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Utility poles
From the highly eclectic blog of Mark Dominus
Topics /
Life, Learning & Writing
The most popular blog posts about life, learning & writing on Hacker News. 369 posts.
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How the Blog Broke the Web (2017)
I first got online in 1993, back when the Web had a capital letter — three, in fact — and long before irony stretched its legs and unbuttoned its flan
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The Second Edition of “Refactoring”
I'm finishing a new edition of my Refactoring book. Here's details and periodic memos about my work.
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How to become a part-time programmer
For some people, a 40-hour workweek is something to aspire to; for others, it’s still too much time taken up by a job. If you fall into that second category, if you want more time for hobbies, family and friends, or working on your own software projects, you too might dream of working less than full time. But how do…
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Cook My Meat: heat diffusion through meat over time
This simulation shows the heat transfer throughout various kinds of meat. In the first section, you can input the starting values for the meat. The default is a 3cm piece of steak at room temperature (73°F or 23°C). The maximum meat thickness is 30 cm since we are assuming you're not trying to cook a whole cow. The…
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How to read a mathematics textbook (2016)
Reading maths textbooks linearly doesn't work; here's what to do instead.
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Am I Happy At Work? Analyzing my entire career
I've always wondered if I'm really happy at my work. After analysing my happiness throughout my entire career, I've found the exact answer to this question!
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Anti-If: The missing patterns (2016)
Software development blog of Joe Wright
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Administrative Purgatory
your case is still going through administrative processing and we don't know when that process will be completed. Last year I was denied to go to the US when I was about to travel to San Francisco. Me and my employer's legal team never got answers as to why this happened so I've personally tried … Continue reading…
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Announcing the Second Edition of “Refactoring”
I'm finishing a new edition of my Refactoring book. Here's details and periodic memos about my work.
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Kaggle Learn review: there is a deep learning track and it is worth your time
Right from my undergrad days when I was starting out with machine learning to this date, my admiration for Kaggle continues to grow. In addition to being synonymous with and popularizing data scien…
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Advice
Every now and again, someone emails me and asks for very general advice. ("How do I change the world?") With the caveat that I've only lived a fraction of one life, and am still trying to figure things out, here's the advice I'd give past me.
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“Prestudy”: Learning Chinese Through Reading
In May 2017, I sat and passed the Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi Level 4. The HSK is a Mandarin Chinese proficency test similar to the TOEFL, and passing Level 4 mean...
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I miss blogrolls
500+ domain extensions, 100+ plugins, and the best support team on the planet. We've been changing the domain industry since 2008, and we're only getting started.
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Interviews vs. auditions
In every off-season teams in every sport begin a strange ritual. Prospective coaches are flown in to meet with management about open positions — sometimes they convene at the stadium, in nondescript conference rooms, or the cabin of the owner’s plane. Whatever the locale, the scene is usually thus: The ambitious coach…
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Leaving NYC for Nashville
For ten out of the last eleven years, I’ve lived in two places: New York City and San Francisco. The last two years have been in NYC. After founding Ursa Labs , a not-for-profit open source development group, I felt it was time to make my home somewhere that isn’t either of those places. After some contemplation and…
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Why don't I take military funding? (2004)
Mostly it's a testimony that it's possible to have a successful career in computer science without taking military funding. My position has its roots in the Vietnam War, when I was a conscientious objector, did alternative service instead of submitting to the draft, and joined the Society of Friends (Quakers). During…
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The Bitter Truth of Learning: It’s Tough, Unpleasant, and Often Pointless
Sometimes an insignificant interaction, or an excerpt from a book, is capable of provoking a life-changing insight. It might be an obvious lesson, but it feels epiphanic because it fits differently into my understanding of things. For instance…
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The Absolute Denial of Shit
Today emoji are used by 92% of the world’s online population. The diminutive images have inspired a holiday and a $50 million animated movie. You can even make a living translating them. The Emojicon convention draws attendees from around the world. Topics of discussion at the 2018 gathering in Brooklyn include: “How…
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Augmenting Long-term Memory
One day in the mid-1920s, a Moscow newspaper reporter named Solomon Shereshevsky entered the laboratory of the psychologist Alexander Luria. Shereshevsky's boss at the newspaper had noticed that Shereshevsky never needed to take any notes, but somehow still remembered all he was told, and had suggested he get his…
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The Declining Value of a CS Master's Degree (2013)
I don’t know if it helps, but Illinois CS distinguishes the two kinds of programs with two different degrees: MS in CS for the research program, and MCS for the coursework program. Most of the MS students receive funding andtuition waivers, while I’m not sure if the MCS students are even eligible for support.
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What I’ve Been Doing Since Quitting My Job
An update on my progress since going off to work on my own.
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Do What You Love and Starve? (2006)
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John Ousterhout: My favorite sayings
Programmers tend to worry too much and too soon about performance. Many college-level Computer Science classes focus on fancy algorithms to improve performance, but in real life performance rarely matters. Most real-world programs run plenty fast enough on today's machines without any particular attention to…