AskHN Digest

1. Ask HN: What's the most valuable thing you can learn in an hour?

Top comment by RobertRoberts

How to cook for yourself, really, really good food. I no longer crave restaurant food, and all of the really important things I learned about cooking take just the time to read it, hear about it and then try it. All without any special hardware.

A few examples:

1. Cooking jasmine rice: rinse it first, 1 c. water to 1 c. rice ratio. Bring to boil, turn down heat to lowest setting. Leave lid /the entire time/. Fluff the rice (look this up) when done. (about 12-15 min of cooking)

2. Baking a cake: (any square pan yellow cake) Read how baking powder actually works, then you realize you need to mix and bake quickly. Letting it sit before baking will make a flatter cake. Also, stick a butter knife in the middle to test when it's done, if it comes out with batter stuck on it, it needs a few more minutes.

3. Eggs: When frying, scrambling, put the eggs in warm water before cracking to make them room temperature first. They cook better this way.

4. Chocolate syrup: 1 c. water, 1 c. cocoa power, 1 c. sugar, 1/2 tsp vanilla, 1/2 tsp salt. Blend it in a blender. (sealed container works best, as it's messy) Better than store bought, super cheap, use organic if you like...

etc...

Why is this valuable? Because I am no longer tempted to waste money at restaurants any more, or buy unique expensive organic products (because I can make them now). I feel incredibly free and liberated that I get food at home that tastes better than what is at a restaurant now. (for about 90% of the stuff I like)

Also, I can teach my kids, and they start life with these skills. Great question, way too many things to write down...

2. Ask HN: A modern-looking UML diagram tool?

Top comment by gpantazes

I use PlantUML[1] for my UML diagrams.

  - It uses a human readable text-based file format renderable via the PlantUML jar. Friendly to CLI and git.
  - The diagrams are stylable, should you wish to style them. 
  - There's a PlantUML Integration IntelliJ plugin that's easy to use for preview/rendering[2]
  - Overall simple to use, but I imagine it can as robust as you want it to be. For example, the IntelliJ plugin Sketch.it automatically generates PlantUML diagrams from Java source code[3], and the source code for how it works is available on BitBucket if you want to know how it works[4]

  [1]: http://plantuml.com
  [2]: https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/7017-plantuml-integration/
  [3]: https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/10387-sketch-it-
  [4]: https://bitbucket.org/pmesmeur/sketch.it/src/develop/
  [5]: https://mermaidjs.github.io

3. Ask HN: What will become possible by 2025 in your field of expertise?

Top comment by joeframbach

Looking at a 10 year window. There's a low probability, but non-zero, that I'll be able to correctly align and distribute DOM elements both horizontally and vertically. I might accomplish this by dropping support for the Internet Explorer family of browsers.

4. Ask HN: Best Noise Canceling Headphones

Top comment by digital_voodoo

I've had Sony WH-1000XM2 for two years now.

Bought it just before boarding for a 7-hour flight, and it was great. Even after a dozen flights since then, I'd still recommend it anytime. Its noise cancelling is amazing (source: I've tested it in comparison with Bose QC35, everyday in the shop before going for this one).

The XM3 has been released a while ago (minor update IMHO), has good reviews and is regularly discounted. With Black Friday almost there, you should get good deals on it.

I personally don't feel the need to buy it since I have the XM2, but I could get it for my wife.

5. Ask HN: Any “Git diff”-like service but for when terms of conditions changes?

Top comment by dockers22

I'm a co-founder of https://termscout.com and our TermAlerts service does exactly what you are looking for.

We have attorneys on staff and looked into other tools, but understand that about half of the contracts that live on the web are not webpages, but versioned PDFs and could not find anyone that can catch when that occurs, so we built it ourselves.

When a change occurs we email a redline (diff) and in the process of working on a dashboard that you can see not only the version of the contract when you submitted it and the new one, but overtime be able to scroll through all previous versions of that contract too...very much inspired by Google Maps Street View timeline tool. :)

6. Ask HN: Have We Abandoned Julian Assange?

Top comment by wrnr

It's what John Milton wrote about in Paradise Lost: To serve in Heaven or to rule in Hell. Milton backed the republicans during the English revolution, and saw his beloved revolution be usurped by the Cornwall dictatorship, and ultimately the restoration of the British monarchy. He had to flee for his life and was effectively banned from all public life. Whereas he used to serve in prestiges jobs, at the end of his life he was marginalised, broke and blind. Survivorship-bias gives a wrong impressions of rebels, most end on the outskirts of society. Milton dictated the verses of Paradise Lost to a scribe, as he put it, to justify the ways of God to Men. Substitute an all-powerful God for an all-powerful government, and it get a hole new meaning. IMHO it's still one of the best poems in the English language. There is a wise lesson here, I don't like it, but I can't say it's not true.

