frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

Networking and the Internet, from First Principles

https://fazamhd.com/mental-models/networking/
56•faza•1h ago

Comments

wojciii•54m ago
I hate everything that uses ".. from first principles" with a passion. Almost as much as "technically true".
blooalien•46m ago
My own personal "pet peeve" cliche phrase is anything that is "literally" (except it's really figurative) something. So many people for so very long have used "literally" to mean the literal opposite of it's actual meaning. Even when they don't use it to mean it's actual opposite meaning, they'll still often use "literal" to describe a thing that is in no way actually literal. It just "grinds my gears" to hear it.
5701652400•46m ago
+1 usually a sign of midwit and mediocrity. not once I seen "first principles" blogs have any value.
wojciii•43m ago
I skimmed the article after I realized that I was being negative. It has some nice explanations so my comment wasn't about the content but just about the wording of the title. :D
pennomi•29m ago
Which is really sad, because actually working from first principles is a valid methodology to build efficient products that bypass layers of unnecessary abstraction.

The term itself seems to have lost its real meaning however.

5701652400•23m ago
on the other hand, you start distinguishing the pipe from the image of a "the pipe".
NoboruWataya•36m ago
To me it just suggests that the blog is going to explore the topic at a low level, ie, discuss the transmission of bits of data via cables or radio waves, rather than discussing HTTP or TLS or whatever. Which in general is something I find quite interesting. (I haven't read this article yet so don't know if it's actually good, and the other comments don't give me much hope.)
faza•23m ago
Hi, author here. I did explain all the fundamentals without leaving any gaps. Please do give it a read and I hope you like it.
NikxDa•46m ago
Looks like the widgets are mostly AI slop? Why is this #1?

If the author can't be bothered to even clean up behind their AI its not worth reading even the first paragraph.

faza•27m ago
Hi, author here. I have put a considerable amount of effort in explaining the ideas as clearly as possible, and I used Claude only for helping me with the animations. My aim is just to explain the concept. I'm mainly a backend engineer, i'll take your feedback and put more effort on the design and presentation.
WhrRTheBaboons•45m ago
i hope this was vibe coded, because I'd hate to think that tiny dark-gray text on a black background was a conscious choice
sixtyj•36m ago
It seems that author didn’t check vibe coded result. Mobile version has tiny text even even smaller… :)

At HN, there should be some tag explaining the project is vibe coded.

faza•21m ago
Hi, author here. Sorry for the bad experience. I'll put more effort on the design and reading experience
zerobees•29m ago
The text is also pretty clearly AI-generated. I guess there's now a market for "I asked an LLM so that you don't have to", but the funny thing is that it's such a wall of text that no one upvoting it will have actually read it. So it's vibe-writing, vibe-coding, and vibe-reading. Full end-to-end synergy.
faza•25m ago
Hi, author here. Sorry, you felt that way. I did put lot of effort in communicating my understanding, and used Claude only for review and visualizations.
kordlessagain•8m ago
I'd suggest splitting the content out into clearly defined sections, lead by the visuals.

Put the visualization and a short explainer, then have additional content show up if the reader drills in.

I don't think there is anything wrong with the content being run through an LLM. Networking is crazy complicated.

leoc•18m ago
The very first substantial order for the Digital PDP-1 was for use in ITT’s torn-tape messaging operation! https://www.eejournal.com/article/gordon-bell-1934-2024-gran...
Fraterkes•18m ago
There's 2 [dead] fairly anodyne comments here. Are they bots? And if so, how can people tell?
mercutio2•17m ago
Wow. The reactions here. So negative!

I skimmed various sections. I found the animations pleasant, the text readable, and the content clearly not slop.

The historical context of the telegraph was interesting, and the treatment of bandwidth vs. latency was thoughtful.

I think it’s too long; I don’t think many people who don’t already know most of this material will read it, but I enjoyed the parts I read. Nice work!

faza•14m ago
Thanks. I am glad you liked it. I just wanted to help everyone understand the concepts in detail. I felt the existing materials were either way too textbook like or very high level. This is just my attempt at explaining things in a more interesting way.
mekoka•6m ago
Being dismissive is an easy way to be "better" than others. But on HN hastier reactions tend to be negative or out of context with long articles, as eyeballs actually evaluating the content will take some time before providing constructive criticism.
sarchertech•4m ago
I started something similar in 2021 while on paternity leave with my first kid.

I got about half way through, then I had 2 more kids. Then AI happened, and I started questioning the whether there was too much slop out there to bother writing a book.

I’ll still probably finish it when the new baby is a little older.

https://www.networksfromscratch.com/

sudb•3m ago
I found this article very well written, as a comparison

https://explained-from-first-principles.com/internet/

jdw64•2m ago
I don't understand. Even if this post is long and has some repetitive parts, isn't it still written by a human? There are way too many comments acting like everything is bad just because one animation widget was made with AI.

