Archive for November 2021

New top story on Hacker News: Ask HN: Did you find something to use your Raspberry Pi 400 for?

November 29, 2021 Add Comment
New top story on Hacker News: Ask HN: Did you find something to use your Raspberry Pi 400 for?
Ask HN: Did you find something to use your Raspberry Pi 400 for?
7 by dusted | 1 comments on Hacker News.
It's so cute (to look at)! But it seems to be utterly useless for just about anything I thought I might be able to do with it.. This 4 gigabyte memory, almost 2 ghz quadcore machine seems unable to do much of anything, browsing the web is an utterly horrid experience.. Playing a game of Quake 3 is impossible. Doom can run, but only at 320x240 unless you don't mind terrible lags. I'm considering what I can do with it.. For once, I can run an IRC client on it, but what else? Have you found something to actually use this for?

New top story on Hacker News: Software Engineer hitting 40: what's next?

November 27, 2021 Add Comment
New top story on Hacker News: Software Engineer hitting 40: what's next?
Software Engineer hitting 40: what's next?
20 by man-next-door | 8 comments on Hacker News.
I've been working in software engineering for 18 years. I worked mostly as individual contributor (now as a Senior Staff Engineer), also I was an Engineering Manager for couple years. Now I am interviewing after a few years at the company, and I am hit by harsh reality. For the context, I am in Europe, not in the US. I like technologies and programming, I want to further improve my skills in designing and developing reliable and maintainable distributed system, make better technical decisions. Also, I want to keep learning and playing with new techs. I am now interviewing for the roles like Staff / Principal Engineer, My expectations for the roles like Staff / Principal Engineer are that while staying hands-on, say for 30%, I will primarily use more my skills in architecture, engineering, and communications to focus on large, important pieces of functionality, technical decisions with big impact, etc. I expect that I would report to a Director or VP level manager, so that I could be exposed to a big picture, collaborate with and learn from a professional who operated on strategic level. In reality, I am now interviewing for Staff / Principal roles and see a few problems that make me rethink my carrier plans. First, the definion for the most of those positions looks Senior Engineers with a few more years of experience: so you are limited to the scope of a single team scope, report to an Engineering manager, just be a worker at a feature conveyor, just be faster, mentor young workers, maybe get some devops skill. I feel limited in impact in such roles, my borders and carrier are defined by Engineer Managers, who are usually less experienced in engineering and leadership topics than I am. The work is also very repetitive, there is not much meaningful progression, next level. I think those titles are created to cover problems caused by diluted Senior titles: an illusional career progression candy for ICs with some salary increase. I saw a few Staff / Principal roles that put a very high bar on technical expertise, when only 3-4 percent of all the engineers have such levels, and again usually limited to a lot of coding and a single team scope. They usually have long exhaustive interview process. An important problem with Staff+ IC roles is that there is a low salary limit as well, and you will face much more competition for top roles. Mostly salaries top at the level of a director of engineering. It is typical for a company to have 10 directors, but only 1-2 IC with a similar compensation. I want to work hard, and see meaningful progression: in salary, in impact, in respect. I would like to ask for advice. I believe there are qute a lot 35+ engineers here that faced similar problems and made some decisions for their careers. Now I think to plan switching to a EM track or to Technical Product management. Thank you!

New Variant Prompts Rapid Travel Bans on Southern Africa

November 26, 2021 Add Comment
New Variant Prompts Rapid Travel Bans on Southern Africa
Several countries have already imposed travel restrictions on South Africa after a new coronavirus variant was detected in the country and in nearby nations. South African scientists will meet with W.H.O. experts on Friday to discuss the variant, which one scientist said signals a “big jump in evolution.” Here’s the latest.

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New top story on Hacker News: Ask HN: Tips on Sysadmin Job

November 25, 2021 Add Comment
New top story on Hacker News: Ask HN: Tips on Sysadmin Job
Ask HN: Tips on Sysadmin Job
11 by linusb | 3 comments on Hacker News.
Recently I got a promotion at my job. I was working with another guy in a small company with an even smaller IT department. That guy was fired and I got the position to be the only sysadmin at the moment. I never had any experience working and managing the whole IT infrastructure, because the company has 4 campuses around the city. I'm kinda confused on how to manage everything, my background is with information security and it's going to be a big challenge for me because it's my first job.

