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Topics /
Life, Learning & Writing
The most popular blog posts about life, learning & writing on Hacker News. 8,937 posts.
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How I use Obsidian (2023)
My personal Obsidian vault template. A bottom-up approach to note-taking and organizing things I am interested in.
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The principle of charity: Criticize the best interpretation of an argument
The principle of charity is a philosophical principle that denotes that, when interpreting someone’s statement, you should assume that the best possible interpretation of that statement is the one that the speaker meant to convey. Accordingly, to implement the principle of charity, you should not attribute falsehoods…
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Feynman’s advice to W&M student resonates 45 years later (2020)
Early in her career as a William & Mary student, Beulah Elizabeth Cox turned in a physics exam that contained what became one of the most famous incorrect answers in science.
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Simplify, then add delightness: On designing for children
I’ve been building Kidz Fun Art (web, iPad & Windows) since 2021, so 4 years at time of writing. It’s a tablet optimized application intended to be used by children of all ages R…
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A 45 year engineer clears up electric sauna ventilation
Malcolm has analyzed the Finnish 1992 sauna ventilation study profile to improve sauna ventilation in his own backyard sauna.
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I collect and read old computer manuals
It’s my ritual: every time I enter a secondhand bookshop, I go straight to the Sciences section and search for old computer …
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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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How to waste time and overcomplicate things
This post ended up being fairly popular on Hacker News and sparked conversations about project management and development in the IT industry. You can find the post here .
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Bookbinding: A Tutorial (1995)
This page has been moved to http://homepage.cs.uiowa.edu/~dwjones/making/book/index.shtml
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The Programmers' Stone (2014)
Hi, and welcome to The Programmers' Stone. The purpose of this site is to recapture, explore and celebrate the Art of Computer Programming. By so doing we hope to help the reader either become a better programmer, understand what less experienced programmers are struggling with, or communicate more effectively with…
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My night at the museum
Thursday October 19, 2017, I arrived at the Technical Museum in Stockholm together with my two kids just a short while before 17:30. A fresh, cool and clear autumn evening. For this occasion I had purchased myself a brand new suit as I hadn't gotten one since almost twenty years before this and it had … Continue…
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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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Oldest Viable Laptop (2017)
What’s the oldest laptop you could reasonably do your job with? 3 years old? 5 years? 10? And if asked the same question 10 years ago, would your number be higher or lower? Thanks to a failing batte…
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New gel breaks down alcohol in the body
Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a protein-based gel that breaks down alcohol in the gastrointestinal tract without harming the body. In the future, people who take the gel could reduce the harmful and intoxicating effects of alcohol.
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The Absolute Denial of Shit
Today emoji are used by 92% of the world’s online population. The diminutive images have inspired a holiday and a $50 million animated movie. You can even make a living translating them. The Emojicon convention draws attendees from around the world. Topics of discussion at the 2018 gathering in Brooklyn include: “How…
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Google Home: An Insight Into a 4-Year-Old’s Mind
How Google Home provides an interesting insight into the curiosity of a 4-year-old.
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Protecting my attention at the dopamine carnival
What the hell is going on with our brains? It seems like the algorithms have already taken over and the scientific literature is catching up with
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How to Stop Ruminating
Substack is the app for independent voices: a free newsletter, video, and podcast hosting platform with paid subscriptions built in.
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Work with the garage door up (2024)
One of my favorite ways that creative people communicate is by “working with their garage door up,” to riff on a passage from Robin Sloan (below). This is the opposite of the Twitter account which mostly posts announcements of finished work: it’s Screenshot Saturday ; it’s giving a lecture about the problems you’re…
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Saying Good Bye to Hey.com
I have decided to switch away from the Hey.com email service by Basecamp. I started using it because I wanted a good independent provider that was not from Google, and I’ve been trying out se…
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Why Sal Khan't: On Learning by Making but Teaching by Telling
Two pieces crossed my feed recently, both about Sal Khan and the AI tutoring revolution that wasn’t. The first was Matt Barnum’s reported piece in Chalkbeat, where Khan himself acknowledged that…
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The Positive Programmer
My thoughts on the negativity in the tech community, how I went from a miserable, negative programmer to a happy one, and small steps to get there.