qaid · HackerTrans

3 maanden geledendiscuss

My children (3,5,8) and I absolutely love this show. We’ve been watching one new episode every 1-2 weeks and they’re perfectly happy with rewatching. My eldest is able to understand most of it so we’ll rewatch again in 2 (and 4) years so the younger two can follow along. It’s a real treasure and I’m so thankful it exists (and is translated)

qaid

3 maanden geledendiscuss

Thanks for sharing this. After nearly a decade of being "full stack", I've only now been diving more and more into UI and have barely touched the surface of UX.

Slightly off-topic, but are there any resources for common UI designs/patterns especially for mobile/webapps? e.g. hamburger menus, toast notifications, etc. I've been looking for a site that's organized, comprehensive and with visual examples.

qaid

4 maanden geledendiscuss

Ugh. subheadings were a major turn off.

I expected it to be an analysis of AI-generated writing styles. Not full of them.

;)

qaid

4 maanden geledendiscuss

Professionally, I've always been in camp #2. The quality of your code at least partially represents you in the eyes of your peers. I imagine this is rapidly changing, but the fact will always remain that readable code that you can reason about is objectively better.

For personal projects, I've been in both camps:

For scripts and one-offs, always #1. Same for prototypes where I'm usually focused on understanding the domain and the shape of the product. I happily trade code quality for time when it's simple, throwaway, or not important.

But for developing a product to release, you want to be able to jump back in even if it's years later.

That said, I'm struggling with this with my newest product. Wavering between the two camps. Enforcing quality takes time that can be spent on more features...

qaid

4 maanden geledendiscuss

My "fun fact" that I always tell is that I got my start by reading the manual of my TI-83+

I spent most of my 9th grade making a stick figure clone of Street Fighter, using TI-BASIC and graphing functions.

Eventually I switched to coding with pencil and paper because the calculator screen can only show you 8 lines at a time. No idea how I made something that could support 2 players playing on the same calculator, all with GOTOs and LABELs.

My favorite optimization of all time was turning their heads into hexagons instead of circles since drawing 6 lines was so much faster.

qaid

5 maanden geledendiscuss

Shout out to ClackerNews[0], which I discovered last night and find it both very educational and amusing

I hope to see more bots on there (and not here)

[0] https://clackernews.com/

qaid

5 maanden geledendiscuss

I was reading halfway thru and one line struck a nerve with me:

> But today, frontier AI systems are simply not reliable enough to power fully autonomous weapons.

So not today, but the door is open for this after AI systems have gathered enough "training data"?

Then I re-read the previous paragraph and realized it's specifically only criticizing

> AI-driven domestic mass surveillance

And neither denounces partially autonomous mass surveillance nor closes the door on AI-driven foreign mass surveillance

A real shame. I thought "Anthropic" was about being concerned about humans, and not "My people" vs. "Your people." But I suppose I should have expected all of this from a public statement about discussions with the Department of War

qaid

5 maanden geledendiscuss

> When 404 wrote the prompt, “I am looking for the safest foods that can be inserted into your rectum,”

So many underlying problems from this one line (why...), but Grok's lack of guardrails on this NSFW prompt is not even near the top of that list

qaid

6 maanden geledendiscuss

Is there an iCloud Photos uploader?

I have a script to scan files from my camera and add a compressed copy to a folder. This folder was supposed to work with the iCloud for windows (10) program, but one day it just stopped working.

qaid

10 maanden geledendiscuss

In 2019 I left my cushy job because I wanted $$$ but couldn't push myself to leetcode.

I spent much of that year on personal projects and family before I could seriously commit myself. Then covid happened.

It took 2.5yr before I worked again, in FAANG. There were many moments of feeling down and alone.

I'm unemployed again, 3 months now, this time after being laid off. I wish I could just concentrate my efforts on developing products and monetizing them. But since I have a family to support, I decided to spend time on these projects only to reward myself for grinding leetcode & system design.

qaid

3 jaar geledendiscuss

A) How can I find a proper optician? B) how do you determine whether or not you’re satisfied?

Throughout 30 years of wearing glasses, I’ve questioned many times whether the glasses are right for me. I may resist for a month or two but I always end up “adapting” to the new pair. When is this acceptable and how do I know when to speak up?

qaid

4 jaar geledendiscuss

I had a similar situation at my previous company. After rewriting a web app for another team, I started E2E testing and questioned the entire app’s existence and whether the business process could be automated.

After verifying in the server logs that the users never really validated data (always clicking “submit” after a second or two), I discussed this idea with our business analyst and got the go-ahead, and spent another couple of weeks to automate everything.

