peterbozso

Author here.

The title is intentionally vague because I cover very different use cases (searching and language learning).

Recently, I talked to many people in meatspace about these, and they generally found my ideas useful. So I am sharing them here in the hope that the HN crowd will think the same.

Cool stuff! Make sure to also check: https://sm64coopdx.com Recently we are having tons of fun with this with a couple of friends.

We do it like this at GitLab and it's very effective: https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/leadership/1-1/

Somewhat related: if somebody is interested in King's story in more depth, I can really recommend Jonathan Eig's book from 2023, titled "King: A Life". Amongst many other resources, he has used the (back then) recently released FBI files about King. He did a really stellar job of portraying MLK not just as a legend, but also as a human being.

At work, I use the Inbox Zero strategy combined with Gmail's keyboard shortcuts. It's really powerful, a total game changer. The nicest thing for me is that I can easily keep track of not just stuff that I have to react to, but email threads where I am the one waiting for a reply. You can read about it in many places, there are tons of tutorials (both written and video) out there. As far as I know, it's the way most Google employees are using Gmail too.

This is exactly the kind of content I visit HN for. Thank you!

I don't really know what you mean by that. Yes, the salaries are tied to locations [1]. But I get compensated well above the average compared to doing the same job at other companies (including international ones) in my country (Austria).

[1]: https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/total-rewards/compensat...

If you can be a manager of one [1], then absolutely, yes. If not, then I can imagine it being really frustrating a lot of times.

Based on my past work experience, working at GitLab is more similar to being a freelancer in terms of freedom and flexibility - with all the benefits of being an employee (professional community, job security, etc.) too.

[1]: https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/leadership/#managers-of...

Answering the title: like we do at GitLab. https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/company/culture/all-rem...

While the thing about unions is generally true in the European Union, universally it isn't. Take Hungary (where I am from) as an example. Trade unions there are practically non-existent. Most of them got destroyed by the state during the mismanaged adaptation of capitalism after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The ones remaining are a shadow at best (in terms of power) of what's there in Austria or Germany.

The rest I wholeheartedly agree with! (Waving from Vienna, oida!) My comment here is purely just for additional context. :)

Not much. Work as an employee until you build out a network big enough to rely on to get contracting jobs. It's faster if you work in professional services or technical sales roles as an employee already.

Ex-Microsoft, current GitLab employee here. The way you describe using Microsoft's tools in your company is pretty much how things worked at Microsoft while I was there 3 years ago. If you'd like to build a handbook similar to GitLab's, this page of our handbook can be a great starting point: https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/handbook...

GitLab employee here. This page of our handbook can be a good starting point to build your own: https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/handbook...

GitLab employee here. Can confirm, it works exactly as advertised to the outside world.

My path was: engineer -> consultant -> solutions architect. All at different companies. I think it's more about character/attitude, rathen than only experience.

I am happy to help! I wish you good health! :)

Yes, I have multiple scans of a semi-herniated (not fully herniated, but thinned and a bit bulging) disc in the lower end of my spine, but it's far from being in the state of needing surgery. My solution was (with the help of the book) to identify and treat my trigger points. Regular swimming and bodyweight exercises also helped/helps me a lot, but they help more with reducing the number of painful episodes, not making the pain go away when I have it. I can do that only with massage.

I drastically reduced the amount fat I eat, but I did that to accommodate my partner's new diet, not entirely voluntarily. :)

I see now! Sorry, it was way too early in the morning. I shouldn't comment before coffee... :)

Understood! As I noted in my comment, the book I recommend also stresses the importance of the fact that most chronic back pain is "all inside yor head" and tries to give some relief by making you understand and ruling out most of the possible non-psychological sources for such pains. I highlighted the self-massage thing only because next to understandting my condition, that was the single most important tool the book gave me to deal with the non-psychological components of my pain. But this might not have been totally clear from my comment above, I am sorry for that!

For my fellow chronic lower back painers out there: over the course of many years I tried many things (always staying in the confines of modern medicine). There's certainly no magic bullet, but finally this book (which I have no financial incentives to promote) brought me a long lasting solution:

https://www.painscience.com/tutorials/low-back-pain.php

The whole thing certainly worths a read, since the goal of the book is to make you understand your condition and give you relief partly through that. But for me, the single most important thought of the book is "the issue is (almost) always with the tissue". If you have chronic (lower) back pain and you feel like you have tried everything, I recommend learning and applying self-massage regularly. Combined with other important, conservative treatments (physiotherapy, yoga, swimming, workout, etc.), it did wonders for me and I hope it will for others with similar problems.

Restic is a great piece of software. I use it for more than two years now to do encrypted backups of my home server into Backblaze B2. Took minutes to set up with a couple of lines of script, works like a charm since then. Highly recommended!

For me, it's definitely Blazor: https://dotnet.microsoft.com/apps/aspnet/web-apps/blazor

Initial load times could be still better (.NET 6 should improve that) and Visual Studio's Razor syntax support could be improved, but other than these, as a hardcore .NET guy, I find a lot joy in working with it.

I work with Azure and Visual Studio 2019 is still the best tool for that.

SEEKING WORK | Europe (UTC+1) | Remote

Technologies: Azure, Azure DevOps, .NET (Core), ASP.NET (Core), Microsoft Bot Framework, TypeScript, React

I am a freelance consultant, specialized in Microsoft technologies, especially the application development parts of Azure.

I help my customers by providing valuable technical and architectural guidance as well as hands-on help with the implementation of their projects targeting many different client- and server-side technologies (React, ASP.NET Core, Microsoft Bot Framework) and the underlying infrastructure for all of them: Azure. I also support my customers transforming their software development process to follow Agile best practices by utilizing Azure DevOps.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterbozso/

Blog: https://peterbozso.com/

GitHub: https://github.com/peterbozso

SEEKING WORK | Europe | Remote

Technologies: Azure, Azure DevOps, .NET (Core), ASP.NET (Core), Microsoft Bot Framework, TypeScript, React

I am a freelance consultant, specialized in Microsoft technologies, especially the application development parts of Azure.

I help my customers by providing valuable technical and architectural guidance as well as hands-on help with the implementation of their projects targeting many different client- and server-side technologies (React, ASP.NET Core, Microsoft Bot Framework) and the underlying infrastructure for all of them: Azure. I also support my customers transforming their software development process to follow Agile best practices by utilizing Azure DevOps.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterbozso/

Blog: https://peterbozso.com/

GitHub: https://github.com/peterbozso

It is, it's Hungarian.

Have you considered freelance consulting? If you are good, nobody will care about your age, since they are not bringing you in to be truly part of their team, but to solve a hard problem they cannot on their own. Of course it doesn't fit everybody, but still an option.

Yes, I switch every hour. Also, when I have a meeting where I don't have to present my screen, I always make sure to switch to my phone and walk around. That's another very important, but often overlooked exercise.

So much this. Also give standing desks a try. That helped me to fix my posture a ton (not only while working on the computer, but while standing/walking/etc overall) and also made half of my lower pain back go away.