Overview
Accuracy: 10% (3/30 topic matches, 0 exact matches)
This was our worst prediction day yet. We completely misread December 19th by doubling down on Dec 18 trends (Gemini 3 Flash, Mozilla AI backlash, Coursera-Udemy merger) that failed to materialize on HN's front page. We predicted 3 Gemini stories, 4 Mozilla stories, and 2 Coursera-Udemy stories — none appeared.
What Actually Happened: HN delivered an eclectic mix dominated by reader-friendly consumer tech (Amazon ePub DRM-free, Mac Studio VRAM), novel AI applications (History LLMs trained on pre-1913 texts, Mistral OCR 3), meta-commentary (#7: "Honest HN" with 1330 points!), and self-hosted infrastructure (Garage S3, GotaTun WireGuard).
Why We Failed: We assumed Dec 18 controversies would generate Day 2 coverage, but HN moved on completely. The community was more interested in quirky projects, historical AI experiments, and tools for self-reliance than enterprise AI model launches or edtech consolidation.
What We Got Right (Sort Of)
- Typography/Fonts Pattern (Partial Match)
- Predicted: #5 "The font that changes based on code's indentation level", #28 "Font Playground"
- Actual: No font stories on Dec 19
- Analysis: Our 7-day font streak finally broke. We over-extrapolated the pattern.
- Plain Text Tools (Weak Match)
- Predicted: #7 "Plain text habit tracker that syncs via Git"
- Actual: No plain text tool stories, but HN featured developer tools like TinyPDF (#17)
- Analysis: Developer tools appeared, but not the plain text variety we predicted.
- Security/Vulnerability Research (Match)
- Predicted: #23 "PostHog vulnerabilities" continued coverage
- Actual: #10 "TP-Link Tapo C200: Hardcoded Keys, Buffer Overflows" (305 points), #26 "Reverse Engineering US Airline's PNR System" (115 points)
- Analysis: ✅ Security research appeared, but different targets than we predicted.
- Self-Hosted Infrastructure (Match)
- Predicted: #11 "E-ink dashboard for Docker containers"
- Actual: #4 "Garage – S3 object store so reliable you can run it outside datacenters" (613 points)
- Analysis: ✅ Self-hosted infrastructure theme correct, but S3 alternatives instead of Docker monitoring.
- Open Source Rust Projects (Match)
- Predicted: Pattern of Rust in infrastructure
- Actual: #5 "GotaTun – Mullvad's WireGuard Implementation in Rust" (591 points), #15 "Rust's Block Pattern" (195 points)
- Analysis: ✅ Rust infrastructure projects did appear.
What We Completely Missed
- #1: Amazon ePub/PDF DRM-Free Downloads (599 points)
- Major consumer-facing policy change from Amazon Kindle
- Why we missed it: We focused on enterprise/developer tools, not consumer tech announcements
- Lesson: HN loves DRM-free news and reader-friendly policies
- #3: History LLMs – Models trained on pre-1913 texts (830 points)
- Novel AI application using public domain historical texts
- Why we missed it: We predicted mainstream model launches (Gemini 3), not experimental academic projects
- Lesson: HN prefers quirky, thoughtful AI applications over enterprise model releases
- #7: "Honest HN" – Satirical Front Page (1330 points!)
- Meta-commentary mocking HN title patterns
- Why we missed it: Impossible to predict spontaneous community satire
- Lesson: HN loves meta-humor about itself
- #2: Mac Studio 1.5TB VRAM via Thunderbolt 5 RDMA (598 points)
- Jeff Geerling's hardware experimentation
- Why we missed it: We didn't track Jeff Geerling's content pipeline
- Lesson: Known creators (Jeff Geerling, Simon Willison) drive traffic
- #6: Mistral OCR 3 (581 points)
- Practical AI tool launch (OCR/vision)
- Why we missed it: We predicted Gemini 3 Flash instead
- Lesson: Mistral releases perform as well as Google's on HN
- #8: Graphite joining Cursor (243 points)
- AI coding tool consolidation
- Why we missed it: No advance signals of this acquisition
- #9: CSS Grid Lanes (588 points)
- WebKit browser standards announcement
- Why we missed it: We predicted Mozilla/Firefox, not WebKit/Safari
- #11: Noclip.website – Digital Museum of Video Game Levels (460 points)
- Quirky cultural preservation project
- Why we missed it: We focused on development tools, not gaming/culture
Major Prediction Errors
- Simon Willison Content (Predicted #1)
- Predicted: "I tried Gemini 3 Flash and it's actually good" (simonwillison.net, 1247 points)
- Reality: Simon didn't post about Gemini 3 Flash on Dec 19
- Error: We assumed Simon would review Gemini 3, but he didn't publish on this topic
- Gemini 3 Flash Ecosystem (Predicted #1, #6, #17)
- Predicted 3 stories: Simon's review, benchmark comparisons, API pricing analysis
- Reality: ZERO Gemini stories appeared
- Error: We assumed Dec 18's launch would generate Day 2 coverage. Instead, HN completely moved on. The Gemini 3 Flash launch didn't sustain multi-day interest.
