Top all-time · #756
Mat Duggan
Personal blog · matduggan.comprogrammingculture
Mat Duggan's personal blog at matduggan.com covers programming and culture. Since 2021, 86 different Hacker News readers have linked it 157 times, most often “You can have an RSS dependent website in 2026”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-20, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (15) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Mat Duggan's posts on the AI bubble, layoffs, passkeys, moving to Denmark and email encryption, mostly as citations. A few comments praise them as interesting or good.
- Recommended for · 5 comments
- Called a pretty good article, a very interesting blog post, an interesting article, a good answer and an excellent post.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 15 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Old fashioned YAML farmer
Most-linked posts?
- You can have an RSS dependent website in 20265 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2026-04-09
- ClickHouse is winning the Observability Wars4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2026-07-02
- Replace Docker Compose with Quadlet and Systemd4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2024-08-16
- Stop Optimizing for Tutorials4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2022-10-21
- How Does FaceTime Work?3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2021-08-06
- Coding for non-programmers: Why we need better GUI automation tools3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2021-10-22
- The Worst Website in the Entire World3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2024-05-15
- Are Dockerfiles Good Enough?3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-09-10
- I Sold Out for $20 a Month and All I Got Was This Perfectly Generated Terraform3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2026-02-16
- You Know GDPR Is Good Based on Who Hates It3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2026-08-28
What Hacker News says?
I've spent a hot minute trying to summarise Mat Duggan and failing, so please forgive a link drop in service of not botching the cookie banner argument: https://matduggan.com/you-know-gdpr-is-good-based-on-who-hat... I hold values which lead to conflicting views and opinions, which i therefore hold lightly and attempt to balance. No action or inaction is a perfect solution to a wicked problem. - yes, people should b…
Comment linking /you-know-gdpr-is-good-based-on-who-hates-it/
on “California lawmakers unanimously pass Linux exemption from age-verification law”Submitted Fixing Macs door to door as a story · 1033 points
HN discussionThe AI Bubble Is Bursting - Jan 2025 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42770561 https://matduggan.com/the-ai-bubble-is-bursting/
Comment linking /the-ai-bubble-is-bursting/
on “Google is making AI in Gmail and Docs free, but raising the price of Workspace”Submitted Greenland is a beautiful nightmare as a story · 625 points
HN discussionI use UTM on Mac, it's a great experience. Donated a little to them using github sponsors because of how useful the tool is, and how easy it is to obtain and install unlike VMware Player (see: https://matduggan.com/the-worst-website-in-the-entire-world/ ).
Comment linking /the-worst-website-in-the-entire-world/
on “After initially rejecting it, Apple has approved the first PC emulator for iOS”Submitted Stop Trying to Schedule a Call with Me as a story · 588 points
HN discussionThis travel blog was posted a bit ago on HN [0]. Much of the nature of Greenland was a shock for me to learn about, including the severe mosquitos. [0] https://matduggan.com/greenland-is-a-beautiful-nightmare/
Comment linking /greenland-is-a-beautiful-nightmare/
on “Mosquitoes discovered in Iceland for the first time”Submitted The Worst Website in the Entire World as a story · 391 points
HN discussionThe P.S. links to an interesting article about the Broadcom site UX peculiarities: https://matduggan.com/the-worst-website-in-the-entire-world/
Comment linking /the-worst-website-in-the-entire-world/
on “It looks a lot like VMware just lost a 24,000-VM customer”Submitted Operations is not Developer IT as a story · 354 points
HN discussion>OpenPGP uses a decentralized “Web of Trust” where users vouch for each other’s keys. This article fails to mention WKD [1] (Web Key Directory) which is supported by Proton Mail, doesn't rely on the "Web of Trust" and allows seamless PGP encryption of sent emails. Here is an example of how this works (and how it can get annoying) [2]. [1] https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-koch-openpgp-webkey-s... [2] https://ma…
Comment linking /why-cant-my-mom-email-me/
on “Understanding Email Encryption (2025)”Submitted Programming in the Apocalypse as a story · 303 points
HN discussionThere was a pretty good article about why layoffs don’t work here a few days ago too. Backed by studies and such. https://matduggan.com/us-layoffs-are-unspeakably-cruel/
Comment linking /us-layoffs-are-unspeakably-cruel/
on “Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff”Submitted Why can't my mom email me? as a story · 279 points
HN discussionThe author is in devops[1], which intuitively seems like the sort of job that would have that 'not making any significant changes, just working on single files' type of flow that isn't the same flow as a standard dev approach (where it's common to work across an entire repo). So it's understandable from that perspective that they might come to that conclusion. Put another way, in a software product, you bring down t…
Comment linking /about-me/
on “Why Don't I Like Git More?”Submitted What would a Kubernetes 2.0 look like as a story · 259 points
HN discussionthere was a very interesting blog post on this a few weeks ago https://matduggan.com/the-year-of-the-3d-printed-miniature-a... apparently some do, most don't.
Comment linking /the-year-of-the-3d-printed-miniature-and-other-lies-we-tell-ourselves/
on “A gaming success story: how Warhammer became one of Britain's biggest companies”Submitted A Eulogy for DevOps as a story · 248 points
HN discussionHow to move to Denmark as a software developer https://matduggan.com/developers-guide-to-moving-to-denmark/
Comment linking /developers-guide-to-moving-to-denmark/
on “A Zoomer explains her generation's malaise to older generations”Submitted Common Infrastructure Errors I've Made as a story · 246 points
HN discussionhttps://matduggan.com/passkeys-as-a-tool-for-user-retention/ > It is also, as currently implemented, one of the most effective platform lock-ins I've ever seen.
Comment linking /passkeys-as-a-tool-for-user-retention/
on “Bitwarden Adds Support for Passkeys”Submitted Make Tmux the OS as a story · 234 points
HN discussionA good answer: "The Intolerable Hypocrisy of Cyberlibertarianism" [1] And discussion [2]. [1] https://matduggan.com/the-intolerable-hypocrisy-of-cyberlibe... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48074952
Comment linking /the-intolerable-hypocrisy-of-cyberlibertarianism/
on “Leaving the Physical World”Submitted K8s Service Meshes: The Bill Comes Due as a story · 233 points
HN discussionhttps://matduggan.com/ I love to write this stuff. Sometimes people like it, sometimes they don’t. It’s still a lot of fun to do.
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Could you share your personal blog here?”Submitted IAM Is the Worst as a story · 230 points
HN discussionDon't worry about the small web. Most people running the small web don't do it for others but themselves. They don't care whether they have 5 visitors or 1 million. Visitors are just the cherry on top, my main reason for maintaining a small web page is to put down my thoughts, organize them, go back to them if I need to, and helping whichever stranger stumbles upon them along the way. The small web and indie web aud…
Comment linking /you-can-absolutely-have-an-rss-dependent-website-in-2026/
on “A new era for AI Search”Submitted Making RSS More Fun as a story · 224 points
HN discussionPointed to by this excellent post https://matduggan.com/were-all-doing-metrics-wrong/ (discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36469147 )
Comment linking /were-all-doing-metrics-wrong/
on “Graylog Extended Log Format (GELF) – Structured Logging over UDP”Submitted How Does FaceTime Work? as a story · 196 points
HN discussion
