nico λ

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.

1. People don't listen to me because I'm a good programmer, they listen to me because I'm a good writer. The same is true of pretty much everybody you'll read. This doesn't mean you should automatically reject everything, but it means you should carefully think about it and evaluate how it applies to your situation. And take any argument about

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The world of quantum mechanics and quantum field theory introduce a different conception of what things are though. It turns out that elementary particles can’t be thought of as individual ‘things’ which have a volume. In fact, if particles did have a volume, physics wouldn’t work! We would end up with "surfaces" of electrons behaving in an... See more

But Feynman’s brilliance was not solely due to his natural cognitive abilities. He relied on a method : a simple technique for seeing the world through the lens of open-ended questions, which he called his “favorite problems.”

By putting the database changes inside of a transaction, we can ensure that we either get all of the records or none of the records. We call that an atomic transaction: it happens completely or not at all.

Remembering that the tech industry is being built by people just figuring things out on the fly isn’t just a way to avoid stress; it’s become one of the most empowering bits of advice I can imagine. Because if all those people out there have changed the world while not knowing what they were doing…so can I.

Safety is the foundation of Tiger Style. It means writing code that works in all situations and reduces the risk of errors. Focusing on safety makes your software reliable and trustworthy.

The consequences are severe. This represents an abdication of mentorship that parents owe their children and that kids desperately need. We all sign up for this task when we bring children into the world. We must raise them, like it or not. It’s the unquittable job. Sure, some deadbeat parents have always checked out in ways that horrify mainstream... See more