Top all-time · #10402
Alex Wellerstein
Personal blog · doomsdaymachines.nethistoryscience
Alex Wellerstein writes Doomsday Machines, a personal blog at doomsdaymachines.net about history and science. Since 2024, 7 different Hacker News readers have linked it 9 times. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-11-01, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (1) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link this nuclear-history blog for its post on the meme-ification of the Demon Core, the 1940s criticality accident device. One commenter traces when the meme first appeared online.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 1 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Post-apocalyptic Road Trips, End of the World-building, and Interesting Times.
What Hacker News says?
follow-up: a comment[0] in TFA claims 2011/04/03 article on Gigazine.net to be the origin, however that itself links to 2011/03/29 slashdot.jp diary entry[2] which is apparently written by translator for ja.wikipedia article[3] created at 2011/03/28[1]. These are also pre-memeization, but just articles for curiosity. There must be some point between 2011 and 2014 that it became a meme. 0: https://doomsdaymachines.ne…
Comment linking /p/the-meme-ification-of-the-demon-core/comment/78301644
on “The meme-ification of the “Demon Core””Submitted The meme-ification of the “Demon Core” as a story · 400 points
HN discussionSubmitted Working at Cold War Los Alamos as a story · 9 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Battlefield Is Everywhere as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Clouds of Hiroshima as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted "I have sought to slaughter as few civilians as possible." as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Pantex Employee Photos, 1980s as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted It isn't a happy picture, is it? as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Wasteland Wrap-Up #51 as a story · 1 points
HN discussion