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fergonco

214 karma · joined February 20, 2017

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fergonco··on Turning away from smartphones: 'We need to go places and touch things'
Technology enters because it's useful. Stays because it's addictive.

You can praise all good usages of technology. Then you make a pie chart of real usages and the biggest piece of the cake will be porn, violent content, etc.

fergonco··on Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem
It actually fosters innovation, like https://www.desokupa.com/, a mix of bullies and lawyers that "mediate" to get the properties back.
fergonco··on Working Smarter, Not Harder
Addiction finds a way. I can relate. I blocked everything at different levels: DNS, browser plugins, router. I can still undo that for a quick shot, but it's just not worth it.
fergonco··on Seven out of 10 Europeans believe their country takes in too many immigrants
I think "immigration" is a very broad term. There are some immigrants that try to work, adapt to the culture of the country that receives them. And others come from some parts of the world where you would behead someone as an acceptable way to settle things. They aren't able to adapt to a civilized culture even if they try.

I think governments could do a bit more by making more fine-grained choices. Of course that's easily targeted by political opposition as xenophobia. Such a system could be also abused.

You talk about Netherlands and you not seeing that collapse in your lifetime. I see Spain. Here police and justice don't work that well and there is a feeling of impunity. I can see Spanish culture collapsing much faster.

fergonco··on Are young people smarter than adults? Research shows differences diminishing
isn't online learning more a problem than a solution? A lot of research shows that we learn better on paper than on screens, that screens have a negative correlation on academic results, etc.
fergonco··on 30% of Children Ages 5-7 Are on TikTok
Very easily: the book does not get moral at all. It just claims that there is scientific consensus about the damage that leisure screens make. This is quite easy to debunk, if false.
fergonco··on 30% of Children Ages 5-7 Are on TikTok
According to "Screen Damage: The Dangers of Digital Media for Children", which I recommend, there is no scientific evidence of kids without access to phones being more sad, depressive, etc. But there is evidence of the opposite.

Yes: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. But it still makes your decision easier.

fergonco··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (October 2022)
SEEKING WORK | Valencia, Spain | Remote | Part-time or Full-time

Experienced fullstack freelance. Last 6 years working for different startups. Projects from end to end, MVP. Solo or as part of a team.

* Experience: 20 years, most of them remote.

* Tech stack: React | Java/Golang | grpc/kafka | docker/k8s (see CV for details, link below)

* Industries: fintech, customer onboarding, AI, geospatial

* More information & contact:

    * blog: fergonco.org/blog.html
    
    * cv: fergonco.org/cv.pdf

    * email: fergonco@gmail.com
fergonco··on UST “Stablecoin” at $.43
Some platforms offer non-negligible interest on those.
fergonco··on White noise improves learning by modulating activity in midbrain regions (2014)
Andrew Huberman saying in a podcast that it's not the case for verbal recall:

https://youtu.be/Ze2pc6NwsHQ?t=3350

Interesting podcast, btw. got it from HN few days ago.

fergonco··on Joke written by an AI: “A basic program walked into a bar ”
Maybe the AI considered that after joking together for a while it could make a last one, touching a very sensitive subject but at the same time not being offensive at all.

How will be differentiating a malfunctioning AI from one that is too subtle for us? Fun times.

fergonco··on Ask HN: How can I calculate my market value?
With specific I meant strong cultural values (maybe). How Germans understand work is different from how Spanish, French or Italian do. But not only work: friendship, society, conflict, etc. And you need to learn their language in order to understand all that, which is a huge barrier. I just wanted to warn OP about that fact.

It may depend were are you culturally. I'm Spanish and I've lived in Germany, France and Italy.

fergonco··on Ask HN: How can I calculate my market value?
If you are willing to work remotely you can do, at least, twice as that.

German market pays best in Europe but you need to speak the language. The culture is also very specific.

If you don't have family and don't mind working in other timezones, then US will have the best offer for you.

My algorithm: do many applications. Aim high, low and in between. Ask for a high salary and lower little by little.

fergonco··on Lighthouse Map
I would make the point size dependent of the scale. When I zoom in I get huge balls. And I would make them not blink.
fergonco··on I was deceived about Covid vaccine safety
In Spain public health system don't do PCRs anymore (only private, which very few would). Without a PCR you don't have a valid proof of being infected.

This is my personal case and the case of many many Spanish people, as Omicron is sweeping the country.

fergonco··on Why skyscrapers are so short
I realized trying to get 3d terrains printed that we are very impeded in the Z axis. If you don't multiply Z by a factor your map will be almost flat. Everest? 8 miserable km? Come on, I can do that on the horizontal with one leg (ok, maybe not but you get the point).
fergonco··on A toast to all the rejects
> Failure hurts. And that's OK. It's supposed to hurt.

