Piero Scaruffi

scaruffi.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2008

Piero Scaruffi is a writer who runs a long-standing personal site with music reviews, a history of Silicon Valley and essays on many subjects.

What HN saysHN commenters like it for music reviews and best-of lists, call him a prolific polymath, and note the site's unchanged 1995-era design.
40HN people shared it
22linked it in comments
29stories submitted
345story points
9 months agolast shared
2008people per year2026

Most-shared posts

  1. 1
  2. 2
    Dictat
    4 people · first shared 2008
  3. 3
    A Historical Tour of Silicon Valley
    3 people · 123 points · first shared 2012 · 10 comments on HN
  4. 4
    Wars and Casualties of the 20th and 21st Centuries
    3 people · 3 points · first shared 2013 · 2 comments on HN
  5. 5
    A History of Silicon Valley[EDIT]
    3 people · 2 points · first shared 2010 · discussion on HN
  6. 6
    A History of Silicon Valley (2023)
    2 people · 2 points · first shared 2023 · discussion on HN
  7. 7
    Beatles
    2 people · first shared 2010
  8. 8
    A History of Silicon Valley
    1 people · 96 points · first shared 2020 · 16 comments on HN
  9. 9
    A Historical Tour of Silicon Valley (2010)
    1 people · 73 points · first shared 2024 · 23 comments on HN
  10. 10
    A History of Videogames [pdf]
    1 people · 6 points · first shared 2021 · discussion on HN
  11. 11
  12. 12
    Smartphones killed revolutions
    1 people · 3 points · first shared 2018 · discussion on HN
  13. 13
    Brains Create Identical Objects
    1 people · 3 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
  14. 14
    A History of Silicon Valley: Marc Porat
    1 people · 3 points · first shared 2020 · 1 comments on HN
  15. 15
    Europe is missing the AI opportunity
    1 people · 3 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN

