All Topics

The cluster focuses on how apps and social media are intentionally designed to be addictive using techniques like dark patterns, dopamine hits, and gambling mechanics to maximize user engagement and profits.

This cluster discusses comparisons between the human brain's computational power, energy efficiency (e.g., 20W vs. megawatts for supercomputers), neuron/synapse complexity, and architectural differences from digital computers like GPUs and LLMs.

Discussions revolve around logging libraries and frameworks, including criticisms of complex ones like log4j due to vulnerabilities and side effects, preferences for simpler no-code or structured alternatives like slog, and ideal features for logging solutions.

Discussions center on the pros, cons, usability, and implementations of type inference in programming languages like Haskell, Rust, Go, and OCaml, including comparisons to explicit typing and Hindley-Milner systems.

Debate on whether the title 'engineer' or 'software engineer' is legally protected and requires professional licensing or certification, as in traditional fields like civil engineering, with frequent references to regulations in Canada and other jurisdictions.

Discussions center on the social awkwardness, incompetence, and challenges faced by nerds and geeks, often linking to autism spectrum traits, with debates on acceptance versus improvement through practice.

Comments debate the limited scale and viability of a product or feature's user base, emphasizing that only a tiny, tech-savvy minority would adopt it rather than achieving mass appeal.

The cluster revolves around rock climbing as a popular hobby among Hacker News users, emphasizing its fun, intellectual challenge, adrenaline rush, and inherent risks like free soloing.

The cluster discusses the security strengths and weaknesses of PIN codes, especially 4-digit ones, for phones, bank cards, and accounts, debating brute-force risks, rate limiting, hardware protections, and alternatives like longer PINs or passphrases.

The cluster centers on debates distinguishing antisemitism from anti-Zionism or criticism of Israel, with users arguing over whether specific comments or actions cross into antisemitism.

Discussions recommend tools like ctags, cscope, IDEs, and editors for efficient codebase navigation, including jumping to definitions, finding references, and searching usages in large projects.

The cluster discusses the support for SQL JOIN operations in a specific database or query tool, highlighting concerns about their absence in examples, performance issues, and alternatives like denormalization or single-table designs.

The cluster focuses on discussions recommending or questioning the use of OpenTelemetry (OTel) for observability needs like metrics, tracing, and logging, often suggesting it as an alternative or standard to other tools.

Comments discuss using Git pre-commit, post-commit, and other hooks for automating tasks like code validation, builds, and continuous integration, often as simpler alternatives to external tools or services.

Users discuss, share, and provide feedback on AI-powered and user-generated apps for trip planning, itineraries, destinations, and related features, often comparing them to alternatives like TripIt or Wanderlog.

Software developers discuss challenges of local job markets, preferences for remote work enabling location flexibility, lower cost of living areas, and trade-offs between pay, culture, and lifestyle.

Comments debate whether increasing urban density reduces housing costs via more supply or raises them due to desirability, land limits, and zoning restrictions.

This cluster focuses on comparisons of Android phone prices versus iPhones, emphasizing how Android devices are significantly cheaper, especially in low-end, emerging, and developing markets, contributing to Android's market dominance there.

Comments heavily debate whether observed relationships in the article represent mere correlations rather than causation, questioning the strength, existence, and potential spuriousness of these correlations.

The cluster focuses on discussions about Cargo, Rust's package manager and build system, including its strengths and weaknesses, comparisons to other tools, offline/airgapped support, integration with distros, and specific features or issues.

The cluster debates the balance between individual property owners' rights to build or develop their land freely and the community's authority to impose zoning laws, HOAs, and regulations to maintain neighborhood standards and mitigate externalities.

The cluster discusses Apple's outsourcing of iPhone and hardware manufacturing to Foxconn in China, debates on shifting production to India, Vietnam, or the US, and the challenges of supply chains and in-house production.

This cluster debates the effectiveness, funding, incentives, IP ownership, and commercialization of research in universities versus corporate labs like Google DeepMind, with critiques of academia's focus on publications and bureaucracy and praise for industry's moonshot capabilities.

Discussions focus on the shortcomings of recommendation engines like Netflix's, which are criticized for being skewed toward popular content, lacking personalization, and failing to match user tastes, with users sharing complaints and improvement ideas.

Cluster focuses on experiences with Time Machine backups on macOS, including recommendations for setup, restoration successes and failures, capacity issues, and alternatives like Carbon Copy Cloner during system recoveries or upgrades.

