All Topics

This cluster focuses on experiences with hard-to-track-down software bugs, such as Heisenbugs, that take significant time to diagnose but often have simple fixes, including anecdotes from production and open-source code.

Discussions center on Python's speed limitations, especially CPython's slowness compared to C or other languages, with debates on whether it's a real issue, mentions of PyPy as a faster alternative, and calls to use other tools for performance-critical code.

The cluster revolves around debates questioning the reality, usefulness, and superiority of quantum computers over classical ones, with core comments expressing doubt about their practical applications and current achievements.

Comments in this cluster repeatedly challenge others by asking 'What's your solution?' to problems identified in discussions, often skeptically or rhetorically.

Humorous comments on a complex device with numerous moving parts, joking about its fragility, toy-like nature (e.g., fidget spinners), unreliability, and alternative uses like bike locks or weapons.

Discussions center on a map featured in an article, debating its accuracy, aesthetics, completeness, and philosophical implications like 'the map is not the territory.'

This cluster centers on debates comparing GitHub and GitLab as git hosting platforms, discussing superiority in UX, features, FOSS ideals, integrations, and alternatives like Gitea or SourceHut.

Comments in this cluster overwhelmingly criticize low contrast between light gray text and white or light backgrounds on websites, making them hard to read, and suggest improvements like darker text or higher contrast modes.

This cluster centers on debates about weekly work hours, questioning standard 40-hour weeks versus longer 60-80 hour schedules, including discussions on health, productivity, work-life balance, and cultural or legal norms.

Discussions argue that artificial neural networks are loose inspirations or simplifications of biological neurons and brains, not accurate models, citing differences like lack of backpropagation, non-linearity, and complex interactions in real neurons.

The cluster focuses on criticisms of Boeing's safety culture, engineering failures, quality control problems, and systemic issues like the 737 MAX crashes and door plug incident, blaming management priorities and FAA oversight.

Discussions focus on the safety, efficiency, and practicality of wireless charging for smartphones, including concerns about battery life, heat, misalignment, and alternatives like portable or wired chargers.

Discussions focus on the merits of maintaining personal blogs, with commenters sharing experiences of blogging primarily for self-documentation, learning, future reference, and knowledge sharing rather than expecting large audiences.

Commenters argue over whether questioning scientific consensus or expressing opinions without citations constitutes anti-science behavior, versus proper scientific critique or debate. Discussions highlight tensions between personal attacks on scientists, downvoting skeptics, and distinguishing op-eds from established science on Hacker News.

The cluster centers on philosophical debates about whether AI systems, LLMs, or computers can achieve consciousness, including definitions, emergence from computation, comparisons to human/animal minds, and challenges in proving or detecting it.

Comments discuss the prevalence of negative, unsubstantiated criticism of China on Hacker News, downvoting of neutral or pro-China views, and accusations of pro-China shilling or whataboutism.

This cluster debates the potential existential threats from advanced AI and AGI, including risks of human extinction, safety concerns raised by experts like Yudkowsky and Hinton, and comparisons to bioweapons or nukes, questioning if these are realistic dangers or science fiction.

Discussions center on whether Ruby on Rails remains relevant and popular today, its strengths like developer velocity versus criticisms of being outdated or slow, and comparisons to alternatives like Node.js, Go, and Java.

Debates on where cyclists should ride—roads, sidewalks, or bike lanes—focusing on safety, visibility, traffic rules compliance, and conflicts with drivers and pedestrians.

The cluster discusses the scarcity of COVID-19 tests, reasons for limited testing such as supply shortages and prioritization of symptomatic cases, and debates on testing strategies across countries and their impact on reported case numbers.

This cluster consists of comments where users flag the current Hacker News submission as a duplicate of previously discussed stories, providing links to older threads for reference.

This cluster centers on debates about the importance of free speech, its limits, political biases in its advocacy, and arguments for protecting even offensive or disliked ideas to prevent broader suppression.

Users in this cluster recommend numerous science fiction novels, stories, and authors whose plots or themes resemble the concept discussed in the original post.

