Hacker News with Generative AI: Personal Stories

"Twelfth Night Till Candlemas" – A 40-year book-quest (davidallengreen.com)
This post is about finally finding a book from one’s youth forty years later – and after nearly thirty years of searching.

Books, Nostalgia, Personal Stories

182 points by ColinWright 8 days ago | 54 comments

The Unisys Icon: One Canadian Xennial's Memories of Ontario's Obscure Computer (postgamecontent.com)
One topic that often comes up in retro gaming circles is how aspects of gaming history not part of the American story don’t get enough attention. I personally feel it’s mostly up to the people to whom the stories belong to tell them. So I am going to follow my own advice today and tell the tale of a computer that statistically speaking almost no one has used, and some of that computer’s software.

Retro Gaming, Canadian History, Personal Stories, Computer History, Software

80 points by ecolonsmak 14 days ago | 35 comments

It's okay to code on nights and weekends (tej.as)
I’ve been wrestling with this for a long time (my entire life): I love coding and building software. A lot. I started when I was 8 years old. My nervous system developed wrapped around a computer.

Software Development, Personal Stories, Passion

84 points by tejaskumar_ 18 days ago | 80 comments

The Story of Stent (om.co)
Today is my 17th re-birthday. If you’ve been a longtime reader, you know why I call it my re-birthday. If you are new around here, well, here is a short recap. Just after I turned 41—17 years ago—a life of poor habits and family genetics caught up with me. I had a heart attack and was in the hospital for a few days. The doctors discovered all sorts of problems, and I ended up on the operating table.

Health, Personal Stories, Heart Disease

69 points by rmason 19 days ago | 5 comments

Perfect Desk (wordpress.com)
Early in my computer related life – that means being 15+ years old – especially at parents house – I had a prefabricated desk with stand for monitor and for all other possible things. Printer on top. CD/DVD all over the place. Things like that.

Personal Stories, Workspaces, Technology

4 points by vermaden 22 days ago | 2 comments

I Was a Health Insurance Executive. What I Saw Made Me Quit. (nytimes.com)
I left my job as a health insurance executive at Cigna after a crisis of conscience.

Health Insurance, Personal Stories, Business

30 points by bookofjoe 26 days ago | 13 comments

My Colleague Julius (ploum.net)
Do you know Julius? You certainly know who I’m talking about!

Humor, Personal Stories, Work

599 points by dabacaba 26 days ago | 129 comments

Talking over a wall changed my direction as a programmer (thecodist.com)
I started my programming career in October 1981 at a large defense contractor (GD). At the time, my goal was to work for a couple of years and then continue my education with a Ph.D. in Chemistry (I had already been accepted).

Programming, Career Advice, Personal Stories

147 points by fagnerbrack 29 days ago | 72 comments

I Was a Health Insurance Executive. What I Saw Made Me Quit (nytimes.com)
I left my job as a health insurance executive at Cigna after a crisis of conscience.

Health Insurance, Business, Ethics, Personal Stories

10 points by johnny313 30 days ago | 0 comments

A Decade Without a Drink (eieio.games)

Alcoholism, Personal Stories, Health, Addiction, Games

34 points by LorenDB 31 days ago | 11 comments

How a young Dutch woman's life began when she was allowed to die (theguardian.com)
At the last minute, Zoë decided to call off her euthanasia. But how do you start over after you’ve said all of your goodbyes?

Euthanasia, Life Choices, Personal Stories, Death, Netherlands

8 points by kawera 32 days ago | 4 comments

The Order of Anarchy (aeon.co)
In the summer of 1999, with nowhere to go between my second and third year in college, I decided to stay with my sister who was living with a couple of roommates in an apartment in Berkeley, California.

Anarchy, Personal Stories, Philosophy, California

4 points by paulpauper 37 days ago | 0 comments

DSQL Vignette: Aurora DSQL, and a Personal Story (brooker.co.za)
It's happening.

Databases, Aurora, Personal Stories

17 points by daigoba66 45 days ago | 0 comments

I Did Not Go to Jail (2014) (a16z.com)
A lot of people have been asking me what my upcoming book, The Hard Thing About Hard Things, will be like. Here’s a piece that I wrote for the book that did not make the cut. I still think it’s a pretty good story and gives you a flavor.

Entrepreneurship, Books, Personal Stories

33 points by Tomte 50 days ago | 5 comments

Bryan Johnson – The World's Most Expensive Eating Disorder (desmolysium.com)
In my early twenties, I had a two-year-long period during which my body fat was ultra-low (4.8% on the only DEXA scan I had done during that time). I became very obsessive and tolerated an unbelievable amount of self-torture to reach my goals. I also developed very weird eating habits and was rigid about my meal timing – I could not stand breaking my fasts by even a few minutes.

