AskHN Digest

1. Ask HN: Best way to host a website for 500 years?

Top comment by cstross

The world wide web is only 28 years old.

We've had computers for 76 years at this point.

We're discussing this topic in modern English, but if you look back 500 years William Shakespeare wouldn't be born for another couple of generations: vocabulary and grammar have changed a lot since then, and if you look back a further 500 years (to 1021AD) the "English" spoken in those days was a lot closer to Frisian than anything we'd understand.

To get the big picture of what 500 years means ... the oldest surviving writing is roughly 5500 years old. We've had agriculture for roughly 11,000 years. And you're asking for a personal legacy to be legible and usable after surviving a span of time 10% as vast as the existence of writing itself?

Think archival grade materials and ink, then add translations into Mandarin, Arabic, and Spanish -- there's a much better chance of it being readable if you have more than one language. Then maybe add a dictionary, just in case words have fallen out of use. Make multiple copies and distribute them around the world, including tectonically stable desiccated regions that are currently lightly- or un-inhabited and likely to remain so: the criteria for deep disposal nuclear waste repositories are applicable (minus the "deep") bit, so Yucca Flats would do, or the Atacama Desert or the McMurdo dry valleys in Antarctica.

2. Ask HN: Can Firefox be revived?

Top comment by ksec

I think it would be better to look at Desktop Browser usage, which is at ~8%.

And here is another unpopular opinion. I dont care if her salary is 3 million or even 30 million. If she had managed to bring Firefox to 60% marketshare and bring down Chrome on Desktop, would you have still complained if she was paid 30 million?

The problem is Mozilla is in such a bad shape and she is under performing as a CEO.

Unfortunately people dont learn much from history. And history dictate the only way to solve this problem is Mozilla think of it as a problem. Otherwise its current status at 10% marketshare is enough to sustain the operation. Nothing bad enough is happening, no interest or incentive for changes. Inertia. Let's keep thing this way.

So yes, it is counter intuitive. The only way to save Mozilla ( or change Mozill's direction, I guess the word "save" is a hyperbole, at least from Mozilla's perspective. ) isn't trying to get more user to use it. It is actually push people to abandon it.

3. Ask HN: I'm making like 0 friends at college, how to fix it?

Top comment by robcohen

1. Join a bunch of clubs that interest you. Go consistently. Join clubs that you might enjoy but improve your social skills (acting, improv, debate, etc). Don't just hang out with the same people all the time.

2. Treat being social as a skill. Schedule time that you go out and force yourself to speak to people you don't know. Learn to care less about what others think of you, and learn to accept rejection.

3. Learn to be a "connector". Learn to talk to people. Listen to what they want and like. Connect them with others who like the same thing. Learn to cook and invite groups of people over for dinner and drinks/tea. Organize walks or hikes. Play poker, play board games, chess.

4. Keep track of everyone you speak to. Everyone. Write down what they mentioned they liked, who their family is, what matters to them. Maintain their contact. Reach out during holidays and birthdays in a heartfelt way.

5. (Edit) Oh yeah, practice EXCELLENT hygiene at all times. Shower in the morning after exercise and take care of your teeth, breath and body odor.

4. Ask HN: Anyone working remotely for a US company internationally?

Top comment by egman_ekki

Maybe try Automattic if you don't mind working with WordPress, PHP and JS. 1500+ people, lots of autonomy, hiring for a lot of roles.

https://automattic.com/work-with-us/

https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/19/automattic-tc1/

5. Ask HN: Why is there no Django/Rails equivalent in JavaScript world?

Top comment by jitl

To some degree, this is a question of time. You may think of Rails as a monolith that developed all its own technology, but really it’s a framework that’s been around for a while and done a good deal of absorbing good ideas and composing existing libraries.

- Rails controllers and plug-in architecture come from MERB (absorbed for Rails 3) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merb

- ERB templates, the default for Rails view layer, have been in the Ruby standard library since at least 2007 (which is as far back as the docs go)

- Rails adopted Rack web server interface and the first versions of the asset pipeline in 2.3, neither of those were written by Rails community.

