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Avoid Artificial Stupidity
The first step to AI - data democratisation
New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 465 posts.
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Landfill is underrated and recycling overrated
Most people have an extremely incorrect perception about waste disposal and recycling. Here’s the reality.
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Infinite work is less work
The first task of last week's Weekly Challenge was to print the first ten strong and weak primes. A prime p n is "strong" if it's larger than the average of its two neighbouring primes ( i.e. p n > (p n-1 +p n+1 )/2 ). A prime is "weak" if it's smaller than the average of its two neighbours.
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Preserving Laptop Stickers on MacBooks
This is now a thing! Here is the follow-up post, containing the details. Join the Kickstarter here! Even better news, this is now not just a thing, but an actual physical product! Please check out LidLayer.com Preface I’ve always liked the idea of putting stickers on my MacBook Pro, but have always avoided it for two…
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If Sapiens were a blog post
A cut-down summary of Sapiens covering the major points.
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It's Never Too Late to Be Successful and Happy
Don't give up on reinventing your career and life. Don’t ever feel like it’s too late to have what you want in life. Don’t give in to a feeling of hopelessness. History shows us that talented people are capable of having amazing success for the rest of their lives. Grit matters. I know people who are still pursuing…
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English speakers should learn math instead of a second language
An old joke goes: Q: What do you call someone who knows three languages? A: Trilingual Q: What do you call someone who knows two languages? A: Bilingual Q: What do you call someone who knows just o…
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The Zero-Sum Bias: When people think that everything is a competition
The zero-sum bias occurs when people mistakenly expect gains and losses to be directly balanced in a situation where they’re not, especially in terms of one party benefiting directly at the expense of others. For example, the zero-sum bias can cause someone to think that a resource they’re interested in is limited…
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The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance
Epistemic spot checks typically consist of references from a book, selected by my interest level, checked against either the book’s source or my own research. This one is a little different t…
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How much free time do you have?
I made a quick tool (for no real reason) to calculate and visualize 'free time' based on the selection of criteria shown below. Replace my responses with yours, and hit 'run' to see how much free time you have.
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Run Your Own Website
I go back and forth on running my own website. I love [working](Re Introducing First Crack.txt) [on](First Crack Release Notes 0619.txt) [First Crack](/projects.html#firstCrack), but that work can become trying. I have little time for [projects](/projects.html), and the more I spend coding, the less I [read](My…
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Why am I interested in Elixir?
I’ve had Elixir on the brain recently. And by recently I probably mean 2 years. In my defense I think it is fair to say it is blooming right now. I haven’t had much need of it, or opportunity for it, in my day-to-day of maintaining a Python legacy system, renewing another legacy or optimizing Elasticsearch. So I’ve…
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New partnership changes everything for the DIY diabetes community
I don’t speak in hyperbole very often, and I want to make sure that you all ...
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You're Worthwhile, Even When You Make Mistakes
My big secret ("My work isn't good enough") was finally out. Yet I wasn’t being fired. I was being offered help from someone I respected. I was still worth their time.
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Sysop Chat
Back in mid-90s before anyone I knew had an Internet connection, a few of us had modems and would use them to call bulletin board systems via the phone line. On these systems what to me seemed the main thing was discussions and chat. For the first time I could talk to other like-minded people, and just being able to…
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Study finds that mindfulness is associated with reduced procrastination
A study that was recently published in Personality and Individual Differences sheds light on the relationship between mindfulness and procrastination .
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I’m Leaving IBM
Today is my last day at IBM. If you’ve been following along, IBM bought my startup Resilient Systems in Spring 2016. Since then, I have been with IBM, holding the nicely ambiguous title of “Special Advisor.” As of the end of the month, I will be back on my own. I will continue to write and speak, and do the occasional…
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The Programmers' Stone (2014)
Hi, and welcome to The Programmers' Stone. The purpose of this site is to recapture, explore and celebrate the Art of Computer Programming. By so doing we hope to help the reader either become a better programmer, understand what less experienced programmers are struggling with, or communicate more effectively with…
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The Simple Genius of Checklists
The year is 1935, and the U.S. Army Air Corps is holding a competition for airplane manufacturers vying to secure a contract to build the military’s...
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Even God Couldn't Beat Dollar-Cost Averaging
A market timing strategy rarely outperforms dollar cost averaging even when that strategy knows exactly when to buy.
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I was seven words away from being spear-phished
Three weeks ago I received a very flattering email from the University of Cambridge, asking me to judge the Adam Smith Prize for Economics:
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Life is fractal, but markets are square
I recently read Venkat’s synopsis of the book Seeing like a state, which I followed up by an excellent blog post titled The Meridian of Her Greatness. Venkat challenged people to summarize the most important ideas from that post in a tweetstorm. He said if it gets more than 100 likes, on Twitter he’ll give… Read More
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How I Got my $3500 Camera Kit Stolen on KitSplit
Please read before renting out your own gear!