This cluster debates the effectiveness of LeetCode-style coding interviews and tests like HackerRank for hiring software engineers, with criticisms that they prioritize memorization and puzzle-solving over real-world skills and defenses that they filter out incompetents.

The cluster focuses on heated arguments over the precise definition of racism, whether actions like affirmative action or cultural critiques qualify as racist, and distinctions between systemic racism, prejudice, and factual observations.

This cluster centers on discussions about forking open-source projects as a solution to disagreements with maintainers, changes in direction, or stalled development. Commenters debate the ease, necessity, and practicality of creating and maintaining forks.

Users express surprise, annoyance, or debate about having to pay for a service or feature they expected to be free, emphasizing that someone always pays and nothing is truly free.

Comments discuss whether actions, features, or changes are worthwhile by weighing costs against benefits, often highlighting opportunity costs, maintenance burdens, and situations where costs exceed gains.

Users repeatedly ask for live demos, videos, screenshots, or links to try the discussed project, highlighting interest but a desire to see it in action before engaging further.

The cluster focuses on discussions about web scraping techniques, tools, services, and comparisons to APIs for extracting data from websites, including inquiries about specific scrapers, open-source options, and avoiding blocks.

The cluster discusses the health benefits, risks, and effectiveness of weightlifting and strength training (e.g., squats, deadlifts, StrongLifts, Starting Strength), often comparing it to bodyweight exercises like pushups and pullups.

Cluster centers on debates comparing iOS and Android platforms, including superiority in user experience, hardware variety, app ecosystems, pricing, and market differences.

This cluster revolves around discussions of legal disputes, lawsuits, and court cases involving Apple, including app rejections, antitrust actions, developer fears of being sued, and specific cases like Andino v. Apple.

The cluster debates the true meaning of design in software and products, contrasting superficial aesthetics, trends, and peer approval against usability, problem-solving, and user needs.

The cluster focuses on various Twitter security incidents including account hacks, data breaches, and the platform's responses such as suspending accounts, blocking links to hacked materials like the JD Vance dossier, and suppressing related content.

This cluster centers on debates over the true meaning of 'hacker,' distinguishing the traditional positive connotation of a clever tinkerer or mindset from criminal 'cracking,' with frequent references to Hacker News culture, Wikipedia, and philosophy.

Comments repeatedly reference Sweden's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, often as an example of lighter restrictions, comparisons to other countries like the US, and debates on its effectiveness or outcomes.

Comments repeatedly label a specific software tool or behavior as malware, debating its malicious nature like breaking applications or mimicking viral tactics.

Comments in this cluster identify problems or ideas from the parent post as potential startup opportunities, often suggesting 'build a startup for that' or pitching their own startups for feedback and roasts.

Comments debate whether programmers must love coding as a hobby outside work to be successful professionals, sharing experiences of passion fading in jobs versus enjoyment in personal projects.

Comments focus on questioning, criticizing, and debating the design quality and choices of the featured product or interface, often asking for explanations of its flaws.

Discussions focus on best practices for sharing links on Hacker News, including adding summaries to avoid spam, using direct links versus text posts, and preventing special-purpose accounts or bare links.

Comments discuss various desktop, web, and CLI tools that aggregate, enhance, or provide alternative interfaces to ChatGPT and other AI chat services, with frequent recommendations of projects like Aider, ai-shell, and AgentGPT.

Debates on skepticism versus scientific consensus regarding man-made climate change, including accusations of denialism and defenses of questioning extreme predictions.

Users discuss and compare experiences with UPS, FedEx, USPS, and Amazon deliveries, focusing on issues like misdeliveries, porch theft, apartment challenges, and the superiority or inferiority of Amazon's service.

Comments debate Uber's competitive moat, reliance on VC subsidies to undercut competitors and gain market share, and skepticism about its long-term profitability once subsidies end and prices rise.

Users debate and question the privacy implications, policies, and protections of a discussed technology, service, or product, often expressing concerns about data handling and user privacy.

Discussions debate the nature, presence, and authenticity of conservative and libertarian viewpoints expressed on Hacker News, including distinctions between conservatives and libertarians and perceptions of their rhetoric.

