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sinker

388 karma · joined October 23, 2010

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sinker··on Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not
I see comments like these often enough to convince me that a large portion of the active HN audience are simply out of touch with what's going on outside their major city tech bubble.

Not everyone is going to be able to find a well-paying tech job. How many times have you come onto this forum seeing active HNers who are tech-literate and have a history of programming employment complain that they cannot find a job?

Look at your neighbors.. everyday people like your grocer or mechanic or mailperson.. Take a look outside your bubble. Not everyone is going to be able to be fluent in tech even with great effort. It's not so much that it's impossible, but that's it's incredibly unrealistic.

The only reason I've been able to work as a programmer is because I lucked into it. I got hooked when I was 12 or so because I found it fun. I had plenty of time and enjoyed it. If I had to do it all over today out of desperation I'm not sure I could will myself to do something completely foreign and uninteresting.

I think you take for granted the knowledge foundation that you were given.

sinker··on The “Developer Experience” Bait-And-Switch
That's a lazy and ineffective way of making an argument. It's akin to telling your children to go spank themselves.

If OP wants to make a convincing point, the proper way is to propose a convincing argument, not "Think about how you're wrong."

sinker··on The “Developer Experience” Bait-And-Switch
"If you disagree with me, you're wrong." Wonderful argument.
sinker··on Tesla meets self-imposed deadline for Model 3, rolls out 5000 cars in a week
Right the argument isn't sound. It basically boils down to if big company x hasn't done it already, it's because it's not worth doing it. We know this isn't true because small players make improvements in their fields all the time. Big players aren't perfect, don't have unlimited resources, are prescient, and most of all, are ruled by people.
sinker··on Tech takes over: New York is the sector's second city
You're missing the point. He meant that the differences you see (what you call diversity) are superficial differences. When you look deeper past these differences (job, skin color, neighborhood, etc) you find that people in NY, professionals at least, are actually very similar.

I don't agree 100% with this sentiment, but I doubt the OP does either.

What I agree with is that "diverse" has become a stupid word. Diverse is used nowadays to indicate only superficial differences. If you see a black man, a lesbian, a asian woman, and a hispanic girl together in the same office, you have diversity. Yet they're all in the same office, have the same standard of education, are just about the same age, probably have the same political affiliations, grew up in roughly the same geographic area, etc. Is it really diverse?

Culturally, not so much. But NY is not so different from any other place. People near each other tend to be similar. I just wish we would stop regurgitating the word "diverse."

sinker··on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (May 2016)
Location: NYC

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: Yes Technologies: Mainly (but not limited to) javascript, ES6, React && Redux

Github: https://github.com/quxbaz

Email: davidy889 (gmail)

Front-end developer who's worked on architecture, UI, design, testing. Currently working with React/ES6 ecosystem looking to build solid web applications.

sinker··on Hiring Is Broken – My interview experience in the tech industry
I read jerich's response and thought he was sarcastic in his praise.

Are you serious? This is your one interview question? Do you realize this is the kind of thing the Sahat was writing against?

Instead of actually asking them about their relevant skills, experience, and capability you think it's fit to judge a candidate on what amounts to curious information on how a computer works.

Is that what you're hiring for? Someone who's spent more time reading wikipedia articles than actually coding? We're in the business of creating things, not harvesting trivia.

Yes it doesn't matter if someone's written and maintained code, documentation, tests, and has collaborated with dozens of other individuals for a repository used by thousands. All you need is to do is ask him your pet trivia question.

It always shows how deep does one go in their computer science adventures.

Knowing about the adventure of one electric signal from keyboard to underwater fiber cable has nothing to do with computer science. By your own words, you're testing for the completely wrong thing.

I am a VP at a medium size company and I do plenty of interviews

Here's a secret then. The candidate, whoever he or she is, will always try to answer your question. In fact, they'll try to satisfy whatever problem you put them up to.

"What's your favorite method of tying shoelaces?"

"How many golf balls can you fit between the earth and the moon?"

"What do you do for fun?"

The candidate will take their time and rack their brains trying to provide an answer to please you.

Some will give a good answer and some will give a bad one, but that doesn't mean your interview question is a good one.

sinker··on Hiring Is Broken – My interview experience in the tech industry
How is this possible — I have received emails from people all over the world, who praise and give me thanks for the work I’ve done on my open-source projects and tutorials (#humblebrag)

Did he say that this should immediately qualify him for any job? No, his point was that although he has real-world projects used by hundreds of devs, this gives him barely any credence at all in interviews. Is it so "entitled" for him to expect that his work should speak on some of his behalf?

sinker··on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (April 2016)
Location: NYC

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: Yes

Technologies: Web stuff

Github: https://github.com/quxbaz

Email: davidy889 (gmail)

Front-end developer who's worked on architecture, UI, design, testing. Currently working with React/ES6 ecosystem looking to build solid web applications.

sinker··on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (March 2016)
Location: NYC

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: No

Technologies: JavaScript, ES6, React, Ember (some), Backbone, HTML, CSS/Less/Sass

GitHub: https://github.com/quxbaz

Email: davidy889 (gmail)

Front-end developer looking to work on single page apps. Most recent infatuation is with ES6/React, but don't have qualms working with other tech stacks.

sinker··on How Japanese Kids Learn To Multiply
It's a neat trick, but the method doesn't do much to reveal why multiplication works as it does. Most students will just sit there drawing lines and counting intersections without understanding why it gives them the right answer. Memorizing a routine without understanding why it works is just one step above memorizing a table.
sinker··on How Little Sleep Can You Get Away With?
Interesting article, but the results don't reflect the performance of those who have adapted to alternative sleep schedules in the long term. The article states that subjects were to maintain their sleep schedule for two weeks. I reckon that any sudden shift in sleep schedules would have a good chance of causing fatigue. A more interesting experiment would be to see how those with alternative sleep schedules that have practiced them in the long term compare to those with 8 a day schedules.
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