HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

ddsea

63 karma · joined October 13, 2019

SWE with 25+ YOE in S.SFBA. Networking, Security, Storage. C/C++, Python, Bash. Looking for a job after a layoff.
submissionscomments
ddsea··on Poor man's document camera for videoconference
At least this design doesn't need TP.
ddsea··on Jim Lehrer’s Rules of Journalism
Some will disagree with such a glorious assessment of BBC. Often they don't even pretend.

[1](https://bbcwatch.org/)

[2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_BBC)

ddsea··on Show HN: Visualizing Your Life in Weeks
I can see the point, but any website that starts with asking for confidential info is a turn off. Makes me think about privacy policy, which is a time waste.
ddsea··on Algorithms Interviews: Theory vs. Practice
And then tomorrow you'd feel double the pressure - because you cannot do it again.
ddsea··on Algorithms Interviews: Theory vs. Practice
The answer to this typically is: even if you've never done these kinds of problems before and would not need to solve them during your employment, still go prepare, study and that would show your commitment to work hard and ability to learn. To which my (mental) response is: why don't you ask me to dance ballet for you? That would show a real commitment!
ddsea··on JobFunnel, a job website search aggregator
Who's with me to automate the coding interview with leetcode problems?
ddsea··on Ask HN: Best books you read in the past decade?
- Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari - I really liked his views on transformation of happiness throughout history.

- Babi Yar (full version) by Anatoly Kuznetsov - after my discovery that the version I've read earlier was heavily censored.

- The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande

- Collapse and The World Until Yesterday by Jared Diamond

ddsea··on Show HN: Eschersket.ch – a symmetry drawing app to design custom wrapping paper
Reproducing one of Escher's works, even approximately, would likely make a killer demo for this.
ddsea··on Show HN: Eschersket.ch – a symmetry drawing app to design custom wrapping paper
Like in a kaleidoscope, almost anything looks much better with symmetry. Doodling on industrial scale. Great job!
ddsea··on Soviet Santa
The repressions varied in time, place and also depended on who's in charge. As the old anecdote goes, bent along the line of the Communist Party.
ddsea··on Soviet Santa
Think positive: it's just another reason to drink in July in 400 years.
ddsea··on Soviet Santa
According to [1], "Ded" (literally Grandfather) is used here in the sense of an old man or an ancestor. Snegurochka is his daughter. Ded Moroz's mother was Baba Yaga, and his wife was the Snow Queen. Hope this clears everything up.

[1] https://cb-rzhev.blogspot.com/2013/11/blog-post_4347.html

ddsea··on Researchers have identified 100 mysteriously disappeared stars in the night sky
There is this yellow dwarf G2V star I have developed an emotional affinity to. Could we white-list it so it won't disappear for a couple million years?
ddsea··on Consumers who sought cash settlement from Equifax probably won't get full $125
> The data stolen from Equifax has not shown up on the black market

Yet - and also the absence of evidence doesn't mean the evidence of absence. Not all criminals are stupid, a smart one would wait till vigilance dies down.

ddsea··on Show HN: I'm building a robot that performs haircuts [video]
True, hacky, but with time it does get easier because you know what to expect and develop muscle memory.
ddsea··on Show HN: I'm building a robot that performs haircuts [video]
Yes, the back of the head is the hardest part. When I don't ask for someone else's help, I try to choreograph the movement I saw in a video: put my other hand horizontally to limit the range and move the clipper in a precise fade-out manner, bottom-to-top. I like it short. Use 2 mirrors and don't hurry.
ddsea··on Show HN: I'm building a robot that performs haircuts [video]
Same here. My final straws were 1) my regular local barbershop suddenly disappearing on me, while I was still holding a few of their discount haircut coupons I had stupidity to buy in advance (let this be a lesson to you folks), and 2) tried another shop and saw in horror how dirty their tools/accessories were.

