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_daveon Ask HN: Main frustrations with finding a remote job?

Scheduling calls/interviews and then getting ghosted.

_daveon Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (December 2023)

    Location: Atlanta, GA
    Remote: Preferred
    Willing to relocate: No
    Technologies: Java, Spring Boot, Ruby, Ruby on Rails, Ember.js, Linux, HTML/CSS, JavaScript, TypeScript, PostgreSQL, Cassandra, Kubernetes
    Résumé: On request
    Email: dave@dchssr.site

_daveon Ask HN: Did anyone here program for the first time in college?

I got my start in programming from Lua in 2007 because I got into Roblox back in middle school. I'm surprised it's still kicking in 2023.

I first had to take a "CS101"-style course back in 2011 in college because it was necessary. We were stuck in flowchart templates from our textbook for that. Next class we got to use Java so borderline imperative at the time. No wonder people are still confused at what classes and object-oriented programming is with as awful as these were. It was a while before Java 8 hit the streets.

In the end, I both loved and hated it. Hated it half because I still didn't know what I wanted to do or how to do it and half because making computers do my bidding felt more of my calling.

_daveon How is your job search going?

If it's improving, it sure isn't including me. It's been 14 months since getting laid off and all I'm getting are rejection e-mails, scams that say I got a position without any interviews, and recruiters who call/e-mail me ranting about how I "wasted [their] time if [I] wasn't qualified". Trying to get hired via referrals went nowhere because everywhere was doing layoffs. Several interviewers have told me post-interview that apparently side projects aren't counting anymore but the years of work experience do. Sorry I graduated with my bachelors' in back in '19.

_daveon Ask HN: If you enjoy parties, why?

Because there's plenty of other types of parties that don't involve booze or loud music while still presenting an opportunity to start friendships or acquaintanceships. Sometimes they're a simple as a gathering where you can meet your friend's other friends to as complex as a board game party at a local Masonic lounge you read about on the Web.

_daveon Ask HN: In what ways is Canonical different than Microsoft of its era?

They're not embracing, extending, and extinguishing everything for starters.

_daveon Cartoonists tackling climate change through webcomics

They don't have to be funny. They just need to provoke thought in people like any other witty writ about the situation at hand.

_daveon The NaNoWriMo Writing Bundle

A couple of other underappreciated tools I've found in writing stuff are things that help with writers' block and determining what would happen. In my case, the Mythic Game Master Emulator[0] and the Adventure Crafter[1] from Word Mill Games have been quite helpful last NaNoWriMo. They may have been designed for roleplaying games but man do they help with a story in a pinch, not to mention the billion and a half tables of random things on DriveThruRPG.

[0]: https://www.wordmillgames.com/mythic-gme.html

[1]: https://www.wordmillgames.com/adventure-crafter.html

_daveon Best way to save your codes so that you can read them later?

Check out Git[0]. Using a version control system is a critical skill in modern software development where you can check a "blame" report on a file's contents to see what last touched that place or to check a log for a history of the software. As for the quality of your notes and commit messages, that is alas something that requires a more personal development.

You can also put each project into its own Git repository and throw it up on a site like GitHub to host it.

[0]: https://git-scm.com/

_daveon Ask HN: What laptop/Computer do you use currently?

A Framework laptop. The replaceable extension ports were a godsend at first but since my current configuration was found most effective (2 USB-C ports, 1 USB-A port, 1 HDMI port), that's been static. It's a nice feature to have for the future. Everything else is plugged into the dock which handles charging and keyboard/mouse charging; they both can work on Bluetooth otherwise. HDMI via dock is a bit of an issue. Until that's solved, I'm delegating a whole extension port for it.

It was to replace both my ThinkPad T400 (RIP in peace, ol' rusty trusty) and some other old hand-me-down ThinkCentre from over a decade ago. I probably beefed it up too much with 1TiB disk space and 32GiB of RAM but considering I was literally crashing from out-of-memory errors before from a prior bring-your-own-device job, this is a lifesaver just in case I have to do that again. Hopefully not and I can use that for testing in virtual machines instead.

If it wasn't my main machine to use on a 4K display, I wouldn't be using GNOME on it. That's just a few cents for your thoughts.

_daveon Poll: What is your preferred office arrangement?

Probably the cubicle. It doesn't seem as lonely as the private office but gives enough privacy one can more easily have a meeting with the remote/out-of-office people, to pick your nose, or to get work done without people constantly passing by you. Sadly they look like remnants of the past since everyone seems to do the open plan.

_daveon Ask HN: How many Amazon recruitor email do you get per month?

And I thought I was unique in being sought out like this... They must be hurting pretty bad to be contacting anybody with a pulse about AWS roles.

_daveon Dropping the Drip: How to Get Started Making Better Coffee (2011)

The AeroPress[0] really is a wonder and a half. The AeroPress Go (more portable) version is perfect for taking to an office if you want a cup or two instead of chugging the whole pot. Definitely seconding the decade-old recommendation after a friend kept shilling it to us.

[0]: https://aeropress.com

_daveon Nintendo launch 'subscription' service to fix faulty Joy-Con

You're likely right. I was remembering having to disassemble old iMacs (pre-2009) for a college job but they were ancient enough to be Torx instead. Not a fan of machines that require a plunger just to get the RAM out to be honest.

