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Every blog post that took off on Hacker News, ranked by the votes of its best submission. 8,937 posts.

Life, Learning & Writing
Any year
1993

The 5% Rule

...I learned a lot from that period, but one of the things I learned that I did not expect was what I now call my '5% rule.' No matter how kind, warm, thoughtful, amazing, cheerful, consistent, and perfect I treated people roughly 5% of them would just be terrible (yes, I have the numbers to back this)...

1994

Are we too busy to enjoy life?

“How are things?” asked a friend. “It’s busy, but I’ll take some time to relax when things ease up,” I replied. I recently caught myself giving a variation of this answer every time I was asked how I was doing. “So much work, but hopefully it will be better next week.” Being busy all the ... Read More

1995

Ten years on LinkedIn

I just noticed on my LinkedIn account page that I’ve been a member of LinkedIn since February 28, 2006. This is almost exactly 10 years ago, and back when it was invite-only. I figured this is a nice time to reflect on the giant heap of trash it has become.

1996

When security goes right

A few weeks ago, I heard that my slow and unreliable ISP was raising their prices, and I decided to look around for a better ISP. I found one in the form of Novus , which has fibre runs to towers around the Vancouver area. I signed up; they came to the building and placed the necessary patch cable in the basement…

1997

Say No

Saying yes is so much easier than saying no, but nobody else will ever value your time as much as you do so you need to be a responsible steward of it. Say No to meetings. Say No to interruptions. Say No to things that are urgent but not important. Prioritize your time based on impact, be transparent about those…

1998

Managing my motivation as a solo dev

One of the biggest sticking points of being a solo dev is maintaining motivation. I’ve been keeping a journal entry about how to hack my motivation, what works and what doesn’t. Here are the things that have worked. Convert external sources to motivation I’ve always known that I’m more extrinsically than intrinsically…

2000

How to Learn Efficiently

I am convinced that much of the gap between the best college students and the worst is explained by study habits. Frankly, most students study poorly. To make matters worse, most teachers are incapable of teaching good study habits. Learning is proportional with effort Sitting in a classroom listening to a professor…