ETCon 2004: Danny O'Brien on Life Hacks

Danny O’Brien talks on Life Hacks

Danny O’Brien gave a great talk on how alpha geeks manage their life. I was enjoying the talk and didn’t take notes, but Cory Doctorow did. Some highlights:

• Alpha geeks use shells
• Alpha geeks use text-editors like BBEdit, vi, and emacs
• Alpha geeks try every application, but usually end up back with editors and email. They don’t trust complicated apps.
• Private, secret blogs and RSS are taking the place of todo.txt files and email alerts.
• Alpha geeks write scripts to take apart dull, repetitive tasks
• All alpha geeks back up. They’ve all learned the lesson.
• Alpha geeks make their ideas public, but hide their scripts.

This says what they do, but Danny also offered insights into why, which are somewhat surprising. Read the notes.

Posted by windley on February 11, 2004 2:13 PM