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Life, Learning & Writing

The most popular blog posts about life, learning & writing on Hacker News. 662 posts.

2026
423

Infidel goes wild

Planetfall was yesterday's public release, but of course I've spent the past few weeks concentrating on Infidel. A couple of days I came across the most egregious bug I've yet seen in an Infocom game. This bug is extremely difficult to detect ...

425

Chest Fridge (2009)

Chest fridge Using vertical doors in refrigeration devices is an act against the Nature of Cold Air. Understanding and cooperating with Nature rather than acting against it leads to much better efficiency. My chest fridge (Vestfrost freezer turned into a fridge) consumes about 0.1 kWh a day. It works only…

426

Gone (Almost) Phishin'

This is a little embarrassing to share, but I’d rather someone else be able to spot a dangerous scam before they fall for it. So, here goes. One evening last month, my Apple Watch, iPhone, and Mac …

436

Air Purifiers as White Noise Machines

White noise machines are widely used for sound masking, increasing privacy in offices and helping people sleep. The classic approach is a fan in a box, though in the past ten years people have mostly switched over to electronic ones. But a fan is really a great approach; you just need to put it to better use: have the…

441

OLED, Not for Me

When I switched from an iMac to a Mac mini in late 2024 I choose an ASUS ProArt 5K PA27JCV (24", 60 Hz) for the monitor and while it looked great, it…

442

I’m writing again

I'm Writing Again For those of you who are still here — and given how long it's been, "still here" is a real act of patience — thank you. I haven't written a column since 2022. Just like everyone else, I've been busy all this time on Artificial Intelligence, founding with two partners a company

443

Traces Of Humanity

...or welcome back! I’ve been silent for the last 7 years and now I’m trying to resurface with this new blog :-) Some of you might remember my previous work on Qubes OS1, a paranoid-security OS, which I started back in 2009, and led its development for the