The hottest Substack posts right now

according to Hacker News
Category

How To Be Happy In A Genocidal Dystopia On A Dying World

Caitlin’s Newsletter • 3306 implied HN points • 14 Jan 25
đź“– Philosophy Happiness Perception Human experience Dystopia Existentialism
  1. You can find joy even in tough times. Appreciate the little things like nature and moments of beauty.
  2. It's okay to feel sad about the world, but don't let it steal your happiness. Engage with reality and feel all the emotions.
  3. Focus on recognizing the amazing parts of life. Shift your mindset to see the good things around you every day.

Code reviews

Basta’s Notes • 286 implied HN points • 05 Dec 25
đź•ą Technology Best Practices Software Development AI Tools Code Review Programming
  1. Code reviews are crucial for maintaining a clean and efficient codebase. By giving thoughtful feedback, you help improve the team’s overall coding practices.
  2. With the rise of AI in programming, it’s important to not just trust the AI’s output. You need to review and refine its work to make sure it fits well within the overall code structure.
  3. Looking for common issues, like duplicated code, is key during reviews. Small repetitive mistakes can pile up and make the codebase messy, so it's best to address them early.

On 40 Hours: A Book For A Time Like This

Day One • 938 implied HN points • 09 Mar 24
đź’Ľ Business Marketing Personal Finance Entrepreneurship Self-help Productivity
  1. Time is the most valuable asset as it cannot be created or bought back. Focus on utilizing your time effectively to reach your goals.
  2. Distractions such as social media, excess entertainment, and procrastination can hinder progress. Identify them and work towards eliminating them to achieve success.
  3. Prioritize learning from helpful resources and taking action. Choose a few key lessons to implement, banishing distractions until they become part of your daily routine.

How to Get Your Writing Featured on Google and Your Own Google Knowledge Panel

Kristina God's Online Writing Club • 1079 implied HN points • 20 Feb 24
đź•ą Technology Digital marketing Search Engine Social media Personal Branding Content creation
  1. Getting a Google Knowledge Panel can help you be recognized as a writer. It acts like an online business card that gives information about you and your work.
  2. Creating a Knowledge Panel is not too hard, but keeping it updated takes effort. You need to actively educate Google about you and your work.
  3. Using different types of content like videos and images can make you more visible. Google looks for people who write and engage in various media.

~70% of PHerc. 172 is now digitally unwrapped

Vesuvius Challenge • 98 implied HN points • 13 Jan 26
đź•ą Technology Digital Preservation Computer Vision Machine Learning Imaging Automation
  1. The team has digitally unwrapped about 70% of the lower region of PHerc. 172 using a new automated pipeline that's over 10× faster than fully manual methods, though humans still must fix sheet‑switch errors.
  2. The unwrapped area covers roughly 7 meters by 14 cm and gives semi‑continuous surfaces with readable ink mainly on outer wraps and fragments; the upper ~30% is too mangled to unwrap reliably and the 7.9 µm scan resolution limits legibility compared with clearer 2.4 µm rescans.
  3. Help is needed to improve surface extraction (to reduce sheet switches), strengthen ink detection in hard inner regions, and make the pipeline more scalable and user‑friendly—there's an ongoing Kaggle challenge for surface detection.
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ACX Grants Results 2024

Astral Codex Ten • 9429 implied HN points • 10 Feb 24
đź’Ľ Business Bioengineering Grants Advocacy Global Development Political Change
  1. The ACX Grants Results for 2024 announced several innovative projects that received funding, ranging from lead-acid battery recycling in Nigeria to lobbying for changes in kidney donation laws.
  2. The grantees included projects like developing anti-mosquito drones, creating germicidal UV lightbulbs, and advocating for a specialized pandemic response team at the FDA.
  3. The ACX Grants covered a diverse range of causes, including animal welfare, educational attainment, political change, and innovative medical research like artificial kidney creation and phage therapy.

2,800 jobs to go...

Off to Lunch • 1356 implied HN points • 19 Jan 24
đź’Ľ Business Economy Retail Environment Politics Industry
  1. Tata Steel is cutting 2,800 jobs in the UK by closing two blast furnaces to shift to electric arc furnaces.
  2. The job cuts are part of a plan to reduce carbon emissions and transform the Port Talbot facility into a center for green steelmaking.
  3. The UK faces a significant drop in retail sales, potentially signaling a risk of falling into a recession.

