AskHN Digest

1. Ask HN: Has Google search become quantitatively worse?

Top comment by vgeek

The results keep getting "refined" so as to suit the popular 80% of queries, while getting much worse for any technical or obscure queries. Forced synonyms and "people also searched for" are typically useless and almost infuriating. Once you get off the first or second page, the results get even worse-- with pages entirely unrelated to the query (e.g. not even containing the searched phrases). They are probably testing/already implemented some sort of multi armed bandit type optimization like on Youtube's search results where they just show any popular pages (ignoring relevancy) to see if they yield a click.

I've used DDG for the past ~5 years, and it is typically worse without using a hashbang like !so for technical queries. I guess that is what the web has evolved to-- knowing which mega-site you want to search against rather than discover new sites?

2. Ask HN: Are there any 4K “dumb” televisions?

Top comment by haunter

4K monitors. You need a soundbar though or some kind of audio setup + remote. Also no built-in tuner or such but I assume you get a set top box from your service provider or use a streaming device (Apple TV, Fire stick etc.)

4K OLED https://pcpartpicker.com/products/monitor/#r=384002160&P=7

4K IPS https://pcpartpicker.com/products/monitor/#r=384002160&P=2

4K VA https://pcpartpicker.com/products/monitor/#r=384002160&P=4

4K 55" or bigger monitors (there aren't many choices) https://pcpartpicker.com/products/monitor/#P=2,7,4&r=3840021...

The 4K 55" OLED Alienware has speaker but I doubt that it is any good https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/new-alienware-55-oled-gaming... (actually comes with remote too)

Linus made a video of it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3oqktdx2a8

Last but not least you can go even higher resolution than 4K but these are all IPS only and they are not bigger than 34" https://pcpartpicker.com/products/monitor/#r=768004320,57600...

3. Ask HN: What are these low quality “code snippet” sites?

Top comment by ScottWRobinson

For years now I've ran a programming site (stackabuse.com) and have closely followed the state of Google SERPs when it comes to programming content. A few thoughts/ramblings:

- The search results for programming content has been very volatile the last year or so. Google has released a lot of core algorithm updates in the last year, which has caused a lot of high-quality sites to either lose traffic or stagnate.

- These low-quality code snippet sites have always been around, but their traffic has exploded this year after the algorithm changes. Just look at traffic estimates for one of the worst offenders - they get an estimated 18M views each month now, which has grown almost 10x in 12 months. Compare that to SO, which has stayed flat or even dropped in the same time-frame

- The new algorithm updates seem to actually hurt a lot of high-quality sites as it seemingly favors code snippets, exact-match phrases, and lots of internal linking. Great sites with well-written long-form content, like RealPython.com, don't get as much attention as they deserve, IMO. We try to publish useful content, but consistently have our traffic slashed by Google's updates, which end up favoring copy-pasted code from SO, GitHub, and even our own articles.

- The programming content "industry" is highly fragmented (outside of SO) and difficult to monetize, which is why so many sites are covered in ads. Because of this, it's a land grab for traffic and increasing RPMs with more ads, hence these low-quality snippet sites. Admittedly, we monetize with ads but are actively trying to move away from it with paid content. It's a difficult task as it's hard to convince programmers to pay for anything, so the barrier to entry is high unless you monetize with ads.

- I'll admit that this is likely a difficult problem because of how programmer's use Google. My guess is that because we often search for obscure errors/problems/code, their algorithm favors exact-match phrases to better find the solution. They might then give higher priority to pages that seem like they're dedicated to whatever you searched for (i.e. the low-quality snippet sites) over a GitHub repo that contains that snippet _and_ a bunch of other unrelated code.

Just my two cents. Interested to hear your thoughts :)

4. Ask HN: Why doesn't anyone create a search engine comparable to 2005 Google?

Top comment by gbmatt

Ha, yes, I've done that at https://gigablast.com/ . The biggest problems now are the following: 1) Too hard to spider the web. Gatekeeper companies like Cloudflare (owned in part by Google) and Cloudfront make it really difficult for upstart search engines to download web pages. 2) Hardware costs are too high. It's much more expensive now to build a large index (50B+ pages) to be competitive.

I believe my algorithms are decent, but the biggest problem for Gigablast is now the index size. You do a search on Gigablast and say, well, why didn't it get this result that Google got. And that's because the index isn't big enough because I don't have the cash for the hardware. btw, I've been working on this engine for over 20 years and have coded probably 1-2M lines of code on it.

5. Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

Top comment by tgsovlerkhgsel

My guess - DocuSign has a hard to penetrate moat: It's known and accepted in courts. Everything else doesn't really matter.

Imagine you're a legal department. You have to choose between DocuSign, which you know the court will accept, or a competitor. DocuSign costs 10x as much as the competitor. But that's nothing compared to the cost of litigation, or worse, the cost of losing litigation. So you will likely choose DocuSign anyways.

