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Some Thoughts on Smart Canes
over the last few years, many attempts have been made at creating a smart cane. None of them have successfully lead to a market transforming technology that's actually used by any substantial users. I
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The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 640 posts.
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Embrace the Grind
Sometimes, programming feels like magic: you chant some arcane incantation and a fleet of robots do your bidding. But sometimes, magic is mundane. If you’re willing to embrace the grind, you can pull off the impossible.
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How to Learn Complex Things Quickly: A Guide
No matter what your field, learning efficiently (and well) is an indispensable skill. Here's how.
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Programming is hard
Most beginners in programming eventually end up with the same ingratiating message: „Programming is easy, everyone can do it”, with some threatening message that people doing the gatekeeping should stop doing that. I’m here to tell you that that is not true. Programming is hard, programming is not for everyone, and…
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Debunking False Accusations Against Richard Stallman
Explains and debunks the most broadcast accusations against Richard Stallman, providing evidence of outright fabrication, exaggeration, or deceit.
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Teaching Machiavelli through his letters
Hello! It’s been a while since I posted since, as usual, many projects press, so it’s rare for me to have the time to write the kinds of polished essays I like sharing here. But I’ve been hoping to share more things, since a lot of the history work I’ve been doing lately has helped me with reflecting on current…
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“Why We Sleep” Is Riddled with Scientific and Factual Errors
Note: I link to a bunch of paywalled studies in this essay. Please do not use sci-hub to access them for free and do not use this trick (a) to easily redirect papers to sci-hub. For the clearest example of deliberate data manipulation, see how Walker edits out the data that contradicts his argument from the graph…
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Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop
This article is part of a series: Seven years later, I bought a new Macbook. For the first time, I don't love it How I moved my setup from a Mac to a Linux laptop This article The M1 Macbook Air, one year later Due to very bad
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Apple doesn't care about album cover art
Album covers have never been smaller.
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Psychology of Human Misjudgment (Transcript) by Charlie Munger
In The Psychology of Human Misjudgment, Charlie Munger explains why we behave the way we do. This is a transcript of the fully updated talk.
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Overnight Pizza and the Consistent Unreliability of Expert Guidelines
Author disclaimer: As always, keep in mind that I am at best some random guy on the internet.
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Yes, experts will lie to you sometimes
Econ gives us an example of when and why this happens.
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No one gives a shit what programming language you use
I’ve had it up to here (gestures at nose level) with the bullshit around programming language elitism. Back when I thought it mattered I was just as bad as the bullshit I’m seeing today…
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No, I did not hack your MS Exchange server
New data suggests someone has compromised more than 21,000 Microsoft Exchange Server email systems worldwide and infected them with malware that invokes both KrebsOnSecurity and Yours Truly by name.
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Sam Fussell: An interview with the author of Muscle (2014)
Michael J. Joyner, M.D. June 10, 2014 In 1991 Sam Fussell published the book “Muscle” about his experiences in body building. The book tells the story of how he went from being a good 6-4, 170 pound college soccer player to a committed body builder about 100 pounds heavier. It is perhaps the best
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English is relatively easy to learn, but not to master (2018)
English is a (relatively) simple language to learn enough of to communicate (rather than to master) because it’s had so many non-native adults learning and using it.
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Why I’m a sucker for pen and paper
The scientific reason, explained
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It Doesn't Work
8 AM. Like any other day, I take a quick glance at my GitHub notifications via Octobox.
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I Like That the Boat Is Stuck
I know it's bad that the boat is stuck, but I like that the boat is stuck.
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Transiting the Suez Canal in a Private Sailboat (2003)
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Learn about problems, not solutions
Sometimes people ask me what they should learn - they've heard AI is kind of hot, but DevOps is too? What's the best way to get into AI? Should they s
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The Decline and Fall of the Latin Neuter
Reading time: 15 minutes There are many significant differences between Latin and its linguistic descendants, the Romance languages. One that stands out from the rest is grammatical gender. Latin h…
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Living Like It's 99, No Social Media, No Smartphone
I’ve now lived without social media and without a smartphone for the past 3 years. And I’m still alive. A lot of people have asked me how I made it. So I wrote an article about it. The why, the how, and the now.
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The dispassionate developer
Caring for your craft is fine, but should you work for free?