New top story on Hacker News: Ask HN: Why is machine learning easier to learn than basic social skills?

November 25, 2021 Add Comment
New top story on Hacker News: Ask HN: Why is machine learning easier to learn than basic social skills?
Ask HN: Why is machine learning easier to learn than basic social skills?
10 by btheshoe | 1 comments on Hacker News.
(and any advice on acquiring these basic social skills?) A year of haphazardly watching YouTube videos and reading papers and I learned enough to start contributing to real research. But 18 years of human interaction and I'm still missing out on social skills apparently. It's like everyone else has a degree in all these unwritten rules that I'm just supposed to know.

In Buffalo, Waiting for the Canadians

November 24, 2021 Add Comment
In Buffalo, Waiting for the Canadians
So far, relaxed travel restrictions between the United States and Canada have not led to a big influx of tourists on either side of the New York-Ontario border. Both sides are waiting, not so patiently.

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New top story on Hacker News: Ask HN: Those who quit their jobs without anything planned. How did it go?

November 22, 2021 Add Comment
New top story on Hacker News: Ask HN: Those who quit their jobs without anything planned. How did it go?
Ask HN: Those who quit their jobs without anything planned. How did it go?
67 by break_the_bank | 56 comments on Hacker News.
This post is inspired by[0]. During the "great resignation" trend there were a lot of posts about people quitting due to burn out or otherwise. I wonder what they did end up doing. I am not sure what I'd do if I'd quit. Maybe travel for a bit doing nothing and then start my own thing. [0] https://ift.tt/30vzHaw

New top story on Hacker News: Ask HN: How do you start a new career (with minimal qualifications)?

November 22, 2021 Add Comment
New top story on Hacker News: Ask HN: How do you start a new career (with minimal qualifications)?
Ask HN: How do you start a new career (with minimal qualifications)?
17 by ryanmercer | 2 comments on Hacker News.
This week will be my 16th Thanksgiving in a row working. I haven't had a cost-of-living increase since 2008, the annual merit increases cap out right around inflation (or under) most years, I've been working 60~ hour weeks, working 6 day weeks, for over half a year now. In the past 2 weeks we've had 3 people quit from just my team. Put a fork in me, I'm done. The problem is, my job doesn't really translate to much. I fill out paperwork all day, clearing international freight through customs. I don't have a GED, I'm still 3~ years out from earning a degree (which I don't actually want, but employers 100% do). I've even been rejected by companies in my industry, Flexport for example rejected me outright for not having a degree at a time when I had 11 years of experience "Hope all is well, Ryan! I wanted to extend a virtual wave and thank you for your interest in joining our team. You obviously have many of the skills we're looking for. However, for the Customs Brokerage role we require a BA/BS degree as well as previous experience in a broker role doing entries and customs classifications." so I struggle to even escape my current employer for a job that pays even remotely what I make (about 39k in central Indiana after 15 and a half years, while McDonalds is starting at $13-15 an hour all over the state...). I'm at the point where the only joy I have in my life is what little time my wife and I get to spend together, and some volunteer stuff through my religion. Today I'll clock in, work 11 hours, get to have dinner with my wife and do some classwork, then back to bed to rinse and repeat. On Thanksgiving I'll only work 10 hours... What do I do? I can't get a degree any faster than I already am.

New top story on Hacker News: Tell HN: Amazon fraudulently canceling orders as returned items

November 21, 2021 Add Comment
New top story on Hacker News: Tell HN: Amazon fraudulently canceling orders as returned items
Tell HN: Amazon fraudulently canceling orders as returned items
86 by sigmaprimus | 19 comments on Hacker News.
Just wanted to let people know incase there are sellers that are having to pay return fees for items that Amazon has canceled due to the state of emergency and highway washouts in British Columbia. I just got scolded by the rudest customer service rep I have ever dealt with. Apperantly I should "Know full well that BC had a weather event and that my items were damaged" which is another lie as I tracked them and they never left the Amazon processing center. But anyways I assume what they are doing is clearing up space for new deliverable orders as the center is jammed full of packages that are for addresses cut off from the lower mainland. All new orders are being rerouted from the east rather than the south, but instead of reshipping the items at their southern warehouse, they just claimed they were all returns and placed the owness on the sellers for returned items. I guess doing the right thing would have eaten into Amazons profit margins, and if those margins are not big enough...well I guess their billionaire owner wont be able to take another joy ride into space. Dealing with Amazon customer support is felling more and more like dealing with an abusive partner.

