All Topics

Discussions debate the relationship between science and philosophy, including whether science is a subset or branch of philosophy, philosophy's role in clarifying scientific questions, and criticisms of philosophy lacking empirical rigor.

Comments focus on complaints about products or software lacking support for non-US QWERTY keyboard layouts, debates on using US layouts for programming, and suggestions for alternatives like Dvorak, Neo, or EurKey.

Discussions center on US state laws prohibiting car manufacturers from owning dealerships or selling directly to consumers, highlighting Tesla's direct sales model and conflicts with protected dealership franchises.

Discussions focus on the limitations of ketamine medical treatments, such as requiring supervised IV infusions or injections due to poor oral/nasal bioavailability, short-acting effects, side effects like k-holes, insurance issues, and desires for convenient alternatives like pills or home nasal sprays.

Users debate and inquire about on-premises (on-prem) deployment options for software/services as alternatives to cloud hosting, discussing availability, setups, advantages, and preferences for self-hosting.

The cluster discusses the usefulness of UML diagrams (especially class and sequence diagrams) for software design, communication, and documentation, debating their pros, cons, alternatives like boxes-and-arrows, and whether they should be taken more seriously versus autogenerated or simplified.

Discussions critique rigid organizational processes as scar tissue or flawed, emphasizing that problems stem from processes rather than tools, and advocating for people, adaptability, and incremental improvements over hardcoded procedures.

The cluster centers on user complaints about poor performance, bugs, crashes, lag, and unplayable framerates in various PC games, with many sharing hardware specs and specific experiences like Origin launcher problems or texture loading issues.

Users frequently recommend books, websites, and tutorials like 'Computer Graphics from Scratch', 'Ray Tracing in One Weekend', and TinyRenderer for learning graphics programming, ray tracing, and rendering from scratch.

The cluster focuses on discussions about creating, critiquing, and sharing startup pitch decks for attracting investors, including advice on elevator pitches, VC presentations, and common pitfalls.

The cluster revolves around discussions on the abundance versus scarcity of land, particularly in the US, for housing, farming, and development, debating the usability of rural, desert, or non-fertile land versus desirable farmland and urban areas.

Comments debate IPv6 deployment in local networks, focusing on address stability, privacy extensions, prefix changes from ISPs, multiple addresses per interface, and comparisons to IPv4 NAT practices.

Discussions center on children's books, with users sharing nostalgic memories of favorites from their childhood, recommending titles for kids, and debating age-appropriate reads or reading aloud to children.

Users share numerous links to YouTube videos, drone footage, live streams, and eyewitness recordings of a rocket flight, focusing on the explosion, descent, splashdown, and related dramatic moments.

Comments emphasize that Google is primarily an advertising company, with search, Gmail, Android, and other products serving as loss-leaders to drive ad revenue and user data collection for targeted ads.

Comments debate the merits of JVM-style virtual machines for portability and performance against native compilation in languages like Go, Rust, C++, and C#, focusing on efficiency, complexity, and suitability for diverse languages and applications.

Discussions debate the effects of synchronous blocking I/O on processes and performance, contrasting it with non-blocking and asynchronous I/O models in contexts like networking, servers, Rust, and Node.js.

The cluster focuses on debates about the current stability, reliability, and safety of the BTRFS filesystem, including personal anecdotes of data loss or successful long-term use, RAID issues, and comparisons to ZFS.

This cluster debates the unique skills, rarity, and origins of effective CEOs, especially in tech and startups, contrasting them with more trainable roles like engineering and distinguishing founders from professional executives.

The cluster discusses the high prices of large computer monitors compared to equivalent-sized TVs, recommending TVs, older models, or commercial displays as cost-effective alternatives for monitor use.

The cluster focuses on debates about international travel bans, quarantines, border closures, and flight restrictions as measures to contain COVID-19 spread, including their effectiveness and implementation in various countries like the UK, China, and Italy.

Comments debate the feasibility, efficiency, and challenges of water-pumping based energy storage systems, often critiquing the need to pump water uphill and comparing to simple reservoir methods.

This cluster consists of discussions debating whether qualities like 'good', 'better', value, or taste in areas such as software, art, and choices are inherently subjective opinions or can be determined objectively. Commenters challenge each other's use of 'objective' and argue over the nature of judgments and facts.

Comments debate whether to enable, disable, or replace traditional swap with alternatives like zram/zswap, focusing on performance, SSD wear, memory fragmentation, and systems with ample RAM.

