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Life, Learning & Writing

The most popular blog posts about life, learning & writing on Hacker News. 359 posts.

2017
212

Worldbuilding

There is a grand tradition of scientifically minded science fiction authors creating not just the characters in their novels but also the brass tacks scientific details of the planets they reside on. This is the art and science of Worldbuilding .

216

In love with the BBC micro:bit

I finally got my hands on the micro:bit , the BBC ’s new educational computer and spiritual successor to the legendary BBC Micro , and I’m absolutely in love with its potential as a platform for learning how to code.

224

Geek Career Paths

Suppose you’re doing technology, and like doing technology, and your career’s going well, and you find yourself wondering what you’re going to be doing in twenty years. I’ve been down several of the roads you might decide to take, and it occurs to me that talking them over might amuse and inform.

228

Notes for the New Year

Happy 2017! As a kid, I just sort of took for granted that stuff got better every year—TVs got bigger and then thinner, cars got a little faster, and computers got unbelievably better on an exponential curve. As an adult, I realized that the future is not guaranteed to be better. The default is that things stay the…

232

Why I left Academia: Part I

Two months before defending my dissertation, I found out that a professor had published my own work ahead of me. My story caught the attention of academics all over the world, going viral in 2017. This post is about why I left academia, and what I discovered when Post-PhD the blog went viral: that I

234

Finding an Alternative to Mac OS X – Part 2

This is the second in my series on finding an alternative to Mac OS X. Part 1 was about evaluating 13 alternative operating systems and then choosing one to use full time. The selected OS was elementary OS. The motivation for this change is to get access to better hardware since Apple is neglecting the Mac lineup.