2191
Topics /
Life, Learning & Writing
The most popular blog posts about life, learning & writing on Hacker News. 7,742 posts.
2192
2193
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.
2194
The scariest "user support" email I've received
Hi, it's Takuya. As your app grows in popularity, you occasionally start to attract attacks aimed directly at you—the developer or site owner. Just the other day, I got one that was honestly terrifying, so I'd like to share it. The Email Subject: Cookie consent prevents platform
2195
Throw away your first draft of your code
The next time you start on a major project, I want you to write code for a couple of days and then delete it all . Just throw it away.
2196
I just want to code (2023)
I have an angel and a devil sitting atop each shoulder. The angel says, "Just code for fun! What you make can be just for your enjoyment and that's --" the devil interjects, "not enough to get ahead, loser. If you're not coding your next startup then how're you gunna get rich? Coding for fun? Pfft, sounds like the…
2197
Roam: Why I Love It and How I Use It
Author, writer, and creator sharing insights on learning, writing, philosophy, entrepreneurship, and more.
2198
First Principles Thinking
On first principles thinking, learning to work with agents, and setting experience aside long enough to see a problem clearly.
2199
The Overflowing Brain: Information overload and the limits of working memory
The Overflowing Brain: Information Overload and The Limits of Working Memory (2009) Torkel Klingberg (1967- ) 202 pages Who in these ...
2200
2201
2202
Analyzing my electricity consumption
Electricity prices have been steadily rising in France for the past few years, with a particularly sharp increase since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This has led me to wonder about my own electricity consumption and how I could optimize it. The hardware Since 2015, the organization managing the…
2203
On leaving Mapbox after 12 years
It’s been about nine months since I left Mapbox and the circumstances of my exit didn’t offer much opportunity for closure. I feel a combination of gratitude and resentment that I’m still sorting out. Last week was the one year anniversary of the Mapbox Worker’s Union going public, the event that lead to my departure…
2204
2205
Your Immune System Is Not a Muscle
AI, science, education, & ethics
2206
Goodbye non-KISS appliances
<p>Yesterday, we gave away our ~6-year-old GE French-door refrigerator after a never-ending slog of repairs. At least the guy and his mother who came to pick it up have a side-hustle of repairing and reselling appliances. There's hope it won't end up in a landfill. He offered to sell me a 4-door Samsung. No Thanks!…
2207
2208
The dispassionate developer
Caring for your craft is fine, but should you work for free?
2209
My year with a distraction-free iPhone
In 2012, I realized I had a problem: Infinity in my pocket was too much.
2210
2211
A requiem for amateur chemistry
Bidding farewell to classic experiments.
2212
Why I self host my servers and what I've recently learned
A short story on why I still go through the effort of self hosting servers and some things it taught me recently.
2213
2214
Design is compromise
Compromise is neither good nor bad, it’s something we do every day. It’s decision making. Prioritizing. It’s finding the right balance between two competing ...
2215
Programming blogs
This is one of those “N technical things every programmer must read” lists, except that “programmer” is way too broad a term and the styles of writing people find helpful for them are too different for any such list to contain a non-zero number of items (if you want the entire list to be helpful to everyone). So…
2216
The Gang Has a Mid-Life Crisis
It's understandable why the guys who had big tech startup successes in the 90s and early aughts think that "DEI" is the cause of all their problems. Not understandable in the "gotta hand it to em" sense, but in the sense that it's not hard to follow the stupid mistake they all make.
2217
I bought a £16 smartwatch just because it used USB-C
Look, I'm an idiot. I know that, you know that, and the man on the moon knows that. Let's not get into why I'm an idiot; let's just accept that I have my peculiarities and you have yours. My idiocy is a quest to make sure all my portable electronics can recharge using USB-C. Modern smartwatches are tiny and they do a…
2218
The beautiful Silent ThunderBolt-3 PC
When I placed the last screw on the DB4 chassis of the Beautiful Silent PC [1] , I thought I would not have to open it up again for years. Perhaps, I hypothesized, it would be a decade before an upgrade. The beautiful silent PC. The imperative of working from home proved me wrong when the seemingly easy problem of…
2219
The Wisdom in Kung Fu Panda
Laughing All The Way To Peace, Harmony, and Focus
2220
“Users want control” is a shoulder shrug
Making the claim “users want control” is the same as saying you don’t know what users want, you don’t know what is good, and you don’t know what their goals are.