Discussions center on comparisons between the Latin alphabet and other writing systems like Cyrillic, Arabic, and Devanagari, debating their suitability for different languages, cultural biases, and historical switches.

Discussions recommend and praise apps like Citymapper and Transit for superior public transportation routing, timetables, real-time data, and UI compared to Google Maps, while mentioning transit APIs and data sources like GTFS.

Discussions focus on the historical shift of 'computer' from human operators to machines, alongside debates on terminology reuse and bastardization in computer science like 'computer science' itself.

The cluster focuses on frustrations with maintaining and repairing modern connected cars, which often require home parking, manufacturer cloud access, or dealer service, leading to breakdowns, immobility, and sarcasm about unreliability when away from home.

The cluster centers on debates about vigilante justice versus formal legal systems, distinguishing between vengeance, mob justice, and true justice, often in response to perceived failures of official justice.

The cluster centers on debates distinguishing Type 1 (autoimmune, insulin-dependent) from Type 2 (often diet-related) diabetes, correcting misconceptions about causes, treatments like diet or insulin devices, and their applicability.

This cluster discusses the legality of recording or filming in public spaces, particularly police activities, in the US and other countries, debating rights to privacy, consent laws, and expectations in public.

Discussions focus on recommending Creative Commons licenses such as CC0, CC-BY-SA, and others for releasing works into the public domain or allowing open reuse, often comparing them to software licenses like MIT or GPL and addressing their legal implications.

Commenters debate the extent of CPU speed, memory, and overall computing power improvements over the past 10-30 years, comparing modern devices like laptops and phones to historical PCs and supercomputers while addressing perceptions of stagnation due to software bloat.

The cluster centers on debates about software telemetry, particularly whether it should be opt-in or opt-out, balancing user privacy and consent against its value for product improvement and bug detection.

The cluster focuses on frustrations with Kindle's DRM-locked ecosystem, desires for cross-device e-book compatibility (e.g., reading Kindle books on Kobo or vice versa), and workarounds like Calibre, Send to Kindle, and EPUB conversions.

Discussions center on OS behaviors for deleting or modifying files still open via file descriptors, contrasting Unix-like systems (unlink keeps file until all FDs closed) with Windows (prevents deletion), including issues with sharing FDs, locking, and portability.

The cluster focuses on discussions about Ethereum's shift from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake, including its timeline, expected benefits like reduced energy use, and how it addresses criticisms of mining and scalability.

This cluster focuses on discussions about unlockable bootloaders on Android phones, including availability across devices like Google Pixel, Huawei, and Xiaomi, challenges with locked bootloaders, and implications for security, customization, and warranties.

The cluster centers on discussions of political biases, reliability, and quality declines in major news publications like The Guardian, The Economist, WSJ, FT, and NYT, with users comparing their leanings from left to right and debating balanced journalism.

Discussions center on aircraft and drone flying altitudes, regulatory limits like 400ft rules, distinctions between AGL and MSL measurements, flight levels, and cruising heights in aviation contexts.

The cluster centers on discussions of SQL injection attacks and vulnerabilities in software, with commenters highlighting classic flaws, expressing surprise at their persistence, and referencing examples like error messages or exploits.

Discussions focus on the constraints of fixed-size integers like 32-bit and 64-bit in programming languages, overflows, and the need for big integer libraries or arbitrary-precision arithmetic.

The cluster centers on debates about accommodating people with disabilities, especially mobility impairments, through laws like the ADA, including discussions of costs, benefits to others (e.g., ramps for strollers), and analogies to wheelchair access versus business burdens.

Users propose, accept, or discuss wagers on claims, predictions, or statements made in Hacker News threads, often specifying stakes, odds, or counterparties.

Commenters debate the value, originality, and practicality of advice in a specific blog article or post, praising it as insightful or dismissing it as clichéd and generic.

Comments in this cluster repeatedly identify and discuss survivorship bias as a key flaw in the parent article's argument or examples, often linking to Wikipedia, with some samples debating its applicability in contexts like startups and success stories.

The cluster centers on discussions of Japan's distinctive work culture, highlighting intense hours, employee loyalty, lifetime employment, and contrasts with Western norms like not leaving before the boss.

Discussions center on how zoning laws, building permits, environmental regulations, and NIMBYism create significant barriers to constructing new housing and developments in US cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Commenters debate the timeline of issues with a service or technology, contrasting past problems that have improved recently against claims of ongoing or recent unreliability, often referencing old articles from years ago.

