighters, and questioning who qualifies as one in the context of protests or actions.

Comments reminisce about 1970s-1990s operating systems and hardware like VAX/VMS, Xenix, MULTICS, PDP-11/10, and mainframes, sharing personal experiences and historical trivia about these legacy systems.

This cluster discusses why people purchase expensive luxury cars, often viewing them as status symbols for displaying wealth and social standing rather than for practicality, efficiency, or utility, with debates on judging owners' motivations.

Comments center on whether various forms of income, gains, or payments are subject to income taxes, often questioning if taxes have already been paid or will still apply despite claims otherwise.

Cluster discusses differences in residential electrical systems between the US (120V/240V split-phase, 15-20A circuits) and Europe (230V/240V, higher amperage tolerance), focusing on power capacity limits for appliances, wiring, and why high-wattage devices like kettles are less common in the US.

This cluster focuses on discussions about the quality of error messages in software, with complaints about vague or uninformative errors and calls for more detailed, actionable, and user-friendly messaging.