\

Ask HN: What are the best engineering blogs with real-world depth?

410 points - yesterday at 9:50 AM


I’m looking for examples of high-quality engineering blog posts—especially from tech company blogs, that go beyond surface-level explanations.

Specifically interested in posts that: 1. Explain technical concepts clearly and concisely 2. Show real implementation details, trade-offs, and failures 3. Are well-structured and readable 4. Tie engineering decisions back to business or product outcomes

Any standout blogs, posts, or platforms you regularly learn from?

  • pella

    yesterday at 10:53 AM

    > especially from tech company blogs,

    https://engineering.fb.com/

    https://netflixtechblog.com/

    https://stripe.com/blog/engineering

    https://eng.uber.com

    https://engineering.linkedin.com/

    https://engineering.atspotify.com/

    https://tailscale.com/blog

    https://careersatdoordash.com/engineering-blog/

    https://dropbox.tech/

    --

    Aggregators:( https://engineering.fyi/ ; https://diff.blog/ )

    + https://hn.algolia.com/?query=engineering%20blog

    ---

    create a public engineering-blog SKILL.md. ( ~ collect the writing patterns that work on HN )

      • javcasas

        today at 12:29 PM

        > https://engineering.fyi/

        Ugh. That looks like AI this, LLM that, Agent this.

        Where are the databases, the distributed systems, where is the software verification?

        • i_k

          yesterday at 11:07 AM

          I am quite surprised and a bit disappointed that almost none of them have RSS.

          But thank you!

            • petercooper

              yesterday at 11:39 AM

              Not RSS exactly but this OPML has feeds for several hundred such blogs if you can filter down from there: https://peterc.org/misc/engblogs.opml

                • phrotoma

                  yesterday at 3:16 PM

                  Your website is a work of art. Bravo <3

                    • petercooper

                      yesterday at 8:14 PM

                      Thanks, I just treat it like my teenage bedroom, a trash heap with the occasional useful thing buried somewhere :-D

              • onion2k

                yesterday at 11:42 AM

                Spotify and Tailscale do...

                https://engineering.atspotify.com/feed

                https://tailscale.com/blog/index.xml

                • spondyl

                  yesterday at 8:17 PM

                  Some of them redesign their blog layouts every 6 months, abandoning and then eventually rediscovering RSS. It's extremely annoying.

                  • embedding-shape

                    yesterday at 11:43 AM

                    > I am quite surprised and a bit disappointed that almost none of them have RSS.

                    I think it's on purpose. It is to signal that these (those without RSS) aren't really "engineering" blogs at all, they're marketing websites aimed to help with recruiting and making the organization seem "engineering-like".

                      • zbentley

                        yesterday at 12:25 PM

                        What? That makes no sense. RSS is beloved and known among engineers. Marketers? Not so much.

                          • embedding-shape

                            yesterday at 12:26 PM

                            Exactly, so if the blog doesn't have RSS, you know they're probably made from marketers with no input from engineering, otherwise they'd have RSS on the blogs.

                            Edit: Ah, noticed I made a without/with typo, fixed that, should make about 2% more sense now for the ones who the original meaning was unclear :)

                              • zbentley

                                yesterday at 12:27 PM

                                Oh, I read your post backwards (thought you said RSS == more likely fluff). My fault, sorry!

                                  • embedding-shape

                                    yesterday at 12:38 PM

                                    To be fair to you, my original comment did say:

                                    > It is to signal that these (those with RSS) aren't really "engineering" blogs at all

                                    So now when I corrected that with/without typo, it looks like your previous comment doesn't make sense, but it kind of did, at the time. Sorry about that and thanks for making me realize the typo!

            • iancmceachern

              yesterday at 4:26 PM

              It's so interesting to me as a Mechanical Engineer and Hardware designer/architect how on HN "Engineering" almost always means "Software engineering" here.

                • throwaway4PP

                  yesterday at 5:53 PM

                  It is funny, almost as funny as an entire cadre of people with “engineer” in their title who've never had to draw a free body diagram, learn circuit analysis, understand the basics of thermodynamics, or the mechanics of materials.

