601
How I archived 10 years of memories using Spotify
David's notes.
New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 7,740 posts.
Life, Learning & Writing
Any year
602
The unbearable joy of sitting alone in a café
Hunting timeless insights into humans and software and helping others on the way.
603
Maybe comments should explain 'what' (2017)
People say “Comments should explain why, not what.” I feel like starting a flame war today so I’m going to argue that comments should explain ‘what’ too. Please don’t use this as justification to write bad code, okay? Okay. First of all, why shouldn’t comments explain ‘what’? If you need comments to explain what’s…
604
The suck is why we're here
On a catchup call, I told my friend Nick Wignall how someone had trained an AI model to write blog posts in my style. It was a pure research exercise on their part. The idea was to train the tool on my past work, then give it the headlines and opening paragraphs of my 2025 […]
605
The Most Popular Blogs of Hacker News in 2025
Who were the most popular personal bloggers of 2025, and what made them successful on Hacker News?
606
2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop
The meme will no longer be a dream.
607
Fighting Fire with Fire: Scalable Oral Exams
Paper: This blog post has been expanded into a full paper: Scalable and Personalized Oral Assessments Using Voice AI (Panos Ipeirotis and...
608
Try to take my position: The best promotion advice I ever got
My CTO leaned back in our 1-on-1 and said something that sounded almost threatening: "You want to get promoted? Try to take my position."
609
Repair a ship’s hull still in the river in -50˚C (2022)
Despite these hard times, we continue our work saving the world from all manner of cyber-maliciousness. We adapt; we carry on. Meanwhile, I hope my travel notes and photos will bring a little cheeriness to all who view them – because there’s hardly a better way to do that than with the beauty of nature
610
10 years of personal finances in plain text files
I've been tracking my finances using Beancount in plain text files for 10 years. Here are the numbers, the workflow, and why I believe plaintext accounting will outlive any app.
611
2025 Letter
Corgis, compute, Cold War; Ecclesiastes; ties; Stendhal; humor; Pascal's Wager; deep infrastructure; Germanic obedience; Texas State Fair
612
I rebooted my social life
Some self-help for the New Year
613
Children and Helical Time
If childhood is half of our subjective life, how should that change how we live?
614
I canceled my book deal
I've always wanted to write a book, and I was close, but not this time.
615
Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts
A less romantic truth is that aesthetic standards rarely travel alone; power tends to follow in their wake. An episode at the U.S. State Department this month makes exactly this point.
616
The year of the 3D printed miniature and other lies we tell ourselves
3D printing and miniatures as a case study in how tech misses what users actually want
617
Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn
A Christmas Eve journey. Deutsche Bahn. 35 kilometers.
618
My app just won best iOS Japanese learning tool of 2025 award (blog)
Welcome to the award show everyone! Hosted by your favourite bee... Bee! 🥳 I wanted to summarise the best tools etc out there in 2025, and what better way then to put on a fake award show! And like all true award shows and Christmas themed events, let's get into
619
Why I Disappeared – My week with minimal internet in a remote island chain
My week with minimal internet in a remote island chain
620
If you care about security you might want to move the iPhone Camera app
There's a quirk in the iPhone Camera app that can drive a security conscious iPhone owner crazy: if you touch your finger on the Camera app ...
621
Last Year on My Mac: Look Back in Disbelief
If someone had told me 12 months ago what was going to happen this past year, I wouldn’t have believed them. Skipping swiftly past all the political, economic and social turmoil, I come to th…
622
How we lost communication to entertainment
How We Lost Communication to Entertainment par Ploum - Lionel Dricot.
623
Toys with the highest play-time and lowest clean-up-time
The worst toy is one with many pieces that my kids dump on the ground and then play with for only 2 minutes.
624
A Proclamation Regarding the Restoration of the Dash
WHEREAS , the em-dash (—) has long served as the elegant scaffolding of the English sentence, providing the necessary breadth for parenthetical thought, sudden turns of phrase, and rhythmic pause;
625
I'm a laptop weirdo and that's why I like my new Framework 13
It turns out I've always done weird things to my laptops.
626
Maybe the default settings are too high
I’ve been reading Lord of the Rings for two months and I’m just at the end of the first part. It’s not because I’m not enjoying it. It’s one of the most ...
627
How I Left YouTube
What was the road like when I left?
628
Spaced repetition for efficient learning (2019)
Efficient memorization using the spacing effect: literature review of widespread applicability, tips on use & what it’s good for.
629
I'm returning my Framework 16
My current laptop is an aging X1 Carbon generation 7, purchased some time in mid 2019. A few months ago a few keys of the keyboard stopped working, specifically the 5, 6, - , = and Delete keys. Sometimes I can get it working again by mashing one of them for a while, but it's not consistent. Given my past experiences…
630
Don't Become the Machine
I was recently recommended a YouTube video with the following title: Only a slave quantifies its existence through productivity '''''',,,,,,,,,,,'''''....