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Top posts
Every blog post that took off on Hacker News, ranked by the votes of its best submission. 8,944 posts.
Life, Learning & Writing
Any year
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Why My MOOC Is Not Built on Video
A MOOC professor takes a contrarian view and creates a MOOC without relying on videos, and makeing the claim that they are not necessary for a meaningful online learning experience.
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“Out of the Crisis” Podcast
Over the past few weeks, I have recorded a series of conversations with people leading the way out of this mess. They range from prominent ...
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Using Wikipedia in the classroom: a cautionary tale
(Third and final update: If you read this post, please also read this follow up post, which includes summaries of ways to try to reduce the likelihood of running into the same problem.) Last fall, …
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A peek into Japan's convenience stores
Editor’s note: Due to the sheer amount of interesting material here we decided to break this into a two-part article. All across Japan, one sight remains ubiquitous – the convenience store. A far, far cry from their American cousins, convenience stores in Japan are without exception, spotless, well-stocked,
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Taking back control of my digital life
Timo Zimmermann talking about software engineering, leading teams, consulting and start ups.
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How many pieces can a puzzle have?
Patrick Honner tweeted a few days ago: My 7 yo pointed out that our 300 piece puzzle actually contains 18 x 18 = 324 pieces and I just don’t know what to believe anymore. — Patrick Honner (@M…
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Luck Surface Area: How to Get Lucky In Life
You can't force luck. But you can increase your chances (by a lot) to get lucky. Here's how to do it with luck surface area.
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We've lost our respect for complexity
I was talking recently to a friend about a video essayist I like, (Dan Olson of Folding Ideas) and when asked why I thought he was any good I pondered it for a moment and said “he has a lot of respect for complexity”. On reflection, I think that is one of the virtues I […]
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My new obsession: A horse-racing board game of pure luck
Someone recently introduced me a weird and wonderful little board game that has become my latest obsession. It's a game for 2-12 players where horses race...
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The Apprentice Programmer (2013)
I dropped out of school when I was 16 years old. School was not for me. To me, computers were so much more interesting. Right or wrong, I felt like I wasted my time there and my real education was starting when I came home. I lost respect for the institution and of course this meant that I no longer bothered to put any
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Don’t bite the shit sandwich
The “startup” world is bursting with bullshit (or, if you prefer, ‘unicorn dust’). There are bullshit peddlers on every blog-corner. They don’t want
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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
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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.
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Arguing Without Warning
We should encourage more public disagreement.
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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.
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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.
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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…
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How to control the metacognition process of programming?
by Laurence Chen There is a famous quote: Programming is thinking, not typing. After doing this job long enough, sometimes, I feel I am doing too much typing. No matter whether...
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"Maybe later" was a feature
The most valueble code in my repo, is the code I didn't write.
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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…
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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.
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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...
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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