                    • p2detar

                      yesterday at 6:02 PM

                      I hold a CS master degree from an Eastern European university and everything you listed was in our Bachelor degree program. It’s pretty funny because while studying material properties back then I always wondered how and when am I gonna use that. It kind of makes sense now that I think about it - some students preferred branching out to hardware.

                      edit: typo

                        • throwaway4PP

                          yesterday at 7:03 PM

                          That’s great, unfortunately it is quite rare for CS undergrad programs in the US to require the basic engineering and science classes the other engineering/science majors require.

                            • zahlman

                              yesterday at 8:15 PM

                              Do you not have separate "software engineering" and "computer science" undergrad streams?

                                • aduty

                                  yesterday at 10:22 PM

                                  At most places, no. Lol.

                              • nxor

                                yesterday at 7:18 PM

                                [dead]

                    • CommenterPerson

                      yesterday at 9:17 PM

                      Hear hear. The word "Technology" has also been redefined to mean computer or phone stuff. As a real (manly) engineer, this pisses me off no end! :-)

                      To answer the OP, this Civil engineering blog / video site is really good. I always learn something new, and his enthusiasm is infectious. Well worth giving it a look:

                      https://practical.engineering/

                      • jvanderbot

                        yesterday at 4:37 PM

                        I would love more blogs on mechanical, hardware, and especially industrial engineering, but the demographics in those areas skew stereo-typically older and also likely less blog-oriented, right?

                          • georgeburdell

                            yesterday at 5:01 PM

                            Blogs are almost 30 years old at this point, but yes, I do associate a nearly compulsive need to show off one's work in meticulously-crafted blog posts with younger people.

                            • UntappedShelf21

                              today at 4:15 AM

                              Would you consider Chris Boden the type of content you’re interested in? https://youtube.com/@physicsduck?si=WJS3UbDF0VWKwOgy

                              • wheelinsupial

                                yesterday at 6:07 PM

                                Depending on what you're looking for in industrial engineering, there are a lot of blogs on lean manufacturing and the Toyota Production System. INFORMS, may be paywalled, also publishes a lot of pretty interesting articles on applications of operations research to industry.

                                In general, though, my very limited experience working in manufacturing was that much of the blog equivalents were covered in things like white papers from hardware manufacturers or articles in trade publications. We always had a bunch of magazines delivered each month and there were usually some interesting articles to review.

                            • nishilpatel

                              today at 5:10 AM

                              Fair Observation, HN surrounded by mostly Software guys, which directly add nuances of "Engineering" and <Software> Engineering.

                              but to specific is much important, imo Engineering means "Solving problem at a scale", irrelevant of the industry.

                                • h3half

                                  today at 1:02 PM

                                  Perhaps. Sometimes the scale is "one" - the amount of engineering that goes into bespoke space missions is very large, and very little of that work is re-used for anything other than direct follow up missions

                              • jupin

                                yesterday at 5:54 PM

                                I thought the same. Check out this mechanical engineering channel - https://youtu.be/8yUsDnBXo_g?si=CXzWV9D5OvHcCBm3

                                • eru

                                  today at 5:44 AM

                                  Well, engineer without any qualification used to refer only to combat engineers. (The term civil engineering betrays that history.)

                                  Words change meaning over time and with the audience.

                                  • metadope

                                    yesterday at 7:54 PM

                                    I remember feeling sheepish when I was hired to a position titled 'Software Engineer'. To me, those two words together seemed incongruent. Not quite an oxymoron but certainly a puzzlement.

                                    Maybe, generously, in retrospect, an aspiration?

                                    I never considered myself an actual engineer; I was (and still am) a self-taught un-credentialed computer programmer. More art than science. They made me take the title and the stock options and the business cards.

                                    I mostly worked for and with EEs, making software tools for test automation. I was a fanboy hardware wannabee (and still am), got some on me but was never a true engineer. I learned from those who practiced their discipline; it was plain to me the reality of real engineering versus what I was doing.

