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imaffett

130 karma · joined August 30, 2012

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imaffett··on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (April 2020)
Location: Lancaster, PA

Remote: Yes

Willing to Relocate: No

Technologies: Full stack development across broad ranges of technologies. Spent years doing mobile html5 (tools got acquired by Intel) and the past 4 years in banking/fintech. Experience as an architect, team lead and special project support.

Resume: available on request

email: ian.maffett at gmail.com

imaffett··on Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?
I was part of Intel's mass layoffs in 2016. I hated my job at the time, but looking back now I wish I was back in the spot where my compensation was not quite "ridiculous", but great.

I went to a startup after and it was terrible. Luckily I've transitioned to the parent company, but it's still not as ideal.

Can you deal with it for a few more years? Surely you can get to a point where you can retire early?

imaffett··on T-Mobile ISP
Just south Lancaster, PA. I know a co-worker who is north of the city is waitlisted.
imaffett··on T-Mobile ISP
Signed up this morning for the service. I should have the gateway next week. A few things to note

1) The gateway has built in wifi (and is provided free) 2) It provides 2 ethernet ports 3) You use an app to see most of it (how much data you've used, etc). 4) They say when 5g is in the area, it will be upgraded to it.

imaffett··on ASK HN: Has anyone adopted Chrome OS as their primary OS?
I got an Acer C720A 5 years ago and tried to do that. I sideloaded linux on an SD card. I was able to do web dev and hybrid app development (I worked for Intel at the time). It worked fine for what I needed.

I got my wife a Samsung Chromebook 3 and she uses it for her job as preschool director. Being able to install Android apps is great. I feel like I could use that machine for most of my personal projects. I would NOT use a remote development tool; try to do it all locally when you can.

imaffett··on If You're Often Angry or Irritable, You May Be Depressed
I'll second this. I put myself in a downward spiral from bad sleep and being dependent on caffeine. I'm now aware of how I "feel" when I'm just really tired.
imaffett··on Intel: We 'Forgot' to Mention 28-Core, 5-GHz CPU Demo Was Overclocked
Any current or former employee will all tell you the same; Intel did NOT forget to mention this.

After the fiasco with compilers and chips in the past, they have to go through rigorous approval for any marketing claims. This was 100% planned by Intel.

imaffett··on ‘Anonymous’ Chat App Hijacks Contact Data
Facebook did this years ago. It went through your contacts and updated any info (pictures, phone, email) to match what they had in Facebook.
imaffett··on Amazon Plans First Air Cargo Hub
Call your local USPS office tell them you are going to file a formal complaint/grievance to Amazon about the delivery. The driver can get reprimanded for it. Amazon Prime deliveries are not a joke to them.

Source: both my parents just retired from the USPS.

imaffett··on Compute Card, a Credit Card-Sized Compute Platform
Intel is not leading by example. They are trying to make up new markets and push OEMS to it. The core of Intel is used to the "WinTel" generation where they could strong arm vendors into doing whatever they want. They are having a hard time moving away from that and getting stronger pushback from vendors.

And their reference devices are generally poor...it's not hard for OEM's to beat them.

note - I was an intel employee, but on the software side.

imaffett··on Ask HN: Will you really move away from Apple hardware?
I have a 2009 MBP that I use at home. Still does a great job for what I need and I'll do some iOS development on it.

Newer computer is a Lenovo Flex 3 with Win 10 I got for under $500. I've been on a MB/MBP for almost 10 years now at various jobs. If I really need a MBP I use that. I don't see myself buying any more apple products though (including phones/ipads).

imaffett··on Ask HN: When are you considered a “senior” programmer?
I'll second this. Titles vary across company size, and even then are different from company to company (e.g a Principal Engineer at Intel would not make PE at Google). I was a Staff Software Engineer at Intel (level above Senior Software Engineer) but now my title is Senior Front End Developer at a startup ;)
imaffett··on Google to acquire Apigee
Intel divested Mashery, along with Aepona and dropped their cloud services division.
imaffett··on Pebble 4.0 Apps and Firmware Released
I have a garmin vivoactive smartwatch. It does most of what my pepple could do, but has a lot more. It has built in GPS and an amazing battery life.

I get 1 week with daily runs using the gps. I get 2 weeks when im not running. I actually just broke the screen while replacing the siding on my house. Reason being I wear it all the time. No need to charge it every day or so, so I forget about it.

imaffett··on “It's The Future”
Ive been looking for the same thing. Tried dokku and it was painfully slow. Tried rolling my own solution via git hooks but other devs had problems with execution. I would love to hear more about people running dokku on Digital Ocean (I was on a beefy azure server)

In a very specific case, Heroku is the best solution for my problem. Sounds like it is for you too.

imaffett··on Everyone is quitting
Because thats what i was exposed to. Im a 34 year old white guy and have no problem saying it felt like welfare for "middle" class. the bonus and stock handouts were absurd. Yes Intel has different races/gender (the diversity push is a joke), but on the software side it was dominated by one demographic.
imaffett··on Everyone is quitting
You can cruise and do nothing. I worked at Intel for 3.5 years and watched "old white guys" collect $200k+ in pay/bonus/stock and do about 1 month of real work.

