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Issue #169 - June 5, 2022
If you are looking for work, check out this month's Who is hiring?, Who wants to be hired? and Freelancer? Seeking Freelancer? threads.
Here are the top threads of the week, happy reading!
1. Ask HN: Burnt-out, directionless but want to turn it around
Top comment by colanderman
1. Take time off, like a month or more. [1] Use it to do anything other than coding. Hone a hobby, travel, volunteer, etc. No-one will care about a month or two gap on your resume.
2. You are worth more than you currently think you are. Internalize this, know this, that is key. "I am a sole developer for Mobile and Web platforms at this startup in a very small team" --> is a desirable skill in and of itself.
3. Stop working 80 hour weeks, stop working weekends. When the only thing you do has little/no reward, that is what causes burnout.
4. Fill your time with something else that you prioritize above work. Make it hard to find time to work. This both prevents slipping back to 80 hr weeks, and forces your brain to prioritize important things within your work life (like executing and finishing projects).
5. Networking is key. I don't have good advice here as this is a challenge for me also. But -- switch jobs often (every couple years), and be friendly and helpful (within reason) to your co-workers. They're now your network.
My background -- coding since I was 6, now 36 -- but I've shared many of the same feelings.
[1] I am assuming you have the basic financial stability to support this. My apologies if not.
2. Ask HN: If Kubernetes is the solution, why are there so many DevOps jobs?
Top comment by jmillikin
> 1) internal users: mainly developers by providing CI/CD
> 2) external users: end users
>
> Nowadays we call people that do 1) DevOps and people that do
> 2) SREs (so one could argue that the role of sys admins just
> got more specialized).
SRE is a specialized software engineering role -- you'd hire SREs if you wanted to create something like Kubernetes in-house, or do extensive customization of an existing solution. If you hire an SRE to do sysadmin work, they'll be bored and you'll be drastically overpaying.
DevOps is the idea that there shouldn't be separate "dev" and "ops" organizations, but instead that operational load of running in-house software should be borne primarily by the developers of that software. DevOps can be considered in the same category as Scrum or Agile, a way of organizing the distribution and prioritization of tasks between members of an engineering org.
---
With this in mind, the question could be reframed as: if projects such as Kubernetes are changing the nature of sysadmin work, why has that caused more sysadmin jobs to exist?
I think a general answer is that it's reduced the cost associated with running distributed software, so there are more niches where hiring someone to babysit a few hundred VMs is profitable compared to a team of mainframe operators.
3. Ask HN: Favourite open source game?
Top comment by ninjin
OpenTTD is probably my favourite, but let me put a classic that I really enjoyed into the mix: XBattle [1]. Real-time strategy with an emphasis on area of control and supply line “flow”. All while “abusing” X11 to get multi-player support. It gave me many hours of joy at the Solaris boxes we had at university in the mid 00s. My only concern would be whether it counts as open source with its home-made license [2].
[1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20011128105604/http://cns-web.bu...
[2]: https://paste.sr.ht/~ninjin/fdd615d6e32e1316014dece892128697...
4. Ask HN: How to learn math from zero for adults?
Top comment by zerohp
I was a C student in high school. I never took a math class beyond basic algebra. I started from Khan Academy's first exercise when I was 33 years old. It seems silly looking back that I was solving problems on the number line as an adult.
At that time, around 10 years ago, Khan Academy had excellent coverage through trigonometry and single variable calculus. Once I reached that point I went to my local community college and took all of their math classes. I transferred to University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and continued onward to get a BS CS, BS EE, and MS EE. I finished at 41 years old and landed a dream job that I would have never thought possible when I started.
I guess my advice is to start from the beginning and see where it takes you.
5. Ask HN: Non-violent video games with great stories?
Top comment by scott_s
Outer Wilds. (Not to be confused with Outer Worlds which came out around the same time.) While the game is non-violent in that you never actively harm anything, your character will die, a lot, in maybe concerning ways (crushed, out of air, crashed, etc). It also has a story with themes that may be over your kids’ heads. Look up reviews to see more.
6. Ask HN: Has Cloudflare blocked your domain without explaining what's going on?
Top comment by malikNF
Update: Just received an email from CF.
--------------
Hello,
With regard to your inquiry, we have restored the domain names in your account to active status. Please allow for normal propagation. You will need to re-add mnf90.com to your account in order to manage it. Our apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused.
Kind Regards,
Cloudflare Trust & Safety
------------
Not much info lol, but guess its fixed now?
Thanks HN for up-voting my post and helping me get the attention of CF. Time to go figure-out how not to get in to this situation again, and a way to mitigate this incase the AI gets angry again. Funniest thing about this is, I wanted my own email because I was afraid of this scenario, getting locked out of everything, what happens if big G or M decide to close my account down?
Again, thanks HN. Really appreciate you folks for helping me get the attention.
7. Ask HN: SWE who started an organic farm in Europe, where did you go?
Top comment by blaydator
Near Albi, Tarn, France, (1h from) Toulouse. Working remotely as a SWE. Balancing between two extremes, growing veggies and coding. Had to install a 4g antennas works like a charm. Countryside in France is cheap, not to remote (5min from bakery, market, college), 15min from coworking Space (once a week to see friends), friendly neighbors, living my dream. Move here 2 years ago with my wife and new born. We made friends, bought a farm with 2ha. My quality of life is amazing. Please ama if inspired or investigating France !
8. Ask HN: Is there an “uncanny valley” effect with startup MVPs?
Top comment by naet
Checking your actual landing page ( https://propertywebbuilder.com ) and my opinion is... that it isn't a very good landing page. The sizing and spacing are awkward and blocky, your color scheme clashes with your images, the images are generic and tacky, everything is too big and wide, etc. Maybe because you worked on it you feel that it is a great modern style landing page, but that isn't how it reads to me (and seemingly to other people as well).
Maybe you look at a SIMPLER site like https://tom.preston-werner.com/ and mistakenly equate that with a "worse" landing page. Actually though this simple page has bullet proof styling, and slapping some stock images on it like you did on your page wouldn't make it better, it would make it way worse.
Rather than looking for an external factor like a "mythical uncanny valley" to explain your landing page's poor performance, look inwards at your individual styling and what could be improved.
9. Ask HN: Anyone else quickly losing confidence in Amazon?
Top comment by wdr1
A seller offered me a gift certificate if I left a 5 star review. Basically a little note in the box saying if I left a 5 star review, took a screenshot & sent it to their email address, they'd send me the gift certificate.
It was not a 5 star product. It was a 2 star product, at best.
I tried to mention the fact they were paying for reviews in my review (to explain the other 5 stars).
Amazon rejected my review.
It's against Amazon policy to let others know that sellers are buying reviews.
10. Ask HN: What does your mother tell people about your work or employment?
Top comment by Aulig
My grandparents think I don't work at all - because I have no employer (self-employed) and work from home. My parents understand pretty well that I turn websites into apps [0]. Recently someone described it as "Oh you make the big thing (websites on computers) go into the small thing (app on smartphone)". I found that wholesomely funny.
[0] https://webtoapp.design