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The illustrated guide to a Ph.D.
There's a bit more below, but I also wrote a follow-up 5 years after the illustrated guide which may be of interest -- HOWTO: Get tenure .
Most cited
Posts that commenters keep linking to, ranked by how many different people have cited them in Hacker News comments. 68 posts.
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Accelerando - Charlie's Diary
This free ebook edition is made available by kind consent of my publishers, Ace and Orbit, under a Creative Commons license with certain restrictions attached. In particular, you may not create derivative works or use the work for commercial gain .
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Ideas are just a multiplier of execution
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.
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The Top Idea in Your Mind
July 2010 I realized recently that what one thinks about in the shower in the morning is more important than I'd thought. I knew it was a good time to have ideas. Now I'd go further: now I'd say it's hard to do a really good job on anything you don't think about in the shower. Everyone who's worked on difficult…
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Fast. Easy. Clean. Shoelace Knot.
Tutorial for tying the “Ian Knot”, the world's fastest shoelace knot.
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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...
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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.
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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…
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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 ...
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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…
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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
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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…
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How to Deconstruct Almost Anything, by a Software Engineer
This is the story of one computer professional's explorations in the world of postmodern literary criticism. I'm a working software engineer, not a student nor an academic nor a person with any real background in the humanities. Consequently, I've approached the whole subject with a somewhat different frame of mind…
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Fine Structure
Fledgling physicist Ching-Yu Kuang has discovered a Rosetta Stone for all of physics, a treasure trove of advanced scientific breakthroughs beyond all imagination. Exotic energy, teleportation, FTL, parallel universes and near-infinitely more wonders are just within reach; a pr...
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Missing Missy
"I'm extremely emotional over this and was up all night in tears."
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Beginner's Health and Fitness Guide
That's what this guide is for. It's a basic guide to diet and fitness for beginners who want to get in better shape. If you want to look better, improve your overall athletic ability, or just improve your health, read on. If you're a bodybuilder or athlete, you probably already know most of this anyway.
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My favorite fable
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.
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A retrospective of the fructose alarmism debate.
After 300 comments and counting, it’s safe to agree with Nigel Kinbrum that my recent critique of Dr. Robert Lustig’s fructose lecture “has caused a bit of a stir in the nutritional blogosphere.” The intense debate (& discussion) that ensued inspired me to re-cap some things I feel were most interesting. There was…
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Jef Raskin on "Intuitive Interfaces"
One of the most common terms of praise for an interface is to say that it is "intuitive" (the word should have been "intuitable" but we will bow to convention). Yet the Human Computer Interaction (HCI) literature rarely mentions the word, and for good reason. This note attempts to clarify the meaning of "intuitive"…
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AskTog: A Quiz Designed to Give You Fitts
Fitts' Law, A fundamental principle of interaction design, from AskTog, the Webzine for Computer Professionals, their Family, and Friends
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After 15 years of practice..
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.
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Obvious to you. Amazing to others.
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.
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Drowning Doesn't Look Like Drowning
Translations: – العربية – Norsk 汉语 – tiếng Việt – Español – Italiano – Français – Magyar – Português – română – Deutsch – Suomi – Svenska – Čeština – Русско – Íslenska – Nederlands – ελληνικά – עברית – Audio Version