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The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 669 posts.

Life, Learning & Writing
2023
335

Why write?

As a reaction to the previous article on how to write a scientific paper, I got some reactions from friends and colleagues, the underlying message being that they would rather like to understand why writing can be important. There is indeed a tendency to see academic writing as a tedious task that one should try to…

353

Full Time

I’m working on Marginalia Search full time. I left the office for the last time today, and it’s the strangest feeling. I’ve quit jobs, taken time off work, been laid off, but this is different from any of those things. This is deliberate. There’s a note of relief. I’ve essentially been working two pretty demanding…

359

Dumb and Gets Things Done (2010)

Someone once asked Napoleon how he decided where to assign soldiers. Napoleon's reply was that it's simple: soldiers are either smart or dumb, lazy or energetic. The smart and energetic I make field commanders. They know what to do and can rally the troops to do it. The smart and lazy I make generals. They