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Famous cognitive psychology experiments that failed to replicate
A quick reference
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The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 8,937 posts.
Life, Learning & Writing
Any year
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How to motivate yourself to do a thing you don't want to do
Learn some ways to help encourage action when you feel unmotivated.
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I feel Apple has lost its alignment with me and other long-time customers
A reaction and assorted observations about Apple's September 9 Awe-Dropping event.
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Why do we keep gravitating toward complexity?
The Great Pyramids took decades to build. It was a monumental feat of human ingenuity and collaboration. Today, we software developers erect our own pyramids each day - not from stone, but from code. Yet despite far more advanced tools, these systems don’t always make the experience better. So why, when KISS (Keep It…
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William Gibson Reads Neuromancer (2004)
The author Ray Bradbury is one of the early science fiction authors that moved science fiction into a literary form. As a writer Bradbury constructs beautifully written stories and novels. Bradbury's writing is in stark contrast to Bradbury as a speaker. The first time I heard Ray Bradbury speak was at the Association…
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As I remember London
As soon as I was old enough to travel on my own, London was where I wanted to go. Compared to Copenhagen at the time, there was something so majestic about Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, and even the Tube around the turn of the millenium. Not just because their capital is twice as old as ours, but because it endured twice…
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Boring work needs tension
We can make our work exciting by chasing the every day tension.
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How big a solar battery do I need to store all my home's electricity?
I have a modest set of solar panels on an entirely ordinary house in suburban London. On average they generate about 3,800kWh per year. We also use about 3,800kWh of electricity each year. Obviously, we can't use all the power produced over summer and we need to buy power in winter. So here's my question: How big a…
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My thoughts on renting versus buying
I've read numerous articles about renting versus buying and most dive into financial projections while completely missing the bigger picture.
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High Altitude Living – 8,000 ft and above (2021)
Living at high altitude reduces risk of dying from heart disease: Low oxygen may spur genes to create blood vessels. Summary: Researchers have found that people living at higher altitudes have a lower chance of dying from heart disease and live longer. Jeanne and I live at 8,400 feet (2.560 meters)
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If my kids excel, will they move away?
I grew up on a farm outside of a rural town about an hour southeast of Columbus, Ohio. Like many small towns in America, my town knows “brain drain” – all of my friends from high school who went to college (~30% of my class) now live elsewhere, although most are pretty close by (e.g., several live in the suburbs of…
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3D modeling with paper
Exploring the process of designing and assembling 3D models from paper.
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Becoming the person who does the thing
Bad news: your internal identity dictates everything you do. Good news: you can change it
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You’re a slow thinker. Now what?
Figuring out how to lean in to my thinking style
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We can’t circumvent the work needed to train our minds
Debunking the myth that search engines and AI eliminate the need for memory. Building deep knowledge through active learning remains essential for critical thinking, despite promises of instant information access.
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The Socratic Journal Method: A Simple Journaling Method That Works
Journaling doesn’t need to be a chore. In this post, I share The Socratic Journal Method, my simple twist on journaling that turns blank pages into meaningful conversations. It’s a method designed to help you reflect, stay consistent, and actually enjoy the process.
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Tarsnap is cozy
I have been aware of tarsnap for a long time, but only recently did I actually get around to using it for anything, as a result of my big personal digital resiliency audit for 2025. For those of you not in the know, tarsnap is “online backups for the truly paranoid”, and tarsnap the command-line program is the…
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The value of bringing a telephoto lens
Learn darktable step-by-step and dive deep into…2025122 points131 commentsLife, Learning & Writing details
They usually aren't light, and they certainly aren't small, but the unique perspective a telephoto lens brings makes it an indispensable part of your kit, even when traveling. Let's review some shots taken with a telephoto to see how we can justify its size and weight.
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We all dodged a bullet
That NPM attack could have been so much worse.
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I don't like curved displays
where my words occasionally escape /dev/null
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YouTube views are down (don't panic)
September 15 update: @YouTubeInsider confirmed that the issue is related to viewers who have adblockers enabled—YouTube's been in an arms race with ad blocking tools, and the fallout is a substantial cut in counted views for creators who have a large audience watching from desktop. Many YouTube content creators…
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De-Clouding: Music
I’m going through a phase of figuring out what I can get out of the cloud and “own”. Particularly with regard to streaming services. I’ve never paid for Spotify. But I’ve had iTunes Match so that I can take all of the weird, not-on-streaming music that I have (I wrote about this back in 2013!!!!), […]
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I am giving up on Intel and have bought an AMD Ryzen 9950X3D
The Intel 285K CPU in my high-end 2025 Linux PC died again! 😡 Notably, this was the replacement CPU for the original 285K that died in March, and after reading through the reviews of Intel CPUs on my electronics store of choice, many of which (!) mention CPU replacements, I am getting the impression that Intel’s…
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Knowledge and memory
The what is connected to the when.
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Being good isn't enough
Giving good career advice is hard. Maybe it’s because careers can look more alike than they really are. Two people can have the same title but what helps one...
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I kissed comment culture goodbye
It started out harmlessly, a comment on hacker news roughly 16 years ago.
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I bought the cheapest EV, a used Nissan Leaf
I bought a used 2023 Nissan Leaf in 2025, my first 'new' car in 15 years. The above photo was taken by the dealership; apparently their social media team likes to post photos of all purchasers. I test drove a Tesla in 2012, and quickly realized my mistake. No gasoline-powered car (outside of supercars, maybe? Never…