Hacker News with Generative AI: Personal Essays

Lessons from Harlem (theamericanscholar.org)
When I moved to New York City in 1980 at the age of 22, I almost never went near 125th Street, the unofficial boundary of Harlem, even though I lived only two blocks away in Morningside Heights, across the street from Riverside Church.

Personal Essays, Neighborhoods

41 points by greenie_beans 7 days ago | 13 comments

What New Orleans Taught Me (commonedge.org)
It’s hard to leave New Orleans when the jasmine is in bloom — especially when you’ve spent a decade learning its rhythm.

New Orleans, Travel, Culture, Personal Essays

79 points by tintinnabula 7 days ago | 56 comments

A Love Letter to People Who Believe in People (swiss-miss.com)
When I was eight, I made a big, hand-drawn poster that said, “Do you want to join my fan club?” and put it up in the small Swiss town where I grew up.

Personal Essays, Community, Social Issues

396 points by NaOH 15 days ago | 124 comments

The Difficulty in Dating Good Men (aella.substack.com)
I’m supposed to find someone who makes me happy. I’m 33, I’m weird, and I’ve got some eggs frozen. Let’s go.

Dating, Relationships, Personal Essays, Women's Issues

19 points by jger15 16 days ago | 13 comments

The Age of Abundance (tomblomfield.com)
I wrote a Twitter post at the weekend that caused a bit of a stir.

Social Media, Opinion, Personal Essays

4 points by thunderbong 34 days ago | 1 comments

Bored of It (paulrobertlloyd.com)
I’m bored of it.

Personal Essays, Boredom

573 points by NotInOurNames 35 days ago | 478 comments

What We Knew Without Knowing (newyorker.com)
I said I wasn’t sure where we left off, Dr. MacKinnon said why not begin where you are now. I said I wasn’t sure where I was now, life seemed rather scattered, we had not seen Quintana but had talked to her, she had seemed on the occasions we spoke in generally good spirits, fairly upbeat. Still, I found myself worrying, waiting for the bad news to kick in.

Personal Essays, Life, Relationships, Uncertainty

42 points by apollinaire 37 days ago | 4 comments

The Colors of Her Coat (astralcodexten.com)

Fiction, Literature, Personal Essays

52 points by feross 38 days ago | 49 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 45 days ago | 7 comments

What My Father's Emails Taught Me About the Craft of Writing (lithub.com)
The computer lab where I checked my email was in the basement of Cornell’s Electrical and Computer Engineering building. A windowless room with thin, industrial carpet that felt like a second home. There was a vending machine outside the doors where, for under a dollar, I could buy a strawberry Pop-tart for dinner.

Writing, Personal Essays, Family, Education

50 points by PaulHoule 61 days ago | 4 comments

Grok Grok (thezvi.substack.com)
This is a post in two parts.

Substack, Writing, Personal Essays

7 points by theptip 73 days ago | 0 comments

Insomnia, Control (sonnet.io)
I'm trying to get back into a regular posting schedule, so I hope you won't mind keeping things a bit less techy for a minute (or sixty). I'll do my best to follow the rules of this site: spark your curiosity, entertain you or, at the very least, inspire you (because you'll realise you can do it even better!).

Personal Essays, Writing, Creativity

72 points by rpastuszak 93 days ago | 41 comments

Remembering Nan Shepherd (lrb.co.uk)
In the months following my parents’ deaths, I decided to buy a flatbed scanner as a partial fix for the drifts of paper they had accumulated after sixty years in the same house – receipts, letters, photographs, notes and diaries.

Writing, Memoir, Loss, Personal Essays

11 points by lermontov 108 days ago | 4 comments

On: Lisp, on Lisp, and MySelf (pyrope.net)
Common Lisp, On Lisp, and me? What more could you ask for in a blog post

Lisp, Programming Languages, Books, Personal Essays

3 points by usually 127 days ago | 0 comments

Never Forgive Them (wheresyoured.at)
In the last year, I’ve spent about 200,000 words on a kind of personal journey where I’ve tried again and again to work out why everything digital feels so broken, and why it seems to keep getting worse, despite what tech’s “brightest” minds might promise.

Technology, Internet Culture, Personal Essays, Digital Ethics

28 points by throwaway81523 140 days ago | 1 comments

Never Forgive Them (wheresyoured.at)
In the last year, I’ve spent about 200,000 words on a kind of personal journey where I’ve tried again and again to work out why everything digital feels so broken, and why it seems to keep getting worse, despite what tech’s “brightest” minds might promise.

Technology, Personal Essays, Internet Culture

21 points by wgx 143 days ago | 9 comments

Never Forgive Them (wheresyoured.at)
In the last year, I’ve spent about 200,000 words on a kind of personal journey where I’ve tried again and again to work out why everything digital feels so broken, and why it seems to keep getting worse, despite what tech’s “brightest” minds might promise.

Technology, Personal Essays, Criticism

19 points by DanAtC 144 days ago | 3 comments

Optimistic Computing (deobald.ca)
I recently made two new friends: Abhinav Omprakash and Dawn Walker. Abhinav said I’m an optimist and I should write about it. Dawn said I shouldn’t try to coin any new terms.

Optimistic Computing, Philosophy, Personal Essays

28 points by deobald 146 days ago | 1 comments

The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood (shreyans.org)
His arrival, our survival, and many transformations.

Parenting, Personal Essays, Transformation

178 points by shreyans 152 days ago | 240 comments

Slow Email (2008) (blogspot.com)
I've never been a slow-anything person, other than riding slowly up mountains, and that's only because of the weakness of flesh, not any unwillingness of spirit. So it's not often that I embrace a Slow movement.

Personal Essays, Lifestyle, Humour

10 points by rnjailamba 168 days ago | 2 comments

Adventures with Jean (theamericanscholar.org)
Striking up a friendship with an older writer meant accepting the risk of getting hurt

Friendship, Writing, Literature, Personal Essays

9 points by lermontov 218 days ago | 3 comments

Boredom is an invitation to slow down (papanotes.com)
It's 3:22 p.m., and I'm sitting in the clinic's waiting room. They send you to this place when you have an emergency that isn't urgent enough for the ER.I'm here with my daughter, who needs to see a doc. (She's good now)A few other kids are in the waiting room—all with only one of their parents.

Boredom, Personal Essays, Parenting, Healthcare

5 points by pmzy 238 days ago | 0 comments

My job is to watch dreams die (2011) (reddit.com)

Dreams, Reddit, Personal Essays

361 points by eezurr 246 days ago | 176 comments

Late Again (randsinrepose.com)

Humor, Personal Essays

68 points by mooreds 263 days ago | 31 comments

The secret lives of snowblowers (lcamtuf.substack.com)

Snow Removal, Winter, Substack, Personal Essays

115 points by zdw 265 days ago | 66 comments

After 12 years of reviewing restaurants, I'm leaving the table (nytimes.com)