Top all-time · #3893
Danny O'Brien
Personal blog · oblomovka.com/wpculturepoliticswriting
Danny O'Brien's personal blog at oblomovka.com covers culture, politics and writing. Since 2008, 20 different Hacker News readers have linked it 29 times, most often “Teaching old hippies new tricks”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-02-10, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (10) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Danny O'Brien's long-running personal blog, especially 'A Touch of the Galois' on Galois theory, plus posts on early internet history, the Habeas antispam haiku, and quoted commentary on how women are depicted.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 10 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- Teaching old hippies new tricks2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-05-27
- /wp/2009/04/28/how-to-be-edgy/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2009-04-29
- AI Psychosis, AI Apotheosis2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2026-01-07
What Hacker News says?
Danny O’Brien’s blog post A Touch of the Galois is my favorite writing on Galois, > Flunked two colleges, fought to restore the Republic, imprisoned in the Bastille, and managed to scribble down the thoughts that would lead to several major fields of mathematics, before dying in a duel — either romantic or political — at the age of twenty. https://www.oblomovka.com/wp/2012/09/11/touch-of-the-galois/
Comment linking /wp/2012/09/11/touch-of-the-galois/
on “Galois Theory”Submitted Pavel Durov and the Blackberry Ratchet as a story · 82 points
HN discussionCute. I remember some anti-spam outfit trying to "protect" emails with a copyrighted poem in the headers: http://www.oblomovka.com/writing/habeas%3A_the_antispam_haik... I wonder how far back in OS(X) it dates?
Comment linking /writing/habeas%3A_the_antispam_haiku.php3
on “Ask HN: I wrote a Slack compatible server. Can I open source it?”Submitted CD-ROMs and iPads as a story · 30 points
HN discussionNot a fraction as clever, but twenty years ago I wrote a haiku-finder in Python, and pointed it at the GPL[1] When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price. FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. [1]: https://www.oblomovka.com/code/haiku.php3
Comment linking /code/haiku.php3
on “GNU Justified Public License”Submitted On being a bit of an idiot as a story · 30 points
HN discussionInteresting comment quoted here: http://www.oblomovka.com/wp/2009/04/28/how-to-be-edgy/ It’s not about whether it’s porn or not porn. Those commenting on people’s supposed hypersensitivity to nudity or bodies are completely missing the point. It’s about presenting women as ‘the other,’ not ‘us.’ It would have been just as offensive if all the women shown were domineering mothers in aprons, shaking their fingers and…
Comment linking /wp/2009/04/28/how-to-be-edgy/
on “A Selection Of Thoughts From Actual Women (regarding GoGaRuCo)”Submitted A New Oral Culture as a story · 26 points
HN discussionDanny O'Brien has picked out a great quote on this issue: > "It’s not about whether it’s porn or not porn. Those commenting on people’s supposed hypersensitivity to nudity or bodies are completely missing the point. It’s about presenting women as ‘the other,’ not ‘us.’ It would have been just as offensive if all the women shown were domineering mothers in aprons, shaking their fingers and threatening with rolling pi…
Comment linking /wp/2009/04/28/how-to-be-edgy/
on “A Selection Of Thoughts From Actual Women (regarding GoGaRuCo)”Submitted Email subject lines seem to be getting longer as a story · 17 points
HN discussionBack in the day, I really enjoyed reading Nat Friedman's blog (yes, he of Novell/Ximian/MS/GitHub fame) about a broader system called Dashboard which provided a sort of live querying of your data based on activities you were performing at the time. It's mentioned on Slashdot at https://developers.slashdot.org/story/03/07/27/1849258/nat-d... but sadly his blog does not appear to be archived anywhere.. if anyone has a…
Comment linking /wp/2003/07/12/nats-dashboard/
on “Remembrance Agent (1996)”Submitted Jet plane emotions; iPad cycles - open vs closed systems as a story · 15 points
HN discussionThis is why copyright strains to match its intention in a digital environment. It's all copies, out here: the number of transformations, duplications and mutations of this sentence to make it from my keyboard to your screen is well-nigh uncountable. So we end up with intuition-bending exceptions and judgements, some attempting to protect the spirit of the law, some enforcing some broad conception of intellectual pro…
Comment linking /wp/2008/08/07/copyright-fraud-and-window-taxes-no-not-that-windows/
on “Hachette vs. Internet Archive: We're Still Fighting for Fair Use”Submitted Some rambling conversations I’ve had on moving from MacOS to Debian as a story · 9 points
HN discussionLink to the piece if anyone finds this in the future: https://www.oblomovka.com/wp/2003/04/15/the-hinternet/ (It was both strangely broken in my WP database, and also I think my website was down when OP write this. Sorry!)
Comment linking /wp/2003/04/15/the-hinternet/
on “The Negative Impact of Mobile-First Web Design on Desktop”Submitted PRISM Verizon Surprise as a story · 7 points
HN discussionFrom what I gather from Oblomovka[1] [and based on my own memory of this period]: It was a place where the primary early users of the Internet did not frequent, but could be something an ordinary person would be exposed to out of necessity. (Think, maybe some service that lets one send faxes via email; notably you'd need to create an account and spend money.) But, at some point, this reversed, and ordinary use cases…
Comment linking /wp/2003/04/16/hinternet-fallout/
on “The Negative Impact of Mobile-First Web Design on Desktop”Submitted Haystack vs How The Internet Works as a story · 6 points
HN discussionhttps://www.oblomovka.com/ -- I'm thinking of starting a new one though!
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Could you share your personal blog here?”Submitted Copyright, Fraud and Window Taxes (No, not that Windows) as a story · 6 points
HN discussionSubmitted Wanted: an opera unite web proxy for iran as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSubmitted AI Psychosis, AI Apotheosis as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted AI Psychosis, AI Apotheosis as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted LLMs for the Old and Infirm as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Teaching old hippies new tricks as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Danny O'Brien's Oblomovka: teaching old hippies new tricks as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted LLMs and Humans Unite, You Have Nothing to Lose but Your Chores as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted The register [2003] as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Unwanted Enthusiasms; Returns to Scale; Organization Theory as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