Discussions center on using transactions, MVCC, snapshot isolation, and ACID properties (especially isolation) in databases like Postgres to manage concurrency and prevent race conditions.

This cluster focuses on recent layoffs in tech companies, with users commenting on their scale, timing, necessity, and broader industry trends, often linking to trackers like layoffs.fyi.

Users frequently share links to YouTube videos and IMDb pages for relevant documentaries or ask for links and names of documentaries mentioned in the discussion.

Discussions center on Nvidia's market leadership in AI GPUs, its massive profits from the AI boom, strong moat via CUDA, and emerging competition from Intel, AMD, and others potentially challenging prices and margins.

This cluster centers on debates criticizing the government's inefficiency, incompetence, and inability to handle issues effectively, with commenters expressing skepticism about its capabilities.

The cluster discusses trade-offs in programming language design, particularly syntax simplicity versus expressiveness, feature bloat, and the balance between minimalism and powerful constructs like syntactic sugar.

Debate on whether criticized company behaviors or policies are unique or widespread across many companies, particularly large ones.

The cluster centers on complaints about the feel, reliability, and failures of recent MacBook Pro keyboards, especially the butterfly mechanism, with comparisons to older scissor-switch designs and competitors like ThinkPads.

Comments debate the credibility, insightfulness, and expertise of a specific opinionated author or public intellectual, weighing his background, writing quality, and accuracy on topics like AI, business, and society against criticisms of superficiality and overreach.

The cluster revolves around debates distinguishing true randomness from pseudo-randomness, with commenters correcting misconceptions about randomness in computing, generators, and statistical properties.

The cluster focuses on discussions comparing React Native to native iOS/Android development and alternatives like Flutter, including its popularity, performance, iteration speed, and suitability for cross-platform mobile apps.

Commenters express interest in a described project by repeatedly asking the original poster to share, link, or publish the source code, often suggesting GitHub or other platforms.

Comments criticize Apple's poor software quality, inadequate bug fixing, QA processes, and prioritization of new features over resolving longstanding issues.

The cluster debates whether open source software is more secure and trustworthy than closed source due to its auditable code, with proponents emphasizing community review and skeptics citing vulnerabilities like those in OpenSSL.

Commenters frequently ask if others have used a featured software tool or service and share their own limited experiences, likes, dislikes, and potential issues.

Users criticize Hacker News submission titles as clickbait or misleading, often comparing them to original article titles and suggesting more accurate, neutral alternatives.

Discussions debating the merits of Mercurial over Git, highlighting Mercurial's superior ease of use, UI, and mental model, while lamenting Git's dominance due to GitHub and network effects.

This cluster centers on debates about the definition, application, and limitations of the scientific method, including what qualifies as true science versus pseudoscience or non-scientific approaches.

Users report bugs like browser freezes, errors, and loading failures on a specific webpage, with troubleshooting suggestions including trying different browsers, disabling adblockers or extensions, and refreshing.

Comments discuss drawbacks of smart TV OS like ads, spyware, and poor UI on platforms such as Android TV and WebOS, recommending external streaming devices like Roku, Apple TV, Nvidia Shield, or disconnecting the TV from the internet.

The cluster debates the ethics and consequences of employees publicly criticizing their employers' policies, such as return-to-office mandates, including discussions on free speech, disgruntled workers, and company retaliation.

The cluster discusses challenges in funding and sustaining open source projects, including calls for companies and users to sponsor maintainers via donations, bounties, or contracts, and debates on whether OSS should remain free or seek financial support.

Discussions center on Mozilla's changes to Firefox's extension system, including mandatory signing, sideloading limitations, and the shift from powerful XUL extensions to the less capable WebExtensions API, with complaints about reduced functionality and comparisons to Chromium.

Comments where developers or authors thank users for pointing out bugs or issues and confirm they are fixing or have fixed them.

This cluster centers on debates about flexible schedules, productivity during office hours versus total output, expectations of availability outside normal work times, and maintaining work-life boundaries in tech jobs.

Users report and discuss Firefox-specific bugs causing hangs, crashes, or rendering failures on websites, frequently linking to Bugzilla reports and suggesting workarounds like updates or restarts.

