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Don't End the Week with Nothing (2014)
A bit of inspiration (and some hopefully actionable advice) for folks who are still working at day jobs.
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Life, Learning & Writing
The most popular blog posts about life, learning & writing on Hacker News. 8,925 posts.
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A lesson on the importance of encouraging your children with their projects
My wife calls me at work, and we have the usual end-of-the-day chat. Then: "Oh, by the way, Guy wants you to take him to the hardware store, he wants to get some tape." "What kind of tape?" "He says he wants 'wood tape'." "Wood tape?" "Wood tape." "Uhhh, ok. When?" "Sometime this weekend. He is really looking forward…
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Life is not short
The most surprising thing is that you wouldn’t let anyone steal your property, but you consistently let people steal your time, which is infinitely more valuable.
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Writing toy software is a joy
Why you should write more toy programs
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My 16-month theanine self-experiment
randomized and blinded, N=1
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How to Understand Things
What we call intelligence is as much about virtues such as honesty, integrity, and bravery, as it is about raw intellect.
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Fuckin' user interface design, I swear
From the highly eclectic blog of Mark Dominus
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Software I’m thankful for (2021)
Most Unix-ish APIs, from files to sockets are a bit of a mess today. Endless poorly documented sockopts, unexpected changes in write semantics across FSs and OSes, good luck trying to figure out mtimes . But despite the mess, I can generally wrap my head around open/read/write/close. I can strace a binary and figure…
311
All it takes is for one to work out
More than a decade ago, when I was applying to graduate school, I went through a period of deep uncertainty. I had tried the previous year and hadn’t gotten in anywhere. I wanted to try again, but …
312
Leaving Google Fi
I’m sharing the story of a bad situation I had ordering a new phone through Google Fi. It turned into a two month long ordeal where the service got worse and worse. At every turn the Google Fi team was presented with a chance to make things better and every time they blew it. I’m sharing this because I hope a long…
313
Why is the sky blue?
The internet’s default answer to “why is the sky blue?” is “Rayleigh scattering”. And that’s not wrong, but it’s also not very useful.
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First, make me care
Writing advice: some nonfiction fails because it opens with background instead of a hook—readers leave before reaching the good material. Find the single anomaly or question that makes your topic interesting, lead with that, and let the background follow once you’ve earned attention.
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RSS is wonderful
Inspired by Web Rings from the 90s, I created a tool for serendipitous discovery of blogs called RSS Discovery Engine. Similar to how web rings work, I make the assumption that interesting blogs will tend to link to other related blogs, and therefore, linked blogs are likely to also be interesting.
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Physics Student Earns PhD at Age 89
Physics is the most fundamental of sciences. It provides a foundation for ideas critical to other scientific fields and the underpinnings for modern technologies.
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Code is run more than read
Code is read more than written, code is run more than read. I think this line of thought can be extended beyond code-writing, and used as a rule of thumb to identify problems and make decisions.
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Excellence is a habit, but so is failure
We often hear that making small incremental improvements every day can lead to great things. This popular piece of advice rings true, and it’s a powerful reminder to keep pushing ourselves forward.
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I gave the AI arms and legs then it rejected me
How I helped Claude AI extend its capabilities only for the same AI to reject my job application.
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Find Your People
Thank you to Bucknell University for inviting me to be this year's commencement speaker. And congratulations to the Class of 2025! Watch the speech on YouTube. Thirty-two...
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How to stop procrastinating by using the Fogg Behavior Model
B J Fogg is a Stanford professor who came up with a simple model of behavior that helps us understand why we take action or not take action at any given moment.
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The unbearable joy of sitting alone in a café
Hunting timeless insights into humans and software and helping others on the way.
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Teaching is a slow process of becoming everything you hate
Here are some things that I hated as a student. At the time, I thought my teachers didn’t understand or care how terrible they were.
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Yes, and
In this essay, Carson Gross discusses his advice to young people interested in computer science worried about the future given the advancements in AI.
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Makers, Don't Let Yourself Be Forced into the 'Manager Schedule'
In Masters of Doom, a book about the game development company id Software and its influence on popular culture, David Kushner reflected on the...
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Investing for Geeks
A quick, opinionated guide to retirement planning and investing for software people.
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14 years ago: the day Teller gave me the secret to my career in magic.
Hey gang, Lately a lot of young magicians have been asking me for advice, which has caused me to...
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Hard-to-swallow truths they won't tell you about software engineer job
Last weekend I had a chance to talk with some students who just got their degree. They are pursuing their first software engineer job. In conversation with them, I learned that they have a pretty wrong perception of this job.
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AI-Generated Images Discourage Me from Reading Your Blog
If you’re willing to use AI-generated images, how do I know the text isn’t AI-generated?