I know the guidelines make this a faux pas but I’m just here to say that was a great read. Very informative, well structured and compelling story of how we have networks and how they work.
To those saying it’s the work of an LLM: if it is I don’t care. It’s good.
I have a feeling that on HN in general most if not all of the blog posts are mostly AI, and quite a bunch of comments as well. But that has always been an element of anon internet usage :-)
Weird comments on this. I found the writing to be excellent. The animations are a bit small and associated text even smaller on mobile but this doesn't read as AI slop to me at all. Anything that makes technology more accessible and understandable is a win in my book so kudos for doing it.
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.
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.
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.
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?
As someone who spends their own time developing open-educational resources (OER), I was extremely limited in what I could do pre-AI. Now, AI has supercharged my ability to elevate my work in ways I could have never done before, particularly in visualizations, interactive widgets, and even images (often SVG for me), all of which are necessary components to the resources I've been developing online since 2020 (COVID-era).
Given that my programming abilities are very limited as well as my time, AI has allowed me to develop the missing pieces to much of what I was creating. When used properly (as an expert in a field using AI as a tool), the end product can be completely transformed and elevated in ways that could never have been. I am so thankful that AI came along just at the right time for me to do the things I could have never accomplished before.
> What's the problem exactly? Is using AI for visualization considered a bad practice?
Some people just assume that anything "AI" has touched is automatically "slop" because ... AI! Probably at least partly due to how much actual "AI slop" is out there produced by people "holding the tool wrong". When used judiciously and properly, some of these language models can really be a useful tool and help create some quality stuff, but they're no substitute for a knowledgable human using the tool correctly to achieve the desired result (which is why so many people who misuse it to do all their thinking and work for them (without doing any of their part) inevitably produce the typical "slop" result).
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.
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.
The fact alone that you used Claude for 'help with visuals' means I can't trust any of the visual content as factual, original, or made with any sort of actual intent. It's not made by a person. You didn't make this. When literally the entire visual surface of your thing was obviously spat out by an AI, of course people are suspicious about the rest.
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.
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.
That's 100+ pages of in-depth technical writing in a matter of days. Amazing, really amazing. Also, not something that a human can do.
And FWIW, Pangram classifies vast swathes of "your" article as entirely AI-generated. Yes, I know the tool is not perfect, but between your superhuman productivity, and all the subjective tells, and the output from that tool, it goes onto my mental "AI slop" pile.
What I can't understand is why people can't just own it that they used a chatbot and that it was more than just "for review".
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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
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.
I know the guidelines make this a faux pas but I’m just here to say that was a great read. Very informative, well structured and compelling story of how we have networks and how they work.
To those saying it’s the work of an LLM: if it is I don’t care. It’s good.
I found this article very well written, as a comparison
https://explained-from-first-principles.com/internet/
Very well written and presented, thank you! Reminds me of Bartosz Ciechanowski's works: https://ciechanow.ski
If I may ask, what stack do you use for the inline interactive elements and would you choose anything different after having done it this way?
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...
There's 2 [dead] fairly anodyne comments here. Are they bots? And if so, how can people tell?
The mods are insane here. Especially tomhow - completely unhinged psychopath who is offended by everything.
Even totally (literally) inoffensive content.
Queen of the Cunts - Tom Howard. He did it I bet you anything
I have a feeling that on HN in general most if not all of the blog posts are mostly AI, and quite a bunch of comments as well. But that has always been an element of anon internet usage :-)
Weird comments on this. I found the writing to be excellent. The animations are a bit small and associated text even smaller on mobile but this doesn't read as AI slop to me at all. Anything that makes technology more accessible and understandable is a win in my book so kudos for doing it.
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/
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!
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.
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.
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?
I agree.
As someone who spends their own time developing open-educational resources (OER), I was extremely limited in what I could do pre-AI. Now, AI has supercharged my ability to elevate my work in ways I could have never done before, particularly in visualizations, interactive widgets, and even images (often SVG for me), all of which are necessary components to the resources I've been developing online since 2020 (COVID-era).
Given that my programming abilities are very limited as well as my time, AI has allowed me to develop the missing pieces to much of what I was creating. When used properly (as an expert in a field using AI as a tool), the end product can be completely transformed and elevated in ways that could never have been. I am so thankful that AI came along just at the right time for me to do the things I could have never accomplished before.
> What's the problem exactly? Is using AI for visualization considered a bad practice?
Some people just assume that anything "AI" has touched is automatically "slop" because ... AI! Probably at least partly due to how much actual "AI slop" is out there produced by people "holding the tool wrong". When used judiciously and properly, some of these language models can really be a useful tool and help create some quality stuff, but they're no substitute for a knowledgable human using the tool correctly to achieve the desired result (which is why so many people who misuse it to do all their thinking and work for them (without doing any of their part) inevitably produce the typical "slop" result).
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
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.
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.
The fact alone that you used Claude for 'help with visuals' means I can't trust any of the visual content as factual, original, or made with any sort of actual intent. It's not made by a person. You didn't make this. When literally the entire visual surface of your thing was obviously spat out by an AI, of course people are suspicious about the rest.
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.
I wonder whether mathematicians got the same reaction when calculators appeared: "You didn't compute every step by hand, so the result doesn't count."
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.
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.
Thanks for your feedback. I'll try to do that.
Oh come on. Just seven days before this 60-page essay, you apparently cranked out another 40-page one:
https://fazamhd.com/mental-models/software/
That's 100+ pages of in-depth technical writing in a matter of days. Amazing, really amazing. Also, not something that a human can do.
And FWIW, Pangram classifies vast swathes of "your" article as entirely AI-generated. Yes, I know the tool is not perfect, but between your superhuman productivity, and all the subjective tells, and the output from that tool, it goes onto my mental "AI slop" pile.
What I can't understand is why people can't just own it that they used a chatbot and that it was more than just "for review".
Case closed.
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.
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.
Hi, author here. Sorry for the bad experience. I'll put more effort on the design and reading experience
super
so well written ,appreciate it
Thanks. Glad it was useful.
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.
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.
Even with AI I think your animations were high effort. Great job!
Thanks. Yes, I iterated multiple times with the goal of making the concepts very clear to understand.
I hate everything that uses ".. from first principles" with a passion. Almost as much as "technically true".
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.)
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.
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.
+1 usually a sign of midwit and mediocrity. not once I seen "first principles" blogs have any value.
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
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.
on the other hand, you start distinguishing the pipe from the image of a "the pipe".