nickd2001

11 ms·

1.
by nickd2001 5mo ago
I'm assuming from this Q you might be early stage in your career? Its definitely hard nowadays. 30 yrs ago, as well as C++ I learned various Unix flavours - HP-UX, Solaris then Linux. Development on those seemed to be interesting proje
2.
by nickd2001 5mo ago
In the US there've historically been great work and wealth-generating opportunities that weren't as readily available in Europe. That seems to come at the price of less safety net if something goes wrong e:g health problems, disab
3.
by nickd2001 5mo ago
Colorado is a great example of this. Rocky Mountains national park is good but a bit of a tourist trap and there's so much more to see in CO than that.
4.
by nickd2001 6mo ago
Am using Claude to attempt to do refactoring and find bugs. Sometimes its fantastic, finding issues instantly that'd take a lot of trawling or insider knowledge otherwise. Other times it gets obsessed about irrelevant things, makes sug
5.
by nickd2001 6mo ago
If this is true how then does James Morrison manage to accompany himself playing trumpet with the other hand on the piano ;)
6.
by nickd2001 6mo ago
Follow the above advice as its great :) People need each other. Volunteering, apart from being worthwhile for its own sake, is one of the best ways to meet people and put your own life in perspective. There's a ton of stuff in the worl
7.
by nickd2001 7mo ago
If they're struggling for ideas to put in homilies, they could always ask for some input from people that are one or both of (a) female or (b) married. Might get a fresh perspective ;)
8.
by nickd2001 7mo ago
Indeed! e:g - looking after elderly and/or disabled people, to give their family carers respite. Which is a minimum wage job seen by many as "drain on the taxpayer", ignoring that apart from being worth providing for its own
9.
by nickd2001 8mo ago
Being completely car dependent is to me a fundamental problem in much of both countries, and the advantage USA has is that the cost of running a car (or often 2 especially for a family) takes a smaller part of a middle class salary. In UK ,
10.
by nickd2001 9mo ago
If its any consolation, perhaps there might've been a few other highly intelligent capable sensible people in existence over the last few... shall we say, millennia, who, weren't really listened to either ? ;)
11.
by nickd2001 10mo ago
Cautionary tale from here in UK. We had a Neff (same company as Bosch and Siemens) dishwasher which we used heavily for 10 yrs then it started to leak because they'd used plastic in the base which got warped with heat. So, ditched a pe
12.
by nickd2001 1y ago
This is something I wrestle with. Objectively, it'd seem true that say, a Henry Moore sculpture is of "better taste" than Disneyland. ;) But I 100% wouldn't wanna criticise anyone who preferred Disneyland. Its up to the
13.
by nickd2001 1y ago
+1 to limiting braggadocio. Maintaining code written by someone with humility, and consideration for the subsequent maintainer (including themself, as they don't assume they're super(wo)man and will understand their own code immed
14.
by nickd2001 1y ago
And the tragedy is that authors of such code often (usually?) don't receive recognition for saving time and effort on others' part by following KISS principles. For whatever reason its apparently opaque to others. And so there are
15.
by nickd2001 1y ago
Some research on the subject here : https://www.bbc.co.uk/future/article/20180905-how-genes-infl... . Personally I question how one can definitely prove to what extent genes are the factor as there are so many ot
16.
by nickd2001 1y ago
To me, the whole Oxbridge education must be distorted by this fierce competition to improve one's "personal brand" by getting a prestigious school on your c.v /resume (or misperception that going to Oxbridge gets you in
17.
by nickd2001 1y ago
There's a stereotype, possibly unfair but somewhat amusing, that Durham attracts some people who are less clever/bright than they and their families believe, who failed to get into Oxbridge despite expensive private education, per
18.
by nickd2001 1y ago
Sure, tech is a relatively privileged career. Doesn't mean "Corporate hellhole" isn't a thing though ;). So don't feel guilty. :) The 50-60% pay cut far less stress jobs DO exist, but more in the public sector e:g g
19.
by nickd2001 1y ago
Fantasy kids books, e:g Tolkien, CS Lewis (Narnia), Joan Aiken, Edith Nesbit are timeless though right? Then there are books set in a different time, that kids still enjoy e:g Just William series 1920-60 (which contains some stereotypes abo
20.
by nickd2001 1y ago
you might find this interesting : https://www.morethanascore.org.uk Says a lot of what you're saying, with some statistical evidence to back it up
21.
by nickd2001 1y ago
These are fairly current: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Rider . Aimed at teenage boys although I only know about them cos our daughter loved 'em.
22.
by nickd2001 1y ago
A friend bought a 14-yr-old one of these for little at an auction in 1999. As someone who knew little about cars, her logic was, it "looked OK' and had had one owner, and crucially, the radio was tuned to a NPR classical music sta
23.
by nickd2001 1y ago
Here's a less stressful alternative as a counter of sorts... How about, live frugally, try to get a house in a not super expensive area, overpay the mortgage to get monthly payments down. Then work somewhere that's not super stres
24.
by nickd2001 1y ago
If genuinely feeling suicidal for any length of time, please reach out for help. :) From your many posts, some of which I replied to before, I believe you work at a soul-destroying place which isn't doing you any good, and I understand
25.
by nickd2001 1y ago
I would argue that Python, being a simple, easy to learn language, allows you to focus on other aspects of CS e:g complex algorithms. Rather than faffing about with memory management etc you can really study algorithms without the language
26.
by nickd2001 1y ago
Thanks for the explanation. :) Hacker news is indeed to place to talk about these things ;)
27.
by nickd2001 1y ago
I honestly don't know, might be paranoia on my part, but stuff degrades over time right? Maybe less good a seal etc.
28.
by nickd2001 1y ago
Thank you for this excellent scientific suggestion ;)
29.
by nickd2001 1y ago
What happened to that then? ;) We bought a Miele dishwasher to replace a Neff which broke down after 10 yrs (probably 16 yrs worth of "official" usage) due to a silly design fault that caused it to leak. Thought a fairly basic mod
30.
by nickd2001 1y ago
This is an interesting , and often heard, take. I wonder if its mainly a US thing? I fit this description but not had problems getting jobs, and know others in the same situation. None of us expect top dollar though, and we probably (hopefu

More ›