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Ask HN: Comment here about whatever you're passionate about at the moment
982 points by mckirk on Nov 6, 2022 | hide | past | favorite | 753 comments
Hello stranger.

It has occurred to me that one of the crucial elements of the early internet was the feeling that there was somebody out there, _somewhere_ on the globe, that was actually responding to that particular thing you were putting out there. It was a special feeling, because it was a sense of connection. Just being online and being part of the few select communities that existed back then was a commitment, and I believe that's in part what made it feel special.

With all the world gaining access to the internet, I think we've gained a lot, but lost this sense of wonder: Since online interactions have now become commonplace to the point of para-social meaninglessness, any single post or message doesn't really feel all that _real_.

HN is still the closest thing I know to that primordial kind of internet, and so I'm putting this post out there. It might get buried instantly, or it might survive, and on the off chance that it does:

I encourage you to comment here about whatever you're passionate about at the moment, however niche it might be. It might let you find some likeminded people and maybe recapture a bit of the best aspects of the internet in those early days.

In any case, I sincerely wish you a great day, from one surprisingly-real-but-currently-text-based being to another :)




Thanks so much for posting this, I love the spirit of it. I'm passionate about my sobriety journey. I just got home from a dinner party of ex coworkers and friends. Being the only one not drinking is hard for me and a huge change. I used to lead the charge with booze, it was the thing that took my crushing anxiety away. It made everything more fun. Well, that can only last so long when you abuse it so much and it fucks up your life.

I successfully made it through tonight and will hopefully have many more successful nights. Love and strength to anyone else out there in a similar boat.


Didn't think I'd find something like this on hn. Good luck to you mate. I'm on the journey too. Almost 2 years now, was on the verge of brink and posted something on hn to which Dan, the moderator emailed me and told me to hang in there. At the time had no one, still keep a small circle and no immediate family. His words gave me strength to survive and possibly how I ended up in recovery instead of the other side.


Dang is an unappreciated treasure of HN who does not get enough credit. Thank you dang.


HN: one of the last remaining Great Good Places of the Internet, a lone tavern in an iconic gateway town to the now not-so-wild west.

Beyond the western borders of this little town, the tech gold rush has both expanded to epic proportions, affecting all the economies in the world, and also gone through enough booms and busts that the phrase "gold rush" seems somehow off.

As more and more young'uns join and jaded veterans return to throng the tavern alike, it often seems to be on the brink of either exploding with the largest gun fight in history, or jumping the shark.

And yet, against all odds, it retains its original magnetism - drawing throngs that grow in number and diversity while seers like [https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=patio11](https://news.y... and [https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=tptacek](https://new... continue to return - dispensing worldly wisdom worth its weight in gold from corner tables.

The secret is the man at the corner of the bar @dang, always around with a friendly smile and a towel on his shoulder. The only sheriff in the west who still doubles as the friendly bartender: always polite, always willing to break up a fight with kind words and clean up messes himself.

Yes a cold-hard look from him is all it takes to get most outlaws to back down, yes, his Colt-45 "moderator" edition is feared by all men, but the real secret to his success: his earnest passion (some call it an obsession) for the seemingly sisyphean task of sustaining good conflict - letting it simmer but keeping it all times below the boiling point based on "the code":

"Conflict is essential to human life, whether between different aspects of oneself, between oneself and the environment, between different individuals or between different groups. It follows that the aim of healthy living is not the direct elimination of conflict, which is possible only by forcible suppression of one or other of its antagonistic components, but the toleration of it—the capacity to bear the tensions of doubt and of unsatisfied need and the willingness to hold judgement in suspense until finer and finer solutions can be discovered which integrate more and more the claims of both sides. It is the psychologist's job to make possible the acceptance of such an idea so that the richness of the varieties of experience, whether within the unit of the single personality or in the wider unit of the group, can come to expression."

May the last great tavern in the West and it's friendly bartender-sheriff live long and prosper.


Yes he is.


@Dang, you see that? You very well saved a persons life and run a great community. Hats off to you my friend.

To OP, wishing you the best on a successful recovery and happy times ahead.


May I suggest the book "This Naked Mind" by Annie Grace? I learned about it here on HN [1]. I have no alcohol issues, but there are some eye-opening ideas in that book that should appeal to everyone (unless you already are on zero alcohol)

"Alcohol is the only drug on earth you have to justify not taking."

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32714527


> "Alcohol is the only drug on earth you have to justify not taking."

I find this quote really interesting. Growing up in a western country where people drink a lot of alcohol, not necessarily for the enjoyment of it but to get "hammered". I've countless times defended myself for both friends, family and new and existing co-workers for why I don't drink, and these people look at me like I'm some sort of alien. According to "these people" I am in fact a weirdo, because I've spoken about the affects of caffeine, taking cold showers/baths, fasting etc etc.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, however, I hope there'll be a time where it's "acceptable" to go out with your friends, family or co-workers, and not be expected to drink alcohol or excluded just because you won't inject your body with legal "poison".

Note: I have nothing against people who drinks alcohol, but let's just enjoy each other's company and don't force it on me. Thanks.


I like to say 'When people drink they relax, and when they relax, I relax. It works out fine." It does depend on the group.


May I ask when you go out with your other people what do you order exactly for drinks since you don't like alcoholic or caffeinated and probably sugary beverages too?


And coffee.


You can say you prefer tea, but when people notice you don't want any alcohol, they get upset and want to know what's wrong with me. Which is surprising because it's basically poison.


I dunno, when I ask for decaf I usually get tons of crap from people wanting to tell me how my choice is wrong and drinking coffee without caffeine is stupid and pointless. Coffee definitely has social pressure attached to it like alcohol.


When I deny offers of tea in Europe I feel the host is offended.

Is there any truth to this or am I stuck in my head?


As a Yorkshireman: We understand and acknowledge that people do not all have good taste when it comes to tea. We therefore either assume you don't want to kick anything off (start a fight over tea), or that you acknowledge and are working on your failings in the tea department...


yea.. I don't drink alcohol. I am not specifically avoiding it.I just find it boring as far as drugs go. People regard me as an alien when they find out s I'll usually have a drink just to go along but I'll never drink it on my own.

Coffee on the other hand. coffee is life. coffee is purpose. all hail the elixir of the dark lord!

in all seriousness though, I drink like a whole pot just to take up in the mornings. black


I think a problem with not drinking is people think 1. you are no fun 2. you have a problem. So sometimes I find I will even have a drink because I don't want people to speculate on me having a problem.


Maybe this is a US thing - in the UK, nobody bats an eyelid if you say "I don't like coffee". But, yeah, not drinking alcohol is always an 'issue'.


Coffee doesn't destroy your muscles or increase estrogen levels


Both of which I have quit... it's been quite the adjustment.


Congrats on having the courage to make a change!

> it was the thing that took my crushing anxiety away.

Paradoxically it's also the thing that creates the crushing anxiety when abused. One day at a time, be kind to yourself, life is a journey.


So true. When abused like I did, it created so many more problems than it solved. I wish I had the clarity to realize that in the moment.


It can be helpful to frame things from a perspective of self-discovery. You may uncover new truths about yourself and the world that you would otherwise never have found. It builds character, good luck!


Congratulations and good luck. I think it's the hardest habit in the world to break for some of us, in part because the rest just can't understand. People are either unsympathetic or too sympathetic, if you get me. Keep on building those "muscles" to carry you through social situations. Sobriety has many rewards.


I'm passionate about my sobriety journey.

Passion is an awesome word in this context. Meaning: irresistible motive, intensely emotional heat, rage, or love. That is love for you (yourself) - the good non-narcissistic kind of self care. And you're getting a reward. Abstinence does not have to be suffering. Thanks for sharing this. Carry on.


I am having a bad night with drinking, and needed to read this. Commenting live, next to a toilet bowl!!

Thank you, stranger, and I wish you well on your journey.


oof! hang in there brother!


Good work! I stopped drinking two years ago. After year one of the pandemic, I came to the realization that alcohol brought zero positives and many negatives to my life. Being in lockdown with few options to go to pubs provided the space to make the break.

My local friends are all moderate to heavy drinkers, but they also respect my choice and it’s not awkward to be the only one not drinking. If you don’t have a friend group which respects your choice, try to find social groups based around an activity. Otherwise it could be very difficult.

Best of luck on your journey.


Congratulations and thanks for sharing! I'm on the verge of making the same step. Hopefully, I will have the same kind of respect from friends and coworkers.


Good luck on the journey.

You may greatly enjoy this clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJ3v2oGm6Sk.


If only the booze was the problem.

But I think I would be remiss if I didn’t leave this here. Victories are nice but it a long journey…

If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are halfway through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self- seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook on life will change. Fear of people and economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that A higher power is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us - sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.

Written by an anonymous recovering drunk…


At social events just think how you’ll feel jumping out of bed without feeling shit. Remind yourself of times spent head in the toilet. Think of all the brain cells you save. In time do the same with tobacco, coffee and sugar.


Alcohol culture is so pervasive and toxic


You aren't alone. I started drinking more during COVID. Before that I only drank socially or once in a while, but then I decided to explore the world of bourbon. I bought a bar cart, got into reading reviews, and really luxuriated in the experience of searching/buying/sipping/rating. It's a fun hobby, but it is also pervasive and expensive and I've lost sight of how much is too much. Drinking 4 oz every night has become the norm, because it is the perfect relaxant to the end of a stressful workday, but getting drunk every night isn't good.


Good luck on that journey and congrats on making it through that dinner.


Thank you kind stranger. Appreciate it.


Good on you, and may you find plenty of wind to keep that ship sailing. I'm totally with you on this.

My extra two cents: generally refuse to answer "why" and the "how long" questions. My personal responses are "because I won the drinking game" and "not long enough". I find these to be more far more truthful and useful of answers anyway.


Great advice. Thank you.


I wish you the best of luck on your journey - it's a difficult path, I've had friends and relatives who were similarly afflicted and it's a complex addiction to resolve when it takes hold! Keep at it, a day at a time!


I'm so pleased to read the comments in all this thread. Thank you everyone.

I've recently decided that I can't deal with hangovers when I over-indulge or even the negative impacts on my sleep of a single beer.

It's a real societal struggle to be completely dry, but when I break it down logically the pros to having a drink or two don't outweigh the cons.


Same here. It ain't easy. I became very dependent in lockdown.

The anxiety cycle led to some existential problems.

I'm trying to reconfigure my relationship with booze. If I can't, I'll drop it altogether.

Good luck to you.


On a sobriety challenge myself until 10 aug 2023. I used to be a social drinker. I’m doing this to get a solid basis in being sober. It allows me to say no more easily in later years


Congratulations. Sending you strength for your future Temperance.


It's totally understandable if you don't want to answer this, but how did you know you had a problem? How did it fuck your life up?


What is the saying about going bankrupt? "Slowly, then suddenly"


Congrats

Starting drinking every night is so easy, but stopping altogether is so hard. very commendable to those who decide to stop.


Congratulations to you. Sounds like a very difficult journey.


I’ve been in your shoes for over a decade now. If you need a sounding board or an accountability buddy - hit me up!


Wishing you a successful and rich life experience.


Hello from Astana, Kazakhstan. I just spent wonderful night playing World of Warcraft, coding some lua addon for it and tinkering with VPS. It's Sunday's morning and I'm going to prepare more coffee. Now I need to endure till the evening so I can actually attend work at Monday with proper schedule. At work I'm working on creating an ECG device which hopefully will be useful and cheap for local hospitals. And some other projects which are more boring.

Have a good day or night or whatever time you're happening to have around.


>ECG device

An ecg device saved my dad's life, it caught a weird heart murmur he was having and alerted the doctors to an issue with his heart. He's now better becuase we detected it early, its so wonderful there are people like you working on these devices that makes modern medicine do its thing. Thank you!

Also, how do you prepare your coffee?


Thanks for your kind words and I wish the best to your dad. Our agenda is to help people in remote cities and villages which often do not have skilled doctors, but thanks to Internet, it’s possible to connect those people to a more modern medicine. We’re not there yet, but we’re moving.

In the past I extensively used Bialetti moka pot. Recently I discovered Aeropress and using it almost exclusively now. I’m not very much coffee gourmand, I just need caffeine to convert it to code, lol.


The Aeropress is a great device. I have a few brewing methods (V60, kalita wave, french press), but the aeropress is the most consistent, and as a bonus, is so easy to clean up too.

PS Good to hear about your project, sounds like a great aspiration and could help so many.


Man, building an ECG. What is your job description? What kind of organization are you working for?

Also your English is excellent!


I think tech lead or something like that. It sounds more serious than it actually is. Electrical engineering is done by someone who knows his stuff, I'm more software guy. Actual ADC is Texas Instruments chip built for ECG applications. So we basically interact with it and deliver a recorded signal to UI and finally to our servers. We have working business and we integrated with some ECG devices which are used on the local market, but having our own device would allow for much better integration and interesting features. Well, management always have infinite stream of ideas.

The hard part is going to be a certification, I guess.


If it's CE or FDA you're after, they are not that bad at all, I was tasked with it as an intern many moons ago and could complete both within 3 months starting from zero. It's a lot easier if it's the lowest level grade of medical device, otherwise you need clinical trials which are really difficult to organize. At the lowest level it's basically just a bunch of documentation you need to present to the authorities.


I think that we have our own certification processes in our country. I expect it to be mostly paperwork. We ensured some standard safety measures like galvanic isolation between human and potentially high voltage. But how it’ll go, I don’t know yet. It’s still lot of work for a complete device, especially with chip shortages.


Even as a class I device (which an ekg is emphatically never going to be), the ISO audit is three months between the first two stages alone. Under MDD 3 months is a push, but under MDR I think 6 is a much more realistic minimum (if you're starting from literal zero).


Very fun project! My best to you


What kind of addon you making? WoW addons were what got me started coding ~10 years ago, after several false starts and burnouts in the quicksand of Dreamweaver and the like.

All hail Pylus the creator of GHI, and his custom scripting environment :)


Please take care of your future self and try to get proper sleep every night. Sleep is so important.


I am currently in this phase where tech stuff does not interest me very much. I still work a tech job and do a fair bit of coding, but mostly put a stop to obsessively reading every tech article on this website, code up something new in my free time, learn a new language etc.

Sometime during the pandemic, I stopped caring, perhaps fell into a bit of anhedonia. Thankfully, reading HN kept me informed about boreout (the relatively unknown cousin of burnout). Past few months, I made a big decision to move back to my home country and generally be more social, get more involved in the arts, watch movies, listen to music, read books, just take things easy. I think I am doing fine in my new job. The roaring interest in tech is still not back, but I'm confident it will be back eventually.

Until then, I'm happy reading about the good work done by other people. Perhaps one such idea might spark an insight in me and make me go to work. Cheers.


>informed about boreout (the relatively unknown cousin of burnout).

Thank you for giving a word to this vague thing that I thought was unique to my situation. I worked as the solo IT guy for a small firm of about 50 people, half in house, and when I started in 1998 I was busy 40 hours per week... at the end in 2012 I'd show up and wait for things to break.

That job broke me

Ever since I'm afraid to start projects, or try things with only a few exceptions when I've been sufficiently nerd-sniped.


Wow, that sounds a lot like my job... small business, solo IT, heavy emphasis on "other tasks as needed." Some weeks it's felt like I slacked off most of the week waiting for calls to come in (though I've been keeping busy learning, documenting, and updating) while other weeks I'm so busy I barely sit down.

Over time it's been teaching me to say no to projects when they're out of scope or beyond my ability. I used to say "I'll try" to everything which led to some great learning experiences but also a lot of stress and disappointment. Still trying to find some kind of balance there.


> small business, solo IT

Years ago I imagined such a thing as "Programmer in the corner syndrome". This is where you are the only person interacting with considerable complexity and fragility, and no one else in the office ever looks, or could look.


Same, I still like tech stuff but I’ve put an end to caring about staying updated on the bleeding edge and started new hobbies that are not in front of a computer screen.


I lost my dad too, in 2018. If making things that would make him proud of you helps you move forward that's really great. It's a huge step. But then, maybe later, you might switch this mindset to a new one which will be: I'm going to do whatever makes ME (not my dad) proud of MYSELF, because my life can end at any moment (maybe next month, maybe next year) just like my dad's. And that's when you will find true happiness back in your life. Just make yourself happy. That is what he would love to see most. I think. Wish you the best in this journey and congratulations for moving forward.


Glad you were able to move back and muster up some interest in life again. I have the IQ and demeanor of a Labrador and somehow never lost my interest in tech 40 years after I started. Who knows, maybe your journey will lead you out of it now that you’re safely back home.


Perhaps, but I don't see myself FIREing and then spending my life gardening or something. I would like to have a sustained, organic interest in something (may not be software, but definitely something in the scitech). That is my goal and for that, I needed to take some "time off" and cultivate some discipline.


Being able to do what you're interested in is the whole point of FIRE!


Pretty much the same here, for the past months I didn’t cared too much but last week I re-discovered Rust and I’m having fun with it. Anyway my time in front of a screen is way less than it was an year ago and it feels good for now :)


Surprised I had to go this far down to find the first mention of Rust on a HN thread


Will learning Rust fix my mental health too?


Yep that must be a new record :)


Cheers. Was already on the Rust train. I'm waiting for this year's Advent of Code.


Cheers, looking forward to my third AoC! In the meantime hope you are having some good downtime from the tech firehose. It’s good to let the mind rest or play in a new arena. All the things you listed are important to me too. Hope they’re treating you well.


There is too much churn for me to really feel anything about tech anymore. The last bastion might be rust so if I ever become passingly proficient I would like to find a job that primarily uses it and then attempt to "call it a day" when it comes to my career. I probably only have another 15 years in my anyway (if I am lucky and ageism doesn't kick me to the curb).


As a person who is on the other side of the table, I noticed that this is usually the case when you stayed in the field for quite long.

For the context, I just started a coding journey - so everything seems new and fascinating, so many areas to delve into: - Compilers - Generative art - Stable diffusion models - APIs

To the point that its really confusing and chaotic but super interesting.

I kind of think that every decade we'll have to re-invent ourselves and find something new that excites us and move there (either professionally or personally). Doesn't have to be tech, but you surely spend time on some interesting things that can give you meaning and excitement!


Same for me. The sense of wonderment is no longer there. It's really just a job for me nowadays. I hope that spark comes back one day.


I’m also not interested any longer in my field (that I used to be passionate about so much that I swear would wake up out of the dead just to do).

So I am picking up another hobby. History, cooking, and ????


Obsession with news (gossip) is usually a sign of procrastination.


My father passed away about 3 weeks ago, and the current thing that I am passionate about is setting myself up to be and stay doing things that would make him proud and honor his memory

When I say I was close with my dad, that doesnt even scratch the surface. Im 24, and I can think of maybe three weeks worth of days across my entire life where I didnt talk to him (and most of those were solo camping without cell service). Me and that man would do everything together, talk every day, share ideas, the works.

I dont want his death to be the end of my relationship with my dad, so I am currently making changes in myself that he would want to see: less soda, more exercise, more social interactions, keeping up on my health conditions more, etc. As well as doing things that I think honor his idea: trying to catalogue all of the family assets like pictures, audio recordings, letters, stories; making sure that I am not holding on to crap, and then actively protecting the good stuff I am holding on to; living every day in a way that I think is on par with his high but reasonable expectations of me as if he were still here.

I hope that as long as I live I never stop missing him or living as if he is always watching. At the end of the day, I think possibly his greatest wish for me would be to live in a way that would always make him proud, because the things he would be proud of me for are both things that I can be proud of myself for, and things that EVERYONE should be proud of.


Sorry for your loss. It sounds like you had a very close relationship with him that must make it really hard.

I lost my dad 7 years ago last month, and it's been the hardest thing in my life. If it's any consolation for you, you will never stop missing him. This Reddit post really helped me during the really hard times https://www.reddit.com/r/GriefSupport/comments/d9685e/grief_...


I have two sons – 5 and 1 – and this is exactly the kind of relationship I want to build with them. Do you have any advice?

Thanks, and I'm terribly sorry for your loss.


Be present is the best thing I can say. The golden rule is one that everyone should follow, so if there was anything your father lacked with you, make sure to put in that effort with your sons.

Finally, what works for everyone is very different. My dad was always concerned with my weight, so he would flat out say “oh hey you’re looking kinda chunky today” and while many would think that is kinda mean, the kinda relationship we had showed me that that meant he cared about me and was worried I was eating too much or not exercising enough. But if you as a dad said that same thing to your kids, they may resent you for it. Go with your instincts and be the kind of dad you would want, and if you had the desire to succeed for their benefit, I’m sure you’ll do great.

Remember that kids aren’t little gremlins… they are people like you and me that just haven’t developed as much yet. So treat them like humans, instill all of the values you hope for early, and just hope they stick! It might sound vain to say, but I like to think that a lot of what makes a kid like their dad as much as I liked mine was just the fact that I’m a pretty good kid :)

God bless and do your best! You’re already more than half way there with that attitude!


I wish more people (me) were like you.


In my case it took a major life event of losing my father and my best friend to shove me in the right direction, but these changes take time. One of my good friends has been working on becoming a better, more well rounded person for a long time because of the "little pains" and is finally starting to see big changes after about 2 or 3 years of progress.

Dont give up! There is always time to be a better person that you yourself can be proud of. You never stop improving till the day you die, so just stick with it and you will be making moves that you will be so so proud of.

The only advice that I can personally give you is that you need to start off with only making moves that you are confident you can stick to. Dont upend your whole life at once! If you want to keep a garden, for example, try one plant first! Its a lot easier to keep a cactus alive than a flowerbed

Best of luck to you


I also lost my father in 2021, and my life hasn't been the same. I have to deal with a ton of more responsibilities while taking care of my mother and brother. I was also very close to him, and we went on trips whenever we were free and shared similar interests in photography and cycling. I've been doing my best to live upto his expectations, and hope you'll be able to do so too. Best of luck friend.


I lost my father to murder several years ago and have been waking up thinking of him a lot this week. Somehow I really found your post comforting. Thank you.


Almost every day I wake up and say “oh man I wonder what my dad is doing today?” And it kinda hits me all at once.

Remember your dad fondly, live a life he would be proud of and proud to call you his son/daughter, and do your best in everything and you will always have him with you. He’s in every cell of your body, and he is in every crevice of your brain.

Glad my story and I were able to comfort you some!


For the past five years or so, I've taken singing lessons. I really recommend it to anyone who has even the faintest interest, even if you feel like you can't carry a tune in a bucket. What I learned the first four to six lessons was enough to make a substantial difference both in my vocal quality and in my comfort in singing for long periods (one of the first things you learn, essentially, is how not to shred your vocal cords). One thing I love about singing is that it's one of the most democratic arts. You don't have to buy or maintain instruments -- you were born with it. Almost everybody is capable at least of some degree of singing. There's no gadgets to buy to improve it. And no matter what kind of music you like, there is a place for vocals. You can sing by yourself in the shower or in front of a band or in a chorus or in a congregation, if that's your thing.

Aside from the benefits of being able to produce aesthetically pleasant sounds and the fundamental pleasures of mastery of a skill, I recommend it to anybody who wants to become more aware of and comfortable with their body and/or with expressing their emotions.

I'm sure that there are good free online lessons for singing, and I've used a lot of videos for practice, but I really encourage seeking out a teacher if you can. Covid has been bad for their business, and there's no replacement for face-to-face instruction. (The good news is that, unlike something like the piano, it's absolutely feasible to get useful instruction over a video call!)


How do you go about finding a good teacher that will teach you to sing safely with proper technique? I've had a singing teacher in the past that caused vocal issues and didn't have the faintest idea on why the way I was practicing was causing issues, except for "my other students don't have issues".


That's a good point. I really just lucked out in immediately finding a good teacher. It's probably worth doing some research and watching some videos from vocal instructors online to get the general idea of what good and bad advice sounds like.


Good for you! Chest voice? Face voice?

I took lessons for a bit and I found there was more to the techniques than I had anticipated.

Singing through the nose, well resonating in the nasal cavity, as a technique to enrich the voice was the one thing that stuck with me.

Now I hear it all the time. So many singers are nasally because it helps them sing clearly, in tune and with richer overtones.

It’s subtle sometimes, but once you listen for it, you hear the nasal resonance in almost all singers, unless they’re chest singers or screamers.


I'd love to get back into it, but I'd fear that all my lessons and parental "guidance" with music and singing would come flooding back and ruin it again for me like it did the first time around. I was one of those kids whose parents kind of imposed music on us kids rather than let us enjoy it.

It makes me happy to see someone getting some joy out of singing, I hope you really emjoy it!


What makes you say that piano can't be taught over Zoom? I know a few music teachers that teach instruments remotely - though not piano, I'm not sure why that would be different?


I don't play the piano myself, but my understanding is that effective teaching requires constant feedback (including, possibly, physical correction) on both your posture and your hand positions/motions in a way that really requires the teacher to be present in the same room. I've heard this both from piano players and teachers.


No idea. I do play piano, but it was such a long time ago that I got lessons, it's hard to remember what was taught. I think whatever I was told about posture definitely didn't sink in though.


Exciting! What a feeling to know you can do it!


I converted my mountain bike to an ebike and I’m having a blast with it! I just moved to Oakland and there’s pretty good bike infrastructure here, so I can use the bike for transportation even for relatively large distances. I’ve been using it to get groceries, run to the bike shop, and see friends. For the nerds, I added a Bafang BBSHD mid drive motor and EM3EV 52v 20.5AH pack to my Norco Fluid HT bike. I added a rear rack with Ortlieb panniers. It’s a rock solid bike and thanks to the high power of the BBSHD the bike accelerates quickly and easily reaches 30MPH/50KPH. This means I can keep up with the flow of traffic on most surface streets and don’t have to worry about cars zipping past me - I’m usually tracking behind the car in front of me so there’s nowhere for an approaching car to go. I have a full face downhill mountain biking helmet and a smart helmet brake light from my good friends company called Brakefree that lights up when I slow down. The gear and the speed of the bike leave me feeling safe enough. And it’s a blast! Earlier this week I rode the bike 8 miles through the city to a park up in the hills. It’s fast to get there and feels very different than sitting in a big energy guzzling car. And once I got to the park I just kept rolling right on to some trails. What a wonderful feeling! I’m more convinced than ever of the power of micro mobility in cities. We need more protected bike infrastructure. When we think of cities we often imagine roads as a given. But we’re deciding which infrastructure to lay down and maintain - and we don’t have to make it all so focused on automobiles.

EDIT: I want to emphasize one point which might interest people. As I said the speed helps me feel safe as I move with the flow of traffic. I run my bike at 1500 watts. This is twice the legal limit of 750 watts, but this isn’t well enforced. In the UK, the legal limit is just 250 watts. I think policy makers assume that a smaller number is safer, but I’m not convinced this is true. While higher speed means more risk of high speed collisions, lower speed means more risk of being hit from behind. It’s worth looking at raising the legal power limits, and whether this would increase safety for bike riders. I think it might.


My passion is also bicycling. Started mostly as the typical lycra-cled bicyclist on a semi-expensive bike doing long Sunday rides. Bike to work here in Norway year-around, no matter the conditions.

Then lately I've started to think: Why don't more people use bikes? Cars in my city are noisy, the big and fast roads makes it more miserable to walk around etc. At the same time StrongTowns, NotJustBikes, r/fuckcars etc have grown big, and it has become more of a movement. Make the cities for the people, not cars.

I'm now spending lots of time as a bicycle advocate. Going to public meetings, making sure bicyclists' points of view are included in new infrastructure plans, reporting cars parked in the bicycle lane, videotaping and putting things on Twitter to now quite a big following, talking to media etc.

So my goal would rather be that you don't need what's basically an electric motorbike to cycle safely as you do, instead more dedicated infrastructure and lower speeds on the roads in the city. But end goal is the same, make it safer to bike.


Oh yes I’m 100% in support of better bike infrastructure! I still love how fast the bike is, because it means I can go long distance trips quickly, so even when I don’t have an afternoon for a ride I can go somewhere 10 miles / 16 kilometers away and back in a relativity short amount of time, even with big hills!

Powered assistance has a lot of value, and using electric power on a bicycle is orders of magnitude more energy efficient than anything in a car. I think there’s a lot more people interested in cycling now that e-bikes are more popular, and this means more support for that improved bike infrastructure and more people willing to travel by ultra low emissions means.

So yes, better safety is absolutely important. But I still think e-bikes and in particular 1500 watt e-bikes have a lot of value.


My brother recently bought an e-bike and has been enjoying it as well. He hasn't taken it on errands yet, though. How do you handle preventing theft, since that's super common here in the bay? I know there are some relatively higher rated locks but I still don't think I'd personally feel comfortable leaving an expensive bike or scooter out of sight more than maybe just a minute or two.


I use the lock recommended by the Lockpicking Lawyer [1]. You can buy them at Tip Top Bike Shop in Temescal (no affiliation but support your local bike shop!).

The guys at that bike shop said that for example if I want to ride to Lake Merritt and walk around for a while, I could lock it near the boat house and leave it for a couple hours as long as it’s daytime. They said don’t leave it overnight which I would never do. If I’m going to the grocery store, there’s so many people coming in and out, it’s just not the kind of environment where a bike thief is super likely to come in with an angle grinder and start attacking my chain lock. It’s interesting because we imagine this place to be high theft and I guess on some level it is, but having a lot of people around does feel like a decent deterrent, along with a good lock. I’m more worried about my panniers, which aren’t locked to my bike and lift right off with no tools. I wouldn’t use those if I was leaving my bike for a while, but again at the grocery store people are coming and going so often it would be pretty risky for a thief to come and mess with bikes.

Or if I'm going to a coffee shop, I'm always within 20 feet of it and I can see it, and it’s locked. That’s fine. If I’m riding to a friends house, I leave the bike inside their house when we go do stuff. At the bike shop, I just bring the bike inside the shop with me.

It wouldn’t be a bad idea to start with a cheap bike, and use the cheaper BBS02 motor and a cheaper battery. Then if it gets stolen, as much as that sucks, it’s easier to recover. Though cheap batteries present a fire risk. A lot of people on Reddit stand by the the UPP batteries, but Louis Rossmann had his catch fire so opted for the EM3EV battery at twice the price. I also got a big battery which isn’t strictly necessary, though it’s nice.

[1] https://youtu.be/SpVOTEOMRuE


A friend of mine got his $5k bike stolen in the middle of downtown Mountain View in plain sight.

If you don't use something like an ABUS 37/80 + 14KS, your shit is going to get jacked in Oakland because of zillions of thieves with portable angle grinders in backpacks and teams riding around in vans looking for easy marks.

Don't leave anything valuable outside in Oakland unless you want it to disappear because people on drugs are always looking for property to convert into their next fix.


Get bike insurance, for this exact reason! Your renter's insurance might also cover bike theft.


Thanks it’s good to know.


My primary form of transport is an e-bike, and I'm happy to lock it up in public, because I kind of overdo it: I have a >6kg chain lock [1] and >2kg D lock, there's a built-in frame lock through the back wheel (nothing major, just another obstacle), and the bike won't start without its key. I lock to a bike stand with two locks if possible.

[1] https://www.kryptonitelock.com/en/products/product-informati..., note the big final ring that the whole chain fits through to get more reach.


I recommend using multiple locks. What is important is their usability: try to make sure that the lock can be attached to the frame and that it doesn‘t rattle, also needs to leave enough space for lock up your bike to things that are not the typical bike rack, like lamp posts. I still recommend U-Locks but they‘re so bulky and can seldomly be attached securely to the frame without rattling, so I ended up putting it into my panniers all the time. If you know that you will always commute to a bike rack that allows you to use one of the smaller, hand-sized U-locks, go for it. A folding lock is less secure but very flexible for locking up and often comes with a great, hassle-free frame mount. A cafe lock is not so secure either but is super quick to lock up. Having a complicated lock routine for a bike you can’t afford to have stolen makes you hesitant to stop for short errands or exploration trips by foot. So try to look out for quick, fun to use ways to add security barriers for thieves, because you essentially want to make it slow to break through those barriers and that it requires multiple different tools. Also, you can hide an AirTag or dedicated trackers in non-obvious places.


My wife's ebike has two ABUS locks D locks that share the same key, very convenient.


I'd use a large chain and the beefiest lock you can manage. The sort of thing you'd use to lock up a motorcycle.


Same suggestion but also multiple locks - I always use 3 (D, chain, metal bar) in London and I've never had a problem, even with occasional overnight leavings. If the bike next to yours only has one, you're already ahead in the risk calculation.


37/80 + 14KS. It's a tight fit, heavy, and expensive but they work.


Damn, robots one day, electric bikes the next. You are enviably handy. And TIL about full face downhill mountain biking helmets.


Aww thanks! I’ve got lots of fun hobbies for sure!


I knew I’d find you here! Really enjoy following you on Twitter!


Aww thank you! I’m often on here correcting people who think intellectual property restrictions encourage innovation, heh.


Take it on East Bay Bike Party


Oh yeah good call! Thanks for the reminder. I had stuff like that in mind before I moved but things have been a blur with moving and unpacking so I forgot!


Good luck, naïve foreigner: I don't think you realize or appreciate how violent and unsafe most of Oakland is. You're likely to be robbed at gun- or knife-point by multiple assailants. At least in some other states you're allowed to defend your own life, but not in California.

