Ken Shirriff

Most-linked posts?

1. How Hacker News ranking really works: scoring, controversy, and penalties
   51 people · 77 mentions · first linked 2013-11-18
2. Mining Bitcoin with pencil and paper: 0.67 hashes per day
   23 people · 24 mentions · first linked 2014-09-28
3. Hidden surprises in the Bitcoin blockchain and how they are stored
   16 people · 17 mentions · first linked 2014-02-16
4. Macbook charger teardown: surprising complexity inside Apple's power adapter
   15 people · 15 mentions · first linked 2015-11-25
5. A dozen USB chargers in the lab: Apple is very good
   14 people · 16 mentions · first linked 2013-02-12
6. A look inside iPad chargers: pricey Apple quality versus a risky phony
   14 people · 14 mentions · first linked 2014-05-10
7. Cells are fast and crowded places (2011)
   13 people · 15 mentions · first linked 2017-06-20
8. Apple iPhone charger teardown: quality in a tiny expensive package (2012)
   11 people · 11 mentions · first linked 2013-07-17
9. Teardown and exploration of Apple's Magsafe connector
   10 people · 12 mentions · first linked 2013-06-02
10. /
    10 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2017-11-15

What Hacker News says?

1. kens · 2020-05-18

   A few years ago, I reverse-engineered the HN ranking algorithm [1]. Basic ranking is based on votes vs age, but there are numerous other factors. Penalties are applied based on words in the title or the domain. Posts with too many comments got penalized as controversial. A "voting ring detector" triggers other automatic penalties. HN ranking has probably become more complex since I looked at it. Manual moderation al…

   Comment linking /2013/11/how-hacker-news-ranking-really-works.html

   on “Google deletes “communist bandits” from comments on Youtube”
2. todsacerdoti · 2024-06-23

   Submitted The tiny chip that powers Montreal subway tickets as a story · 930 points

   HN discussion
3. waz0wski · 2025-12-13

   HN hasn't focused on those topics in a long time, they rarely are on the front page. Skip the top 20 articles and you'll start to see some interesting content instead of all the VC & AI drivel. Hackaday is a content aggregator site that usually has more content on these topics - https://hackaday.com Or there are still some good old blogs out there with RSS feeds http://www.righto.com/ http://oldvcr.blogspot.com/ htt…

   Comment linking /

   on “Apple has locked my Apple ID, and I have no recourse. A plea for help”
4. jseip · 2013-11-26

   Submitted How Hacker News ranking really works: scoring, controversy, and penalties as a story · 920 points

   HN discussion
5. duskwuff · 2024-06-11

   > It just seems so obvious today that you can create gates, you can create macros, you can create complex designs, and you can define the interface at every level so you can hook them up and they just work. That idea came out of Conway and the early pioneers of VLSI. And you can see the opposite of this in many early microprocessor designs, like the (original, NMOS) 6502 and Z80. There's a lot of highly idiosyncrati…

   Comment linking /2013/01/a-small-part-of-6502-chip-explained.html

   on “Lynn Conway has died”
6. omnibrain · 2014-09-28

   Submitted Mining Bitcoin with pencil and paper: 0.67 hashes per day as a story · 653 points

   HN discussion
7. Splines · 2015-11-04

   Here's a similar analysis for phone chargers: http://www.righto.com/2012/10/a-dozen-usb-chargers-in-lab-ap...

   Comment linking /2012/10/a-dozen-usb-chargers-in-lab-apple-is.html

   on “Google engineer writing Amazon reviews on USB-C cables that don't work”
8. dvt · 2017-12-18

   Submitted Mining Bitcoin with pencil and paper: 0.67 hashes per day (2014) as a story · 642 points

   HN discussion
9. marshray · 2016-02-05

   That's the book that uncritically repeats Jobs' (completely bogus) claim that Apple invented the switching power supply. http://www.righto.com/2012/02/apple-didnt-revolutionize-powe...

   Comment linking /2012/02/apple-didnt-revolutionize-power.html

   on “Apple’s declining software quality”
10. robin_reala · 2015-11-25

    Submitted Macbook charger teardown: surprising complexity inside Apple's power adapter as a story · 556 points

    HN discussion
11. kens · 2017-03-13

    I wrote in detail in 2013 about how the Hacker News algorithm works and the penalties that can drop stories from the front page. My analysis was based on reverse engineering the algorithm from observed behavior and comparing with the published Arc code. This latest analysis seems kind of reinventing the wheel. http://www.righto.com/2013/11/how-hacker-news-ranking-really... Interestingly, my 2013 article also suddenl…

    Comment linking /2013/11/how-hacker-news-ranking-really-works.html

    on “Stories that Hacker News removes from the front page”
12. GavinAnderegg · 2024-09-01

    Submitted The Pentium as a Navajo Weaving as a story · 484 points

    HN discussion
13. teh_klev · 2015-11-26

    I used to think that until I read these articles: http://www.righto.com/2014/05/a-look-inside-ipad-chargers-pr... http://www.righto.com/2012/03/inside-cheap-phone-charger-and... Yes the articles are about fake and counterfeit power adapters but I expect these el-cheapo units have many of the same design and safety flaws due to cost cutting. Personally I'm taking no chances.

