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Why I Procrastinate (2019)
A look into me, my awful procrastination habit, and how I fixed it. (spoiler alert: it was ADHD)
Top posts
Every blog post that took off on Hacker News, ranked by the votes of its best submission. 49,198 posts.
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Hard comp-fi reading list
This resource lists a bunch of stories which in some way, explore the beautiful ideas behind computer science, software engineering and even plain old programming.
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Saving a Project and a Company
I often get the question what it is exactly that I do for a living and usually I can’t really talk about it due to non-disclosure agreements and possible fall-out but in this case I got permission to do a write-up of my most recent job.
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HTTP: , FTP:, and Dict:?
I went for a spelunk through an ancient codebase a few weeks ago which contained a curious regex that I just couldn't grok. Copied to 📋⧉ {<((https?|ftp|dict|tel):[^\'">\s]+)>}i I'm familiar with HTTP and FTP. I worked in the mobile industry, so knew that tel:+44... could be used to launch a dialer. But DICT?!?!?! It…
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Developers mentoring other developers: practices I've seen work well
How does mentoring work? I asked this question ten years into my software engineering career when I joined Uber. Until then, I've never received or done mentoring, or at least never put this label on any activity I've done before. Uber, however, had an official mentoring program. Almost
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Macro Splats 2025
A Gaussian splat is essentially a bunch of blurry ellipsoids. Each one has a view-dependent color, using a process similar to training an AI model, you can optimize until it converges to the photos you feed in. The result is a sort of 3D photograph that can be viewed freely from any angle. Captivated by this…
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SSH tricks
This post is part of my “Unix fundamentals” series. Recent posts in this series include settling into Unix , standalone lexers with lex , and sculpting text with regex, grep, sed and awk .
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Introduction to Linear Algebra for Applied Machine Learning with Python
Linear algebra is to machine learning as flour to bakery: every machine learning model is based in linear algebra, as every cake is based in flour . It is not the only ingredient, of course. Machine learning models need vector calculus, probability, and optimization, as cakes need sugar, eggs, and butter. Applied…
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How are Unix pipes implemented?
The implementation and history of an iconic Unix feature, with excerpts from the v6 Unix kernel source code, Author: Abhijit Menon-Sen
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Life Improvements Since the 1990s
A list of unheralded improvements to ordinary quality-of-life since the 1990s going beyond computers.
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Why do so few people major in computer science?
The number of people who majored in computer science in the US isn't much higher in 2015 than in 2005. Why do so few students major in computer science?
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Rust’s dependencies are starting to worry me
I do not pretend to have more experience or understanding than the top level engineers I often see writing blogs here, but what I am is annoyed. I love rust. It's by far my favorite language, I enjoy the community and the language ergonomics. I've been able to incorporate it into projects in my day job where fit.
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Ofcom concedes defeat in 4chan case
Insofar as a political organization like Ofcom is even capable of admitting defeat, it did so in the 4chan enforcement today. In testimony before the Commons Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport Comm…
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Exit interviews are a trap
It’s tempting to air your grievances at your exit interview. Don’t. There’s almost no upside to speaking up, and tremendous potential downside. Avoid exit interviews if you can. If you must go, be totally bland; say nothing negative.
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The product manager role is a mistake
The popular model Software product companies aren’t usually started by people with a strong background in building software products. Those who most likely end up founding businesses are good at getting funding, and at understanding their target industry. They’ve been in their industry for a long time, know their…
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Is WebP really better than JPEG?
If you have used tools like Google’s PageSpeed Insights, you probably have run into a suggestion to use “next-gen image formats”, namely Google’s WebP image format. Google claims that their WebP…
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Startup dudes: Cut the sexist crap
Last week I was speaking on what would have otherwise been a terrific panel. It was Frank Artale from Ignition, Tom Duterme from Groupon M&A, Andy Sack from Lighter Capital & Founder’s Co-op, and me talking about funding & exiting. The only thing that spoiled it was yet another guy in the tech scene putting forth yet…
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Taskwarrior, where have you been all my life?
I’ve been thinking a lot about task management lately. I’ve actually been thinking about it for years. I’ve always been searching for the optimal way to sort through the bajillion things I have to do and remain productive.
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14,000x Speedup (2015)
In my job as a scientific software developer, I tend to write a lot of code. And most people who haven’t been through a Computer Science degree tend to think that CS is “just” about slinging code at the screen and then running it. I have a good working relationship with many of my colleagues and co-workers with other…
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One in every 600 websites has .git exposed
Deeply technical and hands-on AI and tech leader. Built, scaled and sold my own… · Experience: Cubes · Education: Nanzan University · Location: London Area, United Kingdom · 500+ connections on LinkedIn. View Jamie Brown’s profile on LinkedIn, a professional community of 1 billion members.
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Nobody's Going to Steal Your Idea
Should you tell everyone your business ideas, or keep them as your closely guarded secrets?
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Why things might have taken so long
I asked why humanity took so long to do anything at the start, and the Internet gave me its thoughts. Here is my expanded list of hypotheses, summarizing from comments on the post, here, and here. …
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Sourcegraph went dark
Towards the end of my mid-2019 job search, I was down to joining the Google Go team or Sourcegraph. Sourcegraph ultimately won due to cultural factors - the most important of which was the ability to build 100% in the open . All documents were public by default. Technical and product RFCs (and later PR/FAQs) were…
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iMac G4(K)
A year ago I tried using an M1 iMac for work duty but its 21" screen took up too much room on my desk. After seeing Sean's video on Action Retro about putting an M4 Mac Mini inside an iMac G4 , I thought I'd give it a try.