#12 https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/the-most-dangerous-cities-i...

I have a 4kW standing scooter that I use in another city that goes 50 mph easily. The concept of a power limit is nanny state government control: to hell with that. Scooters have no power restrictions and no limits. I wouldn't take one out on a highway, but anything short of that is fine.

Statistically, helmet wearing in the US encourages drivers to pass wearers at an unsafe distance (too close). They also provide a false sense of security and look stupid. If they were useful, the Dutch would be all over them. Experienced riders with coordination in good urban planning areas don't need them.


You could have worded this with kind concern but you chose to open by insulting me instead. I only moved here from the other side of the bay. I’ve lived in this area my whole life. Somehow all my friends in Oakland do just fine. If I get robbed, so be it, but I’m not going to hide in my car.

I’ve been a cyclist my whole life and I would never ride without a helmet. This isn’t the Netherlands. My bike goes 30 MPH and as experienced as I am, accidents still happen.

Your comment was particularly condescending and I don’t think it fits the tone of this discussion. You didn’t have to comment, and you didn’t have to be rude if you wanted to participate.


I am not parent but I agree with you. Thanks for sharing your e-bike conversion experience. It made me look into the same!


Don't bother with a bike helmet! The only safety you need on your bike is the safety of your open carry firearm. When a careless driver pulls out of a side road and takes you out, you can both make them regret their decision and pay for your neurosurgery with a gun.

/s (sadly needed)


Hey, they were trying to help. ;-) Clearly just a culture clash.


> culture clash

You'll probably experience less of these if you stop calling people "naive foreigners".


[flagged]


Sad seeing these types of derogatory comments on HN. Take it back over to r/conservative.


Millennial... zzz...


I have been having a lot of fun lately telling bedtime stories to my kids (ages 5 and 3). It's a collaborative improv effort with my 5yo since he likes to chime in with suggestions.

The fun part for me is incorporating various mathematical and programming concepts into the storie like functions and boolean logic.

Last night's story involved a subtraction function that would spit out negative M&Ms if too few regular M&Ms were supplied as the input. The characters learned that they had to store their regular M&Ms separately from the negative ones in order to avoid a cancelling-out reaction if they came into contact with each other.

Tonight we will explore what comes out when negative M&Ms go into the subtraction function.

Another popular plot line in these stories involves a baby gate with a filter function that controls who can go through. The functions have gotten more and more complicated as my 5yo gets familiar with the concept, and now I have an idea for a baby gate code injection exploit that I'm excited to tell.

I've posted a few polished versions of these stories to my blog and hope to add more soon.

https://bancosparenting.wordpress.com/tag/pickle/


Thanks for sharing that. I am 71 and my Dad is 101. I still fondly remember him making up bedtime stories, stream of consciousness, just making stuff up. It was great. I am going to call him now and remind him of that.


This is great and something I do with my kids as well. I’d suggest recording them on your phone (or wherever) for posterity. It’s so much fun to go back and listen to them!


Yes! Plus it's great to have those recordings available for sick days and other times when I want to entertain the kids without having to resort to TV or other forms of screen time that I prefer to avoid :)


This is brilliant, thank you for sharing your idea as well as the blog. I can’t wait to read these stories to my kid when he grows up


I’m from Poland. 20+ years ago as a teen I got to play Final Fantasy VII and even though my English vocabulary was pretty limited I felt in love with it. I was thinking about all the people who couldn’t play it because of the language barrier. So I got online and found some folks that were willing to help translate it to Polish.

The only problem was that the game files were proprietary and while the modding community did a very good job reversing them and writing tools, these tools were a bit incomplete and not very suited for such a project. This inspired me to learn how to program (I knew what was possible because when I was 10 a book about QBasic found its way in my hands and I loved it) so I could create tooling for the project, and then also to make a website for the project. Then together with my newly met friends we made a website about Final Fantasy in general. I had to learn PHP to create a simple CMS for the team members to update the site. Then I’ve learned JavaScript to add some interactivity and also to load content without refreshing the page (this was before AJAX was a thing).

Fast forward 18 years and I’m a lead front-end developer, a job that I completely owe to this passion for the game I had as a teen. I never forgot the joy of coding tools for FF7 though and so recently I joined a community that’s still active around this game, and in my spare time I’m working on tools that will be useful for speedrunners. I also recently joined Twitch and I’m streaming the creation process from time to time, which is super fun! To be honest while I do enjoy my day job my secret dream is to work in some kind of gaming related position, because that always was and will hold a very special place in my heart.


Incredible, I've been scrolling through these comments thinking of my own passion which is Final Fantasy VII speedrunning. Fell in love with the game as a kid and only recently discovered the FF7 speedrunning community who are amazingly kind and generous. The runners themselves are incredibly helpful and can be found on Twitch. There's also a Discord where technique, glitches, and skips are worked on and improved.

I'm working on running in the 100% category which currently has a world record of 17 hours 38 minutes, it's a marathon of concentration. I'm not a young single person so finding the time to do a run has been the hardest part.

For casual players there are a ton of mods that make the game more challenging, updates for the graphics, and tons of other really interesting modifications. I love the New Threat V1.5 mod and the Chibi style character model updates.


Another FF fan hehe. Btw if you still play, FF14 online is a banger to enjoy some nostalgia. I'm having a great time at least :) About working, well Square Enix is always hiring, but you need to speak japanese. Their offices are in Tokyo if I am not mistaken.


I doubt I could learn to speak Japanese at this point, nor could I relocate because we already built a house and have a 1.5yo baby so options are limited :). Plus I was thinking about something smaller, not really an AAA studio because from what we here often working for these studios is a constant crunch, and that’s not what I’m really after.

I tried the free trial of FF14 and I enjoyed it briefly some time ago, but then they made a change that made it basically impossible to log in on the free account so I stopped.


I see. You definitely could learn japanese ... if you want to. If you don't want it's another story xD. In any case, about FF14, trial works still (I had no problems) and I recommend this client for Mac https://github.com/marzent/XIV-on-Mac - which is better than the official hehe.


I’ve finished Endwalker and the ending is one of the few stories that broke me. Really got me thinking about our place in the universe and our planet specifically.


> when I was 10 a book about QBasic found its way in my hands and I loved it

Me too. I had a little spiral bound book of Qbasic for kids and would make all sorts of things on my Epson Equity LT.


Sometimes, I think about what I really want. What I want most in the universe, for myself. There's plenty I want for everyone else. I seldom let myself think about what would be good for me lately.

Sometimes, like tonight, I do know what I want for myself. It's impossible, but it's my greatest desire for my life.

I want to be "uplifted". I want my brain capacity to be expanded by orders of magnitude. I want to understand, I want to comprehend, I want to see it all and fully understand the shape and implications of all things in my sight. I want to be more than a human mind. I want to be far, far wiser. It's not power I want. It's knowledge. It's understanding.


I get this. The problem is whenever I gain some new depth of knowledge it expands my mind such that I also realize more of how little I know. Yet the pursuit of it is still thrilling.


I oscillate between this (having an expanded brain capacity) and the exact opposite (a more limited brain capacity, the ability to take things one at a time, be eternally optimistic, not have your mind race all the time, sleep instantly when you lie down).


> sleep instantly when you lie down

The secret to this is lots of exercise (and maybe good sleep hygiene).

IME insomnia is mostly a result of being sedentary all day.

Never had insomnia when camping and hiking multiple hours each day.


True. I'm not an insomniac or anything close and I exercise regularly. I think sleep hygiene and sleep posture (and breathing during sleep) are the last pieces of the puzzle. Still working on it.


It's true, what intelligence I have (not particularly impressive) has already caused me enormous suffering.

Yet, there's this piece inside me that tells me that "the only way out, is through".


Yeah I've been there. But I don't think you can improve your working memory or your "intelligence" (however you choose to measure it) much beyond your baseline (which could be quite high already, compared to the average). And the only way to stay at your baseline is by having a very relaxed life (good quality sleep, good nutrition and water, exercise etc).

Yearning for a bigger brain only made me feel worse.


I recommend you to watch the movie "Transcendence", ignore the reviews. After that let it just be an idea for the movie plot and instead go walk through the woods for a while. I used to be where you are now, but no singularly can fix what is in essence a spiritual problem.


Sounds like psychedelics might help.


Your post really "uplifted" me. Thank you. My response is ditto what you said. Plus for my kids.


Might want to check out the idea of the Faustian culture by Oswald Spengler


Reminds me of LSD


Great post! So great that this will be the first time I post a comment here on HN. I’m from Sweden and I’m passionate about two things currently.

The first thing is that me, my wife, my mother and my father is building a house from scratch to me and my wife. I’ve never built anything before so a lot of what free time I have goes towards reading up on how to do it. We started building 1,5 years ago and started taking down trees in the small forest where the house was to be located three years ago. Anyone on HN building their own house?

The second thing I’m tinkering with is coding a game in swift playgrounds using only the iPad. It is a fps game built with Metal using only SDFs for rendering and collision.


I’m no longer building a house. My family did when I was younger. One day my Dad took us to a random plot of land and went “we’re building a house here”.

I figured he meant contractors, did not realize that for the next 5 years, every weekend was going to be building a home from scratch.

My parents are retired and live there permanently now. It was a wild ride, learned a lot.


Are there resources online on how to do this? I've always wanted to learn more about construction work, at least to the level where I can do some minor repairs.


Construction has to be something like one the most common and universal of human occupations, you can surely find heaps of documentation.

That being said, the actual techniques used tend to be localized and adapted to specific local conditions, available materials, geography and climate, labor cost etc. There isn't one standard way of going about it, you always learn the local Community of practice [1].

If you are looking to build the stereotypical noth-american stick frame house, the work of Larry Haun comes to mind [2]. The other major tradition is the European brick/concrete/AAC house, again, extensively documented; but you would start with a well engineered project designed by a professional, since failures tend to be sudden and catastrophic.

As for "repairs" the number of trades is almost endless, from the core like roofing, drywalling & paint, plumbing, gas & HVAC, electrical - which today includes house automation and data - concrete work, landscaping etc. to the uncommon like specialist thermal & insect treatment, stonework, chimneys etc.

Each trade has its own community language used by tradesmen in a certain geography, so you need to sink at least some hours to watch Youtube videos etc. pertaining to your specific problem. The number, complexity and local specificity of these trades is so vast that's inconceivable to learn them in bulk, you would always deal with the problem at hand, and if you continue this for a suficient number of years you become knowledgeable in the construction field.

[1] https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/building-complexi...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQmt27qN6AI


I built my shed door by watching YouTube. My starting point was knowing what a nail and a hammer is.


The amount of practical knowledge like that on YouTube is really something to behold. It’s gotten me out of all kinds of jams.


And it's all made by humans (other than creepy cartoons and listicles). I had to take apart my vacuum cleaner to debug it (turns out the power cord got frayed inside the bobbin) and the websites were full of autogenerated crap.

YouTube? There's a channel by a vacuum cleaner repairman that has a video about my model. Turns out I didn't miss any screws or latches, I just had to give the housing a stronger yank to open it.


I think you just start and then redo the mistakes until it works.

If you end up getting tradespeople in, you end up redoing their work as it was worse than the v1.0 that you did initially.


What's the zoning and regulations around building a house in Sweden? If you're connected to utilities like water/electricity, do you still need a professional to come out and certify everything?

Even if you're totally off-grid, do you still need someone to certify the build and the design itself? Any time I hear of house building in Europe I keep thinking back to that British version of Grand Designs, where there would be the inevitable house builder that would forget to add metal ties between masonry courses or something and end up costing themselves thousands of bucks.


You need a building permit, and an inspection to verify the building matches the permit. Even if it's on your own land in the middle of nowhere.

Doing any nontrivial electricity work on a property without involving a professional is illegal.


In addition to the sibling commenter there are a couple of organizations with recommendations that one needs to follow. One of those concerns what standards to follow when building bathrooms. They are not technically required but I think it will be hard to get insurance for a house with a bathroom that does not follow the recommendations.


We did it in the pandemics. We started on April 2020, and Monday we are getting an electrician here to connect our solar panel array to the main network (Germany). Me and my wife learned a lot, we fought a lot, but was such fun. I value much more now the people that do that as daily job. Not everything looks perfect, and in our opinion it was definitely more expensive than paying someone to do it. If in one hand you can ave labor costs, in the other you spend quite often more money in more material (buy more then necessary, buy stuff that you dont need and etc). Have fun!


I know I'm a bit late in answering now, but just wanted to let you know, I'm honored my post managed to tempt you out of lurkdom :D

Also, building a house with your own hands sounds pretty awesome, I think there's a reason these 'do stuff the old-fashioned way' videos on YouTube have such a following (there are these pretty famous videos about a project similar to yours[1], if you haven't seen them). And good luck with the project!

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBX5qh09OIE


Cheers for your first post here, welcome, and good luck in your endeavors! They are both things I too enjoy: building things in physical reality and in Swift.


Thanks! Seems common for tech people to combine their virtual projects/work with something in physical reality.


I fell into a sorta wikihole and now I have no one to present my findings to.

North Korea has an animation studio, and there's a good chance you've seen some of it's work.

It's called SEK (or Korean April 26 Animation Studio). The things they were outsourced to work on were The Simpsons Movie, and Futurama: Benders Big Score. There's also an episode of Avatar, and Teenage Mutent Ninja Turtles(2003) in there too.

Which is interesting but what's really crazy is the other stuff they make. There's internal NK animation, mostly propaganda and children's works like Boy General.

MondoTV is an Italian animation company that used to import and dub anime but then decided to do original shows. Most are based on something historical (Ulysses, Genghis Khan, Pocahontas), something out of copyright that Disney did before (The Story of Cinderella, The Jungle Book, Pocahontas).

These two entities would collaborate on something of titanic portions. Of course it'd end up sinking into obscurity. The Legend of the Titanic is a 1999 animated movie about the Titanic in the same way Disney's Robin Hood is about medieval politics. That is to say randomly filled with anthropomorphic animals.

This movie is not to be confused with the other animated Italian movie about the titanic that also is full of talking animals, 2000's Titanic: The Legend Goes On.

And this is a concept with legs. Mondo and SEK worked together again on a sequel In Search of the Titanic where they end up defending Atlantis because they're trying to find the wreck of the ship. Spoiler: They save the ship (no one died on it anyway but they still lost the boat).

And because the Titanic was still red hot six years later in a sequel to a sequel of a very strange Titanic movie, a tv series came out. Fantasy Island not to be confused with the other one. This one has the Titanic at it. And talking mice and 26 episodes of misadventures and new friends.

Finding stuff like this reminds me of how absurd the world is. I know it's probably not like... what was expected here but sometimes you just get really weird into specific things because you feel like you're witnessing history created via madlibs.


> These two entities would collaborate on something of titanic portions. Of course it'd end up sinking into obscurity.

Amazing sentence pairing.


I really enjoyed your writing.


Spotted "Adrian" fan?


Unfamiliar with that creator.


I just finished a four day (in-person) course entitled Advanced Direction and Control of the Search Function put on by the California Office of Emergency Services (CalOES). It is intended for Search and Rescue team members - both volunteers and sheriff's deputies - who who are part of "overhead" teams managing large multi-day "campaign" searches for lost and missing individuals.

It was a tightly-packed, intensive course covering everything from lost person psychology and the common behaviors of people in various types of situations based on analysis of past incidents to how to use the latest specialized technology to streamline the strategic planning, deployment, and evaluation of large searches.

I joined my county's SAR team five years ago and it's been an incredibly rewarding (but time-consuming) volunteer avocation. There is so much to know and California has a world-class system of training, certification, and management for our SAR teams.

One fantastic aspect of the CA state government is the OES and our mutual aid system. This system provides a formalized structure for counties to assist each other when they have something going on - like a wildfire, earthquake, missing person, law enforcement issue, etc. that they can't handle with their own internal resources. A county makes a request to the state - a fire example: "we need 5 type-1 wildfire strike teams, 3 fixed-wing water dropping aircraft, and 4 bulldozers tomorrow morning to help fight this fire that just broke out in our county." OES then puts the request out to surrounding counties who if available, mobilize and show up where needed.

Edit: If you're interested in how practically all emergency incidents are handled, reading up on the Incident Command System (ICS) and National Incident Management System (NIMS).

Anyway, that's getting rambling and more something behind-the-scenes that I know about and have experience with. I'm quite honored to be able to participate in these operations which can be directly lifesaving. AMA.


Thank you so much for this post, and Hello from Tokyo!

I'm currently working on an old fashioned website editing app, with a UI styled after today's note taking apps. I'm hoping that being able to work on my blog across devices without an internet connection - and without a like button or analytics script - will help me focus on what I want to write, instead of focusing on what will "sell". I'm thinking of putting an old fashioned "address book" page where I can list who I'm following, and manually publishing interesting emails I receive in response to my posts. It probably won't become big or earn me any money, but at least I'm having fun building it.

Thanks for reading, and wishing you all a great day too!


Should be fun, and I’m guessing you’ll have a head start in Asian language support. What brought you to Tokyo?


Looking forward to trying it out when you’re ready to share it.


Good luck on your app! (And hello from Shizuoka!)


I love niche forums like HN because it satisfies my itch for mind expanding content. The closest I got to that was OG StumbleUpon, if you know, you know.

I'm unfortunately not passionate about much nowadays; in treatment for stage 4 cancer, so I'm fairly exhausted all the time. I'm glad I can still maintain my cognitive abilities during chemo so I can still do my job.


So sorry to hear about your diagnosis. Best of luck on your battle, I hope the chemo is having the desired effect. My mom recently finished her chemo rounds. Took a real toll on her. Hang in there! You got this!


I hope your mom recovers well. I'm on chemo indefinitely so its a matter of finding a cure before chemo stops working for me. I'm only in my thirties so it might just happen!


You are young which is definitely on your side. Stay strong and wishing the best for you.


I wish you the best, I know what it is, I fought 5 years with a leukemia when I was 15. I hope you will recover well, medicine has evolved pretty well.

The best advice I can give you that worked well for me, is to always keep your brain active, keep coding, keep thinking. :) It was a cure for me to keep my ability to think, resolve problems, etc ...


Exactly. It sounds so cliche but just keeping active and finding purpose really helps me cope with the day to day. Dealing with Leukemia at 15 must have been truly scary, I'm glad you're well!


Best of everything, friend. Many of us are pulling for you. My pal somehow got through stage 4 brain cancer. There’s hope.


I appreciate the kind words. That's wonderful, I know of a couple others in my support group that have survived it. Cancer is truly the most enigmatic disease, no two people experience it the same.


Lots of incredible innovation on cancer. New, revolutionary drugs every year or two. Hang in there. This is not a death sentence. Just the best chance to change our lives for the better. You will get through this!


I completely understand what you are going through . I am in similar spot not cancer but chronic genetic condition that’s destroying my organ . The exhaustion is real .


Best wishes!


I spent my morning working on a science fiction novel. (I won't post more here, but you can find it through my profile if you're interested.)

Are there any other writers in the house?

On a completely unrelated topic, one of my earliest "internet" memories was wandering into open source communities and trying to figure out this CVS thing and connecting it to GNU Savannah so that I could download some code. Those were some very formative times. The community was a bit more "prickly" than we're used to with Rust and some of our modern open source projects, but they were committed to technical excellence, and the fact that a random kid could show up and be in conversation with these people at so clearly far above my own level was (and still is!) nothing short of astonishing.


Ooh! This could be a glimmer of a passion for me. Can you recommend any beginner guides or tips to get started?

I've dabbled but get tied in knots overthinking the phrasing of a single sentence. I'd love to just get into a flow state.

I've tried some tools like Final Draft (yuck) and Scrivener (meh). However Fountain.io plugin for vscode felt fantastic. The restricted format of a screenplay was really helpful to me actually getting some plot and dialogue down. It's easy for me to think like a movie instead of a novel. The markdown syntax was delightful.

However I don't want to write a screenplay because that can't really go anywhere - can't self publish a movie lol. Does writing the first draft as a screenplay sound nuts?


I personally like Typora (https://typora.io/). It gets about as close to that state of flow as you can get, and it supports Markdown syntax. I use a Git workflow to track my writing, which definitely isn't for everyone, but I really appreciate the assurance it gives me. But that's probably because I already use Git for work.

Actually, I do write in a screenplay-like format sometimes. I call it "sketching" but there's probably a more formal name for it. Dialogue and action beats, and nothing else. It works well when I'm able to hear the characters in my head and I need to get their words down before I forget. Though there is a bit of a risk when you expand this into full scene, that your scenes tend to be very dialogue heavy. That's something I'm still working on.

More specific advice is a bit hard to give without knowing where you are. Are you stuck on getting any words out on the page at all? Or are you writing the opening to your story over and over because it never feels right? Or something else?

My experience was the first time I sat down to really write something, it felt horrible. I think I got about 50 words on the page after about an hour. It really was pretty discouraging, and of course the writing was bad too. I'm honestly not sure how I got through this phase. I think I just slogged through it because I cared enough about the story to keep going even though it sucked.

One thing that may have helped is that I keep a journal. The rule for my journal is "never write anything boring". I am very inconsistent about it, but it gave me a space, before I really had the fiction writing thing down, to at least practice getting words on the page. I've been putting down about 100 pages a year for the last 10-ish years, and I realized belatedly that in a way this was my writing practice. I may not have written 10 fiction books, but I wrote their equivalent (at least by word count) in my journal.

Reading helps too. I had stopped for a long time, and picking it back up has helped me really figure out what I want to be writing (usually because I have knee-jerk reactions to what I read, and that tells me something about how it's affecting me).

There's quote I encountered recently that really aligns with my philosophy of writing: "the first draft is telling yourself the story, latter drafts are telling the story you want readers to read" (Farah Heron, but she might have gotten it from somewhere else). What this means is that it's ok for the first draft to not be something anyone else is going to want to read. The most important thing is that you like what you're writing. For me, writing has become a better-than-reading experience. I read a fair amount of books these days, but because my tastes are particular, it's rare for me to find anyone who is writing exactly what I want.... but I can write it myself.

Hope something in here helps you out, and if there's anything else you want to ask, feel free to shoot me an email (find my contact info from my profile).


Not OP, but as someone who also sometimes get stuck in my writing as well I thought I'd reply.

Personally I use Scrivener for drafting and Vellum for formatting, but the tools usually don't matter that much for what you are describing. They won't really help with overthinking and getting tied up in phrasing.

What helps me a lot when I sense myself getting into that getting-stuck phase where I just overthink everything is doing sprints. They're common in writing communities on Discord, but you can do them on your own as well. Just set a 15 minute timer (or whatever time works best) and write random flow-of-consciousness crap. I was surprised to find that usually the output isn't even as bad as I expect and is very usable (with some heavy editing). Also, remember that the first words you put down aren't really meant to be the final version of the thing you publish: they're just a rough sketch to be shaped later.


Thanks!

I'll try a sprint. I actualy did Morning Pages (flow of conscious execise for writers) for many years just for the psychological benefits. I got blocked on those because I think I just got sick of talking to myself and a novel is a way to get some self expression and joy of writing back without it being so self-reflective.

Can you recommend a writing discord?


I'm afraid the couple of writing servers I'm mostly active in are pretty niche and not public, but there are bigger ones that should be good as well. For example, I have heard good things about one called "Bookdun"[0], which is actually focused on writers helping each other to finish their books. They have sprint channels where a sprint bot helps run the sprints, but also other challenges encouraging people to get words written. I have never tried any "writing challenges" aside from sprints though; the other stuff sometimes feels a bit too distracting and gamified for my tastes, so can't speak to those.

[0] https://www.bookdun.com/


Check out the podcast Writing Excuses. Start from the beginning. There is some really helpful and blissfully actionable storytelling advice in there, much of it given by one of the most successful writers of Fantasy (Brandon Sanderson).

As for tips to get started, i’m partial to the following advice (paraphrasing Asimov): Everyone is capable of writing good books, but there’s a catch. The catch is that is that the first million words that anyone writes will be crap. Before one can write great prose, one must first get those million crappy words out of their system.

I personally find this to be extremely liberating. It allows me to just write and enjoy crafting sentences, characters and stories without torturing myself with premature expectations of greatness. Nobody sits down at a piano for the first time and expects to play something beautiful. Treat writing the same way. Play chopsticks, enjoy yourself, and rest assured that you’ll get better!


I'm also a writer. I've got a little near future sci fi I'm writing. Having done Nanowrimo a few times, I'd like to one day spend a month / season / year just writing. One day.


I'm very (very) slowing writing a book, a kind of biography of a local teamsters chapter from Rhode Island which my grandfather was part of. I've given up on it a couple of times, only to come back to writing again, and maybe on a good day cranking out 5,000 words that gets edited back down to maybe half that.

What are you thinking about in terms of publication? After reading on the kind of fees traditional publishers extract from sales, I'm considering going down the self-publication route, and will definitely take a closer look at the Amazon e-book/print on demand service when the time comes.


Plan A is traditional. Part of that is that I'm targeting middle grade with my first book (that is, ages 9-12), and it's honestly not obvious to me how much of a market exists for self-published books in that demographic. I'm still doing my research, but so far all of the self-publishing success stories I'm aware of are either in adult, or are a traditional author going indie rather than the other way around.

Having said that, I have helped other people (mostly family members) self-publish their books and it is very doable, depending on what your goals are. In those cases, we were never aiming to make money, so we were more than happy with the results we got.


let us know when you publish it; would love to read it.


Awesome to see a fellow sci-fi writer! I've been writing and self-publishing science fiction romance in my spare time for a couple of years. I'm doing a rough edit pass on the first draft of my next story now in preparation for sending it to the developmental editor.

I have not read the whole thing yet but am finding your "Age Scaling and Publishing Journey" post very interesting, specifically having skipped to the "Publishing journey" part to start with. I love your optimism about traditional publishing and hope you will find a publisher who gives your manuscript the investment it deserves.


Awesome, I'll stalk your work through your profile, I'm addicted to good scifi.

I've mostly written poetry for the last 15 years, but I've been meaning to transition into long form writing. I'm wondering if you could share your process? Do you sketch out a plot then fill out the gaps? Are you creating situations then letting your characters grow the story organically? This is the bit I'm sort of stuck on, so hearing how other people approach the strategy of longform writing might hopefully jolt me into action.


I'm happy to talk about my process, though "process" is being pretty generous because it's very haphazard.

Where it starts for me is the feeling when you get to the end of a good book, and you keep telling yourself stories (about the characters, the world, the situations, etc.). That's how I feel when I'm writing, except instead of applying it to some other book, I apply it to my own worlds. But the basic impulse is the same.

I don't outline, in the sense of writing a bulleted list of plot points that I fill in. Honestly, I have never been able to do this and I don't understand how anyone else does either, despite having read some books about how people supposedly do so. I tried the Snowflake method too, and that didn't work for me either.

The hardest part, I think, is getting started. Unfortunately, I didn't take a lot of notes during this time, but I did a bunch of noodling around. I wrote a bunch of stuff that didn't stick: characters, situations, places. I even tried some different storytelling styles.

Once I had characters and a world that felt right, I spent about 5 years rewriting the opening of the book over and over. This part sucked because no matter what I did, it always felt wrong.

Eventually I threw in the towel on that. But rather than tossing the project entirely, I had the idea of writing a prequel. This was actually brilliant, because it sidesteps the process of generating the characters and world from scratch (part of what takes so long in the first place, especially as a first timer). So it was much easier for me to create situations that I knew would drive the characters to interesting places. Somehow, this clicked for me and I basically wrote the first draft start to finish in a single pass.

At least for my first book, I found I didn't need to outline. Because I knew where the characters would be going (I had already written the opening of the "real" book to death), I wasn't too afraid of getting lost. In practice, how things worked out was that I spent the time between writing sessions coming up with what would happen in the next chapter. So it wasn't literally seat-of-the-pants writing, because usually I knew what would happen a chapter or two ahead, but I wasn't planning the entire book out all at once either.

Hope that helps in some form, at least to kickstart ideas. And happy to answer any questions (can find my contact info via profile).


In my free time I'm writing short stories, once I have enough I'm going to publish a collection. I'm fairly certain I can get it published, I already have a book out with good reception so I'm feeling confident but who knows.


What was the route you followed to get published?


Incredibly cool, looking forward to digging in more on your projects. I love the mix of technical projects alongside the creative ones. Signed up for your email letter. Also -- I love your website, so simple and clean.


I’m loving raising my new kid. Funny enough, one of her favorite books right now is Hello Hello by a Brenden Wenzel. I love the way she’ll carry it over to me and crawl into my lap, waiting for me to begin, turning each page for me, how she says hi to the animals in its pages. I don’t care how many times she wants to repeat it, watching her learn and enjoy reading is absolutely delightful. I feel like I’m giving her a superpower by teaching her to enjoy reading. I’ll also read literature or magazine articles aloud to her, and it’s amazing how talkative she’ll become for the next little while, stringing together sentences of babble.

Personally, one of my life goals is to read a book by an author from each country. It’s a little fuzzy since countries have come and gone through history, then there are territories, autonomous regions etc, and maybe not a huge selection of books from each that have been translated into English. I just want to gain a worldwide perspective. One I’ve been slowly chipping away at and had put down for a while but recently became very relevant again is Reading Lolita in Tehran: a Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi. Also recently finished the Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy by Cixin Liu, The Every by Dave Eggers (not really part of the goal, I just like his work, I‘d recommend that and it’s prequel, The Circle, to this crowd) and am saving the 6th and final volume of Knausgård’s Min Kamp for the long arctic winter ahead.


Raising kids are awesome. I had such fun doing that, while they were little. One great habit to develop is to read books with them. Me and my wife did it daily until they were 11, we read to them, then later we used to read with them (we read one page, they some paragraphs).. was such great moments, daily after a long day to lay in bed with them and read, read, read... Thanks that both kids are great students and have seldom a mobile in their hand, but books :)


I love the book project, it makes me think of Ann Morgan who has done something similar (https://ayearofreadingtheworld.com/thelist/).

It is also something I'd like to do, but I haven't yet started with it.

I'm curious how you select which books to read ?


Thanks for the link! That will help my selection process. Otherwise it’s not very systematized, I go off of book reviews, recommendations from friends, and lots of perusing in used/new book stores.

She points out another thing, which is cultures with oral traditions instead of written. For instance, I’ve purchased a few compilations of oral histories and folklore from Native Alaskan peoples, which were translated by anthropologists. It provides a good opportunity to think about how knowledge is interpreted between cultures.

Eventually I’d like to create some kind of web app to track my progress.


Bed time reading/narration with my two little boys is my father-sons bonding time! Nice story, thanks!


Hello from Redmond, Western Australia. It's rural, close to the South Coast of WA. We live in a straw-bale house on a farm where we run a small number of cattle, horses and donkeys, and we grow a lot (but not yet all) of our own fruit and vegetables. We steward of 50ha area of pretty pristine Australian bush in a biodiversity hotspot, and we've replanted the roadside and house area and put in some windbreaks with native trees and understory.

I split my attention in far too many directions, but I'm writing audio-description for film and television as a hobby; biodiversity and conservation and hiking (we live in a biodiversity hotspot); and tinkering with code (roguelikes!). I also irrationally love HTML as a markup language.

But I am terrified of the increasingly bleak looking future, and despite putting a lot of effort into conservation and living with as small a footprint as possible, I don't see much hope for our broken civilisation, much less our species.


> But I am terrified of the increasingly bleak looking future, and despite putting a lot of effort into conservation and living with as small a footprint as possible, I don't see much hope for our broken civilisation, much less our species

Yeah, I struggle with that too. At the same time, there is a huge amount of opportunity for average people to make an impact in whatever small sphere of influence we may have.

If I always frame my efforts in relation to the entirety of the world's social and environmental problems, of course those efforts are going to seem insignificant; but I think that's as misleading as, say, viewing my personal spending habits as inconsequential based on how much they impact the global economy. Small changes in your local community or social circle really do matter!

That's one reason I like platforms like iNaturalist: it's a good tool to encourage others to simply learn more about the living things around them, which is a significant step in nudging someone from indifference toward being an advocate for nature.

Sorry if that's not helpful, but I'd really like to encourage you to keep doing what you're doing, because it probably matters a lot more than you think it does (especially to all the creatures that live in and around your larger-than-average backyard!)


I wrote a comment the other day about how global warming might not be that bad: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33483424

I know some people will be upset because they think saying that might mean we don't get emissions under control. I don't think people here on HN have much control over emissions, but in any case I encourage you to get emissions under control to the extent you can!


Thank you for your thoughts.

Everyone can affect their emissions to some extent.

* Don't have children is a big one, or limit the number you have. One child is equivalent to 24 people people not driving, someone quoted to me the other day. It's not a popular idea though.

* Drive a small car not a big car. Drive about 90kph, it's more fuel efficient than driving faster.

* Buy local - It might be more expensive in money, but milk shipped 4,000 kilometers is more expensive in emissions than milk from a supplier in your region.

And so on ...


With regard to having kids in particular, I found this argument fairly persuasive: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/please-dont-give-up-on...


This sounds amazing. I'd be interested to hear more details about what "stewarding 50ha of Australian bush" entails. Do you work with a local conservation organization, and do you have any particular goals for restoration or management? Do you work on documenting the biodiveristy there? Is it home to any endemic or threatened species you're espeially interested in? Any photos you could share?


