I picked up a carbon-steel pan at IKEA because that was all that was left. I knew it takes some work to season. I did not know there's a whole community of carbon-steel nerds committed to getting the most perfect seasoning to fry an egg. Now I know more about the topic than practical or necessary.
Ask HN: What rabbit hole(s) did you dive into recently?
361–370 of 443 posts
Re: Ask HN: What rabbit hole(s) did you dive into recently?
#362Earlier quoted context omitted.
It was a big moment for me too when I realized that the real world has infinitely many interesting things to do and explore. The real world is incredibly detailed.
Hard disagree. The real world only has pain and suffering. Endless trials and never a payout. Games on the other hand and very detailed and have a well defined path to success.
I think you may be confusing what is providing the payout. There is not a single game I’ve played that payed me money that also had a well defined path to success. Gambling any simple game is a near gauranteed loss of money. Poker can payout, but it’s a truly grindy game, and one bad night can wipeout months of grinding. Blackjack can have positive expected value, but good luck successfully counting cards for more than a couple hours without getting permabanned. So what game are you playing that provides payout that isn’t based mostly on dopamine that is provided by you in the real world? And if it’s just numbers go brr that is the payout, you can always buy a counter and watch those numbers go up. In fact, you might be able to train yourself to get a hit of dopamine if you get a clicking counter that goes up when you click it…
Still, it sounds like you may be in a bad place, and my heart goes out to you. Hang in there. Life doesn’t always get better, but seasons change, and this too will pass.
Re: Ask HN: What rabbit hole(s) did you dive into recently?
#363Re: Ask HN: What rabbit hole(s) did you dive into recently?
#364Spring Boot. What I learned is: I had no idea how much I hate "configuration". Spring is a Java dependency injection system that uses XML-based configuration. Recognising that XML sucked, they later added 2 additional ways to specify configuration, which they call annotation-based configuration and Java-based configuration. Both kinds use annotations. Both kinds use Java. Spring Boot is a layer on top of regular Spri…
What's funny is that Spring Boot powers some of the World's largest enterprises and applications.
Re: Ask HN: What rabbit hole(s) did you dive into recently?
#365Figure skating. It should be illegal to have so much fun. The feeling of gliding out there on the ice with nearly zero friction is amazing. It's a great community too. Not cheap, but a lot cheaper than many hobbies. Less than $1k will get you a nice pair of skates, plenty of group lessons, and access to the rink for a few months. It's fun for the family or single adults. There are always tons of people just starting.…
I started hockey last year. When I started I looked like Bambi learning to walk. Now I am at the point where I can hold my own in a game, I even scored a goal out last game!
Learning to skate is amazing. Once the motions start to “click” and you can start flying around the ice it is so much fun. Wearing full hockey pads makes the learning process a little easier on the body. Falls on the ice hurt!
Re: Ask HN: What rabbit hole(s) did you dive into recently?
#366Re: Ask HN: What rabbit hole(s) did you dive into recently?
#367Earlier quoted context omitted.
This oddly enough has been quite a big issue in my life as of lately. I need to get off my ass and start working towards better things in real life in order to (potentially) better my situation e.g. new job, better hobbies, etc.. However, I have always had issues with gaming on and off throughout my life (perhaps a lot more on than off). I seriously think that a lot of my issues with gaming is that games are preferen…
But you won't be rewarded? It's a game and has no bearing on your real life, I don't follow this train of thought at all.
I perhaps did not explain myself well.
The areas I want to improve in my life mainly pertain to my career. I believe it is important to note that I am not a Type-A, career focused, go-getter kind of person.
I am a developer like mainly others on this site. I am also quite unfulfilled and unsatisfied in my current position. I am grateful to be employed, but when I describe my position to others, I am generally met with a response like, "Run! Now, and never look back."
So, in order for me to get out of my current position, I am going to have to put in a lot of work in my free time. That's not necessarily a bad thing, of course. However, say I land a new job due to my efforts. I seriously do not think it will be fulfilling nor increase my happiness in the grand scheme of life. I seriously think where ever I end up will be a different round of the same "game" with different players, so to speak.
I do not feel that my motivation to change comes from some internal burning passion, but rather some obligatory "should" feeling i.e. I should find a better job, I should study , I should work out more, etc..
Though, you are right -- gaming has no bearing on my real life. The rewards from any game are, more or less, fruitless. Though, I guess my point is that real life is pretty damn fruitless too. If anything life just feels like chasing a carrot hanging from a stick. I have lived my entire life with this concept of an ever moving delayed gratification. There is no end to the real life grind, no clear guaranteed steps on how to progress, no checkpoints, no redos, etc.. Seriously, what am I missing? What I am grinding for?
Re: Ask HN: What rabbit hole(s) did you dive into recently?
#368Graph visualization.
I've been on a journey for a while to understand how to layout diagrams / graphs in an "aesthetically pleasing but structured" way. Long story short, DOT[0] is the best language I've found for defining graphs (compared to doing something with Mermaid.js or any other markup language), but rendering with the DOT engine in GraphViz fails the "aesthetic" test for me.
Did a bit of a literature review[1] to understand better the different approaches, and to understand the scope of the field. This book does great job of defining and providing the keywords for the different levels of requirements, starting with "principles" that are provable in the academic sense, to "conventions" that are like principles, but cannot be necessarily computed (eg NP hard, so requiring heuristics or simulations to achieve), and ending with actual "aesthetics" where things get very subjective.
Ultimately got pretty deep writing my own force-directed graph simulation in Rust and visualizing with egui[2] (needed an excuse to work on UIs and I've always wanted to write less Python), but I'm taking a break to use what I've learned writing Rust to shore up the REST API testing suite for my dayjob.
[0]: https://graphviz.org/doc/info/lang.html [1]: https://www.amazon.com/Graph-Drawing-Algorithms-Visualizatio... [2]: https://docs.rs/egui/latest/egui/
Re: Ask HN: What rabbit hole(s) did you dive into recently?
#369Earlier quoted context omitted.
This oddly enough has been quite a big issue in my life as of lately. I need to get off my ass and start working towards better things in real life in order to (potentially) better my situation e.g. new job, better hobbies, etc.. However, I have always had issues with gaming on and off throughout my life (perhaps a lot more on than off). I seriously think that a lot of my issues with gaming is that games are preferen…
Try recording yourself playing video games. You will quickly snap out of the illusion and realize that you're passing through life staring at a screen.
I am also a software engineer, so wouldn't this still be true for my work?
Re: Ask HN: What rabbit hole(s) did you dive into recently?
#370Chrome extension build steps. Because the chrome manifest requires an actual file, you can’t rely on a dev server and hot module reloading. So I’ve hacked vites build command and watch command to constantly recompile chrome extension code as I develop it (typescript + frontend frameworks etc). Add to the fact that you have to manually reload the unpacked chrome extension to apply your new changes, so I’ve hooked solu…
Sounds very cool. Do you have plans to open source that?
I think I should but it’s currently a private repo, here’s the current Vite plug-in:
https://www.npmjs.com/package/vite-plugin-extension-reloader
The extension is of the same name