tcrow's comments

tcrow | 6 months ago | on: When the job search becomes impossible

Sometimes you just need to look locally. Chances are there are positions available close enough to your home that its worth the following effort. I have personally walked into places I was interested in working at and asked for an engineering manager. About 50% of the time, a manager comes out to meet me. I show interest, they show interest (generally, and even if they are not hiring). This has lead to much improved chances of getting an interview over just filling an application or email through a network. People like to see and get a feel for the people they might end up hiring. Face to face puts you ahead of the pack. This technique is critically underutilized. Obviously, if your only interested in remote positions, this won't work very well. If the org is big enough, you can try to locate a nearby satellite branch or office to find a person who can tap you in.

tcrow | 7 months ago | on: AI promised efficiency. Instead, it's making us work harder

This is admittedly much easier with greenfield projects, but if you can keep the AI focused on tight, modular development, meeting service specs, and not have the AI try to address cross-cutting concerns, you get much better outcomes. It does put more responsibility on humans for proper design and specification, but if you are willing to do that work, the AI can really assist in the raw development aspect during implementation.

tcrow | 4 years ago | on: Django 4.0

Congrats on making a return on your investment! may I ask how you went about locating a buyer for the screener app?

tcrow | 4 years ago | on: Ask HN: What do you think about the no-code movement?

Sounds a lot like the platform i've been working in for the last year or so (coming from a pretty hard code software engineering background for the last 15 years) and continually finding it surprisingly capable. Do you mind to share the name of the platform?

tcrow | 4 years ago | on: Why Decentralised Applications Don’t Work

The author and those of you who find true decentralized applications interesting, may want to check out ClarionOS [0] by Dan Larimer, esteemed creator of BitShares, Steemit, and EOS blockchain projects, as well as the author of "More Equal Animals" [1] a free-for-everyone book about rebuilding our political system using fractal democracy.

Clarion is NOT A BLOCKCHAIN BASED project, so hopefully you won't have a tendency to dismiss it outright.

From the Introduction: "Clarion aims to give everyone in the world the tools to broadcast their message to everyone who wants to hear their message without creating dependencies on centralized infrastructure. It will achieve this with a censorship resistant "friend to friend" network which will leverage the unused resources of your friends and family to distribute your content.

The ultimate goal is to provide the performance and reliability of a "centralized service" with the freedom and independence of a logically decentralized network. With the help of the Clarion community we can free our friends and family from the tyranny of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Amazon, Apple and Google and produce a social network free from manipulation and 3rd party dependence."

[0] https://github.com/Clarionos/clarion [1] https://moreequalanimals.com/posts/book-launch

tcrow | 4 years ago | on: More Equal Animals – The Subtle Art of True Democracy (Free E-Book)

Dan Larimer has recently dropped a new book exploring the fascinating ways the current US governance structures have been failing us and offers insightful and innovative solutions for repairing them.

This theory of governance is currently being developed and tested on the EOS public blockchain.

Edit: I know a lot of hacker news readers like to boo-hoo blockchain projects. This is not a blockchain project, it is a new form of governance being tested on one. I think some of you will find the ideas behind this new theory to be of great interest.

tcrow | 5 years ago | on: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

You're right, technically there is nothing to prevent that from happening, but I think the idea is that you only get one "Voice", so if you want to align it to something you don't necessarily believe in for the sake of money, then you will have to suffer the consequences of that. Might be a good way to thwart paid attempts at spinning undeserved corporate-positive narratives.

tcrow | 5 years ago | on: More Equal Animals – The Subtle Art of True Democracy (Free)

Dan Larimer, blockchain visionary and founder of BitShares, Steemit, and EOS blockchains, has recently dropped a new book exploring the fascinating ways the current US governance structures have been failing us and offers insightful and innovative solutions for repairing them.

tcrow | 5 years ago | on: I quit bootstrapping profitable businesses and got a job at Amazon

I sort of get what he is trying to say.

A personal anecdote. About 10 years ago, as a single man, I was in a similar position, having saved enough money through work and investments to enjoy "freedom" for a period of many years. And at first it was great, nirvana like even, traveling and dabbling about in various projects. Even though I wasn't driving around fancy cars or living a lavish lifestyle (these things have never really appealed to me anyway), I felt that this must be what it's like to be rich, not to want for anything and indulging every whim and fancy.