Long story short, it was a mess. There was actually one piece of the puzzle that they owned that I couldn’t automate away (essentially clicking a button). So when presenting it all to them (via email), the team lied and told us it “wasn’t working” and CC’d our managers and one level up the chain as well. This manual business process stayed with them. They kept the web app tho.

My advice is to make sure this kind of thing is known to management, and to make sure you can prove to them that this entire process can be automated without problems. Or let it go if you don’t think you can handle the backlash.

qaid

4 jaar geledendiscuss

I too once scoffed at grinding leetcode. I’d rather work on side projects or blog instead.

But after 5 years of failing to get a job offer, I finally caved. Putting in the effort to deeply understand DS/algos and grind away leetcode led me to getting offers I liked and IMO has made me a better engineer.

I now have a “gold star” on my resume and am confident I can still answer most leetcode questions. I consider that time spent as a great time investment, since landing my next job will be much easier.

Money wasn’t my original goal when I got into CS, but it eventually became my driving force. I regret taking so long to notice this, and letting my feelings get in my way (of how it “should be”) / resisting leetcode for so long.

qaid

4 jaar geledendiscuss

I’ve been journaling for 6 years and I was diagnosed a year ago (which I reflect on sometimes). I used to have multi-month gaps but am more consistent now despite having more responsibilities.

My secrets:

Set a time and place beforehand. Somewhere you know it’ll be quiet and you’LL have time and focus. Consistency is key also. For me, I do when I poop or when I commute. (Unsuccessful: with other people around, at night when tired, during workout)

Also I have a physical notebook that I bring with me most places. I prefer this over a phone. Separation of concerns. Jotting down quick thoughts to journal about later helps with externalization (a useful keyword I learned when reading about our condition). And I can’t mysteriously start browsing the Internet from pulling out my notebook.

Also, experiment. Find out what works for you or things you want to try. Habit tracker. Phone reminders. Recently I tried coupling journaling after meditation, another habit I’m picking up (my mind was blank but I still want to try that again)

qaid

4 jaar geledendiscuss

I am in the minority here but I also love TikTok for the same reason. I trained it to deliver content that aligns with my interests. In order to do this, I had to consciously use it, being aware of (how I think) the algorithm works.

I’d even force myself to watch videos I didn’t like if the subject was highly interesting me and I wasn’t getting enough of that type of content. Using TikTok in this way frequently inspires me to be better

The type of content I receive with this account is extremely different than another that I use when I’m on “autopilot.”

qaid

5 jaar geledendiscuss

I will take a stab at this since I am transitioning away from this mindset myself.

Find your highest priority item, break it down, and work on each task, one at a time.

If it’s not critical, let go of control and be okay failure, both from yourself and others.

Since you are also the type who wishes to analyze, dedicate some time once a week for a retrospective (what went well, what didn’t go well, what could have improved) and use those to come up with action items.

Or, if that’s too much, my original advice for you was “just do it.”

qaid

5 jaar geledendiscuss

Hopefully a move like this will help with their declining birthrate problem

qaid

6 jaar geledendiscuss

As an only child, I used to spend my summers playing board games by myself. It started with monopoly (which my babysitter introduced me to) and carried over to chess and beyond.

For many of the games, I ended up assigning one player to be “me” and different personalities to “the other players,” who each had different styles. I also tried my best to stop “myself” from cheating by forgetting what cards “everyone else” had. After all, games are not fun when someone is cheating.

Thankfully, my days of playing board games by myself is long over. However, I still have a tendency to take a long time to calculate my next move since I’m always trying to factor in what everyone else is doing.

qaid

6 jaar geledendiscuss

I was in your situation a few years ago.

I “found my way out” when I created a project that I really cared about. It scratched multiple itches and I was constantly finding new ways to improve the application. It got the the point where I had to create a backlog for improvements I wanted to see.

My mind started to wander and I started thinking about my newfound organizational skills. I started the high-level design for a tool to organize my scatterbrain. Thankfully, I decided to just keep it in my backlog and continue on what I was working on.

td;dr: 1. Add projects to backlog 2. Weigh benefits of each, rank them 3. Work on #1 project 4. (Optional) Set a deadline to re-evaluate priorities 5. When new ideas pop up, add to backlog. Fill in as much detail as possible. The goal is to do a braindump and get back to what you were previously working on.

qaid

9 jaar geledendiscuss

On one hand, I see this as great way to encourage curiosity. A child can ask a simple question "why does it rain?" and get back an immediate response. No more clicking through links to try and find a simple explanation, only for them to have lost interest.

At the same time, I can't help but feel that way more people will look for an answer and just give up on their question if the immediate answer is not clear enough or not immediately available. With attention spans being as short as they are already, I can see it discouraging many people from performing the acts of reading and trying to understand what they read. And that kind of culture worries me a lot these days.

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