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Topics /
Life, Learning & Writing
The most popular blog posts about life, learning & writing on Hacker News. 382 posts.
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Smartphones Are Toys First, Tools Second
If you time-traveled to the 1960s, or even the 1980s, and tried to describe smartphones to the people you met, they wouldn’t believe you.
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It is perfectly OK to only code at work, you can have a life too
There is often pressure inside Software development for Software developers to code outside of work hours. Whether you are a Python, Ruby, Java, or any other developer... There is absolutely no need to code outside of work if you don't want too. Coding is considered a passion for some, but others they don't think this…
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Books and lectures don't work
Designing media to reflect how people think and learn
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Don't Outsource Your Thinking (2015)
One of the most useful lessons I learned from working at Facebook had nothing to do with technology: Doubt the media. Always doubt the…
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True Surprise
How many true surprises are there in life? This was the question I asked Mrs. Bastard when she was pregnant with our first child and wanted ...
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The physical Apple Card is a case of form over function
Apple Card is not just the physical card you get in the mail when you sign up for an Apple Card. There are a lot of upsides to what Apple's doing with Apple Card and Apple Pay. I get it. And I also believe the physical titanium Apple Card is a marvel of engineering. Kudos to the metallurgists and designers who…
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My Experience as a Remote Worker
I've spent half of my career working remotely. This post chronicles those experiences, giving a real-world window into what it's like to work fully-remote as a software engineer.
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You Don't Need to Be Brilliant to Do Brilliant Work
My friend Csongor recently published a computer science paper that’s super interesting if you’re as big a nerd as I am. The details are too much to go into here, but suffice to say, it lets us do a lot of things I’d always been told were impossible.
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Languages I want to write
I spent this weekend writing a Forth designed for music synthesis, and it reminded me what a joy writing programming languages is! I have a big list of programming language experiments that I want to try, but it's mostly been in my head so far. Here's a living document of some of the languages I want to write.
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I lost my data trying to back it up
This is a story about how I lost my data when trying to prevent it by backing it up.
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How to Succeed as a Poor Programmer
In a previous post I outlined why programmers should strive to be good at one thing rather than everything. In this post I discuss how to ...
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Literally Suffocating in Meeting Rooms, A Little
A special thing we do at work because I asked for it is that we have CO2 monitors in the meeting rooms. These measure the levels of CO2 levels in the air. In...
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Preparing for 25 Years
On October 7, this blog will have existed and been continually updated for 25 years.
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My Parents Are Flat Earthers
For decades, my parents have been working up to Flat-Earther beliefs. From Egyptology to Jehovah's Witnesses to theories that human built the Moon billions of years in the future. Surprisingly, it doesn't affect their successful lives very much. For me, it's a fun family pastime.
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Why the Amazon Basics Keyboard Is My Favorite Keyboard
I've been typing for 20+ years and this is one of my favorite general purpose / programming keyboards when factoring in a few things.
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What I Know About Being Sick at Work (2018)
Some of the strategies I use for managing my disability in the workplace.
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My 300 Mile Lyft Ride From Chicago to Bradford
I mentioned this on Twitter yesterday: Here’s the full story on it. Yesterday I flew home from Spain, where I’d spent a week at the Celsius 232 festival in Aviles. It was a lovely time,…
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Asking questions is a skill: Lessons from 10 years of Stack Overflow
I’m approaching my ten year anniversary on Stack Overflow. Over the past decade, how I use the site and my understanding of it has evolved quite a bit, so I thought I’d share some of what I’ve learned along the way.
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How to Be a Professional Author and Not Die Screaming and Starving
Your reading today comes in the form of this Medium article by Heather Demetrios: “ How To Lose A Third Of A Million Dollars Without Even Trying .” It’s a good article. I feel deeply for the writer, because this shit we do comes with no real map. No creative map, no story map, no industry map, no money map. “HERE IS A…
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English speakers should learn math instead of a second language
An old joke goes: Q: What do you call someone who knows three languages? A: Trilingual Q: What do you call someone who knows two languages? A: Bilingual Q: What do you call someone who knows just o…
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Personal Finance Lessons for Technology Professionals
> Patience. Frugality. Sacrifice. When you boil it down, what do those three things have in common? Those are choices. Money is not peace of mind. Money’s not happiness. Money is, at its essence, that measure of a man’s choices. This is part of the opening monologue of the