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Curiosity Is Better Than Being Smart?
Are you smart? Are you curious? Which one is better? Well, in this post, you will see why curiosity is better than being smart.
Topics /
Life, Learning & Writing
The most popular blog posts about life, learning & writing on Hacker News. 560 posts.
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Writing is networking for introverts
Networking is painful, and I’m suspicious of anyone who claims to enjoy it. Unfortunately for me, networking is effective.
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Thoughts on chess improvement, after gaining 600 points in 6 months
I played chess briefly with my friends in high school, where I had a rating of around 1100 online. I gave up the game for about 10 years, then picked it back up again recently, in May. I’ve tried a ton of different approaches in the past 6 months, switching things up whenever I stopped seeing results. I’ve improved…
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How to Remember What You Read
The benefits of reading are negated if you forget remember what you read. This article discusses a tested system to increase retention. Learn how to use active reading to remember more from books.
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A new chapter – full-time working from a van in a forest
For many people, the year 2020 will go down as a moment in time of hardship in their lives but for me, the year 2019 was dramatically harder as it was the realization that a long-term relationship wasn't going to work out...
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When did writing in major newspapers become so bad?
Run on sentences, indiscernible insider nods and confusing narrative perspective plague major news publications
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I'm reading the FT and WSJ from 100 years ago each week leading to 1929
This week, the Dow languishes near multi-decade lows and blue-chip stocks trade below book value.
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My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)
Note – This is a true story based on my own experiences and what I’ve heard from the people involved, but for privacy, all of the names have been changed. Note 2 – This is an old piece, repub…
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I Really Blew It (2020)
I recently realized that I have been wasting my time on a dumb effort for the last 35 years. It all started back in 1983. My game for the Atari, Eastern Front (1941), had been a big hit, and Dale Yocum of the Atari Program Exchange suggested that I release the source code for it. This was an exciting idea, as nobody…
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An introverts guide to increasing energy
As an introvert, learning how to recharge, protect, and increase your energy is vital to taking care of yourself. Learn how!
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There's never been a better time to build websites
We're closing in on the end of 2021 and I'm as excited now about building websites as I've been in ~25 years.
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“Why We Sleep” Is Riddled with Scientific and Factual Errors
Note: I link to a bunch of paywalled studies in this essay. Please do not use sci-hub to access them for free and do not use this trick (a) to easily redirect papers to sci-hub. For the clearest example of deliberate data manipulation, see how Walker edits out the data that contradicts his argument from the graph…
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Scattered thoughts on why I waste my own time
I spend way too much time on reddit, hacker news, twitter, feedly, coinbase, robinhood, email, etc. I’d like to spend time on things that are more meaningful - chess, digital painting, side projects, reading, video games, exercising, meditating, etc. This has been a problem for years. This post is only slightly…
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A review of correlations between big five personality types and life outcomes
People with the same big five personality types tend to be more happy, successful, intelligent, creative, and popular. Why aren’t there more tradeoffs?
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Using sqlite3 as a notekeeping document graph
document organizer with tags and full-text-search, in a simple and clean sqlite3 schema
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3 lines of code shouldn't take all day
Reflections on my time at Electronic Arts and techniques used to improve iteration times in video game development
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Jeff Varasano's NY Pizza Recipe (2008)
One of the 'Elite 8' Pizzerias in the US by Every Day with Rachael Ray One of America's Perfect Pizzeria's: Zagat And Many Other Awards Main Restaurant Website
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Mise-en-place for knowledge workers
Knowledge work is unique among skilled professions in that we lack a culture of systematic improvement. Other skilled trades – from carpenters to welders
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Peter Naur's view of programming
To answer this question, let me take you a few years back, when I worked with a small high tech startup. We were working on a pretty complex augmented reality system spanning all layers from low-level computer vision components to cross-platform mobile and web apps. Especially for the lower-level components, a good…
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Tools for Thinking
Tools & hacks I use to do complex processing with my brain.
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My Tungsten Cube (2019)
A few months ago I bought a featureless cube of tungsten. It’s 1.5 inches across and cost $130, but I argue it was one of the best purchases I’ve made recently.
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The dispassionate developer
Caring for your craft is fine, but should you work for free?
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Why obsessively following successful people online is dangerous
Convincing yourself that following more famous people online will lead to a better life is dangerous. You're simply wasting your time.
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My Life in E-Ink
Collection of odds and ends relating to e-readers including personal reminisces Background # Reading has been a huge part of my life. The written word has had arguably more of an impact on my life than anything I have experienced in person. As a kid back in early 2000’s; this meant a lot of library trips and saving…