8191
Get specific (2008)
Derek Sivers official site. Thoughts on philosophy, culture, self-improvement. Author of Useful Not True, How to Live, Hell Yeah or No, Anything You Want.
Topics /
Life, Learning & Writing
The most popular blog posts about life, learning & writing on Hacker News. 8,940 posts.
8192
Things I’ve Learned from Charlie Munger about Moats (2015)
1. “We have to have a business with some inherent characteristics that give it a durable competitive advantage.” Professor Michael Porter calls barriers to market entry that a business may have…
8193
Types of Legal Argument
I have been teaching about legal reasoning and legal argumentation for years. When I do so, I try to impress upon students that legal argume...
8194
Life lessons from differential equations (2015)
Some problems simply have no solution. Some problems have no simple solution. Some problems have many solutions. ...
8195
8196
When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth (2007)
This story is part of Cory Doctorow’s 2007 short story collection “Overclocked: Stories of the Future Present,” published by Thunder’s Mouth, a division of Avalon Books. It is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 license, about which you’ll find more at the end of this file.
8197
8198
The Beatles’ collaborative notes: Three ways to write a song
"Just say whatever comes into your head each time..."
8199
CS50, Harvard’s Largest Class Expands Its Line Up of Courses
CS50 launches three new courses that go beyond the original course and teach Python, Javascript, React, and Game Development
8200
Linguistic Harbingers of Betrayal
In life, love, war, and planetary colonization, even long-lasting friendships can end if one betrays the other's trust for his own gain. We studied the language of betrayal by observing players of Diplomacy , the game that ruins friendships . In this very popular game, players can form alliances and try to conquer the…
8201
“The Great Plate Count Anomaly” that is no more
by Gemma Reguera — For over a century, microbiologists have been using growth media solidified with agar to culture microbes from environmental samples. Individual cells are easily separated on th…
8202
Flipping until you are lost
Start with any triangulation of a convex polygon, and then repeatedly choose a random diagonal and flip it, replacing the two triangles it borders with two d...
8203
Eating Fruit Skins
This summer, I learned that one can eat a whole apple. Every part of the apple is edible 1 . Before learning this, I would just eat the flesh and throw away the core. The core seemed hard and jagged and inedible. Turns out, you can eat the whole thing. I suppose I’ve always known that deer eat the whole apple. Why…
8204
8205
What use is mental math in 2022?
The ability to quick estimates is still valuable, maybe more valuable than it used to be.
8206
8207
My lazy Wordle strategy: same words every time
TL;DR: After the analysis in this post, I started using SLANT/PRICE/DOUGH/BALMY, but it may not be the best sequence for you.
8208
8209
Stop the “Hard Work” Obsession
One of the persistent myths in America is that success is primarily down to hard work. Yes, you cannot have success by lying on the Sofa…
8210
Brainwashing is sorcery
Can’t bring yourself to slaughter a nearby village, or a long-time associate?
8211
My techno-optimism
Special thanks to Morgan Beller, Juan Benet, Eli Dourado, Karl Floersch, Sriram Krishnan, Nate Soares, Jaan Tallinn, Vincent Weisser, Balvi volunteers and others for feedback and review.
8212
Instagram Ruined Photography for Me
The story of why I stopped taking photos
8213
GPG and Me (2015)
I receive a fair amount of email from strangers. My email address is public, which doesn’t seemto be a popular choice these days, but I’ve received enough inspiring correspondence over the yearsto leave it be.When I receive a GPG encrypted email from a stranger, though, I immediately get the fee...
8214
Revisiting Stereotype Threat
A Reckoning for Social Psychology
8215
Richard Stallman: "I Wished I Had Killed Myself"
I received a review copy of Steven Levy's seminal book Hackers back in the 1980s, but never read it. I did, though, keep it, because it lo...
8216
8217
Lobsters Interview
I recently had an engaging conversation with Alex ( @veqq ) from the Lobsters community about computing, mathematics and a range of related topics. Our conversation was later published on the community website as Lobsters Interview with Susam .
8218
Camembert President
LA CAMPAGNE NUMERO DEUX : Why do we, French people, care so much about the presidential election — and why it all goes back to cheese.
8219
High Altitude Living – 8,000 ft and above (2021)
Living at high altitude reduces risk of dying from heart disease: Low oxygen may spur genes to create blood vessels. Summary: Researchers have found that people living at higher altitudes have a lower chance of dying from heart disease and live longer. Jeanne and I live at 8,400 feet (2.560 meters)
8220
What I've learned about the trombone
Including a little dive into the physics behind it