6 ms·

Ask HN: What are some high signal blogs?

30 points by smk_ 5y ago

Hello HN. I am looking to expand my information sphere and would like to hear of any interesting, high-signal blogs you follow. I can begin by recommending Astral Codex. Thanks!

notomorrow 5y ago
https://www.gwern.net/ https://www.gwern.net/ is all you need! https://fantasticanachronism.com/ https://fantasticanachronism.com/ is also good!
pgwhalen 5y ago
fedguy.com, if you are interested in monetary policy or economics. I also recommend the book by the same author (Central Banking 101).
bsoudan 5y ago
http://electoral-vote.com http://electoral-vote.com from 2 political scientests summarizes US political news, high signal AND high frequency, several articles each weekday morning.
mooreds 5y ago
What domain? I follow tech blogs, finance blogs, real estate blogs, cloud computing vendor blogs. Different domains have different strong players.
PaulHoule 5y ago
Part of me wants to like Astral Codex (Bayes theorem is dear to my heart and my head) but I find it too rambling and too tied to the cringeworthy "rationalist" scene. (e.g. some of those people think the 'woke' folks are groupthinkers, but some of their circles would drive people out if they expressed disbelief in quasireligious concepts such as superhuman a.i., cryonics, etc.) For people who want to understand "how to successfully promote a blog" my favorite is https://www.righto.com/ https://www.righto.com/ which I think is captivating to people even if favors nostalgia vs timeliness (never news) and few people would find it useful (for my electronics hobby I expect to build increasing powerful illusion projectors and I find some of his talk on electronics inspirational and educational but I never expect to decap a chip or make discrete versions of things like current mirrors and op amps that are impractical to make on an artisan scale.)
- andrewmcwatters 5y ago
  Rambling is probably the right word, though for other readers here, you can probably get that yourself from reading the About page[1] or even just casually scan the newest post[2] for 5 seconds. >> once i threw a party for the bay area rationalists, and the rules to attend were you had to be wearing a full-face coverage mask, and be naked. Many came; they all bravely stripped, donned weird masks... and then proceeded to sit in a polite circle and debate global trade. Ah, OK. It's clear why this blog is recommended so frequently here now. [1]: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/about https://astralcodexten.substack.com/about [2]: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/theres-a-time-for-everyone https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/theres-a-time-for-ever...
  - PaulHoule 5y ago
    I am laughing my ass off because that tweet you quote is by a woman who drives me absolutely up the wall. For a brief time I was intimidated by her combination of pretty and smart, except that the more I looked the more I saw that being born female can really be a chance to live life on tutorial island. For the life of me I can't see how she thinks that Eliezer Yudkowsky is an evil genius frame controller, still thinks he is the greatest thinker of the 21st century, but the main talent I think he has is that he can always see the Emperor's Clothes even if he goes to a naked people party.
    - honkdaddy 5y ago
      Seriously. Aella is a great writer, but she's also had among the most absurdly comfortable existences I've ever heard of.
      - runjake 5y ago
        Based on? I don’t know Aella, so I cannot speak to the comfortability of her existence, but I’d assume her attractiveness and circumstances and her public persona bring fairly unique challenges (eg. stalkers) that I cannot fathom. My own hunch is that I probably lead a far more comfortable existence than her, but I’m only supposing.
sysadm1n 5y ago
web.dev[0] is full of great articles if you like web development CSS Tricks[1] is also full of handy snippets of code you can use when developing a website. I've noted many handy (somewhat overlooked) pieces of code on there. Feel free to skip some 'noisy' articles that have code you will never use. I tend to focus on stuff that will work everywhere, regardless of browser. [0] https://web.dev/blog/ https://web.dev/blog/ [1] https://css-tricks.com/ https://css-tricks.com/
- nicbou 5y ago
  CSS Tricks is one of those websites I never regret seeing in the search results
drocer88 5y ago
Political Calculations : https://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/ https://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/ Capital Spectator : https://www.capitalspectator.com/ https://www.capitalspectator.com/
soueuls 5y ago
Lyn Alden - https://www.lynalden.com/ https://www.lynalden.com/ (finance) Mr Money Mustache - https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/ https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/ (unusual approach to minimalism and FIRE)
- tharne 5y ago
  +1 on Mr. Money Mustache. They guy comes off as a know-it-all and kind of a jerk, but he knows his stuff. The Mr. Money Mustache blog did more to help me build a healthy relationship with money than absolutely anything else I've read on the topic of money and finances.
open-source-ux 5y ago
Lines and Colors is a great blog to dip in to find some visual inspiration. This blog has been going since 2005 - impressive longevity for a personal blog. Description: > Lines and Colors is a blog about painting, drawing, sketching, illustration, comics, cartoons, webcomics, art history, concept art, gallery art, digital art, artist tools and techniques, motion graphics, animation, sci-fi and fantasy illustration, paleo art, storyboards, matte painting, 3d graphics and anything else I find visually interesting. If it has lines and/or colors, it's fair game. http://linesandcolors.com/ http://linesandcolors.com/
cpach 5y ago
The problem with high-signal blogs is that they tend to be low-frequency…
- mikewarot 5y ago
  That's a feature, not a bug. I've got hundreds of youtube channels I've subscribed to, that are VERY low frequency, but interesting when something does show up. For example: Impulse Manufacturing Laboratory at Ohio State
  - cpach 5y ago
    It can definitely be seen as a feature. TBH I just check my favourite blogs manually from time to time. I know there are lots of RSS applications such as Netnewswire & Co, but after Google Reader I gave up on RSS. (And frankly I don’t miss it that much.)
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
meco 5y ago
Money Stuff by Matt Levine - https://www.bloomberg.com/account/newsletters/money-stuff https://www.bloomberg.com/account/newsletters/money-stuff
- nicbou 5y ago
  Matt Levine is funny and interesting. He can be hard to follow, but only because he talks about really complicated things. No one can explain it better than he does.

