Hacker News Reader

moosedevon An old Amiga with ‘Titanic’ miniature shoot ‘video taps’

Of course, I forgot about kegs/barrels. I can well believe that that's the older etymology. Thanks!

moosedevon Turkey’s earthquakes show the deadly extent of construction scams

And check your fire exits, if you live in a larger building. Know where the closest one is. Know where an alternative one is. Check they’re not locked or blocked.

moosedevon An old Amiga with ‘Titanic’ miniature shoot ‘video taps’

I'm guessing it's derived from plumbing jargon[0], in the sense of inserting an access point into an existing system to gain access to the resource inside; this idea is also found metaphorically in the common phrasal verb "tap into"[1] (make use of or gain advantage from an existing resource).

[0] https://www.mcwaneductile.com/blog/what-are-the-three-pipe-t... [1] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/tap-i...

moosedevon Ask HN: I hate gym. How to stay in shape?

OP's writing doesn't sound British, at least to this Brit. The last sentence, "What will be a good way to stay in shape", reads as non-native, even, due to the non-idiomatic use of "will" (compare "What would be" or "What is" here). Dropping articles (the, a, an) is a feature of the English of people whose first language is Russian or another Slavic language - just guessing.

The post you are replying to drops an article on "trainer" near the end. Could also just be shorthand/hurried/casual writing, though - like this sentence. That poster otherwise uses "the gym".

On topic: +1 to getting a personal trainer if you can afford the money and time.

moosedevon Meta to ask many managers to become individual contributors or leave

(Not directly answering the question asked, because sibling comments already did.)

FWIW, I've heard and used it in FAANG for well over a decade.

Usually I see HN comments using "IC" followed by someone asking what "IC" stands for. Makes a change to see someone asking for an expansion of the expansion :)

moosedevon Ask HN: Did anyone else lose their marbles?

Agree, quite clear, nice writing.

moosedevon Computer Graphics and Computer Animation: A Retrospective Overview

I found small factual errors in the first 2 pages I skimmed, e.g. the clock speed of the Amiga 1000’s CPU and the names of its custom chips. Hardly material errors, but the apparent lack of review by anyone who knows the subject matter would make me wonder what else was incorrect, were I to read the rest of the book.

moosedevon Near disaster as ATC clears FedEx plane to land on top of Southwest jet at AUS

This FR24 capture is wild/terrifying: https://twitter.com/_phil_reid/status/1622078084966133761?s=...

Props to the FedEx pilot for spotting the other plane and taking swift action, apparently. Note that visibility was apparently down to 1/8th of a mile, or ~200m. Yikes.

moosedevon Ask HN: Gmail having spam problems for anybody else?

Something radically changed for me 7-10 days ago, wherein certain non-spam but clearly not-inbox-worthy emails are now consistently hitting the Inbox, often with the "Important according to Google magic" flag set.

Examples: A clearly promotional email from a manufacturer announcing new products, a special offer from a hotel I stayed at once 7 years ago, every single breaking news email from the Seattle Times.

FWIW, I'm not seeing proper spam by the old-school definition breaching the Inbox (Viagra, replica Rolex, et al). I guess that's good.

Still feels like something significant broke very recently, but tbh I'd already lost faith in Gmail's classification after seeing how many genuine emails end up in Spam the last 3-5 years. It's particularly painful to watch in light of how far other applications of ML have advanced since ole' Gmail was state-of-the-art. In other words: shouldn't Google (disclosure: my former employer) be much, much better at this?

moosedevon The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

Pay me $1MM/year, and I'll jump right back in that pool...

Edit: Oh, and let me stay on the West Coast.

moosedevon Ask HN: Recruiters have stopped contacting me? What could have happened?

Yeah, it's been an interesting emotional experience to flip from years and years of "I should have no problem getting a job at any tech company if I don't screw up the leetcodes" to "I'm not even worth a 30 minute recruiter chat for this role, let alone a technical phone screen or a full interview loop" :)

moosedevon Ask HN: Recruiters have stopped contacting me? What could have happened?

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/deadcatbounce.asp

> A dead cat bounce is a temporary, short-lived recovery of asset prices from a prolonged decline or a bear market that is followed by the continuation of the downtrend. Frequently, downtrends are interrupted by brief periods of recovery—or small rallies—during which prices temporarily rise.

> The name "dead cat bounce" is based on the notion that even a dead cat will bounce if it falls far enough and fast enough. It is an example of a sucker's rally.

moosedevon Ask HN: Recruiters have stopped contacting me? What could have happened?

Been "looking" since November. I'm still averaging 1 recruiter message every few days on LinkedIn, but 95% of them are from agencies with vague pitches for contract roles I'm not interested in. The daily messages I used to get from recruiters hiring directly for permanent positions at medium-to-large US tech companies dried up sometime last year. I'm applying directly to open roles on those companies' websites instead, and usually hearing nothing back.

moosedevon Ask HN: What happens if a nuclear missile is air-destroyed before detonation?

Seconding this recommendation - great (and scary) book.

moosedevon The first time I'm aware that Meta is taking back signed, FTE offers

These days*, the equity component of most** offers takes the form of RSUs, not options, i.e. when the equity vests, you just get stock (public or private).

