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Three of the Hundred Falsehoods CS Students Believe
Earlier this year, many people were passing around this article about "re-learning how to be yourself online". Near the end the author reaches a set of questions that are motivating him:
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How much free time do you have?
I made a quick tool (for no real reason) to calculate and visualize 'free time' based on the selection of criteria shown below. Replace my responses with yours, and hit 'run' to see how much free time you have.
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Burnout
I have burned out twice – once at 26, once at 30. Each time it took months to come back and feel like myself again. Burnout affects everyone differently; it’s only in hindsight that I’ve been able to understand how it affected me, and learned to recognize the signs.
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Getting Ahead by Being Inefficient
Inefficient does not mean ineffective, and it is certainly not the same as lazy. You get things done – just not in the most effective way possible. You’re a bit sloppy, and use more energy. But don’t feel bad about it. There is real value in not being the best.
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One week of empathy training
I've spent a week cosplaying as a disabled user. And I hate it. A couple of months ago, I attended a private talk given by a disabled colleague of mine. "Everyone should believe disabled people's stories about accessibility problems," she said. "But, given that people don't, here's what I want you to do. Spend one…
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There and Snack Again: How to Eat Everything in the Lord of the Rings
In February 2018, my wife & I decided to embark on a gruelling quest: to watch all three Lord of the Rings films (extended editions, of course), while attempting to eat everything that got eaten on screen. We were doing it in memory of my parents, who had both recently died, and who had loved both LOTR and good food…
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Key practices for achieving large professional goals
My hope is that this post will help you reach your own goals in 2020. I attained several long-term professional goals in 2019 and I’d like to share the key practices for how I did that to help you along your way. We’ll return to Cloud, Security, and DevOps topics in the New Year. I
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Too Much Dark Money in Almonds
Everyone always talks about how much money there is in politics. This is the wrong framing. The right framing is Ansolabehere et al’s: why is there so little money in politics? But Ansolabehe…
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What It's Like to View a SpaceX Falcon Heavy Launch
Olivier Forget's Personal Blog
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Richard Feynman's Extraordinary Letter to His Departed Wife
Where the hard edge of physics meets the vulnerable metaphysics of the human heart.
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I Nearly Lost All of My Data
My home server completely shit the best recently and I thought I'd lost all my data.
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Some Favorite Non-Technical Books (2018)
I'm often asked what non-technical books I read, so here is a list of a few of my favorites.
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Some people who take psychedelics continue hallucinating indefinitely
[Related to: Relaxed Beliefs Under Psychedelics And The Anarchic Brain, HPPD And The Specter Of Permanent Side Effects] I. Hallucinogen persisting perceptual disorder is a condition where people wh…
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Apprenticeships Beat Classrooms
Apprenticeships beat schooling. Here's why they're a superior method for learning, and how you can apply this to the things you want to master.
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We’re Reading Fahrenheit 451 Wrong (2018)
I was reminded of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 a day or two ago while reading Ian Bogost on Apple’s Airpods. Bogost examined Airpods’ potential long term social consequences. …
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Tokyo mechanical keyboard meetup photos
Last sunny Saturday, there was the biggest keyboard mee…
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Autistic Burnout: The Cost of Masking and Passing (2017)
Autistic burnout is a state of physical and mental fatigue, heightened stress, and diminished capacity to manage life skills, sensory input, and/or social interactions, which comes from years of being severely overtaxed by the strain of trying to live up to demands that are out of sync with our needs.
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Tips I use to avoid burnout
Tips I use to avoid burnout:
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One Year in San Francisco as a Software Engineer
In 2017 the company I worked for in Toronto got acquired by Yelp. The software engineers in my company (including myself) were asked to move to San Francisco. At the end of 2017 we moved, and I spent most of 2018 there. With the year coming to an end, I thought it might be a good time to reflect on my time there.
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Cancer Progress: Much More Than You Wanted To Know (2018)
Official statistics say we are winning the War on Cancer. Cancer incidence rates, mortality rates, and five-year-survival rates have generally been moving in the right direction over the past few d…
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Scissor Statements: Sort by Controversial
[Epistemic status: fiction] Thanks for letting me put my story on your blog. Mainstream media is crap and no one would have believed me anyway. This starts in September 2017. I was working for a sm…
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There are no adults in the room
Dear new developer, One of the most shocking things I learned when I started working in a professional capacity is that there are no adults in the room. That is not to denigrate everyone at your co…