30 points by smk_ 5y ago

Hello HN. I am looking to expand my information sphere and would like to hear of any interesting, high-signal blogs you follow. I can begin by recommending Astral Codex. Thanks!

notomorrow 5y ago

https://www.gwern.net/ https://www.gwern.net/ is all you need! https://fantasticanachronism.com/ https://fantasticanachronism.com/ is also good!

pgwhalen 5y ago

fedguy.com, if you are interested in monetary policy or economics. I also recommend the book by the same author (Central Banking 101).

bsoudan 5y ago

http://electoral-vote.com http://electoral-vote.com from 2 political scientests summarizes US political news, high signal AND high frequency, several articles each weekday morning.

mooreds 5y ago

What domain? I follow tech blogs, finance blogs, real estate blogs, cloud computing vendor blogs. Different domains have different strong players.

PaulHoule 5y ago

Part of me wants to like Astral Codex (Bayes theorem is dear to my heart and my head) but I find it too rambling and too tied to the cringeworthy "rationalist" scene. (e.g. some of those people think the 'woke' folks are groupthinkers, but some of their circles would drive people out if they expressed disbelief in quasireligious concepts such as superhuman a.i., cryonics, etc.) For people who want to understand "how to successfully promote a blog" my favorite is https://www.righto.com/ https://www.righto.com/ which I think is captivating to people even if favors nostalgia vs timeliness (never news) and few people would find it useful (for my electronics hobby I expect to build increasing powerful illusion projectors and I find some of his talk on electronics inspirational and educational but I never expect to decap a chip or make discrete versions of things like current mirrors and op amps that are impractical to make on an artisan scale.)

