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Topics /
Life, Learning & Writing
The most popular blog posts about life, learning & writing on Hacker News. 588 posts.
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Pizza rolls and the meaning of midcentury food
How a snacktime staple embodies a specific cultural moment
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Collecting and curating material is good and we should do it more
Chronicling, plugin systems, and six other disjointed ideas combine in an argument of how to "engineerize" software more
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The myth of the myth of learning styles
“Four different learning styles” has been debunked, but learners still have to learn how they learn, and choose the paths and materials that are right for them.
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Nailing jelly to a wall: is it possible? (2007)
We've all heard the old saying "it's like nailing jelly to a wall" to describe a task that is very difficult or impossible. But is our view of the difficulty of this task justified? Has anybody actually tried nailing jelly to a wall? In this experiment I attempt to establish, one way or the other, the validity of the…
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Can I take ducks home from the park?
16 queries and 6 language models
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Math Exposition on YouTube
This summer, 3Blue1Brown launched the third installment of the Summer of Math Exposition contest. Every year, I’ve been impressed and inspired by the quality of some of the videos in this con…
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What do we mean by "the foundations of mathematics"?
The phrase “foundations of mathematics” is bandied about frequently these days, but it’s clear that there is widespread confusion about what it means. Some say that a proof assistant must be based on a foundation of mathematics, and therefore that the foundations of mathematics refers to some sort of formal system…
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When Work Didn’t Follow You Home
In a recent article written for Slate, journalist Dan Kois recounts the shock his younger coworkers expressed when they discovered that he had, earlier in ... Read more
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The 24 Hour “Do Nothing” Challenge
There’s not too much to say on this one, so I’ll keep it short. My goal was to do nothing for 24 hours. Like everyone in the modern world, I’m hopelessly addicted to little dopamine bur…
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My Little MillionDollarHomepage Garden
Back around the time I convinced my family to switch from a 56 kb/s dial-up modem to ADSL, the website milliondollarhomepage.com was launched, and quickly became an Internet phenomenon, selling pixels for advertising space on a 1000x1000 canvas. 18 years later, the homepage is still standing, proudly displaying the…
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Be sceptical of your own work (2009)
An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes, which can be made, in a very narrow field. (Niels Bohr) If you unexpectedly find a problem solving itself almost effortlessly, and you can’t quite …
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And yet It Understands
In high-dimensional vector spaces, numerical optimization is omnipotent.
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Improving sleep
Things I tried to improve bad sleep quality.
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How I stay reasonably anonymous online (2022)
I'm not wanted by the FBI, nor am I worried about my ISP watching me, and I don't care about Google knowing what I search for. What I am worried about is cra...
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The Almost Romance Languages
If you like languages, you’ve probably heard the terms Romance and the Romance family. Although it started life as a name for the language of medieval France, Romance has come to be the umbre…
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Why Write?
In a world of AI-powered writing tools, it's tempting to think human writing skills are losing their value. But this article reveals the surprising reasons why writing remains essential for clarifying your thinking, deepening your understanding, and standing out in an increasingly automated future. Discover the…
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On not noticing rather too many things
Last year I was on a date, and, being somewhat new to San Francisco, proposed a walk directly through the Tenderloin. After we arrived, my date was somewhat disturbed: “What happened?” I said. “Di…
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Book list for streetfighting computer scientists (2022)
2025 edition. this is very different from most "best books for programmers" lists you'll see, with Code Complete and Clean Code and Wistful Wanking for Practical Wankers and Design Slatterns and titles like that. you'll figure all that out as you go along. these are books to read so that you can cut motherfuckers with…
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Lessons from a Pessimist: Make Your Pessimism Productive
On the topic of life lessons from a born pessimist.
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Getting into Pinball
Almost exactly a year ago, I began playing pinball at my friend Noah's house. I didn't understand how he could be so interested in Pinball that he bought two machines, but since I....
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20 Years of Programming (2020)
I’m not sure of the exact date, but 20 years ago, around now, I started my first professional programming job. It’s weird to think about having done anything for 20 years. That’s as long as all my schooling put together.
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What I wish someone had told me
Optimism, obsession, self-belief, raw horsepower and personal connections are how things get started. Cohesive teams, the right combination of calmness and urgency, and unreasonable commitment are...
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Reflections on quitting my job
Programming lessons I’ve learnt over the last 7 years.
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Hyperlink maximalism (2022)
I’m a hyperlink maximalist: everything should be a hyperlink , including everything that is hyperlinked by the author, everything that isn’t hyperlinked by the author, and perhaps even the hyperlinks themselves. Words should be hyperlinked, but so should be every interesting phrase, quote, name, proper noun…
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Deadlines as Technology
Confession: I’ve never felt like a very productive person. During the mobile app explosion, circa ~2009, I remember trying all kinds of different…
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Against Automaticity
An explanation of why tricks like priming, nudge, the placebo effect, social contagion, the “emotional inception” model of advertising, most “cognitive biases,” and any fiel…