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itsEtai

46 karma · joined June 27, 2014

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itsEtai··on Ask HN: What is the job market like for niche languages (Nim, Crystal)?
This attitude is a great starting point, but take caution to curate a future for yourself that you find interesting.

Whatever work you do, you will forever be the person who has done that work. Next time something needs to change in that domain or language, you might find yourself talked about as a specialist!

The moral is to choose and pick your projects carefully. Vocalizing your experiences with your manager goes a long way for shaping your future: like “I liked working in X and I want to do that more” and “I am glad I got to try Y, but I really didn’t enjoy it.”

itsEtai··on Ask HN: Any certification that is worth it? Legitimately helped your career?
I found the training course for the CPWA to be really useful. I refer back to it frequently to help guide my company’s strategy for web accessibility.

https://www.accessibilityassociation.org/s/certified-profess...

itsEtai··on IBM Computing Cheese Cutter Restoration [video]
wow this was satisfying.

He cuts a wheel of cheese with the restored machine in the last 2 minutes and it really is amazing!

itsEtai··on A Model for Identity in Software
This was an entertaining survey of whats out there and what problems aren't solved yet. Im sold that we can do so much better than what we have now and Id love to see more explorations!
itsEtai··on PEP – An open source PDF editor for Mac
Very cool!

I currently use adobe acrobat to make pdfs accessible (http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/pdf).

Are you planning on building in accessibility tools?

itsEtai··on Facebook Fired Employee Who Collected Evidence of Potential Political Bias
Free speech means congress isn’t allowed to silence the media.

Free speech does not mean you can say whatever you want without consequences.

Arguably, one purpose of HR is to help employees work well together. It is in their literal job description to be arbiter of decency.

itsEtai··on Things Unexpectedly Named After People
Pilates are named after Joe Pilates

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilates

itsEtai··on Open-sourced Covid-19 testing site search tool and assessment
Great work! Easy to run.

Setup took me about 10 mins. Most of that time was spent getting a Google Maps API key. You can get it with a free trial here: https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/embed/get-a... (but it does require credit card info)

The frontend is nice, but complex (probably due to time constraints, working with what was available). If I forked this for a project, I would just reuse the test site data and credit Oscar (generated to covid19-testing/javascript/test-site-finder/static/data/sites.json)

disclaimer: I work for Oscar (but not on this project)

itsEtai··on Startups bet that lonely freelancers crave company
Safety becomes a big issue for this kind of thing. It might make sense to start by leverage a platform like couchsurfing which has a personal review system.
itsEtai··on Anna Wiener on her book “Uncanny Valley”
Are you being cynical and dismissive about the book or the article about the book?
itsEtai··on Anna Wiener on her book “Uncanny Valley”
She is self aware. In the article she talks about a few roles she’s played.

Is your criticism about lack of experience? IMO, new players in a system are often have clearer perspective than entrenched dinosaurs.

Looking forward to reading about your Character in the book ;)

itsEtai··on Casting Glass from 3D Printed Molds
I did some pate de verre lost wax casting to make glass armguards a while back but they turned out too rough to wear. 3d printing might be the answer! (Check out my attempt here: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bk45IFqBhbL/?igshid=16fgxi4oubho...)
itsEtai··on Casting Glass from 3D Printed Molds
This is great stuff!! As a hobbyist glassblowing and 3d-printer, this is exactly the kind of content I’ve been looking for. Thanks!
itsEtai··on From Hackathon to Production: How to Turn Your Hackathon Idea into Reality
Hi there, I'm Tai and I wrote this article.

However, Oscar's hackathon is the second healthiest hackathon I've ever attended. - It's closed to employees only. - It's opt-in only. - We get 2 workdays dedicated to the projects and there's no expectation to stay after work. - There's catered healthy food as usual (via soripe.com) - The deadline is soft and you can do work ahead of time. If you don't finish your project this hackathon, you can pick it up in the next one. - You're encouraged to work on passion projects that are not directly related to your team - There are prizes for not just Judges #1,2,3, but also People's Choice, Best Design, Best Product, and Best Engineered.

Any competition can be good, bad, or rotten.

I agree with you! It is quite incredible that a health startup like Oscar Health would actually encourage hackathons. And it's more incredible that Oscar seems to be doing it right.

itsEtai··on Prime Down: Amazon’s sale day turns into fail day
Help strikers in Europe by NOT purchasing from Amazon today. Thank you.
itsEtai··on What are the best resources for someone who wants to start learning programming?
If he wants to learn then he's halfway there already. The best practice for learning is to pick a project you're interested in, figure out what tools you need, and DO it.

Want to make a super simple video game? Making pong in python. Want to make a website for your family? Getting "hello world" running on Ruby on Rails in Heroku is an amazing start. Want your own drone? Buy a quadcopter or robot kit and make some moves.

Teamtreehouse has motivating tutorials and are a great way to start. Stack Overflow should solve any problems a beginner might run into. The documentation for each language and tool is hugely important and often will help you get started.

Of course, the best motivation in life is to do what you love.