From Zero to 100 Paid Subscribers on Substack

Kristina God's Online Writing Club • 1139 implied HN points • 12 Feb 24
đź’Ľ Business Audience engagement Content Monetization Online Writing Digital Platforms
  1. Your unique voice and perspective are valuable. People will pay for your insights and stories, so embrace your individuality.
  2. Substack allows you to build a direct income from your subscribers. Unlike many other platforms, you can earn consistent money from your loyal audience.
  3. There is a niche for everyone. No matter how unconventional your ideas are, there are people who will relate to and appreciate your work.

Cursor's Unfair UX Advantage

Generating Conversation • 46 implied HN points • 12 Feb 26
đź•ą Technology UX Product AI Developer Tools Startups Data
  1. Make tasks tiny: small, incremental units of work let users catch mistakes early, build trust, and produce dense feedback that powers a strong data advantage.
  2. A low‑stakes autocomplete/IDE UX makes it easy to accept or reject suggestions, so even imperfect prompts save time and generate lots of useful training signals.
  3. Design agents for fast iteration and cumulative correctness rather than one‑shot perfection — cheap inference and quick feedback loops let users get to the right answer over a few tries and move much faster.

Ambition, fun and not

benn.substack • 1252 implied HN points • 04 Jul 25
đź’Ľ Business Entrepreneurship Startups Innovation Sales Management
  1. Starting a startup sounds great because you can choose your projects and team, but it comes with a lot of hard work and stress. Many founders regret getting into it despite the glamorous idea of freedom.
  2. Once startups grow into businesses, they lose some of their initial fun and freedom. The excitement of being a creator changes to dealing with corporate responsibilities and customer demands.
  3. Even if a startup has bold ideas, like Cluely's innovative concept, they often end up focusing on practical business solutions. This shift can make their original ambitious vision seem smaller than intended.

Abundance, Dislocation, & the Fight to Focus Our Attention in the 21st Century

Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality • 230 implied HN points • 10 Dec 25
đź•ą Technology Technological Change Economic Growth Artificial Intelligence Attention Economy Digital Platforms
  1. Material abundance has largely ended mass scarcity and improved health and longevity, but it doesn’t automatically give people meaning or a sense of agency; we must use wealth to create conditions for living wisely and well.
  2. Rapid technological change brings big gains but also disruptive dislocation and is being handled only moderately well by current politics. The emerging Info‑Bio‑Tech era makes attention the scarcest resource, so guarding focus against platform-driven capture is essential.
  3. The center of global growth is shifting toward the developing world, and the main political task is building institutions that expand real freedom—agency, dignity, and a shared sense of reality—so people can truly flourish.

TTW Extra #6 🔥: All Java talks of 2024 so far...

Tech Talks Weekly • 198 implied HN points • 03 Aug 24
đź•ą Technology Programming Languages Software Development Conferences Java Developer Tools
  1. There are many Java talks happening at conferences in 2024, covering various topics. It's a great way to learn about the latest trends and practices in Java development.
  2. Some of the most popular talks include topics like Test-Driven Development and Domain-Driven Design. These subjects are important for improving coding practices and software architecture.
  3. Watching these talks can help developers stay updated and reduce the fear of missing out on new technologies and methods in the Java community.

2025 Interconnects year in review

Democratizing Automation • 195 implied HN points • 18 Dec 25
đź•ą Technology Model releases Artificial Intelligence AI Policy Research Machine Learning Reinforcement Learning
  1. The publication grew a lot this year and became a much more influential source of cutting‑edge AI analysis, reaching millions of pageviews and a much larger audience.
  2. Reinforcement learning, reasoning models, and open‑model ecosystems were the central technical themes, and major initiatives were launched to advance American open models and research infrastructure.
  3. Output hit practical limits after a year of high volume, so the focus is shifting to higher‑value work: prioritizing quality over quantity, investing in key projects, and using more open models going forward.

