AskHN Digest

1. Ask HN: What Lived Up to the Hype?

Top comment by hwestiii

The Illiad. As the foundation of Western literature, it may have received the greatest amount of hype that it is possible to receive.

I had attempted to read it and The Odyssey when I was much younger, in middle school, maybe too young, and failed miserably. But as it is always with cultural touchstones, references to it are inescapable, and a few years ago, in my mid 50s I overcame the reluctance accumulated in the intervening time and set out to read the Samuel Butler prose translation of 1898. Most of the translations I'd previously approached were in verse, which is in some ways its own hill to climb when one is customarily a prose reader, so this seemed perfect.

And so it was, and I was bowled over. It was a mind bending experience for me the likes of which I experience much to infrequently as age and experience take their toll on the novelties of youth. I can't say the last work I read I experienced as electrically. For all the stiltedness of epic story telling, the personalities of Agamemnon, Achilles, Zeus, et al are both vivid and convincing; the violence of battle is horrible, electric, and wierdly beautiful in a way that will resonate recognizably with fans Sam Peckinpaugh or Hong Kong action movies. Though the characterizations are far more stereotyped, as befits the age in which it was produced, than modern readers are accustomed to, they still evince a polish that rises above conventional story telling into true literature. Worth every ounce of effort you expend to summit this one.

2. Ask HN: Why does Pinterest dominate Google text search results?

Top comment by hayksaakian

There's no intentional or manual effort at Google to promote pinterest.

Pinterest shows up because they understand how the Google algorithm works and built their website to display all the signals that Google looks for in relevant image content.

They understand user intent and generate URLs that present content in a way that google expects to see.

Examples of how they do this from their engineering team:

https://medium.com/pinterest-engineering/demystifying-seo-wi...

More:

https://medium.com/pinterest-engineering/tagged/seo

3. Ask HN: Best Talks of 2020?

Top comment by akritrime

For me, it was Art of Code by Dylan Beattie, but mostly because that talk has the best ending[0] I have seen. Also, introduced to me a side of programming that I instinctively knew existed but never sought out.

[0]: https://youtu.be/6avJHaC3C2U?t=3366

4. Ask HN: Co-founder wants me to leave but won't entertain a buy out offer

Top comment by ohyes

It sounds like you own 40% of something fairly valuable and now that it's 11 months into your contract other founder who needed your help is getting greedy and trying to push you out before you are owed anything.

You said it yourself, you've grown hugely, you're dominating SEO since you joined, and built loads of products. This is your 'partner' getting greedy after you've done a lot of hard work. It wouldn't have happened without you. Don't undersell yourself.

Your 40% is worth $400k based on that initial funding valuation, right? Assuming it's as successful as you seem to be implying, it is almost certainly worth more now.

Everyone is telling you to roll over but seriously, fuck them. This other toxic guy is the one who should be getting pushed out, not you.

The other investor ultimately has power in this situation, not you or him, so whoever convinces them that they are the person to go with gets the seat and gets to continue with the project.

If he has a good relationship there you're probably fucked, but results matter... and if you can prove you've done great stuff since joining and and have great plans for the future, he can be replaced.

To be clear: this guy has decided to blow up the project so he can get a bigger share, if it all fails now he can only blame himself.

5. Ask HN: What startup/technology is on your 'to watch' list?

Top comment by aaronbrethorst

Clickable (for folks on mobile, and whatnot):

https://hasura.io/ - Instant GraphQL with built-in authorization for your data

https://strapi.io/ - Open source Node.js Headless CMS

https://www.forestadmin.com/ - Forest Admin does all the heavy lifting of building the admin panel of your web application and provides an API-based framework to implement all your specific business processes.

https://www.appgyver.com/ - The world's first professional no-code platform, enabling you to build apps for all form factors, including mobile, desktop, browser, TV and others.

https://www.integromat.com/en - Integromat is the most advanced online automation platform

https://nodered.org/ - Low-code programming for event-driven applications

Interesting to me that I've never heard of any of these. Thanks for sharing.

6. Ask HN: Earning 100k EUR in Berlin?

Top comment by lmarcos

For a plain senior software engineer position (no matter if you have 8 years of experience or 20), I would say no. The glass ceiling is at around 80K for the vast majority of tech companies in Berlin and Germany (excluding the top 5% of companies).

But if you get into management, I think 100K is doable for a senior position. Other alternative is to be a Principal Engineer (or Head of Engineering).

7. FYI: TripleByte is emailing old referrals

Top comment by nbgl

I worked at Triplebyte until I was laid off in April due to COVID. I’ve disagreed with many company decisions (including opt-out public profiles) but I’ve never questioned Ammon’s integrity. I remember him as an honest person (at times perhaps to his detriment) and if he claims this this is unintentional, then I believe him.

Independently, from what I remember of those parts of the company codebase, my prior would be that this is a bug, not malice.

8. Ask HN: Where does one search development advice these days?

Top comment by tomgs

GitHub issues has been a godsend.

People don't often take the time to do detailed write-ups while investigating, but when they do... amazing. Fountains of knowledge hidden in closed issues.

Speaking of which - especially in the ops / systems side of things - if you're stuck on an issue, and you've got a gut feeling some repo will be a good source of truth for that issue, search for keywords in the open AND THE CLOSED issues of that repo. So. Much. Stuff.

9. Ask HN: What was a book that changed your life?

Top comment by TheCapeGreek

HN and tech spheres can tend to have more people (especially male) who struggle with socialising with others and romance on top of every other part of the human condition. To that end, I recommend (in order):

Robert Glover - No More Mr. Nice Guy Mark Manson - The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck Mark Manson - Models

For those looking into reading into masculinity (to understand yourself or other masculine people:

David Deida - The Way of the Superior Man Moore & Gillette - King, Warrior, Magician, Lover Zan Perrion- The Alabaster Girl

Disclaimer: Some of these books I recommend are not going to be based on much research and science, or delve into more abstract forms of thought and draw inspiration from other sources (e.g. Eastern). Nevertheless I believe they are useful frameworks of thought that can provide value, and it's good to engage more "mythical" ideas at times.

10. Ask HN: What are your best purchases in 2020?

Top comment by marcolussetti

An eReader. I was skeptical, but it's pushed me to move to reading more books and less social media. Still a long way to go to achieve a better balance there, but significant results so far.