Topics /
Life, Learning & Writing
The most popular blog posts about life, learning & writing on Hacker News. 280 posts.
Finding an Alternative to Mac OS X – Part 2
This is the second in my series on finding an alternative to Mac OS X. Part 1 was about evaluating 13 alternative operating systems and then choosing one to use full time. The selected OS was elementary OS. The motivation for this change is to get access to better hardware since Apple is neglecting the Mac lineup.
An introduction to Stoic philosophy and resilience-building [video]
Your free ten-minute introduction to Stoic philosophy and its application to modern living
Don't Fly During Ramadan (2013)
A couple of weeks ago, I tried to fly from New York (JFK) to Los Angeles on JetBlue. I was racially profiled, detained, and interrogated for hours.
Why I left Japan after 10 years
It's a year to the day since I left Japan after exactly 10 years and 1 day of living there.
The language of programming
Coding as a non-English speaker, or what Excel, Illustrator, and functional programming can teach us about names.
Baking Bread with the Romans: Part II – Panis Quadratus
Taste the daily life of Romans with this recipe for Panis Quadratus: The infamous sectioned bread excavated at Pompeii and preserved for millenia after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.
Bruce Lee’s Letters to Himself About Authenticity, Personal Development
“Where some people have a self, most people have a void, because they are too busy in wasting their vital creative energy… actualizing a concept of what they should be like rather than …
Clever ideas that failed (2010)
The cleverness of an idea is proportionate to its odds of failure. Brian Kernighan once said that “debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it.” I have built many things that I wasn’t…
Lessons Learned from “On Writing Well”
The article is a summary of my lessons learned from On Writing Well by William Zinsser. By providing a summary I hope to help other developers to improve their writing. Apart from that it helps me to memorize my lessons learned.
JavaScript Fatigue or My History with Web Development
I’ve only been a full time web developer for the past 5 years. It’s barely enough time to start calling myself a “senior” Software Engineer. In that short period of time the web technology stack has…
Learn React with Copywork
Tired of making TODO apps over and over? Try this instead.
Text Is Keeping Kids from Coding
We ran into a big blocker when designing SpriteBox Coding, a learn-to-code game for kids ages 5+. For some kids, code was simply…
6 months of working remotely taught me a thing or ten
Working remotely is a mixed bag. There are a lot of positives... and some negatives. If you’re a remote employee (or considering a remote job), here are my top ten tips that I’ve gleaned in the last six months.
There’s no glory in overworking, it’s just imminent burnout
it’s just imminent burnout.
Times I've Messed Up as a Developer
Those two times where I clearly had no clue what I was doing as a developer Last week I had a short conversation with coworkers about how we had messed up in our careers. Being so far removed from …
The internet as existential threat
Some days I wonder if we are completely screwed. So today’s post is a perhaps slightly hysterical outburst.
Umberto Eco's Anti-Library (2015)
How to become an “antischolar” in a culture that treats knowledge as “an ornament that allows us to rise in the pecking order.”
Living on the Edge – Story of an Iranian Student in US
Story of an Iranian Student in US
Too many people have peed in the pool (2016)
Oh goodness, what fun twitter was in the early days, a secret bathing-pool in a magical glade in an enchanted forest. It was glorious ‘to turn as swimmers into cleanness leaping.’ We frolicked and water-bombed and sometimes, in the moonlight, skinny-dipped.
The destruction of graduate education in the United States
If and when you emerged from your happiness bubble to read the news, you’ll have seen (at least if you live in the US) that the cruel and reckless tax bill has passed the House of Representat…