
Ask HN: What is your favorite HN post? - JunaidBhai
Recent, old, perhaps anything that is interesting to read.
======
scott_s
Some of my actually favorited posts:

jjoonathan on Oct 6, 2014 on: Glut of postdoc researchers stirs quiet crisis
in ...
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8416875](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8416875),
"For most people it's not, but some people subscribe to the notion that choice
implies consent/endorsement/approval ..."

scardine 12 months ago on: Ask HN: My company plans an ICO despite my
opposit...
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16126082](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16126082),
"Like almost all problems in life you have only 4 options: ..."

graycat on Mar 28, 2015 on: The FedEx Problem
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9282104](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9282104),
"Yes, at FedEx, we considered that problem for about three seconds before we
noticed that we also needed: ..."

Animats on Nov 21, 2015 on: How a little bit of TCP knowledge is essential
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10608356](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10608356),
"That still irks me. The real problem is not tinygram prevention. It's ACK
delays, and that stupid fixed timer. ..."

~~~
veddox
Just learnt something new about TCP, thank you :-) (See also this post:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9048947](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9048947))

And discovered that Animats is in fact John Nagle...

------
barry-cotter
Yudkowsky Ambition Scale

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4509934](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4509934)

How Do I Start Being a Consultant?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4245960](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4245960)

Bane's rule, you don't understand a distributed computing problem until you
can get it to fit on a single machine first.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8902739](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8902739)

Edit: Thanks detaro for telling me how to link to individual comments.

~~~
pjc50
The first is an amazing hubris detector.

The "going deep" post reminds me of the "programmer-archaeologist" role from
the Vernor Vinge novels, where a long-running spacefaring civilisation has
built up a _very_ large amount of code on which their magic nanotech runs.
This provides opportunities to dig for long-forgotten things .. or exploits.

~~~
barry-cotter
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4511950](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4511950)

> That reminds me of Peter Thiel's Venn diagram of 'Sounds like a bad idea'
> and 'Is a good idea'. It's a pretty slim area in the middle and the 'Sounds
> like' part means it's hard to know until you do it.

------
apeace
“I have a slight fascination with sweeteners.”

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9440566](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9440566)

------
chatmasta
"The 4-color map theory is bunk," [0] a comment in which a user boldly refutes
modern mathematics and, when faced with contradictory evidence, continues to
double down on his assertions.

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16862553](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16862553)

~~~
tptacek
Sometimes I feel like the colored version of that map should be the official
logo of all Internet message boards.

~~~
po
…more like the un-colored one. :-D

------
dorukce
These are from my notes (the quotes below may be boring but related
discussions are good imo):

"My working theory is something like “romanticism/emotionalism vs. abstract
rationalism”; if you’re writing something that benefits from immediate
experience and emotional input (e.g. Kafka writing about nightmarish
bureaucracy after working all day in an insurance firm) then it is better to
write at night, after the events of the day have happened and your mind has
been operating for 12+ hours."
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18369337](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18369337)

"Classes get in the way between the programmer and the problem. They force you
to reify your thinking into "things" (classes) that demand names and
citizenship rights, so to speak, in the system. These "things" don't really
exist, but we act like they do, and so increasingly see the problem in terms
of the classes we've defined."
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3717715](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3717715)

"One thing that I find sorely missing in many teams is onboarding
documentation. So when you come in, document everything that you need to do
(required permissions, development environment setup, mailinglists,
subscriptions) and how to do it."
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17353854](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17353854)

"The real value of Flask is that it makes you appreciate what Django does by
default. When I first started learning Python / web frameworks, I went with
Flask because it was smaller and "simpler". As my project grew however, I had
to organize it. I was basically imitating what Django gives you by default,
though less cleanly."
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16935441](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16935441)

------
sokoloff
@cperciva in this thread:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079)

~~~
twtw
Those two comments come up frequently, but it's worth noting that in the whole
preceding thread 'cperciva was being a pretty massively arrogant jerk.

That thread is a classic example of why the most capable people aren't
necessarily the ones you should want to work with.

~~~
cperciva
I like to think that was my lowest point on HN and I've been less of a jerk
ever since.

I considered deleting my comments, but decided instead to keep them to remind
myself to behave better.

------
raihansaputra
I've compiled mine (which are mostly comments) on my blog:
[https://raihansaputra.com/hn-wisdom](https://raihansaputra.com/hn-wisdom).
It's hard to say that I am following those advice though. The gap between
knowing and action is hard to cross, somehow.

~~~
JunaidBhai
This looks great. Will save it somewhere.

------
fghtr
This question was already answered several times here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1487605](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1487605)
(2010)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3996652](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3996652)
(2012)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12496558](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12496558)
(2016)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16846229](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16846229)
(2018)

(possibly more)

~~~
bausshf
While correct. New posts happen all the time.

~~~
mortivore
Also, new people frequent here all the time, and opinions can change.

~~~
rndgermandude
Related: [https://xkcd.com/1053/](https://xkcd.com/1053/)

~~~
bausshf
The end of the comic was great.

