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Any Technology Indistinguishable from Magic Is Hiding Something
Odes & Satires, and other matters of stuff & things.
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Life, Learning & Writing
The most popular blog posts about life, learning & writing on Hacker News. 7,746 posts.
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Want to create a new habit? Get ready to break it.
"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." - Aristotle
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Accidentally Saving the Day
Several years ago, when I was a junior engineer just out of university, a PM wandered by my desk on his way to a meeting one morning. “Uh, hey, we’re having a meeting about Project Jabberwocky, uh, right now, can you come?” He was already past my desk and did a last-second pivot to extend the invitation. I was…
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Your Goals Are Holding You Back
This post was republished on Lifehacker. I just started my junior year at Penn. Aside from a newly developed disdain for the freshmen I see bumbling their
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The Eggstraordinary Fortress
It began, as many thought exercises do, with a discussion in the kitchen. My wife and I were debating whether a cooked egg was still safe to eat after spending the night on the kitchen counter. I am certainly not the type to throw away food lightly at the lightest hint of an issue. Confidently, I told her the egg…
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I deduce you are studying logic
This summer I was at LC2015, the big European logic conference (it was great). I was sitting listening to a talk with one of my logic buddies when the speaker mentioned “deontic logic”,…
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Becoming a Professor
Photo by Daderot [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons When I was first appointed as the director of the MIT Media...
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Learning to Learn
I believe the key thing that has helped me to become successful and will continue to do so, is my ability to learn how to learn about a subject and self educate. When you take ownership for the learning process, you start putting knowledge into action.
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The time I yoga-balled an Apple store employee
My personal website and blog
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Go the F to Sleep
· hackintosh · opencore · sleep · wake · acpi · Oct 23, 2021 by Aleksandar Vacić 6 minute read
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Ontology of Psychiatric Conditions: Taxometrics
Is mental illness a thing? What kind of thing is it?
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How Do You Like What You've Built?
Recently, a colleague asked me for a code review on some complex UI changes. The idea was to make an...
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Consistency and discipline over motivation
Motivation is fun when it’s there but it fades quickly and it doesn’t help you get anything done long term. In this post I talk about my experience with setting up a system that aids in building a…
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The C++ programmer and educator Rainer Grimm has passed away
Dear readers, we are extremely sad to inform you that Rainer passed away on October 6, 2025, surrounded by his closest family. After suffering from life-threatening pneumonia, Rainer decided against further life-sustaining measures that would have severely restricted his life. He passed away peacefully, accompanied by…
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Code School is Amazing
My thoughts on Code School, an interactive online marketplace where you can learn to code directly in the browser.
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Hexagonal Cross Stitch
At least year’s Bridges Conference in Stockholm, I attended a short presentation by Susan Goldstine about “self-diagramming lace” . As motivation for the new work she was presenting, Susan referenced her paper from the year before on what she calls “symmetry samplers” . Samplers are an old tradition in fibre arts. A…
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The digital natives are not who you think they are
I have heard the term "digital natives" applied to todays youth, but when it comes down to the meat and potatoes, they do not know jack shit.
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Back to Linux
Background Note: I’ve started writing this article about one year ago (September 2020), but I dropped it at some point. Its final version is way less ambitious than my original plans for it, mostly because I forgot some of things that were on mind back then. Still, better than nothing. A long time ago (in 2011) I…
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Aerobic exercise is good for the brain; easy wins for behaviour change
mood, memory, education; five easy wins for behaviour change
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19th Century Marriage Manuals: Advice for Young Husbands
Published in 1837, The Young Husband’s Book is described as a “manual of domestic duties.”
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What It Feels Like to Be Rich
A “wealth window” is opening as these tech trends go mainstream and my goal is to make sure YOU are ahead of the curve, securing your financial future in the process.
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When Having Friends Is More Alluring Than Being Right
“There’s this flat-earther documentary called BEHIND THE CURVE,” my wife said. “We have to watch it!” Of course we did. My wife will occasionally get into huge debates…