We don't work with a conservation organisation; we don't have any funding; we do it all off our own backs.

With my limited time, I document the biodiversity of our block here:

https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/observations?place_id=any&use...

My wife throws up our photos on Flickr, which includes a great many of our efforts at sustainable farming and replanting, an album documenting our house-build, as well as our hiking, and far, far too many of our dog.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/redmoonsanctuary/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/redmoonsanctuary/albums/with/7...

I think we have one or two species that are, on some level, endangered.

Our favourite species on our block is a type of orchid: https://www.flickr.com/photos/redmoonsanctuary/31446320265/i...

It's basically a sex-doll for wasps. The female wasps can't fly, they live on the ground and climb up to the top of a stalk of grass, and the male, attracted by pheromones, would swoop in and carry her off. This orchid presents a rough approximation of the shape, and a convincing approximation of the pheromones that the male wasps are confused and try to fly off with it, catapaulting them into the pollen resevoir. If they get tricked twice: viola! Pollen exchange.


That's so cool! There are some really nice photos on your Flickr, and quite a few species in that Flora and Fauna album that I've never seen before.

I'm also active on iNaturalist, and maintain a python API client and some other open source tools for it: https://github.com/pyinat/pyinaturalist

If you ever have the desire to put together some data visualizations, stats, automation, or anything else fun or useful with your iNat data, you're more than welcome to ping me for help on GitHub (jwcook) or on the iNat forums (jcook).


Thanks @Starcruch! That's pretty cool yourself. I don't think I'm in the market for doing much with my iNaturalist data - I'm content for it to just passively be part of the larger picture, though one day I suspect I will collate it all into some kind of PDF/ebook. I wish I had more time for it to be honest.


I am blown away and inspired by the straw bale house build. Well done! It must be very rewarding to see the end result.


It's lovely to live in, but it was a lot of hard, hard work. I have a sort of traumatic amnesia about it and don't have strong recollections of doing some of the work.

I joke that we outsourced it to a pair of gullible young people who did all the hard work so us older people can enjoy living in it. :-)


Howdy fellow west aussie!

50ha is an amazing sized property and the south coast is an incredible part of the world.

My wife and I have recently bought some land near Margaret River/Augusta region and are planning out how we can plant local species and invite as many native critters as possible to come by.

Best of luck with your replanting and conservation projects.


I lived in Perth for 6 years but had only been to Margaret River once in all that time. The thing I remember most from that trip was the air. I remember getting out of the car on the side of a road for the first time after entering the region and there was something so different, fresh, and perfect about the air. I know what "fresh air" smells like and of course it's going to be different when you're in the city vs out in nature, but this was somehow different. I'm not sure if my memory just skewed and exaggerated the effect after all these years, but I distinctly remember thinking that the air in Margaret River was very distinct (in a wonderful way).


This might cheer you up. There is always hope. https://youtu.be/LxgMdjyw8uw


I am passionate about not working and finally doing some hobbies and being a lazy slob at least once a year. At 42 years old I am nowhere near close any of that though and I am slowly losing hope and despairing. But it's the world we're living in, nobody is giving you money for existing so what can you do. I am severely burned out and me switching jobs in the last several years didn't help because I don't want to work no matter where I am, perpetuating the vicious cycle.

Heed this warning, everybody who reads this: learn finances and contracting and negotiations EXTREMELY EARLY in your life. At 22 you should be an expert. If not you'll be a loser like myself who can achieve literally 90% of what any programming task might require of him but has zero savings and is crippled by a burn-out.

Also... try not to be born in a family where the parents are more busy with physically fighting each other and not with raising the kids. :D It helps.

I am grinding hard at my new job and I'll also try to pursue a side hustle with much more money potential. Even though I'd prefer to go somewhere with my wife and not think of any work for 3 years but alas, and again, this is not the world we live in.

Having strong technical intelligence does not correlate with success. Took me 90% of my conscious life to even realize it. Don't be stupid like me.


Well, I'm much older and you'd have a ways to go before you might find yourself in a position like mine, but Uncle Sam is standing by to give me money for existing.

But Social Security is not all it's cracked up to be, that wouldn't go far and I've got big disasters to recover from.

So I'm working hard to do without over $100K now just so I can collect more later.

But inflation's reducing the value of both dollars I'm not even collecting yet, and my paycheck's not rising to nearly make up any difference.

It's not very uplifting and I'm not even on a fixed income.

I just want to work no matter what, I guess I'm going to have to start a new company to get more out of my own efforts.

Sure beats the boredom so many senior citizens get even if they have overflowing retirement funds.


Well I am not in the USA but in Eastern Europe. The "money for existing" here would barely cover 2 visits to the grocery store. :D

> I guess I'm going to have to start a new company to get more out of my own efforts

Same conclusion here, being loyal to companies has gotten me nowhere. I know people for whom it worked but they are not the majority (of my acquaintances at least).

> Sure beats the boredom so many senior citizens get even if they have overflowing retirement funds.

I'll never be bored. I have things that I wanted to work on ever since I was 16 year old and now at 42 I still haven't taken the time and energy to do them -- I really can't find proper time and when I finally do I am exhausted (but I am working on the health as well which should give me much more bandwidth).

If I can be granted a wish it'd be "please let me be as rich as I need to be and please let me be dying of boredom, I'll handle it!".

Sympathies for your situation. It's a sad fact that when we get drained of our energy and motivation we actually have to muster even more of them so we can pull through by inventing our own income / business. It's a very bitter irony, one I have grown to gradually accept and not rebel against.


Why not move to a tech hub and start a challenging job? If you're technically good, I don't think your current lack of money would block you.

You sound like you'd have a lot of motivation if you got out of your current local minimum. Making a big life change tends to do that.


I am really not sure. I am not looking for more responsibility and more pressure on my psyche right now. I am very capable and have proven it in numerous projects but I honestly need to dial down the responsibility...

Not sure how one breaks this loop though.


Well I've been stuck like that a few times (still very young though), and changing cities/states/countries has always been the best way to get out of it.

There are probably IC positions that don't cause Amazon-style stress while being technically interesting. Just a thought.


But that's just the thing: "more technically interesting" has a big intersection with "mentally exhausting". And sadly the things I'd code with a smile on my face don't look at all lucrative.

We'll see. The only way to break this cursed feedback loop is to have more energy in me -- physical and mental. I am working on it with positive results but it's way too slow.


I'm a decade younger and in a good financial position relative to my peers, but share a lot of the same sentiment. Finding it very hard to get motivated to do the challenging, delivery-based tasks at work when the only people getting any praise or promotions are "developer advocates", i.e. the marketing department.

I don't see a way out other than to grind away for the next 20 years before retiring early. That's not what I want - I'd rather enjoy the time I have now. I'm just too fearful of a massive decline in lifestyle options if I change to a lower paid role, and don't even have the confidence that any job exists which would be a meaningful improvement.


> the only people getting any praise or promotions are "developer advocates", i.e. the marketing department.

Another harsh reality I am learning more and more lately: if you are not in the people's faces you will NEVER get any praise and a just material reward. So yeah, sadly you're right.

> I'd rather enjoy the time I have now

"If hard work paid off, show me a rich donkey". Truth is, stable jobs are nice training wheels for our psyche so we don't get too stressed but at one point we must roll up our sleeves and either figure out our own business, or co-found one with another person, or just devise any and all scheme for making at least 3x more money than your day-job is giving you, and for only 1-2h of work a day.

Or if I am wrong here, I can't see how.


To everyone who commented on here:

Thank you so much! Never would I have expected this to work so well, but it has, and it still blows my mind. Seeing how people have used this thread to share glimpses of their life and how people have connected with others honestly makes me so happy. I posted this thread really late last night before going to bed, then woke up and was floored by the response. The internet can still be beautiful, and it's absolutely made my day.

At this point we are at over 600 comments, so I guess it'll be down to luck whether this response here will still manage to bubble up... but that's a very good problem to have I think :) I also wish I could respond to everyone who took the time to comment and show my appreciation directly, but I think I'd need a transformer-model clone of myself if I wanted to achieve that in any reasonable span of time ;)

Anyway, I'm happy if I could improve your day a bit with this. As someone in the comments here rightfully pointed out, a post like this can only work once in a blue moon, and I'm glad that this apparently was the right time for it.

So long! <3


Thank you for this post. It’s nice to see that it wasn’t buried. From the times of IRC, I do miss the feelings of the early times of the internet.

I’ve the privilege to invest a lot of time thinking about what I should be doing my life professionally. In the end, the best I could think of was to be an enabler for others - which for me meant ‘to give them time’. I realised that I also needed to use my expertise to try and give this purpose a better chance of success. I have a PhD in static analysis and programming languages and got experience with writing code analysers.

So I’m on this quest to combine these two core ‘ideas’ - use static analysis to help developers save time and hope that they can improve their life with that time.

I managed to start a company around this mission and build a product focused on reducing the time on pull requests. it’s been a very hard journey so far and feels like I’m just getting started still. It makes me sad and sometimes lonely to see that we are ever more connected but that many times it feels that no one really cares. In my early days of using the internet it was much easier to make meaningful connections.


>In my early days of using the internet it was much easier to make meaningful connections.

That's what I recall as well. I wonder what happened.

One story is something like: high-profile hostile interactions drive engagement, and are actually good for the bottom line of e.g. social media websites. But they also have the effect of modeling bad behavior, reducing "internet social trust" and "internet social capital". I wonder if any of the literature on social trust / social capital could be usefully applied to the entire internet considered as a community.

Another project related to this which I think could be super interesting: The big social media websites get a ton of traffic and scrutiny, but there are loads of niche online communities on other domains which have popped over the years. HN being just one example -- Mastodon is another which has been in the news a lot recently. It'd be cool if someone was to study these communities informally: create a taxonomy, make use of anthropological tools, or simply write a "travelogue" of becoming a user of a broad variety of niche online communities for just a few weeks each. I think this could be the first step to helping us find our way out of the current mess.

Right now it is too hard to compete with the big sites. Someone could shine a spotlight on small players who have something cool going on and want to grow. If nothing else, the next time there is a "crisis" like Elon buying Twitter, you can give people a list of the top 3 alternative sites they should be checking out. Never let a crisis go to waste!


> That's what I recall as well. I wonder what happened.

I think the biggest factor is a kind of 'paradox of choice' effect, where any online community feels less worthwhile just because there is such a huge variety to choose from. If I look at my Discord now, I'm part of a few dozen servers now, which all at some point seemed interesting. But that interest was fleeting, because... well, how important can they be, if there are a few dozen of them in my list, without me even looking very hard?

So I think on the one hand, it's fine to be a bit nostalgic for an old internet that simply won't exist in that way again. But on the other hand, it's probably also a matter of personal choice and a willingness to engage with the small communities that still exist, which could probably revive some of that old feeling of connectedness.

I think I was pretty lucky with this post, because I managed to capture people's attention in a place that's maybe a bit unusal for this kind of interaction, which made it more singular and 'worthwhile' again. But that can't be repeated at will, of course.


I think that there's been a lot of research about this. I can recommend the book "Change: How to Make Big Things Happen" by Damon Centola. Ironically, it goes into detail on how Twitter became successful.


I’m sick and tired of paying soda stream. Mostly on principle. My wife really likes her carbonated water though. So much so she’s green lit a kegerator for the sole purpose of housing a 5 gallon corny keg of carbonated water! Carbonated water on tap. Even better, I can plumb it into the fresh water line so it’s continuous! Infinite soda water on tap… till the co2 tank runs out anyway.

I’m sure this is all old school to any home brewers. But it’s all new to me. Now to build it all…


This is very common in Hungary, just FYI!

Especially in the countryside. The main use-case is for creating fröccs aka spritzers.


In commie times or early 90s in eastern Europe people (or at least my friend) used to have at home extremely simple device soda charger adapter with two PET bottle connectors on top and bottom, where on each end you could screw 1.5-2L PET bottle, I think one filled with syrup water, other empty, in the middle on side you screw small soda charger bomb (see link, think size you could put in small air gun, one small bomb cost around 13 cents nowadays, reasonable even for one time use 2L) and then you just release valve and I think you had to flip over bottles few times. It was incredibly simple and I'm amazed by pricey SodaStream popularity (even over soda siphon/seltzer bottle). Shame I can't find this adapter on mobile, so now think it had to be home made device which was very compact, no pipes required, everything within small adapter which fit between two bottles with bomb on side.

https://www.amazon.com/Soda-Siphon-Charger-Classic-Sodamaker...


You can use a carbonation cap and diffusion stone with any 2L PET soda bottle and any CO2 tank with regulator:

https://www.amazon.com/Carbonation-Cap-Diffusion-Air-Stone/d...

The original version of this was a plastic cap but it doesn't work all that well:

https://www.morebeer.com/products/carbacap.html


It was something like this, bottle on top and bottom and you could directly attach/screw small bomb on side in between.

https://m.aliexpress.com/item/4001271603795.html


This gives me an idea. Do you think this can be used to build a small fire extinguisher? Something like this? https://youtu.be/zECUui0qi9Q


Go for it! I experimented with adding cheap drink powders like lemonade and coconut to mine and loved it! Make sure the system and connections can handle the pressure you're setting!


TIL about corny kegs. They look like they last forever and aren’t that expensive. This will be a fun project. How will you get refills?


Refills of CO2 can be had at any local home brew supply shop, some local breweries, airgas, etc.

The corny keg I'll just fill with filtered tap water. It can be made continuous with one of these, but I'm not sure I have the water pressure for this:

https://www.morebeer.com/products/continuous-soda-carbonator...


Oh, so there is a separate CO2 container. I didn’t know it worked that way.


installed a zip hydro tap a couple years ago and i’ve never once regretted it


A nice thing about earlier forums (email chains, vBulletin), is that there was a defined order to the replies, unlike Hacker News, Reddit, or others, where each comment thread exists as its own thing, unconnected to the comments around it (except those it directly replies to). It's like having a thousand forum threads all running simultaneously on the same page. My brain doesn't handle that well. For anyone seeking an older-style forum with similar interests to Hacker News, check out the Hardware & Software or Developers sub-forums on https://knockout.chat/ .


Thanks for that, but what is it?


Hi from Idaho, United States. It snowed here this week, first time this season.

Software engineering is my job, but I'm 41 years old now, and it isn't as fun as it used to be.

I became a pilot 1.5 years ago, and now I'm selling my first airplane and buying a larger one.

I've also done some woodworking projects recently. What a pleasant way to do something useful for my family.


That's awesome - as a resident of a slightly more benign winter climate I'm curious how the Idaho winter impacts on your piloting/training? I'm sure there are times when you just say it's too bad to go flying, but what would be your own threshold where you'd feel comfortable solo flying?


Idaho is beautiful, in all the ways that matter. I got the unique experience of getting buzzed by a Twin Beech on floats while out on Coeur d'Alene lake. Those radials... so good.

I see the panhandle is going to get rather frigid next week. Stay warm if you're up there!


Had to reply. This is basically me except south idaho (no snow yet) and not a pilot. Tho i do geek out on Mike Patey vids.


Hi! What a fantastic post, a good day to you too.

I recently found out my bone density isn’t great. Never broke a bone in my life but the doctor advises to start an activity that impacts bones.

I’m not a sports person but last Thursday I went to a boulder gym. I was already coming up with excuses not to go, but decided to hop in the car and just do it, which felt like quite the power move.

I’ve never been “in shape” so it was though. But it was also challenging and it felt great to finish a route. It felt like something I could grow passionate about.

I’m telling as many people as possible in an effort to create some pressure to keep it up, do the work, exercise, and to get better at it.

Hoping in a few years my bone density has increased just a little bit.


Bouldering is the right choice. Assuming you're an engineer (as this is HN...) the puzzle solving side of it will appeal. There's a minor social side available talking to people during rest phases which is totally optional. It's definitely also a path to being much stronger and has a satisfying progression curve.


I am :)

Indeed the aspect of looking at the route and pondering an approach was very enjoyable.

Thanks for the encouraging words.


I run into lots of climbers who took to climbing without ever being much interested in any other physical pursuit before hand.

The other thing is that there are certain adaptations one has to make as a beginner to progress that you don't really get anywhere else. It somewhat levels the playing field between athletes who are generally good at sports, and those who aren't super physical.


This is kinda what I was hoping for as well. It seems like technique is very important. But having additional strength/endurance is super helpful.

I’ve never been interested in training my muscles just to have good looking muscles. But I would definitely do the work if it means I can finally finish that route that has been just out of reach.


Congratulations! I can't speak to bone density, but if you stick with it, you'll see big improvements throughout your life: better mood, better sleep, more focus, meeting new people... Best of luck on your journey!


Thanks! Going to give it my all.


Glad you went, keep it up. Find a buddy to go with or pull yourselves along. All The best


Thank you! For sure easier to go with friends. The “share it with as many people as possible” approach has yielded some invites from other climbers so that’ll work out I think :)


Hello! Just drove home from the beach shack in Hawks Nest (beachside town in NSW Australia) to Sydney getting ready for the week ahead.

Whilst up in Hawks Nest I had a prehistoric visitor[0] visit our family and hiked a mountain[1].

[0] https://twitter.com/schappi/status/1588984902048894976?s=46&...

[1] https://twitter.com/schappi/status/1588985786481139713?s=46&...


Love the Eastern blue-tongue!

You can't mention the beach shack and then not include pictures...

- West coast beach appreciator


Pissing blood and on pain meds here in Seattle, and loving your post. HN is by far my favorite site. Every once in a while we get something out of left field like this for a bonus. Oh, and I’m cobbling together a tech publishing product when I can think straight.

Thank you, stranger-yet-not-stranger!


That sounds terrible, so sorry to hear that. I hope you recover soon!


You’re very kind. Looking forward to kidney stone surgery next week.


Hahaha! "Looking forward to"… I suspect you're more looking forward to the after part, where you recover and feel like a zillion percent better… Here's wishing you the speediest of recoveries. ;)


This is going to be TMI but: I don’t mind getting surgeries because it gives me at least one night of good sleep afterwards, and I sleep very poorly.

I don’t drink or do recreational drugs so the 15 seconds of being high before the surgery is always intriguing to me.

Now the beginning part where they go north up the southbound lane with a scope, well, that’s not welcome at all.


Understandable about the northbound scope. I've been in one, things are okay now. You'll become better; get well soon my friend.

Good luck on the tech project too.


Get well soon.


Thank you very much


We need to bring back the Internet. We need to bring back internet that doesn't care about our race , gender , political association or where we live. The day I started addicted using internet was because we can fool around, say what we want, fool around,learn from our mistakes, help others show correct way instead of carebares, mind controllers , data harvesters controlling us to say what they want, to see what they want, downvoted to oblivion because they have different views or experience with me

   I made a discovery today.  I 
   found a computer.  Wait a 
   second, this is
   cool.  It does what I want it 
   to.  If it makes a mistake, 
   it's because I
   screwed it up.  Not because it 
   doesn't like me...
                Or feels threatened by me...
                Or thinks I'm a smart ass...
                Or doesn't like 
   teaching and shouldn't be here..
        And then it happened... a door opened to a world... rushing through the phone line like heroin through an addict's veins, an electronic 
 pulse is sent out, a refuge from the day-to-day
  incompetencies is sought... 
  a board is found.
        "This is it... this is where I belong..."
The hacker manifesto reflect what using the computer those Day . And it was where I belong.


I'm getting ready to spend a week playing the Interactive Fiction Competition games! Every November I get excited to play the new entries. It reminds me of being a kid in the early 1980's and getting a new Infocom game for Christmas. I makes me so happy that there are other people who not only feel the same way I do about IF, but they actually write spectacularly fun games!

https://ifcomp.org/


Holy hell. Is this just like one big ass MUD adventures convention? Pretty cool, man.


No, it is interactive fiction: text-based solo games. Up until about 15 years ago it was entirely Zork-like games. But then they started added "choose your own adventure"-style interfaces, instead of open-ended language interfaces, which I don't like. But every year there are handful of really good games, and sometimes a complete showstopper.


Hello. Thank you for wishing me a great day -- I wish you the same.

I remember sending/getting my first emails back in the early 1990s. I had an Amiga 2000 and I was learning C at the time. I would download libs, demos, and shareware from bulletin boards and University FTP servers over 14.4K dialup. y-modem-g protocol for the win, baby! It was great. Thanks for a reminder of the good ol' days.

The pandemic lockdown (and resulting ability to work from home) gave me the impetus I needed to finally make progress on a real-time streaming data processing system I've been mulling over since 2014. It's the opposite of cloud and/or virtualization; I call it "physicalization" because I dedicate nearly every core of a dedicated multicore server I built myself to specific purposes in a pipeline that handles incoming data streams. I'm learning about using shared memory for IPC, SIMD processing, advanced data analytics, and machine learning. From scratch!


Hello from Melbourne, Australia.

This weekend it finally started to feel warm, and I'm ready for summer.

I ran a software development agency for 8 years, sold it at the start of the pandemic, and been travelling with my wife in an RV around Australia thinking about what's next.

One of the issues we faced in our business was around centralising project requirements, and ensuring both our clients and our team could refer to a source of truth. I spent years thinking documentation was bad, but slowly started to realise in an agency setting, when you're working on possibly many a few long-term projects - it's impossible to keep it all in your head.

So my wife and I started building Userdoc (https://userdoc.fyi), and over the last few months have been doing a lot of customer interviews and and demos, along with finalising the product.

This weekend we've finished the last couple of items on our todo list, and rolling it out to our initial users very soon.


Great story and best of luck with your launch. Are you part of any online communities to share your progress? I am currently a member of MicroConf [1] and getting a lot of help from it.

- [1] https://microconf.com/


Awesome, thanks frans - I'll check it out.


Hello,

I´m looking at it right now.

1: Centralising project requirements,

2: Ensuring both our clients and our team could refer to a source of truth.

3: When you're working on possibly many a few long-term projects

+4: When Scaling is a issue.

==== My remarks:

1: Which audience are you targetting? --> Is it a dev tool?

2: Does the current pricing and business model make sense? --> It´s advantage is that is longterm, but that is also the reason people would not like to hold on to contracts.

3: Product simplicity? --> I would like to do just play around with it. People like me might not use it ourselves, but if we like it we will share it with those people we think might benefit from it.

Let´s Connect on linkedin and talk more.

bye,

Ron.


Hey Ronald, thanks for checking out Userdoc.

No it's not a dev tool specifically, I would say more for project and product managers, however the strength is involving the whole team. My initial customer development has been with agency owners and CTO's, as that's my background.

Regarding the pricing model, our initial thinking is a monthly subscription (with your plan denoting how many projects you can add) - but I hear you, we are currently testing this pricing model and open to feedback.

I can see how having a demo would be beneficial, perhaps a middleground would be having a demo video (as making our private app public would take a bit of work).

Happy to connect! https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrickard

Thanks again mate.


How are you finding RV life?

Wife and I finished a Nullarbor run to Perth recently from NSW and camped along the way, mulling over picking up a sprinter van in the near future and remote working around Australia as theres so much to see and do.


Yeah it was amazing. Finished the lap of Aus and a little more, and now pretty happy to be back in an apartment (at least for a while!) Started of with a converted Toyota Hi-ace, but upgraded to a beast https://twitter.com/chrisrickard/status/1527521824430608384


Awesome stuff, that's a decent sized rig!

Enjoy the 'stable' life for a bit


Neat post. I just spent a couple months in analysis paralysis trying to figure out what stack to use for a new website. So many pros/cons. I learned a ton and feel like I'm up to speed with all the latest frameworks, backends, ORMs, etc.. I remember way back when loving PHP and since then I've used a ton of frameworks/languages for different jobs over the decades..

Anyways, I picked Next.js and am really liking it so far. It has the right mix of front and backend that is feeling really productive. Server side rendered that gracefully translates into something that can easily be updated client side.

I've got a test site set up pretty quickly, the frontend with react being one way data bound is a super simple data model to understand. TSX gives static typing with html templates which I love. Especially being able to use html in javascript. Components in react are simple to create easy to refactor code into. I've used MUI for controls and my site looks pretty good.

Testing was easy to setup for both the front and back end with jest. I can attach the debugger simultaneously to both the back and frontend code with the same instance of VS Code which is a neat trick. I can share the same TypeScript DTOs with server and client side code super easy. React Query and Axios work great communicating with the server. The hot reloading on save is super nice, I can make a change to front or backend and my site automatically updates while maintaining state.

It is a bit of a house of cards with so many different packages mashed together the chance is high at least one of them is going to be obsoleted. I do like frameworks that are more kitchen sink, that I can rely on for many many years. Part of reason for choosing Next/react is that it seems to be the most active. I really envy code bases in languages that never die - C, SQL, .Net, etc.. I'm definitely one of those people fatigued by the constant churn in our industry and I just want something I can be productive in, build a nice big app on, and won't get the rug pulled out from under me.

Anyways for now I feel like I found it - hopefully it has some good life ahead of it before the next big thing!


What am I passionate about at the moment?

Hmm. Last week I got "on the air" for the first time in years. Operating on 20 meters with a well designed but temporary home brew wire antenna. I made contact with people from Italy, the UK, Germany, Spain, Portugal and Japan in a period of two hours. It went very well.

Right now I'm designing a permanent, high performance antenna system, planning it out and lining up the materials. It's not easy. There are many factors involved; the compromises of engineering. My hat is off to anyone that ever manages to build a low cost, large antenna that can survive the elements and perform well.


Especially if you’re space-constrained, I’d like to see your antenna.

Currently fiddling with the length of a not-so-long wire on a 1:9 UnUn, up the 2m that my tree and neighbor situation permits.


It's down now and I didn't take photos. It's an end-fed (64:1 transformer) sloped 20 meter dipole at 65' (19.8 meters.) I built a pair of very good chokes to stop the common mode inherent in these antennas. Had it tuned perfectly using an analyzer and about 10 iterations of trimming.

I have large trees on a good bit of land in the middle of nowhere and I can do as I please. I just can't spend what I please. :) Unfortunately the tops of such trees -- the part I'm trying to hang stuff on -- move a lot in the wind. They are a poor foundation for a permanent antenna.

My plan is a horizontal multiband doublet at 70'+ fed with 600 ohm ladder line and an automatic remote tuner. That will deliver 5 or more bands with decent radiation lobes. About 50' of marine grade bungee will support it. The main thing I learned is that if you're hanging something from the twiggy, weak branches on the tops of trees it must be light. Just small gauge wire and support rope. No ferrites or coax or anything like that.


I am passionate about learning about different cultures and languages.

Over time, and due to some setbacks in the early part of my career, I lost this passion of mine somewhere while playing catchup with the rest. Things are now becoming more stable on the career side. And I want to channel that inner curious person in me again - who wants to see the world, explore places, learn about different cultures, societies, languages etc. - and share that with people.

I grew up in an environment where travel is regarded as an extreme luxury: my parents have never been abroad. I, on the other hand, truly feel happy when I am in a very different environment - observing, learning, immersing myself in a different place and culture.

Apart from English and Hindi, I self-learned reading/writing Urdu, I can speak fluent Russian, and German/Polish/Ukrainian on a basic level.

In the last 2 years, I did the Trans-Siberian journey across Russia and recently visited South-East Asia. I am in India currently and plan to move to Germany in Q1 2023 and start making YouTube videos. Being based out of Europe should make my traveling abroad easier.

While there're gazillions of YouTube channels in travel/living abroad segment already, I don't want to chase after the fame of a "YouTuber" Nonetheless, I find that videos/photos accompanies by commentary are better ways to share your journey than a blog only.

What is stopping me is that I get into analysis-paralysis a lot and feel shy about sharing my vlogs - I want it look perfect and capture everything but end up sharing barely anything.

I am gradually working on it by being more intentional - making Instagram stories and sharing videos with commentary on my family groups on WhatsApp. I very much hope that I'm able to Germany by Spring and look forward to tips/suggestions on YouTube vlogging, storywriting, travel and just support in general.


I've been working for the past two years on software/tools for carbon measurement, with mixed results. I am a bit frustrated because I put a lot of effort into creating something that I thought would push the field forward 10 years but it feels like it's going nowhere while at the same time I see others peers getting 10M-100M valuations for a product with much less features. Marketing is #1, it's been said countless times but I never learn ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Anyway, today I woke up with a small-ish idea on my mind and have been doing some research around it the whole day, it has a new nice spark to it and I feel again refreshed and happy to be working again on something I care a lot. It has to do with building the cheapest possible standalone sensors with sat. comms (I just heard about swarm.space yesterday, here), the idea is to find a way for it to be self-sufficient wrt energy (solar+battery, but how much can one lower the price). I'm not entirely sure if it will work or not but prototyping it will cost me ~$2,000 which is a fair price to pay for 2-3 months of entertainment.

Also, I wish there was something like HN in the physical world, as I enjoy this site a lot and I figure it would be super nice to meet the people here IRL.


I enjoyed reading about your projects. I agree it's maddening what "makes it". Reminds me of the famous web article "Worse is better".

Good luck with the new idea. You'll never know unless you try!


Would it be possible to build a business that were completely public and transparent?

Every dollar that was spent would be published publically. All source code would be made free and permissive, open source. Users would always own their own data and could frictionlessly share with each other.

There would be no advertisements. All analytics would require explicit opt in and be visible to the general public.

The app would be localized to all languages, using heuristics and machine learning to perform the bulk of the translations, with human verification.

The app would be an attention focuser, calendar, general search, peer-to-peer connecting, encrypted, public monstrosity. It would be subtle and discrete, running just out of reach of direct human interaction.

u0.vc


Sounds a lot like https://puri.sm, which I am currently passionate about. They're not transparent about their spendings though unfortunately, but it might change I hope.


hey there is a twittermovement called #buildinpublic where people at least show their progress in public. some to that extend that they have a page where you can see all money spent and received as well as other metrics. the user levelsio is doing that for exmaple with his SaaS products


Intrested.


I've been passionate about learning classical guitar for a few years, but that's really ramped up since COVID lockdowns. I'm working through a standardized exam system, and completed my grades 5, 6, 7 and recently, 8.

During part of the process I realized that I wanted to get feedback on my raw practice sessions - think 30 minutes warming up with C major scales, followed by an hour working on one line of a piece - so I started streaming on Twitch and posting incremental progress videos to YouTube and TikTok (@jcpractices everywhere). That's been an incredible experiment - the "hobbyist classical music practice streamer" space is a niche^5, but my small growing community is so encouraging to keep going.

According to my new teacher (who also streams!), I'm playing at the senior recital level at an average university, or at the 1st year level of a student at conservatory. It feels like such a huge accomplishment as someone who started in the evenings after work at 25. I'll never be a "great player" or make meaningful money from it, but it's one of those hobbies that I plan to pursue for the rest of my life for the sheer enjoyment. I'm looking forward to seeing how far I can get.


Congrats on this! I'm told it's one of the most difficult instruments to learn. While I also took lessons over the pandemic and play every day I am not that far yet, as I just wanted to be able to play a few Bach preludes without requiring the trappings of civilization, and so have what I call "campfire Bach" in my rep. These are the true original pieces (some transposed for the guitar arrangement), but other musicians typically say, "I'm used to hearing that piece played by people at a much higher level." :) I will likely never be invited to perform, but in the woods around a bonfire among friends with heads full of fungi under the stars, that's how I wanted to appreciate the beauty of his work.

While I can't play this guy's yet, my winter project is to take a shot at one of Alan Mearns' new arrangements. (https://www.alanmearns.com/) Highly recommend, and godspeed!


So happy to hear you’re giving CG a shot as well! That attitude and image of “Campfire Bach” is excellent, are you practicing BWV 999 Prelude in Dm yet? That was my first intro to Bach - such a wonderful tune, and a little easier than other Bach pieces for guitar.

I’ve heard really great things about Mearns’ arrangement of the Chaconne (which I’m tackling now, against my better judgment). I gave it a very brief read and thought it was interesting with campanella fingerings, but thought the change to E minor is a little too out there for me right now. I might take another look now, though! Thank you for the reminder :)


BWV 999 was my first, it's such a pleasure, then 846 (wtc 1), and this year's project was 1007 and have it down as well, but after hearing Mearns' version with a whole bunch of the implied counterpoint filled in, it's almost embarrassing to play the original now. I'm thinking my next project is his bwv 847, and I have been warming up to it by slightly rearranging bwv 846 by adding an alberti bass note via a sort of travis picking technique, akin to what Mearns did with his bwv 1007 arrangement. Skill wise, the Chaconne is probably a decade away for me right now, but this winter I may get his wtc c minor prelude down, then go back to foundations with instruction again so I can tackle more serious pieces. To play CG well takes everything, and its been a long time since I gave that to something. Glad to see someone else take it up a bit later as well.

Happy trails! :)


Excellent!! I'll have to look into that Mearns arrangement of BWV 1007. I worked on that one for my RCM 8 exam - shameless plug, but a "final" recording from this time period is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpTm_J8p9eU It's far from perfect, but I'm proud of where I got it

Would love to connect over YT / Twitch / whatever and follow your journey! Happy trails to you too


That's fantastic. I don't do anything recorded and this HN account is the extent of my social media presence. Is that the RCM arrangement by McFadden? It has some additional cool ornamentation I didn't have in the version I got from the Wener edition. Yours has a few additional bars near the crescendo and the addition of some bass counterpoint on the low D that I am missing in my version. Mearns takes it to a totally different place to where it's a very different piece. I also really liked your glissando as it sustains and reveals the symmetry of the whole piece really well. Humbling and intriguing! Thank you for sharing it!


