compacct27

The embedding approach just seems more promising, especially after experiencing it with the Huberman Lab Q&A website posted here a few days ago

Whoa hey wait, could you expand on this culture of documenting things? what were the requirements? we desperately need some culture around this, it's been terrible in this remote culture to know what anything is actually about in our codebase

Added it in an edit.

A lot more than I expected. What I liked is that I could easily connect thoughts written down on separate notes. Lots of “oh hey…I could use this approach I outlined over there”, connecting sometimes 6 separate ideas under a new roof.

I was skeptical bc I’m huge on pen and paper, but one morning I just said screw it and put Obsidian on my phone. That alone unleashed a torrent of thought, I think always having something you can take notes on is the key. Paper isn’t always on you when an idea strikes. A phone typically is

Think by writing. Someone on HN said this and recommended “How to take smart notes”, which I furiously read through and applied to my life.

That commenter said it and I’m gonna say it too: I’ve been able to think much more deeply, thoroughly, and most importantly much further along than my old self before doing this (and even further than my coworkers in ways that has already paid off).

One day I really went off on it and wrote out my thoughts for 4 hours on some important technical ideas I’ve been ruminating on. Not in one big doc, either, but using Obsidian to connect my ideas to each other. I used those ideas to knock out a massive technical problem we were having at work with half a day’s effort. Found a quick win swimming around in my head.

It’s been a game changer.

Edit: I found the original comment!! Read it, there’s two other books there that have supercharged my life. Probably the most influential comment I’ve read on HN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33594264

Crazy that it turned into a disaster. Ours went so well that we wanted more of it even after the in-person event. We only had one person on Zoom though. I don't know your situation at all, but it sounds like people felt the need for multiple conversations that may have been pent up like a dam til that meeting.

I’m holding out hope that remote work just isn’t fully figured out yet. I think there’s room for a bigger coworking movement for people like us who miss the community. If I had that, I wouldn’t complain about remote work at all

None of these are mandatory.

We’re getting there, I’ve been in your spot and have some tips after fighting for a better remote culture for months: 1. In-person events must happen. Best case scenario, once per quarter. Even once per year is phenomenal though. This will put out a lot of remote culture failure fires. 2. Team-only social hour with games, works much better after an in person event. 3. My newest experiment win: opening up a casual zoom room to the team for anyone who wants to join. Once again, much easier and more desired by people after an in person event. We’ll work together, shoot the shit, etc. It’s really nice, and non-social people love not being obligated to join them.

That’s as good as it’s gotten, and I really like where it’s at. It took months to get there. A lot of people wanted these things, but the convenience of not doing them keeps it from happening quickly. Persisting when support is present is super key to building it up. Honestly, making it happen is just as political as vying for anything else is. Alignment on wanting a good remote culture takes time even when multiple people really, desperately want it.

That’s fair, this is the stereotype I expect in this industry.

I’ve thought about the dog thing a lot. I hear they make you talk to strangers. We just got a cat, sort of a backup plan since we travel too much for a dog right now.

Shocker—-more of a neutral social pet

I think the dilemma of remote work is that some of us moved to a place with worse available jobs. I’d take a pay hit, a prestige hit, and honestly even then I might end up at a lazily hybrid company with a ghost town office

I always wondered if this was just an introvert’s utopia (I’m not one myself), I can’t tell if the introverts on my team enjoy this or what. I honestly just never hear from them, I might be assuming they prefer it

Yeah, I feel like anyone with kids aren’t having issues at all with this

I’ve been getting out a lot, it definitely helps some. After going to a few coworking spaces, I noticed they all have their own cultures. All of the ones around me are pretty quiet, I was caught off guard by that. Of course, everyone’s there to work. Feels like I’d need my friends to be there for it to really work out

Could just run their CLI through a Docker container

The flip side to this question is, how did you get in a position, as someone capable of being CTO, to not have any shares in the company from the start? And the answer is probably that it's your first time as CTO, because I don't see any other answer than that to this situation.

Your best bet is to make some political moves to make ownership happen for you. Otherwise, sounds like you're in for a ride that you're not necessarily the driver for.

The people in the article worked in Catalan, so I guess maybe they do.

Lots of good tactics here, but this one did it for me: having no other way to make time for something I deeply wanted than waking up early. And, wanting that thing deeply enough that it re-established my wake-up habits.

It does seems like an oversight. I'm hopeful it'll turn out fine, but I'm also pretty angry about it

Yeah, the legal-side of things is, you know, not on my side.

~2 months

The tweet thread was way more informative. It was recorded by satellite

Haha, will roll with it. Thanks!

Oh hey, I’ve been thinking of doing this too. Do you have a repo or anything?

I took frontend bugging in a new direction for me as well—decided to add the file name as a prop to every element on the page (in dev only, just takes adding a Babel loader for it). Helps with unfamiliar areas

I feel like I've conquered mine. I can primarily thank the Kinesis Advantage2 keyboard, it's basically the only reason I can type now. I have no pain using it, and I honestly get a shooting pain every time I switch over to my laptop's keyboard.

One more thing is getting up and walking around for 5 minutes every 30min. We basically sit ourselves into these problems, and getting up is a helpful solution. I even knock out a bunch of 5-minute chores in a day thanks to this.

Finally, find some 10min yoga sessions to do in the morning. Do 'em a few times a week. They'll stretch your hands out in ways you wouldn't expect.

Oh, and smartphones suck to hold, find the tiniest one possible. iPhone SE is killer for this

Oh for sure, I chunked out my payment essentially. Our calls last about an hour at a time, and yeah, I batch all my roadblocks. It's easy to have big c++ roadblocks that take a while to debug and explain, so it's a great fit. We jump on Zoom and screenshare, but he'll look at my github separately sometimes

Made a post on the c++ subreddit asking for a mentor. Described my project I wanted help on and said I was willing to pay.

Thankfully, mine's been the opposite. Idk your situation, but I had a well-defined project in hand before I found him. I had done some work on it already, even.

When I took him on, my flow's been this: I do as much work as I can, get stuck, then he's there to pull me out of the mess I made. I learn a ton along the way, and he'll point out topics for me to research on my own.

10 hours is a large chunk, but it's lasted a full 2 months with probably a good month left in it. This project edits some PhysX engine code for an Unreal Engine-based game I'm making. The level of technical depth in it is beyond anything I've done before, so I pulled out the stops for it.

I made a post on the C++ subreddit (r/cpp) asking for a mentor. Talked about the project and said I was willing to pay. Some people pointed me towards others (those people were too busy), but one guy reached out and had an online presence I could check out before deciding.

The mods removed my post btw :/ apparently it was against the subreddit rules to ask for help. Found the guy before they could remove my post though, and here I am.