The cluster centers on discussions of the proverb 'Good artists copy, great artists steal,' debating imitation, originality, and the line between inspiration and plagiarism in art, technology, and innovation.

Discussions center on the inconsistencies between English spelling and pronunciation, historical factors like the Great Vowel Shift and etymological influences, dialect variations, and comparisons to more phonetic orthographies in other languages.

The cluster discusses the preference for .com domains over alternative TLDs like .io, .net, and .org, debating factors such as availability due to squatting, user trust, memorability, SEO performance, and perceived prestige.

Discussions center on border agents demanding access to unlock and search electronic devices like phones and laptops, with advice on using burner devices, factory resets, or encryption to protect privacy, often referencing EFF guides.

Users overwhelmingly recommend The Economist as a high-quality weekly news source for its thoughtful analysis, global coverage, concise writing, and lack of sensationalism, often comparing it favorably to daily publications like NYT.

Users repeatedly request or complain about the lack of pause, play, seek, scrub, and skip buttons in a video player interface, highlighting frustrations with autoplay and control usability.

This cluster debates whether natural immunity from prior COVID-19 infection provides equal, superior, or inferior protection compared to vaccine-induced immunity, including discussions on duration, effectiveness against variants, and the benefits of vaccination after infection.

The cluster centers on how individuals justify unethical actions using excuses like 'everyone does it,' 'it's always been this way,' or by accusing others of hypocrisy and projection.

The cluster discusses the economic decay, population loss, and lack of viable jobs in small towns, particularly in rural America, due to automation, industry shifts, and migration to cities.

The cluster centers on debates about the F-35 fighter jet program's massive costs, including over $1 trillion in lifetime expenses for development, production, maintenance, and operations, with comparisons to cheaper alternatives like F-16s, A-10s, or drones and criticisms of its value.

Discussions center on AVX-512 instruction set's performance benefits, availability and compatibility on Intel (Alder Lake, Xeons) and AMD (Zen2, Zen4) CPUs, including throttling, disabling, and comparisons to AVX2.

This cluster centers on debates comparing Google and OpenAI's AI capabilities, particularly in large language models, with discussions on which company is ahead, their respective advantages in technology, data, infrastructure, productization, and market positioning.

The cluster focuses on debates distinguishing fiction from reality and non-fiction, criticizing the use of fictional stories or novels as evidence or arguments for real-world claims or actions.

Comments focus on the physics and feasibility of wind-powered boat propulsion using sails, kites, rotors, and hydrofoils, debating requirements like keels or foils, sailing faster than wind, and comparisons to traditional or powered boats.

The cluster discusses declining home ownership rates among millennials and younger generations compared to baby boomers, blaming high housing prices, NIMBYism, stagnant wages, and boomers' grip on properties.

Discussions center on efficient mathematical solutions to Project Euler problems, like using n(n+1)/2 for sums instead of loops, brute force critiques, and related puzzles such as primes and digits of e.

The cluster focuses on encouraging contributions to OpenStreetMap (OSM) as an alternative to proprietary mapping services like Google Maps, with discussions on tools like StreetComplete and MapComplete for easy editing and improving local map data.

The cluster discusses police body cameras, their role in accountability, frequent issues like malfunctioning or being turned off during incidents, and calls for always-on recording or citizen filming to prevent misconduct.

The cluster focuses on discussions about ad fraud, particularly click fraud by bots and invalid traffic in online advertising networks like Google, highlighting how platforms profit despite defrauding advertisers.

The cluster centers on warnings that cryptocurrency is speculative gambling rather than a legitimate investment, with repeated advice against risking money one can't afford to lose due to its high volatility.

The cluster discusses incremental view maintenance and continuous materialized views in PostgreSQL, including alternatives like PipelineDB, Materialize, RisingWave, and ReadySet for real-time updates on writes rather than full recomputation. Users express desire for native Postgres support and share workarounds using triggers or streaming databases.

Users frequently check and comment on the dates of the most recent commits in GitHub repositories, often noting long periods of inactivity suggesting project abandonment or staleness.

Users share recommendations and personal experiences with ambient, focus, and other genres of background music to enhance concentration while programming or working in noisy environments.

Discussions focus on the convenience, security risks, and drawbacks of keyless entry and ignition systems in cars, with users comparing them to traditional key fobs, suggesting disabling features, and questioning phone-based alternatives.

The cluster focuses on widespread skepticism and debates about trusting Google with user data, privacy, services, and decisions, citing their advertising model and track record.

