Hacker News
1Do Things That Don't Scale (2013)
- The article discusses the importance of doing unscalable things in early-stage startups, particularly focusing on manual user recruitment and exceptional customer service. It emphasizes that successful startups often begin with founders personally engaging with users, providing remarkable attention to detail, and taking extraordinary measures to delight their early customers.
Inverting startup inertia
Getting initial traction requires manually pushing against resistance since the world doesn't naturally want your product. Must create momentum from scratch before thinking about scaling.Manual work teaches valuable lessons
Doing things manually early on provides crucial learning and insights that get lost with premature automation. Manual processes help develop intuition and understanding that inform better product decisions.Scaling stages and optimization
Discussion of different phases: Not Scaling (initial traction), Scaling (growth), and Anti-scaling (dealing with success problems). Debate around when to optimize vs keep things simple.
2I used to know how to write in Japanese
- The article explores how one can forget how to write Japanese characters (kanji) while still being able to read them fluently. The author shares his personal experience of mastering kanji writing through intensive study but later losing this ability due to reliance on digital typing, a phenomenon known as "character amnesia." The piece delves into the neuroscience behind reading versus writing and discusses how memory processing affects language skills.
Learning approach
Debate on whether to learn handwriting vs focusing on reading/speaking. Many advocate skipping handwriting unless specifically needed, while others argue writing helps with character recognition and retention.Recognition vs recall
Discussion of how recognizing characters/symbols differs from reproducing them, similar to how people can recognize logos/songs but struggle to recreate them from memory.Native speakers' experience
Even native Japanese/Chinese speakers increasingly struggle with handwriting due to typing/technology, leading to phenomenon called "tibiwangzi" (forgetting characters when picking up pen).
3UK government states that 'safety' act is about influence over public discourse
- The UK Online Safety Act's primary aim was not child protection but rather the regulation of services significantly influencing public discourse, as revealed in a recent High Court case.
Misleading interpretation
Debate over whether The Times article misrepresented Category 1 duties of the Online Safety Act by omitting context that child protection is covered in other parts of the Act, while Category 1 focuses on public discourseBritish political apathy
Discussion of UK citizens' perceived lack of resistance to government overreach, with examples of limited public response to surveillance laws, student loan changes, and internet restrictionsAge verification concerns
Debate over whether OSA's age verification requirements are comparable to real-world age restrictions, with arguments about privacy implications and tracking of online activity
4Court records reveal Sig Sauer knew of pistol risks for years
- A court document reveals that Sig Sauer and the U.S. Army knew about serious safety risks with the P320 pistol since 2017, showing multiple ways it could fire without trigger pull. Despite internal testing identifying deadly risks, Sig Sauer defended the gun's safety while continuing sales to military, law enforcement and civilians.
Failure mode analysis interpretation
Discussion about how FMEA risk assessments work, with experts explaining that "high risk" refers to severity of potential harm rather than likelihood, and how media misinterpreted these technical documentsDesign and safety issues
Technical discussion of P320's specific defects - including trigger sensitivity, drop safety problems, and how other manufacturers address similar issues through trigger safeties and better tolerancesMilitary procurement problems
Historical examples and discussion of US military knowingly procuring defective weapons, including M16 in Vietnam and Beretta slide failures, and how procurement/testing processes can fail
5Fairness is what the powerful 'can get away with' study shows
- A study reveals that those in power act more fairly when others can easily unite against unfair treatment. Using a modified Ultimatum Game experiment, researchers found that fairness is less about internal values and more about external pressure, suggesting that limiting collective action abilities can enable power abuse.
Source quality and submissions
Discussion about phys.org's reliability as a source, article titles vs paper titles, and how submission choices affect engagement on HN, with acknowledgment of trade-offs in science journalism.Power and accountability
Debate about relationship between power and accountability, covering historical theories, modern examples, and how collective action/protest affects powerful actors' behavior.Study methodology
Critique of study's limited scope using undergraduates and the Ultimatum Game, with discussion of its applicability to real-world power dynamics and need for replication.
