Most cited
Posts that commenters keep linking to, ranked by how many different people have cited them in Hacker News comments. 312 posts.
Why airlines tend to be unionized
The explanation lies in the interaction of labor laws and aviation regulations. Let's consider labor laws first. The law compels a company to negotiate with a labor union. If it cannot reach an agreement, however, and the union goes out on strike, the company is able to hire replacement workers and continue its…
How Not To Run An A/B Test
Are you falling victim to the peeking problem? Learn how to design and run an experiment properly.
Steve Blank What’s A Startup? First Principles.
Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. Winston Churchill Everyone knows what a startup is for – don’t they? In this post we’re going to offer a new definition…
Medical researcher discovers integration, gets 75 citations
(Note: this post is `just for fun;’ no premeds, doctors, researchers, or nobel laureates were meant to be offended in the writing of this post.) The bane of many American physics grad student…
The Alot is Better Than You at Everything
As a grammatically conscientious person who frequents internet forums and YouTube, I have found it necessary to develop a few coping mechani...
Founders at work: Interview with Steve Wozniak
Interview: Steve Wozniak , Co-Founder, Apple Computer If any one person can be said to have set off the personal computer revolution, it might be Steve Wozniak. He designed the machine that...
The CRAPL: An academic-strength open source license
Generally, academic software is stapled together on a tight deadline; an expert user has to coerce it into running; and it's not pretty code. Academic code is about "proof of concept." These rough edges make academics reluctant to release their software. But, that doesn't mean they shouldn't.
steve yegge - effective-emacs
Effective Emacs Stevey's Drunken Blog Rants™ 10 Specific Ways to Improve Your Productivity With Emacs Emacs is the world's best text editor. It's not just the best for editing program source; it's the best for any kind of text-editing. Mastering Emacs will make you more effective at writing and
The Security Mindset
Uncle Milton Industries has been selling ant farms to children since 1956. Some years ago, I remember opening one up with a friend. There were no actual ants included in the box. Instead, there was a card that you filled in with your address, and the company would mail you some ants. My friend expressed surprise that…
The bitter truth about fructose alarmism.
Dr. Robert Lustig, professor of pediatrics at the University of California at San Francisco, is the star of the video above. While he presents some material that’s scientifically sound, he also makes enough errors to warrant a healthy dose of criticism. There’s a ton of material he goes over, so instead of writing a…
In Defense of Not-Invented-Here Syndrome (2001)
Time for a pop quiz. 1. Code Reuse is: a) Goodb) Bad 2. Reinventing the Wheel is: a) Goodb) Bad 3. The Not-Invented-Here Syndrome is: a) Goodb) Bad Of course, everybody knows that you should always…
Teal and Orange - Hollywood, Please Stop the Madness
Those of you who watch a lot of Hollywood movies may have noticed a certain trend that has consumed the industry in the last few years. It ...
An Open Letter to JavaScript Leaders Regarding Semicolons
Writing and Stuff from Isaac Z. Schlueter
How to hire a programmer to make your ideas happen
Derek Sivers official site. Thoughts on philosophy, culture, self-improvement. Author of Useful Not True, How to Live, Hell Yeah or No, Anything You Want.
Good Artists Copy, Great Artists Steal
I feel for Google – Steve Jobs threatened to sue me, too. In 2003, after I unveiled a prototype Linux desktop called Project Looking Glass*, Steve called my office to let me know the graphica…
Who Writes Wikipedia?
Part 1: Wikimedia at the Crossroads Part 2: Who Writes Wikipedia? Part 3: Who Runs Wikipedia? Part 4: Making More Wikipedians Part 5: Making More Wikipedias Part 6: Code, and Other Laws
Everyone Who Tried to Convince Me to Use Vim Was Wrong
A couple weeks ago, I took the plunge and switched to vim (MacVIM, to be precise). It wasn't the first time I tried to make the switch, and I had pretty much written it off entirely. Why? Because the past few times I tried switching to vim, I took
Yacc is dead: An update
The draft of " Yacc is Dead " that David Darais and I posted on arXiv received some attention, so we'd like to share updates and feedback.
Common Misconceptions About Publishing
A while back I did a series of postings on the topic of Common Misconceptions About Publishing.
Haskell Researchers Announce Discovery of Industry Programmer Who Gives a Shit
Oh, Steve, you do make me laugh, always. And it's so long between posts these days I hardly believed it when Safari hinted that there was some action over at Steve's. Thank you.
How to keep someone with you forever
So you want to keep your lover or your employee close. Bound to you, even. You have a few options. You could be the best lover theyve ever had, kind, charming, thoughtful, competent, witty, and a tiger in bed. You could be the best workplace theyve ever had, with challenging work, rewards…