7. Ask HN: Do you feel the quality of SWE has gone down?

Top comment by DavidWoof

I honestly can't remember a time in my career when I've looked at a codebase and thought to myself "what this dev really needs is a more thorough understanding of CPU pipelines and virtual memory". Ed Yourdon once wrote something like "No project was ever cancelled because the developer couldn't address the serial bus". I'm much more concerned with bootcamp graduates not understanding good class design or appropriate unit testing than I am about any lack in low level mechanics.

I don't know if SWE is getting better or worse, but I do think that most SWE operates on a much higher level of abstraction than it used to, and I think that's good thing.

8. Ask HN: Any good alternatives to pen and paper?

Top comment by wenc

I have a two media philosophy.

1) Physical: I use a TWSBI ECO fountain pen and a Rhodia wirebound 6" x 8.25" notepad. A good fountain pen on good paper is the most pleasurable means I've found for note-taking. Pleasure is important to me. The notepad has perforations on each page, so if I ever need to digitize something, I just tear the page off and snap a pic using Dropbox, which creates a nice PDF for me. The PDF looks beautiful. Beauty is also important to me.

2) Electronic: For digital notes, I just use Google Docs. I have a single continuous document full of thoughts, observations, etc., each thought separated by an em-dash (--) on a new-line. I've tried more complicated systems, but simplicity ultimately won out. Also I can access Google Docs on my desktop, work computer, phone and tablet. I've since learned that some of my favorite writers scribble their thoughts on Google Docs too.

Do the two systems converge? Sometimes. Sometimes I transcribe stuff from my Rhodia notepad to my Google Docs document, but often times I don't. In my philosophy, they don't have to converge.

Note-taking on Google Docs is about archiving information.

Note-taking on a notepad about training the mind. I remember things better when I write them. Being able to flip through pages helps builds spatial memory. I rarely go back to stuff I write on a notepad because I tend to remember them. If I really need to remember them long-term and make them searchable, I transfer them to Google Docs, and in the process, reinforce that memory.

Having a two media approach sounds inefficient from an information collection perspective because your info is dispersed and exists in two disjoint forms. But if your objective isn't just to store information in a repository but to supercharge your own thinking, this turns out to be a surprisingly effective approach, I've found.

9. Ask HN: How do I understand the results of my job search?

Top comment by zakshay

For optimizing the top of the funnel, one approach which has worked well for me in the past is to use LinkedIn to connect with EMs who are hiring (they are looking for people like you), friends at other companies & and also accept invites from 3rd party recruiters. Good 3rd party recruiters can specially be helpful in reviewing your profile, and finding good fits. In the past they've helped me discover some very interesting companies. Getting referrals via TeamBlind is common as well.

Also keep in mind that hiring tends to be seasonal. Companies are generally very aggressive at the top of the year, and by Oct-Dec things do slow down a bit (but this is not always the case, for example if a company raised some $$$ in that period). In the past I've avoided applying to postings which are more than 3 weeks old.

You could also try services like TripleByte, which flip the funnel, and help you go directly go to onsites (there are some caveats though).

For the tech rounds, it's just more practice. Unfortunately the interview process is heavily biased towards people who practice, and has little to do with your actual abilities - and you are competing against such folks. For that I've found Pramp, interviewing.io, leetcode, educative (the grokking algorithms and system design courses), GH system design primer, (our even services like Outco.io) etc. to be very useful. The good thing is that atleast in SV these bits have become fairly standardized now, and if you spend time preparing, it significantly increases your hit-rate with everyone.

10. Ask HN: Who is looking for a co-founder?

Top comment by SiDevesh

I am looking for a co-founder in Bangalore, India. I am building https://prismos.dev, which can be thought of as Android (OS + SDK + App store) for IoT microcontroller boards. If you are someone with experience in the field of IoT development and hardware prototyping, I would love to discuss! Drop me a mail at swapnil@prismos.dev