Reading List

• Cold Paths

  Tim Kellogg

   • 

  29 Jan 2021

  A cold path is a path through the code or situation that rarely happens. By contrast, hot paths happen frequently. You don’t find bugs in hot paths. By nature, bugs are found in places that you didn’t think to look. Bugs are always in cold paths — every bug is found in a path colder than all the paths you tested.

• gifts, work, vices, hurt

  Kyle Morris

  How do you know when an activity is good or bad for you? Sometimes your brain lies and says it is good but then you regret it after. Maybe it's something hard now but pays off long-term. How do you know if you should suck it up and endure the hardship now to receive the payoff later? What if you're just abusing yourself and you don't realize there is no long-term payoff?

• On Boycotting FOSS

  Josias

  When we use proprietary software, we are under the power of the owner of the software. The owner's revenue depends on us, either directly through purchases and solutions, or indirectly by advertising. There is a relationship of power, with the owner having power over us.

• The power of three

  Leonardo Federico

   • 

  7 Feb 2021

  We are wired to tune into the power of three. Great communication is built on it. Consider many of the most durable marketing slogans: Just do it. Don't be evil. I'm lovin' it.

• App Startup vs Content Startup

  Beng Tan

  Here is something that occurred to me recently. It’s not a law or anything, but just a thought-provoking observation. I find it interesting, and maybe it’s useful as a tool in thinking about startups. Most startups are either an app startup or a content startup.

• Turn Hacker News into an RSS feed

  Matt Radford

  You're an engineer who looks at Hacker News 2-5 times a day. HN is a good way to fill the gaps in time. You scan the front page- repeatedly- for links of interest... reading titles, eyeing scores... often jumping directly to the (overtly contrarian) comments to see if a link is even worth the energy.

• Change your MAC address with a shell script

  Josh Thompson

   • 

  18 Dec 2019

  Sometimes I’m at a coffee shop and get locked out of the wifi, after an hour or two has passed. Rather than spending 2 minutes/week entering terminal commands, I thought it made sense to spend a few hours figuring out how to make it take one minute a week, instead, via AUTOMATION.