Hacker News with Generative AI: Biography

Feynman's Rigor (2009) (jsomers.net)
All of the things I admire about Richard Feynman -- his intellect, and verve, and eloquence -- seem like special cases of a more general feature of his mind, namely, its almost fanatical devotion to rigor.
Physics, Biography, Richard Feynman, Science, Intellectuals
7 points by jimsojim 14 hours ago | 0 comments
Mary MacLane, the Wild Woman from Butte (publicdomainreview.org)
A century before publishers started marketing novels as “essential sad girl literature” and newspapers ran headlines about the “cult of the literary sad woman”, Mary MacLane confessed all, at the age of nineteen, and became the enfant terrible of American letters, seemingly overnight.
Literature, Biography, History, Women's Writing
39 points by samclemens 1 day ago | 5 comments
Larry David: My Dinner with Adolf (nytimes.com)
Imagine my surprise when in the spring of 1939 a letter arrived at my house inviting me to dinner at the Old Chancellery with the world’s most reviled man, Adolf Hitler.
Humor, History, Biography
26 points by asnyder 4 days ago | 0 comments
Judith Resnick (wikipedia.org)
Judith Arlene Resnik (April 5, 1949 – January 28, 1986) was an American electrical engineer, software engineer, biomedical engineer, pilot and NASA astronaut who died in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.
Biography, Space Exploration, Engineering, NASA, Accidents
7 points by 737min 5 days ago | 0 comments
On Jane Jacobs (2017) (salmagundi.skidmore.edu)
The legend of Jane Jacobs centers on the writer who revolutionized our thinking about cities with her now-classic The Death and Life of Great American Cities, and the fearless activist who stood up to planning czar Robert Moses’s rampaging road construction, thereby saving Gotham. A recent, rather cartoonish film on the subject is even titled: Citizen Jane: The Battle for New York. It is an irresistible David vs. Goliath story with a feminist twist.
Urban Planning, History, Activism, Biography
70 points by herbertl 9 days ago | 46 comments
Pablo Picasso's Stunning Repetitions (jillianhess.substack.com)
Two things were true of Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) from a young age: he was rebellious, and he loved to draw.
Art, Pablo Picasso, Biography
6 points by bookofjoe 13 days ago | 0 comments
Betty Webb never spoke about her work, until she had to (economist.com)
Betty Webb never spoke about her work, until she had to
Biography, History
15 points by austinallegro 13 days ago | 1 comments
Nobu Matsuhisa: 'I'd watch my mentor making sushi and copy him under the table' (theguardian.com)
The chef and restaurateur, 76, shares his boyhood inspiration, losing everything in a fire, and saying no to Robert De Niro.
Food, Interviews, Restaurant Industry, Biography
6 points by andsoitis 13 days ago | 0 comments
Maurice Hilleman (wikipedia.org)
Biography, History, Medicine
7 points by arbuge 19 days ago | 0 comments
Yoko: A Biography (newstatesman.com)
As David Sheff’s new biography reveals, decades of suspicion aimed at the provocative artist, musician and widow have obscured her psychology from view.
Biography, Music, Arts, Yoko Ono
35 points by howard941 22 days ago | 42 comments
The Curse of Ayn Rand's Heir (theatlantic.com)
Leonard Peikoff dedicated his life to promoting the author’s vision of freedom and self-determination. But at what cost?
Philosophy, Biography, Ethics
127 points by Michelangelo11 22 days ago | 254 comments
How to Discover Mindfulness in a Nazi Solitary Confinement Cell (honest-broker.com)
Two years ago, I shared an account of Christopher Burney, a British spy captured by the Nazis in World War II. He spent 526 days in solitary confinement under brutal conditions.
Mindfulness, History, Prison, Biography
4 points by Khaine 22 days ago | 0 comments
Bitcoin's God. Years of studying Satoshi led me to a new prime suspect (nymag.com)
If Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous inventor of bitcoin, was who I believed him to be, he was not going to acknowledge it. He probably wouldn’t talk to me. And seeing him was going to mean sitting on a plane for 20 hours and driving another eight. But I needed to try to have a conversation with him, and it had to be face-to-face.
Bitcoin, Cryptography, Investigations, Biography, Technology
19 points by jc_811 28 days ago | 6 comments
The Devastating Decline of a Brilliant Young Coder (wired.com)
On Friday, September 13, 2019, Matthew Prince and Michelle Zatlyn, cofounders of the San Francisco internet security firm Cloudflare, stood on a slim marble balcony overlooking the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
Technology, Business, Entrepreneurship, Biography
13 points by vincentchau 29 days ago | 2 comments
George Orwell and me: Richard Blair on life with his extraordinary father (theguardian.com)
Richard Blair didn’t have the easiest start in life. At three weeks old, he was adopted. Nine months later, his adoptive mother, Eileen, died at 39, after an allergic reaction to the anaesthetic she was given for a hysterectomy. Family and friends expected Blair’s father, Eric, to un-adopt him. Fortunately, Eric, better known as George Orwell, was an unusually hands-on dad for the 1940s.
