Top all-time · #2290
Neil Kakkar
Personal blog · neilkakkar.com · on HN as neilkakkarcareereconomicsphilosophy
Neil Kakkar's personal blog at neilkakkar.com covers career, economics and philosophy. Since 2019, 32 different Hacker News readers have linked it 153 times, most often “The Human Log”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-06-21, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (10) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Linked for practical software engineering posts, such as things learnt from a senior developer, the human log idea for keeping a daily work record, and a piece on agentic debt.
- Recommended for · 4 comments
- Called nice and practical (human log post), a favorite blog, and a good read on senior-dev lessons; agentic-debt called much more interesting.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 10 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
I want to understand how the world works. This blog tracks my growth, the things I’ve learned, and how I’m leveraging them to do epic things.
Most-linked posts?
- The Human Log7 people · 9 mentions · first linked 2019-04-17
- Equivalent Salary Calculator by City4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2021-01-28
- If Sapiens were a blog post3 people · 12 mentions · first linked 2019-06-29
- Things I Learnt from a Senior Software Engineer3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2019-08-25
- How to simulate a broken database connection for testing in Django – Neil Kakkar3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-01-15
- Different Perspectives to Solve Problems2 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2020-11-15
- How Cascades Work2 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2020-03-05
- Powerful Life Skills for the New Decade2 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2021-01-02
- How Unix Works2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2019-12-14
- Agentic Debt2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2026-03-09
What Hacker News says?
There are other blogs by Neil Kakkar that I really enjoyed, including the one on Human log. It's quite nice and practical. https://neilkakkar.com/the-human-log.html
Comment linking /the-human-log.html
on “Things I Learnt from a Senior Software Engineer”Submitted Things I Learnt from a Senior Software Engineer as a story · 849 points
HN discussionThe referenced idea of a 'human log' is great[0]. I started doing something similar 4 years ago and it eventually evolved from per-project notes into a full diary. Being able to search for 'August 24 2016' and know exactly what I did that day is quite powerful. I encourage anyone to take 10 minutes(or 30...) at the end of the day to write up what they've done. Just a text file with minimal formatting has scaled to 2…
Comment linking /the-human-log.html
on “Things I Learnt from a Senior Software Engineer”Submitted If Sapiens were a blog post as a story · 263 points
HN discussionTime to pull up my RSS reader! https://drewdevault.com/ http://jvns.ca/ https://www.benkuhn.net/ https://danluu.com/ https://scattered-thoughts.net/ http://antirez.com/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/ https://neilkakkar.com/ https://zachholman.com/ http://rachelbythebay.com/w/ https://endler.dev/ https://www.expatsoftware.com/articles/ https://www.the-paper-trail.org/ https://tonsky.me/ https://dave.cheney.net/ https://b…
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Favorite Blogs by Individuals?”Submitted Things I Learned to Become a Senior Software Engineer as a story · 144 points
HN discussionand if you don't get time for the entire book: I did an almost lossless compression - https://neilkakkar.com/sapiens.html
Comment linking /sapiens.html
on “Ask HN: Recommend one book I need to read this summer?”Submitted Psychology of Human Misjudgment as a story · 122 points
HN discussionUK doesn't have 18% inflation, that is just a projection from Citigroup [0] (if gas prices continue to grow it will probably get there, like the rest of Europe). Inflation is at 10.1%. I'm not sure why you say 'low salaries'. Adjusted by cost of living, salaries are not that low [1]. Median (removes those salaries from 'money laundering industries') salary in London is almost £39.7k [2]. Adjust that by cost of livin…
Comment linking /salary-calculator-by-city.html
on “H1B rejected – builds unicorn back home”Submitted How to Understand Systems as a story · 121 points
HN discussionIndeed, that's the plan! You can find others I've done already tagged "Notes" - https://neilkakkar.com/categories/ I realise now I should make that more explicit in my posts!
Comment linking /categories/
on “If Sapiens were a blog post”Submitted Vocabulary as a Meta Mental Model as a story · 116 points
HN discussionPartially, yes! - And partially about priorities. So, you're doing whatever sequence is better. It's a general case of the example you mention: With one permutation (yours), you can get everything done. With another permutation (relax first, meeting prep later) - you might be leaving the prep for the last minute. There's some cases when the first permutation is better - when you have enough energy, say, and the meet…
Comment linking /sequencing-things-in-the-right-order.html
on “Powerful Life Skills for the New Decade”Submitted Powerful Life Skills for the New Decade as a story · 89 points
HN discussionI started with EverNote, but I really like Roam's daily pages now. It powers my Human Log well.[0] [0]: https://neilkakkar.com/the-human-log.html
Comment linking /the-human-log.html
on “Powerful Life Skills for the New Decade”Submitted Bayes Theorem: A Framework for Critical Thinking as a story · 89 points
HN discussionI have been in a lot of stress lately because of the workplace dynamics. Initially I couldn’t even know if it’s actually work related or if I am going through some kind of health issues. After thorough investigation I kind of realized its mostly the work pressure which is acting on my nerves and causing me to trip. Here is the rough approach I followed to start debugging myself. Physical: 3 major components... Sleep…
Comment linking /the-human-log.html
on “Do you struggle with anxiety from work?”Submitted The Human Log as a story · 59 points
HN discussioncheck https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/ https://neilkakkar.com/salary-calculator-by-city.html https://entryadvice.com/countries/ https://symbolhunt.com/ but for me don't go US.
Comment linking /salary-calculator-by-city.html
on “I was proposed a remote job in the US. How to calculate the equivalent EU salary”Submitted How Unix Works as a story · 53 points
HN discussionGood posts that I have read https://neilkakkar.com/things-I-learnt-from-a-senior-dev.htm... https://medium.com/s/story/what-truly-makes-a-senior-develop...
Comment linking /things-I-learnt-from-a-senior-dev.html
on “Ask HN: How to Become a Senior Developer?”Submitted A Guide to Climate Change as a story · 44 points
HN discussionhttps://neilkakkar.com/unix.html
Comment linking /unix.html
on “Ask HN: Linux for Windows Devs”Submitted A Framework for First Principles Thinking as a story · 36 points
HN discussionI think you'd like this post I wrote: https://neilkakkar.com/agentic-debt.html , parts of why I think we wouldn't get automated away just yet. It might be true eventually - and when it does happen, I'm sure I'll find something else to do, most probably up the stack. Managing for now seems like a terrible task for agents. I need to guide them to the right solution. _Parts_ of what I write are drudgery, which gets aut…
Comment linking /agentic-debt.html
on “How I'm Productive with Claude Code”Submitted All stories are wrong but some are useful as a story · 30 points
HN discussionThe other article references in the bottom was much more interesting: https://neilkakkar.com/agentic-debt.html
Comment linking /agentic-debt.html
on “How I'm Productive with Claude Code”Submitted The Personality Loop as a story · 11 points
HN discussionWhen I moved countries I looked at 3 things * Quality of life assuming same standard of living * Culture and things to do beyond tourist stuff * If I saw myself in the place for at least 5years Going to a new country is a huge move, so be 100% sure you will like the city you'll settle and the company you will work for. Once you are there, going back will be financially and emotionally expensive. Work is work, the pa…
Comment linking /salary-calculator-by-city.html
on “Ask HN: High paying job or better position and comforts”Submitted Big Ideas from Rationality as a story · 9 points
HN discussion
