391
Why Tolkien Hated Dune
A short intro to the philosophy of ethics J.R.R. Tolkien maintained a very private, but very negative opinion of Frank Herbert’s Dune. In Tolkien’s Library, entry 964, Tolkien is quoted…
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Life, Learning & Writing
The most popular blog posts about life, learning & writing on Hacker News. 473 posts.
392
Lessons learned from 6 months of operating a tiny news archive
The best websites are home-cooked meals. Andrew’s Selkouutiset Archive was birthed after I realized there was no obvious way to fetch the previous articles of the “Easy Finnish” daily news broadcast. This annoyed me as a student of the language. “Here we have a stream”, I thought, “of high-quality, human-written…
393
Lessons learned from bringing promotional sweets to a conference
I've recently set up my own consultancy company and decided to sponsor my local UKGovCamp conference. That entitled me to a logo on the site, a shout-out during the conference, and place to put any promotional stickers. Everyone loves stickers! But I decided to bring along something different - promotional sweeties! I…
394
I Taught My 8yo Subduction Zones with NotebookLM
Principal AI Architect. Creator of open-strix, a harness for building agent teams. Writing about AI architecture, stateful agents, and what happens when you give AI memory.
395
How to mess with your roommate (2018)
Before I explain what I did to hurt poor Logan, I must explain our apartment’s media setup. You will see why shortly.
396
"Rabbit Test" Unwins the Hugo
I cannot convey the supreme depths to which I’d rather be doing anything else with my Saturday afternoon other than writing this blog post, but here we are. If you have been blessedly insulat…
397
Is running a more efficient way to travel than walking?
Is running a more efficient way to travel than walking? Does running burn less calories per distance traveled than wa...
398
Chickens in Trees
I was lucky enough to vacation in Kauai last year, one of the oldest Hawaiian islands. If you ever visit, the first thing that you’ll notice — the very first thing — is the chickens.
399
Is it better to fail spectacularly?
Three weeks ago I wrote the following draft of a blog post entitled “Is It Better to Fail Spectacularly?”. I am having a lot of doubts. I’ve been training for the Chicago Marathon in earnest since June, but in reality the preparations began a year ago when I was accepted based on my qualifying time from the 2023…
400
Programming book authors: put all the code in the book
tl;dr: programming book authors: put all the code in the book! An extreme antipattern for a programming book is “download the author’s idiosyncratic library code from some random URL an…
401
Making progress on side projects with content-driven development
It's hard to make progress on side projects sometimes. Getting started is easy when we see the bright future of the project. Then somewhere in the middle, we get stuck in lists of tasks to do, a long way in and still a long way from the finish line.
402
Anxious Generation – How Safetyism and Social Media Are Damaging the Kids
A review of Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation, exploring how social media and overprotective parenting affect children’s mental health.
403
My Visit to Deep Springs College (2009)
You should neither trust outward appearances, nor let them intimidate you. There is always a discord between the appearance that a person or organization projects, and their actual nature. For this reason, always be careful about the people and organizations in whom you place your trust.
404
You are what you love
Discussing the importance of working alongside your emotions and not against them
405
$450 for a School Bag?
Every year, around March, a curious social custom occurs in Japanese families. Parents of kids entering elementary school visit the grandparents and gingerly tread the topic of buying the kids a very expensive item: a randoseru. And gingerly they must tread. The randoseru, a Japanese school bag, costs a whopping
406
Functional Programming Self-Affirmations
Dmitrii Kovanikov writes posts about enterprise software development and functional programming, both entertaining and serious. I never used a functional programming language (such as Haskell or OCaml) at work, but several ideas from functional programming have become popular in mainstream general-purpose programming…
407
Notes on my Remarkable tablet
Some notes on my note taking device
408
Things I learned from teaching (2023)
This spring, I taught an undergraduate class on chess engines. I probably learned more than any of my students.
409
I am no longer attending vintage computer festivals
I spent some time trying to figure out when to make this announcement in a way that didn’t seem like direct sabotage; the day before the VCF East event seems about right. Years ago, clearing …
410
The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows
“Despite what dictionaries would have us believe, this world is still mostly undefined.”
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412
Debugging the Doctor Brain: Who's teaching doctors how to think?
Who's teaching doctors how to think?
413
All the remedial classes in one place
A look at the “serious” courses in college today. By Professor Doom I’ve seen plenty of articles bemoaning ridiculous col...
414
Spending an afternoon in the Sizewell control-room simulator
I was recently lucky enough to be invited along on a trip to Sizewell Bs operations training centre to see and try their control room simulator.
415
How I Backup
Derek Sivers official site. Thoughts on philosophy, culture, self-improvement. Author of Useful Not True, How to Live, Hell Yeah or No, Anything You Want.
416
The secret lives of snowblowers
Yes, they throw snow. But the mechanical design of residential snowblowers is more interesting than it seems.
417
The emotional trial of clinical trials: like online dating with death risk
Part 1 is mostly about what happened as Bess and I raced against tumor growth to find a new clinical trial that might keep me alive. Part 2 is here, and it is mostly about how this process feels an…
418
I Added SVG Maps to My Travel Posts
Quick overview of a new blog feature.
419
Programmer in Berlin: Culture
This is part 4 of a 5-part series detailing what I wish I had known as an American programmer moving to Berlin. This page details cultural differences and things I wasn’t aware of until I stumbled on them. Politics One thing about Germany, and Europe in general, is that it’s relatively left-wing when compared to the…
420
Japanese addresses: No street names. Block numbers (2009)
Derek Sivers official site. Thoughts on philosophy, culture, self-improvement. Author of Useful Not True, How to Live, Hell Yeah or No, Anything You Want.