                                    I suppose in my travels I have on occasion encountered a true Software Engineer. I suppose there's reason to hope that software development will continue to mature and evolve, and eventually the other engineering disciplines will accept software as a science.

                                    For me, it will always be a joy to make that hardware work with my twiddly bits. Not engineering, no. But very rewarding work that often resembles engineering.

                                    • sp4nner

                                      yesterday at 6:37 PM

                                      Agreed, though I understand the YC bias. I'm in biotech and mostly follow HN just to see what the software people are interested in these days.

                                      • mrandish

                                        yesterday at 11:31 PM

                                        Yeah, even as a software engineering type I immediately thought the question was too broadly posed. I assume the OP must have had something narrower in mind.

                                        • tekno45

                                          yesterday at 6:00 PM

                                          people building physical things are probably too busy to blog about it lol

                                      • xnorswap

                                        yesterday at 11:03 AM

                                        You might be more interested in books than a blog.

                                        For example: The Architecture of Open Source Applications

                                        https://aosabook.org/en/index.html

                                          • alhirzel

                                            yesterday at 11:36 AM

                                            Such a great resource!

                                            • leoh

                                              yesterday at 9:02 PM

                                              Absolutely fantastic, thank you!

                                          • sateesh

                                            yesterday at 2:42 PM

                                            https://jvns.ca/ Not a tech. company blog. Explains technical concepts clearly and top notch technical posts. Fits 1,2, 3 criteria of what you ask, though not the 4th one.

                                              • john-tells-all

                                                yesterday at 6:49 PM

                                                Strong recommend! Julia's posts are always really engaging and educational.

                                                She also publishes a number of technical topics as ZINES. I bought her "Oh Shit, Git!" zine and learned a ton of useful info, despite having decades in the industry.Zines are a great way to encourage book-allergic coworkers into learning great material.

                                                https://wizardzines.com/

                                                • skywhopper

                                                  yesterday at 5:28 PM

                                                  Yes! Julia is fantastic at explaining concepts, and creating ways to learn about them. She produces a great series of “zines” summarizing a bunch of technical topics, her blog archives are really fascinating, and she’s created really useful tools like Mess With DNS (https://messwithdns.net) which gives you your own DNS subdomain and the means to update records so you can try things out in an easy, harmless way.

                                              • simonw

                                                yesterday at 2:26 PM

                                                This post by Jay Kreps that introduced Kafka to the world remains one of my favorite pieces of engineering blog content of all time: https://engineering.linkedin.com/distributed-systems/log-wha...

                                                • yrand

                                                  yesterday at 10:30 AM

                                                  Encountered one specific example about a month ago here on HackerNews - All about automotive lidar. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46110395

                                                  Blog posts where I find quality really shows are usually about something I know next to nothing about how it works. A badly written article usually either goes really shallow or skips some facts when going into depth and requires catchup elsewhere to actually understand it. The lidar article from Main Street Autonomy goes beyond basics and explained everything from the ground up in such a connected way that it was a real pleasure reading it.

                                                  • Okkef

                                                    yesterday at 11:23 AM

                                                    Armin Ronacher's blog (of flask/jinja fame) https://lucumr.pocoo.org/

                                                    Antirez' blog (of Redis fame) https://antirez.com/

                                                    Simon Willison's blog (about AI) https://simonwillison.net/

                                                      • john-tells-all

                                                        yesterday at 6:51 PM

                                                        Simon's blog is stellar, and he posts on many tech topics in addition to AI.

                                                        His "Today I Learned" series is an extremely useful selection of small learnings: https://til.simonwillison.net/

                                                          • zenlot

                                                            today at 10:47 AM

                                                            [dead]

                                                    • vmilner

                                                      today at 12:47 PM

                                                      I enjoy

                                                      https://destevez.net/about/

                                                      from a Phd maths guy, who's worked in satellite comms, and blogs on software defined radio and comms protocols (eg error correction and radio modulation, often in space related contexts, eg decoding Voyager comms).

                                                      • qznc

                                                        yesterday at 10:32 AM

                                                        Sounds like you look for an intersection of academic papers (1.), tech blogs (2.), text books (3.), and confidential business strategies (4.)? A very high ambition.