andrewmcwatters 5y ago
Rambling is probably the right word, though for other readers here, you can probably get that yourself from reading the About page[1] or even just casually scan the newest post[2] for 5 seconds. >> once i threw a party for the bay area rationalists, and the rules to attend were you had to be wearing a full-face coverage mask, and be naked. Many came; they all bravely stripped, donned weird masks... and then proceeded to sit in a polite circle and debate global trade. Ah, OK. It's clear why this blog is recommended so frequently here now. [1]: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/about https://astralcodexten.substack.com/about [2]: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/theres-a-time-for-everyone https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/theres-a-time-for-ever...
- PaulHoule 5y ago
  I am laughing my ass off because that tweet you quote is by a woman who drives me absolutely up the wall. For a brief time I was intimidated by her combination of pretty and smart, except that the more I looked the more I saw that being born female can really be a chance to live life on tutorial island. For the life of me I can't see how she thinks that Eliezer Yudkowsky is an evil genius frame controller, still thinks he is the greatest thinker of the 21st century, but the main talent I think he has is that he can always see the Emperor's Clothes even if he goes to a naked people party.
  - honkdaddy 5y ago
    Seriously. Aella is a great writer, but she's also had among the most absurdly comfortable existences I've ever heard of.
    - runjake 5y ago
      Based on? I don’t know Aella, so I cannot speak to the comfortability of her existence, but I’d assume her attractiveness and circumstances and her public persona bring fairly unique challenges (eg. stalkers) that I cannot fathom. My own hunch is that I probably lead a far more comfortable existence than her, but I’m only supposing.

sysadm1n 5y ago

web.dev[0] is full of great articles if you like web development CSS Tricks[1] is also full of handy snippets of code you can use when developing a website. I've noted many handy (somewhat overlooked) pieces of code on there. Feel free to skip some 'noisy' articles that have code you will never use. I tend to focus on stuff that will work everywhere, regardless of browser. [0] https://web.dev/blog/ https://web.dev/blog/ [1] https://css-tricks.com/ https://css-tricks.com/

nicbou 5y ago
CSS Tricks is one of those websites I never regret seeing in the search results

drocer88 5y ago

Political Calculations : https://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/ https://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/ Capital Spectator : https://www.capitalspectator.com/ https://www.capitalspectator.com/

soueuls 5y ago

Lyn Alden - https://www.lynalden.com/ https://www.lynalden.com/ (finance) Mr Money Mustache - https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/ https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/ (unusual approach to minimalism and FIRE)

tharne 5y ago
+1 on Mr. Money Mustache. They guy comes off as a know-it-all and kind of a jerk, but he knows his stuff. The Mr. Money Mustache blog did more to help me build a healthy relationship with money than absolutely anything else I've read on the topic of money and finances.

open-source-ux 5y ago

Lines and Colors is a great blog to dip in to find some visual inspiration. This blog has been going since 2005 - impressive longevity for a personal blog. Description: > Lines and Colors is a blog about painting, drawing, sketching, illustration, comics, cartoons, webcomics, art history, concept art, gallery art, digital art, artist tools and techniques, motion graphics, animation, sci-fi and fantasy illustration, paleo art, storyboards, matte painting, 3d graphics and anything else I find visually interesting. If it has lines and/or colors, it's fair game. http://linesandcolors.com/ http://linesandcolors.com/

cpach 5y ago

The problem with high-signal blogs is that they tend to be low-frequency…

mikewarot 5y ago
That's a feature, not a bug. I've got hundreds of youtube channels I've subscribed to, that are VERY low frequency, but interesting when something does show up. For example: Impulse Manufacturing Laboratory at Ohio State
- cpach 5y ago
  It can definitely be seen as a feature. TBH I just check my favourite blogs manually from time to time. I know there are lots of RSS applications such as Netnewswire & Co, but after Google Reader I gave up on RSS. (And frankly I don’t miss it that much.)

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

meco 5y ago

Money Stuff by Matt Levine - https://www.bloomberg.com/account/newsletters/money-stuff https://www.bloomberg.com/account/newsletters/money-stuff

nicbou 5y ago
Matt Levine is funny and interesting. He can be hard to follow, but only because he talks about really complicated things. No one can explain it better than he does.