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kerrsclydeon Ask HN: How did you figure out what you wanted to do with your life?

Being a good Dad and husband has given me the greatest satisfaction over my 40 odd years. Even though I fell into it with very little planning or foresight.

kerrsclydeon I spent the day teaching seniors how to use an iPhone

My parents were always good with tech, we always had the latest PC at home. As they now enter their 80s their patience / resilience has evaporated to nothing. If it doesn’t work immediately the get stressed and give up (or ask me).

I’m not sure as developers how you get round that.

kerrsclydeon Take something you don’t like and try to like it

Because they fleeced their fans?

kerrsclydeon Dull Men’s Club

https://x.com/GarethWild/status/1386965962214289408

Legendary.

kerrsclydeon Can a law make social media less 'addictive'?

I don't disagree with anything you say but try telling my 16 year old daughter she need to jettison any form of social media and go with the nerd crowd.

kerrsclydeon Can a law make social media less 'addictive'?

As a parent I agree parental reponsiblity is absolute but I haven't seen a workable solution reguarding social media.

I can't realistically monitor what my children are looking 24/7, like I can't listen to every conversation that they have.

I could ban all social media / phones but how is that going to prepare them for life in a world where social media is all encompassing? Plus they likely would be ostracized by their peers.

[I'm talking here about older children, teenagers. We also have a 5 year old and it's pretty easy with him, he doesn't have access to any form of social media.]

kerrsclydeon Ask HN: How to Become a Billionare?

People who built billion dollar businesses didn't start them soley to become billionares. Am I wrong?

kerrsclydeon Ask HN: Personal Finance Advice for a 21 yo

I was lucky to be given/earnt some money before I was 21. Basically enough at the time to buy a mid range new car. I invested it into an Index Fund and didn't spend any of it, even when later I'd had 4 kids and times were tougher. 25 years later it has quadrupled in size and by the time I retire I am hopeful it will fund my entire retirement.

Appricate the power you have in your youth.

"Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world."

kerrsclydeon Perception of when old age starts has increased over time, shows study

We need change.

Big business seems to call the shots, look at what is going on with UK Water Companies.

I'm not sure are current political structure will deliver that change though.

kerrsclydeon Martin Scorsese's secret life as an obsessive VHS archivist

There was a BBC Four documentary about his archive. I think in that it reported that he was one of the first people in the UK to own a VHS device with the facility to record.

kerrsclydeon Martin Scorsese's secret life as an obsessive VHS archivist

UK TV comedian Bob Monkhouse was another obsessive VHS archivist. He amassed a collection of 35k tapes and saved some recordings of UK TV shows which were previously thought to have been lost by the BBC.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Monkhouse#Film_and_televis...

kerrsclydeon I Turned 72 Today

> Work on a passion project, even just 30 minutes a day. It compounds.

I need to do this. I know my project (just a passion, not a side hussle or for income). Tell myself I need to. Then daily life gets in the way. 10 years or more.

kerrsclydeon Estimate your age of death

One of the biggest pros for having children relatively young.

I had 3 children before 25 then one when I was 39.

My oldest 3 had exceptional times with their grandparents. My youngest son didn't have this, they grew very old very quickly.

kerrsclydeon Drax: UK power station still burning rare forest wood

Drax seems like a dinosaur which we should be doing without. It's situated where it is because of the easy access to the huge coal fields that fired it previously. Now the wood it burns is imported from overseas. Surely this is not sustainable or environmentally friendly?

kerrsclydeon Getting fitter can reduce prostate cancer risk by 35%, study finds

> having a healthy social life

This is almost always omitted when it comes to health advice I feel it is one of the most important factors. Loneliness kills!

kerrsclydeon My daily driver is older than I thought; it's positively vintage

I've got an early 2009 iMac and it is glorious.

