lowken's comments

lowken | 8 days ago | on: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

There’s a lot of truth to this post. I’m very pro AI, and I believe everyone should get comfortable with it because it’s not just the future, it’s already the present. If you want to stay competitive in today’s workforce, AI is going to be part of your toolkit.

But on the other hand... I also only learned git when I needed it at a new job... So we can pump the breaks a bit.

lowken | 2 years ago

Keep voting for democrats.

lowken | 2 years ago | on: Teach at a Community College

I want to community college for two years. Then I transferred to the University of Florida. Many of my community college professors were worlds better than their University of Florida counterparts.

I don’t put Palm Beach Community College on my resume but I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend the community college path to a young person.

lowken | 3 years ago | on: Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office?

If you live in any medium to large city there are countless young professional organizations available. Join one or two and get involved. Be willing to volunteer for committees and participate in events and you will quickly have a full social calendar. Junior Achievement is one great organization. Jaycees is another organization.

Young Republicans or young Democrats are a couple of great organization. Want to meet young people who are going places in their life? You will meet them in these organizations.

Do you like exercise and fitness. Look into Team in Training. This is a fundraising arm of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Sign up for one of their races Go through the training and fundraising process. You will me lots of other like minded people. After your race consider becoming a Team in Training coach.

The possibilities are endless. If you are lonely it’s by choice.

lowken | 3 years ago | on: Anki SRS Algorithm : Spaced repetition explained with code

I use Anki every day and it helps in the following ways...

1. It's rare that I have to use Google figure out how to do basic tasks in my Programming Languages of choice (C#, & TSQL). Don't get me wrong I, and everyone on the planet, looks up code on the internet. It's just a more rare scenario for me.

2. I write much quicker then your average developer. Of course most of software development is design and requirements gathering/clarification but when I do get down to writing code I'm very fast.

3. I spot bugs almost immediately because when I go through my Anki deck I get repeated exposure do different error scenarios. In fact I can often simply think about the scenario and it will occur to me where the bug is and what is going on. I attribute this to using Anki on a daily basis.

4. I can read code much better then before I started using Anki. I know at a glance what code is part of the language/framework vs what is custom code for the application.

lowken | 3 years ago | on: Ask HN: How to get better at writing?

This technique helped me become a better writer.

Get a cheep spiral notebook and a nice pen.

Then collect some example writings that represent the best writing style you aspire to. I prefer short stories and essays, but for larger examples (novels) you can focus on single chapters.

Every day spend about 1/2 hour copying the example writing by hand into the spiral notebook. When you are done copying about two pages into your spiral notebook review the pages and identify different writing techniques. I used this technique to learn copywriting so I identified different persuasion techniques including what’s the catch addresses or Promise.

However, you could also use this same technique to become a better novelist. So maybe you identify alliteration, irony, foreshadowing, etc.

Why does this work? This have been studies on the powerful learning effect of writing notes by hand. The technique I described follows the same principals. By copying great writing by hand you are engaging multiple senses at one time. You are feeding your conscious and subconscious mind rich example writing that will help you improve your own writing.

Anyway, this worked for me. Good luck.

lowken | 3 years ago | on: The Child Is the Teacher: A Life of Maria Montessori

I love Montessori and I had both of my kids in Montessori schools...

However, it's not for every kid. My son did basically nothing and they wanted to have him repeat 2nd grade. My daughter, on the other hand, thrived in the same school.

There is no single fix for education except for choice (in my opinion). Parent's should be free to choose the school for their children and line up the unique characteristics of their child with the different education options available.

lowken | 3 years ago | on: Writing by hand is still the best way to retain information

I skyrocketed up the ladder at my current company in about 18 months using the following technique.

I take crude sloppy notes on a topic or project. I listen for concepts it words I don’t understand. This includes the jargon in my field (FinTech).

For projects I take my sloppy notes and format them in a Google Docs that serves as a design/QA testing document. I add technical notes and other details to this document.

If I come across concepts or terms that I don’t know and I determine are important I add these to an Anki deck. Then I review this Anki deck daily and commit this information to my long term memory.

I can’t describe how having critical information at my disposal has changed my life. I’ve gone from zero to one of the top individuals at my company in a few months and I credit this success to my little system.

As a side benefit Anki has an amazing search feature for times can’t recall something.

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