Indeed, emotions are there because make sense evolutionary. Defeat makes you more prone to stop trying things, to look around and see what you did wrong, to repeat the defeat in your head again and again. On the opposite, victory makes you more bold, to explore new paths, to attempt things that are, theoretically, out of your reach.

That's how I see it and makes a lot of sense to me.

fergonco··on Ask HN: Why does a busy man build a shed?
I alternate very busy and sabbatical periods. When I am busy, I discipline myself to do relatively boring things. Then I have a lot of ideas of very cool things to do. Then I stop being busy and I am not interested in those anymore.

Why do I find those interesting only when I am busy? My hypothesis is that some unconscious part of me is trying to escape the discipline.

fergonco··on Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?
I also miss the spirituality side. I miss rituals for milestones with my kids a lot. Can you provide some references?
fergonco··on Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?
Had something like that reading Herman Hesse as teenager. I learnt that I don't need to be or feel "good", necessarily. What you describe fits a lot what I experienced then. I don't give much importance to that but I think that plays a big role on what I have become. I point at the truth (as good as I can) and people think I am judgemental but I am absolutely not because I don't care about good or bad, generally.

Then I heard Jordan Peterson, I think, pointing out that all emotions are useful. They are there because they have an evolutive advantage. For example the feeling of winning makes you play more, and losing makes you step back at some point and observe what happened (you cannot take it out of your head easily).

For those that want the same experience without meditating :)

fergonco··on Books that changed my career as a software engineer
I read novels just to reduce the pace of my brain.

Maybe your brain does not need to work like that.

fergonco··on Ask HN: How do you find funds to invest in?
If you are willing to take on a large risk put it in crypto. It may outperform the best fund by several orders of magnitude. Or it may go to zero (they say).
fergonco··on Tempo, Beat and Downbeat Estimation
Anecdote from drummer here. I made an Android application that would detect the stroke on the snare and would show the tempo.

Of course, you only hit the snare in 2 and 4, so you had to multiply it by two... and forget it completely during breaks!

What amazed me is that it was so sensitive that I could detect even normal footsteps on rather solid floors.

fergonco··on Ask HN: Mobile phone addiction help?
Three hard steps:

1) Remove your twitter, facebook, etc. accounts.

2) Throw the iphone through the window and buy a bad phone that works with your bank (or better, change bank). Silence all alerts except the critical (persons that may need your help urgently and you care, and stuff like that).

With those two you'll end up scrolling through whatsapp profile pictures and stuff like that but that's not going to hook you for more than few minutes, believe me.

3) Find something appealing on the physical world. Something that does not need a mobile phone. It will be hard because, for example playing guitar doesn't have a team of engineers thinking how to make you practice forever, but at some point you'll start getting interested by life again. Program raspberries to turn lights on, or similar, if you definitely need some device.

fergonco··on Deep Work on the Rise
WARN: You'll teach your kid by example. If you are stressed and unhappy because of those unsatisfactory squeezed 30 minutes they will notice. And you'll realize a year later that they were noticing.

I didn't understand what a kid was until she (4yo) corrected the flawed logic of something I just said. Then I realized that all those sacrifices (career included) were worth it.

It gets better once you can use kindergartens... BTW, old parents are not an easy solution in covid times. They are population at risk.

I hope some of this is useful to you. Now I have to prepare some milk to the kid that is dancing around my desk.

fergonco··on Context switching costs more than we give it credit for
"music" is also a very broad term. There is complex music you don't even grasp without paying attention and there is music that is designed to get your attention and start dancing.

Music helping with your flow status might be related to it blocking external noise. I have similar results with (some type of) music, earplugs or white noise.

fergonco··on Show HN: Handel – A procedural programming language for writing songs in browser
Hi! I built something similar: https://fergonco.org/MusicJargon/. I think you will find it interesting. It compiles to midi, though. Your browser support is quite a feature, indeed.

Had long discussions with my brother (the family musician) on how to encode chords. At some point I even used the actual UTF characters for sharp and bemol and was a total nightmare to write :D

My effort is mostly abandoned (I switched to teach my kids to actually play!). Courage!

fergonco··on Experimental drug reverses age-related memory and cognitive decline in mice
There is even a twitter account dedicated to this "in mice" omission: https://twitter.com/justsaysinmice?lang=en
fergonco··on Ask HN: Negotiating My Hourly Rate?
You can ask for $18 and not stick to that offer.

If they pay you that, all is good. If not, you go on working with them until you find something else.

fergonco··on Elevator.js – A “back to top” button that behaves like a real elevator
Same here, it's 6.40am here and I am about to start my 2h sprint before my kid wakes up. I feel I deserve for browsing HN instead of being productive :D
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