Been going to the gym for the past six weeks and trying to get in shape and learn more about good form. Done wonders for my posture and mental health. Hoping to make it long lasing habit! Thanks for posting, stranger.


For people who hate going to the gym but want to get stronger/healthier I recommend the book “Body by Science”. I have more than doubled my body strength following it. And only spending 15 min a week in the gym (!)


It's all about form! Good form = less risk of injury. Good form = opportunity to reach higher potential. As a former personal trainer it makes me happy to hear this. :)


Yeah I've been having some regular PT sessions in between workouts. Amazing how much more motivated you feel and better you perform getting some 1-1 advice and teaching from an expert. Was both a humbling and rewarding experience and highly recommend to anybody wanting to get into going to the gym.


Hello guys, it's my first time posting here !

Actually, I'm passionate about Lisp dialects, I always been fascinated by languages, when I was a kid, I used to try to learn new languages (Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, ...).

When I was 15, I found out I had a leukemia, a severe form of blood cancer, I had so much free time that I decided to learn programming languages. It was really like a revival, the idea that you can express every ideas into code was mind blowing and a cure for me. I really have a special relationship with programming languages.

Now that I finished my studies at 42 school in Paris and that I have more free times, I can concentrate on what I dreamed to do.

One day, I read the Unicorn Project by Gene Kim and discovered Clojure, which is a dialect of Lisp. I read a lot on the subject, the history of this dialect, the idioms, the functional thinking behind it.

It was mind blowing, the idea that you can express pretty much everything with a little set of atoms ... wow !

So when I find threads on Lisp on HackerNews, I'm always reading it!

Also, I dream about make my own toy programming language, probably a Lisp dialect that will compile to Python bytecode, something like Hy, just to practice.

I take all the advice in my adventure with Lisp !

I'm also passionate about computer science history, last year, I had saved enough money to go to Silicon Valley. For me, it was like a pilgrimage, I visited some historical places, Stanford, the HP house, Palo Alto, Fairchild Semiconductor last place, and of course the Computer History Museum, It was the first time I passed around 6 hours reading every panels.

I'm really thankful to the author of this thread as it was helpful for me to found a place where I can finally express those ideas I had in my mind.


> make my own toy programming language, probably a Lisp dialect

I've learned a lot from the "Make a Lisp" project. If you haven't seen it, I'm sure you will enjoy studying it. https://github.com/kanaka/mal


Thanks for the link and the feedback on MAL.

I plan to do it, I also saw interesting projects like implementing a compiler in Lisp, on `build-your-own-x` repo : https://github.com/codecrafters-io/build-your-own-x


Nice, that's a great resource! Thanks for sharing.


I highly recommend writing your own Lisp from scratch. It is a fun project! I have done it more than once and in different languages.


Have you produced anything interest that you could share using lisp/closure/common lisp?


For now, nothing really interesting, it's only guided projects I did with the book Practical Common Lisp by Peter Seibel and coding challenges on HackerRank and Codingame or projects in Clojure but always guided.

Its a little bit weird because I'm used to do a lot of projects in other languages, but I struggle at beginning new projects in Lisp, its really different from what I'm used to think.

But you're right, I really need to do projects in Lisp, its been a long time since I want to do my own blog and I really think I'll do it in CL or Clojure/Clojurescript.

If you have project ideas, I'll take it. :)


Great post. At the moment I'm really interested in Andreas Kling's Ladybird web browser [0], LibWeb and the videos he live streams [1] of development. It's been a long time since anyone's built a browser for fun instead of profit (don't get me started on what Mozilla has turned into). A lot of people will say it's impossible but at the start nobody imagined Linux would become what it is today. Either way it's extremely fascinating and educating for me to watch him build the thing, see how his thought process works, how he debugs it by just picking random websites and fixing whatever doesn't work, etc.

[0] https://github.com/SerenityOS/ladybird

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2LuvCAUvW0


I'm replying to your thread. Will our interaction remain visible to visitors of Hacker News in an hour? A day? A week?

The element of human interaction that you're missing was lost when social media gave up on archiving threads the way forums did, and where followup replies to the thread bumped it to the top of the index.


I am very grateful that algolia exists, as I very often search for opinions of HNers. I have found some solid advice in posts from 2010, opinions on tech from 2008. Yes it is not eternal, but nothing is.


I'm a night owl, always have been, always will be, but we live in an early bird world, and fitting in with that is worth a lot.

So at the moment I'm passionate about fixing my daily routine to finally get enough sleep, and get to work early, leave early, and hopefully have energy to do things in the evening.

I've changed all my clocks back one hour so that psychologically it's easier to stomach. I have a light set on a timer to turn on in the morning, and strict bed time.

I can work flexible hours, but somehow showing up at 9:30 I always felt like I was "late" and felt rushed, and then having to keep working until 17:30 felt hard too. Doing the exact same hours but arriving 6:30 to 7:00 means I now feel like I'm ahead of the game each day, and I get to leave early, and there's still daylight when I leave work which is a huge motivator.


Oh man, I can relate to that a lot... have you experimented with melatonin? A really low dose (0.3mg) of it at around 11-12pm helps me tremendously with keeping my rhythm somewhat in check. I still make liberal use of option to work whenever I want, but at least I'm not in "get up at 2pm" mode anymore.

But it seems you've found a pretty good way of managing your sleep already, arriving to work at 6:30 sounds like an alien world to me. How have you managed that? Just the strict bed time? Doesn't that mean you lie awake for an eternity?


I've not tried anything like melatonin. I originally believed that if I normally go to bed at 1am, trying to sleep at 10pm would have me just lying awake, and the only way to change my sleep cycle was to force myself to get up early, so that I'd be tired earlier. That turned out not to be the case.

It was more a psychology thing. Before, I'd wake up absolutely exhausted, be tired at work all day, come home, fall asleep on the couch, make dinner. Then, I wouldn't want to go to bed because the idea of that being all my day was, was just too depressing. I wanted a few hours of actual life where I could just relax and watch TV.

They say the first step to beating alcoholism is admitting you're an alcoholic. Well, the first step to beating my problem was accepting I'm a wage slave. Yes, I sell a significant proportion of my waking life to a company in exchange for money. Until I can win the lottery that's the constraints of my life, so I could carry on as I was, or work within those constraints and make the best of things.

There is no better feeling than waking up needing the loo, and you still have four more hours before your alarm goes off instead of four more minutes. Getting to bed early is 90% of it.


I highly recommend listening to this specific episode of the Peter Attia podcast: https://pca.st/episode/eafed9b7-a673-4b84-8dc3-46684eeba9ad


Thanks, I'll give it a listen.


I go through phases of being passionate and fixated on something, always reading about them, buying them, etc. Sometimes say, knives, sometimes computers, gadgets, etc.

Right now on colognes. Kinda just hit me out of nowhere. Learning a ton about different notes, how they change over time, etc. I must have bought 25 in the past couple months. So, I guess that's my current passion.


Recommend a good daily driver that’s affordable?


If you just want to smell nice and not overbearing or trying to impress...Issey Miyake Pour Homme or Dolce and Gabbana Light Blue. Issey is probably my all time favorite, it's so different and refreshing. But it's pretty neutral.

If you want to smell more overbearing and 'sexy', Armaf Club de Nuit Intense Man. It's a powerful Aventus clone. I consider Aventus the perfect 'man trying to be sexy' scent, and they nailed it. But it would get annoying smelling it all day in an office, IMO.

If you have specific tastes lemme know, Cremo also makes really nice cheap stuff. And also really bad cheap stuff :p.


Thanks for the tips! That's a rabbit hole I went down a few years ago as well, but I only reached the point where it all became too complicated and I ended up with a random cologne from a Rituals outlet... which I still quite like, but I could have saved myself a lot of research, lol. But if I ever want to get into that world again, I now have some decent points to start from!


Awesome! Any tips for application? Like one spray on the neck sort of thing? Looking to just overall be that guy that smells good all the time, but not overbearing


For strong ones, just neck and wrists.

For lighter ones, it's up to you. Doing the above won't last long. I'd just spray mist at a couple foot distance 3 or 4 times and let it fall on you.


Hey, this post made me remember a feeling that I had long forgotten. Thank you.

I write short stories in Turkish. I wanted to become a skilled writer ever since I can remember. So I started to keep a dairy. I have been writing since -give or take- two years, nearly every day. I also post some short stories of mine, when I have some.

Best part of it is when go back in time and actually like some of things you have written a long time ago. It is common for me to dislike my own writing so that rare feeling gives me a lot of strength to continue.

Hope this gives some of you out there some inspiration and I appreciate any advice/ideas you might have!


I have been focused on many things through the years, but my only true passion is making music. My current passion is the 1960s Martin Style 0 I picked up at goodwill for $0.50. I enjoy playing it and am looking forward to setting up my PC after a recent move to record music. I generally cannot play well without others, so I desperately need to lay down a track and play off of that. I play by ear. I could play for years on an instrument by myself and create some beautiful things, but with another person or a track a lay down myself, my fingers play a totally different tune. I played a cello tonight for the first time and it was wonderfully fun. I think one day I may just give everything up to be a musician. It is the only thing I truly love.


I usually tell people that I am passionate about technology. I don’t know if that is true anymore. Ever since the pandemic hit, something has changed.

I used to be passionate about wave surfing. That was all that I could think of. Now, I have not been in the water since my first kid was born six years ago. I need to change that. I need to go surfing again.

Oh. And hello from Sweden, by the way. I’m very much a real person. I am one of those people you met in the early days of Quake, when you thought “there is a real person behind everyone of those!”


potential bullshit warning [1]:

Parents who take time for themselves and don't _just_ live for their kids tend to end up happier and with better relationships with their children as they grow up.

[1] I don't have children of my own, so wtf do I know. But: My lifestyle, spending a lot of time practically living with my friends and their families, allows me to get a fairly deep insight into a large set of varied families over the last 20y.


Also have no kids myself but can support this observation with N=2 anecdata.

Couple of friends who continued to live their lives - with the kids as additional features - have ended up with kind, intelligent, thoughtful little people.

Other couple who didn't have much adventurous spirit to begin with and sacrificed everything about themselves to do "parenting" have ended up with selfish, rude little shits.


For the past ~5 years I’ve been pursuing distance running at a moderately high level. My original pipe dream was to qualify for the Olympic Trials Marathon - the slowest qualifying standard is 2:18 (5:16/mile), but lately I’ve discovered I’m more talented at the 800m/mile, so my goal is now to run under 4:10 in the mile, and maybe one day break the 4 minute barrier.

This process has taught me a lot about myself and about life - mindset, discipline, ambition, maintaining a good attitude, avoiding burnout (physical and mental), exercise physiology, how to coach and be coachable, be a supportive teammate, and how to sustainably pursue a ~10-year goal. I do think this journey comes at a time and energy cost to pursue tech things (side projects, new langs/tools/frameworks) but at the same time, I think the lessons from pursuing anything really ambitious cross-pollinates to other areas including career.

Would be interested to hear of any other stories of people pursuing other hobbies at a somewhat high level while simultaneously pursuing career ambitions! Thanks for the post.


Hi, your comment really resonates with me. I pursued playing beach volleyball in the US at a professional level for several years, and though I was never a top-10 US player, I could hang/train with them and had a few good pro tournament results. During this time, I was a software engineer at Google and then a research engineer at DeepMind.

I get excited when I hear about people that go _deep_ into a hobby while doing their careers; it is hard, but absolutely worth it. Would love to chat more if you're interested!


Thanks capturing this feeling about the early internet and hello from Nigeria. I am in the process of setting up my farm. Starting with 12 hectares with the plan to increase to 100 in the next 3 years. It’s totally different from tech but interesting. On the tech side, I am focused on leveling up my fundamental skills so, I finally summoned up the will to begin going through my Elements of computing systems book (on chapter 9 :) ). I must say that it’s been a refreshing experience.


Do you come from a farming background?

And do you live at the farm?

I ask because I have a couple of tiny farms in my life, but can't live near the farms. Curious what other people are doing with "tech and farm" combinations.


No I do not come from a farming background. I don’t intend to live at the farm. I intend to recruit people to run it day to day (labor is still cheap in Africa). Learn and adjust along the way, and if it’s successful, scale it.


Cool, any online resources you’d recommend? Any “ag-tech” you’re interested in for a small farm?


Right now, I am speaking with local farmers and putting everything in MS Excel and will use that to set up a management system. I am watching a lot YouTube best practices videos on the crop am interested in. When I have lift off at the traditional level, then will I add tech. Some ideas I have are around moisture monitoring using soil sensors to do JIT micro irrigation as well as pesticides applications. But these are still far off.


I'm... kinda super pedantic about.. names. So I love domain names. I spent hours and hours on my kids' names. I'm crazy when it comes to naming things like how to make good variable names and I could argue endlessly about names. I love witty names. I love word plays. Anyone like that out there? :) I've also made a tool called Newsy to make good use out of all my domain names that I am not using.

https://newsy.co


I’m so with you on this. I’ve always loved naming projects and the puzzle of naming variables in increasingly complex systems. Sometimes, if I’m at a loss of a clever one, I use derivations of Greek words for relevant words, and those tend to turn out nicely.

Also, love the Newsy idea! (and name of course)


I like it. However: pricing. If you trust that it will work you would offer a transparent income sharing, for example 1/3 for you 2/3 for me with a credible income UI would be an acceptable offer.


Hola from San Francisco. My niece just turned 13 and really wants a model of the demogorgon from Stranger Things. I've been 3D printing for a few years and found a pretty nice little diorama I hope she'll like. I started working on the stl files and will be organizing and editing them to be printable. Then I'm hoping I will have time in the next few weeks to post-process the parts and paint everything in time for Christmas.


Cool project! Greetings from Belgium.


I'm playing with remedial graph theory and geometric sums. It's for a silly hobby, helping my friends and I write branching fiction novels together. (It's like choose-your-own-adventure but literary, not second-person.) Each chapter has x choices at the end - usually 1 or 2, sometimes more, 0 for conclusions. Threads can merge. Moderators have a desired average thread length. Chapters have an average word count. And there's a maximum story size for each.

Quite a knotty problem! Most of my authors hate math, and they all invariably love putting as many choices at the end of a chapter as the system will allow, so if you let them, you'll pretty quickly get to "heat death of the universe" estimates on when the story will be completed. So I have to code in some controls that project how big the stories will be, given what has been written so far. Then introduce some automated controls that communicate things like, "No, Moderator X, you cannot ask for three choices at the end of every chapter anymore, because you already want a desired thread length of 13 and your authors are averaging more than 1100 words per chapter. Only single-choice chapters are allowed for the time being. Merge some threads, that will help. Tell your authors to write shorter chapters."

Anyway, I'm writing those controls now. And that doesn't even get into the shape of graphs - how some can have more choices (edges) early in the story (graph), leading to shorter path (thread) lengths, and how so can have more choices later in the graph... and all of this affects the projection of how big the story will end up being, given a probable path length.

Oh and I also had to figure out how to solve for r in the geometric sum formula, which you can't do, so I got to write an approximation algorithm to find it.

Anyway, it's pretty fun. Exponential math can be addictive. It's similar math to projecting covid or the money in your retirement accounts, except more fun and less depressing. Plus, my authors are good, funny writers, and I think this will make the stories better with good plot and good conclusions, as opposed to soap operas that meander along forever. One of the stories is almost done, which means I'm also playing with markdown export, LaTeX, Pandoc, and KDP to get actual printed books.

It's all just for stupid fun, no sane hope of commercialization, just books for our own bookshelves. We've also been surveying our friends to see if we can find more authors.


I'd love to hear more and read the result.


My latest passion is cheating at solitaire.

One of my favorite hobbies is reverse engineering and modding video games, old and new. Zachtronics recently released a bundle of solitaire games collected from all of the wonderful games they released over the last couple years. I built a program that injects code into the game, reads the game's memory to find the board state, and passes that into an automated solver. I also figured out various ways to trick the game into thinking that the board has been solved.

Reverse engineering games is incredibly fun, and you can learn a lot as well!


A very cool topic. Similar to that, mimikatz has a minesweeper functionality. You can use it to dump passwords and kerberos tickets, or just cheat at minesweeper https://github.com/gentilkiwi/mimikatz/blob/c78b1cf37c517ae9...


Spent most of the year building an origami folding webapp via English-like structured command texts. I've been asked why I choose this difficult endeavor, and I don't really have a true answer to it, other than being too naive about my ability to make it work and falling for the sunk cost fallacy. It's now beyond where getting away from it makes sense, so hopefully the remaining blockers are solvable and people will enjoy using it.

Find my contact in my profile and ping me if you're interested in seeing it before launch.


I found a passion in understanding oneself (thyself?) and trying to understand one's emotions and thoughts, distinguishing them, breaking down and then finding root case + future next steps that help people move or transition their life further.

Perhaps its philosophy or some sort of self-authoring programme that helps with inaction, tough situations and

The cause is mostly because I felt stuck for too long without not knowing what to do next. I could have gone on the script of changing jobs, cities etc. but it felt like escapism instead. It takes very deep introspection and a lot of writing to come up with reasons and feelings that help that understanding and I am still in the process, however thoroughly enjoying it!

I believe it is one of the most fundamental and important "meta-skills" these days.


Has this all been introspection, or are there external resources (like books) you used?


Overall tonnes of reading and articles over internet. Some of them very shallow, some of them quite thoughtful. I am working on a prompt based email sequence to basically invoke some of the thoughts that are targeted at this.

One external resource you can take a look at is Jordan Peterson's Self-authoring program. Otherwise, all it takes is really just 20 minutes with a blank markdown editor and type out how are you feeling today, what is bothering you and any other thoughts that you have :)


This is interesting to me, because I've grown up in a time where I have (largely) not had the opportunity to see what the internet was like in the earlier days. It's only recently that I've come to realize: the internet used to be very different.

Anyways. I'm currently interested in healthcare, specifically medicine. I think that it would be satisfying to treat patients and potentially save their life, and then to realize that the doctor and patient have probably never had contact before, and might never have contact again in the future. Just one stranger caring for another.

I'm not completely set on it, but there's many paths to follow at this point. I'm currently a SWE, and just feel that I want something more. To help people. To make their lives better.


I wonder what a field guide to the old internet would look like.

Here are some things I might include if I was writing such a guide:

All-time top stories on reddit in 2006: https://web.archive.org/web/20060415194256/http://reddit.com...

reddit was originally a bit of a niche site for a tech audience, kinda like Hacker News. However, techies used over-represented on the internet anyways. "The internet used to be a lot more like HN" is generally a pretty decent first approximation.

This is the reddit story which best captures the curiosity and wonder of its early days for me: https://www.garlikov.com/Soc_Meth.html

Aaron Swartz's blog would be another thing I would include: https://old.reddit.com/domain/aaronsw.com/top/?sort=top&t=al...

A few decades ago there was a strain of progressive techno-optimism which has all but died out by this point. "Information wants to be free", Creative Commons, excitement about Wikipedia, Clay Shirky, One Laptop Per Child, Obama hope & change. I think of Aaron as being the poster child for that -- both a hacker and a progressive activist, advancing internet technology because he felt like it would help us advance as a society.

Another thing I'd point to is Eric S Raymond's stuff. He was one of the major pioneers of the open source movement:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html

http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/

If you want a book to read, I've recently been reading a book "Because Internet" which includes a linguistic history of the internet, going back to the earliest days.


Wow, thank you for sharing this. Reddit was indeed just like HN.

https://web.archive.org/web/20060415194256/http://reddit.com...


The top submission actually ends up being a surprisingly good guide to what was going on with the internet circa 2005

https://web.archive.org/web/20060313005123/http://www.paulgr...

An interesting point is that the non-techies who initially used the internet socially were mostly teens and young adults on sites like MySpace, Xanga, LiveJournal, etc. (and IM services like AIM -- essentially like Google Chat) If you want to see what MySpace was, I suppose tagged.com is the nearest modern equivalent?


It had its dark moments too: see the in-depth coverage of the SCO saga and related at groklaw.net


Thank you for posting this! Excellent idea.

Currently, I'm passionate about nailing pinch harmonics on the guitar. I've been struggling to get the right sound but I'm looking forward to the day I can do that so that I can cover so many amazing songs that use it!

Also, spending some time learning about docker extensions and thinking of some ideas of what kind of extension I can make :)


What is the trick for making them work? I tried a few times and gave up -- just couldn't get even close enough to iterate & improve.


Crank up your distortion and try to move the spot where you pick - for any position of the left hand there will be couple spots where they'll be easiest to make.


The tip of your pick should be really close to the tip of your thumb, that's the main point for me.


Hello from Seattle!

I’m here for the fall working on flight software for literal internet satellites and having the time of my life. Hope you’re enjoying life as much as I am!


Out of interest roughly how much "flight capacity" (self motion ability post orbit injection) do literal internet satellites have?

Are we talking small gas thrusts, magnetorquer's, etc?

If it's mag torque, how much GMF modelling is involved?


I’m definitely not allowed to say, sorry!


Figured - always worth a try :-)

( FWiW I can think of several other ways to twitch a sat )


I can say that they have multiple station keeping and orientation methods. The ion thrusters are public info!


There's been some interesting work on rigid body attitude control with sliding weights of late (as an alternative to gyros) - all fun stuff.

My main hope for internet satellites and other massive constellations is they all shutdown over radio quiet zones and ideally do something about being so shiny in the sun .. I'm a fan of radio astronomy and the night sky.

Fingers crossed. :-)


Can’t say more :)


I am interested in multithreading, parallel computing, lockfree algorithms, distributed systems and database internals and programming language implementation.

I am interested in large numbers of requests per second for highly performant systems.

I wrote a parallel imaginary assembly interpreter which can send integers and code jumps between threads. This is backed by an actor system that I wrote and integrated with the interpreter that can communicate between threads. The actor system can handle between 19-100 million requests per second depending on variation. The interpreter can handle 674,552 requests per second with method sending and 1703141 without. Some variations generate messages upfront, others in parallel and others as the program works.

I am working on a multithreaded language. I want to avoid data races similar to Rust.

If you are interested in parallelism and programming language design then send me an email. Maybe we can join Multiprocess community on Discord ran by eatonphil. That server has advanced groups for operating system development, programming languages and database internals.

Things I am thinking of lately:

- automatic parallelization of code

- python GIL and threading. I need a method of sending complicated objects between interpreters that doesn't involve marshalling. I think I need to write an custom block allocator.

I also journal my computer software ideas in the open on GitHub

https://GitHub.com/samsquire/ideas4


That sounds awesome!


I just spent the night dancing. That's what I am mostly passionate about, discovering peer-to-peer and building trust. Hoping to see people participate in the future they want rather than suffering the present that they believe inevitable.


Hello.

I appreciate this gesture, and also feel nostalgic for the primordial internet. I try to hold on to what felt magical about it to me in the early days.

One of the remaining things left in my life that I feel passionate about is technology and programming. I've had a difficult time dealing with depression and that has cost me my career, but the one thing that keeps me going is learning new stuff and working toward mastery of my craft.

I hope you have a great day, as well :)


I’m sorry to hear you’re struggling through that. Hold onto the magic; I don’t think it’ll ever go away. I hope you’re able to find some respite and recovery! Be well.


Oooh, a chance to promote my passion work! I’m in the process of producing my second album. It’s a full-length concept album in the spirit of the 70s music I grew up listening to.

I have 2 singles out now that 2 or 3 actual people listen to occasionally, I think.

I’ve been spamming social media trying to find 2 or 3 more people on the planet that might enjoy it.

Social media is an insane place. All the major sites are overflowing with scammers and scumbags. I could only stay on TikTok for 5 minutes before I had to delete it and question the future of humanity.

Anyhoo, I love the process of creating music and am working with amazing professional musicians this time around. All online, which is wild.

Besides the daily trauma of visiting social media dystopia, I’ve found a few really valuable sites that have been immensely helpful, for relatively low cost.

I’m going to get back into blogging and am going to try to document as much of this insane journey to nowhere as I can remember.

I also have a day job in tech.

Thank you for posting! HN feels like the last bastion of humanity left in a burning hellscape of a once glorious world that had such potential.

Eventually our position will be overrun, but don’t fret, the Phoenix will rise again and again. The web is dead, long live the web!


Tried to find your albums, but there’s nothing on your profile or comments. Do you have anything online we could listen to? I’m curious about the type of music you’re doing.. All the best!


The name of the band is Fields and Waves… which is also the name of the class that convinced me to bail on physics and to stick with software engineering. :)

Edit: My profile has the band website now.


So, here's the thing - there's a secret world of sports and odd activities that, I feel, only a select few know about, that are both more fun, cheaper, and more beginner friendly than mainstream stuff.

I found, a while back, that things like Lightsaber Fencing, Megagames (board games with 60+ people), dodgeball, Historical Fencing, Ultimate Frisbee, Apenkooi (tag, dodgball, minigames in the Netherlands), etc - I found that those exist. And I finally feel great doing sports - it's great to explore around a bit, do something unusual for once.

The issue is - communities are small, barely known. And it's a wee bit tricky to manage a club as it is, even without doing marketing and outreach.

So I've taken up a project to try and help out. Bundle all the unusuals into one platform, help with club management, help with being seen. In a way, perhaps I can take all of these small activities and form "one big sport" that can grow faster as a result.

Anyway, humble beginnings, but here's the site: https://nogym.co/


I love this concept. It seems closely related to an idea I had: "IRL Adventure Club". Will check you out.


This is what I was looking for half a day yesterday! Will check it out. Sport is way nicer when social. I was also curious what sports can help to replace specific gym exercises like dead lifting, only thought of cycling


Hello from Sydney Australia.

We’ve got some beautiful weather here today (Sunday)! I just went for a surf with my beautiful wife while the grandparents walked our 6 month old around the beach.

I wish the world was a peaceful as our time in the water.


Hello from Colombo, Sri Lanka. I was there on work this September. Incredible place. Like a more chilled out version of New York. I envy your distance from all the crap that's going on in the world.


Sri Lanka, what a beautiful island. I visited in 2020. It was definitely one of my most memorable travels.

The train trip from Colombo to Anuradhapura to Jaffna in third class was so much fun. The people of Sri Lanka are very welcoming. And the food… yum.


Honest-to-goodness, real, face-to-face, unmediated human connection. So much of social/media tech has become a poor substitute for this basic human need. Friends. Family. Community.

Live music jam sessions is currently how I'm creating this in my life. I've found a group of dedicated amateur musicians, we get together and perform for each other. It's a lot of fun. :-D


Hello from SF. I help artists create NFTs of their work for my day job. Lately I've been getting in touch with my artistic side. I'm taking jazz piano lessons which has been creatively freeing as someone who did a lot of rote practice growing up.

I've also been playing around with generative art, with mixed results. I find that I can implement some algorithms (e.g. flow fields) but then I run out of ideas for what to do next. I'm inspired by Tyler Hobbs' writings on the topic so I've been trying to recreate some of his pieces to see what I can learn.


Clock design.

I don't know why, as it seems to be an area already hugely dense in expertise. There are numerous famous designers, and designs, and then there's clock history, old clocks, restoration, etc, with many hugely knowledgeable 'greybeards', and then there are the mechanisms either mechanical or electronic, again with incredibly experienced and talented people involved. And then the market is, not exactly some newly opened frontier where anyone can make a fortune. It seems there are a zillion designs, each with a production run of maybe 1000, except for a few 'classics'.

Into all this, for some reason I, an enthusiast, but a complete novice, and not even a designer, believe I might have something to offer, and have come up with a bunch of clock designs both analog and electonic, actually multiple ranges of clocks each based on a concept, an amazing logo which is more a discovery than a creation, and am slowly making progress toward getting things made, etc.


This post took me back to 1995 when I bought a PC from Best Buy on no interest payment plan, while FOB in US as a graduate student. I downloaded some primitive VoIP App (don't recall the name, seem to remember something Intel had released) and instantly connected with someone in South Africa. This discussion very well captures the feeling I still vaguely remember from back then. PS: I forgot to pay off in time and I had to pay the full accumulated interest along with penalty at the end of the 18 months. Expensive lesson.


I quit my job recently to work on AGI.

I have some unique insights that I wanted to put into practice. The past month has been the most intellectually stimulating, challenging, and rewarding period my life. Some interesting utility has already appeared. I won’t discuss the details but I will say it does not involve statistical learning.

And don’t worry, I’ve read Bostrom :)


That sounds pretty fascinating. I wonder though, with all the dangers inherent in AGI, what makes it still personally worthwhile to work on for you?


> I have some unique insights

Could you elaborate more?


I wish I could, but it is proprietary for now.


I’ve been working on a piece of software (an audio plugin, specifically) to help me make music on my iPad.

There’s a wonderful app called Drambo which lets you create incredible music using both its own built in modules, and plugins from other developers, but it’s lacking (by choice) a “timeline”, where you can record/draw how the parameters of each sound change over time throughout the song - instead you have to control this live.

I’m into quite hypnotic/evolving electronic music and performing it live can be a bit challenging (e.g. if you make a mistake, you have to start over), and I’d love to be able to make music like this without using my laptop, so after evaluating all the software out there which can “sequence” like this and finding none of it meets my needs, I decided to build it myself as a plugin which I can integrate into Drambo.

Usually when I have these ideas for software I don’t get too far with them, but this one is actually already nearly at a point where it‘s usable, which is exciting! To keep things technically interesting, I’ve built it with a combination of C++ (with the JUCE framework) for the audio, and Flutter for the UI, which works really well in terms of fast iteration.

I’ll probably release it free/OSS when it’s ready as I don’t think there’s much money in this kind of software and it’s just built out of passion… it’s currently the thing I end up thinking about when I fall asleep etc. haha. It’s super satisfying to have got this far with a side project.

Outside of that, I was between jobs last week and spent it going on day trips from London and getting reacquainted with photography. My cameras had been gathering dust in favour of my phone, but I’d forgotten what a “zen” experience properly taking photographs can be. I had a wonderful day on Friday in a forest taking photographs of mushrooms for hours - my technique needs work but just the process of doing it was so relaxing. So I’m going to try to get back into travelling to places and doing more photography in future, it gives a nice focus to a trip.


I built an app that integrates with Strava to automatically log the summits you've climbed. Now I'm working on adding summit lists to it, e.g the "New Hampshire 4000 ft. Peaks". And other types of lists, like "you've visited 23/42 National Parks".

There's an old site, PeakBagger.com that is already the de facto resource for summit lists, so I looked to see if they had an API - they do, it's a 7132 meter summit in Nepal. https://www.peakbagger.com/peak.aspx?pid=10613

It's fun. I revisit this project every few years, and experiment with different tools. Currently balancing Rails and React, deploying to fly.io. It's a very small hobby project.


Hello strangers and greetings from Germany. I remember the feeling of the early internet connectedness very well and it was a great time - but so is today.

In the early days I spent quite some time learning POVRay and making 3D stuff. It was mind blowing, back then. Recently I decided to finally learn Blender properly and it still blows my mind how far we've come.

The past was good, the present is better and I'm excited to see what the future will bring.


C++ 3D programmer who learned the basics of modelling and Blender during 2020 lockdown. Boy it was wonderful and I do it time to time. Wife says I'm usually happy doing it than programming.

True, it's amazing where 3D graphics started and how far it has come. Hope you enjoy your learning. Cheers!


Fables.

For the past year or so I’ve been writing a book of fables. I originally began the effort inspired by the book The Little Prince. Over time, I’ve begun reading book after book of fables. I love finding different ones—from the classics like Aesop to Buddhist koans, Persian, Indian, Chinese, Arabian fables.

The format is just so fun and I think the philosophical lessons can be really powerful. I think of it as different parts of different societies trying to gift us with wisdom…all we have to do is open a little book and give it a look!

That said, many of the books I’m reading are old and out of print, so alongside writing my own I want to share the best fables I find. I have a regular newsletter where I write about creativity, drawing, writing… and once I’m done the book I want to share fables through it.


Great! Maybe you can help me out. Some 10 years ago i went to an exhibition in portugal showing old woodcut illustrations of fables. These were released as a book which i held in my hands once but cannot find anymore. I thought the name was montaigne but probably my mind is playing tricks on me.


Fascinating! Perhaps the woodcut illustrations of Mantegna, a renaissance Italian painter?

I did not find a book of fables of Mantegna’s illustrations, but I did find a painting of a fable (The Boy and the Filberts). It is possibly credited to Aesop, but not confirmed. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy_and_the_Filberts

Also worth nothing: During the same period and area, another artist named Verona illustrated a book of Aesop’s fables: “It was also in Verona that the first illustrated edition of the fables of Aesop was published in 1479 (21.4.3), with woodcuts designed by Liberale da Verona, one of the city’s leading painters.” (https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/wifb/hd_wifb.htm)

Do you recall any of the stories or characters in the book you read? Or anything about the book that left an impact on you?


I recall seeing the goose and the golden egg. The illustrations were more 17th centuryish. The name Jean de La Fontaine has been suggested to me a couple of times and this would certainly be fitting but strangely i cannot find the book following this name anywhere. It was a very fine print, hardcover, very elegant with full page illustrations.

Thank you for the link, wonderful illustrations.


