A short tour of HNSW and probabilistic skip-list search

HNSW’s layered graph search makes nearest-neighbor retrieval fast by borrowing the same intuition that lets skip lists avoid scanning every element

Couldn't sleep last night. Got off the bed and somehow ended up reading about HNSW instead. What's interesting is that HNSW builds on ideas from probabilistic skip lists and NSW graphs. Instead of searching every node, it creates hierarch
Ranked #12 on backlist 2026-05-16 (16 May 2026 UTC) · by ·

How it ranks: Backlist reads my Twitter/X timeline, scores every tweet for substance with an LLM rubric (not engagement), and publishes the daily top picks with a one-line takeaway. Curated by Surya Dantuluri.