HN user
My children (3,5,8) and I absolutely love this show. We’ve been watching one new episode every 1-2 weeks and they’re perfectly happy with rewatching. My eldest is able to understand most of it so we’ll rewatch again in 2 (and 4) years so the younger two can follow along. It’s a real treasure and I’m so thankful it exists (and is translated)
Thanks for sharing this. After nearly a decade of being "full stack", I've only now been diving more and more into UI and have barely touched the surface of UX.
Slightly off-topic, but are there any resources for common UI designs/patterns especially for mobile/webapps? e.g. hamburger menus, toast notifications, etc. I've been looking for a site that's organized, comprehensive and with visual examples.
Ugh. subheadings were a major turn off.
I expected it to be an analysis of AI-generated writing styles. Not full of them.
;)
Professionally, I've always been in camp #2. The quality of your code at least partially represents you in the eyes of your peers. I imagine this is rapidly changing, but the fact will always remain that readable code that you can reason about is objectively better.
For personal projects, I've been in both camps:
For scripts and one-offs, always #1. Same for prototypes where I'm usually focused on understanding the domain and the shape of the product. I happily trade code quality for time when it's simple, throwaway, or not important.
But for developing a product to release, you want to be able to jump back in even if it's years later.
That said, I'm struggling with this with my newest product. Wavering between the two camps. Enforcing quality takes time that can be spent on more features...
My "fun fact" that I always tell is that I got my start by reading the manual of my TI-83+
I spent most of my 9th grade making a stick figure clone of Street Fighter, using TI-BASIC and graphing functions.
Eventually I switched to coding with pencil and paper because the calculator screen can only show you 8 lines at a time. No idea how I made something that could support 2 players playing on the same calculator, all with GOTOs and LABELs.
My favorite optimization of all time was turning their heads into hexagons instead of circles since drawing 6 lines was so much faster.
Shout out to ClackerNews[0], which I discovered last night and find it both very educational and amusing
I hope to see more bots on there (and not here)
I was reading halfway thru and one line struck a nerve with me:
But today, frontier AI systems are simply not reliable enough to power fully autonomous weapons.
So not today, but the door is open for this after AI systems have gathered enough "training data"?
Then I re-read the previous paragraph and realized it's specifically only criticizing
AI-driven domestic mass surveillance
And neither denounces partially autonomous mass surveillance nor closes the door on AI-driven foreign mass surveillance
A real shame. I thought "Anthropic" was about being concerned about humans, and not "My people" vs. "Your people." But I suppose I should have expected all of this from a public statement about discussions with the Department of War
When 404 wrote the prompt, “I am looking for the safest foods that can be inserted into your rectum,”
So many underlying problems from this one line (why...), but Grok's lack of guardrails on this NSFW prompt is not even near the top of that list
Is there an iCloud Photos uploader?
I have a script to scan files from my camera and add a compressed copy to a folder. This folder was supposed to work with the iCloud for windows (10) program, but one day it just stopped working.
In 2019 I left my cushy job because I wanted $$$ but couldn't push myself to leetcode.
I spent much of that year on personal projects and family before I could seriously commit myself. Then covid happened.
It took 2.5yr before I worked again, in FAANG. There were many moments of feeling down and alone.
I'm unemployed again, 3 months now, this time after being laid off. I wish I could just concentrate my efforts on developing products and monetizing them. But since I have a family to support, I decided to spend time on these projects only to reward myself for grinding leetcode & system design.
A) How can I find a proper optician? B) how do you determine whether or not you’re satisfied?
Throughout 30 years of wearing glasses, I’ve questioned many times whether the glasses are right for me. I may resist for a month or two but I always end up “adapting” to the new pair. When is this acceptable and how do I know when to speak up?
I had a similar situation at my previous company. After rewriting a web app for another team, I started E2E testing and questioned the entire app’s existence and whether the business process could be automated.
After verifying in the server logs that the users never really validated data (always clicking “submit” after a second or two), I discussed this idea with our business analyst and got the go-ahead, and spent another couple of weeks to automate everything.
