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18 September
Writer of MacSparky and author of the MacSparky Field Guides on Apple productivity software. A lawyer for 30 years before going full-time on the site, he co-hosts the Mac Power Users and Focused podcasts.
Short Think in Complete Sentences Related
15 September
Economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley and a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury. Author of Slouching Towards Utopia and writer of the Grasping Reality newsletter.
Three short sentences from the Supreme Court, and a lot to say about such a very cryptic short utterance. Steve Vladeck unpacks what the Supreme Court said by barely saying anything. The real content of the Supreme Court’s three-sentence decision is a warning to lower courts that Trump is going to lose his USPS ballot suppression case in the end, and a reminder of how corrupt and lawless Alito and Thomas have long been: **CROSSPOST: STEVE VLADECK: 250. What We Learned from USPS v... 1/ Related
9 September
Canadian software developer and writer, co-editor of the XML and Atom specifications and formerly of Sun Microsystems, Google and AWS. Has written the blog ongoing since 2003.
Vancouver’s progressive anti-Ken-Sim municipal parties have coalesced behind Pete Fry as Bill Azaroff gracefully steps aside: https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/william-azaroff-vancouver-election-mayoral-announcement-sept-8 I’ve met both gents and either would be a vastly better mayor than Sim. I do prefer Fry though, first of all I’m a Green, second, he’s been on council for years and knows how things work. Ken Sim is toast. #Vancouver #election #election2026 Related
8 September
Free software developer and longtime Debian developer; author of git-annex, etckeeper, ikiwiki and debhelper. Lives and works off-grid.
Probably time to replace gitweb, cgit, etc with client side js that fetches from the git repo. I would prefer to not build this myself. Related
7 September
Essayist, journalist and independent researcher on Chinese politics, strategy and cultural history; author of the blog The Scholar's Stage.
It is fine to repeat your words. In fact, it is fine to repeat words not only “in the same section,” but in the very next sentence. Successful rhetoric is a story of variation—but that does not mean you should vary constantly. Constant variance is simply noise; a distinctive voice is made less, not more distinctive by background static. The goal is to set expectations, then break them. Long sentences are broken by short ones. Latinate terms are broken by Saxon ones. You repeat a cadence, or a figure, or a word—and then you break the pattern you have set. This keeps readers interested. It also… Quoting @tomieinlove There's a soft rule in English prose: you shouldn't repeat the same word in a section. This is difficult, because often the same word—whoops—thing does many things—whoops—actions in the same section—whoops—sequence. So you have use like 12 different synonyms Related
5 September
Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and author of The Power of Habit, Smarter Faster Better and Supercommunicators. Writes for The New Yorker.
Have you ever talked to someone and felt like you were completely on the same page, almost finishing each other's sentences? There's a real reason for that, and neuroscientists can actually see it happening in real time. Here's what's going on in your brain: 🧵 Related
British open-standards and open-source technologist, formerly of the UK Government Digital Service and the W3C Advisory Committee. Blogs at shkspr.mobi, where he posts a book review most weeks.
31 August
Usability pioneer; co-founder of Nielsen Norman Group and founder of UX Tigers; author of the ten usability heuristics and of Jakob's Law.
24 August
Wall Street Journal bestselling author on marketing and writing, partner at MarketingProfs, and writer of the fortnightly Total Annarchy newsletter.
21 August
Writes jvns.ca, turning "hard and scary" topics — networking, debugging, Linux internals — into plain explanations and hand-drawn comics. Publishes Wizard Zines, illustrated programming zines. Software developer based in Montreal.
poll: do you prefer examples with: (you can pick more than one, trying to think about what my opinions are about the use of placeholders in examples) EDIT: please no more comments about the official recommended values for ip addresses and hostnames in documentation, try to think about that as a separate question documentation Related
16 August
Programmer and teacher; writes on software, learning and the web, and makes the Coding Blocks video course.
Their words
I prefer and recommend this over the canonical "Lean Startup"
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rakhim.org
15 August
Lawyer and everyday-carry gear reviewer who publishes scored knife, flashlight and multitool reviews at Everyday Commentary.
14 August
Writes The Pragmatic Engineer, the software-engineering newsletter, and wrote The Software Engineer's Guidebook. Formerly an engineering manager at Uber, and at Microsoft/Skype and Skyscanner before that.
It's now the second blog post in a day sent over by an early-stage VC-startup I tried to read, but could NOT, after a few sentences. Verbose, weird... AI-generated. These companies think they made "content" more efficient. No: it's lower quality, slop +I no longer care about the startup startups Related
11 August
Chief scientist at Redwood Research, where he works on technical AI safety and AI control.
Anthropic
Their words
I do I do think that I wish that sort of my preferred constitution or like the way I would orient towards this like the thing I would prefer would be more like Claude is like look it would be structurally good for the way this technology work like the constitution should be like it would be structurally good for the way this technology works to be that AIS are like good fiduciaries, good representatives, the equivalent of a lawyer for a user
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youtube.com
31 July
Polyglot; founded Fluent in 3 Months and argues for speaking from day one rather than waiting until you are ready.
