Top all-time · #608
lcamtuf’s thing
Personal blog · lcamtuf.substack.comhardwareprogrammingscience
lcamtuf’s thing is a personal blog at lcamtuf.substack.com about hardware, programming and science. Since 2022, 100 different Hacker News readers have linked it 217 times, most often “A brief history of counting machines (2023)”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-28, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (27) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link it for security and open-source analysis such as the xz backdoor, hardware and electronics projects, and essays on AI and corporate life. Several commenters say it is a blog to follow.
- Recommended for · 9 comments
- Commenters call a radio primer 'really nice' and a post 'profoundly moving', and say every engineer should follow the blog.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 27 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
geek culture, algorithms, electronic circuit design, and chainsaw safety tips. Click to read lcamtuf’s thing, a Substack publication with thousands of subscribers.
Most-linked posts?
- A brief history of counting machines (2023)5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2023-08-26
- A breakthrough in C/C++ dependency management4 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2026-04-26
- JPEG DCT Text Lossifizer4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2024-03-18
- /4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2024-10-30
- A quick look at the wacky epistemology of analog circuitry3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2025-06-07
- What's the deal with Euler's identity?3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2025-11-08
- eBay app lets ChatGPT make up item descriptions3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-09-10
- Recreating classic games with a bare microcontroller3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-01-15
- Not so fast, Mr. Fourier3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2024-03-18
- OSS backdoors: the folly of the easy fix3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2024-04-01
What Hacker News says?
lcamtuf's two posts argue that this may simply not be an open-source maintainer's job to defend against. ("The maintainers of libcolorpicker.so can’t be the only thing that stands between your critical infrastructure and Russian or Chinese intelligence services. Spies are stopped by spies.") That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to help burnt out committers, but the problem seems very hard. As lcamtuf also says, many t…
Comment linking /p/oss-backdoors-the-allure-of-the-easy
on “Timeline of the xz open source attack”Submitted Fake Books as a story · 937 points
HN discussionTheir primer article [1] is also really nice. > Today, I’d like to close this gap with a couple of crisp definitions that stay clear of flawed hydraulic analogies, but also don’t get bogged down by differential equations or complex number algebra. Related: many, many years ago, when Facebook didn't exist yet, Google still passed as a "good" company, and hobbyist electronic geeks had almost only PICs to choose from,…
Comment linking /p/primer-core-concepts-in-electronic
on “Radios, how do they work?”Submitted The scientific “unit” we call the decibel as a story · 644 points
HN discussionThis is another interesting link about the issue: https://lcamtuf.substack.com/p/technologist-vs-spy-the-xz-ba... It mentions something not being reported, the issue is with a Linux specific patch to OpenSSH. If the patch did not exist there would be no issue. This is not an OpenSSH issue but a Linux issue.
Comment linking /p/technologist-vs-spy-the-xz-backdoor
on “Xz: A microcosm of the interactions in open source projects”Submitted Radios, how do they work? as a story · 641 points
HN discussionBaffled that https://lcamtuf.substack.com/ or https://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/ isn't in there.
Comment linking /
on “The highest-ranking personal blogs of Hacker News”Submitted Investigating an “evil” RJ45 dongle as a story · 508 points
HN discussionhttps://lcamtuf.substack.com/
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: What are the best engineering blogs with real-world depth?”Submitted Sir, there's a cat in your mirror dimension as a story · 463 points
HN discussionYou've already lost me by step two; I have no clue what "force is the negative gradient of potential" means or what a "conservation force field" is. When my non-expert perception is that potential energy already seems a bit like a hack to cause conservation to work, citing some technical fact based on the assumption that there's something called "potential" with a negative gradient that I should take for granted as…
Comment linking /p/4
on “Folks, we have the best π”Submitted But good sir, what is electricity? as a story · 410 points
HN discussionIn my sibling comment about the overall systems aspects of the situation, I asserted that there was in fact enormously more information available for how to program in the 32-bit ARM assembly used by the ATSAMD20 than in Z80 assembly. This is an overview of that information, starting, as you did, from the Internet Archive's texts collection. Searching the Archive instead for [arm thumb programming] I find https://ar…
Comment linking /p/mcu-land-part-3-baby-steps-with-cortex
on “Collapse OS”Submitted Things you can do with diodes as a story · 407 points
HN discussion> "The current trend of rewriting everything in Rust is out of control and misguided... EDIT: lcamtuf does a great job explaining my perspective on Rust push https://lcamtuf.substack.com/p/a-reactionary-take-on-memory- ... " The current trend is people rewriting Unix command line utilities in Rust, as a hobby. Nobody is rewriting Adobe PhotoShop or Oracle in Rust. Can you name some projects which you class as "out o…
Comment linking /p/a-reactionary-take-on-memory-
on “Rust in QEMU Roadmap”Submitted The magic of DC-DC voltage conversion (2023) as a story · 392 points
HN discussionCVEs are being assigned recklessly these days. Most of them aren't even security bugs and or cannot be exploited. Be wary of CVEs and their practical utility. Also this is a good read from AFL creator lcamtuf: https://lcamtuf.substack.com/p/a-reactionary-take-on-memory-...
Comment linking /p/a-reactionary-take-on-memory-safety
on “Rust in QEMU Roadmap”Submitted Folks, we have the best π as a story · 331 points
HN discussionThe problem they’re worried about is untrustworthy browser extensions that have broad permissions to do harm. There are over 100,000 extensions and from a security standpoint, not having good-enough sandboxing is a vulnerability. More: https://lcamtuf.substack.com/p/the-asymmetry-of-nudges > In reality, Manifest V3 was meant to solve a real problem — and to do so for the right reasons. I know this because about eigh…
Comment linking /p/the-asymmetry-of-nudges
on “Postmortem of my 9 year journey at Google”Submitted A requiem for amateur chemistry as a story · 286 points
HN discussionYou may also like lcamtuf's current thingy, a substack https://lcamtuf.substack.com/
Comment linking /
on “Hobby CAD, CNC machining, and resin casting (2015)”Submitted PCBs, copper pours, ground planes, and you as a story · 284 points
HN discussionNeeds to be fixed to go to https://lcamtuf.substack.com/p/afternoon-project-jpeg-dct-te...
Comment linking /p/afternoon-project-jpeg-dct-text-lossifizer
on “Not so fast, Mr. Fourier”Submitted Hell is other people: performance management at Big Tech as a story · 282 points
HN discussion> For a nonsensical but amusing demo that lets you watch what happens if you apply JPEG-style lossy compression to text, check out this post. The link seems broken, since it points back to the same article at https://lcamtuf.substack.com/p/not-so-fast-mr-fourier
Comment linking /p/not-so-fast-mr-fourier
on “Not so fast, Mr. Fourier”Submitted Some notes on influenceering as a story · 263 points
HN discussionhttps://lcamtuf.substack.com/p/a-requiem-for-amateur-chemist...
Comment linking /p/a-requiem-for-amateur-chemistry
on “To get kids into science, just do it”Submitted Radios, how do they work? (2024) as a story · 254 points
HN discussionI believe he found new solace - woodwork[1][2]. Given the state of security and things in general in the IT, I definitely understand. Especially with the AI slop influx. His blog is quite interesting to read though, highly recommend. [1] https://lcamtuf.substack.com/p/how-do-wood-finishes-hold-up [2] https://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/woodworking/
Comment linking /p/how-do-wood-finishes-hold-up
on “Pingfs: Stores your data in ICMP ping packets (2020)”Submitted Is the frequency domain a real place? as a story · 254 points
HN discussion