                                                          • yesterday at 10:38 AM

                                                            • cess11

                                                              yesterday at 6:17 PM

                                                              Corporations commonly describe some of their internal processes and achievements because it builds reputation and that can be important for both sales and recruitment.

                                                              Sometimes they do it in the form of free or open source software releases.

                                                              • gchamonlive

                                                                yesterday at 10:40 AM

                                                                A very high ambition?

                                                            • aranw

                                                              yesterday at 4:02 PM

                                                              https://samwho.dev has some fantastic blog posts with great visualisations

                                                                • samwho

                                                                  yesterday at 4:39 PM

                                                                  Thank you <3

                                                              • nchmy

                                                                yesterday at 10:39 AM

                                                                You're probably looking for something that is more focused on specific software decisions/implementations, but https://infrequently.org is the best web development blog out there.

                                                                It's not "technical" so much as it just educates you on how to be a good web developer/run a team. There's zero fluff and considerable detail (footnotes are practically blog posts themselves).

                                                                • Swizec

                                                                  yesterday at 6:32 PM

                                                                  While not exactly a blog, I've collected ~16 years of [startup] engineering lessons into a book and I think it came out fantastic. People are saying super nice things.

                                                                  https://scalingfastbook.com

                                                                  • nsm

                                                                    yesterday at 4:15 PM

                                                                    https://randomascii.wordpress.com/ - former Chrome engineer about all things performance engineering and particularly focused on Windows.

                                                                    • eru

                                                                      today at 5:42 AM

                                                                      Jane Street has a good one at https://blog.janestreet.com/

                                                                      https://www.redblobgames.com/ is not strictly speaking a blog, but an interested collection of articles on algorithmic concepts you might want to know for writing games.

                                                                      • ludicity

                                                                        yesterday at 11:21 AM

                                                                        I'm a huge fan of https://eblog.fly.dev/index.html. The author, Efron, very graciously advises me on a lot of little things around my engineering practice, and I've learned a huge amount about weird holes in my practice from industry dysfunction in a very short period of time from him.

                                                                        • jupin

                                                                          yesterday at 5:55 PM

                                                                          To balance all of the computer engineering blogs, check out this mechanical engineering channel: https://youtu.be/8yUsDnBXo_g?si=CXzWV9D5OvHcCBm3

                                                                          • noam_k

                                                                            yesterday at 11:29 AM

                                                                            https://lcamtuf.substack.com/

                                                                            • jurakovic

                                                                              yesterday at 7:56 PM

                                                                              I maintain list of blogs together with "RSS reader" for personal purposes, but it's publicly available here:

                                                                              https://jurakovic.github.io/dev-links/#blogs-general

                                                                              https://jurakovic.github.io/dev-links/news/

                                                                              • primaprashant

                                                                                today at 12:35 AM

                                                                                Anyone specifically looking for ML engineering blogs should find this useful: https://github.com/primaprashant/ml-engineering-blogs

                                                                                  • 61j3t

                                                                                    today at 2:46 AM

                                                                                    Thanks a lot, I was literally gonna type whether anyone knows good ML blogs

                                                                                • bodash

                                                                                  yesterday at 6:25 PM

                                                                                  > https://lessnews.dev

                                                                                  A while ago I felt this "information fatigue" due to the overwhelming updates from the typical news sources (reddit, twitter, even hn).

                                                                                  So I built a _slow_ webdev newsfeed aggregator that doesn't overwhelm you of constant updates, so you focus on reading the actual blog contents and enjoy other things.

                                                                                    • ewoodrich

                                                                                      yesterday at 8:01 PM

                                                                                      I bookmarked to take a closer look later, but I'm a little unclear on the premise, could you explain what you mean by "slow"/how it is filtered/curated?

                                                                                        • bodash

                                                                                          today at 1:13 AM

                                                                                          Sure.

                                                                                          Problem I had with the other newsfeeds is that I get distracted by the constant updates, always refresh the front-page, skipping the actual content and just skimming through headlines and comments.

