benknight87

you guys didn't already know this stuff?

The EU's love of banning things is lazy policy-making. It's better to disincentivize and let markets take care of it. That way you preserve freedom while also encouraging desirable outcomes. Further reading: "Nudge" by Richard Thaler.

Come to Vietnam! There are so many kinds of avocado out here.

There was a really good Radiolab episode about cicadas and their bizarre 17 year cycles. https://radiolab.org/podcast/279210-cicadas-are-coming

This shows that going out on your own is not always strictly better or more rewarding. As a software engineer you can simply rent your skills and be part of a bigger team and company that's arguably doing something more impactful than building widgets.

The finances work out better too. Market salary as a software engineer is easily in the 200-300k range and increases over time with experience and skill. You can also more easily cap your work hours at 30-40 hours a week especially if you're remote. Then if you can figure out a way to do that while living in Southeast Asia, it's hard to imagine quality of life getting better than that as you're now living like a king and should be able to save as much as 50% of your income and retire young.

I've experimented with dumb phones before but in the end I found much more success in ditching my data plan as the ideal forcing function for shaping behavior. There are too many situations where smartphones are extremely useful if not necessary. What's not necessary is being constantly connected. Ideally you have a SIM card that can always do text and calling, and you can opt-in to data on demand e.g. 24-hour prepaid plan if you ever truly need it.

I'd love to know if anyone owns a camel that's a decedent of one of the original camel crew!

As another Asia-based software dev (Vietnam), this was an interesting read. I am currently going the spousal visa route but this carries its own advantages and disadvantages. I've always loved Japan but generally unsure of living there due to high cost of living, aging population, and strict immigration laws. As least in the case of the latter, it's good to know a path exists!

As an American living in Vietnam I use a number of these apps, particularly Shopee, Grab, Zalo. Also used Naver a lot when I lived in Seoul. Except for Grab, which is a legit super app, I'd rather use American tech because it's just better. Tech talent in these markets is lacking and they're all chasing the examples already set by big US tech rather than innovating their own stuff.

Not true. American living in Vietnam, not necessary to link with Vietnamese ID or phone number.

This is a great point, further evidenced by the fact that past years models remain on sale. Apple still sells iPhone 13 and Google still sells Pixel 6a.

It's worth keeping in mind that Tony's current monthly figure ($45k/mo) is a a single snapshot in time. Past performance is no guarantee of future success. Certainly, a talented engineer consistently making ballpark $100-200/k a year over the same period and saving a reasonable percentage of that is going to be more financially successful and basically guaranteed lifetime of employment at a high tech salary.

Long story short, it's a worthwhile achievement but it only happens to a lucky few. Focusing on building a long term career and becoming quietly rich is probably a better play.

This doesn't even mention the fact that even 7 years in, the UX is a daily nightmare, for me at least.

* My speakers randomly don't show up as options when casting * With two speakers in my house, they often both answer at the same time or one of them waits a few seconds and says something went wrong * Bluetooth randomly stops working sometimes and requires a power cycle.

The list goes on.

Agreed, I think we have to move past the general assumption that people do not understand anything written in terms that are even remotely technical. Obviously HN is a tech savvy audience but still software service providers should provide greater clarity into how things actually work and encourage users to think about things more technically instead of just making everything a magical black box.

yeah this is why I always work solo. Microservices built by small teams where everyone has a distinct role.

It's because, like it or not, NordVPN is a great product. The apps are great, the design is slick, they have more servers in more countries, and offer additional value through things like Smart DNS, dedicated IP. Not to mention solid customer service.

Kurzgesagt did a pretty good job of this https://youtu.be/dFCbJmgeHmA

These aren't JavaScript APIs, they're Web Platform APIs.

The first example provided of building a custom animation is already outside of Tailwind's core use case of rapidly building common UI while only having to look at the markup. The occasional fine-tuning is usually when it's time to step over to your CSS file and write a custom component.

Anyone who builds UI for a living, ideally already having a well-developed mental model for how CSS works, immediately understands Tailwind's power in my opinion. Anything merits critique but this article just feels like rationalizing a preexisting bias.

The value to having something like this is pretty clear but I can't reconcile it with the fact that I don't want to be using my phone at all when socializing with friends and I prefer they didn't as well.

In my opinion there is no better interface for communication than human-to-human speech. This is why butlers, waiters, and personal assistants exist, and also why natural-language AI is promising.

In my opinion we should aim to get screens out of our lives except when necessary and intentionally focused on a task (i.e. work) and maintain presence in the real world whenever we're doing anything else. This means leaning more on human language and less on screens.

Agreed, I'm very happy that a lot of things we just accepted would become norms post-pandemic have just been completely forgotten and life today is largely indistinguishable from 2019.

I keep notes whenever I have a good gift idea for someone specific. Example: during our trip to Chile, me and my girlfriend stayed at an Airbnb where they had a child's xylophone. My girlfriend loved to play it and even learned 3 songs before we left. I realized it would make a good gift so I wrote it down on a note titled "Good Gift Ideas" in Google Keep. A couple months later on her birthday I bought her a similar xylophone.

Smaller bundle size, similarity to moment.js

As a dev who’s used all three, is there a massive difference? Not really. Stick with what you like (though moment is no longer maintained so maybe not that)

I did the same thing but using Trello.

I agree, I think this might be another side effect of clickbait, framing the edge as something that "replaces" traditional architecture, rather than en _evolution_ of the existing architecture where both paradigms can continue to exist side-by-side. As always.

I used to come to HN for more even-tempered high-IQ discussion but it seems to be devolving into the toxicity that ruins all online forums i.e. being outraged about something from a very limited perspective, accusing big corporation of evil-doing, and generally not appreciating the nuances of a complex problem.

I wish I could set YouTube to open my subscriptions feed instead of "the algorithm" by default.

It’s one of the coolest parts about visiting the observatory. Most people just walk right by it on their way back down.

I did this so much that I got into the habit of putting "mdn" before any search query. Now I do it without even thinking about it.

Leaving the US five years ago and moving to Southeast Asia provided a swift solution to all of my dating problems.