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The most popular blog posts about life, learning & writing on Hacker News. 7,740 posts.
UPDATE Several years ago on my 68th birthday I wrote up 68 bits of advice for my adult children, and posted them here. Here are the first five bits: Learn how to learn from those you disagree with, or even … Continue reading →
The worst toy is one with many pieces that my kids dump on the ground and then play with for only 2 minutes.
A co-worker of mine (the incomparable Yohei Manabe) was looking at some disassembled ARM code the other day, and discovered something weird. Lots of d4d4 instructions, scattered about. LLVM’s objdump says this is a relative branch to -0x58 . The weird part is that they were always unreachable.
The Vision Pro has quickly become an essential item that I take onto every flight. It’s a fantastic device to travel with—Be it by train or by plane, it offers an unparalleled opportunity to …
Back in January, I used an old Thinkpad while my 12” Macbook was being repaired. I found myself really enjoying some aspects of it. This nudged me down a path that ended with me modding a frankenpad…
I bought a used 2023 Nissan Leaf in 2025, my first 'new' car in 15 years. The above photo was taken by the dealership; apparently their social media team likes to post photos of all purchasers. I test drove a Tesla in 2012, and quickly realized my mistake. No gasoline-powered car (outside of supercars, maybe? Never…
Years ago, I watched a video where guitar teacher Justin Sandercoe explained a way to get better at guitar. It has changed my playing, and it might change yours, too. This isn’t my idea; it’s Justin’s. You should watch his video and visit his website. Why am I writing about it, then? Because I think it’s an invaluable…
Within two emails, a merchant went from blatant dismissal to full payment, and I owe it to The Organized Professional Method.
I need to vent about the impolite piece of yet-to-become e-waste on wheels that is my rude-ass car . You've heard versions of this story before, nothing is particularly novel in the shock department, enshittification is everywhere, etcetera... but I need the catharsis.
I'm not writing macOS because I switched before the new name came along. But let me start at the beginning.
Surviving 3 years in North Korea as a foreign diplomat was not easy. Living and working in the Hermit Kingdom was certainly the unique experience of a lifetime.
Derek Sivers official site. Thoughts on philosophy, culture, self-improvement. Author of Useful Not True, How to Live, Hell Yeah or No, Anything You Want.
If you ever see it too, thank London
This article has been translated into Russian: Полезные инструменты для написания книг Thank you Vlad!
For some reason, when my brother told me our dad was dead, I immediately went and listened to my voicemails. He left me silly voicemails often and I wanted to hear his voice.
Tired of migrating notes apps like Obsidian or Evernote? Learn how to build your own private, long-term PKM using self-hosted Directus for control & longevity.
Have you ever felt like you were behind? I used to feel that way. I would read articles about a 26-year-old entrepreneur with a billion-dollar company or a 16-year-old kid who invented a new kind o…
I have written several books that use Python to explain topics like Bayesian Statistics and Digital Signal Processing. Along with the books...
Why tinkering matters as a lifelong learning tool.
Derek Sivers official site. Thoughts on philosophy, culture, self-improvement. Author of Useful Not True, How to Live, Hell Yeah or No, Anything You Want.
I've recently seen lots of people tweeting this supposed newspaper clipping. An olde-timey warning about wearing flu masks. But is it too good to be true? The first thing to do with any image of a text quote is to search for the text. Look, I'm not saying tumblr isn't great, but… I wouldn't exactly trust it as a…
Maybe it’s the change of weather. Fall often finds me looking backward, to the past — and anyway it is as good excuse as any as to why I have found myself peering into old hard drives trying to recover old bits and bytes from games that I wrote some thirty-five years ago or so.
I have a little pet theory that software drives people insane. Not in the "wash your hands every thirty minutes like Howard Hughes" kind of way, but more ...
I’ve started writing more Python code lately (because of… AI, you know). In this post, I share the tools, libraries, configs, and other integrations I use for building production-grade Python applications following a frontend-backend architecture.
This is not just “Kids these days”
