Top all-time · #4395
PJ Vogt
Personal blog · pjvogt.substack.comculturewriting
PJ Vogt's personal blog at pjvogt.substack.com covers culture and writing. Since 2023, 18 different Hacker News readers have linked it 20 times, most often “How do you make an addictive video game?”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-03-30, 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 PJ Vogt's Substack for his podcast Search Engine (formerly Reply All), with episodes on scams, fentanyl, music piracy, and urban development. Commenters call the episodes interesting and worth a listen.
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.
Welcome to Search Engine, a newsletter for a podcast that tries to answer every question. No question too big, no question too small.
Most-linked posts?
- /p/whos-behind-these-scammy-text-messages4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2024-03-21
- How do you make an addictive video game?2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-03-08
What Hacker News says?
I'd like to shoutout PG Vogt (from Reply All podcasting fame) for this episode of his new show: https://pjvogt.substack.com/p/how-am-i-supposed-to-find-new-...
Comment linking /p/how-am-i-supposed-to-find-new-music
on “Jellyfin as a Spotify alternative”Submitted How do you make an addictive video game? as a story · 15 points
HN discussionUnironically, folks are being triggered by trigger warnings now.[1] Imagine how “free” the beer in your hypothetical scenario is to an alcoholic struggling to stay sober. Capitalism commoditizes even protest against it and repackages it as a product or service. None of this is to assign blame to good faith actors in a so-called free market, nor is it to abdicate responsibility on behalf of so-called free agents. Jus…
Comment linking /p/what-do-trigger-warnings-actually
on “Stack Overflow users deleting answers after OpenAI partnership”Submitted Why'd I take speed for twenty years? as a story · 2 points
HN discussionI can't remember if it was specifically about Shwe Kokko but Search Engine did an episode about a city with compounds like these. https://pjvogt.substack.com/p/whos-behind-these-scammy-text-...
Comment linking /p/whos-behind-these-scammy-text-messages
on “Shwe Kokko is accused of being a city built on scams”Submitted Why don't we eat people? as a story · 2 points
HN discussionPJ Vagt (from Reply All) has a FANTASTIC episode about this. Give it a listen, it's one of the most interesting podcasts I've heard since the golden days of Reply All. https://pjvogt.substack.com/p/whos-behind-these-scammy-text-...
Comment linking /p/whos-behind-these-scammy-text-messages
on “What is a pig butchering scam? (2023)”Submitted Is it OK to just work all the time? as a story · 1 points
HN discussionAs did Search Engine: https://pjvogt.substack.com/p/whos-behind-these-scammy-text-... . That episode takes a really dark turn.
Comment linking /p/whos-behind-these-scammy-text-messages
on “What is a pig butchering scam? (2023)”The first software I made that had users other than myself was a Lemonade Stand clone for the TI-83 Plus. I shared it with people at my school using a link cable and, as there wasn't much competition in the calculator game market, it was a big hit. The next school year, I attended a drivers ed class at our crosstown rival high school and found that my game had somehow spread to that school as well! I have no idea ho…
Comment linking /p/how-do-you-make-an-addictive-video
on “Lemonade Stand”Try giving https://pjvogt.substack.com/p/why-are-drug-dealers-putting-f... a listen. There are many reasons, some more plausible than others, but most surprising to me is that there’s a heavy amount of demand for it.
Comment linking /p/why-are-drug-dealers-putting-fentanyl
on “America's ten-year-old fentanyl epidemic is still getting worse”PJ Vogt (formerly Reply All) recently did an interesting episode on his new podcast about this exact topic[0]. It's worth a listen. It really helped to clarify some meta-thoughts about how attention works, how media consumption influences us, and how I think about Twitter (and people's relation to it). Like, at one point, PJ talks about how he's witnessed people at the bar talking to a friend (purportedly), but in a…
Comment linking /p/how-do-i-use-the-internet-now
on “The Slow Death of Authenticity in an Attention Economy”See also good podcast dedicated to this topic: Why can't we turn all the empty offices into apartment buildings? https://pjvogt.substack.com/p/why-cant-we-turn-all-the-empty...
Comment linking /p/why-cant-we-turn-all-the-empty-offices
on “Dropbox handing over 25% of San Francisco HQ back to landlord”“Search Engine” podcast did a recent episode on this topic. https://pjvogt.substack.com/p/whos-behind-these-scammy-text-...
Comment linking /p/whos-behind-these-scammy-text-messages
on “To make sure grandmas like his don't get conned, he scams the scammers”There was an interesting couple of episodes from the podcast Search Engine, asking the question “Why do dealers put fentanyl in everything?” [1] & [2] The grim conclusion was that dead clients are a calling card for dealers. People addicted to drugs don’t think “oh crap, this guy might kill me”, they think “oh wow, that must’ve been a hell of a high”. [1]: https://pjvogt.substack.com/p/why-are-drug-dealers-putting-f…
Comment linking /p/why-are-drug-dealers-putting-fentanyl-97a
on “Danish man convicted for generating $315100 worth of fraudulent music streams”>Do you already own all of the music you are going to listen to for your life? Statistically, yes! This was covered on a recent episode of 'Search Engine' (rising from the ashes of 'Reply All'): https://pjvogt.substack.com/p/how-am-i-supposed-to-find-new-...
Comment linking /p/how-am-i-supposed-to-find-new-music
on “When the Music Industry Waged War on the Cassette Tape During the 1980s”This is very coincidental with PJ Vogt new podcast "Search Engine", they released a preview episode in the last days titled "How Sad Are Monkeys In The Zoo" [1] that tackles this problem of animal emotions. I was very surprised to learn that most animals in Zoos are on constant anti-depression and anti-anxiety prescriptions. https://pjvogt.substack.com/p/welcome-to-search-engine Edit: typo
Comment linking /p/welcome-to-search-engine
on “Dogs Can Have Human-Like Anxiety. They Need Human-Like Treatment [Opinion Piece]”Worth a listen to this podcast: https://pjvogt.substack.com/p/wait-should-i-not-be-drinking-...
Comment linking /p/wait-should-i-not-be-drinking-airline
on “Quality of drinking water varies significantly by airline”Articles of Interest is _so_ good. It's a great take on the 99% Invisible "design of everyday things". I was definitely blind to clothing and textiles and Articles of Interest is really enlightening. You may enjoy Search Engine by PJ Vogt[1], it's really well done. Its the quality of the original Gimlet Podcasts and a bit different than his previous show (Reply All). [1] https://pjvogt.substack.com
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: What podcasts do you listen to?”