nico λ

At some point you will discover the Right Way to program, the thing which makes this all make sense , and you'll be convinced that the whole field would be so much better off if everybody else programmed the Right Way, too. For me the Right Way was test-driven development; for you it might be functional programming, lisp, formal methods or one of a

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Anyone who’s spent a few months at a sizable tech company can tell you that a lot of software seems to exist primarily because companies have hired people to write and maintain them. In some ways, the software serves not the business, but the people who have written it, and then those who need to maintain it. This is stupid, but also very, very... See more

When we dress our beliefs up in rational argument, we ironically end up constructing an iron-clad fantasy world. We convince ourselves that we’re immune to emotional appeal, that we alone have the pragmatic sobriety needed to see the situation clearly. But often all we’ve done is add a protective layer of reason around something that feels true.

Addiction is in all of us. This argument has come to matter a great deal to me. The reason I care about it is that when I truly felt this notion in my bones, reading accounts of addiction and recovery from across history, it was profoundly reassuring and comforting. As I write at more length in the book, I developed a sense of fellowship with all... See more

Never be afraid to say that you don’t know something

Don’t be afraid to ask for help

We all suffer(ed) impostor syndrome

For Lasch, these developments represented a betrayal of democracy: citizenship had been replaced by individualism; virtue had been supplanted by an ethic of material success; belief in equality and in civic obligations had given way to claims of individual liberty and an emphasis upon autonomy. Curiously, while the spirit of aristocratic generosity... See more

For me, my anxiety and emotional state improved when I realized I got a lot of joy and contentment from the _process_ of learning new things, and trying to gauge my improvement always meant comparing myself to others.

Preferring disconnected self-assurance and nostalgia to more honest portrayals of the world, and frequently looking to anti-intellectual grifters as leaders, the modern conservative movement never misses the opportunity to embarrass itself; always arriving to the scene a day late and a dollar short.

Replacing technology with household help is not a route to higher productivity. It seems more like a route out of the First World and into the Third.