Hacker News Reader

MaximumYCombon A Black Professor Trapped in Anti-Racist Hell

How did this get coopted to a black studies association? Going back 30-40 years we see classical studies, like "Ethics and Society in the Ancient(?) World".

MaximumYCombon Why is remote work seen as a gift?

My company allows fully flexible work, but due to the nature of our work we tend to hire locally. A recruiter made a mistake and arranged an interview for me in the wrong city, and I was hired as the only fully remote employee for a local team.

Does it have challenges? Yes. Am I a valued employee? Yes, I am potentially one of the most valuable employees after my first year in my team. Easily top 20%.

I visit my team every few months for a week. Mostly the point is so we can go out for dinner and I get to have some drinks with them. The workday itself is changed very little by being in person.

MaximumYCombon For U.S. companies, the race for the new EV battery is on

They do it because his political views don't align with their own. It's a fairly simple thing to understand about human nature.

MaximumYCombon The Chinese Civil Examinations

That is O(n^2), when I believe it could have been O(n.log(n)).

MaximumYCombon The Chinese Civil Examinations

It all depends on how good you are at programming / math. If you have a natural talent for those then you don't need to spend much time preparring (hence why they're used a test). People try to "cheat" the test through preparing for months.

MaximumYCombon Glucosamine significantly reduces risk of lung cancer and lung cancer mortality

The fungus probably isn't normally eaten. Shrimp shells aren't exactly a treat.

MaximumYCombon Ask HN: What prompted you to convert from non-vegetarian to vegetarian?

The Gamechangers

I'm not even joking. I recongise most of the documentary is heavily biased, i.e. erections. However, all four of my biological grandparents had heart issues. I'm in my 30's and have a "hefty" build. Being vegan on a whole food type diet would drastically reduce the odds of me dying from heart disease.

MaximumYCombon “Amateur” programmer fought cancer with 50 Nvidia Geforce 1080Ti

I'm not your OP but I learnt all these things at univeristy during my BCompSci. Understanding ML algorithms came down to a lot of math / statistics units. I learnt about parallel computing during a dedicated unit called "Distributed and Parallel Computing"

MaximumYCombon My experience getting a tech job with no degree or relevant work experience

My field is cyber security, not development, but I feel like I get to "fuck around" with computers all day. I'm so lucky that I have a job which I enjoy so much that also rewards so well financially. I still pinch myself when I think that people actually pay me to do this for a living.

I deal with a lot of work that's really similar to puzzle solving. "Why did this occur? Is it normal behaviour or malicious?" and then I get to do deep dives trying to figure out why something happened. If I find malicious behaviour I get to go into incident response mode and boot out a bad guy. If I find a false positive I get to do some engineering to figure out how to avoid this while still maintaining the purpose of the original rules (while also minimising system overhead for the rule processing). The kicker is there are a LOT of companies willing to pay me a LOT of money to do this. I'm so incredibly lucky.

MaximumYCombon My experience getting a tech job with no degree or relevant work experience

Not everybody on this site would make a good programmer but if I picked a random person here I would have better results than if I picked a random person from the rest of the population. Choosing to spend personal time somewhere like here indicates a few personality traits.

MaximumYCombon Remotewide – Find remote jobs with location independent pay

I recently had a recruiter make a mistake with what city I live in and she organised an interview for me with a team based 800km away. I did so well in the interview that the team is making a single remote position for me. The company does have an office here I can work from when I don't want to WFH.

When the pay is right, I agree that remote employees don't have to be bottom of the barrel.

MaximumYCombon My experience getting a tech job with no degree or relevant work experience

Interesting that multiple people here have said that Early Career style programs are aimed at diversity requirements. I guess if you're male and white/asian, you should still make sure to go to university if you have the chance.

MaximumYCombon My experience getting a tech job with no degree or relevant work experience

I don't think so. Maybe 20-50% of people can learn to be decent at programming. Maybe less than 10% can be really good. The simple fact that you're on this website makes me think you can probably learn if you put in the effort.

MaximumYCombon My experience getting a tech job with no degree or relevant work experience

I was the 30 year old that went to night school to study a degree in Computer Science. I got my first real tech role (paying $85k) three years into my six years of study. I've just made my first job switch for a $40k payrise with six months left in my degree. I'll graduate late this year and I'll probably also be close to my next payrise which will put me at $140-150k.

I cannot recommend enough making a switch like this. It isn't easy. In fact, it can be really difficult. My life and the life of my children are going to reap benefits from this. If you're reading this and thinking "Can I do this?" then I'd highly recommend you attempt to find a way to make it work.