Ah! The plot thickens. The Fables of La Fontaine are well known, but I hadn’t heard of Montaigne before. Apparently there is a link!

First there is this: https://www.jstor.org/stable/458505 “Montaigne as a Source of La Fontaine's Fable: La Mort et le Mourant” It notes major similarity and possible link between Montaigne’s philosophical essay and Fontaine’s fable.

But even more interesting is this: https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/1659-essays-michel-de... It’s two books—essays of Montaigne side by side with illustrated (by Hooghe) fables of Fontaine. Not a single book as you described, but interesting to see that there is clearly some connection between the two!


(not OP)

Montaigne is not a Portuguese-sounding word or name, seems more French to me, but "montagem" is a Portuguese word meaning "montage" which sounds generally like what are describing, a montage of fables.


That's cool, I've been thinking to write some fabels as well (although I'm not good at writing)! I enjoy how such tales can be simple and deep at the same time.

If you ever get to complete it I'd love to check it out


Nice! Give it a shot, you never know what might come of it :) I had been writing nonfiction essays when one day a story idea came and I shared it, got some good feedback, then just kept going with it.

They are not easy to write, but the key to the fable is the lesson, so I’m sure if you took one or two you wanted to share you could turn them into a story. Either way, you have some fun with it!

And thanks, I’m approaching the “last mile” with the book after many months of editing (working w an editor). I’m illustrating them too. If you like you can follow along via my newsletter, I share updates there: https://salman.io/newsletter


You are kinda right. But I guess it's kinda inevitable. I am in college right now chasing a computer science degree. Nothing particularly intresting going in my life right now. Life right now is a constant jumble between excitement and boredom. I have a crush on a girl right now even though I rarely see her around the campus and her being from a different class makes things even harder but a crush nonetheless. I haven't been in any kind of relationships other than the usual crushes that degrades over time. I have a feeling this time it's gonna be different. It's just a feeling though. There is always a chance it'a gonna end up like all the other crushes I have had over the years.


Nice, boring is good. I know it's unpopular opinion but true. Good luck with the girl; perhaps make amends to your schedule to increase the chances of meeting her :)

What can I say, one just put effort for something to happen, the actual happening is, as always, beyond us.


Make this time different! Because why not? That feeling could turn into more and feelings can be awesome :)


Hello from Vancouver! I am passionate about movement, but recent injury is preventing that. My new focus is trying to find connection between what I can currently do and what brings joy. It’s a hopeful journey of rediscovery. Thanks for the post and for the real people reading my comment now! I truly hope you all have a moment of happiness tomorrow and know I’ll be thinking of you.


Hello from Atlanta! I'm working on my first academic paper, on f-expressions, which I'm very passionate about. Ran out of time on the first go-around, and submitted to a big conference before it was ready - got rejected. Hoping to avoid that fate this time - it's definitely going to be a lot better, but there's still a lot of work to do.

I've quite enjoyed reading the other responses here - this hit at a great time for me, between the two 1AMs Eastern, when all is quiet and dark outside and I work by lamplight, feeling a bit of that electric connection to everyone here.


Love your attitude—-both submitting early, and learning from submitting too early. Mind giving us f-expression virgins a note or two on why they’re awesome?


I can try, though as the night wears on my brain gets fuzzier...

Basically, f-expressions unify macros and functions. This combined thing is called a "combiner". It works by being different from a macro/function in two main ways: 1) It has a "wrap level" that encodes how many times arguments to this combiner should be evaluated when it is called and 2) it has an extra parameter that receives the dynamic calling environment when the combiner is called. A normal function is simply a combiner with a wrap level of 1 and ignores the dynamic environment parameter. A macro is a combiner with a wrap level of 0 and first constructs new code out of the passed regular parameters before evaluating the entire thing using the dynamic environment that was passed in (using an eval function, like you would find in JS or Python).

The cool bit is that these are all first class, available at runtime, and subsume not only functions and macros but also all special forms in the language! "if" and "let" and "while" can all be normal combiners (albeit built-in ones), and you can define new ones as easily as writing a function would be.

This makes the language much simpler and uniform while gaining expressive power, and fixes a lot of rough edges. (For instance, you can't do the equivalent of "(map and '(true false true true))" in Scheme, because "and" is a macro and thus can't be passed to higher-order functions. It can work just fine in a language built around f-expressions, though!)

The major downside to f-expressions is that they tend to be unbearably slow, since they (normally) prevent pretty much all optimization and remain to re-run over and over at runtime (unlike macros which would be expanded once into new code, and permit optimization and compilation after that).

I've managed to create a partial evaluator + compiler for f-expressions in a pure functional language that can remove most of the overhead for f-expressions that fall in the function-like and macro-like categories, resulting in a reasonably fast language where only the more exotic f-expressions fall back to slower interpretation. Writing it up in an academic paper is proving to be almost as hard and time consuming as solving the problem in the first place, but it'll get there, eventually.

John Shutt's PhD thesis is what inspired me and convinced me of their beauty, as it has for others. It's big and can be dense, but I found it very compelling! https://web.wpi.edu/Pubs/ETD/Available/etd-090110-124904/unr...


That was an excellent explanation and I am now looking over the staggeringly huge thesis. Thank you.


Hello from Hong Kong, I’m a researcher working on speech to facial mesh models that’s language-agnostic. Currently it’s a comfy Sunday afternoon and I’m at my desk downloading a huge dataset. Feel free to reach out in the comments, I have lots of free time while waiting for it to download. Good day to everyone!


Hello from Colombo, Sri Lanka. Been in HK a few times around 2010 (developed something for the Hong Kong Stock Exchange). Awesome place. Hope you'll gradually regain the freedoms you had back then.


Let's hope so - yours as well.


I have been really interested in solar and battery energy storage lately since both have become so cheap. I had wanted to build my own battery for a while now but lithium ion battery tech seemed a little dangerous to put in my garage. But I learned about the newer lifepo4 battery tech and I built a diy 14kwh battery. It's been a lot of fun sourcing din rail mount equipment like breakers and terminal blocks and figuring out cheaper ways to build things like a 100amp automatic transfer switch that is still safe and (somewhat) code compliant (since what is on the market starts around $750 for a general ats). Then I've also followed several YouTubers like Will Prouse and Off-grid garage to find the best Battery Management systems and gotten it all integrated with Home Assistant.

I paired it with a 6kw hybrid inverter/charger that I can later add solar panels to and now have a system that should outperform a Tesla Powerwall in both longevity and capacity. My final cost is around $4k including the hybrid inverter and from what I can tell, the comparable Tesla offering costs around $13k.

I have it setup now to do peak power arbitrage so the batteries charge at night during off-peak ($0.20/kwh) and then the batteries run the whole house from 4pm - 9pm when the rate is $0.54/kwh. This saves around $100 a month on our electric bill so it should pay for itself in 3-4 years while also providing backup power in case of outages.


Making and listening to music, and in particular playing (classical music on) the organ. I learned to play in my youth, but no longer had access to an organ once I left for university. As soon as I could, I did buy a synthesizer, and once I got a paid job, it grew until I had a complete in-the-box studio, but during Covid, nostalgia or some other bug got me, and I bought a (second-hand, digital) classical organ and started playing that. Discovering the literature is great, and playing it by myself is very fulfilling.


Make PRT work (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_rapid_transit)

Inter-city Transit is currently not solved: trains suck, cars suck, metros suck. If you combine them in the right way, you are left with the best of each of them: individual pods managed by an automated central planning system. Small enough to fit in sewers inside the city, elevated outside, dynamically forming trains zipping at 100-200kmh inside the city and going exactly where you want them. Because you don't need tbms, the cost of a whole network is probably on part with a metro system, while having similar capacity and being much faster. Optionally you can have dual-mode pods that "downgrade" to normal cars using normal roads while your guideway network is not fully developed. Everyone seems to have given up on PRT, but I don't see where is the catch. If you do, please tell me.

On my day-to-day I apply deep learning to trading to raise money to do an AI-research lab (been going really well so far). This PRT-thing is an idea I'm obsessed about but it doesn't fit anywhere in my trading+research plans (I call it a mistress project). Anyway If you see the flaw in such a PRT idea please let me know, and I'll be able to discard it and be less distracted in my main AI research.


Greetings from Pennsylvania:

Currently studying for a chemistry and US history test on Monday. Also have an essay and Spanish test on Tuesday so it's going to be tough this weekend.

Wishing the internet a great day!


Don't ruthlessly cheat on your exams! It's not worth it :)

And get a good night's sleep before Monday, 8 hours minimum.


I just got back from the Banff Film Festival, where I saw Fire of Love[1]. It’s the story of French scientists Maurice and Katia Krafft, who become fully devoted to each other and the study of Volcanos for the rest of their lives.

Created using hours of their archival footage, it’s a story driven by a singular shared passion, amazingly found by two people born only 20km apart.

[1] https://youtube.com/watch?v=kz95Xjd3l00


I was there this weekend too! I didn’t catch any films though. But I’m definitely checking this out now.


I just spent the last week figuring out why my telescope blurrs things in the blue channel. i fixed it and now mars looks great

https://www.instagram.com/p/CklqNaop0vz/


It's raining hard here. I've just discovered our roof is leaking. It looks like some of the concreting that held the tiles up has come loose and a large section will need to be replaced.

As I hate heights and know nothing about roofing, so I'm going to have to get a professional in to fix it. This is going to really hurt financially.

Not something I'd bother whinging about here normally but this seems like the place to post it. HN is what's left of the web, HN is home.


I had a serious (buckets) leak when raining and wind was an Easterly. Put off doing anything for years, because I lacked money to pay someone. Anyway, I finally just cut a hole in the gib/drywall when the leak was happening the other day and luckily found the problem that way.

I guess I am saying, give it a go if you can, or alternatively try and do part of the work yourself. Watch some YouTube videos, or ask the advice of friends. In my case I have purchased and put up a cheap scaffolding tower (avoiding one big part of the expense of paying someone else), and I am getting an acquaintance to actually fix the problem.


That's good advice, cheers. I do love to give things ago, plumbing, minor electrical work or even making custom bits and pieces on my lathe.

I'm just not sure about working at heights more than about 4 metres up. I can see tiles loose right up to the apex. Makes me queezy just thinking about it. :D

I'll have to wait for the quotes to come in before I think about what I can do to help.


I had a pretty bad roof leak on an iron / colorbond roof. It was from a stick getting up and under one of the valleys and being just at the right angle to let water into the house. IT really sucked. It was a significant point of stress for me. I just paid to have the problem go away. the money angle hurt, but over a long enough timeline usually these things square up.

Good luck with it.


Thanks. I think you're right it's the worry of not knowing how much it's going to cost and how much damage the current situation is causing that really bothers me.

Just need to get it sorted out.


Hello from Delhi!

I think I'm passionate about making music that I like (the best I can produce with a single MIDI instrument haha) and building (coding) stuff that could help me and others with an overlap in interests.

I've been working mostly on a project (for the past few months). I open-sourced it today, psyched for its future. https://github.com/devclad-inc/devclad

Have a great day!


I like that lo fi approach. As an owner of the original DX7 i feel there is a whole undiscovered world inside despite the fact this synth has been used more than any other. Hard to program though.


Mexican food! I've spent the past 3 years learning to recreate good tortillas. I live abroad in Amsterdam and miss it so much after living in California for decades. I even worked in the best Mexican restaurant in Amsterdam for a month just to learn some of the subtle techniques.

I'm finally at a place where I can make tacos much better than what I would get here and even back in California. I'm currently working on burritos as the next project.


What's the deal with corn tortillas outside of the US and Mexico?

I've found quite good flour tortillas in Central Europe and also in Thailand. But in 25 years of searching I have yet to find a decent, "proper" soft corn tortilla like I can buy in just about any non-fancy grocery store in California.

I keep telling myself there must be a shop in Madrid or Barcelona considering the size of the Mexican expat communities, but even there I have not found any so far.

What gives?


Mostly trouble sourcing the corn from Mexico I believe. https://taiyari.nl/ serves most Mexican places in The Netherlands. It's still not as soft as you'd get from a really freshly made one, although they sell the raw masa as well. The best hack I've found is actually cooking the corn tortillas in a bit of oil to soften them up quite a bit. Works great even with older/frozen tortillas.

I haven't found good flour tortillas, curious what your source is here!


If you’re in Europe, I would vouch for Nuevo Progresso from Czech Republic but their web site is… not helpful. Don’t think they produce much but you can get their flour tortillas in Budapest at Ázsia Bt. You want the simple, white-label ones.

In Thailand, Danitas. Don’t know if they export but they should. They also make tortilla chips that are basically crack, but their corn tortillas are the same dry catastrophe as elsewhere.

For corn, I usually wait until I can bring a hundred back from the US every six months or so.


Awesome, appreciate these tips, will be checking those out as I visit those areas :). I learned how to make flour tortillas from scratch since I missed it so much, corn is def harder to come across. Wrote about it here with full recipe and all https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22786287#22792647


Great cooking is so rewarding. And it’s a great way to get people together :)

Thanks for sharing


Hello from South Korea. I spent my whole day trying to install the latest NetBSD 7.3 onto my Compaq Pentium 3 laptop. I'm passionate on these old computers recently, trying to bring them back to life. A 750mhz Coppermine with 128mb SDRam, or a 1.8Ghz Willamette with 384mb DDR ram.. I love that old times and old machines, similar to my first computers. I can't really think of more to write, but have a nice day. :)


I'm passionate about running. I started with it as a way to lose fat. In conjunction with diet, it worked flawlessly, and I continued to be passionate about it. Around a year and a half ago, I wanted to improve further, so I found a running coach and got better enough to compete in running events. The past Sunday, I competed in my first full marathon in Athens, placing in the top 3%


Reading all the comments on this post made me very happy. I am from Kolkata, India and am finishing up my CSE degree in a few months. I took CS because of my interest in computers and the job prospects of a CS degree. I don't know how to say it but even though I like tech and programming, but I am not sure if I want to do it for a living for the rest of my life. Maybe it has not much to do with programming at all, but mainly with the sense of wonder and anxiety of what the future holds and if it really is my true calling.

Lately, I have been giving in more time to my exploratory side. I am reading books on philosophy and religion. If you want book recommendations, I would suggest books of Herman Hesse. Also, after being raised in a rational and atheistic surrounding, I have realized that ancient philosophers and sages philosophized more 'higher questions' about life, it's meaning, death and what comes after, etc than I thought. They passed on their knowledge to the next generations through religious texts. If you want suggestions on religious books, I would suggest starting with the Bhagavad Geeta.


In college I sat on the floor of my school library and read Siddhartha in one sitting. Great book!


I recently visited Disney World for the first time and fell in love with it. My partner however was disappointed, she also loves Disney World and has visited many times in the past, but on our recent trip she felt like the prices have increased and the quality of the experience diminished.

Because of this I decided to start tracking the prices of Disney World hotels, tickets and flights. I wanted to see how the prices rise with inflation and how they differ at different times of the year.

So I built a website which scrapes prices from the Disney websites (and Google Flights): https://mousetrack.co.uk.

There is already a lot of functionality there, including a Google Flights-like search as well as min/max prices of each hotel plus graphs showing how prices change. Both have helped me find some interesting deals and hacks to get low hotel prices, for example it's possible to save many thousands by creating separate hotel bookings (the disadvantage is that you will need to move rooms, but for some that might be a perk, though I don't know yet how Disney will take this).


Digital death cleaning.

I want create a digital clone of myself. Last month, I scanned decades of journals and recorded music. Next up: organize a personal corpora and apply some ML. Hopefully, the clone will be more interesting than the original.

This is inspired by a conversation I had with Rudy Rucker, who suggested a "headstone". More recently, I read a Wired article where someone used "pullstring" to create an interactive version of his Father, who passed [1]. And then there is Margareta Magnussen's concept of saving your loved ones the chore of slogging through your clutter [2].

I think that I have way too much digital content. Am not famous, so who cares? And yet, my life might make a good toy: worth a few minutes of entertainment. Pull string, indeed.

[1] https://www.wired.com/story/a-sons-race-to-give-his-dying-fa... immortality/

[2] https://www.thespruce.com/swedish-death-cleaning-4801461


Thank you. Just realised that of course this will be a common thing in the future to talk with your ancestors and the more data the ML has, the more real it will feel.


Yeah I wonder what will happen when robust chatbots based on real personas have a conversation [1]

[1] https://news.yahoo.com/news/viral-video-happens-two-chatbots...


Interesting post that reminded me of my Compuserve/Delphi days. I’m pretty passionate about my garden. I’m out there every day picking off caterpillars and frequently googling how to get more yield from a few beds. I have learned there is an economy of scale and it really isn’t cost effective in small lots. But I still enjoy participating in the growing process and enjoying fresh veggies.


Username checks out <3


For some reason this post reminds me of the game Journey, which has drop-in/drop-out anonymous co-op where you just chill with a stranger for a little. Highly recommend it if you like games, it's on sale currently.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/638230/Journey/


I think this concept will be at the root of a future breakout hit.


I'm excited to be working on my tabletop role-playing game company, Silver Gryphon Games.

This morning I wrote a post for the company blog about the work we're doing on a project that was Kickstarted in 2013 but never fulfilled (SGG closed its doors in 2019, but we resurrected it a few weeks ago), and another related project.

I'm determined to fulfill that Kickstarter, even if it ends up being a decade late.


ATL

been thinking about 'refill stations' a lot lately (avoid using single-use plastics / materials) - based on the idea that actual recycling in america is not really a thing.

not so passionate about it - just give it 30 min of thought a day, then move onto the next thing.

but now thinking, maybe other countries actually do do recyling, so maybe it's just a matter of doing more education / legislation activism?


Hello from Bangkok, Thailand! I have always been, and hope to always remain, passionate about art.

Mostly visual art in the "fine art" and "Art World" sense, but also any and all creativity that channels the human spirit to create things (even just ideas) that never existed before in the world.

Yesterday I organized a group of 23 people to see a hotel art fair named Hotel Art Fair[0]. Some were art nerds like me, some rarely look at pictures with intent. The day before, I listened to a musician I like talk about the need to give to your creativity.[1]

Knowing that most people never engage with the world of visual arts, I wish to suggest that if you happened to read this comment, please consider taking a moment to go look at art. Online, or offline if you can. Any style, any medium. Artsy (no affiliation) is a decent starting point and most of the art there doesn't require any special knowledge to appreciate.[2]

The controversial German art-shaman Joseph Beuys[3] said Jeder Mensch ein Künstler, every human is an artist, and I agree. Find your creativity, it's out there looking for you!

[0]: https://hotelartfair.com

[1]: https://youtu.be/SzKFyW9xRnQ

[2]: https://www.artsy.net/collection/trove-editors-picks

[3]: https://www.artnews.com/feature/joseph-beuys-who-is-he-why-i...


Hi from the eastern half of the US!

I too am working my way deeper into visual arts. I’m excited to go see the Edward Hopper exhibit at the Whitney in NYC soon. His ability to light imaginary scenes is very impressive, I hope to learn a lot by seeing his paintings in person.

Do you have any favorite artists or works? And I see you paint as well from your bio, what sorts of things do you make?


I’m American and for me, Hopper captures a uniquely American way of seeing, as well as subject matter. I hope younger generations can see that too. Even if it’s a bleak view it holds important truths.

I have more favorites than I could list but just to name a few from older to newer and not just painters: Max Beckmann, Nam June Paik, Cecily Brown, Cannupa Hanska Luger. These are worth your time!

I am mostly a painter, thanks for asking, and mostly abstract with a lot of abstract-figurative. But I have done multimedia stuff and have a lot of plans.

Don’t want to self promote here but my email is my username at Mac dot com and my Insta is biztigram, always happy to talk about art stuff.

Enjoy the show, and when at the Whitney spend some time on the roof!


Hello and I hope you have a wonderful day as well!

These last few years have been such a strange time for me. I feel very passionate about learning and experiencing new things but at the same time I find myself feeling not too passionate about anything. I typically find something that grabs my interest, holds it for anywhere from a few days to a few months where it sucks me in and I learn everything about it. Then one day I no longer find myself interested in it and I’m on to the next thing. Most recently I’d say photogrammetry, and smoking meat have been the two things that have grabbed my attention though I’ve kind of moved on from the photogrammetry at this point.

I’m currently looking for work but I’ve been trying to force myself to find something I’m passionate about as I’ve jumped from job to job just taking what comes along until I found myself too unhappy to continue doing it. I took a lot of programming in high school before joining the military as a linguist as I never did well in school despite loving to learn. Eventually as time went on I found out I was bipolar and evidently you can’t be in the military if you’re bipolar. Since then I’ve been trying to get a grasp on the whole bipolar thing and just kind of floated along from job to job (mainly in sales as it’s something I’ve always had a background in) and have just kind of found myself existing as life passes me by. I figure that maybe something will stick one of these days and I’ll finally figure it all out. If not, I guess I’ll just keep finding new passions.

What are you passionate about OP?

Edit: I guess I probably should’ve added in gaming as something I’m passionate about as it’s not something I always do but it’s one of the few things (along with reading) that I’ve never lost interest for though I do occasionally wonder if I would’ve been better off had I never discovered it.


Hello from sunny Cape Town, South Africa!

I'm passionate about data and am excited about what's happening in the space with DBT, DuckDB and Apache Iceberg! I contribute to [PRQL](prq-lang.org) to make working with data even easier wherever SQL is spoken. I would love to make this my full-time gig and am keen to chat to co-founders, VCs or existing startups. snth@github


Hello,

I am posting this from NixOS. I am so passionate about it I became a NixOS maintainer, working on packages that bypass Internet censorship so they are available from nixpkgs.

The killer features for me are rollbacks, insulated packages, declarative configuration. I will most likely never worry about breaking my system and being greeted with a black screen with a blinking cursor again.


For me it’s Werner Herzogs Movies. Techno music history and culture. Waiting for Breath of the Wild 2. Visual Design. Unreal Engine. Photogrammetry. Drawing with my kids. This may appear a bit „all over the place“ but i dug quite deep into the things above except for Werner Herzog as it takes some effort to convince my wife watching the movies.


I'm also looking forward to TOTK.

Would love to chat about techno music history. I only have a faint outline knowledge and would gladly accept a brain dump.


sure- dropped you a mail!


Hello from Berlin, Germany. Currently spending my days mostly learning for exams and doing homework. I hate every second of it. Not because I'm opposed to learning stuff. But because I just think other topics are way more interesting and useful for me in the future. Every time I sit there and try to memorize something that I really don't see any value in, I feel such a loss of a lifetime. I just think of all the things I could do instead... (theoretically I could drop out, but I don't have the courage right now)

Honestly, I'm passionate about all those fun little niche coding projects I have written in my notebook and want to work on. But I don't really have the time to develop my beginner-skills to the extent I would like to, for me being able to build them.

If anyone is in a situation where he has uniquely more than average free time. Please use this time to develop a skill, you'll be grateful for it, I can guarantee.


I'm passionate about all those fun little niche coding projects I have written in my notebook and want to work on. But I don't really have the time to develop my beginner-skills to the extent I would like to, for me being able to build them.

Which one especially?


One of them is an app I'd like to build for my galaxy watch that lets me enter data on the go, that is going to be synced with my notion database. This would be super useful for habit tracking.

*this one seems to be one of the more feasible ideas


I’m fairly fresh in the industry though I’ve been programming for 8-ish years or so (finished uni and got my first “real” software engineering job earlier this year) and for most of that time, I never went on HN and was somewhat isolated from the broader world of tech and such until more recently.

Since then, I’ve been getting so excited about people just writing their own solutions for things that might already be doable on existing platforms. Like there are plenty of sophisticated, full-featured blog platforms out there, but I love seeing somebody write and host their own because they can and want to.

I’m excited by people writing their own stuff, and the possibility to do so myself as well. Reinventing the wheel can probably go too far in a professional context, but if it’s your free time and something you want to make and learn about and curate to your own specifications and the simplicity of your individual situation, that’s awesome.

Be well, stranger!


Thank you for starting a great thread.

I am trying to sort this out right now. I am 71 and still work (remotely) very much part time as an advisor to a South Korean AI company. I am at the point where I don't think that I am helping them much anymore and for the last week I have been thinking hard about what to do. I also feel that I am now too old to do professional software development; I would rather just work on small personal open source projects.

I did just start a book project, and I reverted to using TeX/LaTex (I have been using Markdown on Leanpub.com for the last decade for writing). I love TeX because it allows me to write different editions of a book easily for different programming languages, nicely factoring out non-programming background material.

I have also fetched my old train set from the attic and I am considering starting to fly again: both remote control model airplanes and flying lessons (I too about 10 lessons 25 years ago).


Thanks for this! There are more than 400 comment here, so my post will be probably buried instantly but I just need to share this with someone!

I just have finished playing A Plague Tale: Requiem[1] a few days ago, and I spent the last two days with this strange feeling of sadness, almost grieving. It is such a masterpiece of emotions, the story of the bond of a sister and brother who went through hell to save the boy.

I remember the first game had the same effect when I played it the first time. For days I felt the with a mix of sadness and happiness. The developers have been successful creating such a strong bond to the characters that I felt I am practically there next to them, experiencing the pain and happy moments alike.

I really suggest everyone who has the smallest intention to play games to experience these two masterpieces[2][3]. (You definitely need to play the first game to be able to experience the second to its fullest.)

Since we are on HN, one technical detail that impress me so much the number of unique animations they created to give life to the word around us and to show the bond between the two of them. Like how Amicia waits for Hugo to get down from the ladder every time or how Amicia picks Hugo up multiple times during the storyline to carry him.

Thanks for letting me share this, I hope all of you have a nice day!

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoEwC2TxiMA [2]: https://store.steampowered.com/app/752590/A_Plague_Tale_Inno... [3]: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1182900/A_Plague_Tale_Req...


> There are more than 400 comment here, so my post will be probably buried instantly

For you and other late repliers: there really are people (like me) scanning the answers. I was also late-ish, and still people read it. It's really nice to see the variety of interests people have, even though –understandably– much of it is on the geeky/nerdy side. We do flock together, after all.

> Thanks for letting me share this, I hope all of you have a nice day!

You too!


Seattle, checking in.

I'm tinkering with my homemade Raspberry pi powered NFC Sonos jukebox. Uploaded code, rough design instructions, and a demo video here for anyone else to build: https://github.com/zacharycohn/jukebox


Neat project! You seem like a super interesting person! How’d you get into parkour?


Films from all around the world. For the past couple of years, I enjoy watching 3-4 films a week in average.

Much like literature and art, quality cinema gradually makes you a better person, and has a profound effect on acquiring good taste, and having a love affair with beauty - you see something, and you immediately know if it's special.

If you don't know where to start, open Wikipedia pages for past film festivals (Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Toronto, etc.), and e.g. select randomly a decade, then a year, then a film from one of the winning positions. In time, you will develop your own taste and opinion about the filmmakers, and the actors, and the countries of origin, and the themes, and the genres, etc.

French, Italian, Swedish, Taiwanese, Japanese, American, or so many other places - there are great filmmakers nearly everywhere around the world, and you can enjoy it.


Many bad things can be said about contemporary society but one of the things I love the most about the 21st century is how we're starting to appreciate cultural things in a global sense. I also want to read more about postcolonial literature, history of all the parts of the world we didn't study in school, and so on. It's starting to get ridiculous how in school we study "history" just about Europe, and "literature" 90% of our language.

About cinema specifically, mainstream Hollywood cinema has become largely repetitive, big franchises, sequels, etc etc, feels culturally sterile to me. It's so refreshing to see that, say, Korean cinema is becoming so popular.


I've become very excited about hardware. More specifically building real things that are fully integrated and optimized solutions. Purpose built hardware and software have brought back the wonder and joy of creating something from nothing that I felt in the late 90's on the web..


Hello from Colombo, Sri Lanka. I'm a former C++ dev turned manager, running an engineering team of about 60 engineers (stack: MERN + AWS). But my current passion is how to help bring about social change in Sri Lanka, after a series of remarkable events [1] culminating in this (which you may have seen in the news in July): https://youtu.be/hkuExq-WBEo?t=35. These events convinced me, and a lot of other people, that peaceful, positive change is possible in a country that we had almost given up on.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Sri_Lankan_protests


Thanks for posting about your tech and life experience. I hope you and the people of Sri Lanka will find and create that peaceful, positive change you desire!


Hello from Switzerland (I'm not swiss though). I am passionate about reducing the suicide rates in Japan (I'm not japanese though). To contribute the way I envision, I'm building a business (one man show) to fund this endeavor. Easier said than done. First it starts by covering my costs, then moving on to this ambition. It's a journey so gotta enjoy the day-to-day, so I am happy to do a business on what I love, which is cybersecurity. I just got started, but I am already all in :) wish me luck lol. As for why this mission .. gosh it's a book to explain, but in short I want to give back what I received all over the years. If you have ideas to contribute about Japan, please write to me. Info on profile. Peace and love :)


I recently started a job building wearable VR haptic feedback systems. This isn't a field I've ever even thought of before, but it's been really interesting so far. I'm pushing the limits of what the current technology can physically do and trying to tease it into a format that tricks your monkey brain into perceiving a texture or shape.

This field is not something I've even thought about before, but it's been a very interesting challenge. Part of my job is to just straight up invent new technology, which is something I've always secretly dreamed of.

I'm dreaming up ways to generate physical textures on the fly and present it to your finger in a way that convinces your brain it's real. How fucking cool is that??


Hello other text based beings!

I am very passionate about journaling/collecting one’s thoughts. In a typical HN fashion, I decided to make a tool that scratches my itch [1].

Having spent majority of my life with portable computers around, I feel we as humans are losing the joy of writing one’s thoughts out. Sometimes the best thing is to write your thought and establish this one way temporal connection to your future self. This is so beautiful because it crosses the barriers of time, culture and location. An alien human descendant billions of years in future might be able to connect with me by reading my thoughts. Writing is an intellectual marvel that has no other equivalent

[1] https://bangle.io


Hello from New Zealand, just completed my second degree black belt exam in Goju Ryu karate.

Martial arts a big passion of mine,currently I'm trying to internalise a weekend of training (the new things you learn slip away so fast) and thinking about the next step on my M.A journey.


I am passionate about personal development! I've made incredible strides through the mindful use of certain key resources, and by taking periods of deep reflection followed by creative action. I've found so much joy and contentment that I could have never imagined having just a few years ago. At the same time I know there's lots more growth ahead.

I finished a coaching certification program recently and I've come to realize that this personal development work is basically a form of "self-coaching". Now I'm passionate about helping other people with their personal development, through teaching self-coaching skills and partnering one-on-one with people who are ready for that kind of thing.


Hey from Canada,

I've managed to keep my passion side project at top of mind for almost 2 years now. Not only is it a desktop environment in the browser, but it's also my attempt to bring back all the nostalgia moments I remembered from my last 20 years on the internet. It's my personal website and I like to think it will be something I am still working on in the year 2050. Getting feedback does indeed give me that feeling of connection.

The Code: https://github.com/DustinBrett/daedalOS The Site: https://dustinbrett.com/

Great post, thanks for asking!


Rollerskating as an exercise in a zen state of mind.

In a crowded rink, you have to put everything else out of your mind, lest you damage yourself or others. When I've had tough weeks at work, which I've had plenty of this year, rollerskating at a rink running a popular roller disco on a Friday night has provided a clean-room level of buffer between my stressed-out work state-of-mind and my happy-go-lucky-parent weekend state of mind.

Not everyone's cup of tea, but if you need it, and you're yet to find a satisfactory "thing", give it a go. Seriously, you need to have all of your faculties applied to the job at hand, there's no room for the rest of the world, and so it melts away.


Any advice for newbies?

I don't even know if there is a rink where I live, but I'd love to give it a try, haven't skated since I was maybe 9 -- but I'm also terrified of falling, breaking my head, running into other people, etc.


Start slowly. If you hurt yourself early, that's what you'll forever associate with skating.

To find a place nearby, I Think just google roller skating and your local area. I would think that there are local groups who'd have some kind of online presence, always looking for new recruits. I don't use Facebook myself, but that's the likeliest online gathering place.

Lean slightly forwards, bent knees, keep your centre of gravity low and use your bent knees as control and, somewhat, shock absorbers, feet in a comfortable V-shape, toes further apart than heels, and just kinda step. The V-shape and physics will start you moving forwards.

After 20+ years of nothing, it took me about two hours of constant skating at an unpopulated rink (kids birthday party) to learn satisfactory cross overs.

Long term, there are muscles in your feet and lower legs that, unless you're a dancer, you've barely used and are important for subtle balance control. These have taken me years to build up, and I've got years still to go.

Ultimately, there's no shortcut, it's all about time spent doing.

Took me 18 months to go from starting backwards skating to be moderately comfortable doing it in a speed skating session. I'm proud of myself for a goal reached, and each goal reached leads to a branching set of further goals to achieve.

And once you've got a set of skates and pads, it's cheap and it's good for fitness.

(For me, it really helped that my kids and nieces are / were really into it. Kids enthusiasm is really infectious).

P.S. running into people is always a risk. Avoiding people is a good way to learn things you didn't know you could do - until you fucking had to. I caused a five person pile up just last Friday. Be polite, be contrite, but be aware this is a risk everyone takes when roller skating.

Also, I roll on inlines, I'm a baby giraffe on quads, it's embarrassing how bad I am given how I'm quite good on inlines.