Rails 1 was released in 2004, almost 10 years after the release of Ruby in 1995. Node was released in 2009 - so maybe one of the frameworks mentioned here —- Next.js /Blitzjs, Nest, Meteor, Redwood —- could be a Rails 1.0 or 2.0. Give them another 5 years or so to mature and then you’ll have your Rails.

Personally, I’ve been trying out Blitz and it seems pretty good, feels like a Rails 2ish kind of thing, where you can do a lot of stuff by following convention but can’t “plug in” as deeply as with Rails 3+.

6. Ask HN: Best way to organize 100-200 emails/day in Outlook?

Top comment by kstrauser

I’m not a lawyer, but I get a metric ton (yep, I weighed it) of email every day in my job. Others have mentioned GTD, and that’s the general process I use to manage everything. But something I haven’t heard mentioned yet: only touch an email once. Triage it as it comes in.

Does it need a reply? Can you reply right now? Reply to it and move it out of your inbox.

Is it something you need to act on later? Make an action in your to-do system. That can be as simple as (in my case) dragging it to Apple Reminders to create a new action with a handy clickable link back to the original email, and setting a meaningful, actionable title like “Review Joe’s proposal”. Now it’s in my actual to-do system, and not a ghost of a vaguely formed request sitting in my inbox and taunting me.

If it’s useful information, archive it, either in the appropriate mail folder or your / your company’s DMS. For my personal use, I adore DEVONthink.

If it’s not something you need to reply to, or act on later, or store for future reference, delete it. I get literally dozens of requests for my time every day, from spammers or trade groups or people who want to sell my company something. I don’t owe those emails my attention.

An email inbox is a terrible task manager. Don’t let it become that for you. When an email comes in, process it one time and then get it out of your sight.

7. Ask HN: Do you tell your salary to people/family/friends outside your industry?

Top comment by joshstrange

I'll truthfully answer anyone that asks but I don't volunteer it to non-tech friends, I don't want to come across as bragging or boastful. For things like raises I always talk in percentages since I know I've gotten raises that are more or very close to what some friends make annually. My goal isn't to obscure but rather I don't want to make them feel uncomfortable.

For tech friends/coworkers I make it a point to discuss salary. I've had too many coworkers and good friends making way under what they could be.

Every time, without fail, that I made assumptions about what a friend was making I was extremely wrong and even felt a little guilty that I didn't bring it up sooner since they can and should be making more.

8. Ask HN: What's the fastest way to become employable in tech

Top comment by hartator

Unpopular view here, but if they want to do code just because they hear it pays well, steer them away.

Coding is not easy. And it requires a lot of fiddling with things and a lot alone time trying to figure things out. Transcribe your own solutions in working code and communicate elegantly about them is also an art form by itself and it’s not accessible to many.

9. Ask HN: Is it still worth it to switch companies every few year?

Top comment by noud

Your problems is similar to the Secretary problem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem.

There is a perfect mathematical sound answer to your question: for the first n/e year n is the number of working years, e is Euler's constant) you should regularly switch jobs every 2 to 4 years. After these first n/e years you continue switching jobs regularly until you end up with a job that's better than all previous jobs you had. That's, with the highest probability, the best job you would ever get in your life. Don't switch jobs with others after that!

E.g. You would work around 50 years (from 16 to 66), which means that for the first 50 / e = 18.3 years you should switch jobs regularly. After these years you should be think twice before changing jobs.

10. Ask HN: What non-American news sources do you recommend?

Top comment by RF_Enthusiast

My go-to news source is Radio New Zealand International. I have their world news tab bookmarked: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world

They use outside newswires to supplement, but the important part to me is that they are curating it.

The reasons I like them are:

1. There is no advertising. They are not trying to get you to click their headline to increase traffic.

2. There are no donations. No temptation to write for a 'left', 'right' or 'middle' audience.

3. They don't care about the US (where I live). They only report on US matters that are important. Crucial stores from my country are not mixed in with stories that are not meaningful or essential.

4. They are funded by the Ministry for Culture and Heritage.

5. And if the grid goes down, you can get them on shortwave, so they are dependable. (I discovered them on shortwave during an extended power outage)

They're very useful when the US/World news is overwhelming (i.e., Jan 6, etc).