All Topics

Comments debate the validity of criticizing software products on Hacker News, contrasting defensive responses like 'use something else' with arguments defending the right to provide feedback without using or contributing to the tool.

Commenters debate whether a proposed technical approach constitutes a genuine solution or merely a hacky workaround that fails to address the root issue.

The cluster focuses on suggestions and discussions about home gardening, guerrilla gardening, community gardens, and growing vegetables or food personally as an alternative to buying, including tips, challenges, regulations, and self-sufficiency benefits.

This cluster debates the harms of social media to children and teens, proposals for government-mandated age bans (e.g., under 16), parental responsibilities, and network effects pressuring kids to join.

The cluster discusses California's fiscal challenges, including high taxes, budget shortfalls, governance incompetence, and infrastructure decay despite its massive economy, with debates on mismanagement versus effective resource allocation.

Discussions focus on feature availability in Firefox Nightly, Beta, ESR, and stable releases, including when features will reach mainstream and specifics of ESR versions.

The cluster debates whether AI and automation will disrupt the legal profession like software development, emphasizing regulatory barriers, lawyers' specialized skills, licensing requirements, and an oversupply of law graduates.

Commenters frequently ask for clarification on which specific US states a claim, policy, service, or feature from the parent post applies to, often referencing or excluding states like California, Florida, Alaska, Hawaii, Indiana, and Oregon.

The cluster centers on debates about toxicity and entitlement in the gaming community, backlash against game companies for anti-consumer practices like shutting down games, and tensions between enjoying games and criticizing developers.

This cluster features humorous comments pointing out that a user's username perfectly matches or ironically reflects the content or behavior in their post. It's a recurring HN meme for acknowledging fitting usernames.

The cluster centers on debates about requiring explicit user consent for data collection and usage by online services, contrasting opt-in models with implied consent via ToS, and weighing privacy against free services, often referencing GDPR and transparency.

Users debate and discuss the rotation functionality of a 3D view or compass interface, including how to rotate, whether 90-degree or 3D rotations work, and controls like clockwise/anticlockwise options.

The cluster debates the merits of hand-written assembly code versus high-level languages and compilers, discussing performance, maintainability, optimizer effectiveness, and when assembly is necessary.

The cluster centers on concerns about a web technique's compatibility with screen readers, debating its impact on accessibility for visually impaired users and potential violations of standards like ADA.

Discussions center on C++ templates for generic programming and metaprogramming, including their power, error messages, comparisons to generics in other languages, and whether they solve or create problems.

Debate on why Linux has failed to gain significant market share on desktop computers despite improvements in usability, app compatibility, and hardware support, with discussions on the need for preinstallation, better apps, and mainstream appeal.

Comments debate the problematic use of Social Security Numbers (SSNs) as private identifiers or passwords, emphasizing they were never intended for identification, are not unique, and are effectively public due to breaches like Equifax.

This cluster consists of comments drawing direct comparisons between the article's topic—likely a current economic or financial issue—and the 2008 financial crisis, often suggesting similar causes, risks, or impending crashes.

Cluster focuses on user experiences with Linux distribution upgrades, particularly Ubuntu and Arch, frequently breaking systems, rendering them unusable, and leading to discussions on alternatives like reinstalls or stable distros like Debian.

This cluster centers on discussions about code generation tools, their benefits for boilerplate and automation, drawbacks like debugging issues, and debates on whether reliance on codegen indicates flaws in programming languages.

Discussions center on the performance issues like cold starts, scalability advantages for bursts, costs, execution limits, and comparisons of AWS Lambda to persistent servers, ECS, or Fargate for various workloads.

The cluster focuses on a specific old blog or post that has gone offline or been deleted, with users expressing surprise, checking their own blogs' status, and discussing the general decline of personal blogging.

Users recommend Kobo e-readers over Kindles, frequently suggesting the installation of KOReader for superior PDF support, customization, and features like night mode.

Comments debate the risks and morality of drunk driving, frequently using it as an analogy for self-driving cars, pre-crime laws, or other activities that endanger others even without causing accidents.

The cluster discusses the severe gender imbalances in online dating apps like OKCupid and Tinder, where women receive far more attention and matches than men, leading to frustration for average men and references to attractiveness studies and site business models.

Users express admiration for a shared website, highlighting its design, performance, content, and overall quality.

