AskHN Digest

1. Ask HN: What's Prolog like in 2024?

Top comment by upghost

Prolog has reached an exciting new milestone with Scryer prolog. It is the first highly performant open source iso-compliant Prolog.

I would check out Markus Triska's work to have your mind blown:

https://www.metalevel.at/prolog

https://youtube.com/@thepowerofprolog

2. Ask HN: Struggling with poor memory and executive function. What to do?

Top comment by nvch

Let's assume that you have followed the advice to check if your health is fine, and it is (or you have found ways to improve it).

On a high level, what's going on in your life may not be considered the best by some "social standards", but it's not necessarily "bad".

You can start by checking if your desires are in line with the standards, or if you would rather have a more "unconventional" way of being, accept it, and try to find ways to work and relate to people from there.

The next part is that a lot of what you see as the problems are skills and you can learn them.

* Emotional regulation is a skill, it has to be learned and practiced.

* Concentration is a skill; some meditation practices are a way to develop it.

* Thinking is a skill; "real" thinking can be difficult and uncomfortable, especially at first.

* Building coherent models of reality is an advanced skill and requires thinking, modeling, verification, self-reflection, and other skills.

* Being a successful entrepreneur is a very advanced skill, requiring all of the above and much more.

Next, you can define your skill learning priorities and decide for which skills you can use some help from professionals and which skills you can train yourself.

If you do your work and come back to the same topic in a year, you will have more experience and better understanding. Identify what you're missing and keep going. Eventually you will be in the much better state.

Good luck!

3. Ask HN: What is in C-00000291*.sys?

Top comment by brettermeier

Context: CrowdStrike (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41002195)

4. Ask HN: Can anyone from Crowdstrike explain the back story?

Top comment by Retr0id

By the way, Crowdstrike has shared "technical details", discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41013198

Unfortunately it's rather lacking in both technicality and detail.

5. Ask HN: How can I find something worthwhile to do?

Top comment by ecjhdnc2025

> Am I just hard-wired to be mediocre?

Have you considered the possibility that you're actually clinically depressed? Working on the assumption you are male, I think a lot of guys don't realise that low-grade depression looks like this for a lot of us. Especially getting towards mid-life.

One thing I would suggest is to embrace boredom. Cover up your television, delete your streaming video apps, cut back on social media as much as is possible, stop gaming if you game. Stop avoiding boredom with low-energy solutions.

Get really, really bored. Then see what your brain wants you to do. Boredom is a precursor to a creative state.

Another thought: consider if your "worthwhile" is actually helping other people do theirs? If you can learn new tools and languages easily, could you help others? Could you teach?

I need this change in my life too, and this is the direction I hope my life is heading in.

6. Ask HN: How do you go about finding a job?

Top comment by keyle

The older I get, the worse I find the experience. I've had so many poor experiences with recruiters over the years, I think I'm becoming allergic.

It's getting harder to pierce through the BS layers with all that new meat on the market, and to make the matter worse, recruiters are even less skilled than they ever were and are often offshored now. It's insane today.

When I'm on the hiring side, we can't find candidates, and on the other side I can't get through to the right people.

My advice is put out feelers with anyone you've had a good relationship with in the past, often via your old networks and ex-colleague, you'll jump in front of the queue and avoid the pre-screening nonsense. They know what to expect from you and they would prefer to have a familiar face they can rely on in their internal struggles.

That's how I've landed my last 2 jobs without an interview.

The flip-side is always to be helpful to other colleagues. At some point, everyone needs a hand - be that guy - that lends it freely. They'll always look out for you in the future if you look out for them in the present. Become a knowledge source in the company and industry. Soak in as much as you can, become a reference, expose yourself to everyone's job to some degree, providing it isn't a dead zone of silos and the people feel right (not cagey). HTH.

7. Ask HN: Any tools to do generic WiFi imaging?

Top comment by moi2388

Did you look into stud finders? They’re devices specifically made to detect pipes and electrical wiring in walls.

I love that you immediately went to WiFi for this though. Gotta love us tech people over complicating things haha!

8. Ask HN: How do you read and follow the discussions on big threads?

Top comment by GuB-42

It took me a while to realize that there is a "prev" and a "next" button next to every comment. It makes navigation much easier when there are long threads. Using [-]/[+] is another option.

If the problem is just the sheer amount of data and not navigation, you can simply bookmark the thread and come back later. The algorithm usually does a good job getting the best comments on top after things have settled down, just read these. Plus, if you forget about the topic and don't come back to it, maybe it wasn't that interesting after all, that's a good filter.

9. Ask HN: Do dead YC companies sell their brands/IP?

Top comment by neilv

> Good business names and domains are always in demand, being able to acquire those together with trademarks is even more attractive as a business investment. If branded social media accounts are included, now you have a startup package that many established businesses don’t have.

How could you legitimately use the brand name, domain name, or branded social media accounts of a different company?

Sketchy SEO could use it. Or a criminal enterprise that needs a veneer of respectability. Or a business in a country with PR challenges could use the identity of a different company that didn't have those barriers.

But what legitimate things could, say, a US startup do with a defunct YC startup's brand?

Maybe you could do it legally, but wouldn't it be confusing every time you talk with a prospective investor, customer, or vendor?

"Oh, I see the confusion, ha ha... No we're not the Foobr that lost everyone's money, shut down abruptly on their customers, and maybe had to negotiate on their final bills from vendors... We're actually the Foobr that has the resourceful grit to graverob a failed brand. I know, it's a feather in our cap, we're not too modest to admit!"

10. Ask HN: What are your favorite index ETFs for Investing?

Top comment by gmays

These days a Nasdaq ETF is likely the best bet (it's what I use in my IRA) since it has been conistently outperforming the S&P 500.

I'd be cautious with the more exotic leveraged ETF. Instead, for my non-investment accounts I've been mostly holding the Mag 7 since last year (after rotating out of pandemic stocks following the rebound). I shared my results over the last couple of years on by blog where I document my thinking for future reference/improvement (https://gmays.com/2-year-follow-up-on-buying-the-dip-on-pand...). My current IRR from that portfolio is 83.70% over the last couple years for context.