FRESH

Hacker News

Home

The best things and stuff of 2025

400 points by adityaathalye

by randycupertino

9 subcomments

The best thing for me for 2025 is a Costco heated blanket. It is so soft and cozy and rocks my world. We love it so much we got one for my partner, my mother in law and my mom and they all love it. Highly, HIGHLY recommend.
https://www.costco.com/p/-/berkshire-life-heated-throw/40001...
I was very skeptical until my partner plugged it in, turned it on and put it on me and was like holy cow this is amazing.
My best book of 2025 was Dungeon Crawler Carl, the entire serious.

by ChadNauseam

2 subcomments

Wow, I’m honored! When I wrote that calculator post, I really only thought two or three people would ever read it haha. I never would have dreamed that so many people would be interested in it
Also, that video is really making me want to get an OP-1 haha.

by samtheDamned

0 subcomment

Love to see the Cocteau Twins mentioned as they've been my favorite for the last few years. What an incredible discography!

by evanjrowley

0 subcomment

>"A calculator app? Anyone could make that"[0]
Shameless plug: my favorite calculator "app" is wxMaxima. It uses similar techniques[1] as those described in the fantastic article at the top of this 2025 list. Implemented in Lisp[2].
[0] https://chadnauseam.com/coding/random/calculator-app
[1] https://feb.kuleuven.be/public/u0003131/WBT23/wxMaxima/wxM_i...
[2] https://maxima.sourceforge.io/lisp.html

by teraflop

1 subcomments

That 1956 article on the long-distance telephone network is fascinating reading.
The chart on page 24 gives the very first division of the US phone into area codes, many of which have of course remained unchanged today.
From page 82, when discussing automated in-band signaling on the phone lines:
> The signal component is a band about 100 cycles [Hz] wide centering on the signal frequency [2600 Hz]. [...] In the talking condition (tone off in both directions) the guard detector sensitivity is such that almost a pure tone is required to operate the receiver since other than signal frequencies will produce a voltage opposing its operation. The guard feature prevents false operation of the receiver from speech signals.
Of course in hindsight, the flaw in this is obvious. The guard band prevents accidental triggering of the signal mechanism by ordinary speech. It does nothing to stop someone from intentionally playing a pure 2600 Hz tone into the telephone handset, using e.g. a whistle from a cereal box.

by aljgz

1 subcomments

Loosely fitting the bill, but:
The link between gluten and my 2 decade long bad insomnia, on edge mind, and restlessness.
Simply cutting gluten changed many things. Now I sleep so deeply I sometimes need a brief reality check to know what year it is, where I am, and how long I've been asleep.
Probably not for everyone, but if you have similar problems, definitely go gluten free for a few days and check the impact.

by tptacek

1 subcomments

Death & Vanilla sounds more like Portishead to me than Dead Can Dance, but solid either way, and thanks. I had a similar musical year, except switch the Cocteaus with Stereolab (helps that they released their best album in decades this year).

by iandanforth

1 subcomments

Pages like this are why I love Firefox reader mode. It doesn't matter what font crimes the author commits, with a single click it becomes legible again! Good content should never be missed because of an author trying to stab you in the eyeballs.

by msuniverse2026

1 subcomments

Worst things and Stuff of 2025: The Legend of the Galactic Heroes themed cafe in Tokyo closed down the month before I visited for the first time.

by bookofjoe

0 subcomment

Reading glasses that fold up and fit on a keychain, for when you forgot yours:
https://www.thinoptics.com/products/readers-black-keychain-c...

by tills13

0 subcomment

My favorite part about this is how it shows how different people's lives can be even while existing in the same space. I haven't heard of a single thing in this list -- books, music, games, etc.

by rus20376

8 subcomments

This is fun to read, but from my personal perspective it all seems quite depressing. About half way through this list of stuff I start to think existentially: would I be happy if my life was constructed like the author’s? I like much of the same sort of stuff after all. But at some point I got bored with reading yet another cool random book or fiddling with an interpreter for a little toy language.
I wonder, does the author really find deep life satisfaction in all this? Presumably the answer is yes, but that doesn’t match my intuition which intrigues me somewhat. Is the satisfaction gained, at least in part, from the performance of making this sort of list and getting external approval from HN, conference audiences, etc? Is the production of this list and the stated desire to speak at conferences a statement that all the journaled activity is not enough, that it cannot be done privately? That if done privately, anonymously, it really is just not that great a way to live your life?
I am happy that I don’t live alone diving so deep into various hobbies that I ultimately start hitting the firmament underneath. What my life would look like had I not gotten married and had children is not so hard to imagine when I read these sorts of blogs, and I smugly think I am better off.

by npodbielski

0 subcomment

This is good. I should also blog about stuff that I found interesting. Just to myself as a reminder. I am not active blogger but it actually happen to me that I was looking for something l, used web search and did found my own blog in the results. Also I could just go to my own blog for this 'interesting link/stuff I found few days ago'.

by hermitcrab

0 subcomment

His coloured task planning system reminds me of https://www.hyperplan.com .

by sherl0ck

0 subcomment

I found my love back in the Cure, 2025 kind of bit like the Cure, sad but happy at the same times

by sbochins

0 subcomment

I really wish this guy would write a blog post about LLMs. He had a great section about his lack of use of them at the end of this post. Like 90% of my code is now written by LLMs, but this guy is incredibly smart and is working on very challenging problems that require novel solutions. Would love to know more why the tech isn’t good enough and which approaches he’s tried.

by WillAdams

0 subcomment

David Lindsay's _A Voyage to Arcturus_ is notable for having been one of the earliest available ebooks on Project Gutenberg, netting a few wider exposure than it might have had otherwise.
Highly recommended.

by shaunxcode

0 subcomment

I really like the aesthetic! I also enjoyed the content.

by dang

1 subcomments

Related. Others? (and how did we miss 2023, 2018, and 2016?)
Fogus: Things and Stuff of 2024 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42495077 - Dec 2024 (44 comments)
The best things and stuff of 2022 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33969300 - Dec 2022 (47 comments)
The Best Things and Stuff of 2021 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29702698 - Dec 2021 (23 comments)
The best things and stuff of 2020 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25593828 - Dec 2020 (37 comments)
Things and Stuff of 2019 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21932647 - Jan 2020 (11 comments)
Great things and people that I discovered, learned, read, met, etc in 2017 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16075626 - Jan 2018 (24 comments)
Best things and stuff of 2015 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10807501 - Dec 2015 (85 comments)
The best things and stuff of 2014 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8809710 - Dec 2014 (26 comments)
The best things and stuff of 2013 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6971351 - Dec 2013 (29 comments)
The best things and stuff of 2012 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4969569 - Dec 2012 (13 comments)
The best things and stuff of 2011 by Fogus - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3410990 - Dec 2011 (20 comments)

by flobosg

5 subcomments

I’m intrigued by that Japanese calendar stamp. Does anyone know where to get it?

0 subcomment

by drekipus

0 subcomment

I think it was the year before last, I found a new band that's been rocking my socks off: Uranium Club.
(I am a big fan of egg punk and a true devo-tee)
Last year they came to Australia, which I didn't know about, and it's the first time I've ever felt like I missed out on a musical event.
Then they released a new album this year, " infants under the bulb" which has been growing on me.
I also started Warhammer this year, and one of my frigates is driven by a small grey man

by ktallett

0 subcomment

Thanks for this! Some of these are really interesting.
The Dream Factory was a great book this year on Shakespeare.

by fnord77

3 subcomments

heh, google calculator gets it wrong
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=%2810%5...

by charlescohen

0 subcomment

[dead]