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sakerbos

HN member
Joined
Fri, Feb 25, 2022, 5:27 PM UTC
HN karma
78
Public activity
75 items

About sakerbos

My name’s Shaun and I’m a Frontend/Product Engineer based in Brisbane, Australia (previously Cape Town, South Africa ).

I pivoted from rocks to code

Early on in my career as a Geologist, I was buried under an avalanche of manual processes, something was at fault, it was a bore and it wasn't very Gneiss

I knew there had to be a better way. So I taught myself how to code. All of a sudden I had superpowers, automating processes left, right and center, with some staff not even knowing what to do with their time anymore, I was the schist

It wasn’t enough; I wanted more superpowers. So I spent the next 6 months studying coding after hours, much to my wife and dog’s dismay - not only because I had less availability but because they were forced to look at all the things I had built, “See how I just made that text turn red!”

But eventually I did it! I got my first job as a real live web developer, making websites on the internet! Although even that wouldn’t quench my insatiable thirst for automation…

Shortly thereafter, during a chance encounter with my wife’s employer’s neighbour, I discovered the many gross inefficiencies lurking in the medical industry. This encounter led to me spearheading the development of a mobile app for one of South Africa’s largest hospital networks, Mediclinic, which they used to replace paper at hundreds of sporting events across the country, streamlining operations and saving the planet, #winning

My journey has been fuelled by a passion for automation and shaped by three guiding principles: simplicity, practicality and fun, that I have brought to every endeavour. Fast forward 8 years and many projects later, in the words of Pinocchio, I shout from the rooftops, “I’m a real boy!”

Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed my Geology puns

Recent public activity

  1. comment
    Comment #44443070

    Try reaching out to our own network. You really only need a few paying customers to get the ball rolling. Word of mouth is probably going to be your best friend.

  2. comment
    Comment #42872981

    There's a time and place for everything. I find that this style of programming is super useful in the technical design phase. During development I prefer to have a plan in place.

  3. comment
    Comment #42809586

    That's an epic win! 15 years of the startup grind/rollercoaster is impressive, well done!

  4. comment
    Comment #42457947

    Yeehah thanks! It's good fun! At this rate, next year's theme will no doubt be video calls to Santa.

  5. story
    Show HN: Send Santa a Voice Note

    Hey everyone, Shaun here! I originally built Magic Message Santa for my kids. They wrote Santa a letter with their Christmas wishes (like we've all done in the past) and I thought,…

  6. comment
    Comment #42314029

    Hey guys, I'm Shaun :wave: Location: Brisbane, Australia Remote: Yes Willing to relocate: No (we've just moved here from South Africa :)) Technologies: React, React-Native, Typescr…

  7. story
    Show HN: I built a Wordle-inspired puzzle image game in a weekend

    *Spread over multiple weeks (I have a wife, kids as well as a day job lol). Hey guys! I’ve been working on a little side project, What The Pix Say (WTPS), a Wordle-inspired word pu…

  8. story
    Show HN: A Wordle-Inspired Puzzle Game with Images

    Howdy HN folks! I’ve been working on What The Pix Say (WTPS), a Wordle-inspired word puzzle game where you solve phrases by guessing the meaning of images. Here’s how it works: - E…

  9. comment
    Comment #41444347

    Love this!

  10. comment
    Comment #41159337

    Ooh I felt the same after moving to Australia from South Africa. We found that the veggies tasted blander in general and I have no idea why. Keen to plant some heirloom tomatoes in…

  11. comment
    Comment #41114949

    There was a massive one back in South Africa that must have been a thousand years old. Naturally someone put a pub in it. Must have been tree-cky.

  12. comment
    Comment #40410866

    Yeah I've always found the browser bar hiding when you scroll to the bottom of a page a bit weird. But yeah you're right, it looks like a Chrome-only thing my bad.

  13. comment
    Comment #40410808

    Yeah fair enough. I actually found the massive navigation history annoying too, I'd just forgotten about it until now. I think I have a solution to replace the navigation history w…

  14. comment
    Comment #40410604

    Ooh fair enough. I'll add an option to disable that, thanks!

  15. comment
    Comment #40410594

    Yes this is a problem and a great idea thanks! Adding to my TODO list :)

  16. comment
    Comment #40410591

    I'd be very interested in exploring this idea! Do you know of any board games that it could work for? This also just gave me an idea to justify my board game budget to my wife as a…

  17. comment
    Comment #40408550

    Thanks! Yeah totally, it should be fairly easy to do. Could select the game variant after selecting a new game. I'll see what I can do :)

  18. comment
    Comment #40408539

    Thanks for this, I'll fix it asap :)

  19. comment
    Comment #40408522

    Thank you! Yes this had actually become a problem for us but it weirdly ended up adding an interesting new dynamic to the game. So much so that we'd actively try and hide our resou…

  20. comment
    Comment #40408482

    Pleasure! Yes it is open source: https://github.com/shaunsaker/tm-player-board . I'll add a link to the home page too :)

  21. comment
    Comment #40408466

    Ah right, my bad, that's super annoying. I'll remove that functionality for now.

  22. comment
    Comment #40408439

    Are you on Android by any chance? if so, I think that would be Android's weird browser bar hiding behaviour when you get to the bottom of the page, or just something weird I overlo…

  23. comment
    Comment #40408420

    Thanks! Looks like they've recreated the entire game, it even has decent docs. Will defs give it a go!

  24. comment
    Comment #40408399

    Apparently just a side project that was used by only two people in the world :)

  25. comment
    Comment #40408389

    Good idea thanks!