All Topics

Commenters discuss how novelty, excitement, or outrage surrounding technologies, practices, or companies eventually wears off, leading to disenchantment, forgetting, and repeating cycles unless disrupted by consequences.

The cluster centers on debates comparing modern employment practices, such as job restrictions or low-wage work, to slavery or indentured servitude, with arguments distinguishing voluntary paid labor from forced ownership.

Commenters debate whether data storage is cheap or expensive, particularly for cloud providers, and discuss its implications for service pricing and economics.

Comments reflect on the inevitability of death and its role in motivating people to make the most of their limited time, often citing quotes like Steve Jobs' 'remembering I'll be dead soon' and urging to live each day meaningfully.

The cluster debates the legality of pornography, especially child pornography including fictional, drawn, or AI-generated depictions, under US laws, comparing it to other regulated content and discussing distribution to minors or content moderation.

The cluster focuses on discussions about offline functionality in web-based applications, including questions on whether apps work offline, how offline modes are implemented, and the importance of offline support for usability.

This cluster captures casual hello, welcome, and friendly greeting comments directed at specific users or the community on Hacker News. Discussions revolve around light-hearted introductions and acknowledgments rather than substantive topics.

Comments debate the likelihood, historical precedents, causes, and consequences of revolutions in response to current political, economic, or social tensions.

Users share stories of losing access to online accounts due to outdated or inaccessible recovery emails, phone numbers, or verification methods, and debate challenges in regaining access via password resets or support.

Comments center on the strength, validity, and mechanisms of the placebo effect, frequently questioning if observed benefits in treatments or studies are due to placebo rather than active interventions, and noting it works even when known.

Users express skepticism about Microsoft's data collection practices, privacy policies, and alleged collaborations with the NSA or spying on users, questioning trust in MS products.

Comments debate the appropriate job titles for software professionals, such as programmer, developer, software engineer, or architect, discussing preferences, marketing implications, and whether 'engineer' is justified.

Comments discuss the variability, inflation, and lack of standardization of job titles across tech companies, noting how titles like 'Senior Engineer' mean different levels of seniority and responsibility depending on the organization and its size.

This cluster revolves around debates comparing Maven and Gradle as Java build tools, focusing on their speed, reliability, flexibility, simplicity, and configuration approaches.

Discussions criticize the general use of linked lists in modern programming due to poor cache performance and niche applicability, advocating for alternatives like vectors, arrays, and hashmaps instead.

The cluster focuses on debates about Tesla Autopilot's safety statistics, including accident rates per million miles compared to human drivers and national averages, with discussions on data validity, biases, and comparisons to other vehicles.

Comments debate the mechanics and benefits of stock buybacks for shareholders, contrasting them with share dilution from issuing new stock, and whether buybacks increase per-share value or manipulate prices.

The cluster discusses the ease or strictness of obtaining driver's licenses in various countries, debates on whether training and testing should be more rigorous, and analogies to licensing for other activities like piloting.

Discussions focus on how distributed or fragmented systems provide better security against hackers compared to centralized services, as exploits are harder to scale and targets less attractive due to lower incentives and cost-effectiveness for attackers.

Users share and debate electricity costs per kWh across regions like California, Europe, and various US areas, highlighting stark differences and affordability issues.

Comments primarily accuse or debate whether a Hacker News post is an SEO-optimized ploy to boost website traffic, with discussions on SEO tactics, effectiveness, and professionalism.

This cluster revolves around debates on the definition, implementation, and criticisms of the MVC (Model-View-Controller) architectural pattern, including its separation of concerns, comparisons to frameworks like Rails and React, and historical origins.

Comments discuss tools and techniques for creating, programming, and manipulating drum beats and rhythms in music production, including BPM assistance, time signatures, beatmatching, randomization for natural feel, and critiques of rhythm accuracy.

Comments discuss websites crashing, slowing down, or becoming unavailable due to sudden traffic spikes from Hacker News submissions, often referred to as the 'HN effect'.

The cluster focuses on challenges and solutions for uploading and downloading large files over networks, emphasizing slow upload speeds, bandwidth bottlenecks, and asymmetric internet connections.

Discussions focus on the feasibility, safety issues such as accidental discharges, and regulatory challenges of 3D-printed or plastic firearms, including comparisons to traditional guns, smart guns like BioFire, and improvised weapons.

Commenters debate the value and appropriate pricing of SaaS tools, web apps, and custom software development, frequently arguing whether prices are too low relative to developer time saved or costs incurred.

