I'd forgotten how much I loved Megadeth, having not listened to them for well over a decade. I realize that Peace Sells and Rust In Peace are phenomenally written, in whatever musical context you'd want to judge them by. There are some amazingly iconic riffs on these two records. I also realise how I got sucked into playing/learning all this other music as I got older, when all I ever really wanted to do was play some Megadeth riffs in my bedroom.
Ask HN: What have the past 12 months taught you?
31–40 of 237 posts
Re: Ask HN: What have the past 12 months taught you?
#32I now know what true loss feels like. Lost my grandmother (who raised me and was a mother to me) about six months ago. Things have felt weird ever since, but I'm handling it better than I expected. It might be a different story once I feel comfortable starting to go through her things (I lived with and helped take care of her). I've gotten closer to some other family members since. I realized that I can handle more t…
Sorry to hear that, friend.
Re: Ask HN: What have the past 12 months taught you?
#33Not taught: - Just a reminder I could die one second from now. Tuesday a friend of 21 years, had his heart stop. CPR was performed all the way to the hospital where they found a blockage that they cleared, however his brain had been without oxygen for quite some time and there was no brain activity. 72 hour protocol was started (arctic sun) but he died Wednesday evening leaving his girl, 1 kid and 4 step kids. Taught…
Am in the same boat. Have 15 years programming experience, and can literally code circles around many or most of the people I am interviewing with, but because I don't have a degree, or interview poorly, I am getting rejection after rejection. It's funny. I always think about the Frank Zappa sketch: "What's in a diploma? A: Absolutely nothing." It's a piece of paper, but I guess it is a symbol of your subservience to a system, which in kind shows you are good at deferring to authority or something. If I were hiring, I would explicitly go after non-degreed programmers who show they can code. Dogmatic college kids often write terrible code, but they proceed with unchecked hubris because everyone tells them they're great, even though they never paid any dues or done real systems programming.
Re: Ask HN: What have the past 12 months taught you?
#34[flagged]
what took you so long? Oh, and add quantum computing to the list.
Re: Ask HN: What have the past 12 months taught you?
#35I've failed, I'm not as smart as I think and in the end, I know I'm useless.
Hey, don't talk about yourself that way. It is really hard working in an industry and learning in an environment where we are surrounded by people who are invariably much smarter than us. Don't let it result in self-hatred. I know I can't solve your problems in a HN comment, but please know that these feelings you have are common among many of us, and we need to take an active role in fighting them. You have worth as a person in so many more ways than you imagine.
Re: Ask HN: What have the past 12 months taught you?
#36I learned, that working in a cutting edge field in a huge well known/respected company (europe) is most of the time really not that exciting and the actual work not that cutting edge.
My feeling is, that we were doing more complex problem solving at university and my personal projects are much more challenging than most things we do at work.
It's honestly quite a bit frustrating. And makes me want to build something up myself. Problem is, I am just not an idea-person...
Re: Ask HN: What have the past 12 months taught you?
#37life, existence, other people are endlessly complicated. Spending too much time observing and figuring them out, prevents you from living and enjoying it. Something like Heisenberg uncertainty principle in quantum physics. All my emotions are there with a reason, it's important to figure out what is it. self-discipline and pursuit of your goals is a road to healthy, stable self-confidence and self-esteem. Everyone ar…
> Everyone around you seem to know how you should lead your life, listen to only those whose life is similar to what you aspire, filter out the rest.
Well put. I thought about this a bit when collecting advice on next career steps from a range of acquaintances and contacts earlier this year - I realized that it made almost no difference the level of detail/context I provided to them about my situation - they invariably ended up suggesting something in line with what they wished they would've done themselves.
So my way of handling that was just like you wrote - working backwards and prioritizing the feedback from people whose path seems to be in line with my own and heavily de-prioritizing the rest regardless of who they were.
> Do things that matter to you.
Also, simple but true.
Re: Ask HN: What have the past 12 months taught you?
#38Not taught: - Just a reminder I could die one second from now. Tuesday a friend of 21 years, had his heart stop. CPR was performed all the way to the hospital where they found a blockage that they cleared, however his brain had been without oxygen for quite some time and there was no brain activity. 72 hour protocol was started (arctic sun) but he died Wednesday evening leaving his girl, 1 kid and 4 step kids. Taught…
Am in the same boat. Have 15 years programming experience, and can literally code circles around many or most of the people I am interviewing with, but because I don't have a degree, or interview poorly, I am getting rejection after rejection. It's funny. I always think about the Frank Zappa sketch: "What's in a diploma? A: Absolutely nothing." It's a piece of paper, but I guess it is a symbol of your subservience to…
When talking to me someone once referred to a degree as a "de facto dues card" and, that's basically what they are in many cases. Sure you need an education to be a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, things that require licensing but come on, my employer doesn't care what your 4-year is in...it could be in Late 15th century Peruvian funerary basket weaving... and that's fine with them, they just want that accredited degree.
With companies that have rejected me for not having one the past 18 months, I've found that (via LinkedIn) a notable percentage of their employees have random liberal arts degrees and then 2 years out of college they are on their 3rd-5th job upgrading their title at each stop...
Hi, hello, I've been at my job 13 years. I'm in it for the long haul if you pay me well, I only want to leave my current employer because after 13 years on the job I make a whopping 34k a year in a state where the hourdly median wage was 16.25 in 2016 which is within 500 dollars of what I make (a bit less I think). When people were making a big fuss to raise minimum wage to 15$ a year or three ago, I was like "no, that's what I make after 10-12 years on the job and I know my employer won't increase my pay!"
Re: Ask HN: What have the past 12 months taught you?
#39Not taught: - Just a reminder I could die one second from now. Tuesday a friend of 21 years, had his heart stop. CPR was performed all the way to the hospital where they found a blockage that they cleared, however his brain had been without oxygen for quite some time and there was no brain activity. 72 hour protocol was started (arctic sun) but he died Wednesday evening leaving his girl, 1 kid and 4 step kids. Taught…
Am in the same boat. Have 15 years programming experience, and can literally code circles around many or most of the people I am interviewing with, but because I don't have a degree, or interview poorly, I am getting rejection after rejection. It's funny. I always think about the Frank Zappa sketch: "What's in a diploma? A: Absolutely nothing." It's a piece of paper, but I guess it is a symbol of your subservience to…
"subservience to the system" -- frankly theres a large degree of difference between someone being subservient and someone playing the game (one in which the rules are discussed ad-nauseam for a good decade in primary school at that). Believing that college is completely worthless & that people don't really gain anything there is its own form of unchecked hubris, so we do agree on really narrowing that down in the workplace, at least.
Re: Ask HN: What have the past 12 months taught you?
#40All companies look better from the outside.