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glacials

964 karma · joined December 2, 2013

- Personal website: twos.dev

- Email - ben@twos.dev

- Open source - github.com/glacials

[ my public key: https://keybase.io/glacials; my proof: https://keybase.io/glacials/sigs/xZFwICTyYo257X_iSnEUDl7UnvumB-6pzml0UBrXxCk ]

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glacials··on Cool URIs Don't Change (1998)
If you run a statically generated website, I recommend append-only generation, where you keep your `dist/` (or whatever web root) stateful between builds. This guarantees you don't break URIs even if the static generator changes or the source content is removed.

You can even make an orphan branch and check out that branch into `dist/` as a worktree to keep it under version control.

glacials··on Show HN: Weave – A tool to track how your habits work together
This reminds me of Exist[1], although their inputs are mostly automatic and so the data quickly becomes overwhelming and tautological ("you spend more time active when you work out for a longer distance"). Glad to see another entry into this space.

[1]: https://exist.io

glacials··on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (June 2024)
Location: Seattle, WA

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: No

Technologies: Ruby, Go, Python, TypeScript

Résumé/CV: https://twos.dev/cv.html

Email: ben@twos.dev

Ten years in the industry. I was #90 at Twitch and grew it to its $1B Amazon acquisition. I've been successful backend and full stack.

I have a special eye for increasing developer velocity. I thrive in small companies with teammates who trust each other, where I can wear a lot of hats and have autonomy to solve pressing issues without much process.

glacials··on A crazy experience losing Apple earbuds in a remote town in Chile
This is an amazing story and a clever innovation. I cannot fathom why the author is so upset about it.
glacials··on Show HN: Free Plain-Text Bookmarking
I'm not the dev, but based on the source it looks like Mongo: https://github.com/vasanthv/webtag/blob/main/server/collecti...
glacials··on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (March 2024)
Location: Seattle, WA

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: No

Technologies: Go, Ruby on Rails, Python, TypeScript

Résumé/CV: https://twos.dev/cv.html

Email: ben@twos.dev

Ten years in industry. I was #90 at Twitch and grew it to its $1B Amazon acquisition. I've been successful backend and full stack. Very experienced in Go and Ruby on Rails.

I have a special eye for increasing developer velocity. I thrive in small companies with teammates who trust each other, where I can wear a lot of hats and have autonomy to solve pressing issues without much process.

glacials··on Make Invalid States Unrepresentable
One place I'm surprised I don't see this more is sets. In my experience arrays are used without a second thought when any collection type is needed.
glacials··on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (February 2024)
Location: Seattle, WA

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: No

Technologies: Go, Ruby on Rails, Python, TypeScript

Résumé/CV: https://twos.dev/cv.html

Email: ben@twos.dev

Ten years in industry. I was #90 at Twitch and grew it to, through, and past its $1B Amazon acquisition. I've been successful in backend and low-JS full stack roles, including bleeding edge HTML/CSS. Very experienced in Go and Ruby on Rails, experienced in TypeScript and Python, polyglot otherwise.

I have a special eye for, and experience in, increasing developer velocity and improving developer experience internally and externally. This includes writing documentation, automating its publishing, building command-line tools to capture complex flows, building CI/CD, writing and speeding up tests, building service templates and service generators, and more.

Have spun up and maintained infrastructure in Terraform, AWS CloudFormation and CDK, Docker, and Kubernetes.

I thrive in small (< 100) companies with teammates who trust each other, where I can wear a lot of hats and have a lot of autonomy to solve the most pressing issues without much process. I do however recognize the importance of measuring outcomes and I am self-sufficient at doing so.

glacials··on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (January 2024)
- Location: Seattle, WA.

- Remote: Remote or onsite in Seattle.

- Willing to relocate: Not willing.

- Technologies: Go, Ruby / Ruby on Rails, Python, TypeScript, AWS. Interested in Haskell and Elixir.

- Résumé/CV: https://twos.dev/cv.html

- Email: ben@twos.dev

- Website: https://twos.dev/

I'm a staff/principal level Software Engineer, full-stack for low/no-JS or backend otherwise. I've worked "in the open" a lot so bonus points for working on open source and/or community management. I have a lot of experience moving monolithic apps to microservices, from the Rails → Go move at Twitch.

glacials··on Ask HN: Where have you found community outside of work?
Can you share some source material for improved happiness?
glacials··on Infinitely Nested Window Management
macOS’s new Stage Manager feature does this.
glacials··on Ask HN: What lesser-known accessories do you use with your computer?
A desk mat, like the ones by Nordik [1]. It's like a giant mouse pad that also goes under your keyboard.

I can't stand the size of normal mouse pads and I can't go without one because the years wear on my desk. Plus it also serves as coaster, art, and "clean zone" that my cats know to avoid. You can get them custom printed with anything you want.

[1]: https://amzn.to/3ZyXiU5

glacials··on Call yourself titles
I've found a good middle ground is to call myself an "amateur photographer", "amateur interior designer", etc.

It leaves room for both motivation and humility.

glacials··on Lessons from a Pessimist: Make Your Pessimism Productive
The word that describes what the author calls destructive pessimism is defeatism—an expectation and acceptance of failure. This itself causes failure.
glacials··on Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London
Yes. European cities were, in general, well-developed before the car was invented.

US cities are built around the car. This means more space dedicated to parking, which means less space for homes and businesses, which means things are farther apart, which means people need cars.