6The electric fence stopped working years ago
- A thought-provoking reflection on how, like dogs confined by defunct electric fences, humans often limit themselves through imaginary barriers, particularly in relationships. The fear of reaching out first or appearing vulnerable keeps us from meaningful connections, when these barriers exist only in our minds.
Direct communication without barriers
Discussion about skipping social formalities and reaching out to people without apologetic preambles. Many shared success stories of maintaining relationships by being direct and treating all contacts like close friends.Overcoming social anxiety
Exploration of how psychological barriers ("electric fences") from past experiences limit social connections, with debate about when these barriers are protective vs unnecessarily limiting.Respect for boundaries
Discussion of balance between reaching out and respecting when relationships naturally end. Some cautioned against ignoring legitimate reasons for lost connections.
7Swiss vs. UK approach to major tranport projects
- The article discusses how the UK's HS2 rail project could have been better managed using Switzerland's approach of long-term funding and timetable-first planning. Instead of a massive single project, Switzerland builds incrementally with guaranteed annual funding, leading to more efficient and cost-effective infrastructure development.
Bat tunnel controversy
Debate over £100M+ tunnel built to protect bats from HS2 trains. Some argue it's wasteful spending and environmental regulations being misused, while others defend species protection and proper impact assessment.Swiss railway approach
Switzerland's methodical, long-term planning of rail infrastructure praised for effectiveness. They work backward from future timetable goals rather than pursuing megaprojects, though lack true high-speed rail.Infrastructure costs
Discussion of why modern Western infrastructure projects face delays and cost overruns, with focus on unpredictable planning, legal challenges, and treating construction like scalable services.
8White House loyalty rating for companies
- The White House has created a scorecard tracking 553 companies' support for Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill," rating their engagement as strong, moderate, or low based on social media, events, and public endorsements. Companies like Uber, DoorDash, and AT&T made the "good partners" list.
Fascist corporate loyalty system
Discussion of how the administration's corporate loyalty rating system represents fascistic merger of government and business, with CEOs largely complying rather than speaking out against itTransactional corruption
Debate about viewing the administration through lens of organized crime and transactional relationships, with companies working to curry favor through gifts and loyalty rather than following lawsBoth sides comparison
Arguments about whether corruption "crosses the aisle" equally, with most pushing back that current actions are unprecedented in scale and represent a unique threat to democracy
9Simulating and Visualising the Central Limit Theorem
- This article explores the Central Limit Theorem through practical simulations and visualizations using R programming. The author shares their journey from avoiding statistics in university to developing a deep interest in Bayesian statistics, and demonstrates how sample means from different distributions tend to approximate a normal distribution, providing real-world examples and implications for statistical analysis.
Generalizations and extensions of CLT
Discussion of various extensions to the Central Limit Theorem, including versions for distributions without finite variance, extreme value theory (Fisher-Tippett-Gnedenko), and Edgeworth series approximations.Statistical bounds and inequalities
Discussion of Chebyshev's and Cantelli's inequalities as more conservative alternatives to CLT, especially relevant for financial risk modeling and rare events.Tidyverse debate in R
Debate about pros and cons of using Tidyverse in R programming, with arguments about readability, functional style and comparison to base R's standard library design choices.
10Imagen 4 is now generally available
- Google announces general availability of Imagen 4, their advanced text-to-image model family, including Imagen 4 Fast, Imagen 4, and Imagen 4 Ultra. The models offer improved text rendering, up to 2K resolution, and varying levels of quality and speed, with Fast version priced at $0.02 per image.
Prompt adherence issues
Discussion centers on Imagen 4's poor adherence to prompt instructions, especially in the comic strip example. Debate about whether Ultra version would perform better and if strict adherence matters for creative tasks.Comparison with competitors
Users compare Imagen 4 to other AI image generators like OpenAI's GPT-Image-1, Midjourney, and earlier Imagen versions. General consensus is that competitors often produce better results despite Google's claims.Documentation and availability
Criticism of Google's documentation being incomplete/outdated, and discussion about the delayed general availability of Imagen 4 compared to previous limited release.