I've had an MG Midget (74) for the last 18 years or so. I'm doing a full body restore on it, and it's currently stripped down to the shell. I've built a rotisserie so I can access the bottom and replace some rusted floor panels.


Interesting experiment. This can only work once (in a great while), so cheers on being the one who did this lately.

However, as Facebook has proven, online connections are quick and fleeting (and largely meaningless).

Good intentions and well wishes are still appreciated though.


Photography in general after I started coding for a living 15 years ago but for the last few years I've been getting into film photography and somewhat into film camera collecting. Especially in medium format. Don't get me wrong, I still shoot digital as well but shooting film feels more satisfying.

It feels so liberating to shoot 10-12 frames and that's usually enough compared to our big memory cards that can swallow hundreds or thousand photos. It forces me to plan more in advance and not iterating between every shutter click.

It's fun that nowadays we have 60 megapixel mirrorless cameras with ML-optimized super AF-systems, dynamic range of 14-15 stops, ability to make moonlight look almost like sunlight (those crazy high ISOs of models like Sony A7sIII etc), but in the same time you can make good photos with some film era 35mm SLR or Medium Format Mamiya or Hasselblad. With a little of practice and bunch of film one can learn to shoot photos without all that automation.

The electronic-less cameras are surprisingly easy to use: select ISO and the look by selecting film and it's ISO rating, measure or guestimate the amount of light, set shutter speed and aperture and then focus. That's it. No need for deep menus and buttons.

Also the chemical development of the film and developing paper photos from the negatives feels more fun than Lightroom + Photoshop workflow. And accidents are more fun.

Failing is more concrete as well. Once I probably shot my best cityscape photos (or so I want believe) but fumbled the development totally, but that's okay. At least I didn't get some mediocre photos I anticipated to be awesome.

Also the film cameras have quite a long history compared to the digital gear as nowadays all the DSLRs and mirrorless cameras are mostly the same.

The film cameras have a lot more of variety and different mechnical and usage differences and feel. Compare old MF folders to TLRs or to SLRs or compare Japanese cameras to German or to Swedish cameras and you'll see the differences. I guess the Soviet cameras would be ... interesting ... addition to the comparison as well but I'm trying to avoid them.


I am passionate about being a pcb historian. Imagine living in the year 2100 and coming across a motherboard for an Apple 2, or any device made around this time. I love finding out reasons why pcb’s were/ are designed a certain way.


Hi from Nashua, New Hampshire!

I'm finally ditching the Javascript/Typescript ecosystem and giving a Flutter/Dart (client-side) & Swift (server-side using SwiftWASM on Cloudflare Workers / Fastly C@E) stack a try.

I'm doing this experiment with a project I've been working on to build a connections/communities app that has a few tricks up its sleeve to try to solve the problems of online dating (Tinder/Bumble/Hinge).

I'm also experimenting with a project that's a mix between podcasting and replying to other people.

Very interested in alternate/niche takes on social networking (very different from "alt social networks")


I'm super passionate about Swing Dancing. I learned some of it in Highschool but started learning Lindy Hop in college. Unfortunately I had to skip the latest event my friends went to because I'm sick, but I really want to get back out there.

A _fantastic_ video. Look at how well all the leads communicate to their follows what to do without any verbal directions. They use their movements to direct the dance. I'm not this good but I saw this recently and I'm feeling inspired.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1BJxltWSwE


I'm not into dancing, but I like the upbeat music and the clothing style.


I'm passionate about bread baking. Today I tried baking a challah with the tangzhong method. I think it turned out great.


I just made a small thing that is thrilling me.

It started because I wanted to be able to share a diagram on a whiteboard drawing site (whiteboardfox.com, nice service). I thought it would be cool if I could have a bookmarklet that saved the current diagram's URL in a file on my web server and made it available at an easy URL that my friends could bookmark.

I now have just such a thing.

Click a bookmarklet and it hits my server and redirects back to the page I'm seeing. On another browser, I (or a friend) can hit my 'blah.com/mirror' and it shows the same page.

It is quick, clean and lovely. Took about ninety minutes. A perfect Saturday night.


Over the past year or so i have become really obsessed with inclusive identity.

Background... I am originally from Africa. As much as the internet has progressed and penetrated the continent, doing business online is still very limited. One of the major reasons in most countries (other than South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria) is identity. The identity providers that exist today mostly just accept passports and not local IDs. Unfortunately less than 10% of people have passports because they don't need one or it is nearly impossible to get.

So even though my cousins and friends back home have plenty of access to the internet now, their usage is mostly limited just social media and consumerism. They can't sign up for Airbnb, Upwork, banking and all that other good stuff that we can do. It is super frustrating really because they could really be more productive if their was inclusive identity verification.

By inclusive identity i mean verification that accommodates local IDs.

Which brings me to my second concern... disparity of local documents in these countries. Only a few nations have national IDs. Huge chunks of the populations use alternative IDs such as registration cards, provincial IDs etc. Because of this lack of a standard, online identity verification services do not bother integrating each of these.

So i have put in a lot of time to try and find a workaround solution for this that still meets KYC requirements.

Right now, it seems the opportunity lies with the mobile money operators. They already have KYC requirements standardized for all the local IDs because the laws require them to do so for each account. More than that, they already have a wide network of agents to verify these documents. They also have penetration rates of more than 90% in these countries as compared to passports.

I have had discussion with some of their executives and am still brainstorming how to leverage this reality. There are already some options i am considering, nothing solid yet.

But yes, it is taking up all my free time looking into this.

I am even contemplating taking some time off next summer to fully commit to this.

Something has got to change.


At the moment, I'm trying out comics after reading non-fiction for a long time. I started with Watchmen, a supremely cinematic experience so far. I've not found such joy from reading a book in a long time.


I highly recommend french comics - or "bande dessinée / BD" as they are called there. I believe France has the biggest and most interesting culture when it comes to comics - so many different kinds of genres, art styles and forms are alive there. Reading "L'Incal" as a very young and slightly unattended child in a french bookstore put some really freakish images in my mind.


Sure thing! Can you recommend a few with good english translations - if that works?


Great, give "Doomsday Clock" limited series a chance after you finish with Watchmen, it's an interesting crossover with mainstream DC Universe.


When I uploaded my first website in 1998 I got quite a few comments in the guestbook, even when there was really no interesting content there. Now I upload carefully produced and edited videos and I get no response.


The old school Guestbooks were so cool. I also uploaded my first website around the same time, on the topic of how to take care of Green Iguanas, and somehow a zookeeper found it and left a comment in the guest book. Felt like a rockstar that day.

Where do you upload your current vids? Are they long form? Could be lots of factors in play.


Assuming the content is still interesting…. It’s because everyone is on the web now. It’s not sma limited club anymore. So there is much more noise.


everything so saturated nowadays, and winner-take-all markets.


Hello from New England, USA.

I'm currently working on trying to get my first customer. Sales doesn't come naturally to me, so I am trying to figure it out. The great thing is that I have a product that I am really passionate about (I fell into that trap, but I think there's a market) - a cloud-based true random number generator that can replace a quantum RNG.

I also just recently got back from the piano where I played a Bach Partita. I think playing Bach is a bit of a quasi-religious experience for me - I just shared an experience of sublime beauty with 337 years worth of people.

Have a good night or day.


I work as a volunteer for blind people and own a 3D printer. This opens a world to me and to the blind. To me, because I vastly underestimated the possibilities of a 3D printer. To the blind people I volunteer for, because they have a map of our city for the first time in their life.

There is so little available for blind people, yes they have books and podcasts and an iPhone, which is endlessly better than 20 years ago. But they have no idea of the shape of a Falcon rocket, or a cow, or the parks around our city.

More than half of my free time goes to creating 3D printed stuff for them.


Amazing. Keep up the good work. :). Is it as part of an organization?


I'm pursuing my passion to climb mountains.

I grew up in Alberta and my favorite childhood memories are of camping trips in the mountains. I always dreamed of climbing peaks. I never had the opportunity financially to pursue that as my family was poor, and once done university I got a job and raised my own family.

Now that my kids are a little older I have the opportunity to chase that dream before I get too old to do so.

I'm obese and almost 40, and this gives me motivation to transform myself. My goal is to lose weight to be able to take a mountaineering course next August.


Good luck.

Intermittent fasting (16/8, personally I skip breakfast) and cutting out soda (replaced with diet/zero) was a great help/start for me personally.

Main thing is to not do crazy stuff but be consistent & rely on good old compound interest.

August is definitely realistic, and as you progress over the weeks and months you'll feel more and more motivated.


I'm passionate about writing small, close to OS utilities for myself and writing high performance C++ programs. Particularly, extracting almost demoscene level of performance from computers seemingly lacking said performance.

My Ph.D. thesis puts this passion to practical use, by developing a scientific application which uses every ooze of performance it can get from a system.

The end result is "You shouldn't be able to compute with this accuracy at this speed. What have you done?", which is extremely satisfying for me.

Also, I'm learning Go in these days.


This sounds quite interesting. Are you willing to elaborate more about what these programs do?


The utilities are for solving my daily problems, mostly automation. Tools reaching a certain maturity are open sourced with copyleft licenses at source hut: https://git.sr.ht/~bayindirh/

The other tool is a material simulation code, for scientific applications. It will be open sourced, again, when it reaches maturity. It’s single machine, multithreaded C++, but we may move to multi-machine if necessary in the future.


share some links so that we can follow your work!


My homepage is at https://www.bayindirh.io, and the code trove is at https://git.sr.ht/~bayindirh/

Hope that helps,

Cheers!


Greetings, everyone! It has just months since I graduated with a CompSci degree and I'm busy with my first job in an IB. I've got colleagues I love hanging out with, a decent pay, good WLB and a super neat office (the kind small city kid had never seen)

Yet despite this, I just don't feel like I could do this for next 10 years. There's just something missing - maybe it's challenge, a sense of impact or perhaps passion, can't place it. Somehow, the small-pay startup internship whose job I passed up on, seemed more fun. Everyone seems to have it all figured out with their plans to do MBA, MS etc or continue in the industry and here I am all confused.

So, here I am, trying things .... I guess. I got on the Rust hype by building a terminal application that taught me much. I'm planning to build a homelab to hack around and learn a bit of DevOps and security. I'll be buying a guitar with my first income soon. I've also been enjoying playing football, as I mistakenly missed out on sports in college. Another thing I've recently gotten into is quantitative finance - something I think might be interesting as a career since I also enjoy mathematics, but it seems to be too difficult a career to break in. Anyways, I've got Hull's Options, Trading and Other Derivative and some stochastic calculus books I'm planning to finish this year.

Sorry, it's all messy and over-ambitious but hopefully I'll figure something out :)


Thanks for this interesting question.

A consuming passion of mine the past few years is ethics in digital technology, and an attempt to write a half-decent book on it.

It's been a bewildering deep dive into philosophy, psychology, criminology and law, social sciences, economics and politics. Quite an off-piste mission for a technical person coming from an EE&CS background.

HN is a helpful way for me to connect with current issues, to ask informal research questions and test ideas, and hear intelligent, critical voices that are hard to find anywhere else. Thank you all.


Great thread OP. I'd say there are three main things on my mind lately:

First is trying to move from my third world country, which is pretty involved. There's a lot to prepare financially, culturally, and you basically have to have a job arranged to pull it off. Reading this on HN, you would think about getting a job as a software engineer and then just moving, but as an electronics/firmware engineer, it is hard to both get a remote job and also make that little career jump.

Second is thinking about connecting more with people online, I recently realized I've been on the internet for over 10 years and I haven't really made any friends. I'd say I'm much fonder of the older forum style communities than the more fleeting and instant chat based ones of today, but even when they were the norm I didn't really make friends either, so there's something about my approach that needs work for sure.

A third one is stable diffusion and other current AI developments. I didn't really pay AI much thought, but since stable diffusion came out I've been pretty obsessively watching it as it develops. I even bought a new GPU just to try it out (currently waiting for it to arrive). I find drawing fascinating despite never nurturing my skills very well, so being able to "draw" properly, even if just by conducting a big black box of matrix computation instead of my hands, feels pretty great.


What a great post, I created an account just to share like we used to :)

Right now I'm passionate about and proud of a recent invention which is a type of cycloid robot gear with less friction, less parts and simpler manufacturing. High ratio gearing has been a passion area for almost a decade now, and it's a very mature and opaque field, so it's quite difficult to make meaningful contributions. Several prototypes and some dyno testing show I have finally created something of value! Thanks to the efficiency and low noise it's looking like it will be a great fit in the eBike motor gearing space too.

For those interested in further reading, here is the basic principle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycloidal_drive

and here is a more typical industrial robot style implementation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_tcLx9nmoI

and a recent cycloidal type gear used the eBike space: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLh5U3Ril94

Mine is not published yet, but I'm looking forward to sharing it with the world. I would love to hear from anyone familiar with the space (it's a pretty lonely niche at the professional level).


I am passionate about creating apps & content around Otto DIY robots!

As a EdTech teacher and educational experiences creator I am always trying to find new ways to engage students and other teachers with tech learning… and these epic & cute robots have mean a great source of inspiration!

I am currently developing some software tools to interact with robots based on Arduino and ESP boards. And never lost the opportunity to make some nice photos and/or videos of these robots doing something nice to show on social media. :)


I started playing around with GPT-3 and it led me down the rabbit hole of NLP and Transformers. I'm kind of blown away by these tools and what they're capable of, particularly when woven in with the other languages and tools I work with. It brings back the feeling of curiosity and exploration from my very early days of programming.

A couple weeks ago, I started exploring Pu Erh. I ordered a few different teas from white2tea and got a little gong fu set. So far my favorites have been 2018 "Flapjacks" and and the 2022 "Pretty Girls". I just ordered a few others from Yunnan Sourcing which should be arriving any day. This is after years of only drinking matcha. I still start my day with a good sized matcha ~3-4g which seems to smooth out the effects of the Pu Erh nicely.

Somehow a late-night Amazon shopping session led to me buying an Ocarina. It's been a lot of fun leaning a new instrument, particularly one that's melodic and super-portable. The first one I picked up is a "Night by Noble", which is great for the money (~$35) but only hits its higher notes when played pretty loudly. So, I just ordered a Polygon from STL Ocarina which from what I've read has a mellower high-end that can be played more softly. I make up different melodies when I'm out and about, and then record loops and hooks on my Akai Force in my studio at home.


Very nice post. I also miss the early days of the internet.

I'm currently trying to come up with the cheapest, but still safe, design for a Li-Ion battery charger. This is for my work and saving on the component cost translates to decent $$$. It's a kind of a journey back in time for me as I no longer do much of low level hardware design otherwise. I'm happy now that I got it down to about $5 for the PCB, without using any unobtainium parts. It's really hard with the ongoing semiconductor supply chain crisis.

Outside of work, I'm way too much into fishing. Moved to a new coastal city a few years ago and got into it via my work mates. It's mostly rock fishing for me. It's really addictive to me. I have always been fascinated by marine life. I think some deep part of our brain craves the fishing/hunting aspect with the random reward. If we'd be able to get a good fish whenever we wanted, it would not be nearly as addictive. I've had some good successes because I put way too much time and money into this hobby. But, my family loves seafood as well and they support me in this. The trick is to find "liminal time" in between family, work, etc, and get up very early to drive to my fishing spot, get my few hours of fishing, then drive back and work from home. So no one is feeling like I'm stealing too much time.


>I encourage you to comment here about whatever you're passionate about at the moment

I am a web developer (former desktop apps developer, game developer and mobile apps developer). I know C, C++, C#, Javascript. I am mainly developing for backend using microservices, .NET, Postgres, Redis, MongoDB, Docker, Kubernetes, Elasticsearch.

I am learning Vue for work (I joined a company where I have to do full stack ) - which fits my mental model and I enjoy better than Angular and React.

But I also want to learn another language. I enjoy Nim a lot but I wouldn't invest more time in it because almost no one is using it. I've learned a bit of F# and I enjoy it, but there are no F# jobs.

Python is ok, but I am not sure what to do with Python as a web developer. It isn't the best tool for large web applications and I don't plan to transition to ML, data science or DevOps where Python has most use cases.

Next in line are Go and Rust. Go has more jobs and Rust is beginning to pick up steam. However I don't see how using Go or Rust for web is going to be better than sticking to .NET.

So I am asking what language can help me the most as a web developer. Help me means that there are some jobs, usage is on the rise and the language and the ecosystem has some advantages like performance, speed of development, better code maintenance or whatever.


Love the post and really digging reading through all the passion projects everyone is working on. My current passion project is actually planning my next passion project. I currently work for a FAANG company and I'm incredibly burnt out. I have two more rounds of stock grants I'll like to go through (last one is in March) and then I'm taking a year off to explore the stock market, AI, and would love to build websites and apps for non profits for free.


I'm obsessed with generative audio models, particularly RAVE[0].

Music is set to have its GPT-3 / Stable Diffusion moment within a couple years.

I believe in 10 years the venn diagram of music made with computers and music made with neural nets will be a circle, and that now is a great time to jump in.

Would LOVE to swap notes with anyone else here into this. Email in bio.

[0] https://github.com/acids-ircam/RAVE


I recently started woodworking. It looks horrible but I am in the middle of building my own small standup desk. Feels nice to do something else then coding all day...


I'm really passionate about learning Docker. I know it is probably super easy/familiar to a lot of you but it is phenomenal to me. I've been in technical sales for the last 10 years and while I really know my products really well I've let my actual technical skills lag. I've since switched roles and I'm now doing more hands on technical work with my products and less sales. I've had to start learning new stuff. In the past I would spin up a single purpose VM, put the thing I needed on it, and move on. I was recently forced to use Docker for a project and I was totally out of my depth. I've been learning as much as I can as fast as I can not only for my job but for my own personal stuff. Kids want a Minecraft server? Docker container. I need to use some of my own products in a different way? Docker container. All the things I have single purpose VMs for on my home network. Migrate to Docker containers.

In a way I'm disappointed that I didn't do this sooner BUT I'm also really happy that I'm learning something new AND it is something so practical to me.

P.s, if you have some great Docker learning resources please pass them along!


Just making things more interesting, here's a brand new world of docker networking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKFMS5C4CG0

This is crazy. I know, networking in the Virtual Machines would be kind of similar, but check this out.


Thanks! Right now I'm feeling pretty good about docker BUT I'm still a bit nervous about how storage works and networking works. I need to get a level deeper on those 2 topics. I'll be sure to check this video out.


I didn't read the comments before posting but I will add. I am wanting to do a few "passion projects" I have wanted to do for awhile. One is make my own router like device. Not at a commercially made level just take a computer and add parts to do what I want. And I want to expand on it having it perform virtualization server functions (and a bit in depth like gpu pass through and maybe other device pass through) and NAS functions and further. Computers captivated me when I was young and hardware and software in general really is what I think got me here. I remember seeing a computer opened up for the first time and wanting to know what every little piece of it did especially the larger chips and expansion boards. Cost is my factor right now, but I am starting to look into it. THe other is that I have wanted to get into a more electronic engineering area but didn't really explore it. And I see a lot of expensive products and lately have been looking at them and thinking: I can make a comparable or better product for much cheaper! So I think looking into this area could give me a push to look more into electronic engineering.


I also miss the early internet and personal websites. That is why I started to work on a personal website. So I can have my own space on the internet. Writing about things I like without worrying about how many people visit it, or algorithms.. that is also the reason why I do not use analytics.. I do not care, this website is for me, and if other people read it that is a nice bonus.

Feel that more people should do this. Grow indie web :)


Thanks for asking! I love this place.

You made me think "what the fuck am I passionate about?" Turns out, I'm passionate about lots of things!

At the moment, I am passionate about

- lawn care

- making a clean cup of coffee in my French Press and AeroPress

- this thing I'm writing that will allow me to set my status for multiple online platforms in one place. I wish I had more time for this :(

- I'm also very fortunate to be writing software for my employer that I really want to ship, so that's been living rent-free inside my head for a while.

- Also passionate about learning more about sales!

I used to be more passionate about cycling but work consuming more of my time and moving to a city that is a literal opposite of being bike friendly did me in. I also bought a new bike over ten years ago that never fit properly, so doing long rides in it would create rashes and hurt my lower back.

That said, I want to buy me a really nice and really properly fitting bike so I can get back on the saddle and accumulate those miles. We're also moving to a more bike-friendly part of town, which I'm looking forward to. I'm thinking of getting an S-Works carbon everything with nice wheels. Expensive, but I can finally afford this.


I'm happily messing around with Racket, trying to do LeetCode and Project Euler problems in it and trying to figure out how to translate the programs from The Big Book of Small Python Projects into it. I'm trying to get comfortable enough with it that I can use it as a viable replacement for what I would do in Python - with the end goal that I can write my website and a hopefully useful web app in it.


Great idea for sharing and connecting. Thank you!

My little corner of the Internet now contains a streaming music site: Now Wave Radio. I realized I was relying more and more on algorithms and “cold” connections to music and discovery. So reaching back into bands and sounds of some of my ‘80s New Wave favorites, started on a journey of new band discovery and connection via music blogs, Bandcamp, Allmusic, and yes - even iTunes/Music.

Some months, frission experiences, band connections, and even close friend contributions later, we’re having a blast running the station, developing a web presence, exploring app development, discovering music, and making friends. I found sites like Soma FM with a similar mission, met band members while recently visiting a music festival and going back out to local performances and even left my 25+ year corporate world employment to join a local art collective/radio station in my hometown of Seattle to learn about broadcasting technology and IT in a completely different and supportive environment.

I encourage you to find your passion and hobbies and make a place for them. Great things can and will follow!


Currently reading my way through the Syntopicon and the associated Great Works series.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Syntopicon

Think a 1960s version of a linking table, all printed out, and all about the 'ideas' in the Western canon.

A randomly selected sample of the categorization looks like:

Chapter 82: Same and Other: Sub Idea 3: The modes of sameness and otherness or diversity: Sub Idea 3a: Essential sameness or difference and accidental sameness or difference:

Book 7: Plato Republic, BK V, 358 360

Book 8: Aristotle Topics, BK 1 CH 5, 144 - 145

etc. for ~1/4th of a page.

Should finish up in ~2035 or so if I can keep pace.

If you ever have to write on nearly any topic, the Syntopicon is absolute pure 100% gold. You can look up just about any idea you've got and find just oodles of references going back to Homer. Its amazing.

I wish we could make a wiki based on the structure of a syntopicon instead of the structure of an encyclopedia. It'd be a lot of effort, but just an amazing undertaking to relate all of the internet via ideas instead of subjects.


I have been toying with the idea of a decade long learning journey, but I'm yet to decide what is that I want to learn. I want to see what difference does a decade long learning of a single skill make. I can already see how big difference it makes from my experience with my work in Software Engineering, but learning an entirely new skill would be a great and rewarding challenge I feel.


I am creating a web based chemical property database: https://www.chemeo.com

And what was really nice for me was this comment about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33344110

Yes, someone, somewhere, enjoyed using it :-)


I'm passionate about two things: game development and writing!

For several years I've been working as an evenings-and-weekends indie game developer. I love it -- it's such a joyful mix of technical and creative tasks. It's stimulating and challenging and expressive, and makes my heart feel so full when I've finally finished something that another person can play. If I could ever reach a point where I could properly fund it, I could spend every day for the rest of my life making games. I launched my first game in 2018, a challenging puzzle game called Omnicube [0], and am having a blast working on a few new projects now.

On the writing side of things, I've been writing stories since I was a kid in one capacity or another. I think it scratches the same creative itch as game development, just though a different medium. I'm actually in the final stages of publishing my first book -- a memoir about my experiences playing competitive chess [1].

[0] trykon.itch.io/omnicube

[1] mychessmemoir.com


The omnicube link is broken FYI


Oh shoot, thanks for the heads up. Is the page not loading for you at all, or is it another problem? I just tried it again at https://trykon.itch.io/omnicube and I seem to be able to get through to successfully download the demo.


I still remember that early internet feeling, in my case, it was actually how I got in touch with "the world" back in the days, I created an account just to be able to reply, after years of reading HN without ever commenting!

Lately I'm passionate about prototyping tools and mash-up of different tools to facilitate OSINT work.

I have spent the last 8 months putting together a system to DeepL translate Russian and Ukrainian telegram ecosystem back in the open web. (osintukraine.com) it has been a crazy ride to work with existing open source code to produce something that works but now I want to polish it and learn how to create a new front-end from the content and terabytes of war videos I'v been collecting.

I'm not a developer, just a wanna be devops but this project has helped me to consolidate knowledge and keep learning new parts that I'm less confident or comfortable with and this is the way I like to learn, by doing! Hope someone find it useful and maybe join?


Thanks for the post. Anyways, I'm a data scientist by day and geek by night, atm I am learning Rust and I just love it, it provides me all the good stuff that make me piss off about Python. Actually, I have found out that a 30-minutes Rust session before I start working in the morning gives me a good vibe boost for the remaining 8 hours of work.


Care to share which pains Rust solves over Python?

This is a legitimate question, I’ve also been back in the Rust game recently, been using Python professionally for 10 years, but except for performance I don’t see the shortcomings (Python and its ecosystem is pretty packed already with everything you can think of as of 3.10).

For me Rust is a game changer compared to my dearest C++ friend…


I just spent an entire weekend playing candy box 2 and I had so much fun, I made a donation to the dev. First game I've played to the end in years. There's something about making a number go up (in the game, it is candies) that satisfies my curiosity in a way I didn't think I needed.

I got to use my math skills (estimating when some scheme would make the number reach a certain level. I got to use my research skills (searching the game wiki for schemes to make the number reach a certain level). I got to use my puzzle-solving on some of the minigames. I got to be patient while waiting for schemes to pay off. I got to be persistent when grinding through some minigames to make the number go up. I had something to look forward to whenever I was bored throughout the day.

Thanks to the dev, aniwey, and thanks to the HN poster who started the thread about Universal Paperclips on which I found a reference to Candy Box 2.


Linear algebra! It’s honestly amazing to see vector multiplication work in real time. So simple yet such a powerful result!!


I'd say I'm obsessed about it or at least want to do for sake of curiosity. The commercial intent is not there but feeling of accomplishment doing something fun. Working in finance pays bills.

1) I really want go pull of a rope mechanic in VR. I cannot forget the experience I had after encountering rope in Last Of Us Part 1. Now I want to replicate it in VR. I have dabbled with Unity but haven't really put time and effort into it 2) Build a mini, local service to cater to local Town/city instead of depending on big tech. Say a restruant uses your resturant ordering system. My analogy is that we set up a small stall in the world of internet, just like there are shops in the real world. You'd go to your trusty mechanic instead of a mega dealership. 3) Self host an kind of service to be used by folks on the internet. Be it a simple hosted test editor or a to do app.


I've spent the past two months getting ready for holiday craft shows/shopping events. By getting ready, I mean making and finishing quilts and table runners. Much time has been spent hand quilting a lot of runners and I have had time to think about the parts of the process I enjoy the most and least and what I could be doing to challenge myself, identifying how to be better, etc.

In my prior life--I was a public policy wonk and advocate/lobbyist--I had folks around who challenged and taught me. With quilting, not so much. It's been an interesting couple of years getting beyond "Let's sew and open and Etsy shop". . . It really has been in the past few months that my view has changed quite dramatically.

I'm not a joiner, so not really interested in joining a quilt guild, but have found some folks who, in time, I hope can help me be better and do better creatively.


For a few years I've been learning about woodworking. I'm particularly interested in hand-tool woodworking (planes and chisels and mallets and hand-saws and such). I've enjoyed restoring old tools that are rusty and roached out, and bringing them into working order again to give them a new life. Nothing like using a well-tuned 100-year-old Stanley #5 to get a glass-like surface on a piece of wood. Also love woodturning, mostly making bowls. Turning a chunk of wood into a beautiful, useful object is deeply satisfying.

I recently took some small-craft sailing lessons. The balance and flow of wind in the sail, tension on the sheet, sitting on the thwart, with one hand on the tiller, and gliding over the water with the setting sun turning the sky golden, was an amazing experience.

So now I'm looking to combine the two interests, and have plans to build and sail my own small wooden boat.


I'm currently passionate about the journey of becoming a full-time blogger. I was tired of working as a Head of Marketing for several years and wanted freedom of my time.

While I know how to generate relevant traffic, one of the top challenges that I've been tackling over the last couple of months is monetising the traffic. I've tried selling courses, ebooks, SaaS products through my content but I'm getting unpredictable sales once in a while. It's not been an easy journey, but it's so full-filling when I get a sale through my content. Highest of highs as well as lowest of lows. Right now, I'm just grinding with faith - this will work. 3 articles/week, non-negotiable.

Perhaps one day I will have a revenue-generating blog that surpasses my monthly salary when I was a Head of Marketing :)


I am currently discovering how to roast coffee. On the surface it is not that complicated as it only requires green beans and a way to apply heat to them.

Green beans can easily be found on the Internet and applying heat can be done with an inexpensive air popcorn machine. Put the beans in the machine, turn it on, wait for the beans to crack and voila you have roasted coffee.

Obviously with a kitchen appliance not made for that, there is not much control over the heat profile applied to the beans. This is where the interesting part happens: people have been hacking their pop corn machines for decades to better roast coffee, for example:

- Drilling a hole in the machine to put a temperature sensor in contact with the beans.

- Putting a relay on the heating element to control it electronically.

- Using an Arduino/Raspberry Pi to make the machine follow a predefined temperature profile.

Lots of fun ways to turn a machine into something completely different.


Haloo from Portland, OR. I am not passionate right now because my to-do list has been on overload for two quarters, mostly work-wise, and am feeling stuck and frazzled. Could use a little more dopamine (or whatever that motivation chemical is) so I can get that big functional test written and then open that PR and then hit the sack.

What I am pondering, as my passion fires burn low, is the scant tech or evidence of it that slipped past all the human wreckers and natural catastrophes of past ages. The zodiac, the 12-hour clock face, ancient cartographic maps, Codex Oera Linda, pyramids on every continent, submerged pre-historic coastal towns. I dream about the ancient mariners who carried some of that tech to us; their adventures and world would make a fun videogame. Does anything manmade remain preserved under the ice in Antarctica?

Huge, laser and drill-cut stones, some quarried hundreds of miles away, and also man-made (poured?) ultra-hard stones. SO MUCH STONE REMAINS, yet I know almost nothing.

All the achievements of our forebears mostly now wiped away, not even accessible in myth. Understanding my cosmic role today: "to keep it going" as it were and not to be remembered or memorable - although I strive to be - because that's a worthwhile goal. And then Jesus saves and sustains the rest of me so that I do not fall into despair.

Understanding now how close we are to wiping the slate clean again - asking why particularly the political left are suddenly warmongers and legislating poverty by turning the energy spigot off worldwide at a frantic pace. What in hell are tptb racing to get ahead of?? Do they fear something manmade or natural (or other?!)

Regretting how much slavery there is in this fallen world and knowing how much I have thrived as a result of it. Has one whole human life been taken to make mine comfortable? More? Regretting that now, and now selfishly, especially if a crash is looming.

Enough pondering! Gotta make hay while the sun shines.


Hello from SF! Having a "me" night tonight after watching some very entertaining games, and enjoying this thread quite a bit.

If anyone is passionate about backcountry skiing let me know! I'm getting ready to split a lot of time in the Tahoe area this winter, and always love hearing about new routes/getting beta.


Hello from New Zealand!

I am happily working on my startup/side-gig this weekend:

https://atomictessellator.com

What’s New Zealand like? Imagine if you gave hobbits computers and then travelled 200 years into the future!

If anyone here is in Auckland and would like to geek out sometime hit me up.


Thank you for your 'Hello', it resonated enough with me to pull in a long time lurker.

Currently renovating my small abode (off-grid solar latest project) as a mental recovery from too many years in tech (and life), and yet my hobby/passion is currently Zig/WASM UI onto tiny-go back-end for some of these Raspberry Pies (plural?) stacked in a corner, since I feel that it captures some of the simplicity we lost along the way from dial-up BBS, and my early days of z80, 68000, C and before the modern chaos that has gradually pushed me away from I.T., and the world in general. I quit all social and news media circus a couple years ago. So HN is pretty much my only 'sense of connection' you mentioned, but what a great find it has been!! I take this opportunity to offer a sincere thank you to everyone here!


So true,

Last week , I made 2 posts here got no response .

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33478431

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33478086


I share this guy's passion for interaction nets as a very promising model of computation: https://twitter.com/VictorTaelin/status/1588332432587005952


>Just being online and being part of the few select communities that existed back then was a commitment, and I believe that's in part what made it feel special.

I attended an offline conference after more than 3+ years yesterday. It was a welcome change after all the online interactions ;)


Aak was meant to be Ask, I guess.

I loved the "real but currently text based (human) being", made me smile, while I type my answer in this little text box!

I am a software/tech guy, but I've been always super passionate about the future of cities, and have spent too much time thinking and making projects related to how the "city of the future" would and should look like - of course, made in a way that would allow us to be more environmentally friendly. Now it seems a given, but ~30 years ago no one gave a shit, and I was already super interested in the environment.

At some point I founded a company to try to build something along these lines; my efforts failed, the company survived but I left after ~2 years.

