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How to Stare at Your Phone Without Losing Your Soul
Why tracking screen time doesn't matter and improving the relationship with your phone requires conscious decisions.
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Life, Learning & Writing
The most popular blog posts about life, learning & writing on Hacker News. 588 posts.
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My dad built a cool thing but never boasted about it
My dad built something cool but didn't boast about it
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Why take a compiler course? (2010)
[…] Embedded in Academia : Why Take a Compiler Course? – Seconded, or whatever – my compiler course was briefer than I'd have liked but many of my peers didn't take it and I spent ages explaining what I thought where simple concepts to them when working on group projects and the like. […]
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A note to young folks: download the things you love
Many years ago, my favorite podcast was The Totally Rad Show. It was a fun video podcast where the hosts reviewed movies, games, TV shows, and other general nerd stuff. The hosts were Jeff Cannata (who last year I called the podcasting GOAT), Dan Trachtenberg (who went on to direct
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Own your work
One of the easiest ways to start sharing your work in the form of writing, designs, or photographs is by using the latest trendy platform in that space, especially when everyone else seems to be using it. How many Blogspot sites are you checking these days? They still work, but Google has killed one or two services…
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How to register a Kei truck in Pennsylvania
Kei trucks are a special designation of Japanese car that have very small engines (660cc) and dimensions (~10m^3). Tell 'em, Wikipedia . Whoever coined the idea of "creative constraints" should take a gander at Kei trucks; there's definitely an upper bound:
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Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake
I bought the iPad Pro M1 chip in hopes of a lightweight, fast, multi-purpose device that I could also code on.
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Amateurs obsess over tools, pros over mastery
Anyone who posts silly lists like "15 AI tools you can't miss" is truly the one who is lost
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Surviving Burnout (2015)
The first thing I know about burnout is this: burnout happens when we become locked in a cycle of caring about the results of our actions but having no meaningful control over those outcomes. I first learned this while reading about social workers, but the problem is abdundant in tech. I’ve seen it play out in every…
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Estimating square roots in your head
Imagine we want to compute the square root of a number n n n . The basic idea of Heron’s method , named after the mathematician and engineer, Heron of Alexandria, is to find a number g g g that is close to n \sqrt{n} n and to then average that with the number n / g n/g n / g , which corrects for the fact that g g g…
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I wired up my bike's GPS to order me pizza during a gravel race
As harvest season begins here in the Midwest, I once again celebrate by grinding Nebraska gravel at the Gravel Worlds Long Voyage bike race. As in previous years ( 2021 ) ( 2022 ), I spent more time writing code for a marginally-useful project than I did training. But hey, I finished!
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I made my blog solar-powered, then things escalated
In 2020 I wondered if I could run my blog on solar power , being inspired by Low-tech Magazine , doing the same thing (but better) 1 . The answer was 'yes', but only through spring and summer.
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Ox
“Why is it called oxtail if it’s from a cow?” I’m glad you oxed. It’s not just a load of bull. Ox is a word that, for many of us, is both familiar and strange. I grew up in ranch cou…
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The beginner's guide to overcomplicating coffee
There’s a scene in AMC’s “ Breaking Bad ” where Gail Boetticher explains to Walter White how to make the perfect cup of coffee . And it all sounds so plausible—there’s a perfect coffee, and science will magic it for us.
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Anki-fy your life
Creating a subconscious problem-solving framework.
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A non-technical explanation of deep learning
This document will explain what neural networks are and how they work, which will help you understand how AI and machine learning work. In the scenario below you'll play the part of the neural network.
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Books for Software Engineers in 2023
9 Must-Read Books for Software Engineers in 2023 — As a software engineer, staying up-to-date with the latest developments and best practices...
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How I stay motivated as a solo creator
Working solo has its difficulties. For one, my income is somewhat tied to my productivity, and my productivity highly correlates to my state of mind. This is...
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Thoughts about what worked in math circles
Thoughts about what worked in math circles After about 7 months of math circles with a group of 7- turning 8-year-old boys and girls, I decided to take a...
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Modern Mono
I’ve just finished setting up a new Mac (14" MBP, M2 Pro, 32G, 4T). It dawned on me that most of my really intense interactions with this thing involve looking at “monospace” (i.e. fixed-width) text; in Emacs where I write this blog, in my IDE, and in my terminal. The ones that came with the machine by default are…
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Please Pay for a Year of Nothing
This morning, two emails came in from Apple. The first was about the upcoming renewal of my yearly subscription to Disney+ and the second email was about the price increase of my Disney+ subscription from $79.99 to $109.99. It took me all of 10 seconds to think about it, but I canceled my subscription. It’s not really…
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Executive Function Theft
The phrase arrived in my head so completely formed and concrete that I couldn’t believe it wasn’t already established in the lexicon, but at least preliminary searches suggest it is not…
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Text Is All You Need
Personhood appears to be simpler than we thought
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How to draw ideas
Great ideas are hard to find. Drawing makes it a lot easier. And fun. How? In a creative process drawing can play four different roles. Let’s say, we want to come up with ideas for…