HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

Varqu

779 karma · joined February 2, 2019

Software Developer living and working in Switzerland
submissionscomments
Varqu··on Denmark to raise retirement age to 70
Then perhaps it should be said openly, that this is an elderly tax, not a pension and it should be just kept to the minimum, allowing people to save more of their own income for their own private pension.

Currently, it's the worst of both worlds: you get taxed quite a significant portion of your income, and then, in the middle of the game, someone changes the rules and tells you to play longer in order to get the prize.

Varqu··on The correct amount of ads is zero
While I agree with the post author on the "if I pay the subscription then there should be no ads" part, there is a bit that comes fairly often in such posts which I find rather funny: "sell my data to your advertisers"

Sorry, that's not how 90% of digital advertising works. The company doesn't sell your data, they just offer some other companies to put an ad in front of your screen based on some specific profiling.

But these ads companies don't receive a file called "Manuel Moreale personal data and shopping history"

Varqu··on Ask HN: Why Is Stack Overflow Fading Away?
It's now just a simple frontend redirecting to Indeed.
Varqu··on Boeing to plead guilty to criminal fraud charge stemming from 737 MAX crashes
How about we put responsibility on the CEOs and other C-levels?

When it comes to justifying the compensation packages, they are first to claim that they are responsible for the company achievements.

If they would actually face jail-time for non-disputable wrongdoing, then it would actually balance it out.

Varqu··on Germany and Switzerland IT Job Market 12,500 Survey answers, 6,300 Salaries
There is also a page with the average salary for each city.
Varqu··on Gemini AI
I bet that it will land on Google's graveyard before it gets released worldwide.
Varqu··on Why do everyone's logo fonts look the same? (2020)
Paul Skallas notices this trend as well, and it applies to pretty much everything:

- logos - cars - architecture - even personal appearance

https://lindynewsletter.beehiiv.com/p/refinement-culture

Varqu··on Tell HN: Wise froze $40k+ in funds for 10 days and counting
What are the issues with a normal bank account? (apart from potentially hire fees)
Varqu··on Tell HN: Wise froze $40k+ in funds for 10 days and counting
Protip:

If you have a low volume of high amount transactions, skip the fancy Fintech (Mafia) companies and just use a good old bank account.

The international wire transfer fee is on par or sometimes even lower than Stripe transaction fee and once the money is transferred, it's yours.

Varqu··on Jobs working with the Rust programming language. No crypto
Speaking from my own perspective of running general tech job boards [1], I would say that too narrow job boards have a really short lifespan.

This is because, you need a good supply of fresh offers to keep the audience. So if you end up to niche, you quickly become a job-ad-graveryard. Unless you scrap other big job sites automatically and somehow manage to filter and classify the jobs based on your niche.

[1] https://devitjobs.uk and https://devitjobs.us

Varqu··on Everything authenticated by Microsoft is tainted
It's quite ironic that the recent centralization and cloudarisation of the Internet (& electronic devices).

When everything was local and private, the attacker could only access a specific device or network, even if the security was often very weak. Now a single attack on a centralized entity has such a big payoff, that it makes if viable to allocate much bigger resources by attackers.

Varqu··on Chomsky explains why nobody is a moral relativist
I find it troublesome to listen to the person who claims that Russia is fighting in Ukraine in a more humane way than the US in their wars

[https://civilek.info/en/2023/04/30/noam-chomsky-russia-fight...]

Varqu··on Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses
My biggest disappointment is that the product seems to be centered around recording/taking pictures and no AR features are advertised.

The big question is what kind of development platform will it provide.

Varqu··on eSignature Beta for Google Docs and Google Drive
Yeah, unless Google kills this product in 2 years, which has a quite high probability.
Varqu··on Show HN: Get notified when sites update their terms of service
Isn't it that you get notified anyway by a site about the ToS changes (either with a popup or email message)?
Varqu··on Australians fight for the right to work from home permanently
The right to work 100% from home is what really makes sense, because only then people can pick their place of living freely.

This way, we could actually improve the housing situation across the country, because otherwise, it all concentrates in the biggest cities.

Varqu··on Ask HN: Is the market bad, or am I having the worst luck job hunting?
Yes, the market is pretty bad right now, and Indeed's data shows it quite well: https://www.hiringlab.org/data (go to Sectors and choose Software Development)

We are currently at -64% from the 2022 peak job market and even -20% compared to pre-covid number of job openings.

Varqu··on Evernote has laid off most of its US staff and will move operations to Europe
Isn't it the 3rd time when the same news make it to the HN main page?
Varqu··on Homebrew's analytics have moved to the EU and away from Google
Why does a package manager need to collect analytics?

The data that is collected could still be identifiable via device fingerprinting.

Varqu··on Show HN: Software Developer salaries in Switzerland: average and percentiles
Tech in Switzerland is a middle class profession, you are doing well but not getting rich with it.

It's certainly not on par with what you might earn in SV, unless you work for Big Tech.

Varqu··on Show HN: Software Developer salaries in Switzerland: average and percentiles
The data is sourced from over 1500 job postings published in the last 18 months on the job board.

In each case the salary range was provided directly by the company and means the total annual salary (without variable bonuses or stock / equity options)

Varqu··on Apple could force a 111-year-old fruit company to change its Apple logo
There should be a penalty for such bogus trademark claims, best as % of the global revenue. Then, maybe, they would learn that a corporation cannot bully others only because it has unlimited legal resources.
Varqu··on Apple wants rights to the image of apples in Switzerland
There should be a penalty for such bogus trademark claims, best as % of the global revenue. Then, maybe, they would learn that a corporation cannot bully others only because it has unlimited legal resources.
Varqu··on Reddit is removing moderators that protest by taking their communities private
This CEO should be removed, not the moderators.
Varqu··on Hotel Owners Start to Write Off San Francisco as Business Nosedives
Congrats to SF politicians (and people who voted for them) for ruining this city.
Varqu··on Palantir CEO Rejects Calls to Pause AI Development
Good luck enforcing that.

With most high tech it's rather the other way around: the technology gets first used in the military and after some delay, the general public receives the tampered version to play with.

Varqu··on India ruling party's IT cell used AI to show smile on arrested protesters' faces
Yeah, the problem is that it's surprisingly easy to fall for the fake if it re-affirms your world view.
Varqu··on India ruling party's IT cell used AI to show smile on arrested protesters' faces
I think the primary issue is that, while internet users usually question the authenticity of photos (as a normal practice), they tend to subconsciously trust what they see in videos.

It will require a significant mental shift to now question practically every single piece of audiovisual content.

Varqu··on Why I Left Rust
Never understood the childish fighting between languages, libraries within a language or as here different viewpoints.

I mean, it's good to discuss different viewpoints, but programming choices is a hill I would never want to die on.

Varqu··on A novel the CIA spent a fortune to suppress
Is it suddenly allowed on HN to post GPT-generated comments, @dang?
Page 1 of 6Next →