probablyfiction

I don't even like writing React in Javascript

What the hell did I just read?

There is increasing awareness that addiction and procrastination [1] are not indicative of laziness. Human beings are great at protecting their emotional core because it's essential to basic functioning. Addiction seems similar. Addicts seem to be attempting to escape something too (subjectively) difficult to face [2][3]. In my opinion it's often due to unresolved trauma.

When we don't have the emotional tools to resolve trauma from our past, we resort to coping mechanisms. While I'm not a therapist, I've had to deal with my fair share of trauma and have come to learn a lot about how trauma affects us and the way we deal (or fail to deal) with our day-to-day struggles.

1. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/25/smarter-living/why-you-pr... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park 3. https://nida.nih.gov/about-nida/noras-blog/2018/10/new-nida-...

Exactly. Agile is sold as a way to increase productivity, but the practices seem to be about reducing autonomy for team members.

Back in 2013 the company I was working for released a touchscreen kiosk. They rolled their own hardware and wanted a custom software solution. There was limited space on the device and it would not be internet-enabled. There would be no physical access to the device beyond the touchscreen, and the target audience was not known for being technically savvy.

I was tasked with delivering PHP code that would serve pages to the customer. For whatever reason I wasn't allowed to use CodeIgniter, which was what we used elsewhere in the company. I wound up creating a mini-framework to serve pages. It was extremely basic and limited, but in this situation it was what was needed.

It is the only time I've ever had to create a framework. I doubt I'll ever have to do so again. The beauty of frameworks is that they free you up to focus on your application and the logic to support it, rather than figuring out the best way to handle things like routing or database access.

This just seems like checklists with extra steps.

Because they own their own platform, they can't handle HN traffic. Idealism, meet harsh reality.

Former speed dating entrepreneur here. In person, at least, women are much more open to the idea of speed dating than men. Much of our marketing revolved around how to appeal to and attract men to our events.

Have. Other. Hobbies.

If you do anything over and over, you'll get sick of it. A well-balanced life is important. Start exploring other things in life that you find interesting; there is plenty to keep you occupied.

The parliamentarian is someone who is thoroughly familiar with all of the Senate's rules. They ensure that bills that are passed comply with the rules that the Senate operates under.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentarian_of_the_United_...

And I continually hurt those around me — just by being myself-and it’s beyond heartbreaking.

If you're an asshole without money, you're going to be an asshole when you have money, too. Money doesn't change you; it reveals you.

This is an interesting read, but the author spends way too much time defending his POV. He expects the people around him to just intuitively know what his skills are, but that isn't realistic. People can't know what you consider yourself to be good at unless you tell them.

Not every job requires passion. I would venture to say that most jobs don't. Is it a desirable trait? Sure. Is it the only trait that matters? Most certainly not.

The idea that all programmers are super-passionate about the craft and never have any other interests can lead people to assume that if you don't have that single-minded focus that you aren't a real programmer. This is an industry where many people deal with imposter syndrome already; they really don't need any additional help with questioning whether or not they have what it takes to succeed.

It's a common human tendency to assume that others in your group are exactly like you. The programmers with passion for the craft assume that everyone else who is a developer must share that passion. This is pretty short-sighted and exclusionary. Not every developer codes in their spare time. Not every developer learns new programming languages for fun.

I agree with the author that you need some level of enjoyment from the process of programming in order to succeed in it as a career, but I doubt that's specific to programming, either.

There's growing evidence that political beliefs are linked to self-image more than factual evidence, which is why arguing over the facts of an issue often winds up causing both sides to double-down on what they already believe to be true and generally accomplishes nothing.

Touché

I'll check the comments if I'm interested in the topic, but aside from that I tend to avoid HN comments. The comments as a whole seem to be overly negative and contrarian...to the point where often there isn't a whole lot of value to be derived.

There are a couple of things going on here.

First, you are not in a good place mentally. Your self esteem is pretty low and that is the reason you feel like such an outcast at work. Since you're at a big 4 company, odds are good that you have an Employee Assistance Program available to you for free. They can get you set up with a therapist where you can start exploring these issues. The therapist is prohibited from sharing any of this with your employer. Unfortunately, most EAPs only cover a few sessions. In my opinion, though, the benefits of therapy are well worth the cost.

You have to get your emotional issues figured out before you can find the kind of fulfillment you're looking for. Even if you get another job, you will just wind up repeating this same scenario at the next place. I don't doubt that the work culture may be terrible, but the emotional issues you have going on are a core reason you're dealing with this stuff. Your boss is right, you are too nice. Part of being a healthy person is having healthy boundaries. You give and give and give, thinking that it's going to make people like you, but it has the opposite effect because it's just not normal. The end result is that you get excluded.

