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If it will matter after today, don't talk about it in a chat room
Live chat is for things that can get lost.
Topics /
Life, Learning & Writing
The most popular blog posts about life, learning & writing on Hacker News. 560 posts.
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The surreal experience of my first developer job
Nearly ten years ago I graduated with a degree in Mathematics & Computing, with a keen interest in pursuing a career involving maths and programming, but with little idea how. First and foremost I had decided to stay in Manchester after uni, rather than risk getting stuck at my parents' if I moved...
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How to overcome Phone Addiction
Phone addiction is a huge problem, here is what the research and statistics say. Follow these tips to overcome phone addiction.
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It's probably time to stop recommending Clean Code (2020)
It may not be possible for us to ever reach empirical definitions of "good code" or "clean code", which means that any one person's opinions about another person's opinions about "clean code" are necessarily highly subjective. I cannot review Robert C. Martin's 2008 book Clean Co...
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My product is my garden
I’ve been part of the internet startup scene for a while. There are so many different camps: the bootstrappers, the VC-backed tech-bros, the crypto “investor...
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Null
I quite like to break things. While I’m not a QA or security professional, I have developed a knack for doing “stupid” things with software which causes it to malfunction. Some developer friends of mine have lamented that they didn’t show me software before they released it. Because I sometimes find annoying bugs…
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The most precious resource is agency
I have edited and expanded this in a newer post, you should read that instead: School is Not Enough
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The health benefits of better air
Why the air you breathe matters, and what to do about it.
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I logged my activities at 15-minute intervals for the whole year
What do I actually do with my time? How productive am I? I logged everything I did in 2020 and got some pretty cool data out of this.
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I switched from macOS to Linux after 15 years of Apple
After using Macs for fifteen years, I switched to Linux as my main operating system and I’m enjoying it. Here’s an introduction to Linux that may help you too.
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Get better at Googling
10 Google search operators every developer should know: exact-match quotes, OR, minus, wildcards, site:, filetype:, number ranges, before: and after:.
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The “Granny Knot”
Many people are tying a “Granny Knot”, which sits crooked and comes loose. Learn the “one simple trick” for keeping your shoes neatly and securely tied.
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Have you ever hurt yourself from your own code?
Have you ever accidentally caused harm to yourself or others from your code? I have.
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My House
On the 19th of August 2019, I bought a house with a small garden. The house is what in English apparently is called an allotment. Basically, a small slot meant for vegetable gardening which sometimes has a house or shed. Not really meant for living in. But after nearly a year of work, I moved into mine. It’s legal as…
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Books that changed my career as a software engineer
I'd like to present five books that have changed my mind about software development showing me lots of concepts, techniques and tips. Let's see them and why I they were so valuable to me
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Papers every developer should read at least twice (2009)
10 Papers Every Developer Should Read - (At Least Twice)
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Lena
A note from the author You can now buy this story as part of my collection, Valuable Humans in Transit and Other Stories. This collection also includes a sequel story, titled "Driver". This article is about the standard test brain image. For the original human, see Mi...
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Spreadsheet formulas for personal finance
I love spreadsheets. Spreadsheet programs like Microsoft’s Excel, Apple’s Numbers and Google Sheets are the secret heroes of our civilization.
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Prefer the British Style of Quotation Mark Punctuation over the American
Texts on this and that.
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It's virtually impossible to read old iMessages and they take up tons of storage
Many iPhone owners have iMessages from years ago that they can’t access. For example, my wife and I simply want to read the first few messages that we exchanged in 2017, but we can’t. A friend of mine recently had to prove she had a relationship with someone for US immigration services, and she was able to quickly…
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Programming is hard
Most beginners in programming eventually end up with the same ingratiating message: „Programming is easy, everyone can do it”, with some threatening message that people doing the gatekeeping should stop doing that. I’m here to tell you that that is not true. Programming is hard, programming is not for everyone, and…
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Efficiency Is the Enemy
If you ever find yourself stressed, overwhelmed, sinking into stasis despite wanting to change, or frustrated when you can’t respond to new opportunities, you need more slack in your life. Here’s how slack works and why you need more of it.
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Writing books is not really a good idea
Could the creator economy provide a better one?