Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Comment here about whatever you're passionate about at the moment

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

711–720 of 774 posts

Re: Ask HN: Comment here about whatever you're passionate about at the moment

#711

Post by RonaldOlzheim »

ohy wrote: post #675

Hello from Berlin, Germany. Currently spending my days mostly learning for exams and doing homework. I hate every second of it. Not because I'm opposed to learning stuff. But because I just think other topics are way more interesting and useful for me in the future. Every time I sit there and try to memorize something that I really don't see any value in, I feel such a loss of a lifetime. I just think of all the thin…

I'm passionate about all those fun little niche coding projects I have written in my notebook and want to work on. But I don't really have the time to develop my beginner-skills to the extent I would like to, for me being able to build them.

Which one especially?

Re: Ask HN: Comment here about whatever you're passionate about at the moment

#712

Post by jventura »

martopix wrote: post #453

I'm learning Swahili. Any Swahili speakers on HN? On the longer term, this year I finally accepted that I do not care about research and even though I tried loving it for the past 8 years I'm only ruining my life. I love teaching. My contract ends in 8 months and I'm looking around for all the ways I could find a job that I really care about, a teaching-oriented role in a university or school. And I'm so excited abou…

Not Swahili speaker here, but:

> On the longer term, this year I finally accepted that I do not care about research and even though I tried loving it for the past 8 years I'm only ruining my life. I love teaching.

Same for me! I thing that nowadays people are confusing research with writing papers. I think they are quite different, and I really hate being forced into writing papers that no one will ever read. So I stopped doing it, but it's hard to get a full time role (aka "tenure") without (lots of) papers published. People playing the paper's game do a lot of things to get ahead. A guy I know (and got ahead of me) has published some 30 papers in the last two years. I don't find it credible, but 30 > 5, so he's in, and I'm out.

> My contract ends in 8 months and I'm looking around for all the ways I could find a job that I really care about, a teaching-oriented role in a university or school.

I'm a part-time adjunct CS professor (Western Europe so not so bad salary for local standards). Is it not a possibility for you?

Good luck!

Re: Ask HN: Comment here about whatever you're passionate about at the moment

#713

Post by jventura »

Chubbi1968 wrote: post #438

I'm passionate about teaching programming to 17-19 year olds, how to improve and tools that can be used. I try to stay up to date with best (or at least good) practices to pass on to my students. I'm currently teaching Python, JavaScript and C++, while learning Rust and Quarto (which I hope can replace C++ and LaTeX). I've recently started reading "The Pragmatic Programmer" after the many recommendations here on HN.…

> I'm passionate about teaching programming to 17-19 year olds.

I've been teaching for some time an introductory programming class to kids with those ages (1st year university students). I think the best approach to teach programming is to start with flowcharts (hand drawn in the paper), do a lot of them, and then use a computer to "program" in flowcharts. Here's some examples of hand-drawn flowchart exercises [1], and for the second, I use Flowgorithm [1].

It is much easier to teach Java (which is the "real" language they must learn in that class) after they know how to think "algorithmically".

[1] https://joaoventura.net/blog/2020/flowcharts/

[2] http://flowgorithm.org/

Re: Ask HN: Comment here about whatever you're passionate about at the moment

#714

Post by thorin »

Doing things with my kids (could be lots of things from watching tv/films, hiking, swimming, reading, playing sport)

Getting outside to do STUFF, canoeing, surfing, cycling

Seeing people in the real life and chatting

Listening to and playing music, especially with other humans

Re: Ask HN: Comment here about whatever you're passionate about at the moment

#715

Post by lioeters »

MielPopssss wrote: post #699
lioeters wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> make my own toy programming language, probably a Lisp dialect I've learned a lot from the "Make a Lisp" project. If you haven't seen it, I'm sure you will enjoy studying it. https://github.com/kanaka/mal

Thanks for the link and the feedback on MAL. I plan to do it, I also saw interesting projects like implementing a compiler in Lisp, on `build-your-own-x` repo : https://github.com/codecrafters-io/build-your-own-x

Nice, that's a great resource! Thanks for sharing.

Re: Ask HN: Comment here about whatever you're passionate about at the moment

#716

Post by dev_throw »

MielPopssss wrote: post #471
dev_throw wrote: post #68

I love niche forums like HN because it satisfies my itch for mind expanding content. The closest I got to that was OG StumbleUpon, if you know, you know. I'm unfortunately not passionate about much nowadays; in treatment for stage 4 cancer, so I'm fairly exhausted all the time. I'm glad I can still maintain my cognitive abilities during chemo so I can still do my job.

