6931
Days of Awe: The clinical trial drug that might save my husband's life
"G’mar Chatimah Tovah” – May you be inscribed into the Book of Life
Top posts
Every blog post that took off on Hacker News, ranked by the votes of its best submission. 7,746 posts.
Life, Learning & Writing
Any year
6932
Frameworks are for hacks, libraries for seeds
I find that I operate in one of two modes when I’m writing software. I’m either approaching a project as a quick hack or as developing software . As much as anything else, this affects how I approach the project and what kinds of results that I get.
6933
Arguing Without Warning
We should encourage more public disagreement.
6934
Indie, alone, and figuring it out
Going indie looks like freedom from the outside. But once you’re in it, you face loneliness, pressure, constant decisions, user feedback, and all the invisible work no one warns you about. This is what the journey feels like, and why it’s still worth it.
6935
6936
6937
How can I keep from singing?
This is a story of a most unexpected journey — one that is just starting. If somebody had told me four years ago that I’d be writing this today, I would have stared at them in astonishment or laughed dismissedly. Yet here I am, writing about a late-found hobby that has somehow become a very important part of my life.
6938
6939
Bill Watterson, Picasso, and self promotion
One of the most interesting pieces I’ve come across lately was Hugh Eakin’s piece on the backstory of one of Picasso’s most prominent works, Guernica. During the creative process for Guernica, Picasso created 45 different sketches before settling on the final direction of the painting: Guernica debuted in 1937 at the…
6940
"Maybe later" was a feature
The most valueble code in my repo, is the code I didn't write.
6941
This must already exist
I encounter this feeling frequently. I have a sudden need (or idea) and I realize that such and such a tool or service must already exist. As a software engineer, I’ve learned to not let that feeling pass. Usually, it’s a chance to learn something (because usually it does exist) and sometimes it’s a chance to to build…
6942
Happiness Is Two Scales
The common way to talk about happiness is as a single scale: unhappy at one end, neutral in the middle, happy at the other end. I think that model is wrong.
6943
Highlights from “The Checklist Manifesto” by Atul Gawande
1. In the 1970s, the philosophers Samuel Gorovitz and Alasdair MacIntyre published a short essay on the nature of human fallibility that I read during my surgical training and haven’t stopped...
6944
6945
There Is(Ǝ) – Such That (∋)
Let me tell you about a language. But if you wish to go play instead go here. It's going to get a little abstract below. There is a Canvas to Compose Upon The canvas is a square with the largest circle that has a radius of ρ. There are
6946
Recursion into madness
Raymond Chandler would have loved generative AI
6947
My Education in Machine Learning via Cousera, A Review So Far
As of today I’ve completed my fifth course at Coursera, all but one being directly related to Machine Learning. The fact that you can now take classes given by many of most well known researchers i…
6948
When First Principles Thinking Fails (2020)
Thinking is split roughly into pattern matching against experience, and reasoning from first principles. Here's one argument for why you need both.
6949
On Hubris and Humility
Last week I gave a talk at the Open Source Firmware Conference about some of the work I’m doing at Oxide Computer, entitled On Hubris and Humility. There is a video of the talk if you’d like to watch it in video form. It came out pretty alright!
6950
6951
6952
What is magic?
I'm cofounder of a literary studio called Plympton , which focuses on innovation and publishing and our latest project is Writing Atlas . I wrote a book and produce films. I co-founded WikiPortraits and WikiHaus, where we get high quality photos on Wikipedia and host Wiki events. I work where technology x journalism…
6953
Book Review: 1587, a Year of No Significance
Finalist #15 in the Book Review Contest
6954
6955
Do trees communicate? Networks, networks
I was unfamiliar with how mycorrhizal networks connect the roots of trees, facilitating the sharing of resources. Dr. Suzanne Simard writes: Graduate student Kevin Beiler has uncovered the extent a…
6956
How we gave colors names
“Who in the rainbow can draw the line where the violet tint ends and the orange tint begins? Distinctly we see the difference of the colors, but where exactly does the one first blendingly enter in…
6957
Storms and Teacups
Observations on gender, feminism and harrassment.
6958
6959
Better
This domain is parked. There is no active website here.
6960
Ursula K. Le Guin on “Spare Time”
In praise of the mundane, unquantifiable, impractical activities that feed creative work and fill life with meaning.