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bestrapperaliveon Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking Freelancer? (October 2019)

SEEKING WORK

Location: NYC or Remote

Technologies: JavaScript/TypeScript, node, React, Redux, React Native, Go, Python, AWS

Blurb: Significant full-stack experience (~8 years), accustomed to wearing as many hats as necessary. I've wrangled thousands of processes on hundreds of servers under tight latency constraints, implemented convoluted dashboards for the selection and filtering of this country's finest, most innovative financial products, and I occasionally implement complex animations on the client when a project calls for it. I can do what needs to be done to advance your project to its next stage.

Github: https://github.com/ebutleriv

Email: eugene@eugene4.com

bestrapperaliveon Show HN: Impulse – Dynamic JS Animations for the Mobile Web

Can't comment on ease of use yet, but these animations are amazingly smooth on my computer and my phone, even when stacked and applied to a screen full of elements. Will definitely try this out.

bestrapperaliveon Learn Lisp the Hard Way

"The mysterious force driving human society towards the technological singularity, true and total unification of human with technology, also seems to be shaping all programming languages into Lisp, and all computers into Lisp Machines. Lisp, after all, can do everything, and do it every way; that Lisp is not already the de-facto programming language is just a reflection of the state of the world as a whole—only a very small percentage of the population are excited for the technological singularity, but the singularity is coming no matter how much people complain. One way or another, every programmer is going to end up being a Lisper, because every programming language continues to adopt features and syntax from Lisp, one piece at a time. It is in every programmer's interest to master Lisp now, before the world at large realizes how essential Lisp will become over the next two decades."

The title is right, IMO. This is a difficult way to learn Lisp. I'm feeling the burn already.

bestrapperaliveon Edward Snowden: ‘They’re setting fire to the future of the Internet’

I've never seen Mad Men, but your comparison seems at least a little unfair. In this case, knowledge of the particular meme or participation in the culture that created it is not necessary. A complete stranger to internet jokes, who happened to be at least generally acquainted with the technologies being discussed, could very easily identify Snowden's claim as a joke (or at least something very odd and worth investigating) whether or not they had been exposed to the original meme. "Seven proxies" should make your eyebrow raise whether or not you're aware of the original joke.

bestrapperaliveon Edward Snowden: ‘They’re setting fire to the future of the Internet’

No doubt. I'm sure it was. I just think it was also a genuinely useful indicator of exactly which reporters aren't/ don't have access to people with general knowledge of the subject and that more people should make jokes like it for that reason.

bestrapperaliveon Edward Snowden: ‘They’re setting fire to the future of the Internet’

While the video and audio feed – routed from Russia through seven proxy servers – was choppy, Snowden’s message was clear.

Edward Snowden is the gift that keeps on giving. I feel like "seven proxies" is the proof of concept for a practice that should be more common. From now on, every statement about technology, especially the intersection of technology with important issues like civil rights, should be watermarked with at least one meme or obviously absurd statement. If a reporter regurgitates the meme as fact, readers are warned about the reporter's lack of general knowledge about the subject and will be primed to read the rest of the article with a more critical eye.

bestrapperaliveon How pCell works and why its a bigger deal than anyone realizes

At first I thought the technical challenges inherent in maintaining state for a web of arbitrarily placed transmitters cooperatively targeting thousands of moving devices would make this technology impractical for deployment in the wild, but now I believe. pCell is going to be revolutionary. I can't wait to get rid of my consoles and stream new, triple-A games over it.

bestrapperaliveon A 60-Hour Work Week is Not a Badge of Honour

I agree with the headline if only because "hours present at desk" is a completely facile metric for performance. What matters is what was accomplished, not how much time was taken. Is your feature or project closer to (successful) completion? Have you automated away the busywork time-sink that has has been slowing down your team? Is your organization now more able to effectively use its scarce resources? If not, fuck your "hours."

bestrapperaliveon Don't Learn to Code, Learn to Program – But Come Back in 10 Years

"A relief from the unintuitive, unscalable, unfounded snake oils like OOP, markup, APIs, or the triumvirate of HTML/CSS/JS. As if these technologies are the best we can do."

At first I was mad. Then I read the above quote and everything clicked into place. This article is hilarious and I love every shrill, indignant, purposefully absurd word of it.

bestrapperaliveon The recent “How Quantum is the D-Wave Machine?” Shin et.al. paper

When I read this blog post, it was like opening a Christmas present and getting socks.

I don't know much about the state of the art, the points in contention between the people in this argument, or quantum computing in general. An article that explained the competing standards for what constitutes a quantum computer and either made a case for why one standard is more useful or described how one participant's argument was inconsistent with their standard would have been genuinely helpful. Instead I read a link to a TED talk, epistemological meta-babble, and a promise that further experiments are incoming.

This company may be completely legitimate and its product may be the most revolutionary thing since sliced bread, but I didn't know before I read this post, I don't know now, and I now think their CTO sounds too Steorn-y for comfort.