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The most popular blog posts about life, learning & writing on Hacker News. 7,746 posts.
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;
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.
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…
After visiting Istanbul, I wondered why there were so many cats in town. This piece dives into the history & culture of stray cats in Turkey.
🎵 Back in 1991, Nevermind become an unexpected critical and commercial sensation.
I love taking notes, but one problem that I have is that that I start cherishing every notebook that I start. I can't seem to keep my notes messy. Eventually...
The personal website of author Neal Stephenson, unless it's been hacked.
Looking to build a DIY bike for spin classes at home? I have you covered with my build and review of the Sunny bike and accessories for under $400
The default state of the world is that things are inefficient, that 20% of the effort put in results in 80% of the output. This is a fundamental part of how I see the world, and this post outlines how I have internalised this idea, and how to pursue the clever hacks that can make things better
It's not about technology for its own sake. It's about being able to implement your ideas.
I’ve made an Arduino thing that can wirelessly talk to a mobile device over BLE and can now meter the revolutions of a wheel with an optical tachometer. I’m using these two hardware fea…
Information on the coronavirus is widely available, and it doesn’t look positive. So why is everyone waiting for permission to do something about it?
The personal website of author Neal Stephenson, unless it's been hacked.
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.
Ever heard of Leonardo Syndrome? If you’ve read Peter Burke’s excellent book, The Polymath,[^1] then you will have done, but if not: Leonardo Syndrome is...
The map is not the territory reminds us that our mental models of the world are not the same as the world itself. It cautions against confusing our abstractions and representations with the complex, ever-shifting reality they aim to describe.
Applications for YCombinator's winter 2013 cycle are due October 30. Let me tell you about my experience in YCombinator with Zigfu . Zigf...
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.
I am struggling today, and maybe you are too. Don't give up yet, though. Read this article to learn what I remind myself of when I want to give up...
A few weeks ago my most popular repository on GitHub was crowbar , a Rust crate that I’m particularly proud of. It wasn’t necessarily good , but it did something interesting. It has 168 stars.
Survivor: Paleolithic Edition Rewind time 100,000 years ago: several different species of humans co-exist on earth.There was, of course, our own species, Homo sapien, but ... Read more
Throughout my career, though I’ve managed to be productive in aggregate, I’ve always sought to be more consistent in my productivity. How productive I am at a given moment seems driven …
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
