Ask HN: How do you find deep technical content?

Posted by f311a 5 days ago

I'm pretty tired of seeing AI-related content everywhere. When I open Hacker News, close to half of the top submissions are AI-related. It's the same on social networks as well.

I miss the times when there was a lot of technical content that took time and mental energy to understand.

Nowadays, it's pretty hard to discover it. On HN, I see that a lot of technical articles don't make it to the front page, so sometimes I just search for them in the submissions. Not only is there less content, but demand for it is also declining. I guess people would rather read another article about LLMs that teaches almost nothing and doesn't exercise their curiosity. It feels sad for me, as a reader and as a writer.

So, are there any other places left where people still care about and share deep technical content? I want to keep exercising my thinking. I've had enough of brain-rotting.

Comments

Comment by brudgers 5 days ago

[random comment on the internet]

Some content on the subject of AI is deeply technical, just as is some content on the subject of blockchain, lisp, retro-computing, etc.

But most of what is written about most things (including C, reverse engineering, systems programming, etc.) is not deeply technical.

One problem unique to AI is that “AI” doesn’t mean anything specific…I mean even your question doesn’t distinguish between articles about specific AI technologies, articles generated using LLM’s, “AI” as a marketing feature, AI as an industry, AI as an ideology etc.

Comment by dieselgate 4 days ago

Textbooks, white papers and research publications if I understand what you mean by "deep technical". I like lectures and stuff too but find it difficult to refer back to later and search around.

Comment by bediger4000 5 days ago

At least part of the problem is that deep technical content doesn't get upvotes. The next time you see a link to such, note the vote count. It will be small. Note the vote count on some "AI" boosting link. It will be large. Is this Anthropic, Google and OpenAI bots for is it genuine interest?

Comment by iefbr14 5 days ago

There is probably still a lot out there but with the current state of the ('free') search engines you won't find much. I am painfully reminded of that every time I have to look for a datasheet that is not in my own archive yet.

Comment by vismit2000 4 days ago

https://aosabook.org/en/

Comment by dnnddidiej 5 days ago

For Go in particular: the docs. Gophercon videos.

In general good conference then Youtube. Even if old e.g. strangeloop. There is Fosdem etc.

Comment by tanlethanh 3 days ago

Be specific! You must know what you want to read at a time, always prefer going with fundamentals, textbooks and get keywords. Use those keywords to find out the deeper level content.

Comment by bohdanstefaniuk 4 days ago

In most cases documentation is enough for me when I need some help with my current day to day tasks.

If I want do dig deeper - textbooks, white papers are still a good source.

Comment by wanderingpixel 5 days ago

Read more engineering content, e.g. https://circuitcellar.com/

Comment by markus_zhang 5 days ago

There are a huge number of system programming books. You can also search for system programming topics on HN.

Comment by crowcountry 4 days ago

Watch lectures from Stanford, MIT, and other universities.

Comment by bawis 3 days ago

What are you favourites?

Comment by dakiol 4 days ago

Books.

Comment by 5 days ago

Comment by slipknotfan 5 days ago

lobste.rs has some stuff

Comment by alexjplant 5 days ago

I'd love an invite if you have one to spare (no expectation either way). Email is in my profile if you feel so inclined.

Comment by unmole 5 days ago

Invite sent.

Comment by kovoor 4 days ago

Do you happen to have any more? Would really appreciate to have an invite as well, thanks again (email is in bio)

Comment by shavi71 4 days ago

I would appreciate an invite too (email in my about column)

Comment by Charon77 4 days ago

Would appreciate invite too (email in my about column)

Comment by unmole 4 days ago

Done.

Comment by Charon77 4 days ago

Much obliged!

Comment by spidersouris 4 days ago

Would also be interested in an invite, if anyone has any. Email on my user page.

Comment by pseudo-usama 5 days ago

lobsters genuinely seems more technical and less hype driven than HN these days

Comment by ken-jo 4 days ago

Thank you for share it.

Comment by user68858788 5 days ago

That's a neat site but I'm stuck looking in from the outside. Can someone spare me an invite please? My email is in my about.

Comment by yash1th 4 days ago

sorry for piling on but I'd love an invite as well if you can spare :) email is in my profile.