Top all-time · #8015
David Mytton
Personal blog · davidmytton.blog · on HN as dmyttonstartupsprogramming
David Mytton's personal blog at davidmytton.blog covers startups and programming. Since 2018, 10 different Hacker News readers have linked it 14 times, most often “What are the common causes of cloud outages?”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-05-18, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (2) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN commenters link David Mytton's writing on datacentre energy use. One comment pushes back on a claim that switching programming languages would save much power, so the thread is mostly about efficiency arguments.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 2 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
CEO of Arcjet (the security platform that ships with your code). Writing console.dev (the best tools for developers)
Most-linked posts?
- What are the common causes of cloud outages?2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-07-04
- How much water do data centers use? (2020)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-06-17
- /how-much-energy-do-data-centers-use/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-11-03
What Hacker News says?
Note-taking seems to be a hot topic lately. I used Apple Notes for a long time because it was very lightweight and minimalist, but recent releases of macOS have been very buggy, so I decided to review all the options. I wrote this up at https://davidmytton.blog/the-best-note-taking-apps-for-mac-m... which has become one of the most trafficked post on my blog in the last few months! The key for me is a) plain text fi…
Comment linking /the-best-note-taking-apps-for-mac-markdown-open-format-cross-platform/
on “Zettlr – FOSS markdown editor for personal knowledge management and publishing”Submitted You can’t build a SaaS company in 2018 without significant funding as a story · 43 points
HN discussionYou forgot the electrons. https://davidmytton.blog/how-much-energy-do-data-centers-use...
Comment linking /how-much-energy-do-data-centers-use/
on “Banks, QE, and Money-Printing”Submitted How much water do data centers use? (2020) as a story · 7 points
HN discussionI moved my notes out of Apple Notes and into Markdown inside text files last year due to the bugs I encountered. This means I can sync them with whatever product I like (currently OneDrive) and open them on any system (currently macOS) with any app that can parse Markdown (currently iA Writer). It also means whenever any new app comes along, I can play around. Usually what I want is something that loads very quickly…
Comment linking /the-best-note-taking-apps-for-mac-markdown-open-format-cross-platform/
on “Using Obsidian to manage goals, tasks, notes, and software dev knowledge base”Submitted What are the common causes of cloud outages? as a story · 4 points
HN discussionIf only it were that simple! If such a gain could be made by simply switching your programming language to one that is "more efficient" (in power consumption terms) we would see Google writing everything in C++, instead of the mix of Go, Python, Java, PHP, etc. that comprises most of their software stacks! But no, that's not how it works at all. Nearly half (about 40%)[^1] of datacenter's total power draw on average…
Comment linking /how-much-energy-do-data-centers-use/
on “Embracing Common Lisp in the modern world”Submitted How much water do data centers use? as a story · 3 points
HN discussionDue to the bugs in Apple Notes on macOS 10.15 and iOS 13, I just spent some time evaluating as many note taking apps for Mac as possible. I ended up picking https://ia.net/writer Typora was interesting but it was very buggy, and doesn't handle tags which are important for notes. My main criteria were an open file format, ideally editing plain text files on disk using Markdown as the formatting. This ruled out apps l…
Comment linking /the-best-note-taking-apps-for-mac-markdown-open-format-cross-platform/
on “Typora: A truly minimal markdown editor”Submitted The one job of the early stage startup CTO as a story · 2 points
HN discussionIt's great to see new services that help consumers make choices about the products they buy. However, without details of the methodology being used to determine the carbon footprint, there is no way to gauge the accuracy of the service. These types of analysis are often quite inaccurate. The Bloomberg article is paywalled. Their press release at https://enfuce.com/enfuce-launched-new-sustainability-servic... says: >…
Comment linking /sustainability-doesnt-work-without-transparency/
on “Finland Has an App Showing Shopping’s Carbon Footprint”Submitted Focusing on Developers as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted What are the common causes of cloud outages? as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Configuring for security, privacy and convenience as a story · 1 points
HN discussion