------
bemmu
All the criticism in the Dropbox post:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863)

~~~
resters
Ironically much of the criticism and skepticism was dead on, but that didn't
stop Dropbox from becoming a very successful startup, though I think the
ultimate future of the company is not certain as of yet.

------
blancheneige
my favorite by far was the very first thread on the Snowden revelations:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5830633](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5830633)

comment by comment you could sense the earth shattering awareness slowly
setting in, or how the HN crowd suddenly went from unquestionable faith in big
government to "oh lord what have we done".

~~~
veddox
On the whole, this is one of the more edifying political threads I've read
around here...

------
nkurz
I'd like to ask a parallel meta-question: How can we make better use of HN's
existing 'favorite' feature?

Currently, we have the option to click on 'favorite' to add submissions or
comments to a publicly visible list. Occasionally (a couple times a month?) I
do this for comments that I think are excellent:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/favorites?id=nkurz&comments=t](https://news.ycombinator.com/favorites?id=nkurz&comments=t)

Some other users do the same, but I don't really know how many, because there
isn't really an interface to explore this. It looks like about half the top of
the "leaders" list make use of this feature, although in some cases these
might just be accidental clicks.

Anyway, it would seem like there should be some great way to make use of this
information, but I don't know what it would be. A simple list of recently
favorited comments? Marking on the comments that have been favorited? Just
more prominence to what a user's favorites are?

Probably there is some even better way: How can we make better use of HN's
'favorite' feature?

~~~
NikolaNovak
Good point; personally, I'd like: 1\. Ability to rename and/or annotate my
favourite 2\. Ability to put them in folders / hierarchical structure

(Mind you, easily fixed on personal level by simply bookmarking them in
browser itself instead, but doesn't help HN)

------
jpdb
I really enjoy the, "what's your stack?" threads that pop up every now and
then. It's always interesting to see what people are using, how they're using
it, and why they made the decisions they did.

------
PascLeRasc
I think about this "tech has it so much better" take often:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11370776](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11370776)

------
mitchtbaum
I can't find it anymore, but from it I learned for the first time that
functional programming can be understood simply as programming using
component-oriented design - from then on, my favorite programming concept. I
have a huge interest in software composition, so here's at least something I
could find that explains it well:

[https://alvinalexander.com/scala/fp-book/how-functional-
prog...](https://alvinalexander.com/scala/fp-book/how-functional-programming-
is-like-unix-pipelines)

------
herewulf
Posted a mere three hours before this thread, regarding writing code in a
language more reliable than Bash.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18852855](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18852855)

------
uptown
I’m not sure if this is #1 but this is one of my favorites.

“What're the best-designed things you've ever used?”

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13682949](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13682949)

~~~
kgwxd
I read that as "You're the best-designed thing you've ever used", which sounds
like a inspirational poster in a church office, so I expected a bunch of rants
about intelligent design :)

------
m-i-l
See also the YC curated selection of HN highlights[0] and also an
algorithmically generated list of (recent) best comments[1].

[0] [https://blog.ycombinator.com/category/hacker-
news/](https://blog.ycombinator.com/category/hacker-news/)

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/bestcomments](https://news.ycombinator.com/bestcomments)

------
stevenkovar
Producer vs. Consumer

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3555237](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3555237)

------
danielecook
I like this one:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18853966](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18853966)

~~~
noodles_ftw
This is a great one

~~~
_emacsomancer_
particularly, this comment:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18856271](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18856271)

~~~
scott_s
Another favorite of mine:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18861388](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18861388)

------
dlkf
Lets say you were just hired as the President of a furniture company. The
owner says he knows it's good furniture but even despite huge investments they
can't seem to sell any furniture. Your job is to turn things around...

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18022154](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18022154)

------
gfisher
I have really enjoyed reading peoples recommendations on what they have
learned and how they have grown, this post on "What has the past 12 months
taught you?" is really interesting:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17316120](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17316120)

------
GauntletWizard
Here's my favorite comment, which I believe deserves status as a law of the
internet:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1012082](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1012082)

------
saghm
This one, about the "medicinal benefits" of Cinnabon:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15615654](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15615654)

------
LinuxBender
You can view everyone's favorites in their profiles. [1]

[1] -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/favorites?id=JunaidBhai](https://news.ycombinator.com/favorites?id=JunaidBhai)

------
mcny
This is an all-time gold:

"Did you win the Putnam?"

Yes, I did.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079)

------
fb03
I really enjoy this one:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18853966](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18853966)

------
diggernet
x0x0 on: Canada to Scrap IBM Payroll Plan Gone Awry Costing...
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16495504](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16495504)

> Humans are very good at holding lots of exceptions in our heads and, in the
> absence of clear rules, doing reasonable things. Computers are shit at both
> of the above.

------
anonyppppp
I've always loved the posts where people share their side projects that are
making them $xxx / month.

------
jraph
ry_ry imagines a possible future for the kernel after Linus is gone.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18281465](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18281465)

Funny and very well written.

Edit: pasted a wrong link, fixed the context

------
centering
The ballooning one

