The hottest Patterns Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
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#138 The power of patterns

Design Lobster • 419 implied HN points • 04 Sep 23
🎨 Art & Illustration Design Patterns Creativity Decor Art
  1. Toilet paper embossed with patterns is not just for aesthetics; it increases surface area for better grip and functionality.
  2. Patterns in design can convey stories and emotions without using words, adding depth and visual appeal.
  3. The right pattern can add value and uniqueness to a product, like the legal case involving a mathematician's copyrighted pattern on toilet paper.

Dress Me, You Fool!

SBJournal • 157 implied HN points • 17 Jan 24
🪞 Fashion & Beauty Patterns Tools
  1. A dress is a complete outfit in one garment; it's about utility and style.
  2. Classic dress silhouettes like the A-line and sheath are timeless and versatile.
  3. Different dress styles require specific sewing techniques and tools, such as special needles for knits or a serger for speed and neat finishes.

How things come to be as they are

Overthinking Everything • 349 implied HN points • 19 Feb 23
🔬 Science Evolution Biology Technology Memes Patterns
  1. The theory of evolution explains the existence, creation, and extinction of things based on modifications and combinations of existing entities.
  2. Evolutionary processes are not confined to biological organisms but also apply to technologies, ideas (memes), and even inanimate objects like rocks.
  3. Understanding evolutionary theory can help in generating plausible explanations for how things came to be and in devising actions to shape the desired outcomes.
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The Pleasure of Pattern

Software Design: Tidy First? • 45 HN points • 14 Feb 24
🎨 Art & Illustration Patterns Music Programming Psychology
  1. Finding patterns in tasks like programming, music, and poker can be intensely satisfying and enjoyable.
  2. Music is full of patterns that can be discovered and enjoyed, especially through improvisation and communication.
  3. Seeing patterns in different activities like programming, music, and poker can lead to moments of satisfaction, indicating a brain wired to crave order and appreciate pattern recognition.

Back-end for Front-end Pattern in Ecommerce

Cristian’s Substack • 39 implied HN points • 10 Apr 23
🕹 Technology Development Architecture APIs Microservices Patterns
  1. Back-end for Front-end (BFF) pattern helps reduce front-end complexity by acting as an interface between front-end and microservices/APIs.
  2. BFF pattern separates front-end requirements from back-end concerns, making the application easier to maintain and more resilient to API changes.
  3. Implementing BFF pattern can improve error handling, maintainability, and performance in an ecommerce platform by allowing for better control over API consumption and reducing network steps.

How "new type" helps avoid production outages

Blog System/5 • 4 HN points • 09 Mar 24
🕹 Technology Programming Software Infrastructure Testing Patterns
  1. The 'new type' idiom in programming involves wrapping native types in domain-specific types to prevent errors when passing values to external APIs.
  2. Avoid using primitive types like integers or strings directly in your code base by creating new types like `Username` and `Size` for better code structure.
  3. Adopting the 'new type' pattern can help prevent production outages by catching issues like function argument swaps early on and enforcing correct usage through type safety.

LLMs and Generative AI don't deal with concepts

Top Carbon Chauvinist • 1 HN point • 13 Apr 24
🕹 Technology AI Machine Learning Generative models Computing Patterns
  1. LLMs and generative AI focus on patterns, not real concepts. They generate outputs based on learned data but don’t actually understand what those outputs mean.
  2. When asked to create an image, like an ouroboros, generative AI often misses the mark. It replicates the look without truly grasping the idea behind it.
  3. To get the desired result, people often have to give very detailed prompts, which means the AI is more about matching shapes than understanding or creating an actual concept.

Taking a little bit of magic out of AI

Notices to three friends • 1 implied HN point • 14 Dec 23
🔬 Science AI Machine Learning Classification Correlation Patterns
  1. Classifiers in AI can identify objects based on superficial, correlated properties, rather than intrinsic characteristics.
  2. Machine learning methods are effective at finding these properties because they operate in a vast space of properties and can test them statistically.
  3. Humans differ from AI models in our ability to go beyond superficial correlations and strive to discover the truth by discarding existing categories.