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New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 8,937 posts.
Life, Learning & Writing
Any year
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No more O'Reilly subscriptions for me
For the last two years I’ve had an O’Reilly subscription . Their offer is quite attractive with unlimited access to books not only by O’Reilly but also Manning and others. The catalog is just enourmous and covers pretty much every technical book around software engineering et al. that I might ever want to read. There…
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The fuck off contact page
How to get people to NOT contact you
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Why Speed Matters
The one constant that I have observed in my professional life is that people underestimate the need to move fast. Of course, doing good work takes time. I once spent six months writing a URL parser. But the fact that it took so long is not a feature, it is not a positive, it is … Continue reading Why speed matters
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Most technical problems are people problems
I once worked at a company which had an enormous amount of technical debt - millions of lines of code, no unit tests, and products using l...
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I have been writing a niche history blog for 15 years
A special appeal to support Res Obscura on its Crystal Anniversary
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Gundam is just the same as Jane Austen but happens to include giant mech suits
A friend recently asked how to get started watching Gundam, and as I tripped all over myself, equal parts excitement and not wanting to sound like a
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A series of vignettes from my childhood and early career
When I was younger, I really liked programming! I loved the sense of accomplishment, I loved the problem solving, I loved sharing what I made with the people around me to both amuse and assist.
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Last Week on My Mac: Losing confidence
What was the key to successfully learning to drive, ride a bike, or speak a foreign language? Confidence, and it’s every bit as important in computing, and in macOS.
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It’s been a very hard year
Unlike a lot of places in tech, my company, Set Studio/Piccalilli has no outside funding. Bootstrapped is what the LinkedIn people say, I think. It’s been a hard year this year. A very hard year. I think a naive person would blame it all on the seemingly industry-wide attitude of “AI can just do this […]
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Bikeshedding, or why I want to build a laptop
I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels Apple’s quality is degrading. I spend 10 hours a day on my laptop and would spend any amount of money within reason for a better one. However, everything comes with tradeoffs.
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A new Little Prince museum has opened its doors in Switzerland
The Besenval Palace in Solothurn opened the museum « Der Kleine Prinz und seine Welt » dedicated to the Little Prince through the collection of Jean-Marc Probst.
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All it takes is for one to work out
More than a decade ago, when I was applying to graduate school, I went through a period of deep uncertainty. I had tried the previous year and hadn’t gotten in anywhere. I wanted to try again, but …
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Learning Feynman's Trick for Integrals
Among a few other integral tricks and techniques, Feynman's trick was a strong reason that made me love evaluating integrals, and although the technique itself goes back to Leibniz being commonly known as the Leibniz integral rule, it was Richard Feynman who popularized it, which is why it is also referred to as…
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Confessions of a Software Developer: No More Self-Censorship
I haven't published since April because I've been afraid. What was I afraid of? In this post I detail every single thing I've avoided admitting on this blog.
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Lobsters Interview
I recently had an engaging conversation with Alex ( @veqq ) from the Lobsters community about computing, mathematics and a range of related topics. Our conversation was later published on the community website as Lobsters Interview with Susam .
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The Math of Why You Can't Focus at Work
Interruptions, recovery time, and task size: three numbers that determine if you'll get real work done. Interactive visualizations show the math behind bad days.
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Underrated reasons to be thankful V
even more
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10 years of writing a blog nobody reads
flow2 | Blog post: 'On 10 Years of Writing a Blog Nobody Reads' in Personal
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The programmers who live in Flatland
In the book Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, a two-dimensional world called “Flatland” is inhabited by polygonal creatures like triangles, squares, and circles. The protaganist, a square, is…
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Running a business means contact with reality
A year ago I decided to help build a service business for my mom because I wanted to learn about marketing and business. One of the largest blindspots engineers have is around sales and marketing. I was determined to not fall into this trap, but marketing seemed like a skill I couldn’t just learn by […]
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Learning music with Strudel
Made in Notion, the connected workspace where AI agents and teams organize docs, projects and knowledge together.
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What you can get for the price of a Netflix subscription
A couple of weeks ago, I decided to do away with my Netflix subscription. I simply was barely using it, and whenever I did it was more ou...
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I made a quieter air purifier
The physics of sound, and the PC fan CR box v1.
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Ego, empathy, and humility at work
In our daily lives empathy and humility are obvious virtues we aspire to. They keep our egos in check. Less obvious is that they're practical skills in the workplace, too. I think, for developers and technical leaders in particular, that the absence of ego is the best way to further our careers and do great work.
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Indie, alone, and figuring it out
Going indie looks like freedom from the outside. But once you’re in it, you face loneliness, pressure, constant decisions, user feedback, and all the invisible work no one warns you about. This is what the journey feels like, and why it’s still worth it.
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After my dad died, we found the love letters
a few days after dad died, we found the love letters, hidden away among his things. one of them said, i love dota and i love peaches, but i love you more. i ...
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Markdown is holding you back
Explore why Markdown, despite its ubiquity, might not be the best fit for technical content.
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The realities of being a pop star
According to my experience...