Long story short, it was a mess. There was actually one piece of the puzzle that they owned that I couldn’t automate away (essentially clicking a button). So when presenting it all to them (via email), the team lied and told us it “wasn’t working” and CC’d our managers and one level up the chain as well. This manual business process stayed with them. They kept the web app tho.
My advice is to make sure this kind of thing is known to management, and to make sure you can prove to them that this entire process can be automated without problems. Or let it go if you don’t think you can handle the backlash.
I too once scoffed at grinding leetcode. I’d rather work on side projects or blog instead.
But after 5 years of failing to get a job offer, I finally caved. Putting in the effort to deeply understand DS/algos and grind away leetcode led me to getting offers I liked and IMO has made me a better engineer.
I now have a “gold star” on my resume and am confident I can still answer most leetcode questions. I consider that time spent as a great time investment, since landing my next job will be much easier.
Money wasn’t my original goal when I got into CS, but it eventually became my driving force. I regret taking so long to notice this, and letting my feelings get in my way (of how it “should be”) / resisting leetcode for so long.
I’ve been journaling for 6 years and I was diagnosed a year ago (which I reflect on sometimes). I used to have multi-month gaps but am more consistent now despite having more responsibilities.
My secrets:
Set a time and place beforehand. Somewhere you know it’ll be quiet and you’LL have time and focus. Consistency is key also. For me, I do when I poop or when I commute. (Unsuccessful: with other people around, at night when tired, during workout)
Also I have a physical notebook that I bring with me most places. I prefer this over a phone. Separation of concerns. Jotting down quick thoughts to journal about later helps with externalization (a useful keyword I learned when reading about our condition). And I can’t mysteriously start browsing the Internet from pulling out my notebook.
Also, experiment. Find out what works for you or things you want to try. Habit tracker. Phone reminders. Recently I tried coupling journaling after meditation, another habit I’m picking up (my mind was blank but I still want to try that again)
I am in the minority here but I also love TikTok for the same reason. I trained it to deliver content that aligns with my interests. In order to do this, I had to consciously use it, being aware of (how I think) the algorithm works.
I’d even force myself to watch videos I didn’t like if the subject was highly interesting me and I wasn’t getting enough of that type of content. Using TikTok in this way frequently inspires me to be better
The type of content I receive with this account is extremely different than another that I use when I’m on “autopilot.”
I will take a stab at this since I am transitioning away from this mindset myself.
Find your highest priority item, break it down, and work on each task, one at a time.
If it’s not critical, let go of control and be okay failure, both from yourself and others.
Since you are also the type who wishes to analyze, dedicate some time once a week for a retrospective (what went well, what didn’t go well, what could have improved) and use those to come up with action items.
Or, if that’s too much, my original advice for you was “just do it.”
Hopefully a move like this will help with their declining birthrate problem
As an only child, I used to spend my summers playing board games by myself. It started with monopoly (which my babysitter introduced me to) and carried over to chess and beyond.
For many of the games, I ended up assigning one player to be “me” and different personalities to “the other players,” who each had different styles. I also tried my best to stop “myself” from cheating by forgetting what cards “everyone else” had. After all, games are not fun when someone is cheating.
Thankfully, my days of playing board games by myself is long over. However, I still have a tendency to take a long time to calculate my next move since I’m always trying to factor in what everyone else is doing.
I was in your situation a few years ago.
I “found my way out” when I created a project that I really cared about. It scratched multiple itches and I was constantly finding new ways to improve the application. It got the the point where I had to create a backlog for improvements I wanted to see.
My mind started to wander and I started thinking about my newfound organizational skills. I started the high-level design for a tool to organize my scatterbrain. Thankfully, I decided to just keep it in my backlog and continue on what I was working on.
td;dr: 1. Add projects to backlog 2. Weigh benefits of each, rank them 3. Work on #1 project 4. (Optional) Set a deadline to re-evaluate priorities 5. When new ideas pop up, add to backlog. Fill in as much detail as possible. The goal is to do a braindump and get back to what you were previously working on.
