Hacker News Reader

From the corporation with the worst customer support ever. Oh, the irony.

thrifteron Ask HN: What is your blog and why should I read it?

Poseur to Composer: https://poseurtocomposer.postach.io/

I learn how to play piano and music theory from scratch. Before I played bass guitar in a nu metal band but didn't know how to read music. I essentially "faked it".

There's also musings on what musicianship, music and art is. Oh, and I'm creating a brand new music genre: hymns + djent metal = Dhymn.

thrifteron Using Anki to remember what you read

Readwise.io user here, and I love it. Readwise helps me remember what I read (not just books, but articles too). I get sent a daily email with three excerpts/highlights and it quickly refreshes my memory. Books seem like a better investment for me now because I'm not just forgetting them.

BTW, you can choose as many or few excerpts as you want, and what books / articles as well.

If the good folks at Readwise are reading this comment: I'd love to see an Android app with OCR capability. I read "dead tree" versions of books from time-to-time and want to save those highlights.

thrifteron Ask HN: Do you use G Keep and Evernote together in your note taking workflow?

I use both daily. I use G Keep for temporary notes of any kind, and Evernote for posting on my blog (via Postach.io) and anything I'll want to keep long-term.

So G Keep for short term, Evernote for long term.

thrifteron Show HN: Lessons Learned from Writing Every Day for a Year

You articulate yourself well, especially considering English is not your mother language.

I'm halfway through a similar project I call Poseur to Composer: http://poseurtocomposer.com. I've dedicated what limited spare time I have to learning how to play the piano (and music theory in general) and report what I learn every day.

It's been a great experience so far and worth the lost hours of sleep!

thrifteron Start before you think you’re ready

Perfectionism and analysis paralysis are common obstacles to progress. Also fear of failure. In June of this year I decided to learn music theory and to play piano, almost on a whim, and write a blog post daily about what I learned that day[1]. I've named this year-long project "Poseur to Composer".

I'm almost halfway through and realise I have no innate abilities in music. Fortunately the application of music is very broad and there are many kinds of composers, so I can still achieve my goal. Also taking a lot of personal analytics with DailyDiary.com that I can learn from once the project is over.

[1] http://poseurtocomposer.com/

thrifteron Ask HN: What have the past 12 months taught you?

Charity never fails. If you resolve to love and accept people above all else, then the rest will take care of itself.

This is not easy to do some days, but it is failproof. Try it and see for yourself.

For more information, research "charity, pure love of Christ" and Lojong, which is Buddhist mind training for compassion. Effectiviology also has an excellent article on how charity can be used in arguments: https://effectiviology.com/principle-of-charity/

thrifteron YouTube videos that have almost zero previous views

I recently put forward the idea there's enough music in the world already[1] because millions of songs on Spotify have never been heard[2]. And of those millions of unheard songs, many are probably not by musicians but by "poseurs" who don't care about the craft of songwriting.

Perhaps we need something like Astronaut for Spotify?

[1] https://write.as/poseur-to-composer/poseur-approach-to-makin...

[2] https://tonedeaf.thebrag.com/spotify-turns-5-reveals-theres-...

thrifteron In Japan, a growing number of car-sharing users don’t rent cars for driving

and even do facial stretches said to reduce the size of their face

Can someone explain this one to me? Is this a weird translation or do people in Japan actually do this?

thrifteron Ask HN: What are you working on?

Going from zero musical ability and knowledge of music theory to composing and playing jazz, classical and hymn. I've given myself a year to do it and documenting my progress every day: https://write.as/poseur-to-composer/about

thrifteron Ask HN: With a single site per comment, which sites do you visit regularly?

NewsBlur: https://newsblur.com/

thrifteron Show HN: A Tax Calculator for India

Correct. In Canada, you only see the retail price. The Canadian consumer still needs to know if the item is taxable and what tax(es) that might be. It's an issue for people on a tight budget.

I edited my first comment from "every" to "other". Thank you.

thrifteron Show HN: A Tax Calculator for India

In a similar vein, I developed a search engine for sales taxes in Canada (works for all provinces and territories). It was a much, much bigger undertaking than I initially thought, but here it is: http://isittaxed.ca/

I am considering open sourcing this project so that there could be a search engine like this for other countries.

thrifteron Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?

I read 100 books last year and there were five books that changed my outlook of life in some significant aspect. The list here: https://mailchi.mp/8ff9bef428e2/want-to-know-someone-better-...

Of those five books, "In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction" by Gabor Mate changed me the most. I actually re-read portions of the book last night.

thrifteron Nothing Can Stop Google. DuckDuckGo Is Trying Anyway

For anyone interested in useful, tested !bangs, I made a dedicated website of my favorites: https://duckgobang.com/

thrifteron Chinese Crankshafts (2012)

Reminds me of the "shaft passer": https://medium.com/@jasoncomely/the-perplexing-shaft-passer-...

thrifteron Ask HN: A project you gave up on? (time, cost, you were not smart/ready enough )

The world's first search engine for sales tax (in Canada): http://isittaxed.com. I have over 10K goods and services in the database, for all provinces and territories in Canada. All told, it has cost me almost 4K to develop. Monetizing it has been more difficult than I thought.

thrifteron What did Jesus really look like? (2015)

I've been fascinated with how the countenance of Christ has been a tool for racial (and racist) propaganda. As a Jew from the Middle East, He certainly wasn't the fair-skinned, blue eyed, blond hair rock star depicted by some Christian denominations. I also doubt He was black, although some Rastafarians believe He was because it says so in Jeremiah 8:21.

I discussed "Black Jesus" and the Rastafari on my podcast : https://soundcloud.com/jesusinbooks/black_jesus_rastafarian_... and for those who want to deep-dive into the topic, I highly recommend The Color of Christ by Paul Harvey and Edward J. Blum. It's a knockout book.

thrifteron Mosh

How did you get the domain name? Care to share the story?

thrifteron The Google Cemetery – A list of dead Google products and why they died

I don't see Songza on the list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songza

I miss that service.

thrifteron DuckDuckGo's bang

Here's my collection of favorite DDG bangs: http://duckgobang.com. It's my way of getting people off the Google habit and to try bangs instead.

thrifteron Podcasting the Past

Podcasting is hard work! I have a podcast called Jesus in Books. I read a book about the historical Jesus Christ, then discuss it. It's pretty tame stuff compared to, say, Dan Carlin's epic Hardcore History, and a lot shorter too. My episodes rarely go longer than 20 minutes, but the time to prepare, record and edit the episode is about 20 hours.

So yeah, podcasting can be time consuming, but I find it's a great way to commit what I've read to memory and formulate my own opinion on the subject matter.

Here's my podcast for anyone who is interested in checking it out: https://soundcloud.com/jesusinbooks

thrifteron Need More Self-Control? Try a Simple Ritual

I believe mundane daily routines, when ritualized, can be a great way to get focused and in cognitive flow: https://medium.com/@jasoncomely/the-secret-ceremony-46000940...

thrifteron The Mind: Most polarizing card game of the year?

I haven't played The Mind (yet), but this card "game" uses non-verbal responses to make a quick and surprisingly accurate psychoanalysis of the respondent: https://medium.com/@jasoncomely/be-honest-are-you-lying-to-y...

It's based on the word association experiments by Carl Jung, who later published his findings as The Association Method.