                                                                                          So I built this one, set it as my homepage, and because it doesn't update often, I will actually read the content of the links. When I'm done, I move on to other things in life.

                                                                                          It's curated by matching keywords (focusing on web development) on HN, mostly automated but with few manual adjustments now and then.

                                                                                  • iillexial

                                                                                    yesterday at 8:52 PM

                                                                                    Hey! Check out https://devblogs.sh. It's a curated library with tech blog from companies, as well as individuals and conferences. Every blog is hand picked. There is also AI agent which you can use for quick search.

                                                                                    • stack_framer

                                                                                      today at 12:35 AM

                                                                                      I've found Shopify's blog interesting (and I don't happen to use Shopify or have any affiliation with them):

                                                                                      https://shopify.engineering

                                                                                      • bretthopper

                                                                                        yesterday at 7:03 PM

                                                                                        https://brandur.org/

                                                                                          • dalbaugh

                                                                                            yesterday at 9:16 PM

                                                                                            Excellent blog

                                                                                        • pveierland

                                                                                          yesterday at 11:07 AM

                                                                                          Tweag has many interesting entries with good technical depth:

                                                                                          https://www.tweag.io/blog

                                                                                          • nickmonad

                                                                                            yesterday at 12:41 PM

                                                                                            TigerBeetle: https://tigerbeetle.com/blog/

                                                                                            • rcarmo

                                                                                              yesterday at 7:51 PM

                                                                                              I'm grouping most of the suggestions here into my feed summarizer at https://feeds.carmo.io - there will be an "Engineering" bulletin there soon.

                                                                                              • mkosmul

                                                                                                yesterday at 12:13 PM

                                                                                                Allegro Tech Blog: https://blog.allegro.tech/

                                                                                                • jonstewart

                                                                                                  yesterday at 5:04 PM

                                                                                                  Not corporate, but two of the best individual developer blogs are Eli Bendersky's and Rachel by the Bay. They've both been blogging prolifically for a decade+, Eli with a focus on, broadly, compilers and Rachel on SRE/debugging.

                                                                                                  Raymond Chen's The Old New Thing is also required reading for anyone that works with Windows.

                                                                                                  https://eli.thegreenplace.net/

                                                                                                  https://rachelbythebay.com/w/

                                                                                                  https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/

                                                                                                  • NickJLange

                                                                                                    yesterday at 3:55 PM

                                                                                                    A lot of great links here to the firehose (or at least for working parents). Unless someone has built it - anything that aggregates and shows beyond the first click of the by-line. (i.e. a first paragraph, or LLM-summary of the content)?

                                                                                                    Otherwise... coming soon from a vibe-coding session near you...

                                                                                                      • soulofmischief

                                                                                                        yesterday at 4:52 PM

                                                                                                        A friend and I worked on a startup together that did this back when only the GPT-3 API was available. Sucked up everything we could think of, including HN and traditionally opaque sources such as Telegram

                                                                                                        • SleepySteve_sk

                                                                                                          yesterday at 4:38 PM

                                                                                                          We're currently building something to solve this problem.

                                                                                                          https://joinheader.com/

                                                                                                          We'll filter an RSS feed based on the topic and description that you provide. Feel free to reach out to me at s.kufuor@<domain> if you have any questions or feedback.

                                                                                                      • mitthrowaway2

                                                                                                        yesterday at 4:59 PM

                                                                                                        I always enjoyed Jason Sachs' blog at embedded related.

                                                                                                        https://www.embeddedrelated.com/showarticle/152.php

                                                                                                        • vishnuharidas

                                                                                                          yesterday at 6:12 PM

                                                                                                          https://engineeringblogs.xyz/ is a good place listing more than 500 (and adding more) engineering blogs.

                                                                                                          • alzamos

                                                                                                            yesterday at 12:56 PM

                                                                                                            Francesco Mazzoli’s blog on https://mazzo.li/archive.html. His blog has topped HN a few times with various low-level/linux topics, some deep dives into algorithms etc.