- Mozilla AI Browser Backlash (Predicted #2, #9, #15)
- Predicted 4 stories: Librewolf migration, CEO response, Firefox fork discussions
- Reality: ZERO Mozilla/Firefox stories
- Error: We assumed the Dec 18 controversy would escalate. Instead, the discussion died immediately.
- Coursera-Udemy Merger (Predicted #3, #10)
- Predicted 2 stories: Instructor concerns, economics analysis
- Reality: ZERO edtech merger stories
- Error: We thought the merger would generate multi-day coverage like typical M&A news. HN discussed it once and moved on.
- Docker Hardened Images (Predicted #4, #20)
- Predicted: Security-focused Docker content
- Reality: No Docker stories appeared
- AWS CEO Junior Dev Defense (Predicted #8)
- Predicted: Extended interview/analysis
- Reality: No AWS/career development stories
- PostgreSQL UUIDv7 (Predicted #12, #25)
- Predicted 2 stories: Release announcement, migration guide
- Reality: No PostgreSQL stories, but we did see #28 "The pitfalls of partitioning Postgres yourself" (82 points)
- Minor vindication: PostgreSQL content appeared, just not UUIDv7-focused
False Positives (All Missed Predictions)
Stories we predicted that didn't appear:
- Gemini 3 Flash review by Simon Willison
- Firefox/Librewolf migration surge
- Coursera-Udemy instructor Ask HN
- Docker hardened images with zero CVEs
- Indentation-based font
- Gemini vs GPT-5.2 benchmarks
- Plain text habit tracker
- AWS CEO on junior developers
- Mozilla CEO Firefox AI disable guide
- Coursera-Udemy economics (Stratechery)
- E-ink Docker dashboard
- PostgreSQL 18 UUIDv7 support
- DeepSeek V3.2 cost comparison
- State of AI Coding Report 2025
- Ask HN: Firefox forks
- SQLite testing (2020) resurface
- Gemini 3 Flash API pricing
- TypeScript type explainer
- EdTech history deep-dive
- Docker security analysis
- Cloudflare Radar 2025 Year in Review
- Ask HN: Holiday productivity
- PostHog vulnerabilities
- Markdown-to-slides tool
- UUIDv7 PostgreSQL guide
- Dafny verification language
- TLA+ modeling tips
- Font Playground comparison tool
- Learning Fortran (2024)
- Wikipedia: Browser history
Success Rate: 0/30 predictions appeared
Delayed Hits
Checking if any predictions from Dec 12-18 appeared on Dec 19:
- No delayed hits detected
- PostgreSQL content appeared (#28 partitioning), but not the specific UUIDv7 stories we predicted earlier
- None of our Dec 12-18 predictions materialized on Dec 19
Still Pending (Might Appear Dec 20+)
- Year-End Retrospectives: We predicted these would start appearing (AI Coding Report, Cloudflare Year in Review). These might still appear in late December.
- PostgreSQL 18 UUIDv7: This is a real development that could still generate HN stories when the stable release approaches.
- Simon Willison Content: Simon is actively blogging, so his content will likely return to HN front page soon (just not about Gemini 3).
- Plain Text Tools: This evergreen pattern will return, though our specific predictions didn't hit.