_daveon Nintendo launch 'subscription' service to fix faulty Joy-Con

At least the parts and DIY effort to fix it along with the cost of two pairs of joysticks is equal to the $15/yr service (via Amazon). Not that it justifies the flaw, but that coupled with playing while docked via Pro Controller would make it last a little longer.

Sadly Nintendo has gone more user-hostile than Apple from what it feels like. At least Apple uses something as common as Torx screws instead of tri-wing nowadays. The Switch will be the last system I buy from them no matter how tempting the next Smash Bros. will be.

_daveon Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (July 2022)

    Location: Atlanta, GA, USA
    Remote: Yes (or hybrid)
    Willing to relocate: Not at the moment
    Technologies: Java, Spring Boot, Ruby, Rails, PostgreSQL, Cassandra, Kubernetes
    Résumé: On request
    e-Mail: equal.bowl8148@fastmail.com

I'm still a bit fresh in my career and in between jobs at the moment due to layoffs. Can't give you a fancy description or introduction as it's like everyone else's: we're developers and we do what we do best. Otherwise I'm more specialized in backend work with 12 years of experience of Java (including small side projects and high school classes). Looking for a permanent position.

_daveon What can we learn from the secret habits of genius?

Anecdote, but it seems to be a more common thing in Americans since we tend to idolize the rich and consider wealth equal to success. That's why Bezos, Musk, &c. show up more often than they need to in discussions for minutiæ.

_daveon Ask HN: How do you explain the inability of the CMake crowd to explain CMake?

In other words, it's something like monads: everyone who learns what they are truly capable of suddenly loses any way to put their knowledge into words as they have tapped into the dark and hidden secrets of the universe. You can only feel what it is but neither hear nor speak it. CMake is the same but more eldritch rather than phenomenal cosmic power.

_daveon Cool desktops don’t change

Ah. Guess I still have some learning to do with how things work here a little differently than elsewhere.

_daveon Cool desktops don’t change

What's with the repost the day after you submitted it? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31761636

_daveon Diablo 4 Official Gameplay Showcase Trailer

So it's back to the realistic grimdank art style? Aw. And I liked the tricks they pulled in D3 to look beautiful and run smooth on a Switch.

_daveon Why Are Some Boiled Eggs Easier to Peel Than Others?

If you want it 98% of the time, try it in a pressure cooker. Egg setting to five minutes instead of three. Bam! You got yourself some hardboiled eggs for your sandwiches, for your toast, for your whatever.

Come to think of it, the pressure cooker is perhaps the new air fryer in the sense that it's really handy to have and people who own one cannot shut up about it. Can you blame them after these perfect eggs?

_daveon Ask HN: Is there a use for Twitter hashtags?

The tagging of posts without having to resort to metadata. If anything, I wish it was a more common convention elsewhere. Helps to search by, say, topics or hobbies. It's the media craze of "hashtag (insert-marketing-campaign-relevant-for-a-week-here)" that gets old.

_daveon This site is now a “shinobi website”

Welcome to the Gopher/Gemini mindset, thinking technological restrictions can solve a policy problem.

_daveon Isekai

Same question can go for half of any Wikipedia links here.

_daveon Plans for Gnome 43 and Beyond

There isn't a minimizing button since the idea is that basic apps are generally meant to be ephemeral; that a task should be a quick one-and-done (or so I was told when I asked on IRC years ago). You can add the button back and even put it on the left side of the window via the GNOME Tweaks tool. If you want to hide a window, slide it into another workspace. It felt weird at first but it makes more sense as I continued to use GNOME. I call it the "control panel workspace". At least you can multitask with workspaces easier than you could on Windows.

Can't speak for mobiles. The desktop though is surprisingly more keyboard-friendly than it appears. It may have flaws, but GNOME feels like a better desktop than anything else I've tried.

_daveon To Keep Students in Stem Fields, Let’s Weed Out the Weed-Out Math Classes

Discrete mathematics was a better "weed-out" class (N=1 so mileage may vary). Half our class dropped after spending half the semester on propositional calculus and truth tables. The rest got stuck on sets, counting, and big-O notation. I don't even know how it got that bad; we could even use a sheet for notes on the quizzes.

_daveon Ask HN: Any weird tips for weight loss?

An alternative for those who don't want to have to set up an account or prefer privacy and libre variants, the Loop Habit Tracker[0] works just as well.

[0]: https://loophabits.org/

_daveon Ask HN: Why didn't anything reasonably similar take the place of Flash?

Because Apple Said So.™[0]

[0]: https://www.cnet.com/news/steve-jobs-letter-explaining-apple...

Some of the big name features of the new Web standards near the time of Flash's demise were able to replace many things that used to require Flash. You had <audio> and <video> to replace Flash to for embedding media. You had <canvas> to be able to draw arbitrary stuff with another ECMAScript known as JavaScript.

The Web replaced Flash.

_daveon Ask HN: What are your thoughts on Web 3.0?

"Web 3.0", back when I was growing up, referred to the Semantic Web[1], not blockchains and decentralization. This Web, sadly, seems to be disappearing thanks to anti-bot measures.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web