                                                                                                            • sevazhidkov

                                                                                                              yesterday at 12:34 PM

                                                                                                              It’s not a traditional blog, but Oxide’s RFDs cover exactly what you asked — implementation details and trade-offs: https://rfd.shared.oxide.computer/

                                                                                                              • ruraljuror

                                                                                                                yesterday at 7:49 PM

                                                                                                                The book Designing Data-Intensive Applications by Martin Kleppmann covers exactly the topics you are asking about and references many blog posts.

                                                                                                                • agumonkey

                                                                                                                  yesterday at 4:19 PM

                                                                                                                  Often enjoyed article by chris wellons https://nullprogram.com/

                                                                                                                  quite diverse, often challenging, sometimes mind bending

                                                                                                                  • louiechristie

                                                                                                                    yesterday at 11:45 AM

                                                                                                                    https://dora.dev/research/2025/dora-report/

                                                                                                                    • vogu66

                                                                                                                      yesterday at 11:00 AM

                                                                                                                      not software engineering, but https://practical.engineering/

                                                                                                                      • robofanatic

                                                                                                                        yesterday at 1:36 PM

                                                                                                                        https://www.makingsoftware.com/

                                                                                                                        • GeoAtreides

                                                                                                                          yesterday at 1:27 PM

                                                                                                                          Seems to me you're describing books.

                                                                                                                          • mad44

                                                                                                                            yesterday at 5:50 PM

                                                                                                                            MongoDB Engineering Blog is shaping up well

                                                                                                                            https://www.mongodb.com/company/blog/channel/engineering-blo...

                                                                                                                            • Agingcoder

                                                                                                                              yesterday at 10:51 AM

                                                                                                                              Cloudflare, google project zero.

                                                                                                                              • nothans

                                                                                                                                today at 3:57 AM

                                                                                                                                MathWorks Blogs

                                                                                                                                • louiechristie

                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 11:45 AM

                                                                                                                                  https://youtube.com/@modernsoftwareengineeringyt

                                                                                                                                  • corbet

                                                                                                                                    yesterday at 4:21 PM

                                                                                                                                    I feel obligated to mention LWN - https://lwn.net/ - since that is exactly what we aspire to.

                                                                                                                                    • vibesareoff

                                                                                                                                      yesterday at 11:20 AM

                                                                                                                                      Ask the LLM you wrote this post with!

                                                                                                                                        • robofanatic

                                                                                                                                          yesterday at 10:34 PM

                                                                                                                                          No need to harshly judge the OP for merely using a tool. Also you wouldn’t have known some of the blogs listed here if he hadn’t asked it publicly.

                                                                                                                                          • voxleone

                                                                                                                                            yesterday at 4:46 PM

                                                                                                                                            No judgement here whatsoever, but i think LLM would be "the" tool for this job. I also wonder if there's any point to "Ask" sections in websites after LLM's.

                                                                                                                                              • yesterday at 8:06 PM

                                                                                                                                            • bell-cot

                                                                                                                                              yesterday at 12:14 PM

                                                                                                                                              OP is asking a good question. There's no dishonor if he is not fluent in English, and used an LLM to translate.

                                                                                                                                                • vibesareoff

                                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 12:33 PM

                                                                                                                                                  "OP" couldn't even be bothered to reformat the numbered list to run on separate fucking lines.

                                                                                                                                                  But sure, cheer on the homogenization of online spaces into beige slop staccato bullshit!

                                                                                                                                                  ˙ ͜ʟ˙

                                                                                                                                                    • loloquwowndueo

                                                                                                                                                      yesterday at 4:30 PM

                                                                                                                                                      How do you reformat a list so it runs on separate fucking lines?

                                                                                                                                                      Always happens to me (and I don’t use fucking LLMs) so I’d really like to know.

                                                                                                                                                      • fnordlord

                                                                                                                                                        yesterday at 1:57 PM

                                                                                                                                                        I will always cheer on anyone who shares their curiosity.

                                                                                                                                                        It was a great question and now I have a ton of new things on my reading list.