11 July
Canadian bootstrapper and writer on small software businesses. Co-founder of the podcast hosting company Transistor.fm and author of the book Marketing for Developers.
1 July
Programmer; wrote Extreme Programming Explained and Test-Driven Development, signed the Agile Manifesto, and writes Tidy First?.
Their words
what I don't like about it I didn't like about it then and still don't like about it is it's not defensible. Nobody's going to say I'm not agile. Oh no, I prefer rigid development. Oh, I prefer inflexible development. No, everybody's going to say that they're agile, which extreme doesn't have that problem.
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youtube.com
30 June
Mathematician and maker of the 3Blue1Brown YouTube channel, which explains mathematics through animation. Creator of the open-source Manim animation library and founder of the Summer of Math Exposition.
Their words
I think we would always still prefer like a human that we had a relationship with because the way that we get motivated to be interesting interested in things is a social phenomenon.
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youtube.com
15 June
Full-stack Laravel developer based in Madison, Wisconsin; maintains open-source Laravel, Livewire and Alpine.js packages and writes at randallwilk.dev.
Their words
I prefer using monitor arms over the default stand that most monitors come with, and at the end of 2022 I switched to the HUANUO Dual Monitor Stand. It's a single mount with two monitor arms, and it holds the monitors in place nicely. Each arm is flexible in where I can position them.
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randallwilk.dev
Their words
If you're not using a password manager, you're doing it wrong. I prefer to use 1Password. I honestly don't think I could live without 1Password. Having access to all my vaults across all my devices is also a plus.
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randallwilk.dev
Their words
On both my MacBook and iPhone, I prefer to use the Spark Mail App for handling my emails.
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randallwilk.dev
+ 2 more
Their words
In the past, I've used DataGrip from JetBrains to manage my databases. Now, I prefer to use TablePlus, as it is much simpler to use.
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randallwilk.dev
Their words
Even when not docked, I still prefer an external mouse for most operations. I really love the Logitech MX Master 4 mouse. For me, it feels great to hold, and it also provides support for some macOS gestures like swiping up for mission control.
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randallwilk.dev
13 May
Founded CD Baby in 1998 and sold it in 2008, giving the proceeds to a charitable trust for music education. Since then a writer and speaker: five books and 550+ articles, published first at sive.rs, which they hand-code and keep free of advertising.
Bluesky My life was changed by four sentences in four books : sive.rs
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x.com My life was changed by four sentences in four books : sive.rs
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29 March
Engineer and writer on machine-learning systems; author of Designing Machine Learning Systems and AI Engineering. "I work to bring AI into production. I write about AI system design."
Their words
I don't think that human preference is just an equation that people can just like package nicely and like, "Hey, ask people like which which of these two answers people would prefer?" It's very very personal, very culturally dependent, geographically dependent, age dependent.
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youtube.com
26 March
American budget-travel writer who publishes as Nomadic Matt. Author of How to Travel the World on $50 a Day; runs nomadicmatt.com, a long-running site of destination guides, packing advice and gear recommendations.
Their words
My favorite bag is the Flash 55 from REI (I actually prefer the slightly smaller Flash 45, but it's been discontinued).
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nomadicmatt.com
Mixed on affiliate link rcmnd.app
Kindle
Their words
Personally, I prefer physical books when I travel. However, I can't argue against the convenience and simplicity of the Kindle.
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nomadicmatt.com
23 March
Economist; Ronald A. Kurtz Professor of Entrepreneurship at MIT Sloan, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, and co-author of 13 Bankers and Power and Progress.
Given what happened in Venezuela and what is currently happening in Iran… is Greenland next? Gary Gensler and I discuss in the latest episode of our podcast, Power and Consequences. Available wherever you prefer to get your podcasts podcasts.apple.com
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14 March
Mathematician and maker of the 3Blue1Brown YouTube channel, which explains mathematics through animation. Creator of the open-source Manim animation library and founder of the Summer of Math Exposition.
Happy Pi Day! In a certain sense, π is not a constant, but a variable. Using our usual Euclidean distance, it is 3.14159… but applying other L^p norms on ℝ², half the unit circle's perimeter will give other values. For instance, at p=1 (taxicab geometry), “π” = 2√2. At p ≈ 2.2, it's 3.20. Anyway, the video I was hoping to have out this day will be out closer to the 20th. Some call it “missing your deadline”, but I prefer to think of it as giving the L_{2.2} norm a little love. Related
24 January
Programmer on the Dart language at Google and author of Game Programming Patterns and Crafting Interpreters; previously a game developer at EA.
21 January
Independent game developer, creator of the colony simulation RimWorld and author of Designing Games: A Guide to Engineering Experiences. Previously worked on BioShock Infinite.