Comments debate the true definition and characteristics of distributed systems, often referencing Leslie Lamport's quote on failures and critiquing whether examples like the discussed article truly involve distributed computing challenges.

The cluster centers on discussions of kings, emperors, and monarchies, frequently using them as metaphors for power, authority, and succession issues like primogeniture, with sarcastic or critical tones toward royal behavior.

The cluster discusses online platforms' minimum age requirements, especially 13 years old under COPPA, to prevent data collection from children, including challenges like users lying about age, parental controls, and legal compliance.

Discussions focus on tools, methods, and websites like Google Scholar, ArXiv, and citation graphs for searching, discovering, recommending, and reading research papers.

Discussions focus on the decline of traditional indoor shopping malls, with observations of some thriving high-end or outdoor alternatives, regional variations, and personal experiences of changes over time.

Commenters criticize the excessive electronics, software, touchscreens, and complexity in modern cars, preferring simpler older models that are easier and cheaper to maintain and repair.

Commenters repeatedly distinguish between income and wealth, critique conflations in analyses or charts, and advocate for using disposable income, cost of living adjustments, or household income instead of raw income.

Commenters debate the distinction between price and value, questioning what makes something valuable, whether value is subjective, monetary, or realizable, and to whom it provides benefit.

Comments debate the subjectivity of art, whether specific works qualify as real art, and the validity of criticizing artistic styles or decisions. Discussions emphasize personal taste versus dismissing art outright, often defending artistic expression against detractors.

Discussions focus on physical security practices in offices, data centers, and buildings, including badge swiping, tailgating, security guards, and their effectiveness against unauthorized access.

Discussions focus on installing and running full Linux distributions like Ubuntu or Debian on Chromebooks via Crouton, developer mode, custom firmware, or built-in Linux containers to support development and hacking.

Discussions focus on the flaws of PGP encryption, including its obsolescence, poor usability, lack of adoption, and security shortcomings like missing forward secrecy, with frequent references to critical articles.

This cluster consists of comments where users provide direct links to scientific papers, primarily from PubMed, PMC, and Sci-Hub, in response to requests for studies or evidence in discussions.

Users request editing capabilities such as live, in-browser, and offline edits for the tool, lamenting its current view-only nature, while developers confirm it's planned with features like agent syncing.

Discussions debate the modern relevance, purpose, and societal value of public libraries as community centers offering services like events, wifi, and programs beyond just books, countering claims of obsolescence due to the internet.

The cluster centers on the widespread observation that users rarely read Terms of Service (ToS) or EULAs before clicking 'I Agree', debating their legal enforceability, excessive length, legalese complexity, and ideas for simplification.

Discussions praise Unix pipes for data processing pipelines, compare them to new tools or features inspired by them, and explore piping in languages like Python, Ruby, and JavaScript.

Commenters argue whether issues with websites or platforms are due to the content itself or the delivery medium and presentation, often demanding focus on content quality or samples.

The cluster discusses Donald Trump's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, including his controversial statements like calling it a hoax or suggesting disinfectants, promotion of vaccines via Operation Warp Speed, and the politicization of public health measures among his supporters.

Comments discuss the Netherlands' superior biking infrastructure, widespread cycling culture, safety for cyclists, flat terrain, and comparisons to car-dominated places like the US.

The cluster discusses the challenges democracy faces from uninformed, uneducated, or rationally ignorant voters, debating the need for better education, critical thinking, and whether voters can be trusted to make informed decisions.

Discussions center on challenges to travel between distant points crossing the fewest countries or borders, debating whether flights qualify due to airspace overflights and analyzing specific routes like polar paths or great circles avoiding Russia and Iran.

The cluster centers on discussions of timing attacks and side-channel vulnerabilities, particularly in cryptography, with references to constant-time code implementations, hardware mitigations, and countermeasures.

Comments center on fentanyl-related overdose deaths, especially accidental ones from laced street drugs like counterfeit oxycodone, and their connection to the opioid epidemic and war on drugs.

The cluster features repeated recommendations for users to seek professional legal advice from a lawyer rather than relying on Hacker News discussions for legal matters.

The cluster debates whether inflation hurts the poor more by eroding cash savings and lagging wages, or benefits debtors (often poor) while favoring the rich with appreciating assets.