Second, software hiring is TERRIBLE. It's not just you. I just spent three months searching for a programming job. I got rejection after rejection (usually for doing poorly on those fucking logic puzzles) and it really made me start to doubt my level of expertise. I started making changes to what I was looking for. I changed the target seniority level. I started to lower my salary requirements. Then...boom. I landed a job with the right seniority level for my skills and a salary right at my original target. Now I'm working at the type of company I want, and I'm going to be moving forward in my career. I'm incredibly lucky (and thankful) this opportunity came along or the software hiring process would have convinced me that I simply didn't have the level of skill I thought I had.

Your ability to solve a puzzle is (usually) not indicative of your ability to solve real world business problems. The exception, I think, is at those big companies like you're applying to. So, you need to get better. Fortunately there are a ton of resources out there. If it's important to you to keep working at a huge tech company, then this is the only way to get in unless you have a personal connection. Read some books. Study like it's your job. Eventually stuff will start to make sense.

You have to believe in yourself in order to keep the job search going. That ties into your self esteem. Seek out some counseling, and start studying those brain teasers. You'll get to where you want to be.

You would think that law enforcement would already be using a VPN or Tor for stuff like this.

"On top of that, a lack of collaboration with U.S. intelligence means that if Anonymous and GhostSec are running the same game as the Group — creating moles within online ISIS communities — the good guys in government could end up investigating the Anonymous moles instead of the actual terrorists."

Pardon my ignorance, but is it even an option for civilians to coordinate with a national intelligence agency?

I really appreciated his tone. I'm incredibly fascinated by ideas like quantum physics and basic building blocks of the universe, but am often left behind when I read articles about them due to a lack of understanding of the core mathematics. His tone makes this complicated subject understandable.

I think you're giving politicians too much credit. As a group, they tend to be reactionary to whatever the threat du jour is.

But because of HN rules, we can't change it to something more appropriate and less clickbait-y

"...the company wanted to invest as little time in the problem as possible so the person couldn't fix the tests, write new ones, or write a real fix. I don't blame the engineer, I blame their manager and their company."

This is spot on. Managers of software teams (and their bosses, all the way up to CTOs and CEOs) need to allow their engineers to contribute fixes to OSS with the understanding that it helps the community. There's also the added benefit of helping the business to develop a positive image in the OSS community.

This obviously is not always possible, and in some organizations it is never going to be possible. However, there are teams out there that do have the freedom and flexibility to give back to the community.

If enough teams begin contributing bug fixes to projects they find helpful, eventually this pervasive attitude the author writes about will change.

On a separate note, the author needs to stand up for himself more. A boilerplate e-mail with his hourly rate wouldn't take long to put together. If an issue is important enough to a company to bombard him with support requests, it's likely worth it to them to pay for a fix.

The basic idea, that software is a set of decisions, is insightful. I'm definitely going to borrow this concept when talking about software design to non-technical people.

However, a less insightful decision is to have yellow text on a purple background. I can't force myself to read the whole thing.

While completely ignoring that contractors like Snowden have absolutely no whistleblower protections at all.

Given that neither of us had deep infrastructure experience, we had to soak up as much knowledge as we could.

Learning by doing. This is why I love the time in which we live. If you decide or need to learn something new, you can get started on the path to picking it up quickly. No trips to the library; just plug in your query to your favorite search engine and you're on your way.

A more accurate title would have been "Uber's new CTO is doing pretty okay," but that doesn't entice people to click nearly as much

It makes sense that Ulbricht had more experienced ccoders supporting his efforts. I've always wondered how he built a multimillion dollar empire one StackOverlow question at a time.

96-bit keys??? Even in 2012 when VW released the feature, 96 bits was laughably weak.

I think I'd rather live in a world in which both sides of every issue get to have their say than in which the losing side is excluded if they're sufficiently "bad".

The problem with giving "both sides" of an issue equal time is that it can legitimize completely indefensible positions. Global warming is a prime example of this. Virtually every scientist who is familiar with the data is convinced that global warming is happening right now and that drastic action is needed in order to stave off catastrophe. Only a tiny minority disagree. For decades, people on both sides of the issue have been interviewed as though this is something that is genuinely controversial when the truth of the matter is that scientific consensus exists that global warming is real and is happening right now.

Full-disk encryption is one of the best ways to protect users from having their privacy invaded. Cell phones contain a wealth of personal information and can be the starting point for identity theft. The benefit to consumers...the vast majority of whom are lawful...outweighs the risk that law enforcement will be locked out of collecting potentially useful information in the course of an investigation.

To say that full-disk encryption stymies the finest law enforcement minds in the world is ridiculous. There are other ways to collect information. They can serve the cell phone company with a warrant in order to get calling records and text messages. If they can find the e-mail address associated with the user's device, they can serve Google & Apple with a warrant to access GPS data and e-mail correspondence.

I understand that it's a blow to law enforcement to have something like cell phones be suddenly off limits, but technology always enables people to commit crime in new ways. Eventually, the police always catch up.

After a certain number of failed attempts, newer devices lock themselves.