I've got a range of software which I know exactly how to use. I can focus on creativity and productivity, not learning how to use a new tool before I can produce anything of value.

kerrsclydeon Three Decades of HTML

I remember I bought a book, Instant HTML Programmers Reference by Wrox, in 1998 and I poured over every page, used it so much the cover then all the pages fell out - very little online HTML reference at the time. Seeing the cover design now still gives me a strange sentimental feeling.

kerrsclydeon Shane MacGowan has died

Something in the British/Irish mentality which appeals to flawed geniuses such as him. We like our hero’s to have a drink/drug problem.

kerrsclydeon Earth likely briefly passed critical warming threshold on Friday and Saturday

And everything I buy from the store is encased in plastic (bananas! eggs! bread!).

kerrsclydeon How to write a cold email (2020)

The key point here is the credibility part. The Nigerian prince has no credibility. If you are approaching someone looking to solve a problem and you demonstrate competance via an extensive Github profile / blog your chances of a response are enormously increased I'd have thought.

kerrsclydeon UK Parliament undermined the privacy, security, freedom of all internet users

The secondary education my children recieved was awful. UK Secondary schools seem more interested in their uniform policy than the quality of learning.

kerrsclydeon The male loneliness epidemic and how it affects fathers

Now I find myself in my mid 40’s I don’t have a single friend who I’d feel comfortable phoning/messaging.

My fault, I did nothing to foster friendships and made family my number one priority.

It’s not an issue for me now, I have a great wife and 4 kids but I do wonder how I will feel in 20, 30 years time.

kerrsclydeon The English cottage where John le Carré wrote Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

In this part of West Cornwall most local people cannot afford to buy a house of any kind.

kerrsclydeon Ask HN: Do you put most of your money in stocks?

As a result of being a bit obsessed with fool.com around the turn of the millenium I invested some money into Index Funds. I still have these investments now and they have tripled in value.

My wife and I have made far more money via house sales however, due to the rise in UK house prices in recent years.

I'd agree most people I know don't directly invest in the stock market. You use to hear much more small talk about stock market investing 20 years ago than you do now.

Maybe:

Less money to invest (price of housing / cost of living etc)

Difficulty focusing on the longer time frame required for stock market investing

Big push in the UK on investing into pensions

kerrsclydeon Aptos, our modern successor to Calibri

Tahoma. I miss it. Better times.

kerrsclydeon Amateurs obsess over tools, pros over mastery

Bruce Springsteen has used the same 'bitza' guitar which he bought in 1973 for almost the entirety of his career.

[1] https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/bruce-spri...

kerrsclydeon Ask HN: How did you migrate off Evernote?

I've gone to DevonThink.

My Evernote contains 22k+ notes collected since late 2011.

Nearly all notes are images/links collected online and tagged.

DevonThink contains all the archiving tools that I wished Evernote had. It also has an import from Evernote tool which seems to be working very well.

What I am hoping is that because it is a paid for software installation and has a stable history it will not be messed with in the same way Evernote has been.

I've also exported all my notes via Evernote Legacy as HTML files and archived them.

My yearly Evernote subscription doesn't expire until start of Sept so I have time to continue migration before I leave for good :-(

kerrsclydeon Tell HN: Nearly all of Evernote’s remaining staff has been laid off

Same here. I'm still using version 7 of their desktop software on OS X, now badged Legacy. It's fantastic, fast, multiple tabs (unlike the new Evernote app!!!), OCR, works well with images/PDF/Office Docs, I've never had a problem with syncing, I can format notes as I wish etc, etc.

Over the past 10 days it has started displaying a daily upgrade message forcing me to the new tab-less Electron app. I'm resisting but I've no doubt it will stop syncing any day.

Much of my daily workflow is focused around Evernote. It's going to a pain to move but I am going to. If they'd have just left things alone I would have been a paying customer probably until my dying day.

kerrsclydeon I ditched my car – and improved my fitness, sleep and bank balance

Agreed.

I live in a town in the South West of UK and the nearest train station is more than 45 mins drive away, no direct bus link with our nearest city, unreliable local buses, nothing in the way of cycle lanes, virtually no taxis, no uber etc, etc - basically 0% public transport.

It's amazing how far out of touch those in London (i.e. politicians) are with the rest of the UK.

kerrsclydeon Gen Z is drinking less at concerts

My own observations are that the wholesale price of beer in UK has not really risen much in the past 30 years. I was paying £24 for a 24 pack in the 90's and basically I still pay the same today.

Personally I find it difficult to justify paying something between 5 & 10 times the retail cost when I go to an event.