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Life, Learning & Writing

The most popular blog posts about life, learning & writing on Hacker News. 662 posts.

2026
271

The darker side of being a doctor

I’m a surgeon. I’d like to think that I’m resilient and well adjusted, having gone through medical school and rigorous surgical training. I’ve been a doctor for 13 years and much of that period has been spent training to be as good a surgeon as I could ever be. I have great family support, a physician wife who…

275

Start your meetings at 5 minutes past

I work as an Engineering Manager at Google, and my teams practice a simple habit - we book all meetings to start at five minutes past the hour (or half hour). This works better than trying to finish five minutes early. Meetings often don't finish on time, and the impact is highest with back-to-back meetings.…

276

I have officially retired from Emacs

This past Tuesday I typed C-x C-c in Emacs for the last time after 20 years of daily use. Though nearly half that time was gradually retiring it, switching to modal editing, then to Vim. Emacs is a platform, and I’d grown accustomed to its applications, especially those I built myself. There was no particular hurry…

283

Why I left iNaturalist

After almost 18 years, I left iNaturalist, the product and organization I helped create. I left because I don’t believe the current Leadership team is pointing the product in the right direction, and I don’t think they are managing their talented staff in an empathetic or effective way. If you’d like me to continue…

288

Stealing Is a Skill

I’m slowly developing my own list of advice: have a creative mindset, embrace radical transparency, and write down what makes you happy. I’d like to add one more to the list: stealing is a skill!

297

The Joy of Folding Bikes

I was chatting to a friend about my folding bike and I had the urge to write about it - because this falls in the category of “Things I wish I’d had decades ago”. And maybe I can encourage some others to try these wonderful devices. Note: I’m 3 months into a new job so blogging has taken a back seat to drinking from a…