New top story on Hacker News: Ask HN: Why there are no Android mini phones?

November 20, 2021 Add Comment
New top story on Hacker News: Ask HN: Why there are no Android mini phones?
Ask HN: Why there are no Android mini phones?
22 by JamesAdir | 26 comments on Hacker News.
Although there are countless Android phone makers, there isn't a single one of them that makes compact phones. Sony was in the business for a while but it seems to lower the supply of the new models and mark them with super high prices. That's very strange as there is clearly demand for smaller phones, shown by the iPhone mini. Apple offers an almost identical compact phone to it's regular model, but it seems that phone makers who usually copy Apple on everything, just skip this idea at all. If anyone has thoughts on it or a compact model to recommend I'll be glad to hear.

New top story on Hacker News: Ask HN: Why is there no good open-source LMS?

November 19, 2021 Add Comment
New top story on Hacker News: Ask HN: Why is there no good open-source LMS?
Ask HN: Why is there no good open-source LMS?
20 by seestraw | 5 comments on Hacker News.
I want to start a teaching business. I'm struggling to find good open-source software on which I can start building my platform. The state-of-the-art seems to be Moodle or Canvas which are designed for universities - they use archaic UI and features. Is there something where I can host an online course, also have live classes and perhaps add on features like a community for students, assignments, etc? The only options I am seeing are things like Kajabi and Teachable which are very restrictive in their feature set, and not customizable. Anyone running an edtech company here? What do you use? Or do you build everything custom?

New top story on Hacker News: Ask HN: What are you using for public documentation these days?

November 18, 2021 Add Comment
New top story on Hacker News: Ask HN: What are you using for public documentation these days?
Ask HN: What are you using for public documentation these days?
9 by vital101 | 4 comments on Hacker News.
On a new side project I'm working on I need to have a fair amount of documentation for usage, implementation, options, etc. In the past I've used https://docsify.js.org hosted on Vercel, but I was curious if there is anything else out there people like. Looking for free or paid options. So long has I can host on a subdomain I'm indifferent. Thanks!

New top story on Hacker News: Ask HN: What is the fastest way to ramp up on DevOps, k8 and GCP?

November 17, 2021 Add Comment
New top story on Hacker News: Ask HN: What is the fastest way to ramp up on DevOps, k8 and GCP?
Ask HN: What is the fastest way to ramp up on DevOps, k8 and GCP?
9 by epimetheus2 | 4 comments on Hacker News.
I have a limited time and need to quickly ramp up on these skills. I need hands-on experience as that's how I learn best. What would be your go-to resource/workshop for that? Is there some standard "here are existing 10 services and in this guide we'll go through deploying them, securing them, installing service mesh, provisioning database..." kind of thing?

A Landmark Reckoning With America’s Racial Past and Present

November 15, 2021 Add Comment
A Landmark Reckoning With America’s Racial Past and Present
Originally published as a series in The New York Times Magazine and now revised and expanded as a book, “The 1619 Project,” edited by Nikole Hannah-Jones, Caitlin Roper, Ilena Silverman and Jake Silverstein, undertakes an ambitious examination of slavery and its ongoing legacy for Black Americans.

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New top story on Hacker News: Ask HN: Looking for a Book on Algorithms and Data Structures

November 14, 2021 Add Comment
New top story on Hacker News: Ask HN: Looking for a Book on Algorithms and Data Structures
Ask HN: Looking for a Book on Algorithms and Data Structures
8 by OulaX | 8 comments on Hacker News.
I want to learn Algorithms & Data Structures from scratch then move on to doing LeetCode. But I want a structured guide / textbook that I can follow which also contains exercises. I have checked the CLRS book, but, it's more of a reference than a book that you can read from cover to cover. For example a basic Stack is explained in a page and a half or two, for me this is not enough, I want a book that can go into the details of each specific DS or Algorirhm. *TL;DR:* Are there any books better than CLRS for DS & Algos?

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