    Comment linking /2012/03/inside-cheap-phone-charger-and-why-you.html

    on “Raspberry Pi Zero: the $5 computer”
14. darwhy · 2017-08-21

    Submitted Examining a vintage RAM chip, I find a counterfeit with a different die inside as a story · 462 points

    HN discussion
15. fulafel · 2015-11-26

    For that application it is better to get officially imported ones (eg. CE-marked in Europe), where at least the importer is vouching that the design meets minimum safety requirements. See http://www.righto.com/2012/10/a-dozen-usb-chargers-in-lab-ap... for some horror stories about crap USB chargers.

    Comment linking /2012/10/a-dozen-usb-chargers-in-lab-apple-is.html

    on “Raspberry Pi Zero: the $5 computer”
16. picture · 2021-11-13

    Submitted Reverse-engineering the Yamaha DX7 synthesizer's sound chip from die photos as a story · 418 points

    HN discussion
17. kens · 2021-10-28

    You could probably get some blazing performance out of an FPGA. I made an FPGA version of FizzBuzz a few years ago, but it was optimized for pointless VGA animation rather than performance. https://www.righto.com/2018/04/fizzbuzz-hard-way-generating-...

    Comment linking /2018/04/fizzbuzz-hard-way-generating-vga-video.html

    on “55 GiB/s FizzBuzz”
18. parsecs · 2021-05-23

    Submitted Teardown of a PC Power Supply as a story · 407 points

    HN discussion
19. nayuki · 2022-02-07

    My way of explaining step by step visually is by implementing in Excel: AES https://www.nayuki.io/page/aes-cipher-internals-in-excel ; DES https://www.nayuki.io/page/des-cipher-internals-in-excel . Also relevant: https://www.righto.com/2014/09/mining-bitcoin-with-pencil-an...

    Comment linking /2014/09/mining-bitcoin-with-pencil-and-paper.html

    on “Show HN: SHA-256 explained step-by-step visually”
20. tusharchoudhary · 2021-02-15

    Submitted Mining Bitcoin with pencil and paper: 0.67 hashes per day (2014) as a story · 404 points

    HN discussion
21. NextHendrix · 2021-06-23Recommends

    Ken's blog is great, as well as his work with CuriousMarc. Here's when he tried mining bitcoins by hand. http://www.righto.com/2014/09/mining-bitcoin-with-pencil-and...

    Comment linking /2014/09/mining-bitcoin-with-pencil-and-paper.html?m=1

    on “A from-scratch tour of Bitcoin in Python”
22. retskrad · 2021-08-03

    Submitted Apple iPhone charger teardown: quality in a tiny expensive package (2012) as a story · 379 points

    HN discussion
23. msgilligan · 2021-06-22

    This is reminds me of Ken Shirriff's 2014 "Bitcoins the Hard Way" blog post that also used Python to build a Bitcoin transaction from scratch: http://www.righto.com/2014/02/bitcoins-hard-way-using-raw-bi... (The subtitle of the blog is "Computer history, restoring vintage computers, IC reverse engineering, and whatever" and it is full of fascinating articles, several of which have been featured here on HN)

    Comment linking /2014/02/bitcoins-hard-way-using-raw-bitcoin.html

    on “A from-scratch tour of Bitcoin in Python”
24. gslin · 2024-12-28

    Submitted Intel's $475M error: the silicon behind the Pentium division bug as a story · 378 points

    HN discussion
25. dredmorbius · 2024-08-25

    General understanding is that the flamewar detector is triggered when posts exceed 20 comments and total comments exceeds votes: < https://www.righto.com/2013/11/how-hacker-news-ranking-reall... > It's not perfect, but it really does often correctly identify flamewars. If you feel a post has incorrectly triggered the flamewar detector, email mods at hn@ycombinator.com. As I write, this thread doesn't trigger the cri…

    Comment linking /2013/11/how-hacker-news-ranking-really-works.html

    on “Telegram founder Pavel Durov arrested at French airport”
26. Tomte · 2025-03-02

    Submitted The Pentium contains a complicated circuit to multiply by three as a story · 374 points

    HN discussion
27. dannyw · 2022-01-25

    It's been known that HN has applied keyword-based, domain-based, and manual penalties in the past: http://www.righto.com/2013/11/how-hacker-news-ranking-really... While I doubt there is a "non-YC penalty", and I doubt there is collusion on dang's part, it isn't correct to think of HN ranking as a unmoderated scoring function.

    Comment linking /2013/11/how-hacker-news-ranking-really-works.html

    on “Bolt founder on Stripe/YC”
28. defrost · 2025-09-06

    Submitted A Navajo weaving of an integrated circuit: the 555 timer as a story · 370 points

    HN discussion
29. sp332 · 2013-12-20

    http://www.righto.com/2013/11/how-hacker-news-ranking-really... It appears that any article with NSA in the title gets an automatic penalty of .4. I looked for other words causing automatic penalties, such as awesome, bitcoin, and bubble but they do not seem to get penalized. I observed that many websites appear to automatically get a penalty of .25 to .8: arstechnica.com, businessinsider.com, easypost.com, github.c…

    Comment linking /2013/11/how-hacker-news-ranking-really-works.html

    on “Trevor Perrin requests removal of NSA from IETF Crypto Review”
30. chmaynard · 2024-08-03

    Submitted Reverse engineering the 59-pound printer onboard the Space Shuttle as a story · 340 points

    HN discussion

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