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Things I learned after getting users
last month, i posted about my website basement community on hacker news and it sorta blew up. you can view the post here. it blew up so much, i was totally u...
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The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 8,939 posts.
Life, Learning & Writing
Any year
2402
Punctuation Matters: How to use the en dash, em dash and hyphen
It's easy to use the hyphen, em dash and en dash to make your writing flow better. Let's look at some examples of the en dash...
2403
Why Write?
In a world of AI-powered writing tools, it's tempting to think human writing skills are losing their value. But this article reveals the surprising reasons why writing remains essential for clarifying your thinking, deepening your understanding, and standing out in an increasingly automated future. Discover the…
2404
I use cheap notebooks
I've had my fair share of nice notebooks over the years, from Moleskines to Leuchtturms. And I love them: I love their smooth leather covers, thick sheets, a...
2405
The 24 Hour “Do Nothing” Challenge
There’s not too much to say on this one, so I’ll keep it short. My goal was to do nothing for 24 hours. Like everyone in the modern world, I’m hopelessly addicted to little dopamine bur…
2406
ChatGPT Explained: A normie's guide to how it works
Once you understand a few core concepts, modern chatbots are less mysterious.
2407
Understanding people matters more than understanding tech
Dear new developer, I ran across this tweet a while ago: If there was only one piece of advice that I wish I had known early in my career as a software dev is that understanding people is more impo…
2408
User interface design timeframes: from 0.1 seconds to 10 years (2009)
From 0.1 seconds to 10 years or more, user interface design has many different timeframes, and each has its own particular usability issues.
2409
I'm a very slow thinker (2016)
Derek Sivers official site. Thoughts on philosophy, culture, self-improvement. Author of Useful Not True, How to Live, Hell Yeah or No, Anything You Want.
2410
How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb
How I lost $950 in about an hour on AirBnB by stupidly thinking it worked like a hotel
2411
You just gotta tell a good story
I’ve been studying storytelling for my whole adult life. Theatre, Film, Writing, Digital.. you name it, I’ve studied it. ( Literally I have…
2412
2022 letter on life in China
Becoming a barbarian; an ideological revelry; lockdown; sweetgrass and banana leafs; crankiness; delightful animals; to the mountains
2413
What I Learned Reading 1k Investor Reports
I read 1,000 investor reports last year.
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What is the minimal possible UK address?
Postcodes in the UK are pretty specific — a postcode such as “SE1 6AD” will often identify one or a few specific buildings, unlike countries where a postcode represents an entire neighbourhood. This leads to an interesting question: how short can you get an address and still have Royal Mail deliver post there? To…
2417
Honestly, It's Probably the Phones
The most plausible explanation for teenage unhappiness.
2418
What is Chess? What to think and for how long
Your knight for my pawn, and you have to take it.
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Poor sleep drove me insane, and my long path to recovery
I'm sharing my experience dealing with what might be the most underdiagnosed and under-treated health disorder today.
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My daughter's school took over my personal Microsoft account
This weekend I wanted to create a new App in Azure so I could help a local nonprofit automate one of their donor relations processes via email through Office 365. So I tried registering an app by visiting the App Registration Portal. I signed in to my personal Microsoft account, clicked 'New registration', then was…
2424
Laws of Tech: Commoditize Your Complement
A classic pattern in technology economics, identified by Joel Spolsky, is layers of the stack attempting to become monopolies while turning other layers into perfectly-competitive markets which are commoditized, in order to harvest most of the consumer surplus; discussion and examples.
2425
The beginner's guide to overcomplicating coffee
There’s a scene in AMC’s “ Breaking Bad ” where Gail Boetticher explains to Walter White how to make the perfect cup of coffee . And it all sounds so plausible—there’s a perfect coffee, and science will magic it for us.
2426
LED lighting badly suppresses human melatonin production at night
Yes, it’s a spicy title. Yes, I plan to back it with what I consider very reasonable evidence of the claims, in the form of a lot of research papers. I would simply ask that you read to the end before deciding I’ve lost it.
2427
Social media is a cause, not a correlate, of mental illness in teen girls
Journalists should stop saying that the evidence is just correlational
2428
What I did not learn about writing in school
Surprising lessons I picked up from the best books, essays, and videos on writing non-fiction.
2429
Elitism as the mid-career growth engine
Technical excellence begins in wonder but is honed by disgust
2430
My class required AI
(Spoiler alert: it has been very successful, but there are some lessons to be learned)