                                                                                                                                                        • self_awareness

                                                                                                                                                          yesterday at 7:52 PM

                                                                                                                                                          You seem to be new here, so you probably don't know that:

                                                                                                                                                          - Even if you separate each point with a new line, - HN formatter will join everything to one line anyway. - So it's not OP's fault his points are in the same line, because the source post has them in separate lines.

                                                                                                                                                            • today at 8:20 AM

                                                                                                                                                              • back2reddit

                                                                                                                                                                today at 8:21 AM

                                                                                                                                                                Join

                                                                                                                                                                date

                                                                                                                                                                of

                                                                                                                                                                an

                                                                                                                                                                account

                                                                                                                                                                means

                                                                                                                                                                nothing,

                                                                                                                                                                bro.

                                                                                                                                                                Gold

                                                                                                                                                                star

                                                                                                                                                                for

                                                                                                                                                                the

                                                                                                                                                                decade

                                                                                                                                                                of

                                                                                                                                                                participation

                                                                                                                                                                though!

                                                                                                                                                            • CamperBob2

                                                                                                                                                              yesterday at 6:22 PM

                                                                                                                                                              Other sites beckon.

                                                                                                                                                              • bell-cot

                                                                                                                                                                yesterday at 12:50 PM

                                                                                                                                                                You seem to be picking metrics for their utility in angrily excluding people who you a priori despise. :(

                                                                                                                                                        • sieste

                                                                                                                                                          yesterday at 11:34 AM

                                                                                                                                                          The LLM instructed him to gather training data.

                                                                                                                                                            • ozim

                                                                                                                                                              yesterday at 11:37 AM

                                                                                                                                                              So prompt injection on humans

                                                                                                                                                                • sieste

                                                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 11:44 AM

                                                                                                                                                                  Polluting the internet with meat slop.

                                                                                                                                                                    • themafia

                                                                                                                                                                      yesterday at 11:56 AM

                                                                                                                                                                      "What if we used more energy and got worse results?"

                                                                                                                                                                      Sort of makes you miss "move fast and break things."

                                                                                                                                                          • asupkay

                                                                                                                                                            yesterday at 3:09 PM

                                                                                                                                                            Maybe the LLM is the one asking

                                                                                                                                                        • mitjam

                                                                                                                                                          yesterday at 11:00 AM

                                                                                                                                                          Maybe it's just because I'm LLMing a bit too much, recently, but this question sounds to me like a prompt.

                                                                                                                                                            • x187463

                                                                                                                                                              yesterday at 2:08 PM

                                                                                                                                                              Some people act like the use of an LLM immediately invalidates or lowers the value of a piece of content. But the case of a question or simple post, especially by somebody for whom English is second language, using an LLM to rephrase or clean-up some text seems like an innocent and practical use case for LLMs.

                                                                                                                                                              • runlaszlorun

                                                                                                                                                                yesterday at 11:54 AM

                                                                                                                                                                I'm not beating up on OP but I chuckled when I read the question. Literally the only place I see the phrase "no fluff" with any frequency is with Deepseek lol.

                                                                                                                                                                Nothing wrong with the phrase itself of course, other than the fact that it's like literally in every other reply for me lol.

                                                                                                                                                                • atoav

                                                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 11:41 AM

                                                                                                                                                                  Had the same thought. ChatGPT often tells me things like: "This is the hard truth" or "I am telling it to you as it is (no fluff)" or whatever. Just because my initial prompt contains a line about it not making things up and telling me how things are instead of what would please me to hear. I added a line to specifically tell it to not phrase out these things, but it appears to be surprisingly hard to get rid of those phrases.

                                                                                                                                                              • georgemcbay

                                                                                                                                                                today at 12:25 AM

                                                                                                                                                                > best engineering blogs with real-world depth?

                                                                                                                                                                The best ever is, IMO, Charles Bloom's blog, especially if you have any interest in data compression:

                                                                                                                                                                https://cbloomrants.blogspot.com/

                                                                                                                                                                But it is no longer regularly updated.

