wikwocket

8 ms·

31.
by wikwocket 11y ago
I have worked 4 10-hour days for about a year. Three-day weekends are nice, but 10 hours is a loonnngg day. You get into a stride and don't notice all the time pass, but then it gets to be dinner time and it's dark out but you s
32.
by wikwocket 11y ago
Are you hiring? ;)
33.
by wikwocket 11y ago
No, I would never ask a question with a trick in mind. I am not interviewing for people who know tricks, because approximately zero percent of our business problems can be solved with tricks. I am looking for competent execution, because th
34.
by wikwocket 11y ago
Okay, so there's sort of a spectrum, with true puzzles (like "How many golf balls would fit inside a jumbo jet") on one side, and true work sample tests (like "Work with us to address a programming challenge typical of
35.
by wikwocket 11y ago
Here is my list, compiled after a lot of soul searching in my last job hunt. I recommend spending some time determining the kinds of things that are really important to you, and prioritizing them. - Compensation: pay, bonus, benefits, PTO,
36.
by wikwocket 11y ago
RAID 1 is a very poor backup, for several reasons. For starters, anything bad that happens to one copy is likely to compromise the other copy. Deleted or corrupted the file? Oops, it was mirrored to both disks. PC stolen? Oops. Water damage
37.
by wikwocket 12y ago
I'd recommend you look at the story of Hacker Newsletter. A lot of the comments in the discussion threads here on HN have been full of good ideas: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=hacker%20newsletter&sort=byPop...
38.
by wikwocket 12y ago
There are some key terms that immediately signal "enterprise solution" that I know of: - Single sign on (integrating authentication/authorization with other tools) - Auditing (letting them track every action their users take)
39.
by wikwocket 12y ago
No one has a pile of money. That's the point. Many people come up with theories on how to beat the market by using some novel theory or algorithm. These people generally have not successfully tested these theories (and made the aforeme
40.
by wikwocket 12y ago
HIPAA does not forbid e.g. Patrick from viewing or working with medically sensitive data. If it did, it would effectively prevent any medical software or services from operating at all. HIPAA does however have an awful lot to say about what
41.
by wikwocket 12y ago
Just wanted to chip in that $150 is not exorbitant, because of your latter reason: people can and do pay it all the time. $150 an hour can be quite reasonable, given the right situation. For starters, if a regular employee makes $50 an hour
42.
by wikwocket 12y ago
Absolutely. It's good to have an "in the zone" playlist of your favorite music. Preferably energetic songs that you can enjoy and yet tune out, so you can focus on the tasks at hand.
43.
by wikwocket 12y ago
> Mediocre software provides no value May I ask what mythical realm you are posting to HN from? I hail from planet Earth, and I would have to estimate that approximately 99% of all software we use is a) mediocre and b) nonetheless a so
44.
by wikwocket 12y ago
Here was my approach: - Talk to a family member who is employed in a business. - Find out a task they do that is repetitive, inefficient, automatable, and enhanceable. Spoiler alert: there will be a lot of these. - Automate/improve&#x2
45.
by wikwocket 12y ago
When I first read this, I thought you meant mental health... that's a different story! Constant mousing was causing me wrist pain. I have since switched to using a trackball at work and a high quality standard mouse at home. Also I t
46.
by wikwocket 12y ago
This topic came up as an "Ask HN" 7 months ago, and there was a great discussion about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7372997
47.
by wikwocket 12y ago
See also MySQL and PostgreSQL. They are open source and have free community editions, but they have paid enterprise features and support for those who need more than a database for their Wordpress site. The donation model is almost never a
48.
by wikwocket 12y ago
6 digits are less secure than 100 characters because when asked to generate a 6 digit password, many many people will pick their birthdate, wedding anniversary, or childrens' birthdate. With an alphanumeric password, many people will
49.
by wikwocket 12y ago
Location: Chicago suburbs Remote: Yes Willing to relocate: No Technologies: Java, Hadoop, Pig, Hive, PHP, JS/JQuery, DB2, MySQL Email: wikwocket@gmail.com I'm a lead software engineer, with fifteen years of experience doing applic
50.
by wikwocket 12y ago
Perhaps the solutions could be encrypted, so that you need to decrypt them to read them?
51.
by wikwocket 12y ago
The decision to leave any job is a personal one, and even more so the decision to ditch regular employment and switch to a startup. There are a lot of factors here that depend on your situation (age, family, background, ...) and desires. I
52.
by wikwocket 12y ago
I like this gem I saw on StackExchange: "In consulting deals always ask for at least twice as much $/hour as you think is ridiculous!" ( http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/162002/#comme...
53.
by wikwocket 12y ago
Sadly the only thing submitting a press releases did for me is to ensure that I get weekly spam from press release companies, and individuals willing to fix my SEO and boost my sales.
54.
by wikwocket 12y ago
> what problems can software really solve? If you are asking this, perhaps you have not spent a lot of time in industry, especially non-technical industries. There are approximately a gazillion problems that software can solve in a bus
55.
by wikwocket 12y ago
The standard answer to the problem of being sued for business reasons is to incorporate. The corporation may be sued and may even go bankrupt as a result, but in certain situations the corporate shield protects you individually. This is in
56.
by wikwocket 12y ago
There are many reasons why certain companies and certain industries prefer local employees. Yes, "inertia" is a big one, but there are legitimate reasons too. And there is a counterpoint to your argument about talent pool. Yes, if
57.
by wikwocket 12y ago
No worries. When you said "Explaining the impact of technical debt ... is almost impossible," I thought you (or others) might be interested in a good way to explain it. This analogy has helped me, so I hope others may find it usef
58.
by wikwocket 12y ago
If your main value proposition is that you can save customers money, then it seems natural that you'll encounter this. Is your expensive database approach cheaper than hiring people to update spreadsheets? If so, then communicate this,
59.
by wikwocket 12y ago
The best way to explain technical debt is by analogy: Technical debt is what happens to your entertainment center when you buy a new Playstation. To do things properly, you should buy another HDMI cable, run the cable through your cabinet a
60.
by wikwocket 12y ago
I am not sure whether the people who set up off-the-shelf residential routers with default settings are going to follow standard best practices for network design... ;)

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