The cluster discusses the prevalence and impact of shoplifting on retail stores, debates over whether theft rates are rising based on data, store responses like locking items or closing locations, and criticisms of lenient prosecution policies.

Discussions focus on Google's detection, enforcement, and penalties for websites using manipulative SEO practices like spam, hidden text, and link schemes, including questions about effectiveness and potential hypocrisy by Google itself.

Users share detailed daily schedules emphasizing waking up early (often at 5am or before) to maximize productivity on side projects, exercise, or deep work before starting day jobs or other commitments.

The cluster focuses on discussions about consuming insects as food, featuring memes like 'eat ze bugs,' cultural resistance and disgust, and comparisons to eating other arthropods such as shrimp or lobster.

The cluster discusses the use of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency tumblers/mixers for money laundering, debating its traceability compared to cash, techniques to anonymize transactions, and legal implications.

This cluster focuses on comparisons between AWS and Google Cloud Platform (GCP), debating strengths in UI, customer support, documentation, features, API stability, and overall user preference.

Discussions focus on the legality of accessing, reading, or discussing leaked classified documents, especially for individuals with security clearances, referencing WikiLeaks, Hillary Clinton's emails, and laws like 18 U.S. Code § 1924.

Discussions about sharing and validating startup ideas on Hacker News, including criticism of repetitive ideas, the importance of execution over ideas, and advice that HN is not ideal for feedback.

Users debate whether a specific action or tool constitutes a federal crime, frequently citing wire fraud, conspiracy to defraud the US, RICO, and statutes like 18 U.S.C. § 1991 as grounds for felony charges and prosecution.

Comments focus on Apple's AI developments like Apple Intelligence, on-device processing, Siri improvements, hardware capabilities, and strategies involving local models versus cloud integrations or partnerships with OpenAI and Google.

The cluster discusses how parenting styles have changed across generations, cultural variations in child-rearing practices, and debates on modern overprotectiveness versus past hands-off approaches.

Discussions center on evaluating Sweden's no-lockdown COVID-19 approach by comparing its per capita death rates, excess mortality, and outcomes to neighboring Nordic countries like Norway and Denmark, as well as the US, UK, and others, using data from sources like Our World in Data and Worldometers.

Comments discuss the initial criticism of the iPod at launch, especially Slashdot's 'no wireless, less space than a Nomad, lame' remarks, often analogizing it to skepticism toward new Apple products and highlighting its success through superior user experience and marketing.

Users recommend movies or reference specific film scenes that parallel the article's theme, often involving corporate intrigue, financial scandals, cons, or similar real-world events.

This cluster primarily features comments asking for links to a specific report mentioned in the article or parent comments, expressing curiosity or frustration over its absence.

Debates on how words and phrases like 'decimate' or 'literally' have changed meanings over time, discussing semantic drift, dictionary updates, and whether to accept modern usage over original definitions.

This cluster discusses the 'publish or perish' culture and perverse incentives in academia, where researchers prioritize quantity and prestige of publications in top journals over scientific rigor, reproducibility, and quality.

The cluster discusses the addictiveness and risks of heroin compared to prescription opioids, alcohol, and other drugs, including personal experiences, functional addicts, and arguments for or against regulation and legalization.

The cluster centers on users asking about supported databases for a new tool or service, inquiring about compatibility with options like Postgres, MySQL, CockroachDB, and suggesting alternatives such as SingleStore, EdgeDB, and PlanetScale.

Discussions center on the existence, examples, challenges, and technologies like CBTC and Positive Train Control for implementing automated or driverless train systems in subways, urban rail, and main lines, including comparisons to manual operations and safety concerns.

This cluster centers on conversations about whiskey, including bourbon, scotch, Irish varieties, and related spirits like gin and mezcal, with users sharing preferences, recommendations, distillation insights, and tasting experiences.

The cluster debates the effectiveness of post-9/11 airport security measures like TSA screenings, widely criticized as 'security theater' that fails to prevent bombs or hijackings while real protections stem from locked cockpits, armed pilots, and vigilant passengers.

This cluster centers on users repeatedly calling out comments as off-topic, tangential, or unrelated to the main discussion thread. Samples show debates over what constitutes on-topic content and complaints about thread-jacking or irrelevant posts.

The cluster discusses techniques for pruning and optimizing neural networks, including the lottery ticket hypothesis, dropout, weight consolidation, and their effects on training efficiency, accuracy, and model size.

