511
Reflections
The second birthday of ChatGPT was only a little over a month ago, and now we have transitioned into the next paradigm of models that can do complex reasoning. New years get people in a reflective...
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Life, Learning & Writing
The most popular blog posts about life, learning & writing on Hacker News. 602 posts.
512
Why Speed Matters
The one constant that I have observed in my professional life is that people underestimate the need to move fast. Of course, doing good work takes time. I once spent six months writing a URL parser. But the fact that it took so long is not a feature, it is not a positive, it is … Continue reading Why speed matters
513
No Socials November
November seems to be a ripe month for challenges. Some people grow facial hair. Some people write many words daily hoping to come out with a novel on the other...
514
The Art of Fugue – Contrapunctus I (2021)
JS Bach’s last set of works, collectively titled The Art of Fugue, was published shortly after his death. It was not a big hit. Dense counterpoint was deeply unfashionable at that time, as We…
515
I tried coding with AI, I became lazy and stupid
Robots won't replace me, but another human probably will.
516
Always be ready to leave (even if you never do)
After 7 years at the same company, I'm moving on. But the practices that made my exit smooth aren't exit strategies—they're professional habits everyone should build, whether they're staying or leaving.
517
How I lost my backpack with passports and laptop
A tale about mixing GABAergics, neuroticism, responsibility and Heidegger
518
Why I'm Learning Sumerian
After burning out on a massive project, I started learning Sumerian, a language no one’s spoken in 4,000 years. What began as a useless obsession turned into a lesson on meaning, burnout, and the quiet joy of doing hard things that don’t need to matter.
519
I made a quieter air purifier
The physics of sound, and the PC fan CR box v1.
520
Changing Directions
<p>I have two important announcements:</p> <ol> <li> <p>I’m leaving the tech industry. Hopefully “for good”; if not, at least “for now”.</p> </li> <li> <p>As such, the content on this blog is going to shift, perhaps dramatically. I’m going to be writing about a broader range of…
521
If writing is thinking then what happens if AI is doing the writing and reading?
Then what happens if AI is doing the writing and reading?
522
The story of Max, a real programmer
This is a story about Imagebin. Imagebin is the longest-lived software project that I still maintain. I'm the only user. I use it to host images, mainly to include in my blog, sometimes for sharing in other places. Imagebin's oldest changelog entry is dated May 2010, but I know it had already existed for about a year…
523
What I learned gathering nootropic ratings (2022)
Where I analyse the nootropic ratings I gathered through my recommender system.
524
Be Careful with Obsidian
Just a few personal thoughts. Notes to myself, to people who use and love this app everyday.
525
Pocket Casts, you altered the deal, so I will alter your app
After all you made your apps open source, so I can remove your ads.
526
What Killed Innovation?
I entered the data visualization field in 2012, when D3.js had just come out and interactive graphics were going through a digital Renaissance. By the time I was fully steeped in the field in 2016, it felt like a new, experimental project was coming out every week—each one pushing the boundaries of how we think about…
527
528
YouTube views are down (don't panic)
September 15 update: @YouTubeInsider confirmed that the issue is related to viewers who have adblockers enabled—YouTube's been in an arms race with ad blocking tools, and the fallout is a substantial cut in counted views for creators who have a large audience watching from desktop. Many YouTube content creators…
529
Ergonomic keyboarding with the Svalboard: a half-year retrospective
E ven before I started pressing buttons for a living I was always a pretty heavy computer user. When I was about 18 I started experiencing symptoms of RSI. At around the same time I learnt of the Dvorak keyboard layout, and so I switched, hoping it would solve my problems. It did, at least at the time, and so for the…
530
Learn, Reflect, Apply, Prepare: The Four Daily Practices That Changed How I Live
The Four Daily Practices That Changed How I Live and Work
531
A Proclamation Regarding the Restoration of the Dash
WHEREAS , the em-dash (—) has long served as the elegant scaffolding of the English sentence, providing the necessary breadth for parenthetical thought, sudden turns of phrase, and rhythmic pause;
532
The value of bringing a telephoto lens
They usually aren't light, and they certainly aren't small, but the unique perspective a telephoto lens brings makes it an indispensable part of your kit, even when traveling. Let's review some shots taken with a telephoto to see how we can justify its size and weight.
533
Is Winter Coming? (2024)
In the 1960s, AI researchers tried - and failed - to deliver machine translation of Russian to English. Overly confident researchers, lazy journalists and far too optimistic tech utopianists all built expectations that couldn't be met. Eventually, the lack of results put a stop to the previously generous funding. The…
534
Nevermind, an album on major chords
🎵 Back in 1991, Nevermind become an unexpected critical and commercial sensation.
535
Hiding messages in a deck playing cards
I was recently thinking about the huge number of ways you can shuffle a deck of 52 cards and wondered if it would be possible to store arbitrary data.
536
My app just won best iOS Japanese learning tool of 2025 award (blog)
Welcome to the award show everyone! Hosted by your favourite bee... Bee! 🥳 I wanted to summarise the best tools etc out there in 2025, and what better way then to put on a fake award show! And like all true award shows and Christmas themed events, let's get into
537
Jingle Bells (Batman Smells): An incomplete festive folk-rhyme taxonomy
Gather round the fire, everyone, and let me tell you a story. It has everything you could want in a Christmas blockbuster: superheroes and villains, a car crash, children singing, a mystery to solv…
538
A small web July
I am putting this out into the ether to see if anyone wants to join me, in any capacity, in some kind of accountability structure (following each others blog...
539
One hundred and one rules of effective living
In more than thirty years as a writer, editor, and publisher, I have, to my best reckoning, introduced, abridged, issued or reissued, and read nearly every major work of inspirational literature produced or translated into English.
540
Running a business means contact with reality
A year ago I decided to help build a service business for my mom because I wanted to learn about marketing and business. One of the largest blindspots engineers have is around sales and marketing. I was determined to not fall into this trap, but marketing seemed like a skill I couldn’t just learn by […]