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OurCar: What I learned making an app for my family
An adventure in making a utility
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Life, Learning & Writing
The most popular blog posts about life, learning & writing on Hacker News. 662 posts.
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The Zettelkasten method in Obsidian
Learn how to set up a working Zettelkasten in Obsidian: note types, vault structure, MOCs, and how AI handles the maintenance that kills most systems.
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Why etymologies matter: How tracing words can illuminate history (2024)
How tracing words can illuminate history
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The Self-Help Trap: What 20 Years of "Optimizing" Has Taught Me
“We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is to learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.” — Aldous Huxley, Island It was cold out, but none of us were cold. I sat with five men in the mountains of Montana. As the sun set, the fire […]
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Tragically, as many as 9625 out of every 10k individuals may be neurotypical
Neurotypical syndrome is a neurobiological disorder characterized by preoccupation with social concerns, delusions of superiority, and obsession with conformity.
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My two year old taught me constraint solving
My two-year-old son used a Brio wooden train set to explain constraint solving to his silly Dada.
607
To write non-fiction, draw the trunk, then the rest of the tree
– an owl mid flight I saw last summer. try drawing it. “You should have failed this class. I’m going to make accommodations so that no student can pass next semester the same way you did.” This is what my Ancient History II professor told me when my group and I got our final group project essay handed out. Every group…
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Make your own microforest (2025)
The Miyawaki method of reforestation inserts small, densely packed wild acreage into urban environs. It’s proving wildly successful.
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Curiosity Traps
On reverse honeypots, rewarding close attention, and finding your people
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Ex-Tech –> Homeless in SF
Dignity moves, the mission of survival, and $140 million across the river
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Itadakimasu: A word you say to the food, not the cook
On a small Japanese word that everyone has heard and almost everyone has misaddressed, and what changes when you find out who it is for.
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Flat Chair by Sara Paculdo
Innovative Housewares This page : SMART IRON | FRISPER | FLAT CHAIR PROJECT | FIRST AID WITH A FACE OLISO is a small design firm focused on delivering inventive solutions to "change your home and lifestyle." As the sole industrial designer at the time, Sara worked with engineering, marketing
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Build Yourself Flowers
Living and working in a world of generated code.
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Are we tired of social media? (2025)
I've been asking this question to myself a few times now. When ...
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Defending my own brain against enshittification
If you haven't had Belvita breakfast cookies, you have probably had Biscoff cookies, which are similar. These are a classic airline snack. You've probably ha...
617
Why do you suck at juggling now?
This is an anecodote that I often think about. It comes up for me a few times a week, whenever I feel really dumb or inept. The story is about juggling but it is really about much more than juggling.
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Your body of work thinks back at you
I’ve been taking photos of benches for years. Sometimes on purpose because I find them intriguing and I have an thing for objects designed for people but without anybody using them, sometimes just because they were there next to my subject. Last year, looking at these photographs, I noticed something I didn’t know…
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On Really Trying (2009)
What are the true limits to motivation?
621
It's cool to care (2025)
Caring deeply – about art, my friends, and shared experiences – has brought me so much joy.
622
The thing that brought me joy
The code is not the point, but what if it’s the reason?
623
Typography on Pencils (2023)
It wouldn't be Pencil Day without a round up of our pencil typography photos. Check out our current stock of new & vintage pencils here. Please do credit us if you use these images anywhere. Thank you.
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Heavy TV watching associated with smaller brain structures, study finds
Reduced volume was found in areas of the brain connected to memory formation, indicating a potential link between TV watching and higher dementia risk.
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How I archived 10 years of memories using Spotify
David's notes.
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Moby Dick Workout (2022)
How many items should your todo list handle? Not the most pressing question in the world, but one that I sometimes wonder about. I think productivity apps should scale to “user…
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I quit editing photos
Editing photos as I press the shutter.
628
There's No Limit to How Bad Code Can Get
Metaphors like "a sinking ship" are often used to describe codebases, but are misleading. A _business_ will sink long before code quality reaches a hypothetical floor. Technical debt has no bankruptcy, no clean reset, so metaphors that imply an end provide a false sense of security.
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TextEdit vs. Pages
Allison Sheridan is right when she says TextEdit can usually do the job. But I'm sticking with Pages anyway.
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Felix and I
He is young – twenty four – sitting at the black computer table by the wall of his living room. I’m looking at him side-on. He’s silhouetted by the huge window with a gorgeous view of the neighbourhood church. Green trees outside. The sun is shining brightly. It’s summer. Probably “The Hot Summer”, when our friends G…