Comments overwhelmingly recommend affordable VPS providers like DigitalOcean, Linode, and Vultr as simple, low-cost alternatives to shared hosting or home servers for running personal projects and services.

The cluster centers on users expressing skepticism, distrust, and criticism of Meta's actions, motives, and trustworthiness, often blaming them for specific incidents like flagging content or broader unethical practices.

Comments debate employee criticism of bosses, the risks of publicly badmouthing them, good vs. bad boss behaviors, and proper workplace hierarchies.

Commenters accuse a product or company's marketing claims of being false advertising, misleading, or outright lies, debating the ethics and legality of such practices.

Commenters are questioning whether the linked Hacker News post or story is genuine or a hoax, with many asserting it's fake and demanding evidence for its reality.

Users request examples of drawings made with a pixel-based or AI-assisted drawing tool, suggest features like continuous strokes and better support for shapes, and compare it to traditional methods and other software.

This cluster centers on debates about whether tech billionaires like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Bill Gates are truly self-made or owed much of their success to family wealth, upper-middle-class backgrounds, education, and parental support.

Discussions focus on personal anecdotes, patterns, and statistics regarding failure rates and reliability of HDDs versus SSDs, including references to Backblaze data, usage wear, and early versus late failures.

Comments primarily recommend and debate full disk encryption (FDE) tools like TrueCrypt, FileVault, BitLocker, and dm-crypt/LUKS as a solution to data security issues, such as lost devices or unauthorized access.

This cluster features repeated dismissals of criticisms toward products, features, or posts by claiming the commenter is not the intended target audience.

Comments criticize paywalls restricting access to scientific research papers and advocate for open access solutions like arXiv, Sci-Hub, and Unpaywall.

The cluster focuses on discussions about load balancers like HAProxy, their use for health checks, high availability, routing, and comparisons to cloud provider solutions or alternatives.

Debate on whether innate talent exists or if excellence in skills like programming, math, arts, and sports results primarily from deliberate practice and effort.

Discussions center on automotive safety issues, recalls, and malfunctions like unintended acceleration, with frequent comparisons to Toyota's 2009-2011 scandal, Ford Pinto, GM ignition switch, and other historical cases.

The cluster discusses police practices around traffic stops, particularly for speeding, including pretextual stops, inconsistent enforcement, risks to officers, suspicious driving behaviors like obeying speed limits, and personal anecdotes of unfair pullovers.

Discussions center on the concentration of wealth and income among the top 1%, 0.1%, and other percentiles, distinguishing between income and wealth metrics, thresholds for top earners globally and in the US, and related inequality statistics.

The cluster discusses brokers and exchanges liquidating customer margin positions during volatile market events, debates on the fairness and speed of margin calls, and comparisons to Robinhood's trading halts during the GameStop frenzy.

Discussions center on broad, perpetual licenses in platforms' Terms of Service for user-generated content, debating ownership, rights to republish, modify, and distribute it across sites like Hacker News, Reddit, and Stack Exchange.

Discussions center on the dangers of electrocution from household voltages like 120V and 240V, including personal experiences, debates on voltage vs. current lethality, and safety concerns around power surges and high-power circuits.

Discussions revolve around Protocol Buffers (protobuf) as a serialization format, comparing it to alternatives like JSON, Cap'n Proto, MessagePack, and FlatBuffers, with debates on performance, efficiency, ease of use, and why projects should or shouldn't use protobuf.

The cluster discusses the validity of testimony as evidence in court trials, the role of juries and judges in evaluating witness credibility, expert witnesses, and what constitutes admissible proof versus mere statements.

This cluster focuses on discussions explaining Donald Trump's election win, attributing it to populism, desire for change, backlash against elitism, and dissatisfaction with establishment politics. Commenters debate HN community's reactions, downvoting patterns, and implications for future elections.

This cluster features strong criticism of HTML emails and advocacy for plain text alternatives, discussing compatibility issues, email client behaviors, and preferences for simple text communication.

Cluster focuses on discussions about Language Server Protocol (LSP) support in code editors like VS Code, Sublime, Neovim, and others, including its benefits, implementation, and comparisons across tools.

The cluster centers on debates about JavaScript's performance compared to native or compiled languages like C++, Rust, and Go, including discussions on JIT compilation, memory usage, and suitability for high-performance tasks.

