AskHN Digest

1. Ask HN: I’m 41 and still unmarried – what should I do?

Top comment by CodeWriter23

One of my ex-girlfriends had a list of twenty things she required in a mate. I met 19 of them. She left. I met an amazing woman a couple of years later (at 43). We’re married and have an amazing 13 yo daughter. My ex is still single.

Maybe examine your standards. And I do mean this in a constructive way, by way of perhaps helping to troubleshoot. The way you describe your experience above, you present as high-expectation which though not needy can be high-maintenance in a different way. Maybe that’s true and maybe not, I don’t know you. My point is, the presentation is important.

Before the first date with my wife, we chatted for 3-1/2 hrs on okcupid. That we could hold a conversation that long made me optimistic about dating her. She chose the location for our first date. It was a noisy hangout bar and I could barely hear her. I asked for the check before she finished her food, my hope crushed. Why would someone choose a place like that to get to know someone? I’m walking to the car, dreading the ride back to her place when she asks if I’d like some ice cream. We went to Cold Stone and talked for about 5 hours.

Later in our relationship, we needed our communication skills to work through various conflicts. Even though we have high consensus about parenting, we don’t always see eye to eye. My point there, if you expect to find the perfect mate, also expect to be disappointed. What makes a relationship is the willingness to work through challenges.

2. Ask HN: How to keep my daughter busy while tickling her curiosity

Top comment by oblib

I became a single parent when my daughter turned 1 year old. When she got old enough we'd go fishing, bicycling, swimming, and hiking a lot. We'd also go to a used book store twice a month (on pay day) so she could pick out a few books to read. She loved doing that.

She had no interest at all in learning how to code or gaming but she loved helping in the garden and in the kitchen prepping and cooking meals.

When she got to Jr. High she wanted to join the "Cheerleader" squad so there were a lot early morning rides to school I had to make, and lot's of Basketball games I attended until she graduated, but I had a lot fun cheering along with them.

During those years I setup a campsite on our property so her and her friends could go hang out there. I'm sure they had more fun than most parents would approve of but they never got into any real trouble, the police were never called, and no one got hurt bad enough for the parents to call me. For the most part all those parents knew exactly where their kids were and what they were doing. And that I was close enough to deal with anything that came up. But there were never any serious issues.

She's 37 years old now, still loves to hike, backpack, swim, fish, garden, and cook, and most important, she still likes to hang out with me!

3. Ask HN: I'm disabled and out of money. Now what?

Top comment by whitepoplar

I'm not sure what the cause of your chronic pain is, but I would highly recommend reading John Sarno's "The Mindbody Prescription." I've dealt with chronic pain for years and it's the only thing that's had any effect. Please, please, don't write it off until you've read the book. Note that Sarno's work focuses on back pain, but it applies to all types of chronic pain (including migraines, which he discusses in the book).

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jQtmSZetJM

- https://aaroniba.net/how-i-cured-my-rsi-pain

- https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/09/well/mind/john-sarno-chro...

- https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/well/chronic-pain.h...

4. Ask HN: What's is your go to toolset for simple front end development?

Top comment by keb_

Ignore any recommendation of React, TypeScript, Vite, or Tailwind. Here are some recommendations that don't require NPM/Node.

Pick a "classless" CSS library from a site like CSSBed[1]. These are kind of like Bootstrap, except you don't need to write any CSS or apply any CSS classes in your HTML for them to work. No tooling necessary; just include a tag in your HTML document. If you'd like to try something similar to this "Tailwind" hotness everyone keeps talking about, try Basscss[2]. Again, no tooling, just need a tag.

Once you start needing to add interactivity to your site, htmx[3] is nice and decently simple. If you really want something React-like, Mithril.js[4] is very similar but much simpler.

[1] https://www.cssbed.com/

[2] https://basscss.com/

[3] https://htmx.org/

[4] https://mithril.js.org/

5. Ask HN: Why do I struggle to follow corporate meetings?

Top comment by patchorang

It's abstraction, but for things you don't care about. I was an engineer early in my career and I felt exactly as you. All that stuff was in one ear and out the other and I couldn't for the life of me make sense of it.

I moved to product and finally got it. A PM can't explain the same concepts/ideas/initiatives/etc every meeting because the whole meeting will be spent doing that. They give it a name.

Take the strategy example. In the early stages of forming this strategy, part of the PMs job is to communicate it lots of groups of people. They have the same meeting 1-10 times depending on the size of the company. Then everyone who needs to know about this strategy has an understanding of what it is. Then the PM gives it a name. The next meeting, rather than having to explain it from scratch, they call it by its name.

You're either not paying attention when it is first explained (I don't blame you, a lot doesn't matter to an engineer), or you weren't invited to the meeting it was explained.

6. Ask HN: First-time dad-to-be. What do you wish you'd known back then?

Top comment by stef25

Find a way to spend quality time with your partner. Once the dust has settled try to book some time where it's just the two of you. Get a babysitter and go out together one night in the week.

Often you're so focused on the baby that years can go by until you realise you've ignored your relationship and then it can be very hard to fix or get back to some normal / happy state.

Same for your regular friendships. Maintain them. The other day someone asked me to name my 3 best friends and all I could come up with was people I knew years ago that I barely speak to anymore.

For me that was the main problem. The kids slept relatively well, ate ok, didn't get sick very often. But they still take up so much time that it's easy to forget about everything else.

7. Ask HN: What'd you do while HN was down?

Top comment by onion2k

I did far more work than usual and now my product lead is going to expect this to happen every sprint.

They'll be so disappointed.

8. Ask HN: Can competitors catch up to Apple Silicon?

Top comment by modeless

You're looking in the wrong place. The magic comes from TSMC, not Apple. Apple's major innovation is in using their unrivaled bank account to pay TSMC for exclusivity on their newest fabrication technology. As competitors gain access to that TSMC technology they will match or beat Apple's performance. And if Intel succeeds in reclaiming the fabrication technology lead from TSMC (we'll see) then Intel will beat Apple's performance again.

9. Ask HN: Which book would you pick to re-read for the rest of your life?

Top comment by lcuff

James Clavell's Shogun: The contrast between the Japanese and European cultures in 1600 are delicious, the characters and plot both well developed. I've read it at least a dozen times over four decades. As I age, I find I experience it very differently.

10. Ask HN: What exactly is a mindfulness meditation?

Top comment by mudrockbestgirl

Meditation is being fully aware of what's happening now.

Washing dishes can be a meditation. Talking a walk. Focusing on the breath. Repeating a mantra. Lifting weights. It doesn't matter what the technique is, the important part is that you are aware of what happening now and being present in that moment, from moment to moment.

For many people, focusing on the breath is an easy way to notice when the mind wanders, so they can bring it back to the now. It's an effective technique that helps your practice meditation through trial and error (bring the mind back when it wanders and repeat), but it's not a definition of meditation. It's a practice, just like you practice for a sport, with the goal of applying it to real life.

A good example of a meditation is what professional athletes do. Almost every athlete has some kind of "routine" that allows them to clear the mind before performing their act, be it lifting a heavy weight or hitting a ball. That's a type of meditation.

Another example of the result of practicing meditation is that it helps you to create a gap between trigger and response allowing you to make a decision. For example, when someone says something that hurts you, you may be tempted to respond back with something angry and hurtful. Often this happens by default or impulse due to strong emotions. It's not a conscious rational decision made by you. Practicing meditation can allow you to be fully present in that moment. Because you've practiced, you realize what you are feeling and thinking, what your choices are, and catch yourself before you respond back with something angry. You're in a mental state where you can make a rational decision about how to respond because you are aware of your own feelings and thoughts.