The next big thing in 2026 will be...

next big thing • 141 implied HN points • 01 Jan 26
đź•ą Technology Hardware Cybersecurity Healthcare Tech Startups Enterprise Software Consumer Tech Robotics Machine Learning AI
  1. Autonomous, end-to-end AI agents will move from being copilots to pilots, owning whole workflows and delivering outcomes rather than just answering prompts.
  2. Persistent memory, proactive behavior, and on-device inference will make AI feel like a personal companion and unlock a wave of new consumer products, generative media, and personalized experiences.
  3. AI will start showing up in the bottom line, driving real deployments, new pricing models, hardware launches, and a surge of IPOs and M&A, while human-heavy AI services get exposed if they can’t prove machine-driven margins.

Open Thread 368

Astral Codex Ten • 2959 implied HN points • 10 Feb 25
đź•ą Technology AI safety Meetups Philanthropy
  1. A biotech company called MiniCircle had mixed research results on a new technology. While there are some positive findings, the effects are much weaker than needed, and more careful testing is required.
  2. Open Philanthropy plans to give out $40 million for AI safety research. They're looking for new ideas in areas like control and generalization, and people can apply for funding.
  3. Students at the University of Chicago have started a rationalist reading and meetup group. They invite anyone interested to join and connect with others who share similar interests.

The Algorithm Next Door

After Babel • 1096 implied HN points • 31 Jul 25
đź•ą Technology Community Building Digital Spaces Algorithms Social media
  1. Social media platforms like Nextdoor can create fear in communities, making people feel unsafe and distrustful of their neighbors. Instead of bringing people together, they often highlight negative events that amplify anxiety.
  2. This fear can lead to children not being allowed to explore their neighborhoods freely, impacting their independence and social skills. Parents often feel compelled to keep their kids indoors because of the scary stories they see online.
  3. There are better ways to create community connections online that foster trust and safety. Platforms like Front Porch Forum encourage neighborly interactions without the fear-mongering found in traditional social media.

What Can AI Learn from Accounting Standards?

Asimov’s Addendum • 79 implied HN points • 16 Aug 24
đź•ą Technology AI Development
  1. AI regulation should begin with clear and detailed disclosures, just like accounting standards did after the stock market crash of 1929. This will help everyone understand how AI is being developed and used.
  2. Private companies should agree on best practices and measurements for AI, similar to how accountants developed standardized practices over time. This will create a shared understanding of what works and what doesn’t.
  3. The AI auditing community needs to come together to create standards for oversight. Just like in accounting, having a unified approach will help ensure trust and accuracy in AI practices.

On the Threshold

Anima Mundi • 144 implied HN points • 31 Dec 25
đź“– Philosophy Civilization Belonging Cultural critique Existence Selfhood Time
  1. Humans need moments of pause at thresholds to reflect on what was and what might be, and these pauses help settle the year into memory and make space for what wants to emerge.
  2. Two strands of writing will be offered: long, deeply developed essays published regularly, and shorter weekly reviews that track thinking in real time; paid subscriptions support the time needed for the deeper work and a New Year discount is available.
  3. There's an invitation to take a still moment to let go and take stock between years, paired with gratitude for shared attention and an open call to continue the conversation together.

Go Grok Yourself

Don't Worry About the Vase • 2777 implied HN points • 19 Feb 25
đź•ą Technology AI Software Gadgets Networking Computing
  1. Grok 3 is now out, and while it has many fans, there are mixed feelings about its performance compared to other AI models. Some think it's good, but others feel it still has a long way to go.
  2. Despite Elon Musk's big promises, Grok 3 didn't fully meet expectations, yet it did surprise some users with its capabilities. It shows potential but is still considered rough around the edges.
  3. Many people feel Grok 3 is catching up to competitors but lacks the clarity and polish that others like OpenAI and DeepSeek have. Users are curious to see how it will improve over time.