Discussions center on Tesla's challenges and progress in ramping up vehicle production, including factory expansions like Gigafactories, battery bottlenecks, Model 3 output, and comparisons to traditional automakers.

Users discuss sluggish, laggy scrolling, and slow loading of a website's UI on various mobile devices like Android Pixels and iPhones, with some noting smooth performance on desktop or specific hardware.

Discussions focus on privacy risks like fingerprinting from web fonts, performance delays in loading especially Google Fonts, and alternatives such as self-hosting, browser blocking, or using system fonts.

Discussions focus on mandatory military service, conscription policies in countries like Israel and others, contrasting them with volunteer armies, and debating their merits, effectiveness, and public acceptance.

Users complain about external links posted on Hacker News failing to load directly due to referrer blocking, JavaScript requirements, or HTTP/HTTPS issues, and suggest workarounds like adding rel=noreferrer, using HTTPS, incognito mode, or indirect redirects.

The cluster discusses the security limitations of Docker containers, emphasizing they are not reliable sandboxes due to shared kernels and breakout risks, often recommending VMs, rootless modes, or tools like gVisor for better isolation.

The cluster discusses the massive predation by free-roaming domestic cats on birds, mammals, and other wildlife, with strong advocacy for keeping cats indoors to protect ecosystems and improve cat safety.

Discussions center on memory layout, padding, alignment requirements, strict aliasing, and undefined behavior in C/C++ structs, including compiler optimizations, portability issues, and workarounds like packed structs or memcpy.

Commenters debate the reliability, existence, and certification of nuclear weapons without live testing, often analogizing to the article's topic on simulations or stewardship programs.

The cluster debates the merits of using the C++ Standard Template Library (STL), including its usefulness, portability, performance concerns, and alternatives like custom implementations, Boost, or replacements such as EASTL.

The cluster centers on debates about government inefficiency, bureaucracy, and corruption, with many arguing it's inherent to government while others counter that large private organizations face similar issues.

Comments debate the pace of technological progress, questioning if it's exponential, slowing down, sigmoidal, or subject to stagnation and bursts, often referencing historical trends and future predictions.

This cluster revolves around debates comparing statically typed and dynamically typed programming languages, discussing ergonomics, performance, flexibility, scalability for large codebases, and whether dynamic typing remains relevant.

This cluster debates the relative costs of robotic automation versus human labor, including factors like wages, maintenance, programming, and economic incentives for replacing workers with robots.

The cluster debates which programming language is most suitable for beginners and introductory CS courses, comparing options like Python, Java, C++, JavaScript, Scheme, and Rust based on syntax simplicity, cognitive load, paradigms, and teaching effectiveness.

Users discuss and recommend privacy-focused web browsers like Firefox forks (LibreWolf, Waterfox), Brave, and alternatives to Chrome, emphasizing privacy concerns and comparisons between Gecko and Chromium engines.

Discussions center on private space travel and tourism by billionaires using companies like SpaceX, debating its high costs, potential for affordability, and value compared to addressing earthly problems.

The cluster centers on debates over evidence linking Russia or its government to major hacks like the DNC leaks, with skepticism about US intelligence and security firm claims versus circumstantial indicators.

Users repeatedly declare and agree on their favorite items, features, examples, or contributions from the thread's content, such as music, tools, shows, or memes.

Users share and enthusiastically recommend links to various YouTube lectures, TED talks, and educational video series, praising them as insightful and must-watch content.

The cluster discusses ethical tensions around the value of human life, individual rights to choose death or euthanasia, and trade-offs between prolonging life for the elderly or ill versus personal freedoms and societal costs.

Discussions center on the arbitrariness, necessity, and impact of deadlines in software engineering, including managers imposing unrealistic timelines, experiences with missed or fungible deadlines, and debates on balancing deadlines with quality and productivity.

Comments discuss retailer strategies using discounts, coupons, and loss leaders to attract customers, enable tracking, manipulate perceptions of value, and encourage upsells or higher spending.

Comments debate whether certain content, views, or mentalities qualify as right-wing, far-right, or extremist, questioning the use and meaning of these political labels.

The cluster centers on discussions questioning whether the US has genuine allies or only pursues national interests, portraying the US as unreliable or self-serving in foreign policy towards supposed partners.