Health, Eating Disorders, Personal Stories, Biohacking

18 points by collected 50 days ago | 9 comments

A new start after 60: I became a 'hummingbird' for people with dementia (theguardian.com)
At 63, Ann Thomas-Carter stepped into Framland care home for the first time and was immediately taken aback. “It wasn’t like a care home at all; it was this beautiful old manor house overlooking the Oxfordshire countryside and there were only 21 residents,” she says. “It felt like a big family, especially since everyone calls the residents ‘family members’. I fitted in right away.”

Dementia, Care Homes, Aging, Personal Stories, Human Interest

161 points by bookofjoe 54 days ago | 44 comments

Ayfkm: Painful bureaucratic journeys of a multicultural family (ayfkm.blog)
So it has come to this. We already had the idea of starting a blog like this back in 2020, when it was becoming clear that getting married for us would have been an ordeal, but we didn’t consider it interesting or complicated enough back in the time (obviously we were wrong).

Life Experiences, Immigration, Relationships, Personal Stories

6 points by lollobomb 57 days ago | 0 comments

Teach yourself to echolocate (2018) (atlasobscura.com)
After losing his vision as an infant, Kish taught himself to move around with the help of echolocation.

Blindness, Echolocation, Disability, Personal Stories, Human Abilities

247 points by Anon84 62 days ago | 75 comments

ReiserFS and the Art and Artist Problem (corecursive.com)
Have you ever known someone whose technical brilliance was overshadowed by personal failings? This is the story of Hans Reiser, a software developer driven to create a superior Linux filesystem, but whose difficult personality got in the way.

Software, Linux, Biography, Personal Stories

74 points by quick_brown_fox 69 days ago | 101 comments

Experience: I graduated from art school at the age of 90 (theguardian.com)
I have always been passionate about art, but I had no money, and with 13 children to feed and educate, being an artist wasn’t an option. I was 83 when I finally enrolled at art school.

Art, Education, Personal Stories

18 points by aguaviva 77 days ago | 0 comments

Get me out of data hell (mataroa.blog)
It is 9:59 AM in Melbourne, 9th October, 2024. Sunlight filters through my windows, illuminating swirling motes of dust across my living room. There is a cup of tea in my hand. I take a sip and savor it.

Data Management, Personal Stories, Technology

698 points by pavel_lishin 78 days ago | 300 comments

I wanted to live cheaply, I bought a boat, moved in to travel the world (theguardian.com)
After his 92-year-old mother died in 2019, Stephen Payne decided it was time for a change. But having spent the previous six months at her home in Torquay, where he is from, and the 27 years before that living in Los Angeles, Payne, a 60-year-old photographer, wasn’t sure where to go next.

Travel, Lifestyle, Personal Stories, Retirement

5 points by tosh 82 days ago | 0 comments

An interview with someone who left Effective Altruism (mathbabe.org)
C: Tell me a little bit about your college experience. How did you get interested in this work originally?

Effective Altruism, Interviews, Philosophy, Personal Stories

5 points by kreyenborgi 86 days ago | 0 comments

Goodbye to an old spreadsheet (rubenerd.com)
This is a silly story to tell for one lowly spreadsheet workbook, but it’s been such a dependable and significant part of my life for so many years that I feel like it deserves a send off.

Software, Personal Stories, Technology

15 points by Tomte 98 days ago | 10 comments

The Wes Cook Archive (wescook.art)
Hi, I’m Cabel. I was driving to Seattle and got hungry, so I stopped at a McDonalds in Centralia, WA. And when I went inside, I saw something incredible.Here, let me tell you my story:

Personal Stories, Art, Photography

78 points by zdw 98 days ago | 8 comments

The lengthy story of how I left the Tech industry and started washing miso jars (write.as)
Workers these days are quitting the Tech industry in droves. They are quitting their programmer or sysadmin job, or maybe just the startup world and its craziness. Some are quitting because of market conditions. Others because they are exhausted. Many more feel disillusioned by the empty promises of the Tech oligarchs, blasting their propaganda on Twitter and LinkedIn. Each one of us has different motivations and each story is different, so I wanted to add mine to the pile.

Tech Industry, Career Change, Personal Stories, Work Culture

20 points by chobeat 101 days ago | 25 comments

Cassie LaBelle: "eBay completely destroyed my life" (twitter.com)

Social Media, Personal Stories, eBay

89 points by vintagedave 101 days ago | 78 comments

Woman gets reply about job application – 48 years on (bbc.com)
A woman who spent 48 years wondering why an application for her dream job was never answered has finally found out why.

Job Applications, Career, Long-term, Personal Stories

24 points by adrian_mrd 102 days ago | 7 comments

Teeth as time capsules: Soviet secrets and my dentist grandmother (theguardian.com)