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The most popular blog posts about life, learning & writing on Hacker News. 640 posts.
When you’re drafting an email, ending it is the easiest part. Whether you sign-off with “Warmest Regards,” “Thanks,” or “Keep On Keepin’ On,” it only takes a second, and you probably don’t give it a second thought. Do email closings even matter? And if so, is “best” really best? We looked at closings in over 350,000…
Starting this fall, I'll be pursuing a Masters in Computer Science at Georgia Tech. Here's how I think Linux on Chromebooks just might get me through the program.
My kid sister has been using Macs for about 5 years. She bought her 2012 MacBook Pro used on eBay for $500, and it lasted longer than any other laptop she has bought new or used. When she accidentally spilled orange juice on her MacBook two days ago, she asked my recommendation on getting the new M1 MacBook Pro or…
New data suggests someone has compromised more than 21,000 Microsoft Exchange Server email systems worldwide and infected them with malware that invokes both KrebsOnSecurity and Yours Truly by name.
Over-engineering for fun (and not much profit)
Since 2008, I've ripped every DVD and Blu-Ray I bought to my Mac, with a collection of SD and HD media totaling around 2 TB today. To make that library accessible, I've always used iTunes and the iTunes Shared Library functionality that—while it still exists today—seems to be on life support, in kind of a "we still…
If you regularly read cognitive science or psychology blogs (or even just the lowly New York Times!), you’ve probably heard of something called the Dunning-Kruger effect. The Dunning-Kruger e…
Five months after my renunciation day, I received my Certificate of Loss of Nationality today. People keep asking me how that feels...
One of the constant refrains which has bemused me during the pandemic is all the people saying how much kids want to go back to school.
Working hard is a great way to accelerate learning, but it can come at a cost. This post shares my experience and lessons taken from great role models I've found along the way.
The philosopher Kwame Appiah writes that “in life, the challenge is not so much to figure out how best to play the game; the challenge is to figure out what game you’re playing.” When I try to figure out what game I’m playing, I see that for the last 25 years I have been playing […]
Like many people, I’ve been entertaining myself at home by baking a ton. I’ve gotten pretty good at following recipes, but I decided I wanted to take things one step further and understand the science behind what differentiates a cake from a bread or a cookie. I also like machine learning so I thought: what if I could…
The first half of this conversation is a searingly honest account of...
The joys, challenges, and some practical aspects of retiring young.
I needed medication to preserve my sight, and it had to be injected directly into my eyeball. It’s a real thing and not just something they do in horror films.
As promised, here is the first post in our “The Student of Life” series. This essay, focusing on the fascinating subject of the shrinkage of our brain over the last 70,000 years, was masterfully penned by USF student Savannah Robison during the Fall 2017 semester of BIOL100. It is a wonderful example of student…
Two decades ago, before social media existed, Zygmunt Bauman articulated a perfect description of how it would soon shape our behavior and frame our relationships to one another.
I saw a gif of a woman talking about how women make less than men in the film industry, ending with ‘the only industry where women make more than men is porn!’ Her point was about the o…
Why don't facts change our minds? This article explains the logic of false beliefs and proposes a better system for constructive conversation.
WhatsApp's rise and recent PR efforts highlight a class of business models that I call "user domestication".
If coming from Google: Click here to refresh this page, bringing all the related posts together. I found this ancient Egyptian stool on the British Museum’s website in early 2020 and fell in …
David shares the paradox of abundance and how to make a healthy information diet for yourself. Read here.