Cluster discusses nostalgia for the simple, text-only Web 1.0 era with minimal design, links, and no JavaScript, criticizing modern sites bloated with JS, ads, tracking, and SPAs while advocating for lightweight, accessible hypertext.

The cluster centers on discussions arguing that companies' profit-maximizing and unethical behaviors inevitably demand government regulation to prevent abuses, ensure reliability, and counteract a race to the bottom.

Comments center on Twitter's financial struggles, debating its profitability, revenue versus losses, historical profits, and paths to becoming a viable business.

Discussions revolve around the use, quality, and alternatives to parsers in programming projects, with commenters advocating for proper parsing techniques over ad-hoc methods and sharing recommendations for parser libraries and innovations.

Cluster focuses on user suggestions for monetizing a new service or tool, including subscriptions, ads, commissions, API access, donations, and selling to companies.

Comments debate whether specific practices, such as those in US prisons, CIA interrogations, or other government actions, constitute torture, questioning its definition, effectiveness, morality, and legality.

The cluster discusses physical constraints like signal propagation delays, RC wire delays, and clock distribution that prevent making larger single-die chips, favoring multi-core and chiplet designs instead.

Cluster focuses on debates about the fairness, reliability, and equity of standardized tests like SAT/ACT in college admissions versus high school grades, including biases, socioeconomic factors, diversity impacts, and their predictive value for success.

The cluster focuses on accusations of neo-Nazi sympathizers, Nazis, and their defenders present on Hacker News, including debates over moderation, bans, and platform guidelines.

The cluster discusses the causal relationship between high cholesterol (especially LDL) and cardiovascular disease, questioning statins' effectiveness in reducing mortality and heart attacks, with debates citing studies, correlations vs. causation, and alternative views.

The cluster debates the relative importance of programming skills versus business, marketing, and sales skills for succeeding in startups, arguing that coders often fail without learning or partnering for non-technical expertise.

The cluster focuses on California's Proposition 13, which caps property tax increases at 2% annually and resets upon sale, debating its role in driving up housing prices, discouraging new supply, and creating inequities between long-term and new homeowners.

The cluster debates China's expansionist actions, including claims on Taiwan, Tibet, South China Sea, and Xinjiang, contrasted with historical grievances like the Opium Wars and comparisons to Western imperialism.

Commenters discuss how many software technologies, languages, frameworks, and enterprise codebases are decades old yet still widely used, emphasizing the persistence and relevance of aging tech stacks.

Discussions focus on Verizon customers experiencing network problems, blocking of services, lack of support for features, and general complaints about the provider's practices and reliability.

Discussions focus on BlackBerry's past dominance in smartphones, its fall due to failure to innovate against iPhone and Android, corporate user base, and surprise at its continued niche existence today.

Users recommend lightweight text-based web browsers like Lynx, w3m, and elinks, along with alternative protocols such as Gopher and Gemini, for simpler browsing without modern web bloat.

The cluster centers on debates comparing GCC and LLVM/Clang compilers, focusing on GPL licensing as a catalyst for LLVM's creation, its superior modularity, corporate support from companies like Apple and Google, and GCC's ongoing relevance versus LLVM's rise.

Users discuss their dissatisfaction with the abrupt, cliffhanger, or unsatisfying ending of a featured story or article, often requesting spoilers, sequels, or more details on the conclusion.

Comments strongly recommend using configuration management tools like Ansible, Puppet, Chef, and Salt for automating server configuration and deployment, criticizing manual scripting and advocating for infrastructure as code practices.

Users discuss preferences between Fahrenheit and Celsius temperature scales, often requesting Celsius conversions or dual displays in a US-centric context, and debate which is more intuitive for humans or science.

The cluster focuses on discussions about monitoring household electricity consumption, including tools like Kill-A-Watt meters, Sense monitors, smart plugs, and Home Assistant, with users sharing base load measurements, appliance culprits like fridges, and cost estimates.

Comments question the size, structure, and point-particle nature of electrons, often asking why the article focuses on electrons rather than protons or neutrons, amid particle physics discussions.

Discussions focus on whether Unix time includes leap seconds, the problems they cause in computing like glitches and non-monotonicity, alternatives like TAI over UTC, and calls to abolish leap seconds.

Discussions center on a new curated restaurant recommendation platform, with users comparing its features, exclusivity, search capabilities, and UI to alternatives like Yelp, Google Maps, OpenTable, and delivery apps such as Grubhub.