This cluster focuses on allegations of discrimination against high-achieving Asian American applicants in Ivy League university admissions, particularly Harvard, where they receive lower ratings despite superior test scores and extracurriculars to promote diversity. Debates include data from lawsuits, comparisons to historical Jewish quotas, and calls to end race-based preferences.

Comments strongly encourage users to publish their code on GitHub or similar platforms instead of Pastebin or Gists, highlighting benefits like community access, contributions, and visibility.

Discussions center on double-entry accounting principles, common misconceptions among programmers, explanations with examples, and links to resources like articles for computer scientists.

The cluster debates whether Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies can replace traditional banks, comparing aspects like transfer speed, accessibility, censorship resistance, stability, and the ongoing need for fiat on-ramps and financial services.

The cluster focuses on complaints about corporate and enterprise IT departments being outdated, restrictive, incompetent, or obstructive to productivity, often blaming management setups or contrasting with shadow IT practices.

Discussions revolve around the pros and cons of React Hooks compared to class components, including criticisms of their complexity and magic, praises for reducing boilerplate and improving composability, and debates on their design and rules.

The cluster centers on discussions of Conflict-free Replicated Data Types (CRDTs), including their implementation in projects, comparisons to Operational Transforms (OT), use cases beyond text editing, and applications in real-time collaboration and synchronization.

Comments primarily critique the quality, curation, length, and usefulness of a specific list in the HN post, advocating for tighter curation, commentary, or analysis over mere dumps of links.

This cluster focuses on discussions about people's strong aversion to change, especially in technology, software updates, user habits, and workflows, explaining why even beneficial improvements face significant pushback. Comments emphasize that users and organizations prefer familiarity over efficiency due to the hassle and risks of adaptation.

The cluster discusses the philosophical distinction between inevitable pain and optional suffering, often referencing the adage 'pain is inevitable, suffering is optional,' while touching on physical, chronic, emotional pain, and mindset control.

Comments focus on wildfires in California and similar regions, debating causes such as poor forest management, lack of controlled burns, climate change, and prevention policies.

Discussions focus on top grandmasters like Magnus Carlsen, Gukesh, and Ding Liren, their ELO ratings, comparisons to chess engines like Stockfish, tournament strategies, human factors, and cheating suspicions in high-level play.

The cluster centers on debates about whether discussing politics in the workplace is appropriate, with most comments advocating for bans or avoidance to prevent division, toxicity, and maintain professionalism.

Users discuss their excessive time spent on Hacker News, viewing it as an addictive distraction from work and productivity, with many sharing struggles to limit usage or break the habit.

Commenters repeatedly attribute the parent post's issue—likely political corruption, bureaucracy, or urban dysfunction—to Chicago's notorious reputation, with many dismissing problems as typical for the city.

Comments discuss whistleblower protections, risks of retaliation for exposing illegal activities, and whether specific situations qualify for legal safeguards, often referencing real-world cases and outcomes.

Discussions focus on the trade-offs between short-term development speed (e.g., hacks for quick market entry) and long-term costs of maintaining, fixing bugs, and dealing with technical debt in software.

Users share lists of favorite books, primarily non-fiction on topics like science, philosophy, history, psychology, and self-improvement, often referencing Hacker News 'Ask HN' threads for best books read in specific years or decades.

Discussions focus on using non-standard or common ports like 80/443 for services such as SSH to evade firewall restrictions in corporate, hotel, or public networks, along with debates on the pros, cons, and security implications.

The cluster focuses on discussions about employees leaking confidential company information, the severe consequences like immediate firing, legal risks from NDAs, and debates over ethical reporting of misconduct internally versus externally.

Commenters speculate on evolutionary reasons for biological traits, discussing convergent evolution, local optima, quirks, pressures, and concepts like the Red Queen hypothesis.

Users report encountering HTTP 500 internal server errors, along with 502/503/504 variants, when accessing a website or service, indicating server-side issues, downtime, or overload.

The cluster discusses the health risks of obesity, the debate over fat-shaming versus body positivity, and whether normalizing obesity helps or harms public health.

Discussions center on the use, reliability, and skepticism surrounding machine learning and statistical models for forecasting future events based on historical data, including time series predictions and methods like regression or neural networks.

This cluster centers on discussions of productivity and preferences for remote work locations including coffee shops, co-working spaces, libraries, home setups, and offices.