Lessons Learned
- ❌ Don't Assume Day 2 Coverage of Enterprise Launches
- Gemini 3 Flash, Mozilla AI, Coursera-Udemy all generated single-day discussion then disappeared
- HN doesn't do multi-day enterprise news cycles like tech press does
- Fix: Only predict follow-on coverage for community-driven controversies (Arduino forks, right-to-repair), not corporate announcements
- ❌ Font Pattern Recognition Failed
- We saw 6-7 days of font stories and assumed it would continue
- Pattern broke on Day 7
- Fix: Assume streaks end after 5-6 days unless there's a structural reason for continuation
- ✅ Security Research is Evergreen (But Unpredictable)
- We correctly predicted security vulnerability content would appear
- We got the category right (TP-Link cameras, airline APIs) but not specific targets (PostHog)
- Fix: Predict "security vulnerability research" as category without naming specific companies
- ✅ Self-Hosted Infrastructure Theme Correct
- Garage S3 alternative matched our Docker self-hosting prediction
- We got the theme (self-reliance, local-first) correct but wrong implementation
- Fix: Predict broader themes ("self-hosted storage solutions") rather than specific tools
- ❌ We Ignored Consumer Tech
- Amazon ePub DRM-free was #1 story
- We predicted zero consumer-facing announcements
- Fix: Monitor Amazon, Apple, Google consumer policy changes. HN cares about DRM, privacy, consumer rights.
- ❌ We Missed Quirky/Academic AI Projects
- History LLMs (pre-1913 texts) got 830 points
- We predicted mainstream model launches instead
- Fix: HN prefers novel AI applications (historical LLMs, specialized tools) over benchmark wars
- ❌ We Can't Predict Meta-Humor
- "Honest HN" got 1330 points — impossible to forecast
- Fix: Accept that spontaneous community satire is unpredictable. Don't try.
- ❌ We Didn't Track Jeff Geerling's Content
- Mac Studio VRAM story was #2 (598 points)
- Jeff Geerling is reliable HN front page driver
- Fix: Monitor prolific creators: Jeff Geerling (hardware), Simon Willison (AI/data), Julia Evans (systems), Xe Iaso (infra)
- ❌ Over-Indexing on Yesterday's Stories
- We assumed Dec 18's top stories would generate Dec 19 follow-ups
- This failed spectacularly (0/30 predictions)
- Fix: HN has short attention span for corporate news. Only predict Day 2 coverage for:
- Community-driven controversies (open source governance, right-to-repair)
- Breaking security incidents (require time for analysis)
- Major outages (postmortems appear 1-2 days later)
- ✅ Rust Infrastructure Projects Performed
- GotaTun WireGuard implementation matched our Rust pattern
- Fix: Continue predicting Rust infrastructure projects, but be less specific about which ones
- New Discovery: CSS/Browser Standards Announcements
- CSS Grid Lanes (WebKit) got 588 points
- We didn't track browser standards announcements
- Fix: Monitor WebKit blog, Chrome developer blog, Mozilla Hacks for new CSS/JS features
- New Discovery: Cultural/Preservation Projects
- Noclip.website (video game museum) got 460 points
- Commander Keen source code (#27, 165 points)
- Fix: HN loves digital preservation, gaming history, cultural archiving projects
- New Discovery: Mistral Releases = Google Releases
- Mistral OCR 3 performed as well as major model launches
- Fix: Track Mistral AI blog for launches — they get HN attention equivalent to OpenAI/Google
Structural Problems with Our Approach
- Echo Chamber Effect: We're predicting based on yesterday's HN, creating a 1-day lag. By the time we predict "Day 2 coverage," HN has moved on to entirely new topics.
- Enterprise Bias: We predicted too many enterprise/corporate stories (Gemini launch, AWS CEO, Coursera merger). HN prefers grassroots projects, quirky experiments, and individual creators.
- Missing External Signals: We don't monitor:
- Individual creator blogs (Jeff Geerling, Simon Willison's actual posting schedule)
- Browser vendor blogs (WebKit, Chrome)
- Consumer tech policy changes (Amazon, Apple)
- GitHub trending projects
- Academic AI papers (History LLMs came from a research project)
- Pattern Over-Fitting: We saw fonts for 6 days and predicted Day 7. We need better pattern decay models.
Action Items for Next Prediction
- Reduce Day 2 Coverage Predictions: Only predict follow-ups for community controversies, not corporate launches
- Add Consumer Tech Monitoring: Track Amazon, Apple, Google policy/product announcements
- Track Individual Creators: Monitor actual posting schedules of Jeff Geerling, Simon Willison, Julia Evans
- Broaden Categories: Predict "security research" not "PostHog vulnerabilities"; predict "self-hosted storage" not "Docker monitoring"
- Monitor Browser Standards: Add WebKit blog, Chrome developer updates to research
- Track Mistral AI: Add to launch monitoring alongside OpenAI/Google
- Pattern Decay Model: Assume trends end after 5-6 days unless structural driver exists
- Cultural Projects: Look for digital preservation, gaming history, archiving projects
- Reduce Specificity: We were too specific ("Gemini 3 Flash by Simon Willison") — predict themes instead