Nobody is shipping your agent’s code (yet) | Predictions from LinearB’s Ori Keren

Dev Interrupted • 56 implied HN points • 03 Feb 26
đź•ą Technology DevOps Open Source Infrastructure Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning Software Engineering Developer Tools
  1. AI has erased the blank-page problem and speeds up code generation, but those upstream gains are being lost to chaotic code reviews, testing, and integration unless teams build proper infrastructure.
  2. Agentic tools that can control your local machine (like OpenClaw/Moltbot) show huge power but create major security and governance risks, so most organizations won’t give them autonomous control yet.
  3. The economics of software are shifting: survival favors substrate-efficient tools and firms with unique data or "insight compression," and the current "dark flow" of vibe coding can make teams feel faster while actually introducing hidden bugs, so risk-aware pipelines and better testing are essential.

Ban ChatGPT*

benn.substack • 894 implied HN points • 15 Aug 25
đź•ą Technology Social Impact AI Ethics Chatbots Digital Addiction Tech Culture
  1. We need to think carefully about how far we let chatbots, like ChatGPT, change our lives before it's too late. It's important to recognize when the convenience of using these tools starts to feel more like a need.
  2. There are real stories of people who have become overly dependent on these AI tools, leading to dangerous situations. These examples show how powerful and potentially harmful these technologies can be.
  3. As a society, we need to set boundaries on how we interact with AI. It's crucial to discuss what kind of future we want to avoid before these technologies take over too much of our lives.

Setting the Record Straight: Debunking Anatoly's Misconceptions about Security in Distributed Ledger Networks

Dan Hughes • 339 implied HN points • 08 Jun 24
đź”® Crypto Security Blockchain Consensus Distributed Systems
  1. The honest majority assumption is key for blockchain security. It means that most participants must act honestly to keep the network safe from attacks.
  2. Full nodes rely on validator nodes to check the validity of transactions. If most validators are dishonest, full nodes cannot prevent issues like double spending.
  3. Economic security is important for discouraging attacks on a network. High stakes for validators make it less likely for them to act maliciously, as the potential losses from being caught far outweigh any gains.

Meditations on Founder Mode

The Engineering Leader • 79 implied HN points • 08 Sep 24
đź’Ľ Business Strategy Organizational Behavior Entrepreneurship Management Leadership
  1. Founder Mode allows leaders to be more hands-on and in touch with their company. This helps them make quick decisions that align with their original vision.
  2. While Founder Mode can be effective in early stages, it doesn't scale well in larger companies because one person can't manage everything.
  3. Great leaders know when to switch between being hands-on and delegating tasks. This flexibility is key to adapting to a company's growth and changing needs.

Issue #12 – The Three Biggest Data Problems Companies Face

The Data Ecosystem • 239 implied HN points • 30 Jun 24
đź’Ľ Business Process Improvement Data Quality Technology Integration Data Management Organizational Structure
  1. Companies often struggle with a data operating model that doesn't connect well with their other teams. This leads to isolation among data specialists, making it hard to work effectively.
  2. Data models, which are important for understanding and using data correctly, are often overlooked. When organizations don’t reference these models, they can drift further away from their goals.
  3. Many data quality issues come from deeper problems within the organization, like poor data governance and inconsistent processes. Fixing just the visible data quality issues won't solve the bigger problems.

When, why, and how to stop coding as your day job

It Depends / Nimble Autonomy • 11 HN points • 22 Sep 24
đź•ą Technology Management Technical Skills Leadership Career growth Software Development
  1. Stepping away from coding allows you to focus on being a more effective manager. When you stop coding, you can better support and lead your team.
  2. Many technical leaders struggle to balance coding and management, often feeling they must still code to stay relevant. However, shifting your focus to team leadership is essential for growth.
  3. To remain connected to technology, take an interest in your team's work and continue learning. You can still engage with technology without it being the main part of your job.

This Week in Marketing: TikTok is local, Instagram is loco, Discord is locked, and AI is labor

The Social Juice • 39 implied HN points • 15 Feb 26
đź’Ľ Business Platforms Media Data Privacy Regulation Marketing AI Advertising Social media
  1. Social platforms are racing to add new features and revenue streams — think TikTok’s local feed and Shop, X and LinkedIn subscriptions, and Meta/YouTube ad and AI tools driving creator commerce.
  2. Those product pushes are colliding with privacy, safety and legal headaches — Discord’s age checks sparked backlash, Instagram faced scrutiny over youth harm, and Google and Meta are under regulatory and antitrust pressure.
  3. AI is booming in investment and productization, but it’s also intensifying work and creating real risks — studies, botched real‑world uses, fake experts and automation worries show the tradeoffs as companies rush to monetize AI.

