Hacker News with Generative AI: Personal Experiences

Confessions of a Perfume Nerd (osmo.ai)
We don’t decide what interests take lasting hold of us. We are just drawn to certain subjects, usually because they connect to both our affinities and anxieties. At least that’s what happened to me. One summer in middle school, in a moment of insecurity, I became a perfume nerd. This seemed like a strange fixation for an 11-year-old, but would change the course of my life.

Personal Experiences, Perfume, Hobbies

3 points by jdcampolargo 10 hours ago | 0 comments

Infantilization at Big Tech (nmn.gl)
The first time I encountered Big Tech was at age 15 when I won Google Code In. They flew me and my family to San Francisco and showed us around the Googleplex. I arrived with wide eyes, eager to see where the “smartest people in the world” worked.

Big Tech, Personal Experiences, Technology

8 points by namanyayg 7 days ago | 0 comments

How I Don't Use LLMs (gleech.org)
I enjoy shocking people by telling them I don’t use LLMs.

Opinion, Personal Experiences

60 points by jxmorris12 11 days ago | 18 comments

Cannot work without my head in a vise (lauramichet.com)
In college, I got some old audiophile headphones from my dad which I used to wear everywhere.

Audio Equipment, Headphones, Personal Experiences

3 points by speckx 12 days ago | 0 comments

I don't like traveling anymore (sidverma.io)
And now, I don’t feel like traveling anymore.

Travel, Personal Experiences

74 points by mavidser 21 days ago | 87 comments

Breaking computers taught me to build them (danielsada.tech)
You know when you are on a hike, and there is a point where you are exactly midway through it? There is always a reflection moment in there, where some thinking happens. Sometimes you look back and realize: it’s been a long journey so far, hasn’t it?

Computer Hardware, Learning, Personal Experiences

117 points by dshacker 23 days ago | 70 comments

My son has been rejected from all but 1 school (reddit.com)
My eldest son has been rejected by every college he applied to, except for our flagship state school, UMass Amherst. He is the singular brightest, most self-motivated, and most hardworking person I know.

College Admissions, Higher Education, Personal Experiences

5 points by htareque 25 days ago | 3 comments

Why I Got the Measles Vaccine at Age 63 (nytimes.com)
It’s full-on spring here in Middle Tennessee, and the world is suddenly blooming with infants.

Health, Vaccines, Personal Experiences

6 points by geox 33 days ago | 1 comments

I cured my Aphantasia, a detailed documentation (reddit.com)
I am a 27 year old male, a computer programmer, I run a successful software company that builds blockchain technology, and I was fully aphantasiac up until 2 days ago (June 5 2022). I have known I’ve had aphantasia for a few years and it’s always caused me distress, I didn’t even believe others were actually seeing for the first few months but after talking to enough people I concluded they weren’t exaggerating.

Aphantasia, Personal Experiences, Self-Improvement, Health, Software

15 points by red369 37 days ago | 2 comments

How My Six Months Working on the Railway Changed My Life (theatlantic.com)
The time I spent working on the Canadian National Railroad changed the course of my life.

Personal Experiences, Transportation, Railways

113 points by qkeast 41 days ago | 69 comments

My Heart Surgery vs. Y Combinator Interview (manidoraisamy.com)
It was April 2021. With just one week to go before my Y Combinator interview, I found myself sitting in my doctor’s office, facing an unexpected crisis. The doctor told me that I had a severe leak in my heart and needed open-heart surgery immediately. The estimated recovery period was two months—one month for preparation and another for recovery. That was almost the entire duration of the YC program.

Personal Experiences, Y Combinator, Healthcare

9 points by QueensGambit 41 days ago | 0 comments

Backyard Cyanide (suziepetryk.com)
There’s a bushy tree in my backyard with these dark red fruit — the kind that makes some primal instinct scream at you across millennia, but you can’t tell if it wants you to eat them or not.

Nature, Plants, Personal Experiences

138 points by tancik 46 days ago | 56 comments

Tailscale is pretty useful (6nok.org)
It’s probably old news for most, but I’ve recently started using Tailscale and wanted to share my experience with it.

Networking, Software, Reviews, Personal Experiences

804 points by marban 51 days ago | 404 comments

At 3 a.m., I Turned to AI for Comfort. That Was My First Mistake (thewalrus.ca)
Lying awake at three at night, I asked ChatGPT: “am I real?”

Artificial Intelligence, Personal Experiences, Technology, Existentialism

5 points by pseudolus 55 days ago | 0 comments

Ask HN: My father passed away. How do deal with the grief? (ycombinator.com)
It has been one month since he passed and i have been continuously crying. I am writing this with tears in my eye.

Grief, Personal Experiences, Advice, Support Groups, Death

37 points by gogo61 60 days ago | 26 comments

I Suddenly Lost My Enthusiasm for Interneting (durmonski.com)
As someone who has spent years contributing to the digital noise (via blogging), working in the IT sector, and existing long enough to remember when “going online” meant hearing the tortured screams of a dial-up modem, I have to admit – I’ve lost my enthusiasm for interneting.

