Ask HN: What are the most inspirational blog posts you've ever read? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What are the most inspirational blog posts you've ever read?

#31

Post by ek » Sun, Jan 19, 2014, 3:47 PM UTC

Microcosmographia Academica http://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/iau/cornford/cornford....

It's not quite a blog post, but it's as close as one might have come in 1908.

I also like a whole host of articles from Matt Might's blog. I think my favorites are

12 resolutions for grad students

http://matt.might.net/articles/grad-student-resolutions/

and Responding to peer review

http://matt.might.net/articles/peer-review-rebuttals/

One last essay that I have enjoyed, also too old to be a blog post, is W.M. Turski's "I was a computer". It's here on Elsevier but fortunately it looks to be open access.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0167642395...

Re: Ask HN: What are the most inspirational blog posts you've ever read?

#32

Post by michaelochurch » Sun, Jan 19, 2014, 3:47 PM UTC

dschiptsov wrote: post #17

http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html

Every time I read something Paul Graham wrote before he became The Godfather I get sad. It may not show in the quality of moderation we see on HN, but he's clearly an extremely talented man.

Re: Ask HN: What are the most inspirational blog posts you've ever read?

#33

Post by guiambros » Sun, Jan 19, 2014, 3:48 PM UTC

"Lessons from Habitat" [1], by Chip Morningstar and F. Randall Farmer.

Not inspirational in the strict sense, but it's amazing to see a paper written more than 20 years ago and still with so many applicable insights in terms of psychology in gaming and virtual worlds. I keep going back and re-reading every couple of years.

[1] http://www.crockford.com/ec/lessons.html

Re: Ask HN: What are the most inspirational blog posts you've ever read?

#34

Post by chestnut-tree » Sun, Jan 19, 2014, 3:50 PM UTC

namzo wrote: post #30

Something small, every day. https://medium.com/think-different-think-stupid/c6ce326612c8

Re: Ask HN: What are the most inspirational blog posts you've ever read?

#35

Post by tinger54 » Sun, Jan 19, 2014, 4:14 PM UTC

McKenna said a lot of kooky stuff but this one really speaks to me.

http://zenpencils.com/comic/120-terence-mckenna-nature-loves...

Re: Ask HN: What are the most inspirational blog posts you've ever read?

#36

Post by PavlovsCat » Sun, Jan 19, 2014, 4:46 PM UTC

I'm not sure about "most inspiring", but this was the first time something on the internet blew my mind: http://www.arachnoid.com/lutusp/symbols.html

Re: Ask HN: What are the most inspirational blog posts you've ever read?

#37

Post by noblethrasher » Sun, Jan 19, 2014, 4:56 PM UTC

smoyer wrote: post #21

It's not a blog post, but I think Randy Pausch's "Last Lecture" is perhaps the most inspirational "thing" I've found on the Internet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo

About ten years beore he was famous for the his Last Lecture, he gave a fantastic talk on time management: https://archive.org/details/GabrielRobins_TimeManagement_byR....

He also gave a revised version of his time management lecture during his brief post-Last-Lecture fame, but I prefer the original.

Re: Ask HN: What are the most inspirational blog posts you've ever read?

#38

Post by ilamparithi » Sun, Jan 19, 2014, 5:02 PM UTC

Almost all of Paul Graham's essays. Especially

How to Make Wealth - http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html How to Do What You Love - http://paulgraham.com/love.html Inequality and Risk - http://paulgraham.com/inequality.html

and Paul Buchheit's

My startup path - http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.in/2007/03/my-startup-path.html (I have actually printed a hard copy of this and have it my wallet. This is what finally convinced me to join a startup.)