AskHN Digest

1. Ask HN: 20% of LinkedIn's recent layoffs were managers

Top comment by kuchenbecker

I'm at LI and my reporting chain is Sr mgr > Sr Director > VP > Sr vp > CEO.

A year ago it was mgr > sr mgr > director > sr Director> vp> svp > ceo.

No one in my management chain was impacted but the flattening has been happening organically as folks leave. LI has a distinctive lack of chill right now contrary to the company image, but generally things are just moving faster.

2. Ask HN: Is anyone using cloud dev environments (e.g. Codespaces/Replit) at work?

Top comment by mdeeks

We at Instacart use them heavily. It is a system my team built called Bento Remote ("Bento" is a local orchestration tool we previously built). We built Bento Remote ourselves because Codespaces was in its infancy at the time and really couldn't meet our needs for things like pre-built images, preserved disks, warm pools, live patching, and being behind our firewall. Bento Remote was and is hugely successful and likely one of the largest boosts to developer productivity in our history.

With Bento Remote get a fresh new fully dedicated EC2 machine in about two minutes from when you run `bento remote create`. It is continuously tested on every merge and verified to function. Everything you need is preinstalled and ready to go. Just connect VSCode to it and start coding. No futzing around getting your local environment to work. Break something on your Bento Remote? Throw it away and get a new machine. Switching projects? Grab a new machine from the pool that is preconfigured for that project. Your settings travel with you.

We had a potentially unique set of circumstances though. Our full stack development requirements were VERY high and needed 64GB to even run our largest and most active apps. This made other 3rd party tools fantastically expensive. Building it ourselves let us fit instacart specific needs and workflows. As well as do clever things like hibernating the EC2 instance after hours when the users laptop is idle. This plus a host of other measures were essential to making this not only cost effective but a large net gain.

So I highly recommend everyone at least take a look and evaluate if you have the need. Start with the SaaS versions and see.

3. Ask HN: Why has no one replaced Ticketmaster?

Top comment by kelseyfrog

Ticketmaster has exclusive deals with artists and venues.

Artists not signing deals with Ticketmaster lose access to venues, and venues not signing exclusivity deals with Ticketmaster lose access to artists.

There are enough of these on both sides that neither wants to lose the other so they sign.

Side note: I worked at a small ticketing software shop circa the Ticketmaster/LiveNation merger. The CEO got a call from the feds(FTC?) doing background work on the industry's view on how it might affect competition. For the life of me I can't imagine why he said it wouldn't really matter, but I have to assume that Ticketmaster was already so locked in to the industry that perhaps it didn't.

4. Ask HN: What is your experience with Nano-Hydroxyapatite toothpaste?

Top comment by anizan

Use GC tooth Mousse which is a Japanese product and a well kept secret. My dentist suggested it as the only product with actual results on rebuilding enamel. Most Dentists in USA don't promote this keeping in mind their incentives and it's a 30 year old technology with great results. Pubmed has loads of studies you can pursue. It worked wonders for me.

https://www.amazon.com/TOOTH-MOUSSE-X40GM-DENTAL-PRODUCT/dp/...

There's a newer version called Mi paste which is distributed. https://www.gc.dental/america/products/operatory/preventive/...

5. Ask HN: How do you get out of a rut?

Top comment by thequadehunter

I don't think I consider myself a "great engineer", but I've gone through similar feelings and I see a few issues here.

I think the way we get into this industry is a doubled edged sword. A lot of us do this because we love computers and software. The upside of this is that it's easy to stay motivated and move up. A lot of us probably grew up as black sheep in our communities, and are now being handsomely rewarded for our efforts. It's very validating.

However, I think there is a dark side to this validation. Eventually, some of us begin to see our self worth in our output. On top of that, there's always pressure to learn new things, because if you're not keeping up then you may get left behind. This is easy enough in your early 20's when you're full of drive, but real life responsibilities pile up with age, and it gets harder and harder.