Maybe one day I'll stop working on what I'm doing now (VC) and give it another try :)


I'm passionate about creating a community of people who pursue long-term excellence in their jobs or vocation (whatever it may be) with extreme intensity, e.g. eating/sleeping right, deliberately practicing skills, etc. Please let me know if anyone is interested in joining :)


I'd like to know more. I am in a mastermind that fulfills a similar function.


Is there a bootcamp but for electronic/electrical engineering related things? Thinking of sending my cousin to study EE but doesn’t want to waste time doing college degree.

We already have a business and would like to expand a bit more on electronic side of things like IoT/hardware stuffs.


Hello friend.

Love the idea of this post! Miss the good old days of IRC or early Twitter etc.

I guess I'm passionate at the moment about the future, in a world that seems to be bogged down in the past. I'm trying to also figure out what my other passions are and trying to figure out what makes a good life.


Like others in this thread making things with Stable Diffusion. I started a YouTube channel with tutorials and workflow experiments https://youtube.com/user/pjgalbraith


Good morning, I used the first hours of the day to paddle, listening to the Republic I and II books by Plato. I started to study philosophy at university at the beginning of the year, and jumped right into it. One of the advantages is the immense literature and works existing in the area. I have to write an essay about the relation between Socrates' death and philosophy and politics, and although I never liked to write, I have been doing it in a very good way. In the afternoon I will start programming in closure again, because I have a small weather analysis service that I run in closure and clojure and clojure script that I use as a playground (clojure in production , clojure script, visualization, k8s and etc)


There still seems to be so much opportunity left in the internet. I would like to already live in the future where those opportunities are realized.

There must be something like the steam engine of the internet. Like the Romans, we most likely already know the ingredients of the next industrial revolution, but we don't apply them because we have other means to solve our problems.

My best guess is that a social network could be the missing part. The printing press brought cheap paper for scientists to have space for notes which brought mechanization and thus the need for power. Currently, we go directly for automated thoughts, but we don't have significantly more or different thinking space than the generations before us, just faster mail.


I'm super interested in studying at the moment. For years I suffered from hypogonadism, making it difficult for me to function as a human being. I'm trying best to pursue my interested in Computer Science at the age of 27. Hopefully it isn't too late!


I'm currently working on making the most(hopefully) editable and configurable software/browser/tool/app ever.

Yes I'm trying to directly compete with emacs for the title.

I love the idea of lisp, hypercard, SmallTalk, Self Referentiality, Tools for Thought, make-your-own-software.

I was inspired by many different ideas in software. Immediate feedback(Bret Victor-Inventing on Principle), Reactivity, meta-programming etc.

If someone made a plugin, you should ... in principle be able to edit it, so you learn by "thinkering". Editability, learnining via example.

All of this is done with HTML. To check it: https://github.com/ilse-langnar/notebook


Hello from Space Coast of Florida.

I guess right now I'm "passionate" about learning Common Lisp. I put it in quotes because there are so many areas of computer science/programming I'm interested in that I'm not sure I'd call it a passion.

Anyways, I spend anywhere from 15 minutes to a couple of hours a day learning CL. It's fun and a completely different than any other language I've worked with before. I work as a programmer so some days I don't have the cognitive load to do much with CL. I try to do it first thing in the morning but sometimes HN and regular news sites grab my limited attention. I really wish I could be hyper focused.

Hope everyone has a great day and, well, life! Stay safe!


I’ve been building canoes as a business for 15 years. It’s great, but incredible hard. I’ve also been programming for 25 years, on and off. Finally thinking might try my hand at saas. With yet another note taking app. It’s crazy, but I’m entertained. :)


I've been reading up on Antarctica lately (thank you, mr. brr!), and that reminded me about Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean with a very weird legal status: basically anybody can just move there and live, as long as they can pay for themselves. This resulted in me spending last night researching ways to get there without a visa (most flights are from Norway, which means you need a Schengen visa – boring!). Turns out there are some tours ran by a Russian coal mining company Arcticugol, but the information is really scarce. Hope I can make it some day!

(If only I could've spent my attention working on my actual “passion” projects :')


I’m sure you’ve come across her by now, but just in case you haven’t, check out Cecilia Blomdahl’s YouTube channel. The videos are way too long because she’s aiming for something ethereal and padding for YouTube ad revenue, but it’s very charming.


Thank you! A friend of mine have sent me one of her videos just this morning. It was about the pink skies phenomena (not sure if it has a proper science-y name?). Even on video it looks magnificent – must be a real otherworldly experience if you see it in real life.

https://youtu.be/WKZ_hwH5KXE


It may be a bit cliche now but I realised earlier in the year that a lot of the games I played growing up are now considered retro, so I've started in on collecting consoles/games I used to play as a kid.

Already grabbed a psx/OG Xbox and massively enjoying replaying stuff as I collect the games, too.

Picked up a GBC/GBA and rebuilt them to use modern OLED screens as well. Enjoying those a lot as I forgot just how dark the original screens are on them (memories abound of using the little streetlight available in dark car-rides home).

Still need to pick up a DS/PSP and eventually a 360 I think. After my 360 got stolen in uni I threw my toys & went PC-only.


Thank you for posting this. Really resonates.

I'm passionate about building the best (technology-based) products I can imagine, using all of the tools I've learned in my life so far, to the max, mainly intuition ("gut" over "brain", perhaps) (love making amazing decisions that hold for a really long time!) and imagination. Steve Jobs and Elon are probably the two biggest inspirations, and so are the respective companies they've built.

At the same time I'm also passionate about being kind, being myself as fully as I know, keep growing and enhancing that. I'd love to get the chance to build these things fully into new companies I imagine creating.

I'm also way into "woo-woo" (some might call it, especially on tech-/regular science-focused sites like HN) stuff like channeling. And all kinds of personal expansion-related things that are less "out there" but still quite on the edge, like conscious sexuality as a tool for human growth and blossoming, exploring the meaning and use of emotions, even and especially also in professional & business contexts, etc...

Basically I want to be as fully what I see as a fully human being as I can, and practice and bring that into what I want to accomplish in tech, create environments for others to explore the same, if they wish. Current companies and orgs are boring and outdated in many ways, and I have a desire to build and offer something new, that's much more aligned with who we really are.

I'd also be super eager to connect with folks raising their children in new and better ways. I still believe, as I did before I had kids, that "it takes a village to raise a child". So far I haven't found that village, or (most of) the people who would make up that village. I'd so love to start meeting those! (Kids are <= 10yo, we're living a somewhat nomadic life, between Austria, Germany, Croatia, Canary Islands, ... and I used to have a strong calling to come to California as well, which has been coming back recently to some degree...).

No idea who might read this and resonate, but there it is. Thanks again for posting, made me feel a little connected at least :) I usually only read 99.99% of the time on here, but this got me out of my shell for a few minutes at least :) Very much agree, current internet needs a lot more of this particular vibe that we used to have back in the day, e.g. with actual old-fashioned forums inhabited by basically only those folks who really cared about some topic or idea that then realllly connected with each other!


I've recently been passionate about figuring out my social-lackings and really spending the time to grow as a person. I know that's a lofty and amorphous goal, but it seems to be really important going forward. I agree that it can be hard to find that sense of connection online but albeit a miracle, it's not impossible these days.

I've been working on building out a community, and if reading any of this has resonated with you, we have a home here to join if you're longing for that sense of community as well: https://discord.gg/enUkwSZABU


I've fallen in love with fountain pens, and have acquired a few over the past two years. Last month I tried my hand at grinding my first (italic) nib, and it actually came out OK. My prized pens include a Parker 51 Mk2, a Sailor 1911 Large with music nib, an ASA Nauka in ebonite, and more.

Also passionate about stargazing, but dark skies and good weather are hard to come by where I live. An 8" airline portable scope is in the works.

Other vices include the usual - music of many kinds, books (of the paper kind), good food of all kinds, coffee, tea, beer, and well-made cocktails - especially martinis. Lastly, reading elegant code -- especially low-level code.


A close family member has been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease a while back. I've been trying to educate myself on neurodegenerative diseases since, with the hope of launching something one day to tackle treatments and potential cures.

I don't have a formal biology background, so there is a lot of things to learn. But I can't sit down on the sidelines without attempting to do something about it. That's what's driving this passion.

If you're in a similar boat, or have experience in building healthcare products/companies, please reach out! I've been wanting to meet likeminded individuals for quite some time.


I got obsessed with Stable Diffusion. I get past the honeymoon period generating everything I could imagine, and now I'm trying to actually incorporate it in my daily work. Furthermore, I'm sharing my experiments here https://bits-next.p1x.in/generating-perfect-grass-textures.h...

Another new and exciting thing for me is the Gemini protocol. The simple, low-tech internet. I started porting all my texts/websites to my own capsule at gemini://floppy.p1x.in (server from real 3.5" floppy!)


Water can now boil itself - i.e. energy released from hydrogen atoms in water by converting them to a state where the electron is closer to the nucleus is enough (200x burning molecular hydrogen) to boil water at way more than break even. Hundreds of kW are being generated by machines smaller than a domestic washing machine. There are over a dozen experimental results that demonstrate this is real. https://brilliantlightpower.com/live-suncell-boiler-demonstr...


Another take from wikipedia: "In 1999, the Nobel prize winning physicist Philip Warren Anderson said he is "sure that it's a fraud",[12] and in the same year another Nobel prize winning physicist, Steven Chu, called it "extremely unlikely".[23] The following year, a 2000 patent based on its hydrino-related technology[24][25] was later withdrawn by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) due to contradictions with known physics laws and other concerns about the viability of the described processes, citing Park and others.[26]"


Wikipedia has a strong skeptical bias - just read the talk page. The article is more than a decade out of date but is basically frozen by the moderators. Look at the videos on their site to see the progress they have made in solving the engineering problems - mainly the apparatus melting from the excess heat. This is the breakthrough physics has needed for 50 years or more - ever since quantum mechanics took a wrong turn in the 1930s.


Hello friend, from Launceston, Tasmania.

Right now I'm procrastinating on building a backyard sauna. Each of the plausible next steps has considerable activation energy to get started. I'm thinking about that resistance and what it means.


Would love to see the progress of this!


I played a lot of Civ as a kid and it got me into Economics. I’ve been trying to understand the housing market, especially why rents and home prices have jumped dramatically in my home of Austin, TX. I’m putting together a website (below) to explain the problem. It has data from the 50 largest cities, if you’re interested.

Another project is trying to connect economics to Shannon’s information theory. Economists talk about information all the time but never quantify it.

http://mdnahas.github.io/HousingCrisis/index.html


Great post! At this moment, I'm passionate about childhood education. There are plenty of challenges in education to be tackled, but the one that I feel needs more attention and isn't getting it is seeing high-achieving students bored to death thanks to education policies that hold them back from their potential.

Rather than policies that prioritize equal outcomes, I think we should be encouraging every child to explore their full potential. I've begun working on a startup so I can be part of the solution. It's too early to say if our plan will work, but I'm excited to be trying!


I'm passionate about finding a job. Switch to SWE from DS, but also strong aerospace background so I know F=ma and data that isn't clickstreams. It's blood on the streets out there though, as we all know.


Hello! Getting back to work tomorrow after enjoying a month off, so that should be a shock to the system :) Looking forward to some new projects though and putting to use some new stuff learnt in the downtime


The only thing I ever wanted since I was 7 is to have friends, go on adventures and battle dragons. That's it.

So 20+ years later me and my friend I met at college are building two houses next to each other (friendship), we are both immigrants who started at the bottom (adventure), and we try to do some side small project to help people investing (dragon).

Our classes are unfortunately both tanks. We can work a lot, but produce little damage.

We also both have healers in our team (girlfriends/wives), who provide additional support.

We are broke as any other mercenary, but we try our best to find that good loot.


Hello from Vancouver. It's cold and windy here. My line-drying gym equipment is a mess, flying all over the balcony of this rented (obviously) apartment.

Not a tech guy, just curious. I'm in finance, suggesting ideas to people. Tech has been an escape. It feels so structured somehow.

Reading "Pride and Prejudice" for fun. Just want to connect with people across ages. I'm 36, friends are getting cancer, the image of death has been rendering itself in ever higher resolution.

What I create will perish for sure. I hope my daughter feels like the world is huge and hers to discover.

Peace to you all.


I spent the weekend so far making a quick project to visualize optic capabilities for vehicles in a tank simulater game called War Thunder https://github.com/ImVexed/ThunderView. It's pretty fun getting a useful data viz out of a data mine. I even used another project I made, https://isobot.io, to automate triggering its CI anytime the data mine gets updated.


Hello from south Texas.

It’s amazing how life can sometimes have other plans for us and take us off course for a while. After an 8 year hiatus from paid programming I’ve started work on re-honing my skills so I can start doing interviews in the new year.

One thing that I’ve been doing away from programming is repairing stuff. From house hold items to my car. There is something satisfying about using your own hands to produce something physical. From reworking an intake manifold on a car, to fixing a dishwasher, solving physical problems can be as satisfying as coding.


Howdy stranger!

With the debatable demise of organic community platforms and the rise of curated social-media recommendation by algorithms it is always nice to facilitate interaction between two vaguely-human entities. :-)

Take care!


At the moment I'm really passionate about 2 things:

Quantitative Finance. I have a math background and relish the chance to explore some applications of probability theory. Most of my readings have been about options pricing since there is a lot of mathematics to explore there

My second recent passion is synthesizer. I got a hardware semi-modular synth last year and I've had a ton of fun patching with real wires, twisting knobs and tinkering with loops. As a bonus, it feels like programming but I'm able to be away from the screen while doing it


Hello to you too stranger.

I have been feeling kinna the same about the internet for a while now too, there's so much noise on the internet now its hard to tell if you are talking to a real person with a real interest or someone trying to market something. But luckily, there are a few corners of the internet where you can discover new things.

For example, small reddit communities are still a lot like the old internet, you get to have really different perspective on things you care about in smaller communities. If you can ignore the bad, 4chan's /biz /g and /fit are interesting communities to lurk in.

When I was younger, mmorpg's were the best place to meet REALLY interesting people at, but these days there's not enough time to grind and hang out with people and other people my age don't have enough time to grind. Kinna sad though, but MMORPGS were one of the best things about the internet for me, it helped me learn a lot about making friends from all over the world, helped me meet people with really different interests than me. Trading, organizing/planning and archiving things together with a group of people who started off as total strangers and ended up being like family was a really wonderful experience. ESPECIALLY as an introvert this was one of the best ways I met people when I was younger, and some of them still remain my friends to this day. It was actually mmos that got me in to software development.

As for now, I am passionate about blockchains, I don't really care about how much BTC is right now, or what the price is going to be 10 years from now. But I like the promise of decentralized networks. To me, I find being able to put something up on a system and having the guarantee that it would be there many years later without anyone being able to take it down is a pretty powerful freedom. Yes there are people using this ability for bad/evil but its a technology that's here to stay no matter what anyone feels or thinks about it, and so if I can be atleast one of the people who build something that would help someone in a positive way I can go to sleep happy. Thanks to this passion of my I have met and had the pleasure to work with folks who genuinely care about making systems that benefit others.

Wow, this was long, if you are still here thanks for reading!


The idea here reminds me of one of my favorite blogs posts ever: https://justinjackson.ca/words.html


Hello from Delhi, India. I dont have much going on in my life, 11th grade exams are on top soo I can barely find much time. One thing that I am really passionate about is concatenative programming and how it can be used as a better way to program and teach programming, especially low level extensible programming . I have no idea how can I even write a good concatenative language, how the theory for it will work, compiler engines, etc. Sure I can slap llvm to it and call it done but thats not gonna be that extensive.


Hello from across the Polk Strait (Colombo). Keep at it!


No idea how to exactly but I will! Gave up on the idea many times but giving up is stupid, atleast in my case


As a deeply technical person, I am trying to figure out business development.

I have come to a stage in my career where I am more valuable in finding projects for my team, than in delivering projects myself.

So as somewhat of a prerequisite, I need to learn about personal / team branding, relationship building, marketing, and consulting sales.

While this is definitely out of my comfort zone, and I'm still figuring out how to actually be competent at this, I believe it will be a valuable skill to one day start my own company.

PS: If anyone has good resources, do share !


I have my own company with 10 employees and only recently started out learning about business development. I recently took a coach for sales and she could provide valuable info. now I figured that it would be better to hire someone who does that for me.

that being said, I believe that you shouldn't wait until you learned skills X and y until you open your own company. you'll never start if you always think that you have learn more before you start


Recently, I took up making things. Electronics, wood, cardboard. I've not been doing it very long but it is incredibly fulfilling, and the help and support from others is wonderful. It's really nice to be unashamedly enthusiastic about something.

Speaking to young people regularly too is great. They have new ideas, new perspectives and are brimming with enthusiasm. Sure, they have new words, new ways to hang out with their friends, new music and fashion but we're all more the same than different.


I recently got a steam deck and have been going through my backlog of games I've owned for a while but never played. Finished Outer Wilds and Hollow Knight. Now I am starting Hades.


I'm passionate about archery.

That came into my life as a way to spend time away from my computer.

Practicing it has several aspects that caught my attention:

- You get more aware of your body. Every movement matters for consistence (or lack of)

- It is you against your mind

- It is relaxing (for me at least)

- It is physical activity for my sedentary self

- You don't need anyone else to practice it (although having someone can be more fun)

That's being my passion for the past 3 years. It survived COVID. It survived injuries. It's been surviving me still being bad at it :)

It's a never-ending improvement pursuit.


Currently spending the majority of my free time developing a dance curriculum and coaching volunteer teachers at a local dance club. They had a lot of good teachers move away during COVID, and it's where I first learned to dance to I want to keep it alive. I really enjoy the process of teaching and communicating concepts, and love seeing people light up when they understand something. The process of teaching also helps me understand more that I would if I was keeping it internal


Laurus. This book was awesome. But no one I know has read it and I just want to talk about it.

Maybe finding those random strangers to talk about it with is part of the spirit of the internet of old.


I've read it and really loved it. Was thinking about that book just yesterday and mixing up some of the themes with The Aviator (related to time). With Laurus the main thing to me was the sense of a living in a world where people thought and valued differently, and not a kind of made for TV Game of Thrones modern-people-living-in-a-medieval world thing.

Have you read others of the author's work?


Yes I read “The aviator” right after. I also liked it, in some sense it was just like Laurus, though at the same time a completely different story.

But that was the main thing I noticed, was like, this is a world that thinks completely different from me.


Where immutable infrastructure isn't possible, asynchronous configuration management with file and package watching, auto-sharding changes, and auto-retrying binary downloading devoid of excessive runs doing nothing useful except spiking CPU and "broken" runs for dumb reasons like Wi-Fi network changes. Breakage should be limited to a single tree of resources while the rest keeps going. Stupid conf mgmt like Chef explodes at a certain point and usually gives up.


Hello from California. I'm a full stack developer. Primarily Scala/JS/TS. I do some Haskell and Python on the side. Love functional programming. I built a bunch of Haskell projects that people still use. I don't have the time to maintain them anymore. Want to get back into it again. Kind of want to learn Rust. I'm currently trying to build Strava for the command line because I like minimalism. Want to build a few iOS apps next. Waiting to get a new Macbook Pro.

Cheers!


I love Haskell! I once wrote an interpreter for an OOP language with Haskell, and I've loved the elegance ever since.


Wow! Nice


I find my self being very passionate about trying to start my own business. I'm currently building an offline-first budgeting app using the zero-based envelopes model.

This has taught me a lot about new technologies, and although I haven't been able to launch it, it feels like the biggest thing I've worked on.

My current problem is I don't know how to simplify it in order to launch something quicker. I'll be working slowly on it, chipping away at it, line by line.


Hello! I read all comments so far and already found several things that resonate with me! I'm currently exploring and trying to find the passion again, I'm a ai engineer and looking into how I can help with ai in biology (alphafold), open source bio projects, brain computer interfaces. Today I plan to check the most successful seed stage vc and incubators hoping to find some interesting startups they funded to understand what people are working on in the area


Hello from Madrid!

I'm here for 9 months, normally live in the bay area. So trying to improve my Spanish from bad to decent.

Also wrote a script to help me work on my slow 6 year old laptop here, and stream the changes to my workstation stashed in a friend's crawlspace in San Francisco, so I can run builds/tests/etc there: https://github.com/nolanl/rp

Might be useful for other folks in similar situations.


I mod Harmonix-made Guitar Hero and Rock Band games. In the last couple of days, we just squashed a six-year-old issue we'd been having where the game's rendering would lag a frame when updating a text label that's visible on screen. We discovered the solution was to double-buffer the labels ourselves from the scripting language the game uses, as the label update is not laggy if the label is present but invisible. Now it runs buttery smooth


The early days of internet for me were mIRC, ICQ, yahoo groups, geocities, MSN Messenger. Thanks for reminding me of that special feeling. I hope you have a great day too.


First off, I'd like to share that writing a diary is amazing for collecting thoughts. There are so many brilliant ideas that flow about but never get written down unless you have easy way to save them. This is what makes me excited now.

Since I strted, I also started collecting game design thoughts. Now I'm messing around with voxels, with the goal to create a sandbox in which you can reshape procedurally generated towns (including via explosive means).


At this moment? Well, I'm in Daytona, Florida attending the HSR Classic 24 Hours weekend of vintage racing. If you have any interest in motor racing and have not been to a vintage event, you need to. The variety of cars is huge. These events are usually pretty low-key compared to the current professional series. Often there are very few restrictions on where one can wander, with paddock access included in your reasonably priced ticket.


I'm passionate about teaching programming to 17-19 year olds, how to improve and tools that can be used.

I try to stay up to date with best (or at least good) practices to pass on to my students. I'm currently teaching Python, JavaScript and C++, while learning Rust and Quarto (which I hope can replace C++ and LaTeX).

I've recently started reading "The Pragmatic Programmer" after the many recommendations here on HN. It's indeed a very good book.


> I'm passionate about teaching programming to 17-19 year olds.

I've been teaching for some time an introductory programming class to kids with those ages (1st year university students). I think the best approach to teach programming is to start with flowcharts (hand drawn in the paper), do a lot of them, and then use a computer to "program" in flowcharts. Here's some examples of hand-drawn flowchart exercises [1], and for the second, I use Flowgorithm [1].

It is much easier to teach Java (which is the "real" language they must learn in that class) after they know how to think "algorithmically".

[1] https://joaoventura.net/blog/2020/flowcharts/

[2] http://flowgorithm.org/


Hello! I suppose more than anything recently I’ve really been trying to improve and increase my social relationships, which I feel like I’ve left too long by the wayside. It has been an endlessly rewarding journey so far and I feel like I still have so far to go. And I was just thinking about how social I used to be online too, so this thread really hit on something I’ve been thinking about a lot too recently. Thanks for making this, OP!


I'm learning Swahili. Any Swahili speakers on HN?

On the longer term, this year I finally accepted that I do not care about research and even though I tried loving it for the past 8 years I'm only ruining my life. I love teaching. My contract ends in 8 months and I'm looking around for all the ways I could find a job that I really care about, a teaching-oriented role in a university or school. And I'm so excited about this next step.


Not Swahili speaker here, but:

> On the longer term, this year I finally accepted that I do not care about research and even though I tried loving it for the past 8 years I'm only ruining my life. I love teaching.

Same for me! I thing that nowadays people are confusing research with writing papers. I think they are quite different, and I really hate being forced into writing papers that no one will ever read. So I stopped doing it, but it's hard to get a full time role (aka "tenure") without (lots of) papers published. People playing the paper's game do a lot of things to get ahead. A guy I know (and got ahead of me) has published some 30 papers in the last two years. I don't find it credible, but 30 > 5, so he's in, and I'm out.

> My contract ends in 8 months and I'm looking around for all the ways I could find a job that I really care about, a teaching-oriented role in a university or school.

I'm a part-time adjunct CS professor (Western Europe so not so bad salary for local standards). Is it not a possibility for you?

Good luck!


I'm looking into "university teacher"-like positions. There are a few, but not so many. It's more common in the UK, where I did my PhD, but I'm not keen on going back there. I have time to keep looking. Otherwise teaching in high school is a plan B, temporarily or not. In my country it would be very easy as they have a big need. But the working conditions aren't great (lots of bureaucracy, incredibly stupid systems etc).

want to tell me more about the 'adjunct' professor thing? (or can also email me at msaman () posteo.eu if you want to generally chat)


I moved from Toronto, Canada to East Bay, California, 31 Male, married. Looking for another nerd in the area to meet up and have coffee. Testing my luck here XD.


The intersection between Geoguessr and making music; I started a series called Making music on Geoguessr a few years ago, and since then have become quite passionate about the game and learning geography.

I recently started a website that combines StreetView scenes with part of it generated by DALL-E - thisstreetviewdoesnotexist.com - also forced myself to learn a little Svelte for that… React had been my previous go-to when dabbling in front-end.


Not sure if I am passionate enough but for 1 month have started studying option trading and my aim is to use it as a mode to get some daily income. Not expecting to be rich overnight but as a side income to pay my ever-increasing expenses. I know the risks in it and already in losses, but my idea is to limit myself and not to use at a gambling but keep a daily limit of Proft/loss. Anyone tried already or any suggestions?


I've made a website that does very rudimentary simulation of transmission electron microscopy diffraction patterns, as a tool for myself and other researchers. Was a big leap for me learning how to do so, but it's been fun (and frustrating) to learn about Flask, Docker, cloud instances, HTTPS etc. along the way!

https://tcpekin.com/dp_sim/


I’m currently unable to sleep and I’m on my phone, so I can’t code and I’m thinking about how to implement an easy to use audio player on my site [1]. I have been slowly making progress on it as a side project and it has been a fun learning experience. I’m also working on trying to get a “full stack” app without a server to maintain.

1. https://boardsearch.io


Good morning from Singapore!

My side-project of the moment is to turn these amazing videos on how to setup a proper bitcoin node: https://www.ministryofnodes.com.au/ubuntu-node-box-guide-202... into an Ansible script so that anyone can do all the steps shown in the videos in a matter of minutes.


I've always been passionate about tech and recently, I discovered that helping others get software engineering jobs is something really special.

For the last 2 years I have been running an free intense online bootcamp (12+ hours a day/ 7 days a week) where I help people study leetcode and system design for free. With my students, I am basically a human pomodoro and helicopter parent that you love to hate.


Great post! I’m currently getting into Blender, starting with the famous Blender Guru Donut tutorial. I’m absolutely amazed by how capable and expansive the entire application is for being completely free and open-source software. My PC isn’t exactly the most capable (at least for now) but seeing how 3D models are created, even simple ones, is really illuminating and not to mention super fun!


Writing an album.

I had bands in high school and college. Made records, toured a bit. Worked as a recording engineer. I got into software development after I started having kids.

But now that they are older, and I’m no longer studying like crazy to push my career, there’s a bit more space for making music.

But this time, I plan on marketing it. I’ve been studying email/digital marketing, and I’m excited to actually try to sell some albums.


Amazing idea :)

I've been learning and playing with Common Lisp. I've been involved in Java for more than a decade and wanted to try something new. I wanted to try something outside of OOP and more functional. I went from Scala -> Clojure -> Common Lisp. I've also switched to Emacs for almost all of my common tasks. That hurt as a long time Vim user :) but I'm enjoying it so far


Hi Stranger. At the moment, I am very passionate about memory and energy efficient artificial neural networks. I discovered this paper earlier today:

https://ganguli-gang.stanford.edu/pdf/20.Pruning.pdf

I thought it tackles a very important problem and really got me into the topic of pruning.


Thanks so much for the post. Its really nice to see what other people are passionate about. I work on building web applications and internal tools. At the beginning of this year, I quit my job in order to take a break from the grind and just take a breather. Did some soul-searching, spent time with my family, road trips, reading, etc. Now, back to job hunting :)


I'm passionate about learning more about sustainable and regenerative agriculture. I've been volunteering on a hobby farm this year and we're just coming to the end of harvest season and getting ready for the winter - spreading compost, broadforking, mulching with wood chips, etc.

Nothing like getting away from the computer to play in the dirt once a week :)


Enjoyed kubecon NA virtually and still watching videos from it online. Thinking of all the ways I can improve observability with my work team. I am super excited how the cncf youtube channel already posted talks from their pre conference events and am super excited when the actual event talks get posted so I can share with the rest of my team.


I do somehow share the sentiment. There is a lack of a certain collegiality these days. Passionate? I am a fan of self-hosting applications but doing it in a simplistic, secure and reproducible way. Green is also a factor. Buying a storinator is not a great solution lol. And don't forget to backup your cloud.


Hello from another surprisingly-real-but-currently-text-based being.

I share your sentiment about the earlier stages of the internet. Even though there already were several million users worldwide when I came of the age to explore technology, it still had the feeling of a close-knit community of enthusiasts and experts.

Good times :-)


Just bought a house and have years of pent up renovation energy :)

So my big passion now is learning how to do contractor type stuff, drywall, sweating cooper, tile, electrical work.

Almost done demoing the kids’ bathroom with my wife. About to put it all back together again :)

Really appreciate the spirit of this post! Keep up the good work y’all!


I want a computational theory of life. I don’t know what it will look like, but I think we have everything we need to find it. I’m fully convinced that the process that leads to diverse, complex organisms is transparent and that we are finally reaching the sufficient context to notice it.


The Internet needs decentralization again, how are we going to do it on the infrastructure level?


Hello from Raleigh, NC. Just graduated with a degree in political science but found work as a software engineer.

Currently passionate about rock climbing, I wonder if there are any other climbers on HN? I’m looking to take a class on lead belaying soon and start sport climbing!


Hey, we're practically neighbors! I'm from Chapel Hill, NC.

Sadly, I don't do any rock climbing. It's one of those things that I've always thought looked interesting, but I somehow never found time / energy / money / whatever to pursue. My big things outdoor activity wise are cycling (MTB, road, and BMX) and fishing.


Hey, if you’re interested in trying, the local gym system TRC has free first sessions when going with a member. If you’re interested, shoot me an email, it’s in my profile :)


I appreciate that, and I totally would take you up on the offer, if I had any free time. But between working a day job, my side project stuff, and trying to squeeze in 40 miles a week of cycling, and maybe a couple of miles of trail running here and there, my "free time" count is pretty much negative.


I’m also into climbing :) Bouldering and top rope at the moment but thinking about taking a lead class next year. I mostly climb indoors but live in a region with great outdoor climbing as well so I might do more outdoor climbing in the future.


How is the tech scene in Raleigh compared to other medium sized cities on the east coast?


I would say it's pretty good. This area has long had two primary economic anchors: software / digital tech, and life sciences / pharma. You have companies like IBM / Red Hat, SAS, Microsoft, Google, Apple, etc. here, and a burgeoning startup scene on the "digital tech" front. In terms of life sciences, well, TBH, I can't name most of the companies because I don't work in that space. But lots of pharma stuff. Glaxo-Smith-Kline is probably the biggest and most well-known, but there are a ton of smaller players in that space around here. There's also a lot of the "tech jobs with non tech companies" stuff here. Big companies in fields like finance, insurance, logistics, etc. set up development shops here and do a lot of their software development and IT work locally. You have companies like MetLife, Credit Suisse, Fidelity, etc. here in that sense.


Good as far as I can tell! There’s quite a few conferences around the Triangle (Raleigh, Durham, chapel hill). There’s also a lot of company campuses in the research parks and Pendo + Red Hat being headquarters downtown.


The post really refreshed my memory when the first years using Yahoo.com and ICQ... thank you.


For me it's anything medical devices related. There is something really cool about using tech for medicine.

Working towards pushing the boundaries of minimally invasive ophthalmic surgery at the moment. A lot of potential for innovation in this field.


I am making a personal gh-based workflow where I photo my comic book art and it uploads as an svg on a neocities site. When I'm bored at work I doodle my comic, snap it, upload to gh and it just runs, updating the site via the API.


After spending some time on few forums I realized I miss heavily threaded discussions from NNTP times, so I started thinking about designing modern alternative (centralized, where server keeps track of messages you marked as read).


Doing things with my kids (could be lots of things from watching tv/films, hiking, swimming, reading, playing sport)

Getting outside to do STUFF, canoeing, surfing, cycling

Seeing people in the real life and chatting

Listening to and playing music, especially with other humans


I am passionate about interdisciplinary research on complexity, economics, and global change. I like building strange models and exploring human futures. Also sometimes I publish the results for keeping my scientific status.


Just coding for fun on whatever I want to. 25 years in the biz, lot's of enterprise work that many times was not fun. Having a blast currently with Django/Python. Also poking around with Go and Flutter/Dart.


Hi :-) I am looking for collaborators on these ideas (I have Proof Of Concepts working)

* Collaborative (real time) song creation * Always solvable Yukon Solitaire * Port Quake3 to the web manually * Create a Single Player Aliens FPS game.


I've been really into psychology and how to adapt your communication based on that. I've really enjoyed the article taker vs giver on HN, I especially enjoy learning about cognitive biases and things like NVC.


Hello there. I am a recovering Chemist having abandoned chemistry for SRE. Recovering because am now getting back, teaching myself and such. I just cant stop thinking of the beautiful world of molecules, charges etc


I'm living in Mexico and have been taking salsa lessons for a month now. I've improved dramatically and learned a lot about music in the process. Salsa is what I'm most passionate about right now.


I recently found out how cheap and easy it is to get hold of second hand books. Am currently working my way through the Scottish classics on actual dead tree. There are a few hidden treasures. Its very calming.


