Hacker News

Top stories

Live mirror
30 storiesupdated just nowView source snapshot
  1. Dynamic Abliteration: Non-Destructive Refusal Suppression via Engram Steering(blog.madhukaraphatak.in)
    4comments
  2. Unknown number of Texas voter registrations went unprocessed due to DPS error(votebeat.org)
    17comments
  3. Nokia Design Archive (2025)(aalto.fi)
    82comments
  4. Enjoy Every Sandwich(bradmontague.substack.com)
    24comments
  5. Jev Is Not a Language Model, but It Breaks Like One(checkpoint.com)
    discuss
  6. Best LLM for every budget, updated daily(terrydjony.com)
    38comments
  7. Two-Tier Encryption in the UK – Identical Apple Devices, Different Protection(macanorak.com)
    141comments
  8. Linux support is coming to Snapdragon X2 Series(qualcomm.com)
    223comments
  9. Ideas on modernizing the open-source desktop(lwn.net)
    327comments
  10. Claude discovers a novel enzyme system with CRISPR-like repeats(anthropic.com)
    736comments
  11. The science of Monkey Island: can grog dissolve a metal mug that fast?(jgeekstudies.org)
    discuss
  12. OpenAI agent hacked Australian government website, PM says(bbc.com)
    139comments
  13. Oracle Cites 'Force Majeure' to Shield Itself on Controversial Data Center(bloomberg.com)
    34comments
  14. Meta takes down a critical video about meta AI Glasses after filming at Meta(reddit.com)
    275comments
  15. Tutoring company tells parents to save their money and 'use AI instead'(afr.com)
    discuss
  16. RAM: the forgotten history (2024)(coredump.cx)
    2comments
  17. ArXiv receives multiyear commitments to support it as an independent nonprofit(arxiv.org)
    31comments
  18. The newest ESP32 can run Linux and it's getting close to a Raspberry Pi(xda-developers.com)
    48comments
  19. Coulomb's law remains tricky to test at home(chillphysicsenjoyer.substack.com)
    3comments
  20. When the Debugger Lies(danielmangum.com)
    12comments
  21. VSCode's SSH Agent Is Bananas (2025)(fly.io)
    175comments
  22. Hackers influence ChatGPT and Gemini to direct users to scam centers(medium.com/arielsimon)
    22comments
  23. Owners mourn spoiled food after firmware update bricks Samsung smart fridges(arstechnica.com)
    154comments
  24. Contrastive Language Models(contrastive-lm.notion.site)
    33comments
  25. The "Windows XP Box" (2003)(mini-itx.com)
    39comments
  26. Virtio-nvgpu: Near-native Nvidia GPU access inside a KVM guest(github.com/nestrilabs)
    56comments
  27. The Year of Internal Tools(geocod.io)
    9comments
  28. Fixing the Portobello Police Station Clock(pointinthecloud.com)
    110comments
  29. Early rogue AI agent activity and attempts to hack found on urlquery.net(transluce.org)
    177comments
  30. Why 'What's Opera, Doc?' looks like that(animationobsessive.substack.com)
    20comments

Enjoy Every Sandwich

67 pointsby 1d agobradmontague.substack.com
24 comments
1h agoHN ↗

The goal might not be to exactly enjoy every sandwich. Some sandwiches are just straight up trash. Maybe the goal is to notice that you’re eating one.

That's obvious. Who doesn't notice that? I think if I were terminally ill I'd seek things I enjoy, and savor them, and avoid bad sandwiches. In good health, I'd ask what made that sandwich bad and think about how to improve it.

53m agoHN ↗

Both cases are compatible with "noticing that you are eating a sandwich". The issue usually is that its much more difficult to "notice it" if you are thinking about how to improve it. Its like the classic parable of the camel, the needle eye and the rich. But its not impossible.

25m agoHN ↗

The issue usually is that its much more difficult to "notice it" if you are thinking about how to improve it.

Quite the contrary. It's the difference between active eating and passive eating. It is the active eater who appreciates what he is eating at the deepest level, being capable of recreating and modifying it. It is the same with every endeavor.

1h agoHN ↗

This hits me like a brick wall with my young children. Seeing them change so rapidly is a glimpse into how short life is and how often an experience unknowingly becomes the last of its kind.

There is so much to be gained by slowing down, focusing on what you can be grateful for, and not striving for more.

56m agoHN ↗

don't you just go back to your old habits once this realization has passed.

we were desiged to want more it impossible to override that design.