So being a DYI guy, I watched a few YT videos, bought $20 electric clippers, made my share of beginner's mistakes, but now I really enjoy getting better at it and won't go back at any price.

ddsea··on New airplane seat design to make it easier to sleep in economy
Maybe an airliner-grade seat?
ddsea··on New airplane seat design to make it easier to sleep in economy
Boring meetings have the same effect on me. The main challenge is, not to snore.
ddsea··on Reflecting on 8 months of full-time self-study
This quote made me wonder about analogs in other activities, e.g. woodworking.
ddsea··on Office noise bothers some people more than others
Same here. I found out that music of any kind not only doesn't do the trick for me, but is counterproductive - it distracts me from trying to focus on the task at hand.
ddsea··on Joplin – a note taking and to-do application with synchronization capabilities
I use it all the time - it's great but mostly for lists such as TODO, etc. - it is very convenient for syncing across devices where I login with my G. account. My notes are usually longer articles, often with images, tables, diagrams, code snippets, etc.
ddsea··on Joplin – a note taking and to-do application with synchronization capabilities
Even if you don't mind the scalability issues, having to deal with possible conflicts if the same note was modified in different places, and barebone UI with no attachments, consider the importance of metadata:

- info on where the note came from (that's why I like web-clip-ability)

- note history and possibly versions

- tags are really great for categorizing and quick/efficient search, etc.

ddsea··on Joplin – a note taking and to-do application with synchronization capabilities
Thanks for the suggestion. At this point I'd rather avoid mandatory monthly payments in favor of voluntary donations to FOSS.
ddsea··on Joplin – a note taking and to-do application with synchronization capabilities
Looks like a strong candidate to replace Google Keep when they suddenly decide to shut it down.
ddsea··on Joplin – a note taking and to-do application with synchronization capabilities
More on color schemes: in addition to Joplin including a few built-in themes, the appearance of rendered pages can be adjusted via CSS. Playing with it felt more liberating for me than I care to admit.
ddsea··on Joplin – a note taking and to-do application with synchronization capabilities
I felt that Evernote was becoming increasingly constraining and slow/flaky, so after trying a few alternatives (text files/dirs, SimpleNote, Apple Notes, BoostNotes, Zim, etc), I've made a leap of faith to Joplin.

My requirements: multi-platform, multi-device, auto-sync (more than 2 devices in free ver.), tags, webclip-ability, preferably markdown format with code rendering. Text diagramming such as PlantUML is a big plus. The idea of owning my notes is very appealing.

My early attempts at synchronizing encrypted notes over OneDrive experienced repeated hiccups (stopped syncing for no apparent reason), so currently trying without encryption. Win10 and Android clients seem to chug along just fine, but the Linux client shows weird errors in the log - trying to hunt down the root cause.

The fact that Joplin is WIP and open source is encouraging. I'd like to be able to have separate DBs, e.g. for personal and business use.

ADDED: forgot to mention that the lack of dark mode on Windows EN client was a constant source of irritation.

ddsea··on Ask HN: How many of you have been impacted by a layoff?
After 25+ years as a SWE in the SV, I realize that layoffs are a part of business as usual. Some companies do it regularly while hiring at the same time (often abroad these days), some do it more often than others, but whenever there is a hiccup, the easiest way to demonstrate "leadership" is to let some folks go. I've survived many "restructurings" on the inside (true, morale suffers, especially when the procedure is botched), and a few times being a part of it. It wasn't hard for me to find another job earlier in my career.

Now, having worked for more than a dozen years at the same Co., and being over 50, I found that getting a job is much, much more difficult. Finally, after _many_ months of actively interviewing, I've landed a position. The funniest part is, after a few short months the entire department has been laid-off. So I'm back on the hunt - only now it's even harder for some reason. I suspect that my last work experience is triggering some ATS filter.

Thankfully, I was able to save a few bucks earlier. Meanwhile, taking classes, playing with Leetcode, etc. "Nothing personal, strictly business" as they say.