Hacker News Reader

bootszon Women are nearly half of new gun buyers, study finds

Jesus H Christ, this comment section. What has happened to HN? I think I'm done for good this time. Peace.

bootszon Google is accelerating reopening of offices and putting limits on remote work

The article is wrong. The 14 day limit applies only to working from a different country than the one your job is based in. Partial WFH is very much still on the table for the foreseeable future as far as we know.

bootszon Google is accelerating reopening of offices and putting limits on remote work

This statement as quoted is false. I'm guessing it is a misinterpretation of the policy that employees may work remotely from a different country for up to 14 days per year without approval. The announcement that came out yesterday stated that this policy has been reinstated. It does not apply to domestic WFH.

Source: I am an employee

bootszon Ask HN: Was 20% time a good policy for Google's working culture?

20% projects (and the policy supporting them) are very much still a thing at Google. Not sure how many people actually participate in one but my perception is that it is a relatively low percentage of employees.

bootszon Design for Living: What’s Great about Goethe?

Indeed, years ago I heard about Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship and was amazed at how difficult it was to find an English translation of it.

bootszon A Novel Concept: Silent Book Clubs Offer Introverts a Space to Socialize

I don't entirely disagree, but my main gripe is that the former definition is extremely useful so it is unfortunate to have it subsumed by the concept of "shy" (for which we already have a widely-understood word), since it then becomes difficult to communicate and reason about the former. Maybe the solution is that we need yet another word to use for the former meaning, although I wonder how long will it take until such a word would yet again become co-opted to mean "shy"...

bootszon Teen's tweets from her smart fridge go viral after mother confiscates phone

> its website confirms the refrigerator does have social media capabilities, and the tweet source confirms it was sent from the device.

Imagine waking from a coma after 10 or 20 years and reading this in the news.

bootszon Psytrance Guide

Interesting that "psytrance" is also listed as a subgenre of "psytrance".

bootszon A Novel Concept: Silent Book Clubs Offer Introverts a Space to Socialize

> I would say that I'm an introvert who's really good at pretending to be an extrovert for small amounts of time

In other words: an introvert. There seems to be a widespread misconception that introversion means being "shy" and not talking to people, when in reality it is more about where you draw energy from. The result is tons of people self-identifying as "extroverted introverts"[1], presumably in an attempt to signal that they are not totally devoid of social skills, when in reality introversion has nothing to do with that.

[1] When I was single I saw this surprisingly often in online dating profiles. Interestingly, for all the many people I've seen identify this way, I've never seen a single person self-identify as the opposite: an "introverted extrovert".

bootszon Being basic as a virtue

This x1000. You've basically described my dream lifestyle. It does seem indeed very hard to achieve without being retired, but I feel like for those making good money in tech it should be at least partially achievable, through a combination of proper money management, relocation to low cost of living area, and transitioning to freelance/consulting. Easier said than done but certainly not impossible .

bootszon Don’t Put Your Work Email on Your Personal Phone

While I sympathize with the privacy concerns, carrying two phones around is pretty much a dealbreaker for me.

bootszon Ask HN: Best way to relearn basic math?

I highly recommend Khan Academy: https://www.khanacademy.org/

bootszon Tim Cook: Four-Year Degree Not Necessary to Be Proficient at Coding'

> It is, however, a strong social proof for other things that matter a great deal.

> a willingness to abide by the rules and procedures of a complex organization, even when they don't make much sense or directly contribute to the core competency. It shows a willingness to submit to authority, a willingness to get often arbitrary work done on schedule with acceptable quality, and other traits and experiences that matter a great deal for becoming a functional employee in a corporate workplace.

This is one of the main theses of the book "Disciplined Minds" by Jeff Schmidt. I highly recommend it if you're interested in following this line of thought further.

bootszon Is everything an MLM

> What happens when the population and the economy are in a steady state, where we don't expect things to increase at 2% forever

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steady-state_economy

https://steadystate.org/

bootszon Loud and expensive renovations shattering a formerly quiet block in Manhattan

I live on 80th in the UWS and there is similar construction that's been going on behind my building since I moved in last year. Luckily I'm not home during the week, but they still fire up the jackhammers at 8:00 AM sharp on Saturdays. One time I heard a guy screaming "f-you it's f--ing saturday" out his window at them for like 5 minutes straight. The hammering stopped for a brief instant, then immediately resumed, drowning him out.

bootszon How Sitting For Long Periods Affects Your Metabolism

Heh... What's interesting is I personally feel the opposite. I can eat thousands of calories of carbs/sugar no problem, but I fill up on fat pretty quick. I did the keto diet for about 4 months and almost never went over my daily calorie budget, basically without even trying that hard. Most days I had to remind myself to eat more because I was way under.

I wonder if this is a case for emphasizing that "one size fits all" doesn't work in dieting, either. It seems likely that satiety for various food sources might vary based on biology and lifestyle too.

bootszon How Sitting For Long Periods Affects Your Metabolism

My opinion, from my own experience: Sure, that definitely works. But the choice of cutting fat is kind of arbitrary. You can do the same with sugar & carbs and get basically the same result w.r.t weight loss. I think this illuminates the real underlying issue with modern diets which is not that we eat "too much of X", but rather "too much of everything, too frequently". Approaches like this work not because "fat is bad" or "carbs are bad", but because they provide a simple, concrete framework for diet choices that ends up reducing overall calorie consumption.

bootszon How to Be a Stoic (2016)

For those interested in learning more, I highly recommend Ryan Holiday's book The Obstacle is the Way which gives a great high-level modern take on stoicism. The classics are also obviously great too.

bootszon Ask HN: Successful projects that weren't received well on HN?