I wish you the best, I know what it is, I fought 5 years with a leukemia when I was 15. I hope you will recover well, medicine has evolved pretty well. The best advice I can give you that worked well for me, is to always keep your brain active, keep coding, keep thinking. :) It was a cure for me to keep my ability to think, resolve problems, etc ...

Exactly. It sounds so cliche but just keeping active and finding purpose really helps me cope with the day to day. Dealing with Leukemia at 15 must have been truly scary, I'm glad you're well!

Re: Ask HN: Comment here about whatever you're passionate about at the moment

#717

Post by Starcrunch »

MrVandemar wrote: post #659
Starcrunch wrote: post #591

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds amazing. I'd be interested to hear more details about what "stewarding 50ha of Australian bush" entails. Do you work with a local conservation organization, and do you have any particular goals for restoration or management? Do you work on documenting the biodiveristy there? Is it home to any endemic or threatened species you're espeially interested in? Any photos you could share?

We don't work with a conservation organisation; we don't have any funding; we do it all off our own backs. With my limited time, I document the biodiversity of our block here: https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/observations?place_id=any&use... My wife throws up our photos on Flickr, which includes a great many of our efforts at sustainable farming and replanting, an album documenting our house-build, as well as our hikin…

That's so cool! There are some really nice photos on your Flickr, and quite a few species in that Flora and Fauna album that I've never seen before.

I'm also active on iNaturalist, and maintain a python API client and some other open source tools for it: https://github.com/pyinat/pyinaturalist

If you ever have the desire to put together some data visualizations, stats, automation, or anything else fun or useful with your iNat data, you're more than welcome to ping me for help on GitHub (jwcook) or on the iNat forums (jcook).

Re: Ask HN: Comment here about whatever you're passionate about at the moment

#718

Post by kushan2020 »

Hello other text based beings!

I am very passionate about journaling/collecting one’s thoughts. In a typical HN fashion, I decided to make a tool that scratches my itch [1].

Having spent majority of my life with portable computers around, I feel we as humans are losing the joy of writing one’s thoughts out. Sometimes the best thing is to write your thought and establish this one way temporal connection to your future self. This is so beautiful because it crosses the barriers of time, culture and location. An alien human descendant billions of years in future might be able to connect with me by reading my thoughts. Writing is an intellectual marvel that has no other equivalent

[1] https://bangle.io

Re: Ask HN: Comment here about whatever you're passionate about at the moment

#719

Post by fennecfoxy »

It may be a bit cliche now but I realised earlier in the year that a lot of the games I played growing up are now considered retro, so I've started in on collecting consoles/games I used to play as a kid.

Already grabbed a psx/OG Xbox and massively enjoying replaying stuff as I collect the games, too.

Picked up a GBC/GBA and rebuilt them to use modern OLED screens as well. Enjoying those a lot as I forgot just how dark the original screens are on them (memories abound of using the little streetlight available in dark car-rides home).

Still need to pick up a DS/PSP and eventually a 360 I think. After my 360 got stolen in uni I threw my toys & went PC-only.

Re: Ask HN: Comment here about whatever you're passionate about at the moment

#720

Post by Starcrunch »

MrVandemar wrote: post #390

Hello from Redmond, Western Australia. It's rural, close to the South Coast of WA. We live in a straw-bale house on a farm where we run a small number of cattle, horses and donkeys, and we grow a lot (but not yet all) of our own fruit and vegetables. We steward of 50ha area of pretty pristine Australian bush in a biodiversity hotspot, and we've replanted the roadside and house area and put in some windbreaks with nat…

> But I am terrified of the increasingly bleak looking future, and despite putting a lot of effort into conservation and living with as small a footprint as possible, I don't see much hope for our broken civilisation, much less our species

Yeah, I struggle with that too. At the same time, there is a huge amount of opportunity for average people to make an impact in whatever small sphere of influence we may have.

If I always frame my efforts in relation to the entirety of the world's social and environmental problems, of course those efforts are going to seem insignificant; but I think that's as misleading as, say, viewing my personal spending habits as inconsequential based on how much they impact the global economy. Small changes in your local community or social circle really do matter!

That's one reason I like platforms like iNaturalist: it's a good tool to encourage others to simply learn more about the living things around them, which is a significant step in nudging someone from indifference toward being an advocate for nature.

Sorry if that's not helpful, but I'd really like to encourage you to keep doing what you're doing, because it probably matters a lot more than you think it does (especially to all the creatures that live in and around your larger-than-average backyard!)

Post reply on HN