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Rakhim
09  novembre     00h00
The Yearly Run (sci-fi short story)
   article p text indent: . em; Pochards , was the first word spoken today. Emil looked up cautiously, keeping the corner of his eye on the road. Several dots on the dark blue morning sky, no clouds. He was never quite sure whether dad could really recognize particular species of birds at this...
05  novembre     00h00
Blogging vs. blog setups
  
16  septembre     11h06
I’m shutting down most of my projects
   I decided to shut down most of my projects. All existing static content text, audio, video will remain available for as long as possible. Any running code will halt by the end of September. Open source code will remain available on Github. Here is the complete list: Apps Geostreaks. iOS app for...
26  août     09h53
The wrong good solution
   City planners know that you can’t solve traffic problems by building more roads. We could apply this line of thinking in our personal lives, too. I’ve written about small battery productivity before, and the more I think about the pattern, there more missed opportunities I see. One day I thought...
18  août     07h36
The mandatory smartphone
   I hate to use a smartphone. Being able to view maps, look up info on the go and listen to music is great, but I always felt that smartphones are like plastic utensils. Very useful on the go, but temporary in nature. A compromise. Using a smartphone for more than a few minutes in a row feels wrong....
01  août     00h00
Eventual Consistency (sci-fi short story)
   article p text indent: . em; They housed me in a small metallic room and gave me pants, a small towel and soap. Others from my group were close by in similar rooms, all in the same building where we woke up. Someone had asked if we could go outside, but I didn’t hear the reply. Few days later I...
29  juillet     00h00
Small battery productivity
   A Scottish writer Matt Gemmell described a technique of small screen productivity . He was talking about either a small laptop or a tablet which doesn’t allow him to see many contexts simultaneously, thus boosting creative output. One window, small screen, no distractions. I dislike laptops, but...
23  juillet     09h59
It’s okay to walk uphill
   At first I cycled up the hill with all my force trying to impress the world. My athletic sweat was the only thing that showed the effort. My face was trying to do the opposite, to convince the unseen viewer that the ascent is effortless, easy even. Then I started noticing it. Who is the viewer Am...
01  juillet     16h29
Fundamental Attribution of Ability Error
   There’s this thing called fundamental attribution error: In social psychology, fundamental attribution error FAE , also known as correspondence bias or attribution effect, is the tendency for people to under emphasize situational explanations for an individual’s observed behavior while over...
26  juin     16h29
It’s all just fashion shows
   I always thought these fashion runway shows are kind of silly. Are you guys okay .. I just don’t want to deal with this stuff in any way. Luckily, I can ignore it for the most part. Although, random changes in trendiness affects my personal ability to buy a simple t shirt or a hoodie without...
01  juin     16h29
Weird Finnish elative case
   Finnish language has noun cases which pack a lot of expressive power. For example, let’s take the word kissa cat . Here are some of the cases: kissan of cat kissan koko; the size of the cat kissassa in cat hiiri on kissassa; the mouse is in the cat kissasta from inside the cat ...
10  février     16h29
Summary of Truth about Types, a talk by Bartosz Milewski
   Intro Category theory abstracts many branches of math. You can describe topology, logic, Banach spaces and other concepts in terms of category theory. Why is it so Does category theory describe the nature, the intrinsic reality, and we happened to discover it like physicists discover the laws of...
31  janvier     12h39
Summary of Transducers, a talk by Rich Hickey
   Intro What are transducers The basic idea is to extract the essence of map, filter and other functions that transform sequences and collections, and reuse this essence so that it can be applied elsewhere; to recast them as process transformations. The kind of process for which we can use...
30  janvier     11h09
Fastmail setup with Emacs, mu4e and mbsync on macOS
   I guess it was inevitable. Once you embrace Emacs, at some point you gonna want to do email in it. Honestly, I don’t think I’ll stick with it, but as an experiment, I want to try and see whether it makes sense to use Emacs as an email client. These are my requirements: Fastmail as email provider....
20  décembre     14h25
Summary of Concurrency Is Not Parallellism, a talk by Rob Pike
   This is a complete summary of an excellent talk by Rob Pike Concurrency is Not Parallelism . Illustrations and diagrams are recreated; source code taken verbatim from the slides, except for comments, which were extended in some places. You can get a set of PDF preview HTML epub Kindle versions...
27  novembre     13h09
Coding vs. Programming vs. Software Engineering
   I don’t think there are formal definitions for either coding or programming or even software engineering , even though the latter is used in formal contexts like academia and human resources. They are vague, pliable terms which mean different things to different people. I want to share how I...
26  novembre     08h02
Examples are the best documentation
   When I’m searching for docs, of the time a single example would suffice. Yet, of the time I can’t find one in any official source. It seems that by default formal technical documentation is targeted towards someone who’s deeply immersed in the ecosystem. But many developers have to juggle a...
20  novembre     10h48
The price of complexity
   Computer programmers often talk about tackling complexity, yet they thrive on complexity. I believe tech people experience a constant dilemma: on one hand, we want things to be simple and straightforward; on the other hand we love complex structures and engineering marvels. I think about this today...
22  octobre     07h51
User Is Dead
   User is dead. User remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the developers, the designers, the growth hackers What was holiest and the final judge of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our a b tests and new features. Who will wipe this blood off...
03  septembre     15h06
Be Wary of Self Described Benefits
   Picking a university was one of the main tasks in the last year of high school. That and exams. I wasn’t sure what to study and which place to pick. I had no idea how one can make these choices. There weren’t too many resources available at the time. So, a lot of us relied on promotional info...
29  juillet     14h24
Process of Learning
   A process of learning is analogous to an attempt of building a three dimensional model from two dimensional photos. You approach a new area of knowledge. You know nothing at all. You stumble upon a first piece: That’s more than nothing, but still very little. You don’t understand it. At best,...
27  juillet     08h47
Bicycles and Love
   I love bicycles. The first memories I have are bike related. The best ones are, too. My first bicycle was a tricycle I don’t remember a time I didn’t bike. Bicycle means freedom. My first serious bicycles, the ones that let me explore the city, were old, steel soviet tanks. They were...
30  mai     09h27
80-characters limit for text is wrong
   I believe the characters or any other number line limit for text to be wrong. Not archaic or irrelevant, but wrong. It violates a fundamental idea of computer science: separating layers of abstraction. Not talking about code today, although, I don’t think a strict limit is a good thing there...
15  mai     14h51
Rethinking Twitter
   Good old days Twitter is the only social media I’ve ever used. Sure, I had accounts on other sites, but was never really engaged elsewhere. I couldn’t understand all those facebook addiction stories, honestly. Facebook was always extremely boring, while Twitter was always exciting. From the...
21  avril     11h16
Easy slides (for me)
   As a software developer, at some point you discover simple slides and presentation generators: Markdown to PDF HTML converters, Emacs extensions, LaTeX exporters, VIM plugins, etc. The idea makes perfect sense, because: I don’t want to use PowerPoint or Keynote. I don’t want to use the mouse. I...
15  avril     13h23
How to podcast
   Here is a TL;DR version: Record using whatever. Even smartphones produce decent sound nowadays. Just make sure to have a consistent volume, i.e. maintain constant distance between your mouth and the phone. Compress to kbps mp constant bitrate. Or use an online encoder like Pinecoder. Pick...
27  février     12h25
Frontend vs. Functional Programming Conferences
  