Biography, Family, History, Writing
73 points by lermontov 29 days ago | 25 comments
Things You Must Know About Tamara de Lempicka (dailyartmagazine.com)
Tamara de Lempicka was many things: a successful artist, a society darling, and an expat. She knew how to create interest in herself and capitalize on it. She was an artist and a celebrity at the same time. You may say she was way ahead of her times, as her fame brings to mind that of Madonna or Lady Gaga. Her art and her public persona intertwined, staying consistently connected.
Art, Biography, History, Celebrity
7 points by aureliusm 30 days ago | 0 comments
Ungovernable, Capricious Life (nybooks.com)
The sense of vulnerability is crushing, but it is also one of the characteristics Kureishi reveals about himself that makes him so likable here, and the writing so intimate.
Vulnerability, Writing, Biography, Literature, Personal Essays
6 points by mitchbob 32 days ago | 7 comments
'The Maverick's Museum' Review: Albert Barnes and the Art of Collecting (wsj.com)
His talent for pharmaceutical chemistry made him rich. His bold taste in paintings created the foundation for America’s most personal art museum.
Art, Museums, Biography, History
15 points by Caiero 39 days ago | 7 comments
Zuckerberg 'lied' to Senate, Sandberg asked me to bed, says author (afr.com)
A former Facebook executive has written an insider account of a company that she says was run by status-hungry and self-absorbed leaders.
Facebook, Leadership, Business, Social Media, Biography
12 points by wahnfrieden 40 days ago | 3 comments
They're Close to My Body: A Hagiography of Nine Inch Nails and Robin Finck (2020) (thewhitereview.org)
I was 10 years old when The Downward Spiral by Nine Inch Nails was released in 1994, and I listened to it more than any other record for the next six years, when everything I knew about myself was disintegrating and becoming unknowable.
Music, Biography, 1990s
126 points by herbertl 42 days ago | 74 comments
Ex-Facebook director's new book paints brutal image of Mark Zuckerberg (sfgate.com)
Social Media, Leadership, Biography, Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg
434 points by AntiRush 43 days ago | 268 comments
Dante's Divine Autofiction (newstatesman.com)
How the Italian poet’s search for self-knowledge changed the course of literature.
Literature, Poetry, Biography, Italy, Self-Knowledge
10 points by samclemens 45 days ago | 1 comments
Ruth Belville, the "Greenwich Time Lady" (2022) (eehe.org.uk)
Biography, History, Journalism
95 points by throw0101b 48 days ago | 82 comments
Ronald Read – Philanthropist, investor, janitor, and gas station attendant (wikipedia.org)
Ronald James Read (October 23, 1921 – June 2, 2014) was an American philanthropist, investor, janitor, and gas station attendant.
Philanthropy, Investing, Biography, People
11 points by thecosas 54 days ago | 0 comments
The Tinkerings of Robert Noyce by Tom Wolfe (1983) (esquire.com)
IN 1948 THERE WERE seven thousand people in Grinnell, Iowa, including more than one who didn’t dare take a drink in his own house without pulling the shades down first.
Biography, Technology, History, Writing, Culture
13 points by whoisstan 55 days ago | 1 comments
The Planemaker Who Walked Beneath the Water (workingwoodenplanes.com)
The pages of A Guide to American Wooden Planes are filled with the biographies of planemakers who worked in wildly varying professions, from music teachers to mail clerks. But I know of no other planemaker with a resume like Ebenezer Clifford, architect, master joiner, bell diver, cabinetmaker, turner, justice of the peace, and quartermaster sergeant in the Revolutionary War.
History, Craftsmanship, Biography, Woodworking
23 points by unix2038 55 days ago | 2 comments
Rifling through the archives with Robert Caro (smithsonianmag.com)
Robert Caro has spent most of his life asking questions of others, and he rather prefers it that way.
Biography, History, Journalism
43 points by benbreen 58 days ago | 2 comments
Jan Łukasiewicz (wikipedia.org)
Jan Łukasiewicz (Polish: [ˈjan wukaˈɕɛvit͡ʂ] ⓘ; 21 December 1878 – 13 February 1956) was a Polish logician and philosopher who is best known for Polish notation and Łukasiewicz logic.[1] His work centred on philosophical logic, mathematical logic and history of logic.[2] He thought innovatively about traditional propositional logic, the principle of non-contradiction and the law of excluded middle, offering one of the earliest systems of many-valued logic.
Logic, Philosophy, Poland, Biography, History
4 points by fuzztester 58 days ago | 1 comments
When Louis Armstrong conquered Chicago (honest-broker.com)
If you want to understand 20th century American music, you really must start with Louis Armstrong.
Music, History, Biography, American Culture
98 points by paulpauper 78 days ago | 14 comments
Franz Kafka – the workers' friend (2018) (marywcraig.com)
Everyone has heard of Franz Kafka, the writer of such masterpieces such as Metamorphosis and The Trial. His troubled relationship with his father, his love life and his eventual early death from tuberculosis are all well documented. What is less well known is his work for Die Arbeiter-Unfall-Versicherungs-Anhalt für das Königreich Böhmen in Prag (the Workers Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia in Prague).
Franz Kafka, Literature, Biography, History
53 points by robtherobber 80 days ago | 4 comments