What HN people wrote when they linked it

soupfordummies · 2023-04-19
Apologies if this isn't appropriate but I know a lot of other HN readers dig this kinda thing. I stumbled across a list of "best shoegaze albums (https://www.scaruffi.com/music/shoegaze.html)" and found a ton of other stuff on this site to check out. Scaruffi, if you're on here, nice work man!
The_rationalist · 2021-04-02
I strongly want to know what someone that would have experienced almost exhaustively all of the music universe, would qualify as the best songs (the criterion being potency on qualias). The closest I could find are the lists of Scaruffi which is a man that has for his life full time job since decades the goal of refining its list. https://www.scaruffi.com/ratings/10.html While there are some gems I feel like the results would be very different had they been generated contemporaneously by someone with a younger brain, for example I am in much bigger intersection with lukeprog or David Dean Burkhart. There are websites like rateyourmusic.com but I still can't find a platform of recommendations made by passionated experts.
drops · 2020-02-14
One of the most prolific and well-known music reviewers - Pierro Scaruffi - has a website built in 1995 with a design not updated much, or at all, since: https://www.scaruffi.com
alexmorenodev · 2020-02-14
He even reviewed one of my favorites albums launched recently: https://www.scaruffi.com/vol8/bentknee.html
jeromebaek · 2020-01-06
Scaruffi is an interesting guy. I've been following him since 2014. One of the most prolific polymaths of our time. This is a good book: https://www.scaruffi.com/nature/purchase.html
inetsee · 2013-01-14
For those of you who would like to skip directly to the web site "http://www.scaruffi.com/.
Stratoscope · 2012-04-05
Thanks for that insight about the long term nature of Silicon Valley's development. And thanks for the tip about Federal Telegraph. I must confess I hadn't heard of them before - that's a fascinating bit of history, and I will read more about them. I was curious to know where they were located and found the answer on this great page of photos, so I thought I'd share it: http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/svtour.html
philwelch · 2010-11-16
This is a common narrative; I think the dissenting point of view is worthy of consideration as well: http://www.scaruffi.com/vol1/beatles.html
yummyfajitas · 2008-06-07
>Has nationalism really killed more people? It's certainly plausible. Top 10 genocides of the 20'th century: 1: Great Leap Forward (Communist) 2: Soviet Purges/Ukrainian Famine (Communist) 3: Nazis (Nationalist) 3 (Roughly Tied): Congo Wars (Nationalist) 4: Imperial Japanese (Nationalist) 5: Pol Pot (Communist) 6: Kim (Communist) 7: Mengistu in Ethiopia (Mix of Communist and Nationalist) 8: Armenian Genocide by Turks (Nationalist) 9: Igbo genocide of Nigeria (Nationalist) http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/dictat.html (Note: some of these numbers are sketchy, especially towards the bottom of the list. The list also missed the Congo (WTF!), which I added.)
gozo · 2015-08-23
It's an opinion. It would be very tedious to preface everything with "I think". It seem very common here to ask that everything be backed up if you don't agree with it, but don't ask the same thing if you do. Instead of dismissing comments, it would be better to ask for clarification or state why you are disagreeing. Especially as a moderator. The accusation that my comment is "made up" is unfair, not only because it's only as made up as any opinion, but because you make that conclusion based on your disagreement with one of my statements. That is a fallacy if anything. My opinions both about copying and commercialization in SV is well founded on texts like "A General History of Silicon Valley" [0]. That China is doing the same thing SV did in the beginning, is based on my experiences in Shenzhen. The example of drones is based on the great interests in drones in the US[1] and the success of DJI[2]. My last opinion is based on conversations I've had with people from SV, who quite often judge China by very different standards than the US. "ageek123" made a fair argument opposing this. If there's anything that is frustrating on HN, it's not accepting that people have a difference of opinion, background and experiences. Things aren't given the benefit of the doubt to the extent they should, but instead downvoted, flagged, spammed into "controversy" or moderated. This creates an environment where discussions end up being about the "lowest common denominator". I also find it…
082349872349872 · 2024-08-26
Did you edit with `jet` by any chance? Lagniappe: https://www.scaruffi.com/history/long.html
jallmann · 2023-10-03
For a stylized history of the early industry: The Tinkerings of Robert Noyce, by Tom Wolfe https://web.stanford.edu/class/e145/2007_fall/materials/noyce.html I also read "A History of Silicon Valley" back in college (~2010) and really enjoyed it; looks like it's been updated continuously since then: https://www.scaruffi.com/svhistory/sv.html
NumberWangMan · 2023-05-11
A list of genocidal dictators: https://www.scaruffi.com/politics/dictat.html Anyone who comes into power enough to do something like this has a high amount of intelligence -- not necessarily book smarts, but the ability to persuade or manipulate other people.
sb057 · 2023-02-04
See also this (in)famous scathing review of the Beatles by Piero Scaruffi: https://scaruffi.com/vol1/beatles.html
mdre · 2020-08-19
This is literally the exact thing you seek. Piero Scaruffi's website. https://www.scaruffi.com/music.html
veeenu · 2020-06-24
Chiming in with Piero Scaruffi's website[1]. I used to read it a decade back and it really hasn't changed that much; the information is plentiful and interesting, the site is fast, and it seems like he nailed down the "static content is all that matters in the end" bit not only way before it became a common reaction to the overencumbered web of today, but also way before the web got overencumbered at all. [1] https://www.scaruffi.com/service/aboutw.html
johansch · 2013-12-23
Seems like around 200M people were killed in wars during the 20th century: http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/massacre.html http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_people_died_in_war_since_1914?#slid… http://www.cissm.umd.edu/papers/files/deathswarsconflictsjune52006.pdf I'm revising my BS guess to 1/5th of this; 40 million.
rmason · 2013-09-19
Here's a list of the worst cases of genocide in world history and Mao is on the very top of the list. http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/dictat.html
rad_gruchalski · 2022-02-25
> Thus, the war happened because Vladimir Putin wanted it to happen and he wanted it to happen to overthrow the democratically elected government of Ukraine; it is as yet unclear if he then intends to annex the country or place a puppet government in charge of it (which given the diminished independence of Belarus, might amount to the same thing in the end). This is a little bit of a let down. "It happened because Putin wanted it to happen". Looking at the way Putin talks and behaves, his actions are like actions of a child who has a tantrum. He's very emotional, probably someone pissed him off very much on an inner child level. Maybe someone threatened taking his toys away. The man seems to be very irrational, he says words that to him are reasonable, but they're so shallow that someone with half a brain can read through it in a split-second. I think this is all personal. There could be things happening within a very small circle of people causing his childish reaction. We have to remember that those at the top of world politics know each other for decades. Putin ain't a superhuman, he's simply like a 12 year old bully but unfortunately he has 850k active military personnel, a fuck-ton of tanks, artillery and air force. Without justifying anything Putin has done, let's consider an alternative narrative. Let's accept that what American intelligence is saying, that he was preparing this for 15 or 20 years. Putin once before the invasion said something along the lines that…
nicklaf · 2017-10-09
https://www.scaruffi.com/news/opin0712.html Caveat emptor: Scaruffi doesn't hesitate to let his imagination far surpass his apparent handle on the facts, but hey they are just opinions, so let's not ruin the fun too easily. "I reached the conclusion that the meat diet started with cannibalism: we ate humans before we ate animals. And cannibalism started with women eating their own children, and children eating their grandparents. Cats do it all the time: when they cannot afford too many kittens, the mom eats some of them. If she didn't, it would reduce the chances that the others survive. Since they are YOUR children, you don't feel too bad eating them: they are flesh of your flesh, aren't they? You have to think like a woman of two million years ago, who was pregnant all the time, did not know how to prevent pregnancy nor how to perform abortion, and had to feed many children, often with no male partner to help out. The tradition of eating old people is documented in many cultures: nothing was wasted, and it would have been silly to waste the flesh of a dead person. Once you start eating your own family members, it becomes natural to start eating other humans. In prehistory (and even not too long ago) humans from other tribes were not perceived as belonging to the same species: they don't speak my language, their customs are different, they smell different, therefore they are not the same species as me. Killing them and eating them was not any more morally wrong than…
crdb · 2015-10-13
Pax Americana started in WWII (which killed over 55 million people) and since then, there has been no global conflict of a similar scale. Cf http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/massacre.html (top result in DDG). Whether you consider that global relatively free trade is not beneficial to the rest of the world is up to you, but as a citizen of the rest of the world who did benefit I'm quite glad the US did not go isolationist after WWII. Regarding schools, whether the taxpayer's money is used appropriately is another discussion, irrelevant here since Americans, through their elected representatives, chose to spent the money in this way. Funding-wise, last year's budget spent $100bn and this year wants $117bn on the Federal end for "Education, Training, Employment and Social Services" (see link above) of which $69bn in 2015 is for Education (see: http://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/obama-administration-2015-budget…

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