Ask HN: How do you find deep technical content? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do you find deep technical content?

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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.

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[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.

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.

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?

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.

https://aosabook.org/en/

For Go in particular: the docs. Gophercon videos.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Watch lectures from Stanford, MIT, and other universities.

What are you favourites?

Books.

lobste.rs has some stuff

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

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.

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.

Invite sent.

Would appreciate invite too (email in my about column)

Done.

Much obliged!

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

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

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

Thank you for share it.

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

books

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