Comments primarily question whether a specific organization or project qualifies as or behaves like a non-profit, debate its compatibility with non-profit principles, and suggest non-profit alternatives.

The cluster centers on users proposing or debating large-scale tree planting and reforestation as a straightforward alternative to technological carbon capture methods for addressing climate change.

Cluster centers on discussions of visual programming languages and tools like Codeflow, BlockStudio, LabVIEW, Unreal Blueprints, and dataflow systems, with users sharing examples, inspirations, and comparisons.

Discussions focus on putting specific US federal expenditures into perspective by comparing them to the total federal budget, major department budgets, or revenue, often with links to Wikipedia infographics and official sources.

Comments repeatedly invoke the proverb 'perfect is the enemy of good' to caution against letting the pursuit of perfection hinder practical progress or acceptable outcomes in various contexts like technology, engineering, and decision-making.

Discussions focus on whether a specific software or feature supports ChromeOS/ChromiumOS, including installation on Chromebooks or PCs, Linux VM capabilities like Crostini/Crouton, and alternatives like other Linux distros.

Comments primarily request updates, express interest in, or voice skepticism about the results and reproducibility of a specific experiment discussed in the HN post.

Comments focus on Tesla's decision to use cameras, radar, and ultrasonics instead of LIDAR for autonomous driving, debating its effectiveness, limitations in various conditions, and comparisons to competitors like Waymo and Uber.

Discussions revolve around Bazel as a recommended or comparative build tool, with users questioning its advantages, sharing experiences, and debating its suitability versus the post's proposed system.

Discussions compare traditional paper tickets and magnetic stripes to modern alternatives like NFC cards, contactless bank payments, QR codes, and mobile apps in public transit systems worldwide, debating convenience, tracking privacy, fare evasion, and implementation in cities like London, Singapore, and others.

This cluster focuses on debates about Internet Service Providers (ISPs), including their practices, service quality, lack of competition (especially in the US), regional differences, and requests for specific examples.

The cluster discusses the environmental challenges and disposal methods for the concentrated salty brine produced by seawater desalination plants, including risks of local salinity increases, harm to marine life, and potential uses or dilutions.

The cluster focuses on debates about real-world 5G speeds, coverage, and usefulness compared to 4G/LTE, with users sharing experiences across carriers and locations where 4G often performs equally or better.

This cluster features repetitive comments urging someone or something to cease annoying behavior, such as spamming or repetitive posting on Hacker News. Users express frustration and demand an immediate stop to the unwanted activity.

Users share advice and experiences on filing complaints with agencies like the FTC, state Attorneys General, GDPR offices, and ombudsmen against a company for violations such as privacy issues or abuse.

The cluster debates the existence, computability, and describability of real numbers, emphasizing that most are uncountable and uncomputable, unlike rationals or algebraics, and questioning their 'reality' in physics and computing.

Cluster centers on debates invoking the US Founding Fathers' intentions, views on the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and government principles, often arguing whether modern issues align with or contradict their vision.

The cluster discusses proposals to combat spam by imposing costs like per-message fees, micro-payments, or proof-of-work on senders, making large-scale spamming unprofitable especially for email and online posts.

Commenters frequently compare the main article's product or service to Costco, questioning its novelty and praising Costco's low prices, bulk buying, membership model, and customer service as a superior or established alternative.

The cluster focuses on issues with Docker Hub such as rate limiting, outages, and dependency risks, with discussions recommending alternatives like GitLab Registry, GHCR, private registries, proxies, or mirroring strategies.

Discussions center on whether solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, or independent contractors should form an LLC, S-corp, or similar entity to optimize taxes, reduce self-employment taxes via salary structures, limit personal liability, and avoid IRS scrutiny, with repeated calls to consult accountants or lawyers.

Discussions center on the 24fps standard in movies, the role of motion blur in creating smooth motion, and debates over high frame rates, TV frame interpolation, and the soap opera effect.

Cluster debates the link between poverty and crime, questioning if poverty causes criminal behavior, excuses it, or if cultural and enforcement factors are more significant.

Discussions center on the everyday usefulness of Amazon Echo, Google Home, and similar voice assistants for tasks like timers, weather checks, music playback, and smart home control, alongside debates on privacy concerns and comparisons to phone-based alternatives.

Comments debate the nature of personal identity, questioning whether individuals possess a single true self, multiple facets or personas, or no fixed self at all, often in social and philosophical contexts.