The cluster discusses the merits and drawbacks of local governments handling issues autonomously versus state or federal intervention, emphasizing local accountability, subsidiarity, and the US federalism structure.

The cluster discusses the low pay, stipends, and tuition waivers for PhD and graduate students, often portraying them as cheap labor for universities funded by research grants while they teach and conduct research.

The cluster centers on discussions criticizing the obsession with celebrities, comparing it to interests in tech billionaires, influencers, and YouTubers, and questioning why people care about celebrity news.

Comments debate the risks and ethics of using biological controls like introduced predators or modified organisms against invasive species, citing historical failures such as cane toads in Australia and possums in New Zealand, while highlighting potential ecological imbalances.

The cluster discusses the Web of Trust model, often referencing PGP, as a decentralized alternative to centralized trusted third parties or certificate authorities for verifying identities and public keys in cryptographic systems.

Discussions center on Meta's massive spending on VR, Metaverse, and AI projects, questioning the rationale, Zuckerberg's priorities over shareholder value, and potential incentives or returns.

The cluster centers on heated debates about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, including criticisms of them as reverse discrimination or racism in disguise, defenses as anti-bias measures, and discussions on their implementation in hiring and companies.

Users frequently ask for relevant RFCs, share direct links to specific IETF RFC documents, and debate whether protocols or ideas have official RFC status or standards.

Comments debate the distinctions between anarchism, libertarianism, and anarcho-capitalism, frequently correcting misconceptions that equate libertarian or capitalist views with true anarchism, which is portrayed as anti-capitalist and opposed to unjust hierarchies.

This cluster centers on the requirement of at least 500 karma to unlock the ability to downvote comments on Hacker News, with users confirming the threshold and sharing experiences about when the downvote button becomes available.

Comments repeatedly compare the discussed startup or business strategy to Amazon's early days, arguing that Amazon pioneered similar approaches when it was smaller and less established before scaling massively.

The cluster revolves around discussions of McDonald's ubiquity, quality, pricing, cultural role, and memes, with users sharing personal experiences, defenses, criticisms, and humorous references like 'Sir, this is a McDonald's.'

This cluster consists of comments citing Richard Feynman's books, videos, lectures, and anecdotes to support, counter, or relate to points in the parent discussion, often on topics like learning, understanding, and scientific curiosity.

Cluster focuses on AI tools and models like Suno, MusicGen, Jukebox, Riffusion, and Udio for generating music, vocals, lyrics, and full songs, including comparisons, limitations, and demos.

The cluster critiques the high costs, saturation, and lack of innovation in AAA game development, contrasting it with the thriving indie scene that produces more creative and sustainable titles.

The cluster discusses reasons why female-dominated professions like teaching and nursing pay less than male-dominated ones, debating factors such as personal preferences, societal pressures, labor supply increases, and discrimination.

The cluster discusses the Luddites' resistance to automated textile machinery during the Industrial Revolution, debating job displacement, living standards, and parallels to modern AI and technological disruptions.

Discussions center on software tools like GNU Units for handling unit conversions, complex units such as acceleration and temperature, and support for units in programming languages and libraries.

Commenters repeatedly suggest building the discussed technology or project on the moon to utilize local resources, low gravity, and avoid Earth-based challenges, with debates on feasibility, mining, and environmental concerns for lunar development.

Cluster focuses on personal experiences, diagnosis, and treatments for sleep apnea, including CPAP machines, oral appliances, weight loss, and sleep studies.

The cluster focuses on discussions of electronics hardware failures caused by faulty power supplies, bad capacitors, transformers, poor wiring, grounding issues, and dirty power.

The cluster discusses the simulation hypothesis, focusing on the computational feasibility of simulating the universe or reality, including arguments about required approximations, simulation speeds, hardware limitations, and whether physics could be accurately replicated.

Comments express concerns about the growing prevalence of authoritarianism worldwide, particularly in the US, with debates on its manifestations, risks, and comparisons to other regimes.

Comments criticize modern web and UI designs for excessive whitespace, low information density, and prioritizing aesthetics over usability and readability. Debates contrast dense, efficient layouts with trendy minimalism that hinders user experience on various devices.

The cluster discusses debates around immigrant assimilation into host country cultures, including expectations for adaptation, differences by nationality, and comparisons between melting-pot societies like the US and more homogeneous ones in Europe and Asia.