Hacker News Reader

tapeloopon The origins of the steam engine (2023)

did that thing where I assumed it was a technical overview of how Valve developed the Steam store. This is the second time I've done it and it probably wont be the last

tapeloopon Ask HN: Who has experience switching tech stacks mid-career?

I went from a Spring Boot house to a more modern Golang/Typescript based company relatively easily. If you can pass the tech interview in your 'new' language then you're good enough so I wouldn't worry too much about it. Most job ads are written by recruiters rather than the folk actually doing the work.

tapeloopon Ask HN: How many of you write a personal blog?

its on my todo list. I'll get to it. One day. I'm sure I will

tapeloopon Write joyous Git commit messages

oofty

tapeloopon Ask HN: Recommendations for a Secure Messaging App?

Matrix got ripped apart a couple of years ago and there are some questionable aspects https://securitycryptographywhatever.com/2022/11/02/Matrix-w...

tapeloopon The Queen of Sample Clearance: An Interview with Deborah Mannis-Gardner (2016)

Fascinating article. It would be really interesting to see how things have changed in the intervening decade.

tapeloopon Google's threat model for post-quantum cryptography

excellent explanation.

tapeloopon Craig Wright's claim he invented Bitcoin a 'brazen lie', court told

is he STILL at it?

tapeloopon Two Cicada Broods Emerge Together

yeah I went to Tennessee on holiday in 2017 (from Scotland) and thought I'd managed to time it perfectly for a brood emerging, but one of the locals said it was a yearly occurrence. It was still fantastic to hear that constant background noise

tapeloopon Hackers discover way to access Google accounts without a password

before reading "is it malware?" after reading "it was malware"

tapeloopon Andre Braugher: Brooklyn Nine-Nine's Captain Raymond Holt Dies Aged 61

:'(, 61 is no age at all

tapeloopon The Mystery of Telegram

googles 'does it still count as a hagiography if the subject is a phone app?'

tapeloopon Ask HN: Any interesting books about cryptography?

Crypto by Steven Levy is a great overview of the history of modern cryptography, but Serious Cryptography by JP Aumasson is an excellent technical place to start - if he's interested in coding things up it has a lot of useful examples and walkthroughs

tapeloopon Ask HN: Meta's Threads is dead, isn't it?

it's certainly not as popular as I'd presumed it was going to be. I was on it for a while but didn't have the same level of engagement with it as I had with twitter, it was a much quieter place. I presumed it was just because twitter had managed to turn everyone off the idea of that level of engagement, but I then set up accounts on Mastodon and BlueSky, and between the two found almost everyone I'd valued on twitter. Bluesky's UI is rubbish but its nice to be able to have conversations again

tapeloopon Ask HN: How are you doing coding interviews, in light of generative AI?

I'm still happy letting people do code submissions at home. The important thing is that the candidate understands the code and can explain the thinking behind it. I also tend to use the follow-up interview to ask them how to extend it in various ways, but that's been my standard approach for a while.

tapeloopon Gen Z are apparently delighted to work for nothing

"Rich students at prestigious organisations are delighted to work for nothing for now in order to get a paid role later" - fixed that. It's nothing new

tapeloopon Ask HN: If you were to learn to code again...

yes I love coding and would totally do it again - but I would maybe pay more attentions to design patterns than I did the first time around.

I would also sigh and focus on javascript over other languages. It's such a bad 'main' language but it's everywhere, and it's good to have a handle on the idosyncracies.

tapeloopon The $55M Saga of a Netflix Series You'll Never See

I can't see past the paywall, is it Grendel?

tapeloopon EP–133

need to get me one of these

tapeloopon The Mirai Confessions

this is an excellent (and in-depth) article. Andy Greenberg is one of the most sympathetic tech journalists out there

tapeloopon The SBF case was easy

many thanks

tapeloopon Sam Bankman-Fried Has a Savior Complex–and Maybe You Should Too (2022)

"He was giving away 50 percent of his income to his preferred charities, with the biggest donations going to the Centre for Effective Altruism and 80,000 Hours. Both charities focus on building the earn-to-give idea into a movement."

Yeah, that's not actually helping anyone.

tapeloopon Sam Bankman-Fried Has a Savior Complex–and Maybe You Should Too (2022)

Oofty. This aged well

tapeloopon Ask HN: What is the best way to grow on Twitter?

I would give it a miss, twitters days are done

tapeloopon HN goes fit: Whats your strategy to lose weight?

I've started intermittent fasting over the last two months (which inadvertantly led to me drastically reducing my bread intake) and I'm pleased with the effects so far - it's not drastic but I was able to get into clothes for a recent wedding that I'd previously written off and I'm also becoming more aware of how much eating was just 'habit'

tapeloopon The single service for speech trasncription

the typo is just perfect

tapeloopon Do you trust your dentist?

I think it also varies depending on country. There was an interesting post on Instagram recently where an American traveller got her teeth examined in Malaysia (I think) and couldn't believe the difference in diagnosis, especially regarding which teeth needed filling - the comments had a lot of folk in the US talking about the necessity of 'preventative' fillings, which to me in the UK sounds like a moneymaking scam