1291
Never Missing the Train Again
How I built a transit dashboard with Rust, Skia, and an old Kindle
New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 7,740 posts.
Life, Learning & Writing
Any year
1292
I got dysentery so you don’t have to
On turning 30 in a human challenge trial ward.
1293
Learning to Learn
The fastest way to get better at something is to start slow.
1294
Is it better to fail spectacularly?
Three weeks ago I wrote the following draft of a blog post entitled “Is It Better to Fail Spectacularly?”. I am having a lot of doubts. I’ve been training for the Chicago Marathon in earnest since June, but in reality the preparations began a year ago when I was accepted based on my qualifying time from the 2023…
1295
Accountability sinks
In The Unaccountability Machine, Dan Davies argues that organizations form “accountability sinks,” structures that absorb or obscure the consequences of a decision such that no one can be held dire...
1296
Ribbonfarm Is Retiring
After several years of keeping it going in semi-retired, keep-the-lights-on (KTLO) mode, I've decided to officially fully retire this blog. The ribbonfarm.com…
1297
SOFA - Start Often Finish rArely
SOFA is the name of a hacker/art collective, and also the name of the principle upon which the club was founded.
1298
My solar-powered and self-hosted website
How I built a solar-powered, self-hosted website with a Raspberry Pi to explore sustainable, local-first web hosting.
1299
Traveling with Apple Vision Pro
The Vision Pro has quickly become an essential item that I take onto every flight. It’s a fantastic device to travel with—Be it by train or by plane, it offers an unparalleled opportunity to …
1300
1301
Why don't we use awnings anymore (2022)
When you look at old black and white pictures of cities from before the 1950s you may notice something on most buildings that are no longer there today. Awnings. They were ubiquitous over nearly every window of buildings from the most basic single family home to massive buildings like The White House. Where did all […]
1302
Try to fix it one level deeper
I had a productive day today! I did many different and unrelated things, but they all had the same unifying theme:
1303
1304
The 1/8th Sleep
The eight sleep bed is a popular self-cooling bed. Sleeping on a colder surface not only feels great but often improves sleep as well. This post discusses a cheaper homemade option that I use instead.
1305
A dictionary of single-letter variable names
Haskell’s expressive type system means that type signatures can carry a lot of information. Haskell’s polymorphism means that you sometimes write functions that work across an enormous range of types, and are left wondering “what do I actually call my variables?”. It is often the case that there’s nothing to say…
1306
My WordPress Slack Ban
A couple of days ago, I got banned from the WordPress community Slack. As this is about WordPress, I figure I should use my WordPress blog to talk about it. Everything that day revolved around a small…
1307
Bridge to Nowhere
Taking a closer look at the opening act of a glioblastoma diagnosis.
1308
Rabbit hole: stumbling across two Portuguese punched cards
Look, here's the thing, I don't like mysteries that involve technology. I think I hate them because I know that some other human created the...
1309
Google’s AI thinks I left a Gatorade bottle on the moon
Google’s NotebookLLM is the first AI podcast I’d actually listen to. Give it a web page or document, and it will generate you a podcast about it.
1310
So thieves broke into your storage unit again
If you've been wondering why entries have been a little slow lately, let me tell you a story. All collectors tend to be a bit obsessive by ...
1311
I Stayed
My insight into corporate legal disputes is as meaningful as my opinion on Quantum Mechanics. What I do know is that, when given the chance this week to leave my job with half a year’s salary paid in advance, I chose to stay at Automattic.
1312
12 Months of Mandarin
Estimates for achieving intermediate fluency in Mandarin Chinese range up to spending years and around 4000 total hours (2,200h classroom hours, 1,800 outside). I did it in 1500 hours total and less than a year.[1] 1. There is a lot of disagreement on language proficiency estimates. They
1313
Getting my daily news from a dot matrix printer
Instead of doom-scrolling through my phone in the morning, I built an alternative with a Raspberry Pi, a dot matrix printer, and some PHP.
1314
Anatomy of an internet argument
Social media isn't toxic, most people just haven't figured out the game (yet)
1315
Math from Three to Seven
Math from Three to Seven: The Story of a Mathematical Circle for Preschoolers, Alexander Zvonkin (Moscow Center for Continuing Mathematical Education, 2007).
1316
1317
Life, death, and retirement
I haven’t been blogging much lately, and it turns out there is a very good reason.My last technical blog post was October 1st of last year. After I hit publish on that one I went to get ready for b…
1318
I Taught My 8yo Subduction Zones with NotebookLM
Principal AI Architect. Creator of open-strix, a harness for building agent teams. Writing about AI architecture, stateful agents, and what happens when you give AI memory.
1319
1320
The best $4 ever spent
Kids get excited about things that are very different from those of adults. You probably remember your kid's first birthday...