Comments debate whether Tesla's Full Self-Driving (FSD) feature is truly autonomous or just advanced driver assistance, criticizing its marketing claims, safety, maturity, and requirement for constant human supervision.

The cluster discusses security risks and trust issues with Chrome browser extensions, highlighting broad permissions that allow data access and potential malware abuse, alongside debates on inspection, updates, and comparisons to browser trust.

Comments focus on Google's history of discontinuing popular products and services like Google Reader, expressing skepticism about the reliability and longevity of new Google offerings.

The cluster focuses on debates about 'free' healthcare, emphasizing that socialized or universal systems are funded by taxes rather than being truly free, with comparisons to private systems like in the US.

The cluster centers on debates about SQL's strengths as a concise and powerful declarative query language versus its criticisms regarding syntax, abstractions, composability, and calls for better alternatives.

The cluster centers on debates about using ad blockers, including ethical justifications, privacy and security concerns, annoyance with intrusive ads, and counterarguments like avoiding ad-serving sites or site owners blocking adblock users.

Comments primarily compare a discussed tool or feature to Twitter's existing capabilities, inquire about Twitter equivalents, suggest integrations, and note Twitter functionalities like Community Notes or Revue.

Commenters speculate, assert, or joke that the main post's subject originates from or relates to Russia or Russians, often questioning its Russian ties or sharing Russian perspectives.

Users suggest BitTorrent, WebTorrent, and torrent sites like Pirate Bay as decentralized alternatives for file sharing and large media downloads, often in response to centralized service limitations.

Users recommend and discuss websites, apps, and extensions for generating, picking, and managing color palettes for UI design, CSS, and web development.

This cluster features job postings from startups building data platforms, customer data platforms (CDPs), and analytics tools, hiring for data engineers, scientists, and related roles involving big data, machine learning, and data processing.

The cluster focuses on the advantages of cash for privacy, anonymity, and freedom compared to digital payments, with concerns about government efforts to phase out cash and enable transaction surveillance.

Debate over Apple's closed iOS ecosystem and App Store restrictions, pitting user rights to full device control and software choice against the benefits of Apple's secure, curated environment and alternatives like Android.

This cluster consists of comments advocating for, questioning, or discussing the use and effectiveness of A/B testing in product development, UI optimization, and business decisions.

Project creators respond to user suggestions by confirming that requested features are on the roadmap, planned for upcoming releases, or in development.

Cluster focuses on recommendations for hardware synthesizers like OP-1, Deluge, and modular synths, comparing them to software alternatives such as iPads, DAWs, and VST plugins.

The cluster discusses the geopolitical tensions and power shift between the US and China, focusing on China's rise as a potential hegemon challenging American dominance, empire behaviors, and global influence.

Commenters are primarily asking for the name, link, ISBN, or details of a specific book or books referenced in the parent thread but not clearly identified. Many express interest in reading it and request recommendations or sources.

The cluster centers on debates about the unique abilities, mindset, and exclusivity of programmers compared to non-programmers, often questioning who truly qualifies as one.

Discussions debate whether SQLite is sufficient for production web apps and services compared to PostgreSQL or MySQL, with many defending its performance, simplicity, and scalability for typical use cases.

This cluster focuses on the validity and etiquette of disagreement in discussions, emphasizing that differing opinions do not imply bad faith, ignorance, or personal dislike, and should not lead to downvotes or hostility.

Comments correct misconceptions about identities of people or things referenced in an article, often noting 'not the one you think,' lack of mentions, or wrong associations.

Users express strong disinterest, refusal, or opt-outs from a product, feature, service, or prompt in the discussion, often using phrases like 'no thanks' or 'nope'.

Comments discuss and promote various community-driven platforms, tools, and AI models for learning programming through real-world projects, tutorials, code snippets, cheatsheets, and sharing resources.

This cluster centers on users' strong opposition to web tracking, debates over opt-in vs. opt-out mechanisms, and calls to respect privacy signals like Do Not Track requests.

Discussions center on the pros, cons, performance implications, and specific implementations like Boehm and real-time garbage collectors in programming languages.