I'd guess the majority of them weren't initially received well. It seems it's kind of characteristic of truly good & innovative ideas that they at first seem like terrible ideas to the majority of people (as once noted by Paul Graham / Sam Altman or some other famous entrepreneur, can't remember who exactly).

bootszon On Being a Principal Engineer

Yup, that was my last company . Had a bunch of inexperienced devs getting promoted to "Senior" all the time. I think I counted once and figured out that we had more people working there with the title Senior Software Engineer than we did regular Software Engineer's.

After one year of moderate effort I too got the promotion, with almost no pay raise. The problem of giving everyone a certain title is you basically completely dilute any meaning or status it conveys.

I soon went on to FANG and am now a regular ol' Software Engineer again. But I'd much rather be bottom rung at a top company than a "Senior" whatever at a company where it means nothing.

bootszon Phenylephrine Is No More Effective Than Placebo for Nasal Congestion (2015)

I think I tried this once (accidentally) back when pseudoephedrine was put behind the counter and immediately figured out it was total garbage compared to the real thing. I can't believe they're allowed to charge money for that stuff.

bootszon Phenylephrine Is No More Effective Than Placebo for Nasal Congestion (2015)

The problem is: it actually works. Really really well. Unlike phenylephrine.

bootszon Software ideas are born: step-by-step guide on generating one for 2019

> If you prioritize making money over making something worthwhile, you are just going to accelerate our destruction.

Amen. This seems to be one of the primary problems with the tech industry today. Is building another convenience app for X really a good use of time for bright and talented individuals when there are so many pressing problems to solve? But I guess as long as the money is flowing there will be people willing to do these things.

I'd love to figure out how I can apply my software engineering skills toward something more "worthwhile", while also making decent money. It's hard when at this point many of the real pressing problems for humanity to me don't seem to really involve software as a primary component. I feel like we've reached diminishing returns with software. But maybe I'm just not looking in the right places.

bootszon [dead]

> If you are referring to the singular and all-powerful deity of monotheistic tradition, you are using a proper name. That means the capital “G” is a must.

The problem IMO is that at least in English, "god" is simply too widely-used and inexactly-defined. Certain religions don't have any exclusive claim to the word; it isn't unique enough. So I'm not convinced of this argument. I'll spell it how I want, because in my mind the concept of "god" is intractable and has no well-defined meaning to begin with, so it can't be a proper noun.

bootszon Ask HN: What can we do about spam calls with spoofed numbers?

I started using the Hiya app on my iphone a couple months ago and it has basically stopped just about all spam calls. I was previously getting at least 1 a day. I'm using the free version.

https://hiya.com/

bootszon A decade-long boom is ending as consumers hang on to devices for longer

Same. For me I think part of the reason is that the more I get to know the intimate inner-workings of technology, the more I realize how incredibly brittle and unreliable new technologies can be. So if I have something that is reliable and working great after a year or two, I'm very hesitant to part with it. Plus these days what's passing for 'cool new features' is pretty underwhelming. I'll keep my stuff that works for now, thanks.

bootszon The Relentlessness of Modern Parenting

> they’re their own people, not extensions of our own ego

So true. I feel like a large portion of all the conflict that arises between parents and children stems from a failure to understand this.

bootszon Stanford professor: ‘The workplace is killing people and nobody cares’

Couldn't agree more. Years ago I used to work for a small dev shop of about 6 people. We were super tight-knit and over time became like family. I'm still friends with some of them today. I've since gone on to work at BigCo's, and damn do they feel cold and impersonal by comparison.

> Homophily is discrimination

I think you are onto an interesting point here. I do not dispute the importance of diversity/inclusiveness/fairness, but there is an uncomfortable truth that these things directly conflict with the factors that facilitate close bonding in groups. When you force an environment to be absolutely non-exclusive in every possible way, it becomes rather sterile somehow. I don't doubt that the homogeneity of my old company was one of the reasons we were able to become so close. I'm not necessarily suggesting companies should become more exclusionary, just reflecting on the tradeoffs involved.

bootszon The Little Printf

"The games people play, the roles and reputations they chase and entertain, the fleeting pleasure they derive from solving intricate problems, is all fun for a while. Ultimately though, if you do not solve anything worthwhile, if you forget about the people involved, it's never gonna be truly fulfilling."
"It is the time you have spent on your system that makes it so important", the man added, "and when you lost sight of why it made sense to spend time on it, when it became a game of pride, it caused more grief than relief.

"Developers have often forgotten this truth; If you lose sight of things, working on your system becomes its own problem, and the most effective solution is to get rid of the system, given it's the problem."

This story is easily one of the best depictions of the software engineering profession I've ever come across. I originally got hooked on programming because of the thrill of solving "intricate problems"... but the fleeting nature of that thrill only becomes more and more apparent as time goes on. Fundamentally I think it's necessary to have a deeper motivation, a bigger "why" behind what you do, in order to sustain your satisfaction from day to day.