Every blog post that took off on Hacker News, ranked by the votes of its best submission. 7,743 posts.
In Six Math Essentials, the renowned mathematician and Fields Medalist Terence Tao introduces readers to six central concepts that have guided mathematicians from antiquity to the frontiers of what we know today and now help us make sense of our complex world. This slim, elegant volume explores numbers as the gateway…
Reading maths textbooks linearly doesn't work; here's what to do instead.
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.
tmux (short for “terminal mux” (short for “multiplexer”)) is i3 for your terminal. Oh, it’s so much more than that, and I recently discovered with some joy that it is installed by default on OpenBSD, but its fundamental value add to any programmer who has to SSH into servers more than once a week is it allows you to…
What will GPT unlock for the nerdy kid sitting in a 7th-grade classroom today?
A major online publication once reported in a profile on me that I had retired at 33. A few old friends and acquaintances reached out to congratulate me on my financial ind...
Capsaicin, the active substance in chili peppers, acts on vanilloid receptors (TRPV1) and alters adrenaline and endorphine levels.
You know what they say in the world of products: fast, cheap, good; pick two. That's exactly my experience when trying to find the most suitable wood finish for my hand carved wooden spoons and cups. I got tired of trying to find something food-safe, without chemical smells and that doesn't take ages to cure. So I…
Our tracker blocker for iOS and macOS, Better, was poisoned by a rotten apple and died.
Note to reader: This is a long post – 2200 words – so bookmark it if you need to, but I think you’ll find it a worthwhile read if you apply this strategy even a single time. *...
It is a lazy Tuesday afternoon. Perhaps you were idly browsing your favorite news aggregator, or visiting The Orange Website to wade through murky startup groupthink in search of interesting links.
I was reminded of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 a day or two ago while reading Ian Bogost on Apple’s Airpods. Bogost examined Airpods’ potential long term social consequences. …
On an immersive future of learning
If you’re doing what you’re told to do, they are paying you too much.
This aesthetic screenshot of an old windows app has been in my inspiration space for ~5 years. Until recently, I assumed that it was just a nostalgia bait concept.
A little post on why publishing statistics are so confusing
A week ago, I wrote about how Generative and Agentic AI may be amplifying what I’ve been calling cognitive debt: the accumulated gap between a system’s evolving structure and a team’s shared unders...
I wrote for The Onion News Network for exactly four weeks. Here's what I learned.
I’m a smart guy. I’m not bragging. It’s not like I deserve any credit for being smart. I didn’t do anything to make that happen. I’m also tall, but nobody compliments me on that. (Good job being tall!) Intelligence is an immutable characteristic that I have at times capitalized on and at other times let […]
We live in times of great disaggregation, and yet, seem to learn increasingly from generalists. In the past, an expert in one field of Psychology might have been forced to teach a broad survey class.
“We see something that works, and then we understand it.” (Thomas Dullien) It is a deeper insight than it seems. Young people spend years in school learning the reverse: understanding happens before progress. That is the linear theory of innovation. So Isaac Newton comes up with his three laws of mechanics, and we get…
Matt Kirkland is a designer. He probably reads too much.
Having known about the Apple Watch for some time and knowing lots of my friends were planning to buy one, I was sceptical as my needs are quite different to that of those of the sighted and hearing. I have to rely on specific accessible features. However, I was curious as Apple products have b...
