robheaton

A few months ago I wrote a post called "Systems design for advanced beginners" that a lot of people seem to have found helpful.

Link: https://robertheaton.com/2020/04/06/systems-design-for-advan... HN comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23904000

I write regularly about security, programming, and several other topics at http://robertheaton.com/ . They’re detailed, offbeat, and very funny. I’ve broken several high-profile privacy abuses, most notably:

* Wacom drawing tablets track the name of every application that you open - https://robertheaton.com/2020/02/05/wacom-drawing-tablets-tr...

* “Stylish" browser extension steals all your internet history - https://robertheaton.com/2018/07/02/stylish-browser-extensio...

* HP printers try to send data back to HP about your devices and what you print - https://robertheaton.com/2019/09/15/hp-printers-send-data-on...

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I write the Steve Steveington Chronicles, in which you and your good friend, Steve Steveington, exploit weird security and privacy edge cases in the internet:

* Fun with your friend's Facebook and Tinder sessions - https://robertheaton.com/2014/12/08/fun-with-your-friends-fa...

* How Tinder keeps your exact location (a bit) private - https://robertheaton.com/2018/07/09/how-tinder-keeps-your-lo...

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I write a lot for “advanced beginners” - people who understand how for-loops and if-statements work, but who aren’t sure what to do next:

* Programming Projects for Advanced Beginners - https://robertheaton.com/2018/12/08/programming-projects-for...

* https://robertheaton.com/pfab

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I write about being a parent:

* Childbirth: a father's-eye view - https://robertheaton.com/2019/06/17/childbirth-a-fathers-eye...

* Plus five more episodes (and counting), linked from the bottom of that post

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Finally, I write detailed explanations of complex technical topics:

* HTTPS in the real world - https://robertheaton.com/2018/11/28/https-in-the-real-world/

* How does Tor work? - https://robertheaton.com/2019/04/06/how-does-tor-work/

You and he were...buddies, weren't you?

This is true - it depends on whether they know there are exactly 2 different eye colours on the island. I should clarify that!

Thanks :). To plug myself, I quite like http://robertheaton.com/2014/01/06/how-to-win-at-dinner-part...

That sounds about right! Greg's Quora answer pretty much covers everything, and I'd say that there's not much you should particularly do to prepare other than to keep getting better at what it is you do anyway and to chill out. pc specifically said to me that the primary thing he cared about was that people were able to show how good they actually are, and that everyone feels they got a good crack at the whip and didn't get screwed over by a weird question or not preparing some specific thing or anything like that.

I am actually the OP :), my email address is in my HN profile and feel free to email me with any more questions!

I was about to reply "nonono it's not a date rape joke" but then I realised that the word "violent" in "violent sexual abuse" means it actually could easily be taken as one. I only meant to joke about receiving unpleasant messages on a dating site, which is probably not fun, but I think is generally OK to joke about. On the other hand, date rape is not OK to joke about. I've changed "violent" to "aggressive", which I think keeps the same tone I was going for but removes the ambiguity.

Obviously I would say this, but the Stripe process was really enjoyable, rapid and well thought through. It was clear that everyone really cared about making sure that you were able to really show your true skills and abilities. The team is great (and obviously just got 5.8% more great when I joined) and really happy to answer any and every question you might have.

So I strongly recommend. Although I would say that.

If I was guessing, I'd say that I very consciously made my CV/cover letter/blog "intriguing". I'm an OK programmer, but at the moment my strength is probably that I have a diverse list of fairly wacky and mostly unrelated other stuff that I've done. I think this meant that a lot of companies who would otherwise have passed straightaway were at least curious enough about the guy on the other end of this application to talk.

I should point out that after a Skype or 2, most of said speculative companies did realise that whilst founding a clothing company that makes sweatshirts with pictures of fruit on them is cool, it doesn't really help you write Clojure when you don't have any functional programming experience ;)

Of course, it could just be something boring like the fact that companies really need Ruby guys at the moment.

This is totally right - I mean absolutely no endorsement of said sexism!

I really like the "get up super early, work on startup when freshest, then go to work" strategy. Have you tried that?

I find that doing something related to what you're doing is probably the worst thing you can do. Let's say you run your specs and 5 of them fail. You fix #1 and then re-run the spec, then go and fix #2 whilst waiting to see if your first fix is good. You will end up juggling and trying to fix multiple bugs at once, which is a recipe for failure and sadness.

I strongly endorse just staring at the screen whilst waiting.

That sucks man, I can definitely believe that. My email's in my profile, let's talk.

I know what you mean about the pain feeling different. It's really hard to describe, I imagine it's different for everyone. How are you approaching working out?

“if your job wasn’t performed by a cat or a boa constrictor in a Richard Scarry book I’m not sure I believe it’s necessary”

Awesome quote.

Agree 100% that it's fundamentally about understanding what you can/can't do and are/aren't doing. If you are jamming on what you know that that's totally fine, but it pays to realise this.

The stockbroker example was slightly poorly chosen - similar studies have been done on other professions, including physicians, in particular when inspecting scans for signs of cancer.

Absolutely - I feel it's then still important to be honest about what you are doing and whether or not it's helping you in this way if that's what you want it to do. If you want to focus on other things then that's great and healthy, but recognise that flicking through Rails blogs and noodling around with ideas is what you do for recreation, and has very little impact on your professional development.

I can confirm that Mu-Tweaker really brings the thunder.