On Joining OpenAI

Artificial Ignorance • 138 implied HN points • 09 Jan 26
đź•ą Technology Tutorials Community Product AI Developer Tools APIs
  1. Joined OpenAI to work on Developer Experience, helping developers learn and build with OpenAI’s technology.
  2. Public news roundups are ending, and the newsletter will shift toward longer deep dives with more engineering-specific, practical content for builders.
  3. Experimenting with Substack Chat for paid subscribers (office hours and topic threads) while explicitly avoiding confidential or leaked information and keeping the writing practical and grounded.

How old is this newspaper?

Pea Bee • 183 implied HN points • 29 Dec 25
đź•ą Technology Digital Archives Image Processing Data Engineering Game Development Web Development Product Design
  1. PressGuessr is a game that asks players to guess the publication year of Indian Express front pages using visual and textual clues.
  2. The dataset has over 13,000 front pages from 1932–2025 gathered from Google News Archive and PressReader, with publication dates programmatically blurred and many modern full-page ads removed.
  3. Building the game was enjoyable and it’s more challenging to play than expected, and you can try it at pressguessr.com.

Recursive self-improvement

Metacritic Capital • 6 implied HN points • 10 Mar 26
đź•ą Technology Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning Reinforcement Learning Model Training Compute Hardware
  1. AI training and inference costs are falling rapidly, with practical community optimizations already cutting costs by large orders of magnitude.
  2. Cheaper models let you run far more reasoning tokens, and that extra compute predictably improves performance; reinforcement learning with verifiable rewards can crystallize those gains.
  3. Falling costs combined with inference-time scaling and agent swarms create a feedback loop that can drive recursive self-improvement, so investors should expect faster capability growth and significant economic and safety implications.

Sora still appears to have trouble with physics

Marcus on AI • 3636 implied HN points • 10 Dec 24
đź•ą Technology Innovation Physics Data Computer Science AI
  1. Sora struggles to understand basic physics. It doesn't know how objects should behave in space or time.
  2. Past warnings about Sora's physics issues still hold true. Even with more data, it seems these problems won't go away.
  3. Investing a lot of money into Sora hasn't fixed its understanding of physics. The approach we're using to teach it seems to be failing.

I Am Paying Reparations to the Shrimp

Richard Hanania's Newsletter • 4096 implied HN points • 15 Nov 24
đź“– Philosophy Ethics Animal Rights Utilitarianism Debate Charity
  1. It's important to think about the impact of our food choices on animals, like shrimp, and consider ethical options.
  2. Donating to animal welfare projects can help make a positive change and relieve some guilt about eating certain foods.
  3. Finding a balance between personal enjoyment and ethical responsibility can be tough, but small actions, like donating money, can make a difference.

❄️ 💳 Prime et Netflix gratuits ? Tinder Gold et 3 pass WeWork offerts ?

Snowball • 1395 implied HN points • 09 Jan 24
đź’° Finance Investing Fintech Rewards Banking Credit Cards
  1. Some credit cards offer unique benefits like free Amazon Prime or cashback in the form of investments.
  2. Revolut cards come with various advantages based on the subscription level, like free currency exchange or cashback on accommodations.
  3. American Express cards provide a range of benefits, from purchase guarantees to access to exclusive events. The higher-tier cards offer even more luxurious perks like worldwide lounge access.

Medium’s NEW Rules for AI-Generated Writing - Good or Bad?

Kristina God's Online Writing Club • 599 implied HN points • 21 Apr 24
đź•ą Technology Content creation Online Platforms Media Policy Digital Publishing AI writing
  1. Medium is changing its rules to limit AI-generated writing. Starting May 2024, stories mostly written by AI can't be part of the paid program.
  2. Writers can still use AI tools to help their writing, but they need to put in their own effort to make changes and improvements.
  3. Medium's goal is to support human storytelling and ensure that readers get authentic experiences, which means protecting writers from AI competition.