Top all-time · #1988
Vicki Boykis
Personal blog · vicki.substack.comaiprogrammingculture
Vicki Boykis writes Normcore Tech, a personal blog at vicki.substack.com about ai, programming and culture. Since 2019, 36 different Hacker News readers have linked it 67 times, most often “Many use cases don’t require Kafka (2019)”. The last post was in 2023, but the archive is still widely read.
Too few sampled comments (5) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Vicki Boykis's Substack posts as background on Saudi money in Silicon Valley, unsolicited Keybase messages, over-engineered tech stacks like Kafka, and Russia's internet. The comments cite them without judging the writing.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 5 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
A newsletter about making tech less sexy, more boring, and anything adjacent to tech that the mainstream media isn't covering. Click to read Normcore Tech, by Vicki Boykis, a Substack publication with thousands of subscribers.
Most-linked posts?
- Many use cases don’t require Kafka (2019)6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2019-06-21
- What's Up with Russia's Internet3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2019-11-19
- What does it mean for American innovation to be backed by oil wealth?3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2019-09-16
- Keybase and the Chaos of Crypto3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2019-12-03
- Why don't we get the news we need?2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-02-11
- Our bosses live in our phones2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-10-22
- The Curse of Being Big on the Internet2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-10-13
- When the Internet Stopped in Belarus2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-08-21
- Imgur Is Bad Now2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-10-25
- The Art of the Long Goodbye2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-11-07
What Hacker News says?
The saddest part is that SV runs on Saudi cash. https://vicki.substack.com/p/silicon-valley-runs-on-saudi
Comment linking /p/silicon-valley-runs-on-saudi
on “US says Saudi prince approved Khashoggi killing”Submitted What does it mean for American innovation to be backed by oil wealth? as a story · 199 points
HN discussionThis is actually a very interesting point that I've come across on a few different platforms recently (Patreon, for example, [also targets their homepage to creators, not consumers]( https://www.patreon.com/) ). I wonder if Substack just doesn't want to deal with opening the door to some newsletters getting "free promotion" by being features on their homepage? Nonetheless, I'd love to see "trending" or "editors pick…
Comment linking /
on “Reporters are leaving newsrooms for newsletters”Submitted Silicon Valley Runs on Saudi (2019) as a story · 198 points
HN discussionMore in this post too: https://vicki.substack.com/p/keybase-and-the-chaos-of-crypto > All of a sudden, I started receiving lots of random messages from people without profile pictures. > These were people I didn’t know contacting me on a pretty frequent basis, and I had no way to opt-in to their messages. Pretty ironic for a platform built on privacy. > I wasn’t the only one. After asking around, it seems that every…
Comment linking /p/keybase-and-the-chaos-of-crypto
on “Unsolicited messages on Keybase”Submitted Logs were our lifeblood, now they're our liability as a story · 188 points
HN discussionAccording to [0], apparently at least some of them are involved with exploring fancy over-engineered tech-stacks [0]( https://vicki.substack.com/p/you-dont-need-kafka )
Comment linking /p/you-dont-need-kafka
on “Report: WeWork expected to cut 500 tech roles”Submitted Many use cases don’t require Kafka (2019) as a story · 134 points
HN discussionFurther reading on Russia and its beloved Internet: https://vicki.substack.com/p/whats-up-with-russias-internet
Comment linking /p/whats-up-with-russias-internet
on “Russia Started Blocking Tor (2021)”Submitted Ad block and you don't stop as a story · 103 points
HN discussionSubmitted What it means to be a developer is changing as a story · 46 points
HN discussionSubmitted Python's Caduceus Syndrome as a story · 45 points
HN discussionSubmitted When the Internet Stopped in Belarus as a story · 26 points
HN discussionSubmitted Easy as A, B, Chromebook as a story · 26 points
HN discussionSubmitted What's Up with Russia's Internet as a story · 10 points
HN discussionSubmitted You Don't Need Kafka as a story · 8 points
HN discussionSubmitted All numbers are made up, some are useful as a story · 6 points
HN discussionSubmitted You don't need Kafka (2019) as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSubmitted With the Feed as my witness as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted When the Internet Stopped in Belarus as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted One Bad Apple as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Keybase and the Chaos of Crypto as a story · 4 points
HN discussion- po · 2019-12-03
Submitted Keybase and the Chaos of Crypto as a story · 4 points
HN discussion Submitted The Curse of Being Big on the Internet as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted You Don't Need Kafka as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Art of the Long Goodbye as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Why don't we get the news we need? as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Taking the shine off the Apple (and FB and Google) as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Nginx: When you write a web server but you get served as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted One Bad Apple as a story · 3 points
HN discussion