Prefer to design from imagination and play, not spreadsheets. Spreadsheets round off too many spiky bits and kill serendipity. Related
18 January
Machine learning engineer and independent AI consultant. He writes about LLM evaluation, tooling and applied ML at hamel.dev, and previously worked on machine learning at GitHub.
Their words
I now use different languages for different tasks. For web development, I prefer the Next.js stack.
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hamel.dev
7 January
Executive coach for product leaders. Previously a partner at GV (Google Ventures) and a product manager at Google. Writes at Bring the Donuts, including a standing essential-reading list for product managers.
1 January
Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex, co-director of the Sussex Centre for Consciousness Science, and author of Being You: A New Science of Consciousness.
28 December 2025
Researcher and science writer. Co-founder and editor at Works in Progress magazine, formerly a researcher at Our World in Data, and author of the Scientific Discovery newsletter on science, global health and medical innovation.
16 December 2025
China economy researcher based in Beijing who writes on his personal blog about Chinese political economy, history, books and music.
Their words
Stevenson is best known as a novelist, but I think I prefer his nonfiction: he had an interesting life and was interested in lots of things, and the sentences are marvelous and daring.
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andrewbatson.com
7 October 2025
Writer and novelist. Publishes essays and book notes at nateliason.com; author of the novel Husk and of Crypto Confidential.
30 August 2025
Writer and researcher on China, technology and industry; author of Breakneck, research fellow at Stanford, known for a widely read annual letter.
This ChinaTalk podcast felt special because @jordanschneider had me hold his one-year-old just before the recording, encouraged both of us to reflect on our time in Beijing, and tolerated my remarks on how sentences must be wreathed in splendors chinatalk.media
China Related
7 July 2025
Co-founder of Ethereum. Publishes long essays on mechanism design, governance and what cryptography is for, and returns to earlier positions to say which parts they no longer hold.
12 June 2025
Creator of Flask and Jinja. Writes about software at lucumr.pocoo.org.
Their words
I exclusively use the cheaper Sonnet model. It’s perfectly adequate for my needs, and in fact, I prefer its outputs over the more expensive Opus model.
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lucumr.pocoo.org
28 May 2025
Structural engineer and senior infrastructure fellow at the Institute for Progress; writes Construction Physics on why physical things cost what they cost.
23 February 2025
Programmer and teacher; writes on software, learning and the web, and makes the Coding Blocks video course.
7 August 2024
Egyptian front-end developer and course creator; writes for CSS-Tricks, publishes courses on Udemy and blogs at alialaa.dev.
Their words
I prefer dark VS Code themes. My current theme is GitHub Dark Default.
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alialaa.dev
1 June 2024
Moroccan senior frontend developer writing at smakosh.com; builds side projects and client work under Smakosh LLC.
Their words
Side note for CSS, I'm cool to use what ever tech available out there that makes my task done quickly & well, I have personally used Bootstrap 3 & 4, Bulma, Lostgrid, Materliaze, Skeleton, Tailwindcss, Styled-components, emotion, CSS modules, Tachyons & made my own micro CSS framework called Unnamed that has over 200 stars on GitHub. Still I prefer using Tailwindcss.
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smakosh.com
29 April 2024
Founder of the toy manufacturer Viahart; writes about manufacturing, importing and why bringing production back to America is harder than it sounds.
18 April 2024
Engineer writing about the physical economy — oil and gas, manufacturing, batteries, drones and what it costs to build things.
28 February 2024
Engineer and writer on machine-learning systems; author of Designing Machine Learning Systems and AI Engineering. "I work to bring AI into production. I write about AI system design."
Their words
One pattern is that for simple prompts, weak models can do (nearly) as well as strong models. For more challenging prompts, however, users are much more likely to prefer stronger models.
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huyenchip.com
28 November 2023
Essayist; writes Astral Codex Ten, previously Slate Star Codex.
6 June 2022
Professor of psychology at the University of Toronto and Brooks and Suzanne Ragen Professor Emeritus at Yale. Author of Against Empathy, The Sweet Spot and Psych, and writer of the Small Potatoes newsletter.
Children prefer natural food, too. = 64) had a mean age of 29 years and 11 months, with 60.7% of the sample identifying as female and 59% of participants identifying as White/European American. We found that, like adults, American children of these ages…
Europe America Related
23 May 2022
Programmer and entrepreneur; co-founded GitHub and created Jekyll, Gravatar and the Semantic Versioning spec.
7 March 2022
Experimental psychologist and author of the blog Experimental History, on psychology, science reform and creativity.
Their words
Overall, our findings suggest that widely shared stereotypes of the past lead people to misperceive attitude change, and these misperceptions can lend legitimacy to policies that people may not actually prefer.
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doi.org
27 October 2021
Language mentor and polyglot; teaches people to design their own learning method rather than follow a course.
Nothing matches. Show everything
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