However, as time marched on and I checked things off my list, I began to encounter a problem I didn't see coming. I started to feel an ever increasing desire to do something with my time that felt worthwhile, but what should that be? As I found out, it's not so easy to answer. See, at the time, I had removed every hook society had put into me. No bills, no obligations, no responsibilities other than paying rent and feeding myself. I could literally move in any direction. Should I join the fight against climate change? Study robotics and AI? Start a (most assuredly successful /s) SaaS business? The possibilities were endless, and so was the worry that choosing one path meant I could not pursue the others, at least not in a meaningful way. Hence, I ran into a very real and unexpected problem with commitment, that would go on to keep me at unease for a period of several months.

So what did I do? Well, the only thing I could think of to get out of that episode of paralysis by analysis; went back home and started up with some contracting work to pass the time. I met my wife shortly thereafter and not too long after that we welcomed our first child into the world.

Funny thing is I no longer wish for total freedom (well maybe just a day or two here and there), but now that I've been down that path, I've seen how it plays out for me personally. Now I have all the direction I need. Happy trails everyone.

tcrow | 5 years ago | on: Show HN: Codemap – Codebase Visualizer for JavaScript, TypeScript, and Python

I have done this kinda thing to great effect using Doxygen, although this solution adds a bit of dynamism that is really appreciated. Having the call graphs, especially for a new/unfamiliar code base is a great way to gain understanding. Kuddos on the launch, i think a lot of engineers will find this pretty useful once you expand on it a bit.

tcrow | 6 years ago | on: Take-home vs. whiteboard coding: The problem is bad interviews

We have a big app and need people who can come in and get up to speed very quickly. A solution to the interview problem that I've adopted over the last few years, to great success, is to conduct a 2 hour, 2 phase interview.

- The first hour is spent having the candidates work through a problem in a sand boxed environment using the actual code base.

- The second hour is spent recapping the work session, discussing their professional background, and general questions about other things they should know to be successful on our team.

The coding test is designed to be solvable within the allotted time and without explicit knowledge of the business rules in the app and only requires an understanding of the actual technology they purport to have the required experience in. Running this test is a great way for us to understand what the candidate's skill level is and what problem solving approaches they use in a real-world scenario. They are free to talk about what they are doing (but is not required) and of course we offer guidance if they get stuck on something. Solving the test is NOT a pre-requisite for getting hired.

In order to reduce anxiety for the candidate, I like to frame the test by telling them to imagine themselves as a short-order contractor who is coming in to help us with a problem that we are having a hard time solving ourselves. I find that this really helps.

The feedback from the candidates for this testing style has always been positive, and I can tell you from post-hire experience, that it has helped us to bring some great developers on board. So far, there have been no false positives. In fact, it's so popular that other teams have either asked me to conduct their interviews or plan on adopting the same methodology for conducting theirs.

If your struggling to get more consistency from your hiring approach, it might be worth a try.

tcrow | 6 years ago | on: Draw.io: Online Diagramming Website

Been using draw.io for years and have turned many people at my work on to it. Simple, elegant, and works a treat! Thank you so much for sharing this work and for helping make the work day run a little smoother :)

tcrow | 7 years ago | on: Ask HN: How do you stay disciplined in the long run?

I have been experiencing this set of problems in one form or another for the entirety of my adult life. I can think of ideas all day and have no problem getting them started but inevitably always reach the same conclusion, an abandonment of both the spirit and implementation. Something I heard recently from Jordan Peterson on this subject has really got me thinking more discriminatorily about my efforts. "If you want something, what does it mean to want it? And what it means is to sacrifice whatever is necessary to get it, because otherwise you don't want it. You don't want it unless you are willing to sacrifice for it. And if you don't want it, you're not going to get it, because you are scattered." It's a simple truism that is easy to forget, but Peterson is reminding us that anything worth pursuing will require a necessary sacrifice of time and energy. Getting to the heart of what is worth that sacrifice could be key to finding success in your endeavors. Godspeed.

tcrow | 7 years ago | on: You Do Not Need Blockchain: Popular Use Cases and Why They Do Not Work

why is this comment rated so highly? it's completely niave with respect to the use cases of blockchain technology. I realize that a lot of people like here like to boohoo this stuff but there are several legitimate reasons to use a blockchain. One of the most important reasons being the ability to resist government censorship of information that would otherwise be subject to cease and desist or outright take downs. Another is the ability to transact with any other individual without relying on a system of banks and long waiting periods and their fees. And what about reward systems that remove the middle man? What about the recent scandal with Patreon? I could go on and on I hope you get the point.
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