I run a Telegram group/small community of furry rationalists/EAs! I recently posted about it on EA forum & LessWrong, and a bunch of new people joined, so I'm glad we have more friends :)


Books. Music. Hacking a cheap 3D printer to improve it so I do something physical. In general, anything but the quasi-management role I now have at work and that keeps sapping my motivation and creativity.


I play piano outside of work. I came to the realization recently than friends pretty only ever see me play through the internet, because the venues they choose for meeting up are never ones with pianos.


i'm addicted to surfing since 6 years ago, i surfed 2-3 times a week, thanks for remote working, it allows me to move from metropolitan city to the island that have many world class waves

this activity also cure my backpain & shoulder pain, sitting down on my surfboard in the ocean also somehow calm me, it makes me think clearly when i'm struggling with my work (bug fixing), often i'm be able to solve a bug not in front of laptop but at the ocean (solutions popped out randomly from my head while i stared at the sea)


Hello, greetings from the American upper midwest! Currently sitting in a comfortable chair next to a fire listening to an audiobook and drifting off to sleep. I hope you have a nice day or night.


Freediving. And building SkillShack. Hopefully an alt to finding your kind of people online and later on, offline. Funny how we are more connected than ever but never felt so disconnected..


Is there examples of some sort of github copilot but on an architecture level... like a way to describe the digital product in words and the system would bring back an MVP out of the box ...???


Hello from Vancouver Canada, Thank you for your nice words, I had my first run after years of not being active that much tonight, it wasn't long but it was feeling amazing. Wish you best.


I'm passionate about ML. I've been a fan of Generative AI since the start (CycleGAN and pix2pix) back in 2016. Currently playing around with dreambooth and building a few apps.


Helping and mentoring the next generation of coders to be successful.


Hello from a person who just left his country to live in another country for an adventure.

Thank you for reminding us we're all just humans doing our best to live this human experience.


Hi, I know this isn't a "Who's Hiring" thing but I would like to get some fulltime offers. check my profile for my github. Any recruiters? LUL.


Currently learning about electromagnetism. Fell down a rabbit hole building PCB motors and it’s been great fun re-learning things that I neglected at university.


Finishing an ironman competition. Training is really hard right now but hopefully it’ll be worth it.

Had to try to pick swimming back up for the first time in 10 years ;)


I’m passionate about DPUs and serverless GPU functions, but seeing the top responses feels like most people are kind of burnt out on tech at the moment


♥ Wow. I am also a text-based being. I remember that feeling well as well. I realized I forgot it though through you making me experience it again now.

Thank you!!


Hello from Montana! I'm currently playing with a Lora module and hoping I can cross country ski if there's enough snow next week.


Hello from California!

I am passionate about low (no) resource NLP and currently doing a couple projects in the space. Please feel to reach out!


I am passionate about learning AI and Machine Learning. I have just discovered Kaggle and started competing. Have a good day


Hello, I have started learning python programming, looking forward to be doing some web automation for business


Sure hello, forgive my cynicism I used to be quite excited about chatting to strangers, not so much anymore!


The real things. The analogue, making live music with humans, experiencing all the things that are here.

None of the tech.


Will it be okay if I can initiate the same discussion for my Linkedin community? Only if you allow.


I'm passionate about a particular orange-patterned cat. Come join us at rdrama.net.


Education funding should be based on equity, and not on debt. And it should be funded by the society as a whole and not by some private for-profit entities.

It is outrageous that we make young students debt-laden even before they have any income source. This is not only unethical, it also sets a wrong example for the younger generation.


I think you missed the point here. Although it sounds like you are passionate about online activism.


Ham radio is still like this. ;)


This actually put a smile upon my face! Thank you and a nice day to everyone


What's up recently with all these pubescent posts - what's your age/hobby/dick size, etc?

What's the goal of this post? Yeah we know comments on this site have decent quality (if you don't express opinion against HN hive, which is usually aligned with The Current Thing, but they try to be less extreme about promoting it, but anonymously they will kill you with downvotes), but even if you find 2-3 people who share your interests what you gonna do with that information? You can't build some distaste section here and it won't be enough to move elsewhere and if you tried already you would have find forum on your favorite topic.

Yes, on one hand I liked when most of the internet felt like echo chamber of IT guys (basically still preserved on HN), on the other hand I welcome diversity, it's just shame especially in recent years people became extremely polarized, which is not that big of an deal, if one side wasn't heavily promoted by Big Tech which has no problem to keep opinions wishing death to opponents up, while order side was straight up banned under blanket term misinformation.

I have no problem with opponents with completely opposite opinions, what I don't like and see it even here it's despect, calling me or opinion idiotic often without concrete argument, basically just lazy trolling.

edit added: FWIW I miss discussing movies on IMDb, it had huge user base which was dispersed all over internet and r/movies is bad or full of trolls, order subs or sites have way too low user base, while IMDb had people from all fields willing to discuss aspects of movies, now I occasionally check old movies at moviechat or check TMDB discussions, which are pretty dead. Btw I was online already in times of BBS/Fidonet, nice thing about Fido was lack of anonymity so people really couldn't be jerks (obviously it has cons other you can't discuss NDA stuff).


Your comment reads at a really good try at trolling about trolling!

It's a lost artform. It's a shame people don't recognise it anymore. Myself included.


Custom PC cooling solutions, probably building a custom water loop


Sumerian culture and specifically the Gilgamesh epic, origami, fishing


I am passionate about the developments of AI/generating images.


If anyone wants to talk short story writing, it would be a pleasure


Recently, I have been having a lot of fun putting my thoughts into visual thinking tools: mindmaps, whiteboards and infinite canvas apps (e.g. SimpleMind, Kinopio, Excalidraw/TLDraw Muse 2.0, Apple Freeform).

In a way, these tools have brought back the fun of making personal websites or even those silly posters in MS Word that maybe some of you did back in your school days. For the past 15 years or so, "websites" and "blogs" were largely interchangeable, and web design suffered as a result. We are still largely living in a highly templated, single-column, mobile first world.

It shouldn't have to be this way.

The infinite canvas really helps visualize my thoughts as you can draw connecting lines between related ideas, add images, and not have to worry about some grid system preventing you from putting things next to/on top/below each other.


love the name, "hacker news"... fresh/cold-eyed/clear-minded ppl shall find and will make their way to selective info collecting and sharing, isnt it


Hello from Trivandrum, India

Spending an idle Sunday with fellow hackers in HN!


Passionate about creating full-stack CRUD web applications!


we have a home here to any who need it: https://discord.gg/enUkwSZABU


Anyone figured out how to improve fast at surfing waves?


Love this post, thanks for it. Take care everyone.


hello, I have started learning python.. looking forward to be doing some automation tasks on the web for businesses


hello i am looking to connect with fellow aliens and this seems like a good place; discord: the.k01#2727


using crdt (autometge) to make local-first collaborative note taking app (logseq).


G'day mate.

I'm currently really into listening to old school sci fi audio books as I hoof it up the local trails on an emtb (electronic mountain bike.)

For primordial internet, I recommend Tildes. It's very quiet. Much like the internet was back in the early 90's.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17103093


Highlining and slacklining!


I am obsessed about three related issues currently, though I am not making progress in any of them, being generally bogged down by life.

(a) How do India's classical views of reality that mainly stem from its contemplative traditions relate to the modern view of reality that we know from modern science? Are the former just "spiritual" modalities - i.e., "mere" religions - that must give up their claims on having anything useful to say about the nature of reality in the face of superior and more effective theories, or is there something useful that they have to add to the story?

I would like to see it investigated by someone who is not dismissive of these traditions, but also bring a rigorous spirit of skeptical enquiry to their investigations.

I suspect that this might take a unique kind of investigator: someone (a) who is technically trained in several modern scientific disciplines (since India's metaphysical traditions such as sAmkhya or vedAnta simultaneously straddle psychological, physiological and physical aspects), (b) who has undergone a training in the scriptural traditions that deal with these topics (which will involve a close familiarity with Sanskrit, and possibly the major Buddhist classical languages such as Pali or classical Tibetan), and (c) who undergoes the contemplative training which will systematically induce in the practitioner the first hand experiences of altered states of consciousness without which you cannot make sense of these claims.

The core issue that I can surmise so far is fundamentally a divergence in investigation techniques: one uses a first-person, subjective, inward-looking ("antarmukhi") stance at looking our experience, and the other uses a third-person, objective, outward-looking ("bahiurmukhi") stance. One is reality as it is felt at a subtle level, and the other as it is seen at a gross level. Of course, the third-person perspective by now has a vast array of verifiable results in its favor; I can't see many for the first-person perspective.

It may seem like a tall order, but it's actually only the equivalent of doing a few post-doctorate level courses over the period of some 20 odd years. Don't expect anyone to pay you for it though; you pretty much have to write off your life. The trick is to both attack and defend by taking opposing poles of views, until you reach the goal. A "manthana" if you will, for those who are familiar with the idea.

(b) How would one naturalize the modern scientific and rational tradition in India in an authentic manner?

Modernity didn't arise through an organic process of gradual discourse with the classical views in India; it was pretty much imposed on India by its colonial conquerors and later co-opted unreflectingly by an elite class, as a result of which it has a "bolted on" feel.

If you look at everything from India's legal system, commercial space, to education and scientific establishments, they use ideas and themes whose origin lay in post-enlightenment Europe. But they don't feel natural enough; vast sections of the society are still trapped in classical ways of thinking.

I feel especially tortured when I see teachers cargo-culting scientific and technical education in India. I despair even more when I see a tendency in India to reject some of these ideas - many of which are obviously essential to India's wellbeing - as simply un-Indian.

This issue I think is closely tied to issue (a) - Indians must do the legwork of painstakingly resolving the dissonance that exists between classical Indian and modern traditions. We must accept that (just as the west did) if the classical views are wrong, they are wrong, and that's the end of it, but we must also unearth what may be of relevance in them.

Simply dismissing them through brute force (ala China's cultural revolution) won't do, since Indians are deeply attached to their classical traditions, and this section will revolt violently. I also don't think that dismissing them outright would be doing justice to our ancestors.

I am especially dismayed (and also thrilled!) by the awe inspiring fecundity of the West in the fields of science and technology. What is India's answer to it? Will we forever remain mere consumers of innovation? What will it take to transplant some of that cultural genome into the Indian society so that it takes root?

In short, what makes the West tick, and how can India also, tick, perhaps even better?

(c) What is a good, rational, and yet authentic "model" for Hinduism that a practicing Hindu should have?

A modern day ordinary Hindu is exposed to two different takes on what Hinduism is: a sacred one, and a secular one. For those who are familiar with the issue, I don't need to go into how one's tribalistic affiliations dictate one's bias towards their chosen take on the religion. And yet it seems to me that there is no attempt to find a tasteful resolution between these two acerbic poles.

I could go on and on, and my reading isn't as expansive as perhaps it should have been, but all these three areas are from my personal perspective very intertwined, and I wish more Indians would work on it. Most of our issues will be solved if we can make some sort of progress in these.


This is fascinating. I hope to see where this goes. Build on!


LiFePO4 Batteries


Kotlin!


Three things recently:

1) I made a Slack app in my spare time to help with a thing at work. Jumped through the hoops in the Slack marketplace, and then it was live (Dibs On Stuff). A few people at work used it and that was great! Solved the problem.

Blinked and then about 100 organizations had installed it. Xmas 2022 came and I used my free time to add (a ton of) extra features, and a paid mode to access them.

I feel like I have made quite a few side projects in the last 20 years - eg I spent 8 years on ONE of them (do you know how many commits you can make in 8 years?) Anyway this weekend Slack project that ate up one little Xmas has some legs!

I get an email every time someone uses the thing. There's new mail every day and honestly it is just - imagine this next bit uppercase and uncensored, possibly ending in 1 or 2 exclamation marks: f-ing awesome.

2) The private message app Signal has had to make some difficult decisions around continuing to support sms. It's fair enough sms is problematic. But there's also an aspect of "sorry but bad luck" to all the people that not only are stuck still using sms, but who acted as evangelists for Signal - helping our family members help themselves etc.

So I wrote an exporter for Signal: extract sms, mms and all Signal messages, into an xml file that can be re-imported into the stock Android message store. So at least you can choose to move them somewhere else.

I don't actually feel great about this, and more generally I do think Signal are saying all the right things, but it's still definitely a walled garden, eg:

You are free to fork Signal - it's open source - but you're not going to be able to message anyone on "original" Signal from your fork. They own the servers, and that's fair enough. Data tx/rx isn't cheap when you multiply it by hundreds of millions.

I am aware of Moxie's article from ages ago, touting the benefits of being able to upgrade people overnight to encrypted end to end protocols. But wow, the walled garden aspect is actually - STILL - after all these years and learnings - just terrible. I can pick up any phone and call anyone on any phone network. I can send an email to someone on goddamn hotmail or yahoo for example (if only it were encrypted by default). But Signal, Whatsapp - private networks, walled gardens, selfish, un-open, and disappointing considering what we're capable of.

Anyway, wrote an exporter (alexlance/signal-message-exporter) so you can get your stuff out of Signal. If you want to. (Their built-in exporter doesn't export Signal messages)

3) Before I realized Iran had really seized control of the country's internet - I spent time trying to migrate the Signal proxy to AWS lambda. I think it's still a decent idea. Lambda would let you spin up extremely cheap Signal proxies, regionally located all over the world. I got it working in nginx and also haproxy via docker image and deployed to Lambda, but unfortunately, it doesn't quite work because the lambda https endpoints don't support SNI.

If anyone can convince AWS to permit SNI in their lambda https endpoints then it could still be a goer. It may be the case that other people are wrecking this idea (illicit data over proxies via SNI). But yeah, super-cheap reverse proxy, yes ok with a 15 minute timeout, but it'd do brilliantly in times of need.


Hello,

Apart from my family and some minor health issues, I currently am focused on 2 things: learning Luxembourgish/Luxembourgian and develop a deep understanding of functional programming.

About the former one: that should help me find a job in some Luxembourgish administration (I really wish I'll be able to find one soon).Luxembourg might be a small country, but I think it's managed well, CTIE (Luxembourgish administration that manages most of the IT infrastructure and software used by the state) has quite smart and competent people (also some dumb ones, but where's that not the case?), and I think I like the culture, which is almost my own, as I grew up close to Luxembourg and even went to a german-speaking school, while speaking family-native French (I'm as fluent speaking German as French, no accent).

Regarding the latter one, I started applying functional programming principles early this year, almost as obstinately as I can (and as much as possible using Java 8 then now 17) (I've got more than 16 years of professional experience using Java, both as a developer and software architect).

This was just the beginning of a more insightful journey into new coding practices, which result from one principle I discovered this year: source code should never lie. This became an evidence once I implemented and started to use my self-made "Maybe" type (a better Optional - Optional is quite weak if you want to avoid procedural programming). While using Maybe, it struck me that what I did was just explicitly forcing my code to say the truth. So I started to dig into types and have types represent various states (this may be seen as a better use of object orientation - this is not relevant, what's relevant is the improvement in the quality of my code). Using the multiple types (usually sub-classes) and combining with "fold" methods make a lot of if-else unnecessary and force the developer to handle each case: one can't just forget one case. What one may do is not handle a case, but it remains explicitly visible in the source code, with as much importance as the other cases. Then, the removal of the if-else usually means that the logic is much simpler to read and reason about. Using adequate types also means that only functions of the actual type are available, so we also reap the benefits of OO design. Also, while it is stated that Optional was not made to be serialized, I made my Maybe type so that it may be used in serialized objects and thus accurately reflect the state of affairs.

I'm still discovering FP patterns (for example, I still have to read about how to properly manage IO/side-effects/state. Once I've learned FP patterns, I'll focus on the synthesis of my knowledge of Java, DDD and FP in order to find out how to best apply FP and DDD principles to professional Java projectes, given the constraints of the language, it's modularity (Java 9 modules, Maven modules) and the JVM. I already have the intuition that the Spring framework (which is the de facto standard in Luxembourg businesses) might not be a good fit to serious FP programming - at least not without appropriate abstractions on top of it. This probably already starts with the dependency injection/inversion of control, which, I think (to be confirmed, though), does not make sense if a purely functional approach.

Regarding a Maybe type (I'm picky about naming - remember, code shouldn't lie): I firmly believe that Optional and Option are bad names for this type. As the user of an API/function that may return something or nothing, I don't get a choice about what I receive. Maybe I receive something, maybe I receive nothing. It's not like I receive some option from which to choose. As the one who implements the API, I have indeed the choice to provide something or nothing, so yes, I have some option, but what I'll return may be something or may be null. Thus I strongly recommend to stick with the name Maybe. Option/Optional is just lying to the user of the API/function.

It might just be an anecdote, my own, but I think that using lambdas and a few other FP principles with Java >= 8 for more than 9 months really opened doors in my mind about functional programming and types (way more than following Martin Oderski's FP courses on Coursera), to the point that I now really feel comfortable reading and understanding more advanced literature about FP, even stuff in Haskell. I'm not saying it's easy/simple. But if I focus, I think I'm now able to understand, which might not have been the case just last year. So Java provides, I think, a good enough environment to learn more than the rudiments of FP.

The most important lesson learned this year about programming is: source code must not lie. Replace nullable stuff with Maybe, when a Boolean may be null, don't just use a Boolean, but (for example) reimplement a NullableBool interface that has three types: TrueBool, FalseBool and UndefinedBool/NullBool. To represent two-valued booleans, I have Bool with subclasses TrueBool and FalseBool. Don't hesitate to use multi-valued booleans in cases where you have to represent probabilities (I, for example, have used a TetraValuedBool, which has the types False-Improbable-Probable-True). All these Bool types come with various static functions ('of()' to get/construct an instance) and non-static functions ('fold()'). To allow functions to return results that may represent anomalies, don't hesitate to use a Result type, which has two sub-types, one wrapping anomalies and one wrapping the actual legit result, and, again work with a "fold" function to handle both cases explicitly. Use strong types whenever possible, even if it's just some wrap around a String. Nothing is just a String.

This takes some time to implement, but once you have, it just makes your code easy to read and understand, nothing is hidden anymore: no implicit consequences. Once your code does not lie anymore, it becomes self-documenting, especially given FP is rather declarative (one does rather state what one wants than how to do it). This is rather cool, as you won't have to maintain separate documentation (at least not for developers).

Now, I'm not sure I recommend you do the same: my client will stop my contract by the end of this year because they don't understand the benefits of this higher code quality. They'd have preferred 'simple' procedural code, with which they believe I would have been able to deliver more features faster. Even my developer colleagues don't recognize the beauty of it. This, of course, is utter BS, because their problem is scope creep and they need to designate some responsible for being late. They just decided it's me. I'll be sacrificed on the altar of bad project management. I'm still making up my mind about defending myself and telling my point of view to their superiors: Luxembourg is small, it's not a place where one wants open conflicts, but at the same time, do I have to allow being made responsible for bad PM choices?

The intellectual challenge of combining FP, DDD and Java is absolutely great and quite huge. I couldn't do it just after-work (my wife and I are raising two little boys), because the deeper understanding of these needs regular, almost daily practice and reading about these topics. Doing this at work clearly made me vulnerable in a way I didn't see coming when I began this path, so I definitely can't recommend it to everyone. But I can't wait reaping the results of my deeper understanding of these topics, and I'm really happy to still be a programmer instead of doing some management (that is also an option - I have both experience and university degrees in engineering and in management), it's been a long time since I've had so many interesting intellectual opportunities.

Some references I used this year to improve my programming skills or just enjoyed reading (I consider these to be a good intro into FP and DDD):

- [0] Pragmatic Functional Java: https://dzone.com/articles/introduction-to-pragmatic-functio... ...

- [1] ...and it's related source code (cf. the "core" module), which I used as a reference (no direct dependency), in order to be able to make some changes: https://github.com/siy/pragmatica

- [2] Functional programming made easier: https://leanpub.com/fp-made-easier (that one is quite easy to ready)

- [3] https://dusted.codes/the-type-system-is-a-programmers-best-f... (posted a few days ago on HN)

- [4] https://fsharpforfunandprofit.com/ (I'd really like to do some project in F#)

- [5] https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/purely-functional-data-...

- [6] https://www.amazon.fr/Implementing-Domain-Driven-Design-Vaug...

- [7] https://www.amazon.com/Functional-Programming-Java-Harnessin...


Nice


Yes


connection with loved ones


let’s be weird together


We need to stop being fooled by all these brokers and account managers, they scammed me over $100,000 of my investment capital, they kept on requesting for extra funds before a withdrawal request can be accepted and processed, in the end, I lost all my money. All efforts to reach out to their customer support desk had declined, I found it very hard to move on. I was researching and find a broadcast that teaches on how scammed victims can recover their funds, I contacted the email provided for consultation, bitcoinandfundsrecoveryexpert@gmail. com I got feedback after some minutes and I was asked to provide all legal details concerning my investment, I did exactly what they instructed me to do without delay, to my greatest surprise I was able to recover my money back including my profit which my capital generated. I said I will not hold this to myself but share it to the public so that all scammed victims can get their funds back.


Halo from Indonesia,

Banging my head for whole day because of somehow nodejs does not behave like I wanted to. Maybe I need to take a break, clearing my mind. Thanks for this post.


I’m passionate about Bitcoin, Ethereum, Catholicism, the destruction of the state, the lowering of taxes, the betterment of society on individualistic terms, the rise of private schools and the death of public indoctrination. The future is truth and the ruination of government lies. And every day I see more evidence that the socialist order is decaying.


How do you think about individualism, tech and Christianity? There's a difference between an individual and a person with Catholicism I think, and the individualistic approach to life I have heard goes hand in hand with pride, going it alone, rejecting God, others, and ones whole personhood. We live in relation to others.

Another thing we hear is that the modern world is in it's troublesome state because of the individualistic "me-first" selfish view of life. The rejection of Church is because people think they can have all the answers in themselves as an isolated individual for example.

Collectivism / socialism is the opposite to individualism and that's also a mistake obviously - so there's a middle ground which is more social but also respectful of each persons personhood.

I mean, have you thought about this deeply? Its something I've been pondering about - I can see it's right there in these new technologies.

Maybe there's a way to be actually social with the new tech? (where the old "social media" of the past drived us apart.) I don't see it though, just people going it alone more.


The government murdered the son of god which is a foundational element of Christianity.

The Catholic Church is a supranational entity that will survive as nation states rise and fall. No one in 2022 puts a gun to your head to join nor stay inside it. There is no forced tithe. You are encouraged voluntarily to donate money and assist others but unlike the government not doing so is something you have to deal with yourself.

All churches and orders generally have to be self sustaining. The Vatican is not cutting checks - money flows up but doesn’t flow down and they will close churches if they aren’t cutting the mustard. This encourages self sufficiency and creativity. For example my church owns a lot of rental property and has other income generating assets.

Catholic schools are generally far superior to the local public schools. They charge reasonable rates. I live in an expensive city and the local Catholic elementary school is $10k per year which is a deal considering the public school spends $25k per student and you’d have to be out of options to send your child there because of the violence and awful nature of the education (basically ranked 1/10 nationally).

It’s hilarious that you think I haven’t thought about this deeply. What’s more shocking is that people go through life oblivious to human nature and reality. They think by taxing productive citizens and enterprises all of societal flaws can be solved. The true solution is to let all of us work communally to solve our issues and keep the greedy, evil, self serving, and venal politicians away from the wealth we earned with our own hands.


by "I mean, have you thought about this deeply? " I was asking if you had because I hadn't and was curious and am looking for someone who had. Hence the question. Sorry if I offended. I do not mean to imply that you have not. I have not encountered a Catholic tech individualist before (but am a Catholic). It's entirely possibly you are not an "individualist", sorry. Its also possibly that I'm combining two of your interests (blockchain-ish + catholicism) which you have separate feelings and interests about, if that's the case, apologies. I have an interest in mycology and catholicism but I don't have any theories combining the two!

Also, see, I am not the same user(s) who replied to your original comment, but looking at their replies I can understand that you have, what appears to me to be written a defensive response. It was not the one that I was looking for. So I'm sorry. It's cool, brother. Sometimes I get worked up and reply to others still in a heated frame of mind based on something before someone else said, so I can understand when it happens, if it did.

I am curious about individualism and catholicism and these new technologies. I'm less interested in tech and government which is common here in HN, as evidenced by the other responses you got. Maybe you could provide me with the equivalent of some AOL keywords - if suitable. This might be better just to get me started than trying to parse my awkward questions!

It seems to me that individualism is the opposite of communitarianism - both extremes have their problems which Catholicism points out. What do you think? Do you see individualism and libertarianism occurring more often with Anarchist, atheism or neo-paganism or not, perhaps how is Christianity more suitable here? But really, it's this question and how it relates to new technologies. Do these technologies help us work communally, or just a tool like the stuff most of us use to be used one way or the other, or something else? How is it different from a self organising Anarchist community vision? Is it a really New Thing I guess I'm asking?


We are social creatures and I absolutely believe in community and helping each other. My issue is that other people want to use the state to solve all of their favored issues, and fund this by stealing from citizens such as myself. It’s especially bad because the recent vintage of politicians exclusively attack the rich and pretend that purely by stealing from them all the money can be found, when instead they should be advocating for shared sacrifice by all to achieve their aims. It’s class warfare mixed with naivety and it’s lies because the rich are far more nimble and able to avoid such taxes than the demagogues believe. They don’t advocate for broad tax increases because then their “something for nothing” mantra falls apart and suddenly their solutions are far less popular.

In terms of Catholicism I’m not sure there is a lot of writing specifically about how the tech industry and it intertwine. I believe that if you are a healthy individual and have nothing preventing you from working then it is your duty to be a productive member of society to help your family, friends, and those around you. The whole point of the teaching and faith is that it’s universal and timeless - doesn’t matter if we are peasants 1000 years ago or on a space ship 1000 years into the future. Just because I’m in technology doesn’t change anything or make me different from a janitor, doctor, or craftsmen.

In terms of technology for myself I see writing software as not dissimilar to constructing buildings or bridges - it’s an act of creativity that creates something out of nothing and I find beauty in the systems produced. If you are curious about Catholicism or something inside of you is seeking answers it may be worth reaching out to your local parish, they are always happy to chat.


Thanks. I also love the line about "peasants 1000 years ago or on a space ship 1000 years into the future" - we tend to get caught up in our present time and tools. I will try to remember that.

I can see where you are coming from regarding tax and the state, and agree with you on the attack on the rich as a kind of naive resentful class warfare.


I would _love_ any semblance of evidence that the current order is in any form socialist


Depends on your world view. I give ~40% of my income to a decrepit government where I have no say how it’s spent. My city pays $25,000 USD per public school student and the results have not only been atrocious for decades but are declining year after year. Government jobs require college credentials… colleges whose accreditation are approved by the government, in some circular fashion of reciprocal approval. Our medical system is in shambles. I really don’t know how to convince people that the government has ruined society if they can’t see it themselves - the solution for statists is always to steal money from actually productive people like myself.


Did you consider that perhaps having students from less wealthy and educated families enroll would cause "declining results"? The best way to ensure perfect scores is to exclude underperforming kids from families where parents didn't go to university and/or have to choose between soap and bread at the supermarket instead of educating their child.

I'm still genuinely amused every time I see a Westerner living in a democratic country claim their government is dysfunctional, lying, stealing and bad. First, compared to what country? Second, can't you elect a different government? If enough people agree with you they would vote for it, and if not enough agree then perhaps you are in a minority. If unlike many people on this planet you have a mechanism for peaceful replacement of power it seems strange to call for a revolution.


Have you considered that your market-rate could be 66% up (166*0.6=100) because everybody in your market has to pay 40% and wants to have a certain living standard? Or the other way round: how much will your income fall if taxes would be abolished?

If you want to see change, link up with other productive people. It takes one to get one. Those 40% are kind of a global standard. Instead of fighting big government, why not help to make it productive?


Philosophically the government is the one holding the gun. I want it as tiny and efficient as possible with the minimum number of guns pointed at its citizens. There is no way you can give politicians, nor any human, the exclusive right to giant amounts of money and not expect them to be corrupted. If you didn’t earn the money and you aren’t responsible for keeping the productive enterprises working then you simply don’t care and will never understand. It’s always about stealing more money to feed the ever hungry Leviathan.

And believe me I am linked up with other productive people all dedicated to reducing the size and scope of the immoral and unsalvageable corrupt state.


I see you are frustrated you can’t convince others that government is the root of all problems. Have you considered that you might be wrong?

Serious problems require serious efforts to understand and solve. Calling people names like “statists”, you sound like a toddler following some ideological talking points. Use the Internet and library to expand your perspective. Grow up.


Statist is a term for someone who thinks the state can solve society’s problems. There is never a solution that doesn’t involve the government and never a situation where giving more taxes (and it’s always the rich who must pay - never the masses!) is the wrong answer.

In my view an increasing number of people are agreeing with me. You won’t see it in the mainstream media because they are also statists whose worldview is wrong and intolerant. You are witnessing them scream and cry and whine that democracy is failing, the climate is failing and the world is ending, basically the apocalypse is upon us and you need to be scared and afraid 24/7. Whereas the people I know don’t give a shit and don’t believe those lies. It’s like an alternate planet where hyper-online people actually think the world is ending and all the normal people stopped believing those lies.


How much have you travelled? From my experiences there are plenty of nations/states that make higher taxation work for the people.


The canonical place is Norway for the American left. A country of 5 million people of the same race and culture that has zero immigration and built their socialist utopia on oil and gas.

High taxes are a lie and the seeds of destruction are planted the moment they are put in place. Developed countries like the UK are falling apart.


So... are there any countries in the world that are not socialist by your definition? Maybe China? It has, perhaps, lower taxes and better public schools.


Developed countries were created over centuries. They have a giant amount of legacy cruft and baggage that may have made sense in an older world but no longer does. They have no reason nor incentive to reform themselves and its workers are mindless drones that never think if their work has any value because the institution lacks the market test.

China is an authoritarian godless dictatorship that will put a bullet in your head if you disagree with the dictator. This is the antithesis of freedom and the free will given to each of us.


The existence of overwhelmed workers who don't have any energy (or desire) to think outside of their daily routine is a shared characteristic of all economic regimes in sufficiently large countries. It's not due to "socialism in the US" or capitalism somewhere else. Lowering taxes or improving public school system won't solve that completely. And, just to note, Catholicism doesn't encourage freethinking either.


Catholicism has no issue with science as any scientific fact was established by god and therefore is fine. You may be thinking about Baptists or similar groups with literal interpretations of the bible. The church really doesn't have any mandates other than the Nicene Creed and no one has to agree with everything the Vatican mandates, our priest and deacon both disagree with certain elements of the official doctrine. God gave humans free will and therefore the capacity to sin. You are allowed to think anything you want, there is no mandate.


I appreciate your explanation!


I'm a passionate master mason living a rich Renaissance fantasy life filled with art.


Sounds beautiful.


[flagged]


If the administrators of this site do not understand, that by not removing such comments, they become themselves what the poster obviously is, they have a very big problem.

They have an even bigger problem if they do understand.


Yes, we know that orcs are very ethical when it comes to freedom of speech, censorship and criticism.

We also know there are not 10s of thousands of russian trolls and hackers doing the samw to us.


Keep it up. Slava Ukraini!


[flagged]


OP is asking you to “comment here about whatever you're passionate about at the moment, however niche it might be.”

Are you passionate about pedantry? If so, you might be in the right place.

This post was nice to see. In addition to other things, I’m thinking about how to make simple tools/apps that bring back the sense of wonder we felt in earlier times on the internet. I made a little app (really just a function that i have mapped to a keyboard shortcut) that redirects you to a random website sourced from a handful of interesting are.na channels as well as from HN. It has brought me joy both making it and using it. The app is called moonjump and also has a minimal UI:

https://moonjump.app/


I like the webring implementation on your personal site. I wish academic researchers did this, that'll make knowing people in different fields so much easier and fun.


> Are you passionate about pedantry?

Yes I am and I am glad you noticed! I also like helping people follow the site guidelines; posts generally fare better when they do.

Sometimes people call me a stick in the mud. Which is fine. Without the stick, the mud might fly off. You don't want mud flying around, do you?


Salute. But we can haz a little cuteness here


awesome project! exactly what gets my interest these days ... how to find those wonderful gems from the depths of the net instead of the SEO optimized and often commercial shit the big search engines are feeding us.


The stand-out innocence (or naivety) of the title is what made me click on this post. :-)


I think this comment goes against the spirit of this post - joyful interactions


Is HN is being profiled? Earlier the question about age demographics, now this looking for your interests?


This post annoyed me and I'm not sure why.


Hello


Goodbye


Great Beatles reference. That's what you're intending to do, right?

Also getting strong "go dog go" vibes, if you have kids you may know that one.


The Beatles are back!

Joking aside, the Beatles may almost be like xkcd. In that they just might have a song for most if not all of the most basic human interactions and emotions.

Here, "Hello, Goodbye".

You say, "Yes", I say, "No" You say, "Stop" and I say, "Go, go, go" Oh no

You say, "Goodbye" and I say, "Hello, hello, hello" I don't know why you say, "Goodbye", I say, "Hello, hello, hello" I don't know why you say, "Goodbye", I say, "Hello"




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