24m agoHN ↗

No, it isn't. Think about monks and so on. Some people live properly modest lives, not hedonistic ones.

18m agoHN ↗

It's not impossible (and I'd substitute "evolved" for "designed").

Yes, wanting "More" [time, money, love, status] is pretty firmly ingrained as an advantageous trait. But you can override your instincts (e.g. declining a drink when thirsty, if you learn the glass of water contains poison). And it is possible to learn to want what you already have.

How? Practice three things: Compassion, Attention, and Gratitude. (Pick any two, and the third will follow almost automatically.)

That's the central thesis of an excellent book, "How to Want What You Have" by Dr Timothy Miller. It changed my life.

51m agoHN ↗

Top 10, unranked:

- Raging Bull or Brian Allen from Star Meats in Berkeley, CA

- Shaking Beef, Dinosaur Sandwiches in San Francisco / Daily City, CA

- Turkey Cranberry from the GBC in Berkeley, CA

- Lemongrass tofu from Lokal Sandwiches in Los Angeles, CA

- Pastrami on rye from Sarges Deli in NYC, NY

- Fried Chicken Sandwich from Bakesale Betty's in Berkeley, CA

- Dad's BLT or fried egg sandwiches

- Any sandwich from Mom paired with potato salad

- Wife's Cemita

- Turkey sandwich from "The Sandwich Shop", Dogpatch in San Francisco, CA

46m agoHN ↗

Oooh, I love this. A few years ago, I started keeping track of my favorite coffeeshops. They're not "the best ever" by some objective metric; I'm not Zagat. But they're special to me!

- Tradition Coffee Roasters, Kailua, HI

- Offset Coffee, LA, CA

- Igam Coffee, Brooklyn, NY

- City League, Brooklyn, NY

- Ozo Coffee, Boulder, CO

- Odyssey Coffee, Ocean Grove, NJ

40m agoHN ↗

I'm not vegetarian, but Grand Central Bakery in Seattle/Portland had a Maitake sandwich that I loved enough to reproduce at home:

"Crisp-roasted maitake mushrooms with garlicky labneh, fresh local raab, warm Middle Eastern Spices and Mama Lil's spicy pickled peppers on a toasted Ciabatta roll."

The raab and the mushrooms (sliced into sheets) were seared crisp. I substituted harissa mixed with mayo or greek yogurt for the sauce.

23m agoHN ↗

great list.

in addition to anything your parents make, sometimes the best sandwich is the one my wife makes for my kids and they don't finish.

13m agoHN ↗

Forgot Arby's Beef 'n Cheddar but otherwise looks like a good list

12m agoHN ↗

We all have favorites, but that's not the point WZ was making.

36m agoHN ↗

No such thing as a bad sandwich. People are pretending not to like things.

25m agoHN ↗

I remember a notable triangular sandwich packed in a cardboard box and sold on the motorway in France. I ate it while my jet lagged toddler cried and cried and we tried to get to Provence before nightfall.

There is such a thing as a bad sandwich.

24m agoHN ↗

There’s definitely a scale, though. Some sandwiches are okay, some are magical.

11m agoHN ↗

Yes there is. There are a lot people have no idea what makes a good sandwich. They will happily put turkey, Miracle Whip, and two Kraft singles on 11-grain honey wheat Wonderbread and go about their day fully convinced that they made something delicious and healthy.

The fact that >50% of Italian sub shops default to not putting onions on their torpedoes is a testament to how far we've fallen as a culture.

35m agoHN ↗

There relevance of this vague piece to HN really escapes me

24m agoHN ↗

This is one of my favorite quotes and I'm glad to see it discussed here.

My favorite interpretation is focusing on the beauty of how even such a mundane thing as a sandwich is a unique experience. Someone made it by-hand, the ingredients have their own backstory in arriving in the present moment, and the taste is greater than the sum of its parts because of all the competing and complementary flavors.

Sandwiches hide in plain sight and even when they aren't great they are unique and will underscore how good your next great one is.

20m agoHN ↗

I was seven years old in 1969 during the moon landing, with the whole extended family gathered around the enormous TV console. It was a very memorable event for me, but the thing I most remember is that mom made me and my friend a simple BLT with mayo. For some reason it was like a visitation from Jesus for both of us. We spent the next few years making them or begging for them relentlessly. We thought it was our own thing. Over the next fifty years I've tried to recapture that, but never entirely succeeded in having the same culinary apogee. Still trying. Every BLT comes with free a flashback to that hot July day. And a remembrance of that best of friends who we lost twelve years ago.