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Life, Learning & Writing

The most popular blog posts about life, learning & writing on Hacker News. 8,937 posts.

Any year
5372

How an Illinois rest stop inspired a web page

Last summer I was driving back to Chicago from Wisconsin. On the Illinois side there are a couple of rest stops over the tollway. It’s a great place to get some gas, grab some caffeine, and stretch your legs a little before the final 50 miles home. The rest stop usually has a booth where y…

5378

Why do we keep gravitating toward complexity?

The Great Pyramids took decades to build. It was a monumental feat of human ingenuity and collaboration. Today, we software developers erect our own pyramids each day - not from stone, but from code. Yet despite far more advanced tools, these systems don’t always make the experience better. So why, when KISS (Keep It…

5380

Ode to the AA Battery

Recently this post from @Merocle caught my eye: I'm fixing my iFixit soldering station. I haven't used it for a long time and the battery has gone overdischarge. I hope it will come back to life. Unfortunately, there are no replacements available for sale at the moment. Devices with built-in rechargeable batteries…

5384

Joe Stump: Your city sucks (And so does mine)

It seems the the latest craze amongst entrepreneurs and, in particular, tech “hubs” is to pull out the ruler and compare penises. As someone who’s slept with three of those technology hubs I’m going to tell you that each penis has its own merits and it’s own disadvantages. Allow me to explain.

5385

I Tried VR and It Was Just OK

It’s been about a year and a half since I wrote The Road to VR, and a… few… things have happened since then. * Facebook bought Oculus for a skadillion dollars * I have to continually read thinkpieces describing how the mere act of strapping a VR headset on your face

5393

No Paper Is That Good

Last year, Noah Smith proposed his Two Paper Rule: If you want me to read the vast literature, cite me two papers that are exemplars and paragons of that literature. Foundational papers, key recent innovations – whatever you like (but no review papers or summaries). Just two. I will read them. If these two papers […]