But it is soul sucking...if you piss the wrong people off they will do their best to get rid of you and promote their lackeys. It really is welfare for the middle class.

imaffett··on Jawbone stops production of fitness trackers
lol... every triathlete is "pretty competitive" ;). My wife and I switch to running and are using garmin vivoactives. The battery life is amazing and works great swimming (no gps)

My non-active friends mostly ditch their fitbit style devices after a few months. Its either an apple watch, microsoft band (not joking) or some type of running/multisport watch.

imaffett··on Pebble 2, Time 2 + All-New Pebble Core
My wife got a pebble time last year after upgrading her OG pepple. It scratched like crazy and had tons of issues.

She bought a Garmin Vivoactive after xmas and both of us havent looked back. We get 2-3 weeks pf battery with moderate gps use. Alerts work way better then the Pebble watch. I highly recommend the garmin. I forget I have to charge it, but it takes 2 hrs to go from 20%-100%.

Also, I only know one person who wears a pebble, and it was a hand me down. Eveyone I know who owned a Pebble switched to Appl, Android Wear, Microsoft Band or Garmin.

imaffett··on Dear Apple, there’s nothing ‘really sad’ about using a 5-year-old PC
I still use my 2009 MBP. I upgraded to an SSD drive and 8 gigs of ram. I don't game on it, but I can do almost all of my development on it. I'll admit it's slower then my 2013 MPB at work, but I see no reason to spend more money on a working computer.

My second computer is a Chromebook. My oldest daughter uses it for school work and we couldn't be happier. It's much better then our iPad (which we don't use anymore).

imaffett··on Is It Cheaper to Stay in an Airbnb ‘Entire Home’ Rental or a Hotel?
I was recently in vegas. You can get hotel rooms cheap, but they have the tax and entertainment fee's that add up quickly. My problem with AirBnB was the $200 cleaning fee for a two night stay.

So far, it's been extremely hit or miss for me. I've found VRBO/Homeaway to be better for vacations.

imaffett··on FDA Clears 23andMe for All Health and Carrier Traits Testing
I did 23andme and then talked my dad and uncle into doing it. Found out a lot of "obvious" stuff we were genetically predisposed to, but it was nice to finally have scientific proof. Like you said, it makes it easier to prepare if/when certain events happen.

My grandmother (their mother) had passed away a year before we did the tests. A majority of her health issues she had we are genetically predisposed to.

imaffett··on TANX: online multiplayer tank battle using WebGL and Node.js
Playcanvas is doing amazing work with WebGL. The Mozilla team showed off a version of this at GDC - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVAw_an6NBQ

Check out the SeeMore demo Will and his team were showing off at GDC - http://malideveloper.arm.com/demo-showroom/gaming/seemoreweb...

imaffett··on Nodejitsu joins GoDaddy
I have no affiliation with GoDaddy, but they've been making strides recently to change it. They acquired Media Temple in 2013 and most people do not even know it. I talked to a few people from MT and they said GoDaddy Corp has been mostly hands off.
imaffett··on Give or receive 1 hour of coding help in 2015
It is part of hacksummit.org
imaffett··on How we built our app in 2 weeks using Ionic Framework
I work at Intel and we have the Crosswalk Project - https://crosswalk-project.org/ Even Google mentions using it for Android 4+ devices.
imaffett··on T-Mobile quietly hardens part of its U.S. cellular network against snooping
which part of PA? I'm in south central and we get LTE, but I also go through parts with no coverage. It has been better then sprint though.
imaffett··on Apple allows hot code push for JS downloaded and run by WebKit
Companies have been doing this for a long time in the UIWebView. At a previous job, we offered this service and called it "live update". Never ran into any issues with Apple denying apps because of this. Phonegap build has a feature called Hydration that does something similar.
imaffett··on How we turn $199 Chromebooks into Ubuntu-based code learning machines for kids
(disclosure: I'm an Intel employee)

I love the C720. My dad got me one for xmas, and himself. I used crouton to install Ubuntu, but like your approach better. I work on the Intel XDK team and am pushing the C720 as a great development machine since we provide cloud based builds for hybrid apps. You should look into the XDK for Code Starter https://software.intel.com/en-us/html5/tools

imaffett··on Loan Monitor Is Accused of Ruthless Tactics on Student Debt
My wife taught at an inner city school for 5+ years. Pay was competitive and they paid for her masters. Her school loans were just forgiven (around 5k) for doing this. It was a net win for us vs teaching st a suburban school.

She loved it and it worked out great for us, but the education system is a disaster and I am glad she isnt teaching anymore.

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