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Well I'll be damned. That actually explained Monads to me. I think this might be the "explain like I'm 5 Monads"-article that reddit has been looking for :) Kudos.

monkeyshellion Why do people put on differing amounts of weight?

Do you mean "Eat, Fast and Live Longer"(https://vimeo.com/103656060)? If so, it was great. Totally changed my view on fasting (I now-a-days do 16h fast/day).

monkeyshellion Ask HN: Best (Tech) talks from 2015

This looks intereting, thanks :)

monkeyshellion Darpa creates prosthetic arm that “feels”

This [1] top of "Restoring Active Memory (RAM) - The end goal of RAM is to develop and test a wireless, fully implantable neural-interface medical device for human clinical use.." [2] and the Sci-fi future will be here.

[1] http://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2015-09-11

[2] http://www.darpa.mil/program/restoring-active-memory

monkeyshellion How to Avoid Work: A 1949 Guide to Doing What You Love (2012)

I agree. It was pretty powerfull stuff:

I’m not trying to send you out “on the road” in search of Valhalla, but merely pointing out that it is not necessary to accept the choices handed down to you by life as you know it. There is more to it than that — no one HAS to do something he doesn’t want to do for the rest of his life.

monkeyshellion State of the Common Lisp Ecosystem

To me currently the biggest learning curve in CL is that "how to use CL" e.g. list/vectors etc. and not "how do I use CL to solve X". To the former, koans are good way to get familiar with the syntax and how to use the language.

monkeyshellion State of the Common Lisp Ecosystem

I started with Practical Common Lisp, but found out Lisp-koans (https://github.com/google/lisp-koans) support my flow of learning CL better, as I do some koans while commuting in the train :)

monkeyshellion Things to commit just before leaving your job

Someone will lose some hair over this

  /* create memory leaks if compiled on April, 1st */
  #define free(x) if(strncmp(__DATE__, "Apr  1", 6) != 0) free(x)

The random ones are just pure evil.

monkeyshellion Debugging Lisp Part 2: Inspecting

I'm doing the Google/lisp-koans (https://github.com/google/lisp-koans), and I do agree, these articles are great on learning the innerworks of the tools and the language itself. Great stuff.

monkeyshellion Running Lisp in Production

I've been using python-koans to teach Python, but the thought of looking for lisp-koans from Github didn't even cross my mind now as I personally started learning CL. Thanks for these excellent links!

monkeyshellion Nokia Agrees to Buy Alcatel-Lucent for $16.6B

I remember that culturally Siemens saw itself as a oil-tanker plowing through, and Nokia saw itself as a nimble and agile fish school. No wonder it ended up where it did, if the cultural differences in the way of working was so different.

monkeyshellion The Minimum Viable Product: A Primer

Remove any feature, process or effort that does not directly contribute to the learning you seek.

This is a pretty darn good insight. The only "hard" part is to always be sure you know what you seek

monkeyshellion Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

But in the end, would you really want to go work for a shop like that? If they don't want you based on the color of your beard, then I wonder what "other" surprises lurk around the corner..

I'm in my mid-thirties, so please take that into an account. Also I know that these are the questions that I have to ponder in the coming years, so your insights are highly valued.

monkeyshellion Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

B) Are overly emotional and they all take things way too seriously.

I've noticed that some young devs have really, really hard time when we discover bugs in "their baby". This most likely relates to the underlying arrogance ("there cannot be anything wrong with my code").

I hope that all the future gigs I end up, I'm part of the effort to create professional environment where the younger devs can pick-up professionalism from the seniors.