Internet Culture, Personal Experiences, Technology, Social Media, Web Development

9 points by durmonski 61 days ago | 2 comments

My startup journey with BYBE (drewknight.com)
Every startup has a story. Regardless of the outcome, there's always something to be learned, something to be shared. Because here's the thing: the startup journey isn't linear. It's a roller coaster. You enter with an idea, only to hit dead ends, take wrong turns, and double back. It's messy, frustrating, and often humbling. But when you finally reach the other side, you see how every twist and turn shaped your company and your perspective.

Startups, Entrepreneurship, Personal Experiences

21 points by azhenley 61 days ago | 10 comments

Math Academy, part 1: My eigenvector embarassment (frankhecker.com)
This all started because I don’t know what an eigenvector is.

Mathematics, Education, Personal Experiences

84 points by gmays 67 days ago | 63 comments

The ideal candidate will be punched in the stomach (scottsmitelli.com)
What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done?

Humor, Personal Experiences, Creative Writing

394 points by smitelli 67 days ago | 252 comments

My Time at MIT (blogspot.com)
Twenty years ago, in 2004-2005, I spent a year at MIT’s Computer Science department as a postdoc working with Professor Nancy Lynch.

MIT, Computer Science, Academia, Personal Experiences

181 points by rrampage 68 days ago | 78 comments

I Paid $70 for an AI Boyfriend. It Was So Worth It (harpersbazaar.com)

Artificial Intelligence, Relationships, Consumerism, Personal Experiences

61 points by yo_yo_yo-yo 73 days ago | 80 comments

Sharing a ChatGPT Account with My Wife (startupbaniya.com)
I was curious to see how ChatGPT would respond to this question, and the answer was interesting because my wife and I share the same ChatGPT Pro account, but we use AI in different ways.

ChatGPT, Artificial Intelligence, Relationships, Personal Experiences

43 points by aman2k4 73 days ago | 62 comments

How A Skeptical Philosopher Becomes a Christian [Larry Sanger] (larrysanger.org)
It is finally time for me to confess and explain, fully and publicly, that I am a Christian.

Philosophy, Religion, Christianity, Personal Experiences

17 points by Boogie_Man 74 days ago | 9 comments

My Wife's Enemies Are Now My Enemies, Too (2019) (thecut.com)
Until about five years ago, I got along with basically everyone. Sometimes, I knew, people didn’t care for me, but my impeccable get-along instincts and crushing fear of confrontation prevented things from coming to a head very often. And if I didn’t like someone, I’d try to never let them know, because even if the sight of them made my stomach curdle, I still wanted them to like me.

Relationships, Personal Experiences, Conflict

38 points by mooreds 74 days ago | 62 comments

Escaping surprise bills and over-engineered messes: Why I left AWS (travisbumgarner.dev)
I love building side projects. They've been a way to push myself and explore new ideas and technologies. Each site has needed hosting. I started my hosting journey with WordPress. I moved on to raw Linux servers and finally ended up on AWS. Hosting on AWS felt like a badge of honor, but it also felt like a ticking time bomb of complexity and cost.

Cloud Computing, Web Development, Personal Experiences, Cost Optimization

129 points by theogravity 81 days ago | 155 comments

Three AM 911 call, 9 AM salesman (wholelottanothing.org)
A few days ago, the smoke alarms in my house went off at 3am, so we got up and took it seriously when we smelled smoke everywhere. But after 20 minutes of searching high and low, we couldn't find a source, so as a precaution, we called 911 to let our fire department stop by to check things out too.

Home Safety, Fire Safety, Personal Experiences

171 points by wawayanda 85 days ago | 83 comments

Living with Nausea: My Story in Six Charts (c82.net)
I used to have boring health. I never had more than the flu, been admitted to the hospital, and I could eat whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. In late 2023, that changed when I developed chronic nausea.

Health, Personal Experiences, Data Visualization, Chronic Illness

169 points by janpio 85 days ago | 84 comments

I use ChatGPT daily (scientist/coder perspective) (bartwronski.com)
We all know how the internet works—lots of “hot takes,” polarizing opinions, trolling, and ignorance.

Generative AI, AI Applications, Personal Experiences, Technology

3 points by davikr 87 days ago | 0 comments

My Impressions of Gleam (snarky.ca)
When I was about to go on paternity leave, the Gleam programming language reached 1.0. It's such a small language that I was able to learn it over the span of two days. I tried to use it to convert a GitHub Action from JavaScript to Gleam, but I ran into issues due to Gleam wanting to be the top of the language stack instead of the bottom. As such I ended up learning and using ReScript.

Programming Languages, Software Development, Personal Experiences

32 points by ingve 91 days ago | 71 comments

Cal Newport: What Happened When an Offline Person Tried TikTok (newyorker.com)
In 2013, I wrote a blog post titled “Why I Never Joined Facebook.” Social media had grown so ubiquitous that I felt obligated to justify my abstention; I pointed out that I didn’t need it because it didn’t solve any actual problems in my life.

Social Media, Personal Experiences, Cal Newport, Technology, New York

25 points by mitchbob 91 days ago | 8 comments