Why software engineers like woodworking
The smell of fresh pine sawdust filled the air, with more floating up as I sanded the last rough corner of the stool. My toddler was happily sanding her own block off to the side.
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 816 posts.
The smell of fresh pine sawdust filled the air, with more floating up as I sanded the last rough corner of the stool. My toddler was happily sanding her own block off to the side.
Hello, I’m Michael Sliwinski, founder of Nozbe - to-do app for business owners and their teams. I write essays, books, work on projects and I podcast for you using #iPadOnly in #NoOffice as I believe that work is not a place you go to, it’s a thing you do.
Like a lot of people, I used to be a pathological maximalist. A phone with more features is necessarily better, a company with more people is better, a program with more lines of code is better, a house with more stuff is better. Until the day when reality hit me
Imagine… Last night, lightning struck our house and burned it down. I escaped wearing only my nightclothes. In an instant, everything was vaporised. Laptop? Cinders. Phone? Ashes. Home server? A smouldering wreck. Yubikey? A charred chunk of gristle. This presents something of a problem. In order to recover my digital…
Math professor David Edwards sent me this short essay on mathematical education. Printed with his permission. The Math Myth Themath myth is the myth that the future of the American economy is dependent upon the masses having higher mathematics skills. This myth goes back to at least Sputnik, when the Russians were…
Consumption, brutality, and the cute
I like plain text. I also like doodling while I write. Some things are just easier to explain with a picture. But if I need to draw a picture today, I need to stop writing plain text, pick an app, dismiss a couple of dialogs or tours of new features in front of my face, think about all the ways it's acting for its…
Here’s a scenario. First, you download an app for a service that has some sort of in-person component, like picking up an order or meeting a driver at the curb. When using that app for the goal, be it that order or that meeting, it’s very helpful to have notifications, since they give you the current status and it can…
My story so far!
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There is no other software that I use and pay for that can compare to Apple Music when it comes to severe bugs and annoyances. The worst of the Apple Music clients is that on macOS.
Coding diabetic technology
A friend of mine pinged me online, said “Hey, remember that thing we were talking about doing a couple years ago? I still have one of the domain names, gonna let it go unless you want it.”
Long and rough notes on Effective Altruism (EA). Written to help me get to the bottom of several questions: what do I like and think is important about EA? Why do I find the mindset so foreign? Why am I not an EA? And to start me thinking about: what do alternatives to EA look like? The notes are not aimed at…
an interactive comic on the art & science of memory
Thinking in bets is a decision-making framework developed by poker player Annie Duke. Here's how it can make you a better decision-maker:
When I was growing up in the 90s, I remember wanting to get on the Internet. My parents weren’t going to help me, so I called up an ISP and said I wanted to set up an account. They asked for my name and I gave them a fake name. And then they asked for a credit card number and I told them I had to find my wallet and…
Imagine a high-capacity air filter that is extremely quiet and doesn't get in the way. I think I see how to build one; here's a prototype: By putting a fan on the ceiling you can have very long blades. This is important for keeping noise down: the longer your blades are the more air you move at a given rotational…
You’re one among millions, not one in a million.
C++11 has been around for around 11 years and C++14 for 8. From my experience, I see that even today, many companies struggle to use those standards in production in the most efficient way. As always, with new stuff came benefits, risks, and increased learning effort. Fortunately, with a new book written by top C++…
Well, it’s been a while since the FTDI fuckup so I guess it was a time for another IC supplier to go bonkers. Yes, it’s again time for a chip manufacturer to mess with your computer drivers. Story starts with me searching for 5V USB cable with a 3.3V…
What’s really happening when we see earthworms on a soggy sidewalk? It's probably not what you think.
Here is what might possibly be my single favorite song in the world:
Controlling lighting is an extremely powerful force on your daily life satisfaction