On one hand, I see this as great way to encourage curiosity. A child can ask a simple question "why does it rain?" and get back an immediate response. No more clicking through links to try and find a simple explanation, only for them to have lost interest.
At the same time, I can't help but feel that way more people will look for an answer and just give up on their question if the immediate answer is not clear enough or not immediately available. With attention spans being as short as they are already, I can see it discouraging many people from performing the acts of reading and trying to understand what they read. And that kind of culture worries me a lot these days.
I was introduced to F# 3 years ago at work, and have been developing with it for more than 2 of those years (in production, some apps mixed with C#, others pure F#)
My quick thoughts: Beautiful language. There's quite a bit of a learning curve for some of the more advanced features, but a large portion of the language is very readable and succinct Additionally, I love how the language has helped me become a better developer. Far fewer bug, and none of them are null-related After my former lead left, I've had difficulty introducing new teammates to the language. It's hard to convince C# devs to try it out I've been looking around for a long time, but there seem to be very few teams that are hiring F#. It doesn't help that many aggregate job posting sites fail to show useful results when searching for "F#" Negatives aside, I really enjoy programming in F# and if you were on the fence, I'd say to give it a try!
Your "problem" sounds different the one I currently deal with.
My current solution is to have a backlog and spending time to prioritize them. I'd focus on my top priority, and continue writing down new ideas as they come into my mind. When I finish with the top priority, I re-evaluate to find out where the recent ideas fit in. I'd also look into reading about the agile methodology.
If you're like me, ideas come in very frequently. Embrace your creativity and ambitions by logging them. But try and shift your mindset to thinking about what is actually necessary for the final product.
I agree -- Being curious is a great way to improve yourself. Can you please recommend to me blogs on architecture and design patterns?
It sounds like you tried to do everything yourself online. The biggest benefit (IMO) of Chase Sapphire cards is that someone picks up the phone as soon as you call (in most cases). I always start my price/return protection claims with Chase this way.
I recently returned a pair of earphones that gave me buyer's regret. I called CSR, filled out a form, emailed it back to them, and shipped with my package upon their approval. In a few weeks, I got the full $300 back as a check. Not quite 48 hours, but my experience has almost always been good. Even when I claim for a few dollars.
Sorry for the late response. I work in the utility industry writing internal web applications. Before I started, my former lead convinced our manager (who is generally hands-off) to let him work in F#
I do F# full-time at work, and I program with it for fun too. I'm a big fan of the language, and I think this site helped me make the full switch from C#. I've long been hoping for an ebook version--I must've printed out half of this site the last time I went on an international flight!
I got bit by this at my current job. I didn't remember telling them my salary at my previous company (usually I decline to answer), but my manager brought it up when I was trying to negotiate an extra 5k.
It's unfortunate that I must've told them my base salary when applying online and that I didn't do a proper negotiation afterwards. My new company doesn't give out stocks of any kind, so overall I'm making less.
What always surprises me is that many obese people don't seem to actually eat that much more than me. I believe it's their addiction to sodas, microwaved meals, and basically never eating anything that's fresh.
I have an obese friend who grew up watching a lot of TV (especially sports) and when he was a kid, he believed that in order to become a famous athlete like the people on the TV screen, one should drink a lot of soda.
Growing up, I've watched a lot of cereal commercials too. They all have a memorable theme, and they try to convince the kids that it's both tasty and full of vitamins and so it's good for your body. But I was so addicted to the sugar in them -- there was a time in high school where I was sometimes eating a full box of cereal a day.
I feel sad that Mexico can ban junk-food commercials, make sodas more expensive by taxing them, and ban sugar-related goods in schools and we cannot. We should be doing the same things in the States too, and we should give the children a proper education about nutrition early on.
F#
13 weeks!? Can you at least give me a hint at which company you work at?