I can't say for sure if you fall into this category, but I know I did, and I realized two problems.

1. I saw my self worth in my career. In general, I needed external validation to feel happy. This is not sustainable because sometimes you're working on projects that you know are bullshit, and sometimes you screw up. If you ever bite off more than you can chew or get stuck on a project you know is stupid, it will burn you out.

2. I needed to turn off the computer. You say that you desperately need to get out of this rut, but the rut isn't the problem. The fact that you think you need to get out of it is the problem.

Turn off the computer. Stop coding for a few days outside of work. Go outside and don't bring your phone. If you are on public transport or something and you have the urge to check your phone, pull out a book instead and begin reading.

It may sound counterintuitive, but all of this is way more productive and inspiring than desperately trying to escape a rut that was created by your own mind prison. You need to unplug for a while. You are most likely burned out.

6. Ask HN: What outdated tech are you still using and are perfectly happy with?

Top comment by cameldrv

Dumb light switches. The installation, software updates, re-pairing, latency, security issues, and 3-5 year obsolescence seem like way too high a price to pay just to avoid getting off the couch and flicking a switch that works 100% of the time and never needs any maintanence.

7. Ask HN: Why is there no modern successor to the 3D Pinball games of yesteryear?

Top comment by phreezie

We're working on something like that using Unity[1]. It's nice, because contrarily to the commercial platforms, we don't need to support low-end devices like the switch. And yes, the DXR features will make a difference[2] (sorry, I don't have a more recent video).

Concerning physics, we're using VPX's engine, which is very well tuned to pinball. Not sure if the breaking the glass is going to be a thing, but PR welcome if you think so. ;)

[1] https://github.com/freezy/VisualPinball.Engine [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CfZImFl1ME

8. Ask HN: Best Tech Courses/Certifications Under $400 for a Back End Engineer?

Top comment by jumpman500

I don't think tech courses or certificates have ever been a top consideration when reviewing backend engineer qualifications. Only if we're hiring for a specific technology that's niche. Most certificates just teach you how to understand/sell a specific technology stack which sometimes is helpful, but other times can make you not see simpler solutions. I'd check out what's freely available first.

Your 400 dollars is probably better spent making mistakes building your own personal project on aws/or some other cloud provider.

9. Ask HN: Why are there no open source NVMe-native key value stores in 2023?

Top comment by diggan

I don't remember exactly why I have any of them saved, but these are some experimental data stores that seems to be fitting what you're looking for somewhat:

- https://github.com/DataManagementLab/ScaleStore - "A Fast and Cost-Efficient Storage Engine using DRAM, NVMe, and RDMA"

- https://github.com/unum-cloud/udisk (https://github.com/unum-cloud/ustore) - "The fastest ACID-transactional persisted Key-Value store designed for NVMe block-devices with GPU-acceleration and SPDK to bypass the Linux kernel."

- https://github.com/capsuleman/ssd-nvme-database - "Columnar database on SSD NVMe"

10. Ask HN: Which non-fiction books had the biggest impact on you?

Top comment by reallymental

If you're not a person who tends to get sucked into a book, and has every waking thought resonate with what you've read, then read some Chomsky.

You may not agree with his views (it's so far to the left, that it makes your head spin) but rather read it for how he writes. His terse words are a window into his psyche.

Everything is presented in a very "matter-of-fact" way. I've read most of his books and it's surprising how very little he thinks of his own opinions. For him, it's not a revelation that the world is corrupt and full of structures that incentivise the destruction of the middle class etc., it's just a matter of fact. "That's how the world is and this is where I think it's going, good luck with changing that.", that's what it feels like.

I was pretty young when I started reading them, around 16. It temporarily changed me for the worse, the books are so pessimistic, that it tends to put that person I described above (getting sucked into books) into a depressive state.

If you want to start somewhere, try "Manufacturing Consent" (by Chomsky and Herman).

If you've already read that, then try "On Palestine" by Chomsky as well, I don't recall reading it but it does seem timely now.