17  décembre     15h43
Christmas Wish
  
30  novembre     20h58
If real life were as buggy as software
  
16  novembre     14h20
Evolution of Frontend vs. Backend
  
07  novembre     11h27
The Ultimate AI answers the Ultimate Question
  
31  octobre     12h52
Dazed, depressed, defunct
   I’ve been journaling daily for years, but stopped this summer. There are many reasons, but one stands out: it makes me sad to read my journal. DayOne app has a nice feature: show entries for this day over the past years . I used to start each morning by reading journal entries from the...
29  octobre     08h51
Important Git Realization
  
23  octobre     09h13
Every movie that involves computers
  
22  octobre     08h39
Kids nowadays are LIKE stupid
  
15  octobre     11h30
A case against LISP
  
11  octobre     06h26
Software updates throughout history
  
08  octobre     07h29
People don’t change
  
05  octobre     11h01
React Expectation vs Reality
  
01  octobre     10h53
Make Firefox faster and nicer on macOS
   I’m trying Firefox as my primary browser on all devices. It has some great features like Multi Account containers in addition to being a non Google product, which is an increasingly rare feature on the web nowadays. Firefox on macOS is somewhat sluggish at the moment. If you try the current stable...
28  septembre     20h16
I can’t believe this happened again
  
27  septembre     20h16
A company sells your data
  
26  septembre     20h16
Product manager’s bedtime story
  
    11h24
For Google, you’re neither the consumer nor the product. You’re a data point.
   In light of recent changes to Google Chrome, many forums have filled with bitter discussions. Here are just a few: Chrome will keep Google Cookies when you tell it to delete all cookies Why I’m done with Chrome HN discussion Using Gmail You will be force logged into Chrome At some point...
20  septembre     14h18
A Simple Introduction to Proof by Induction
   Now that you’re familiar with direct proof and proof by contradiction, it’s time to discover a powerful technique of proof by induction. Aside: do not confuse mathematical induction with inductive or deductive reasoning. Despite the name, mathematical induction is actually a form of deductive...
17  septembre     20h57
RE: Software disenchantment
   Nikita just published Software disenchantment, and here is my rant y reply. Please, read his post first. TL;DR: I agree with Nikita and I am equally frustrated with the current state of the industry. We started grumpy.website together, after all. But I don’t believe that situation will...
14  septembre     18h10
Dumb Down the Context Until the Problem Goes Away
   At work we use SCSS and HAML, so I rarely write pure HTML and CSS there. But for small side projects and my personal blog I tend to stick with the simplest and dumbest possible tools. This week I was working on a refreshed look for this blog. Being a good modern man, I tried to stick with em or...
12  septembre     14h49
A Simple Introduction to Proof by Contradiction
   In mathematics, a theorem is a true statement, but the mathematician is expected to be able to prove it rather than take it on faith. The proof is a sequence of mathematical statements, a path from some basic truth to the desired outcome. An impeccable argument, if you will. One of the basic...
10  septembre     13h54
Keyboard fanaticism
   I’ve been reading an article about Emacs, and this paragraph had nailed me right into the soul: IDE users spend most of their time fumbling around with the mouse. They wouldn’t dream of doing it any other way, but they don’t realize how inefficient their motions are. ... Whenever you need to jump...
07  septembre     09h31
Personal finances and controlled anarchy
   Most of my life, I didn’t have much money. I was born in the s in a tiny Kazakh town, and nobody had a job there, it seemed. USSR just collapsed and my parents were trying to make ends meet in a constant hustle. That life defined my relationship with money and wealth for years to come. Every time...