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New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 276 posts.
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Mercury Spill
On July 1st I discovered a puddle of liquid mercury in our house. It was the evening before the holiday weekend and I was preparing to do some more demolition for the bathroom I've been working on. I was putting down plastic to make cleanup easier, and when I got to the corner there was a dusty little puddle. That…
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Tales of coding from a beginner
How I learned to stop worrying and love the code Photo by MipsyRetro/Flickr remix by Jason Reed I’m learning to code. I’ve been on again off again with it for about two years now. But I've only …
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Losing Sight
Léonie Watson's personal website. Writing about the web, accessibility, and other things.
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The sky's gone dark
Back to: Brief hiatus | Forward to: Tanks! Why tank stories make great tech myths
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I deduce you are studying logic
This summer I was at LC2015, the big European logic conference (it was great). I was sitting listening to a talk with one of my logic buddies when the speaker mentioned “deontic logic”,…
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Avoiding the Adjective Fallacy
You're reading this, so I'll assume your English is pretty good. What's wrong with these phrases? Do you have a logical reason for why they sound strange? Or…
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Sex, Circuits and Deep House
Cari with the Institute Blinky Badge at Burning Man 2015. Photo credit: Nagutron.
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Epistemic learned helplessness (2013)
Your life is the best story! Just start your blog today!
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What Happens Next Will Amaze You
This is the text version of a talk I gave on September 14, 2015, at the FREMTIDENS INTERNET conference in Copenhagen, Denmark.
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Across the USA by Train for Just $213
Turns out, you don’t need a car to see America.
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The Linguistics of Writing an Email Like a Boss
Finally, statistical proof that bosses write the darndest emails.
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The Jason Bourne Aesthetic
“The difference between something that can go wrong and something that can’t possibly go wrong is that when something that can’t possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair.” –Douglas Adams
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Launching a product in just 3652 days
A story about how I learned a lot of things the hard way
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The Math I Learned After I Thought Had Already Learned Math
True story: it’s possible to fly through your own secondary math education — honor roll bumper sticker on your mom’s minivan and all —Â but miss some of the Very Big Ideas of secondary …
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Computer science courses that don't exist, but should
It's not about technology for its own sake. It's about being able to implement your ideas.
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Shoelace knots
List of different knots for shoelace tying speed, simplicity, security or style.
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Sick Systems: How to Keep Someone With You Forever
So you want to keep your lover or your employee close. Bound to you, even. You have a few options. You could be the best lover they’ve ever had, kind, charming, thoughtful, competent, witty, and a tiger in bed. You could be the best workplace they’ve ever had, with challenging work, rewards for talent, initiative, and…
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My Keyboard
I use a Datahand keyboard . It’s the best thing that’s happened to my fingers and wrists since... It’s the best thing that has ever happened to my fingers and wrists. I see a lot of parallels between the Datahand and pure functional programming (lol). They both take lots of commitment. They change the entire way you…
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Linguistic Harbingers of Betrayal
In life, love, war, and planetary colonization, even long-lasting friendships can end if one betrays the other's trust for his own gain. We studied the language of betrayal by observing players of Diplomacy , the game that ruins friendships . In this very popular game, players can form alliances and try to conquer the…
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Fifty
So, it has finally happened. I just turned 50 and I can’t say it was something I was looking forward to. First the good news: today seems to be a day like any other so if you’re younger than I am, from the far side of the great divide, I’m happy to inform you that there is nothing that feels abruptly different. The…
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The most obsolete infrastructure money could buy – my worst job ever
A trip deep into a retrocomputing jungle.
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