AskHN Digest

1. Ask HN: Google is confusing me with others in a harmful way – what can I do?

Top comment by jl6

For what it’s worth, I clicked “Report an issue” on the panel and pointed them to this thread. Maybe if 10,000 others do this too they will notice…

2. Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?

Top comment by gjsman-1000

To be honest... None.

It's a choice. You might wholly disagree, but recent events aren't enough to get me to switch yet, because I think the competition has too many tradeoffs.

I can get my photos scanned against a CSAM database... or I can have Google tracking my location constantly regardless of what they say (as they've been proven to be misleading in the past)... or I can use a Linux phone and say goodbye to battery life and useful apps I need. I'll pick CSAM Scanning over my Location data being in the hands of Google, sorry.

And as for my laptop, macOS doesn't scan, and the M1 is too impressive and has me spoiled. And I have too many horror stories with both Linux and Windows and can't stand either of them. (Don't tell me switch to Linux - I've tried over a dozen distributions over the last decade. It's just not there yet.)

3. Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?

Top comment by ema

7 years ago I had just aborted an internship, my foray into being an employed adult, because I found myself unable to deal with disagreements. Contrary to my naive hope that the confidence boost from being a Professional Software Developer(tm) would solve all my emotional problems I now knew that my limitations would follow me around anywhere I would go. But I had no idea how to change and was too stuck in my own anxiety and arrogance to ask for help.

Around that time I Somehow stumbled upon this[1] article on how to make a Buddhist bone trumpet. It took me completely by surprise, the topic, the author, the tone, the context of Buddhism, nothing fit together like I expected. It was the most absurd thing I ever read and I kept laughing, at the same time it felt utterly genuine. My curiosity piqued I read the other less bizarre articles from the author about Buddhism and life in general. It dawned on me that my attempt at completely controlling my life had, in fact, caused me to lose control over it. The process of learning to accept unpredictability and open myself to the world, that started the evening I read that article, was by no means always this fun, but looking back boy was it worth it.

[1] https://buddhism-for-vampires.com/kangling-chod

4. Ask HN: Why does Zoom Desktop examine all processes and arguments?

Top comment by reilly3000

Zoom has a popular feature which allows for screen sharing a single application window instead of the entire desktop. I assume this is how its discovering running applications with GUI windows open in a cross-platform manner. Perhaps there is a better API for this? Its not a common use-case that an app would need to know all of the other open windows, but it seems like a perfectly valid use case, and frankly handy for sharing a PPT without fear of an embarrassing email showing up in during a meeting.

5. Ask HN: I feel trapped in my job and city

Top comment by ryandrake

I'm going to be the contrarian. Keep the job. Power through it and retire as early as you can, then you can do whatever you want. If you're in $finance$ or $FAANG$, don't go to a non-FAANG. Definitely don't quit your job unless you have another one lined up, and definitely don't take an extended leave to travel and find yourself. Don't believe "CS grads will always be employed." There are people on HN who graduated in 2010 and have worked a decade without experiencing trying to stay employed in a bear market. It can and will happen again, and suddenly having savings is going to be super important. Work is not supposed to be roses and sunshine. That's why it's called Work and not Fun Hobby.

Remember, the goal is to not have to work. Then, you can do whatever fun thing you want, even a fun job!

I wish I would have had a quant finance salary and aggressive savings plan in my 30s. I might be retired already if I did. Instead I kind of flitted around doing "fun" jobs and didn't get serious about retiring until I hit 40. Don't be me.

6. Ask HN: I joined a FAANG and it is awful

Top comment by laurieg

"staffed with below-average IQ people"

I'm not sure why your co-workers' IQ is your concern. To come out of the gate with a comment like this sounds like you have a strong disdain for them.

Part of your reason for joining the company was the paycheck. I assume the checks aren't bouncing.

My advice is the same advice I would give to many people: Learn from your coworkers. Understand the problems that the team and the company face. Make incremental improvements.

If you really want to you can work late every day and at weekends. It's your choice. Bear in mind your job won't love you back.

7. Ask HN: Is it worth learning Elixir, from a jobs perspective?

Top comment by peterbonney

We use Elixir, and basically every developer we’ve hired has had zero Elixir experience prior to joining our team. Like any language it takes some time to get up to speed with the ins and outs, but I’d rather have a good developer with no Elixir experience than a mediocre-to-poor developer well versed in the language.

I can’t speak for any other company, but I suspect that any team that has made the decision to use Elixir is (a) well aware of the low market penetration it has, and (b) not screening out resumes based on inexperience with the language.

Edit: I should add that, despite all of that, I think it’s a fun language and any developer would probably enjoy dabbling in it regardless of vocational prospects.

8. Ask HN: Should it be legal to switch privacy policies after purchase?

Top comment by belval

I think we are at a point where legislation will be needed and there should be a clear list of what kind of data will be collected by the device throughout this lifespan akin to nutrition facts for food. That list should not be possible to alter at all (because otherwise they would lock the app lest you approve the new requirements).

Something like:

This device will share:

- Age

- Gender

- Voice commands

- Wifi name

- Location

If a manufacturer wants more data they have to change the tag at the store and only the newer device will have the additional data collection. If the manufacturer pushes an update to get more data on users that have the older tag they get a $X fine per affected user, where X is ideally a real cost-prohibiting amount like 25-50% of the price of the device.

Is there any reason why we can't have something like that?

9. Ask HN: What LinkedIn alternatives don't suck?

Top comment by K5EiS

Remove your 6000 connections except the people you actually know. Linkedin is what you make it, and you have made yours like Facebook.

10. Ask HN: How to become a ridiculously good back end staff eng?

Top comment by anonuser123456

There are a lot of not-sexy but highly impacting skills in systems programming.

For example, the most productive person I've ever met, is a master of shell script, all the various shell tools (with obscure flags and usage modes), has deep knowledge in the use and application of makefiles, is a perl wizard and knows lots of tricks for virtualizing/replicating things in non-obvious ways.

When this person wants to automate a task, he can do it immediately, without having to think about 'how do I xxx'. It just flows from his fingertips because he knows all of these 'basic' things. Since so many things in SW are automatable, this gives him a non-linear advantage against nearly all his peers. He can dedicate 50% of his time building tools that act like a multiplier for the 50% of his production work and gets 500% done.