The cluster centers on debates between using pure Vim (or Emacs) for coding versus full IDEs, with strong emphasis on Vim emulation plugins like IdeaVim in IDEs such as IntelliJ and Eclipse to merge Vim's efficient editing model with IDE features like autocompletion and refactoring.

The cluster centers on debates about the Trump administration's DOGE initiative, led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, to slash federal government spending by dismantling agencies, mass layoffs, and eliminating programs, with criticism of its haphazard approach and motives.

Commenters express admiration for Jonathan Blow's kindness, humility, honesty, and approachability in person or talks, countering perceptions of him as arrogant, weird, or cranky based on his style.

Comments debate whether a proposed lifestyle, routine, or productivity strategy is realistic for people with children, with parents frequently challenging childless commenters on its practicality.

The cluster centers on debates comparing BSD operating systems (e.g., FreeBSD, OpenBSD) to Linux, discussing advantages, disadvantages, popularity, reasons for choosing one over the other, and why BSD remains less dominant.

The cluster centers on debates about whether cryptocurrencies have intrinsic value, their worth as currency compared to fiat money, and criticisms that crypto's value is speculative or dependent on fiat exchange.

Discussions criticize OpenSSL's poor code quality, security issues, and track record, while advocating for switching to LibreSSL or other alternatives like BoringSSL.

Comments frequently reference climbing or summiting Mount Everest as an analogy for difficult, risky, or seemingly pointless achievements, often in tech or AI contexts.

This cluster centers on Apple's decision to deprecate OpenGL, refuse Vulkan support, and exclusively push its proprietary Metal graphics API on macOS, affecting third-party GPU compatibility, drivers, and 3D/gaming applications.

Debate on whether people can disengage from or avoid politics, with core arguments asserting that politics inevitably affects everyone regardless of personal interest.

The cluster discusses San Francisco's severe homelessness problem despite high per-person spending on services, with many attributing it to generous policies, mild weather, and mental health/drug issues attracting homeless from elsewhere rather than lack of funding.

Discussions center on the structure, reliability, and role of bonuses in employee compensation packages, debating if they supplement low base salaries, are performance-tied, or serve as retention tools.

Comments primarily inquire about the UI frameworks, component libraries, or design systems used in a project, referencing popular options like Bootstrap, Tailwind, Chakra UI, and others, while discussing alternatives and recommendations.

Comments in this cluster debate the realism of ideas, proposals, or visions by contrasting them with 'reality,' often dismissing ideals, utopias, or hypotheticals as unrealistic or fantastical.

The cluster debates the suitability of natural languages like English for programming, highlighting their ambiguity, imprecision, and contextual nature compared to the precision and explicitness required in programming languages.

Discussions focus on supply chain issues causing shortages, delays, and bottlenecks, often linked to the pandemic, just-in-time inventory, and global logistics challenges.

Discussions center on soldering chips and components onto PCBs, including SMD and BGA handling, alignment issues, hidden chips, and hobbyist challenges like busted pads or long leads.

This cluster centers on debates about smartphone manufacturers, especially Apple, removing the 3.5mm headphone jack, with users arguing over its necessity, the push towards wireless alternatives like AirPods, and whether it will return.

Commenters challenge unsubstantiated claims by repeatedly demanding scientific proof, peer-reviewed studies, or literature, often dismissing them as pseudoscience, anecdotal, or unproven.

This cluster centers on discussions about monads in Haskell, including the challenges of explaining them, critiques of the 'monoid in the category of endofunctors' definition, and requests for simpler tutorials or examples.

The cluster centers on debates about US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) rulings, including recent decisions overturning precedents like Roe v. Wade and Chevron deference, criticisms of ideological bias, and the court's respect for stare decisis.

Users recommend and compare various server monitoring tools and services such as Nagios, Prometheus, Netdata, Datadog, Pingdom, and Uptime Kuma for uptime, performance, and alerting.

Users frequently request direct links, DOIs, or PDFs to the academic paper referenced in the article, often due to broken links or paywalls, while others provide alternatives like arXiv, Sci-Hub, or author sites.

Discussions focus on risks and issues with Apple IDs, including unexplained lockouts, revocations, and complications from using 'Sign in with Apple' for third-party apps, such as potential bans affecting main accounts or privacy concerns.