veddox

17 ms·

121.
by veddox 6y ago
I always appreciate a good bug story. Here‘s one I just came across, following a discussion linked above: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22044952
122.
by veddox 6y ago
Just yesterday I was about to downvote somebody for what I thought was a ludicrous suggestion. But when I started writing a reply, I realized that a), he may actually have had a point, and b), though I was still sceptical, I didn‘t actually
123.
by veddox 6y ago
1) It scratches an itch every programmer has. 2) Every programmer can build it.
124.
by veddox 6y ago
I'm somewhat peeved by his "No technology has ever been permanent" statement. Compared to most human technologies, 25 years is not exactly what you'd call a grandfatherly age...
125.
by veddox 6y ago
Absolutely. It strikes me that his understanding of (and certainly his appreciation for) the history of technology is quite limited if he expects ad infinitum exponential development.
126.
by veddox 6y ago
> the syntax of a programming language is entirely arbitrary [..] Programming languages weren't designed This statement is quite simply wrong. Unless I'm misunderstanding you, you seem to be ignoring decades worth of programmin
127.
by veddox 6y ago
I would argue that the role of a leader is to provide the coordination that effective cooperation requires - in a sense, to foster interdependence. I believe that it is impossible for any group of people to work together without some form o
128.
by veddox 6y ago
I could‘t agree more. I also take issue with the assumption that everybody ought to be a leader, or at least try to be one. Apart from this being quite obviously impossibly, it shows a distressing lack of appreciation for all those team mem
129.
by veddox 6y ago
Some good thoughts there. Leadership skills can be valuable in a context where you have „hard“ authority, but the ultimate test of you as a leader is in groups where nobody is forced to follow you.
130.
by veddox 6y ago
> There is too little data to claim or even suggest that there exists a "recipe" for creating good leaders. We‘ve been studying leadership since the very first books were written (and probably since the first tribal elders star
131.
by veddox 6y ago
It‘s not a book, but Bret Deveraux‘ history blog is so comprehensive I‘ve probably read several books‘ worth of pages on it: https://acoup.blog/ Also, it pointed me to a number of the „real“ books I read this year. Aside fr
132.
by veddox 6y ago
Can you elaborate?
133.
by veddox 6y ago
> This surprised me. When I read the intro, I was like „They want to teach beginners with Corewars? That‘s brave...“ I really like the idea of Corewars (and programmning games in general), but I never managed to get into it because the w
134.
by veddox 6y ago
I take minutes of every meeting I attend, including one-on-ones with my supervisor and phone calls with external collaborators. It helps me concentrate during the meeting (using a laptop would be counterproductive for that) and gives me a r
135.
by veddox 6y ago
We held our office Christmas party on gather.town. Really neat - a 2D 90s computer game meets Zoom. Haven‘t tried them for productivity yet, but as a social experience they are significantly better than conventional video chats.
136.
by veddox 6y ago
Talking about Threema‘s failure is rather premature... It may not be as big as it could have been, but it seems to have a stable income and a solid product. I‘d say it‘s doing fine as a company.
137.
by veddox 6y ago
At the moment, all my computing hardware was bought refurbed (Thinkpad T420, iPhone SE, iPad Pro 1). You have to make sure you find a serious reseller, but if you do, you pay a quarter of the price for high-quality hardware. I‘m particularl
138.
by veddox 6y ago
„“ is standard German usage and taught for handwriting. Angular quotation marks are a bit old-fashioned, and are usually found in (old) books.
139.
by veddox 6y ago
Specifically I meant the pixel-blue window borders on i3, coupled with the extremely bare-bones status bar. (Does it even allow for systray icons? That would be rather important for me.) Sway looks somewhat better, but I've been told i
140.
by veddox 6y ago
I'm on Ubuntu 20.04 with GNOME. Used to hate Gnome Shell, Unity was much better suited to my workflow (and wasted less screen real estate). But Canonical has actually made it usable over the last few years, so I'm generally quite
141.
by veddox 6y ago
Zoom on Linux is terrible anyway. On my system (quad-core Thinkpad with Ubuntu 20.04), Zoom consistently starts using 4*100% CPU during long calls.
142.
by veddox 6y ago
I love the concept of tiling WMs, and wish mainstream WMs would adopt more of their features. But quite frankly, I just find all the tiling WMs I know just horribly ugly... (And I'm not quite sure why, but that is actually one of the b
143.
by veddox 6y ago
I continue to be amazed by the moon landings. The pace of scientific & technical developments, the organisation & coordination of such a huge number of people, and the bravery & dedication of key individuals is just inspiring. A
144.
by veddox 6y ago
Fantastic effort, thank you very much!
145.
by veddox 6y ago
Subscribe to a "serious" popular-science magazine (e.g. Scientific American, or Spektrum der Wissenschaft if you're German). They won't give you a comprehensive overview, but they will pick out recent highlights and offe
146.
by veddox 6y ago
Yes, I think that's the key. I'm not a C programmer, and though I do have a basic understanding of pointers, I still find them rather confusing because of the indirection they introduce. I could follow the first example just fine
147.
by veddox 6y ago
An excellent book! It was one of the first software development books I read and still shapes my programming style. I probably ought to read it again though, I suspect I would understand a lot of it a lot better now...
148.
by veddox 6y ago
P.S. I think the key to understanding „HN culture“ is to realise that it sees itself as a continuation of the „hacker culture“ started by the earliest computer nerds, back in the 50s. There is a pretty direct line that can be drawn from tho
149.
by veddox 6y ago
I don‘t find it pessimistic as such, although there is a vocal nostalgia for „the web as it used to be“ (i.e. pre-2000). My bigger gripe is the prevailing tech-hubris, thinking that any problem can be solved with the right technology if you
150.
by veddox 6y ago
Been here since 2015. Like others, I most value HN for the discussions. They‘re civil, and there are often serious domain experts participating. I like how that exposes me to quite a breadth of knowledge and opinions. In terms of learning,

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