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Topics /
Life, Learning & Writing
The most popular blog posts about life, learning & writing on Hacker News. 615 posts.
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Why Can't I Reproduce Their Results?
Computer Science, Machine Learning, Programming, Art, Mathematics, Philosophy, and Short Fiction
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How to Be Helpful Online
Helping people online is difficult. We expect technical questions and discussions, but everyone involved are just people, so it doesn’t always go smoothly.
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Working from home on the //c+
In honor of Apple's 44th birthday today, I decided to set up my //c+ as a terminal using my homebuilt wifi modem. Getting modem.mgr...
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Thoughts on Voice Interfaces
I’ve been working on the Consumer Voice Products team in Mozilla for about a year now. My primary project has been Firefox Voice , but our mandate is larger.
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Why I teach vim
The why of why people use vim has been covered fairly extensively, so I thought I would spend a little time explaining why I teach vim to my high school students, even in 2020. It all began when I …
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How much things can change
This post is about how much things can change in the world over a lifetime. I’m going to restrict my attention to science, though there are many parallels in technology, human rights, and social justice.
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How to Drive on Sand Without Getting Stuck (2017)
Tips and techniques for driving in sandy conditions. Must read before hitting the beach or dunes in your vehicle to avoid getting stuck because it is very easy to get stuck in sand. Avoid joining the 'digging club'!
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I Feel Like I Have No Real Interests; My Only Interest Is Making Money
I feel like I have no real interests or hobbies. My only interest is making money and the pursuit of any activity which can lead to that quickly. However, I feel like this attitude is robbing me of fulfillment and life experiences.
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Enjoy the Best, Not the Latest, Media
Tried and tested beats new and marketed
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Gresham’s Law: Bad Drives Out Good as Time Passes (2009)
Gresham's Law is an economic principle that sates "the bad drives out the good" as time passes. The concept has many broad and far reaching consequences.
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Sir Ian McKellen's Lord of the Rings Production Blogs
Journal entry from 20 August 1999, introducing his new blog about The Lord of the Rings.
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Ignore Sunk Costs (2009)
The most important decision-making rule you learn in business school is still largely misunderstood. When making a choice between two options, only consider what’s going to happen in the futu…
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What does happiness at work mean?
An unscientifical and personal approach.
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My New FreeBSD Laptop: Dell Latitude 7390
A few months ago, after my System76 Galago Pro had its second experience with a dead/swelling batery, I decided that it was time to replace it. On February 15th, I ordered a Dell Latitude 7390.
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Building a PC, Part IX: Downsizing
Hard to believe that I’ve had the same PC case since 2011, and my last serious upgrade was in 2015. I guess that’s yet another sign that the PC is over, because PC upgrades have gotten really boring. It took 5 years for me to muster up the
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On Scaling Mental Models
No Newsletter Next Week I'll be on vacation in the Caribbean, sipping drinks and juggling for Hermit crabs. The Actual Thing I'm a vim user. I've used Vim...
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Dishwashing detergent hack: Two ingredients (2015)
Run out of dishwasher detergent - here is my two ingredient dishwasher detergent hack that will get your dishes clean until you can restock.
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Why I often implement things from scratch (2006)
Once upon a time there was an Erlang programmer who needed an FTP server running on one of the hosts in a private network. In fact he didn't...
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You might as well be a great copy editor
Alas, our minds automatically fill in gaps and cover over mistakes when we read.
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Coping with Cats
I love my two cats dearly and they bring a lot of joy to my life, but they also bring other things, like poop, and fur. When I tried to research mitigations for any of these it was 100% SEO listic…
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Pseudonymity as a Trivial Concession to Genius
Update (6/24): For further thoughts and context about this unfolding saga, see this excellent piece by Tom Chivers (author of The AI Does Not Hate You, so far the only book about the rationalist co…
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Toddlers who use touchscreens show attention differences
New research from Dr Rachael Bedford as part of the TABLET project recruited 12-month-old infants who had different levels of touchscreen usage.
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Unexpected, Useless, and Urgent, or What RSS Gets Right
Thinking about inbox management, RSS feeds, and email overload