It’s a negative feedback loop.

glacials··on Punctuation Matters: How to use the en dash, em dash and hyphen
For a little more on these with a focus on CSS and practical issues, I wrote an article a couple years back called Advanced Dashes: https://twos.dev/dashes.html
glacials··on The Internet’s Richest Fitness Resource Is a Site from 1999
And The Man in Seat 61: https://www.seat61.com/
glacials··on 30 Days of Python
Love that this starts you right in the terminal and VSCode from the outset. A friend has been on the Codecademy grind as a new developer, and ~1 year in she is continually frustrated with how little focus it places on real-world tools and experiences. It seems they want to keep you in their in-browser interpreter for as long as they reasonably can.
glacials··on Tech Is Allowing Businesses to Overcharge You in Tips
As a consumer who dislikes tipping, here are your ways to deal with it:

1. Find, frequent, and favorably review establishments that do not accept tips.

2. Express desire for policy at local, state, and federal levels. (Listed in decreasing order of ROI.)

There is no option 3. You cannot refuse to tip on a moral basis. You are just punishing the victim. No one will join you in your revolution and nothing will get done.

glacials··on Ask HN: Best path to Emacs for lifelong vi guy?
I am about a month further along than you on this journey. I started with vanilla Emacs and went through the built-in tutorial for a few days, then at the behest of friends switched to Doom.

Using Doom was valuable for me to see what Emacs can be. It is astonishing how much of an upgraded experience it is. However I felt I couldn’t understand where Emacs ended and Doom began, and the number of moving parts was making it hard to find solutions to problems.

For example, Doom keybindings for standard functions differ from normal Emacs bindings, so you can’t just follow any Stack Overflow post—the bindings won’t work. The fact that I didn’t even know why this was the case was getting to me.

I switched back to vanilla Emacs and, armed with the knowledge of what is possible, have been building up my config for a few weeks. I am making a special effort to avoid Evil Mode for a bit so I can learn all the bindings and make the decision for myself whether I like them or not. God Mode helps here as a more idiomatic alternative.

If your learning style is focused on knowing your foundation before building atop it, I’d recommend a similar path. I also have got a lot of value from sifting through others’ configs to pick up gems here and there. With literate programming it’s very common to find fantastically documented configs online.

glacials··on Ask HN: How do you like to be shown appreciation at work?
We did the same when I was a founder, but we doubled the time off received. Working a weekend affects plans, wellbeing, and social life. The company should not feel it can trade those days around whenever it wants.
glacials··on Git branches are named sequences of commits
While I agree the title in a vacuum has the ability to mislead, the article itself is a critical piece, not a tutorial for beginners. I don’t think much harm was done here.
glacials··on Camouflaging autistic traits linked to internalizing symptoms anxiety depression
I am not a doctor. I am not trained in these things. But from the experiences you've stated, I am 99% confident you are autistic.

I highly suggest checking in with a mental health professional (I suggest one that has experience with autism, as otherwise you may get one who doesn't acknowledge its modern definitions) and/or going down the autism rabbit hole online to continue to see if your experiences align with other folks with autism. /r/AutisticAdults is a great place to start. I am also happy to chat privately, email in bio.

glacials··on Camouflaging autistic traits linked to internalizing symptoms anxiety depression
It's a matter of degree. You can feel sad but that doesn't mean you understand depression. You can get nervous but that doesn't mean you understand anxiety. You can have back pain but that doesn't mean you understand what it's like to break your back.
glacials··on Camouflaging autistic traits linked to internalizing symptoms anxiety depression
I encourage you to seek out communities online even without a diagnosis! Many identify as self-diagnosed for the same reason you stated. I've learned a lot of tips and tricks that have helped me (and my wife) deal with it.
glacials··on Camouflaging autistic traits linked to internalizing symptoms anxiety depression
In the autism community we call this "masking" and it is not the least bit surprising to read this. I did not begin to learn I had anxiety or autism until I was 30 years old, and it's because the world trained me to hide away those parts of myself.

I did not realize I was masking for most of my life -- most do not since it's the only way they've ever lived -- but it is enormously taxing to be around people. Everyone seems to be communicating over a different protocol than you in such a natural way. But you have to study it, prepare for it, and then run an emulation layer in realtime, all to appear normal and natural. This leaves less brainpower for other things and leads to mental exhaustion very quickly. I recently heard it described as never being able to speak your mother tongue.

If you would like to read more about my experiences I wrote them down in an essay form [1]. I'd also recommend the Dave's Garage YouTube channel, by ex-Microsoft engineer Dave Plummer. [2] He does a great job of pitching autism as less a disorder and more an evolutionarily necessary mutation for the odd person here or there to have.

I'm very glad these studies are being done and I commend them. I also wish there were a bit of focus on adults with autism, who are often left out of the picture.

[1]: https://twos.dev/autism.html

[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ9X5DSnVms

glacials··on Show HN: Mox - Modern full-featured low-maintenance self-hosted mail server
As anecdotal personal experience, I switched off Google Calendar for a couple of years and couldn’t do it. There were too many missing conveniences that weren’t handled by the generic protocol. Invitations and RSVPs frequently got lost, updates to existing events weren’t really recognized, and invited mailing lists didn’t unfurl into individuals.

I switched back to using Google Calendar as a backend. It would take a lot for me to try a switch again.

glacials··on GitHub's Copilot AI for Business now available for $19/month
It’s really good for rote stuff. In particular writing if err != nil { return fmt.Errorf(“helpful context: %w”, err) } in Go, or getting the structure for some YAML down so you can go off and edit it.

It’s also super helpful for languages whose ethe value building utility functions over importing them, like parsing environment variables into types in Python. So many people have written their own functions to do this that the training set is pretty good.

glacials··on Ask HN: Something you’ve done your whole life that you realized is wrong?
Depends on your back. I’m a back sleeper with back pain and my physical therapist told me to start stomach sleeping. It helps a lot.
glacials··on Ruby on Jets: Like Rails but serverless
It’s not so much about actively using multiple providers, as building your application to be able to switch if you wanted.
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