The cluster focuses on discussions about thermal throttling in modern CPUs, including how processors reduce clock speeds to manage heat, questions about why it fails to prevent overheating or damage in some cases, and related hardware management techniques like undervolting.

The cluster centers on distrust of LLM benchmarks due to suspected data contamination, overfitting, cheating by training on test data, and calls for real-world or private evaluations instead. Users highlight issues like Goodhart's Law, self-grading, and preference for metrics like LMSYS ELO.

Discussions center on the importance of skepticism, verifying claims, recognizing biases, and approaches to evaluating new information without blind trust or dismissal.

Comments criticize the poor readability of justified text in web browsers due to inadequate hyphenation, primitive line-breaking algorithms, and uneven spacing, while suggesting fixes like CSS hyphenation, reader mode, or avoiding justification altogether.

The cluster focuses on Microsoft's aggressive push for Azure adoption, leveraging Office 365 and enterprise software dominance to compete with AWS, and Azure's centrality to Microsoft's future revenue and platform strategy.

The cluster centers on discussions of Donald Trump's tariff policies, including their motivations, strategic intentions like renegotiating trade deals, economic impacts, and criticisms of their mercantilist approach.

The cluster centers on debates about the 'goto' statement in programming, questioning if it's still considered harmful, its uses in error handling and loops versus structured alternatives like break/continue, and references to historical arguments like Dijkstra's paper.

Comments debate salary levels, medians, and averages for tech roles, public sector jobs, academics, and other professions, often comparing figures across countries, regions, and cost of living.

Users criticize default podcast apps on iOS and Android for poor UX, syncing issues, and limitations, while recommending alternatives like Overcast, Pocket Casts, Podcast Addict, and AntennaPod.

The cluster debates the challenges of solar and wind power due to their intermittent and variable nature, including issues like low output during calm or dark periods, the need for backups like gas plants, storage solutions, and grid transmission limitations.

Discussions center on the differences between genotyping (e.g., 23andMe) and full genome sequencing, recommendations for affordable personal sequencing services, and the falling costs of sequencing technologies.

Cluster focuses on the complexity, necessity, and learning difficulties of kanji in Japanese compared to hiragana/katakana, including discussions on homophones, context reliance, and feasibility of kanji-free writing.

The cluster focuses on complaints about high international mobile roaming charges when traveling abroad and alternatives like local SIMs, eSIMs, or carriers such as Google Fi and T-Mobile offering cheaper or free roaming.

Discussions center on the security risks of executing code that users haven't written, read, or fully audited themselves, particularly from external sources like GitHub, highlighting concerns about malicious tricks, vulnerabilities, and the need for verification.

This cluster centers on discussions of mesh networking technologies, including their potential for decentralized communication, existing projects like Meshtastic and Project Meshnet, and challenges such as scalability and integration with the broader internet.

The cluster discusses how rich individuals, politicians, dictators, and criminals use offshore accounts in places like the Caymans, Switzerland, and Panama to hide money, evade taxes, and launder illicit funds, often referencing leaks like Panama Papers or FinCEN files.

Comments focus on the exorbitant costs of prescription drugs like insulin, Ozempic, and Epipens in the US, comparing list prices, manufacturing costs, insurance effects, and international alternatives.

The cluster centers on discussions of specific cryptographic attacks and vulnerabilities, such as DUHK, DROWN, padding oracles, and SHA collisions, with debates on their practicality, novelty, historical context, and whether they stem from protocols or implementations.

The cluster debates Linus Torvalds' abrasive, blunt, and often rude communication style in Linux kernel development discussions, weighing its acceptability against his massive contributions to open source.

The cluster centers on debates about whether to idolize or put on pedestals accomplished figures like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk despite their personal flaws, bad behavior, and moral shortcomings, versus separating achievements from character.

Discussions debate the likelihood of abiogenesis and life emerging elsewhere in the universe, weighing Earth's evolutionary timeline against the vast number of planets, stars, and cosmic timescales, often referencing the Fermi Paradox and Great Filter.

Commenters repeatedly emphasize that movies are fictional and should not be used as evidence or analogies for real-world events, particularly military actions, violence, or tactics, dismissing arguments based on Hollywood depictions.

Discussions debate the definition and history of the first computers, including ENIAC, Konrad Zuse's Z3, Charles Babbage's designs, human computers, and precursors like calculators or mechanical devices.

Discussions center on whether a new data structure is reinventing B-trees, with comparisons of performance, cache efficiency, and alternatives like crit-bit trees or balanced binary trees in in-memory and database contexts.