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Life, Learning & Writing
The most popular blog posts about life, learning & writing on Hacker News. 8,939 posts.
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A Note to My Readers
One of the things I’ve always tried to do at the Dish is to be up-front with readers. This sometimes means grotesque over-sharing; sometimes it means I write imprudent arguments I have to withdraw;…
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Why lack of confidence can make you a better programmer
What if you’re not a superstar programmer? What if other people work longer than you, or harder than you, or have built better projects than you? Can you succeed without self-confidence? I believe you can, and moreover I feel that lack of confidence can actually make you a better programmer.
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Can I Be Trusted?
Slashdot asks the question: I’m a big fan of Bruce Schneier, but just to play devil’s advocate, let’s say, hypothetically, that Schneier is actually in cahoots with the NSA. Who better to reinstate public trust in weakened cryptosystems? As an exercise in security that Schneier himself may find interesting, what…
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Privacy Friendly Apps – improved privacy protection on the smartphone
We use our smartphone for private conversations, store our contacts and organise our meetings with it. The access to all this sensitive data is handled with the so-called permissions. It means, for example, that each app that requires the smartphone camera needs to get the corresponding permission first. Many of the…
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Stop trying to make hard work easy
How to cope even when work is hard.
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Malthusianisms
(See also: Umeshisms, Anthropicisms) Why, in real life, do we ever encounter hard instances of NP-complete problems? Because if it’s too easy to find a 10,000-mile TSP tour, we ask for a 9,0…
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Open Circuits: The Inner Beauty of Electronic Components
Every trip to Defcon – the massive annual hacker-con in Las Vegas – is a delight. Partly it's the familiar – seeing old friends, getting updates on hacks of years gone by. But mostly, it's the surprises, the things you never anticipated. Defcon never fails to surprise.
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Things I learned writing my first technical book
A hundred things I learned writing my first technical book “Data-Oriented Programming”
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1.0 Is The Loneliest Number
Many entrepreneurs idolize Steve Jobs. He’s such a perfectionist, they say. Nothing leaves the doors of 1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino without a polish and finish that makes geeks everywhere drool. N…
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Charlie Munger on Getting Rich, Wisdom, Focus, Fake Knowledge and More
Charlie Munger offers timeless and pithy wisdom on getting rich, focus, fake knowledge, understanding our circle of competence, and so much more.
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The Math Myth (2016)
Math professor David Edwards sent me this short essay on mathematical education. Printed with his permission. The Math Myth Themath myth is the myth that the future of the American economy is dependent upon the masses having higher mathematics skills. This myth goes back to at least Sputnik, when the Russians were…
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We need more optimistic science fiction
We cannot create a better world if we cannot imagine it.
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I Lost My Past (2017)
In almost all recent literature that analyzes Br-exit and Trump-entry, there is a constant theme of a fall from the heady days at the ...
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Pizza rolls and the meaning of midcentury food
How a snacktime staple embodies a specific cultural moment
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What Is Suspension Trauma a.k.a. Harness Hang Syndrome?
orthostatic intolerance hypotension hang syndrome suspension trauma
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On the bare necessity of psychological safety
The what, why and how of effective teams
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Pinebook Pro, First Impressions
After seeing it in action at FOSDEM (from afar, as the crowd was too large), I decided to buy a Pinebook Pro for personal use. From the beginning, the intention was to use it for pkgsrc development, with NetBSD as the main OS. It was finally delivered on Thursday, one day earlier than promised, so I thought I would…
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A Question
I have a question for all the people that use their iPhone or Android to complain on Twitter, Facebook, or reddit about the lack of innovation… Or message their friends on WhatsApp or Snapchat...
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Why I Left IBM to Work on CockroachDB
I’m a database nerd. Or, to be more precise, a DBMS nerd. But back in university, I avoided the Databases course at all costs. A little ironic when you consider I quit my job building IBM Db2 to work on CockroachDB.
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How should mathematics be taught to non-mathematicians? (2012)
Michael Gove, the UK’s Secretary of State for Education, has expressed a wish to see almost all school pupils studying mathematics in one form or another up to the age of 18. An obvious quest…
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Finding Your Swagger
This is a story about a time I lost my swagger.