*, ** For some definition of "these days" and "most", based on first-hand factual knowledge of the FAANGs (except Netflix with their special approach to comp), various "unicorns", and a long list of US-based companies modeling themselves on and/or aspiring to be the next FAANGs and unicorns.

moosedevon Things they didn’t teach you about software engineering

I'm enjoying that interview right now - thanks for sharing!

I also identified with the rest of your post. I've felt regret recently for the career "potential" I lost to the inner struggle, and at around 15 years in, I think I understand these dynamics well on an intellectual level, but emotionally, I feel further than ever from being able to overcome them.

moosedevon Inside the 8086 processor's instruction prefetch circuitry

That's interesting - I didn't know that the memory subsystem could "know" which of the 4 segment registers was in use for a given request. With that detail, one could certainly call it a 4MB "address space", albeit even more of a pain to use than the usual 1MB one :-)

moosedevon Inside the 8086 processor's instruction prefetch circuitry

Hey Ken,

Always enjoy your posts!

> The much-reviled solution was to create a 4-megabyte (20-bit) address space consisting of 64K segments,

Did you mean 1-megabyte here? (and again later in the same “paragraph”, pun intended)

moosedevon John Carmack Leaves Meta

That side of the EM role is 50% of why I hesitate to move back into management… performance review season is bad enough as an IC!

moosedevon Blue Peter discovers the Internet (1995) [video]

I feel its spiritual meme-cousin is this one: https://amp.knowyourmeme.com/memes/how-to-draw-an-owl

moosedevon Motorola 68030 wire wrap prototype

> We also should not forget the Sega Genesis.

Thank you - I forgot about the 68000-based consoles :) Ironic, given how many great articles about console architecture[0] have done the rounds recently! The Atari Jaguar and Sega Saturn also had 68000s among the many processors in their complex architecture, albeit explicitly as a sound coprocessor in the Saturn.

Edit: I guess I didn't exactly forget - I was restricting my mental search to the 68030 specifically. But all the 680x0 systems were cool :)

[0] e.g. https://www.copetti.org/writings/consoles/mega-drive-genesis...

moosedevon Motorola 68030 wire wrap prototype

Ha, I (like the commenter on the post) thought this was going to be some insane modern hobby project until I clicked through. It's in fact a set of period photos of the original (industrial) prototype. Very cool either way.

Some context for the unfamiliar: The 68030 is a historical 32-bit CPU from the Motorola 68000 series, following the original 68000, the 68010, the 68020, and their various variants. Besides a bunch of 80s Unix workstations and pre-PPC Macs, it was used in several later/higher-end Commodore Amigas and in Atari's final computer, the Atari Falcon. Unlike the 1MHz prototype in the fine article, the production chips ultimately ran from ~16MHz to ~50MHz, as I recall. Comparable in processing power and historical era to Intel's i386, as another commenter said.

moosedevon Man wins the legal right to not be 'fun' at work

Previous thread (different article, same case): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33763875

moosedevon Ask HN: How's the job hunt going? (For those laid off)

Well, I might be over-worrying. But yes, for the last few years I certainly felt like a "premium candidate" as your sibling commenter described it. The last time I changed jobs in the mid 2010s, I applied to 2 FAANGs (only) and had offers from both. Contact with the actual hiring market this month has disabused me of that perception, at least for now!

moosedevon Ask HN: How's the job hunt going? (For those laid off)

It does, doesn't it!

I felt a bit bad about posting here, because the thread is ostensibly about layoffs, while I quit voluntarily, so any feelings I'm feeling about the situation now are my own fault :)

But it's somehow comforting to see I'm not the only one marveling at the sudden slowdown. It eases the inevitable fear that it's just something unattractive about me or something I'm personally doing wrong.

moosedevon Ask HN: How's the job hunt going? (For those laid off)

I took ~1.5 years off after 12+ years of FAANG. 1 month ago, I decided I was ready to work again and started talking to recruiters for real. It's been very slow. Most positions I've applied to, I've heard nothing back, even when referred by a current employee. I've had some flat rejections without even a recruiter chat. One recruiter called me to say they were on a temporary hiring freeze, and then she got laid off.

I've had a handful of tech screen interviews, but only one* has progressed all the way to a full interview loop so far, and I got a generic rejection a few days later. I have been waiting 2.5 weeks and counting for a phone screen result from another (larger, public) tech company. Nothing close to an offer yet.

I'm considering just taking more time off until things speed up again - I can afford it, but I worry about how hard it will be to get hired again with a "long" gap of 2+ years.

* for "Senior Software Engineer" at a medium-sized pre-IPO tech company

moosedevon [dead]

I think your thinking is correct, and “almost doubled” is the kind of multiplier I was thinking of for the outlier, but not unrealistic, cases of some staff engineers or even occasionally senior engineers ending up with as much as $800k total comp in a given recent year. No need for 100x or even 5x stock growth to have occurred.

moosedevon [dead]

US-based principal and senior staff engineers, as well as staff engineers who negotiated hard with competing offer(s) and/or saw significant stock growth between their RSU grant and vest dates, could all have plausibly been clearing $800k in a given recent year. Even senior engineers, in outlier cases of the stock growth case.

moosedevon Memento mori

Thanks man!

moosedevon Box breathing techniques and benefits

Are you speaking from personal experience wherein you made a good-faith effort to try different breathing techniques and experienced no benefits? Or have you reviewed research showing an absence of benefits? Or are you reflexively dismissing the whole field?

Or some combination of the above?