zatel's comments | WingNews

zatel | 5 years ago | on: US citizens warned they face arbitrary arrest in China

Here's hoping the US isn't the one that collapses in on itself this time. My perception of China is that it's government makes life pretty terrible but it seems better organized over there (because of state control).

zatel | 5 years ago | on: Boston bans use of facial recognition technology

I think I fall with the HN majority in my privacy views. Yesterday however I talked to someone who said that they prefer someone is always watching, so that they can feel safer.

Interestingly they also said they don't want to know the specifics of anyone watching.

I wonder if laws like this, that in actuality seem fairly toothless, will result in more of that. "Safety, and ignorance of where/who the watchers are."

zatel | 5 years ago | on: It’s time to end China’s ‘United Front’ operations inside the United States

It's a bunch of smaller efforts all working towards a single goal. (think lots of little foundations and lobbyist groups)

This report goes into a lot more detail https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/research/docs/dia...

zatel | 5 years ago | on: Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd not talk about them?

Thank you. this is very useful and will certainly work for my use case.

zatel | 5 years ago | on: Activists rally to save Internet Archive as lawsuit threatens site

I wonder if this rhymes with whatever happened to the library of Alexandria.

zatel | 5 years ago | on: Activists rally to save Internet Archive as lawsuit threatens site

I'm not familiar with Myke Cole or his books. I'm sure they are quite good. I think that quality is more important then quantity though.

Some people on here seem to make one app and kick back for years on the earnings while others churn out one after the other unprofitable software tool.

I myself have written 3 novella, 1 book of short stories, 1 movie, 2 native apps, and 4 web apps. I can't live on the royalties from any of them but I know there are people who do less and get more.

zatel | 5 years ago | on: Spherical Solar Cells Soak Up Scattered Sunlight

I worked in the Tesla factory making solar panels and I can attest that they are more snazzy and lighter then normal panels I've bought for my home (the wait list was to long for Tesla ones) I'm not sure they're much more durable.

They can take a hit straight on but if anything comes at the wrong angle the top glass layer shatters. It was so common that we had a designated spot to go dump the ones that would frequently break during the manufacturing process.

zatel | 5 years ago | on: Mysterious deep-space flashes repeat every 157 days

I like this idea. Orienting people in the dark of the cosmos. Find your way home just follow the flash

zatel | 5 years ago | on: Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd not talk about them?

FastComments is really cool looking and so simple (it reminds me of brutalist web design).

Could you explain a little on how you do limiting of page loads? I've been trying to add this kind of functionality to my own projects but can't think of a way to track it without storing in a db which seems like a bottleneck process if every page load is a write

zatel | 5 years ago | on: Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd not talk about them?

this is a really inspiring little payment processor

zatel | 5 years ago | on: Lawsuit over online book lending could bankrupt Internet Archive

I am an author and I support the IA in this decision.

zatel | 5 years ago | on: Tell HN: Interviewed with Triplebyte? Your profile is about to become public

I interviewed with triplebyte last fall. I passed all the automated testing and did ok on the real person one (not being formally trained I struggle with concepts I've never applied in a real project). After they told me I wasn't yet good enough for their fast track program I emailed them to have my profile deleted.

I assumed they were doing this already tbh. They sent an email back saying my account was deleted and I haven't gotten this email. I guess now I'll get to see if they really did delete it.

This news does make me consider re applying for triplebyte. Showcasing skill is a pain point when I've applied for positions (sure a github & some links but who knows who really did any of that).

I can't think of a worse way to handle this though.

zatel | 5 years ago | on: Iterated Prisoners Dilemma Strategies Dominate Any Evolutionary Opponent (2012)

here it is https://ncase.me/trust/

zatel | 5 years ago | on: Iterated Prisoners Dilemma Strategies Dominate Any Evolutionary Opponent (2012)

I don't have the link but theres a great online experience (game, post, idk what to call it) that refers to what your talking about as copykitten

zatel | 5 years ago | on: Ask HN: How to stop anxiety from too many choices?

In my experience I've found the best way to combat this is to pick a single thing and then pick a timeframe (something short like a couple of weeks at most) and then you aren't allowed to do any other projects until you complete the one you choose or the timeframe expires.

This is aided by putting ideas that come up along the way into a journal like mentioned in other comments.

For example I want to go back to learning go, and I want to practice foreign languages, and I want to work on small short term schemes. But I decided in mid april to work on a short list of four tasks until may 20th. I can only work on those tasks (unless some urgent work thing comes up). I find this method to be super relaxing because I know that as new ideas come up I can just log them for later and only have a short list of things to think about and work on. It's very freeing.