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How I Learned to Program
How I learned to program, and my advice for beginners: use Linux, want it badly, build small command line programs, write a lot, join IRC, have fun.
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Life, Learning & Writing
The most popular blog posts about life, learning & writing on Hacker News. 8,937 posts.
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The Sphere
Las Vegas’ $2.3 billion immersive flagship takes a distressingly prophetic look inward.
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A Hacker Writes a Children's Book
[2018 Update: After posting this article and making it to the top of r/programming and HackerNews sales of the book increased noticeably. The book is now nic...
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Everything You Should Know About Sound (2016)
We all know what sound is. Except actually, no we don't. Let's fix that.
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Books of a Highly Effective Programmer (2009)
Like many programmers, I’m always on the lookout for the perfect programming book. Over the years I have tried to enumerate a few key examples , however after reading them all I am still left wanting. However, I recently came across a couple interesting blog posts [^motivation] that motivated me that the only way to…
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Two epigenetic regulators interfere with healthy aging
It has long been assumed that lifespan and health are strongly correlated, but although there has been an overall increase in human life expectancy
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A better way to teach technical skills to a group
Thank for you sharing this method – it sounds great, and I’m keeping it mind for the next time I have to do some teaching like this (which doesn’t come up so often for me).
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Early Retirement (2006)
The joys, challenges, and some practical aspects of retiring young.
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Intravenous Caffeine
If there’s a hole in your body, you can put drugs into it.
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I was terrified of an eyeball injection
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.
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Thanks Mr. Jobs, But it Seems I Can Use a Linux Laptop Now
So, back in 1997 I installed my first copy of FreeBSD. I had to do some major research to get X Windows up and running, and the next computer I bought I very carefully selected a video card to make things easier. I was happy, I was able to use gcc, but getting online via
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My 2020 desk setup
I generally enjoy reading the uses this blog, and recently people have been talking about desk setups in my bubble (and on my Twitch stream), so I figured I’d write a post about my current setup!
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How to graduate your PhD when you have no hope
a.k.a. Richard Hamming vs. Richard Feynman
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The Home Computer Generation
A seemingly frightening realization regularly dawns on various pundits these days: Being a digital native doesn't automatically mean you're computer savvy. Due to a gradual transformation from general purpose tools to digital appliances, computers are now more than ever perceived as magical boxes by their users. Many…
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I Used Netscape Composer in 2024
The story of a geeky twist on "Party like it's 1999".
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Elitism as the mid-career growth engine
Technical excellence begins in wonder but is honed by disgust
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My Preferred Smart Home Vendors
A non-exhaustive list of smart home devices that work well with Home Assistant
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Hallelujah, Leonard Cohen, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer's suicide
Genius is fragile. Success, even more so. What does it mean then for an artist to fail?
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Creativity is the new moat
AI makes it fast and easy to copy what’s already out there—but your competitive edge could learn a little something from web history
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I'm making drugs for cats
For all the new readers who’ve joined since my post about effective altruism and elections, welcome!
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Choosing an op-amp for your project
Just say no to LM741 and LM324 / LM358.
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Patina and Intimacy
“Each one of us has, somewhere in his heart, the dream to make a living world, a universe.”
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Seven Minutes in Ubuntu: A Mac user's first impressions
For a while now, I've been using my home machine with MAMP to develop a research prototype. But last week, I got my hands on a PC to use as a web server. Before I could get started on it though, I needed an operating system to install — ideally one that would get the