6. Ask HN: Advice about aging parents

Top comment by lettergram

My advice is to keep your parents moving for as long as possible.

Motivation and exercise is what keeps people alive and happy. I once knew a 92 year old who benched 140lbs and who’s grip was a vice. He worked out every day for ~2 hrs. Was one of the most impressive things I’ve seen.

All that said, perhaps ask them what they want? For instance, their motivation might not be meals or cleaning. Getting a maid or food service can lighten their load. Similarly, consider a cleaner for yourself! And give yourself more time to spend with them and your young family.

At the end of the day, they’re their individuals. I suspect they’ll have some thoughts. It’s honestly hard to watch sometimes, but all you can do is try to spend time and enjoy each other’s company.

7. Ask HN: Why is machine learning easier to learn than basic social skills?

Top comment by hluska

You know bud, if you’re interested, let’s be hackers and hack this social skill test. Can you give me a specific situation (or several) where you feel your social skills are lacking??

Let’s start off by testing your theory. I’m old enough to have known a lot of really wonderful people who think their social skills suck when they actually don’t - they’re just interested in completely different, non typical things.

From there, let’s go into strategies. Let’s start off with a social gathering hack. You’re at an event and don’t know many people. What do you do??

If you said “copious amounts of cocaine”, that’s a way but likely not the best way to cope. Instead, try approaching people who are speaking in groups of two. It can be a really simple approach (“Great bag!”/“I’m Greg!”/“Cheers!”/“There’s a dude with bad social skills chipping away at Mount Yay2 in the bathroom.”)

Smile, pause for a full count and walk away. If you were unwelcome, nobody worth knowing fucking cares. However, when you’re at an event and see two people talking, there’s a very very very high chance that one party wants out of the conversation. Be that out!!!

In fact, a really massive part of what people call social skills is really just about giving people ins and outs.

For example, don’t try to pick up romantic partners when they’re at work - they’re contractually obligated to listen to your shitty pick up lines. If you try to pick them up when they’re at work, they might not have an out - they likely can’t just quit their jobs on the spot.

Or when you’re in a meeting, make sure everyone else has three times the chances to speak that you do. Give their anxiety, perceived lack of social skills or whatever an in - make it easy for them. Things like this work:

“Hey btheshoe, we were talking about $x a couple of days ago and you had some excellent points.”

If it’s stuff like eye contact, focus on the person and the conversation. Smile, laugh and express interest with your eyes.

But now it’s your turn. What gets you every single time?? You’re in a safe place and I’m on your team. If this is a scary environment use hypotheticals or reach out directly, I’m Greg and you can reach me at gthluska@gmail.com.

8. Ask HN: EU devs who moved to the States for work, has it been worth it?

Top comment by cplanas

ES -> DK -> US

For me it's a mixed bag, and we will be probably moving back to Europe next year, after spending 6 years in between San Francisco and New York.

On the positive side, money. Software engineers make much, much more in the US than anywhere in Europe, including Nordic countries. My income tripled in the US, and my income was considered pretty high Denmark. Another positive side of the US is that there seems to be more opportunities, particularly if you are white or Asian and work in tech. My wife couldn't get a job in Europe, here she joined multiple FAANGs.

On the negative side, the lifestyle doesn't really fit us: too much focus on work. The problem is not -only- longer working hours, but that a lot people center their life around their job. I also find the social issues of the US (unequality, racism) more disturbing than the ones there are in Europe.

9. Ask HN: Are Indeed, LinkedIn the go-to places for exploring new jobs?

Top comment by chadash

LinkedIn yes, Indeed no. Almost all recruiters (internal and external) are active on LinkedIn. It definitely doesn't hurt to have a good profile... people will reach out to you.

Recruiters get a lot of scorn, but I've had good experiences with them as long as you understand their incentives. They usually get some percentage of your starting salary, so let's say they make 15k if your offer is 100k (making up these numbers, but probably in the ballpark. Also, they only get paid if you stick around for at least a few months). If your offer is for 120k, they might make 3k more, so they have some incentive to get you a higher salary, but really, their incentive is to close as many deals as possible. Better to close two deals for 15k each then to drag out one deal for 18k.

As long as you understand that their incentives are somewhat aligned with yours but not completely, you might have a good experience with recruiters. I've found some who are great and many others who suck. But the good ones will get you in the door with the right people and guide you through the interview process.

10. Ask HN: How do you build your personal start page?

Top comment by mbreese

This sounds an awful lot like a portal that was so popular around 2000. That’s the way it used to be. You’d setup a personal portal on Yahoo or MSN or iGoogle or whomever provided your email. Then you’d load up whatever widgets you wanted and placed them in an organized grid. News and fresh content was populated by RSS and you’d have you own personal start page on the Internet.

The goal for any portal site was to convince you to spend more time on the portal (this is how we got {Yahoo,Google} news). The more time on the portal was more ad impressions they could sell. Social media didn’t like sharing content this way and so portals became significantly less popular.

I’d forgotten how much I’d missed those.