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Transcending My Father's Abuse
Seeing My Dad as More than a Monster
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Life, Learning & Writing
The most popular blog posts about life, learning & writing on Hacker News. 669 posts.
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Nobody ever paid me for code
Because mauve databases have the most RAM
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I had ChatGPT write a Decemberists song and recorded it
And I recorded it. Here's "Sailor's Song."
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Showering at the South Pole
Potable water, and not much of it.
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No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health
The risks and harms associated with drinking alcohol have been systematically evaluated over the years and are well documented. The World Health Organization has now published a statement in The Lancet Public Health: when it comes to alcohol consumption, there is no safe amount that does not affect health.
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People who've received a black bar on Hacker News
I'm not sure when Hacker News started adorning a black bar on top of the website after a significant person passed, but I compiled a list of people who've received it.
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Dating, education, and sex ratios
Men floundering, women most affected
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New antifungal therapy for fungal meningitis
A team of University of Minnesota Medical School researchers successfully tested a new antifungal therapy to treat fungal meningitis. The trial results were published today in the peer-reviewed journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.
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Will boiling water ruin green tea?
A common myth regarding green tea is that it shouldn't be prepared with boiling water.
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Revenge bedtime procrastination
Revenge bedtime procrastination occurs when people delay going to sleep in order to feel in control of their life and schedule. This phenomenon is particularly associated with people who feel that they have little time for themselves during the day, for example due to their work schedule, so they delay sleep until…
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Everything Is a Practice
There is no finish line. There is no winning, no losing.
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The Stupid Programmer Manifesto
I'm not smart enough for modern web development, and that's ok
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An invitation to a secret society
Or: why you should be a lizard
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Chesterton's Fence: A lesson in second order thinking (2021)
A core component of making great decisions is understanding previous decisions. If we don’t understand how we got “here,” we run the risk of making things much worse.
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Carl Sagan's Rules for Bullshit-Busting and Critical Thinking
Necessary cognitive fortification against propaganda, pseudoscience, and general falsehood.
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I’ll never be an astronaut
Developing Aortic Stenosis due to a Bicuspid Aortic Valve This is one doctor’s experience as an explainer to friends, family and anyone who has a bicuspid aortic valve or who, for whatever re…
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Fantastic Learning Resources
People sometimes ask me: Alex, how do I learn X?. This article is a compilation of advice I usually give. This is things that worked for me rather than the most awesome things on earth. I do consider every item on the list to be fantastic though, and I am forever grateful to people putting these resources together.
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I don’t want a new phone, but I’m probably buying one
I don’t want a new phone, but I’m probably buying one.
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The Placeholder Girlfriend
It became real when I saw the list. When I saw the rubric.
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The truth is always made of details
If you were instructed to draw a leaf, you might draw a green, vaguely eye-shaped thing with a stem. But when you study a real leaf, say an elm leaf, it’s got much more g...
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The beauty of finished software
Let me introduce you to WordStar 4.0, a popular word processor from the early 80s. WordStar 4.0 As old as it seems, George R.R. Martin used it to write “A Song of Ice and Fire”. Why would someone use such an old piece of software to write over 5,000 pages? I love how he puts it: It does everything I want a word…
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Why 'Atomic Habits' may not be working for you
Couple of weeks ago, we were discussing random things at work, and we landed on the topic of discipline. One of my colleagues was praising me for having a very disciplined life. It felt as if he was talking about someone else.
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If you succeed you will fail
If you succeed, you will fail. Something said at a client engagement I was at some time ago. I figure enough time has passed that it is worth sharing this story. One of the early engagements was to …
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It's probably time to stop recommending Clean Code (2020)
It may not be possible for us to ever reach empirical definitions of "good code" or "clean code", which means that any one person's opinions about another person's opinions about "clean code" are necessarily highly subjective. I cannot review Robert C. Martin's 2008 book Clean Co...
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How to Stop Ruminating
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