Gains I'm seeing from my second brain tool
Field notes on shipping fast, privacy-first, evergreen web products.
How did I get so unhappy working in tech?
Click to read Mr. Chan's guide to substitute teaching, a Substack publication.
Living Like Nothing Matters
Some thoughts on the universe.
Pwned, the book
The first time I ever wrote publicly about a company's security vulnerabilities, my boss came to have a word with me after seeing my name in the news headlines. One of the worst days I've ever had was right in the middle of the Have I Been Pwned
How To Know Everything
At its simplest, this book deals with the art of asking questions. In reality, it’s about Socratic philosophy. It’s about our willingness to open our minds, close our mouths and listen. The c…
Being-Doing Balance over Work-Life Balance
My fantasy for work-life integration today
My favorite essays of life advice (2020)
Life is short • There is no speed limit • How to Be Successful • You and your research • Becoming a Magician • 95th percentile isn’t that good
Learning to think critically about machine learning
Graduate students are helping to infuse ethical computing content into MIT’s largest machine learning course, as part of the Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing initiative.
Once in a Lifetime
Here is what might possibly be my single favorite song in the world:
There are not enough BTUs
Y'all ready for it?
That time when I accidentally social engineered myself to a film set
I spent the last week in Toronto in the Cpp North conference . It was so much fun just to hang around with people after such a long pause.My...
Ali, what’s up
From time to time I buy stuff on AliExpress, mostly electronics. It has such a huge amount of items available which amazes me every time. Lots of quality stuff and lots of lesser quality stuff. Today, I found that it has rather strange text in the placeholder for the search box when the site is displayed in Dutch:
On Learning Smalltalk
Summary: In 2021 I learned Smalltalk, mostly using the lovely Pharo implementation. While the syntax of the language is quite nice, it...
Quicker and easier ways to get more light
From the highly eclectic blog of Mark Dominus
Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones
How do habits work? How do you change your habits? How do you hold yourself accountable? This complete habits guide contains everything you need to know.
Aerodynamics of Gravel Bikes
Aerodynamics are an important factor in gravel racing and riding. Gravel racing speeds are high—the fastest riders in the 200-mile Unbound average 20 mph (32 km/h) across the Flint Hills of Kansas. And many gravel races can be extremely windy. Optimizing the aerodynamics of a…
Justice Clarence Thomas uncovered a seven-year-old bug in my program (2013)
Franklin Chen's personal website and blog
Write Like You Code
Similarities between good writing and good code.
Five Levels of Hype
Trying to categorize exuberance
Cognitive load theory and its applications for learning
What makes learning hard? How can we make it easier? Cognitive load theory explains how we learn and how to do it better.
The “je ne sais quoi” of TikTok
How a misunderstood platform has completely taken over the world.
High-intensity exercise, some new news
Several months I noticed something interesting (to me!) about my heart rate, and I thought about blogging about it…but I didn’t feel like it would be interesting (to you!) so I’ve been hesitant. But then the NYT published something that is kinda related and I thought OK, what the hell, maybe it’s time for an update…