                                                                                                                                                                • thenaturalist

                                                                                                                                                                  yesterday at 9:23 PM

                                                                                                                                                                  For data engineering the two best by far I know of:

                                                                                                                                                                  1. BI Cortex - sadly seemingly not active anymore: https://bicortex.com/

                                                                                                                                                                  2. Mark Litwintschik's Tech Blog: https://tech.marksblogg.com/

                                                                                                                                                                  • rramadass

                                                                                                                                                                    yesterday at 2:07 PM

                                                                                                                                                                    Not a blog, but books detailing real-world experiences from Indian Engineers/Scientists/Researchers; Quite inspiring to see how people strive unceasingly towards a goal in spite of all the limitations and hurdles (viz. Political/Financial/Material etc.) imposed on them.

                                                                                                                                                                    There is much to learn, in these books.

                                                                                                                                                                    The Mind of an Engineer by Purnendu Ghosh et al. - https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-10-0119-2

                                                                                                                                                                    The Mind of an Engineer: Volume 2 by Purnendu Ghosh et al. - https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-15-1330-5

                                                                                                                                                                    • snvzz

                                                                                                                                                                      yesterday at 12:47 PM

                                                                                                                                                                      For deeper understanding of seL4's developments and the historical context in which it appeared, Gernot Heiser's blog[0].

                                                                                                                                                                      0. https://microkerneldude.org/

                                                                                                                                                                      • Joel_Mckay

                                                                                                                                                                        yesterday at 12:19 PM

                                                                                                                                                                        These should be read at least once in your life if interested in building industrial grade electrical, mechanical, and or software.

                                                                                                                                                                        1. https://nepp.nasa.gov/whisker/

                                                                                                                                                                        2. https://standards.nasa.gov/standard/NASA/NASA-STD-87394

                                                                                                                                                                        3. https://standards.nasa.gov/NASA-Technical-Standards

                                                                                                                                                                        4. https://sma.nasa.gov/sma-disciplines/workmanship

                                                                                                                                                                        5. https://www.stroustrup.com/JSF-AV-rules.pdf

                                                                                                                                                                        6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_10:_Rules_for_Dev...

                                                                                                                                                                        7. https://www.nist.gov/pml/owm/laboratory-metrology/metrology-...

                                                                                                                                                                        8. https://www.mitutoyo.com/training-education/

                                                                                                                                                                        9. "Memoirs of extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds" (Charles Mackay, 1852, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/24518/24518-h/24518-h.htm )

                                                                                                                                                                        The artifacts are usually beautiful from good Workmanship Standards, Design For Manufacturability, and systematic Metrology. Dragging us all into the future one project at a time.

                                                                                                                                                                        Note that training an ML model with such data would be pointless, as statistical saliency forms a paradox with consumer product design compromises. Note, there are _always_ tradeoffs in every problem domain.

                                                                                                                                                                        'What it actually means to be "AI Generated"' ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERiXDhLHxmo )

                                                                                                                                                                        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXbzktx1KfU

                                                                                                                                                                        Have a nice day, and note >52% of the web is LLM slop now. YMMV =3

                                                                                                                                                                        • throw_await

                                                                                                                                                                          yesterday at 10:53 AM

                                                                                                                                                                          oldnewthing

                                                                                                                                                                          • SongDeYu

                                                                                                                                                                            today at 8:41 AM

                                                                                                                                                                            [dead]

                                                                                                                                                                            • NedF

                                                                                                                                                                              yesterday at 7:42 PM

                                                                                                                                                                              [dead]

                                                                                                                                                                              • gethly

                                                                                                                                                                                yesterday at 10:48 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                There are no such blogs. Usually companies, or individuals, will write these after they implement some feature into their products. Which makes them inherently little pieces of information scattered all over the internet and there is no one blog that is just about this.

                                                                                                                                                                                  • nishilpatel

                                                                                                                                                                                    today at 5:17 AM

                                                                                                                                                                                    That’s true. This kind of writing usually shows up as post-implementation retrospectives, so it’s inherently fragmented.

                                                                                                                                                                                    I’m trying to surface and study those scattered examples—especially the ones that explain why decisions were made, not just what was built.