I actually like this post. It looks good, the explanations are clear, and the AI-generated animation widget actually helps me understand things. What's the problem exactly? Is using AI for visualization considered a bad practice?

mekoka•19m ago
How were you able to pick this up? Not challenging your assertion. Just really curious. Can you point to some clues? I read it (with my own eyes). I can't see actual evidence the text itself is artificial or at least, that it is not human-curated.
faza•19m ago
Hi, author here. I didn't vibe code this and have put considerable amount of effort in explaining the ideas. I have used Claude for review and help with visuals. My aim was just to help others understand these concepts easily. Thanks for your feedback, i'll improve the design and reading experience.
blooalien•8m ago
My thoughts on reading it (and looking around your site) was that you were building these explanations to help cement your own understanding of the topics and that you were just sharing the results because you thought it might be helpful to others as well. Knowing that you actually built it with the intent to teach just makes me think that it's nice of you to try to be a teacher even if there's a few folks who want to be jerks about your efforts. The world needs more teachers (and learners, too). Gaining, improving, and sharing knowledge is one of humanity's true super-powers. Without it, we'd all still be living like animals in the wild. Thank you for your efforts to contribute in a positive way. At least you're actually making stuff, unlike many of them what gotta always just complain about the things other people make and never actually make anything themselves.

Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine (1965) [pdf]

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/Good1964.pdf
1•zetalyrae•1m ago•0 comments

DOGE Officially Shuts Down

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5955468-doge-shuts-down-operations/
1•thunderbong•4m ago•0 comments

Kairos Engine – a pipeline that kills trading strategies before they cost money

https://github.com/mohamadomar-ai/kairos-engine
1•Mohamad_Omar•9m ago•0 comments

Most ArXiv papers contain information never meant to be shared

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-02057-8
1•bookofjoe•13m ago•1 comments

Five Foreign Words English Should Steal Immediately

https://commonplacefacts.com/2026/07/11/foreign-words-english-needs/
2•theanonymousone•14m ago•0 comments

World oil demand set for first annual decline since 2020, IEA says

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/10/iea-world-oil-demand-declines-iran-war.html
1•geox•16m ago•0 comments

Introduction to Reinforcement Learning and Its Role in LLMs

https://huggingface.co/learn/llm-course/en/chapter12/2
1•tosh•19m ago•0 comments

Fable 5 made a Fireship Video for GPT 5.6 Sol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSsVNtGPOIg
1•mesmertech•20m ago•1 comments

Forking an Open Source Project

https://codeblog.jonskeet.uk/2026/07/11/forking-an-open-source-project/
1•ingve•20m ago•0 comments

Rollup Table

https://questdb.com/glossary/rollup-table/
1•tosh•22m ago•0 comments

FAA approves first space mirror

https://spacenews.com/fcc-approves-first-reflect-orbital-satellite/
1•stogot•23m ago•2 comments

Reimplementing pf as an eBPF/XDP dataplane on Linux

https://blog.nfsensei.org/the-packet-filter-reborn.html
1•882542F3884314B•24m ago•0 comments

CyberNom: Self-Hosted Threat Intel and SoC Monitoring Platform, Single Go Binary

https://github.com/Hayder-Rzaigui/cybernom-community
1•Hayderrr•25m ago•0 comments

G# – A modern .NET language with Go, Kotlin, and Swift ergonomics

https://davidobando.github.io/gsharp/
1•serial_dev•29m ago•0 comments

Semantic/Hybrid Search in the Browser

https://bart.degoe.de/semantic-search-in-your-browser/
2•bartdegoede•30m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Browser-only tools with no uploads and no accounts

https://toolsdeck.app/
1•biplabwagle•31m ago•0 comments

Two Database Migrations and a Divorce

https://usefathom.com/blog/two-database-migrations-and-a-divorce
1•tosh•34m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Sfotty Pie – A browser-based Atari 8-bit emulator in TypeScript

https://a8.aygun.me
1•cyco130•36m ago•0 comments

If You Want Taste, You're Gonna Have to Eat

https://jxnl.co/writing/2026/07/05/taste/
3•JumpCrisscross•44m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: What are some of the use-cases of the frontier models's max mode?

1•avinoth•46m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Mtg – Arcade games for the terminal, in Rust with Ratatui

https://github.com/modern-terminal-games/mtg
2•funnyfoobar•48m ago•0 comments

The Restraint Problem

https://bartkolendowski.com/writing/the-restraint-problem.html
3•riskcomplex•51m ago•1 comments

Steve Jobs: Let's force Amazon to use our payment system (2010)

https://twitter.com/TechEmails/status/1438188756738191362
1•downbad_•54m ago•1 comments

Show HN: A Figma file viewer for the 333 MHz Sony PSP

https://pocketjs.dev/blog/pocket-figma/
3•doodlewind•58m ago•1 comments

Alice and Mirror Alice [short story]

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/HtcQcQcTGqhpCJoiY/alice-and-mirror-alice-short-story
1•ClosedPistachio•1h ago•0 comments

Temper – A programming language for libraries translated to all the others

https://github.com/temperlang/temper
1•modinfo•1h ago•0 comments

Networking and the Internet, from First Principles

https://fazamhd.com/mental-models/networking/
56•faza•1h ago•27 comments

Show HN: Yqr – jq-style YAML tool that preserves comments and formatting

https://github.com/zoosky/yqr
1•akapaka•1h ago•1 comments

AI takes two-thirds of venture money, and your odds are still one in six

https://okaneland.com/study/ai-startup-raise-math/
2•ermantrout•1h ago•0 comments

Show HN: Hidetext.sh – encrypted pastebin where the server never sees the key

https://hidetext.sh
1•hidetext•1h ago•0 comments