MaximumYCombon I thought I’d have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35 (2020)

I was diagnosed with cancer at 30 and the initial prognosis wasn't great. Turns out it wasn't that bad and I easily beat it but it certainly changed my view on life. My 30's have been great. I get a lot of satisfaction from my family, my social life, my work, etc. I've made peace with where my life is at and I feel like I have control (to a degree) on where it's going.

MaximumYCombon Reinstating our SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles

I think the benefit of religion is that a religious mother/father is less likely to be off on 3-day meth binge compared to a non-religious one. There's a social network to help support people. The social network also encourages a reduction/removal of typical vices that are going to affect a families children (alcohol, drugs, etc).

MaximumYCombon Reinstating our SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles

I grew up poor and I achieved some of the highest scores state wide in my country's standardised tests as a child (we get tested at ~8,10,12,14). A lot of my peers at my school were from social housing. My assessment is that their biggest issue wasn't money but their homelife. Parents who didn't value education, or even a basic respect for rules/authority. The kids were wild because their parents were kind of wild themselves. Money wouldn't fix scores for these kids.

If you wish to make a political correct stance, I wouldn't go the money route. I'd say that these kids are victims of intergenerational poverty cycles.

MaximumYCombon Reinstating our SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles

Why do you say rich kids have more time? I grew up in an underprivileged area and I very much disagree that poorer kids are getting their free time hammered.

MaximumYCombon Reinstating our SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles

I think that is great. Once you get past a certain threshold, the test loses prediction value. Giving the kids in the top 5% a way to differentiate is great.

MaximumYCombon Reinstating our SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles

IQ is quite heritible. This is especially so when upbringing is not neglectful. People who land very high paying tech roles are probably average higher in IQ than the general population.

Your daughter likely has the benefit of strong academic genetics. A child like that who puts in effort (i.e. works through a book) is going to do amazingly well. I'd also argue that families who value academics are also more likely to buy the books to do a couple hours per week in.

MaximumYCombon What doctors wish patients knew about long Covid

I had post-viral syndrome from glandular fever when I was ~32. It sucked. Like you, I was a wreck for 6 months. It took 2-3 years before I could exercise properly but my life was decent enough at the 12 month mark. My research at the time indicated that rates of post-viral syndromes vary by disease. Glandular fever is known to cause it in 10-20% of adults who fall sick.

MaximumYCombon What doctors wish patients knew about long Covid

I had glandular fever in 2018 and was struck down by a reasonably severe post-viral syndrome. The term is nearly synomonous with chronic fatigue syndrome. I had brain fog, horrible post-exertional malaise (the most defining symptom of chronic fatigue), etc.

There is no test to diagnose. There is no recovery timeline. I was simply told "you should get better within 1-5 years" by an endocrinologist. Luckily it took only 12 months to get my life onto track and somewhere around 2-3 years before I was comfortable doing strenous exercise.

MaximumYCombon What were humans doing in the Yukon 24,000 years ago?

I suspect the person you replied to was being highly sarcastic in their reply. It's a highly charged area due to the history of race relations in the US.

MaximumYCombon On Being Broke

I started my pivot from a trade background into tech by going to university when I was 30. I'm 36 now and about to graduate while I've also been working in the field now for over two years. I've done this while being a single father to two young children (they were 1 and 3 when I started night univeristy). It was certainly not easy. I nearly burnt out hard multiple times.

MaximumYCombon Multiple Sclerosis Causality

Wow, I was also EBV positive ~4 years ago (45 months), was symptomatic and I had post viral fatigue for around a year. It was 12 months before I could do light physical training and it was around 2.5 years before I could train physically at high intensity.

MaximumYCombon I resigned from Twitter

I lean moderately left and I really disagree with #3. The explosion of voices is only ones that are "allowed". Twitter is one of the biggest offenders of cancel culture (i.e. silencing people).

MaximumYCombon USS Connecticut (SSN 22) struck an object while submerged on Oct. 2

Experience varies. I've enjoyed all my postings, some more than others and I don't regret enlisting for a second. But I've certainly seen a lot of reactions to make incidents in the form of watch a video or a PowerPoint presentation. Not so much for proper training.

MaximumYCombon USS Connecticut (SSN 22) struck an object while submerged on Oct. 2

Yes, 12.5 years enlisted. I've sat through more dumb PPT's that are a reaction to an incident than I care to remember. With Covid, the model seems to have moved to doing an online course which is a bunch of slides and some multiple choice questions.