We are building the IFTTT for blockchains - a tool to query, trigger and automate blockchain data :) [0]

We recently raised a $3M seed [1]; it's 9 of us at the moment and we are working on pretty fun stuff: rebuilding our frontend from the ground up, new GraphQL API, adding a ton of features to our real-time monitor backend - it's still very early from both a code and product perspective.

We are fully remote and we try to get the team together every few months, usually for crypto conferences around the world. Previous get-togethers include Sardinia (Italy), Lisbon (Portugal), and Denver (USA).

We have a bunch of open positions [2], feel free to apply there and send me (CTO, co-founder) an email at manlio at hal.xyz with a [Hacker News] tag in the subject to make sure your application doesn't slip through the cracks ;)

Crypto experience of any kind is a plus, but if you're intrigued this can also be an excellent way to get your foot in the door.

Happy to chat if you have any specific questions re the product, the industry, or anything else.

[0] https://hal.xyz

[1] https://news.bitcoin.com/hal-raises-3-million-from-coinfund-...

[2] https://join.hal.xyz/

An extra piece of advice for anyone serious about learning meditation:

1. You'll need a teacher. Find your local Buddhist centre and chances are they'll have classes focused on teaching beginners. You simply won't learn by making something up yourself and calling it meditation, or reading stuff on the internet (including my answer) - you'll need both guidance and someone to look up to. I can't stress this enough: even the Buddha himself had teachers :)

2. "Meditation" as a technique is obviously found in countless religions and other secular systems, so that some people claim you can learn "mindfulness" as a stand-alone tool, without the Buddhist package that usually comes with it.

Although it might be possible to a certain extent, the understanding you'll have of the practice will be immensely impoverished. You don't have to become a Buddhist to practice meditation, but without some Buddhist context you'll limit yourself to an extremely diluted, dumbed-down version of the real thing. So I'd recommend you start there, and in time you'll carve your own path.

Best of luck, it's an incredible journey.

I'm going to NYC in a few days and I was wondering if you had any special recommendation for stuff to do, places to go, people to meet up with?

Doesn't have to be geeky, even though I like geeky ;)

Contact info are in my profile. Thanks!

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14023362

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

I can see three strands:

1. For health reasons. This is IMO the weakest reason. I'm not interested (nor qualified) in starting an endless debate about the health risk/benefits of meat; but if you only want to eat healthier is best to start with the obvious: cut sugar, snacks, sodas, sweets, junk food and deep fried; eat more low-GI and greens, etc.

2. For Ahimsa [0]. Ahimsa is a beautiful and subtle topic, but broadly speaking it means that you try to minimize the amount of suffering caused by your actions. Buddhists (as well as Socrates) believe we constantly fail to understand that our actions have consequences. Ahimsa is about getting in touch as best as we can with these consequences, and act accordingly to our insights.

3. For environmental reasons, i.e. reducing your ecological footprint. This has some overlap with Ahimsa, but the reasons are practical rather than ethical and there are exceptions: in terms of sheer sustainability, battery farmed chicken might be OK (maybe, I don't know).

Whatever your reasons are, it's something I believe is worth thinking about.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahimsa

So famous it became a bit of a cliche. I read it years ago and it didn't make any sense to me. But now that I've been studying Buddhism and practicing meditation for a while I picked it up again and I found it nothing short of brilliant, packed with interesting insights on philosophy, the arts, theology, the history of mysticism and the quest for the meaning of life. I know it sounds trite, but I simply wasn't ready for it the first time.

* The Unbearable Lightness of Being, by Milan Kundera. [1]

I read this 10 years ago. It touched my heart back then and it did it again this time. It's one of the few works of fiction that changed, a little or a lot, the way I think about love, relationships, loneliness and happiness.

I can't wait to re-read it a third time, in 10 years.

[0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5128.The_Doors_of_Percep...

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9717.The_Unbearable_Ligh...

Then one day someone forwarded to our team this email, and it really touched my heart.

I am quadriplegic and the Amazon Echo has transformed my life. I haven't been able to open a newspaper for 10 years, but now I can! [...] Please pass this email on to all of those concerned at the Guardian... They need-to-know the difference that they have made".

[0] https://github.com/guardian/alexa-skills-lambda

http://open-platform.theguardian.com/

Oh, and we're still hiring! Happy to help if you have questions, or want to be referred. All positions are in London, UK.

I got my current job through it and from time to time I still get "thank you" emails from random people telling me it helped them get a job too - a really good feeling (:

[0] http://whereis-whoishiring-hiring.me

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10888134

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

  1 - don't spam
  2 - really, don't spam
  3 - put in some effort
  4 - keep it short

Make sure you understand what they do, what they want, and what you can offer. Make sure you (quickly) go through the latter. You probably have something to offer even though you don't fit the profile they had in mind.

Make sure you know who you're writing to, and craft your email accordingly. Google him, go through their HN submissions/GitHub/whatever, get a feeling for what they might like.

Oh, and try to be nice and genuine, at this stage is a lot about people skills :) Good luck!

  #!/usr/bin/perl
  
  APPEAL:
  
  listen (please, please);
  
  open yourself, wide;
      join (you, me),
  connect (us,together),
  
  tell me.
  
  do something if distressed;
  
      @dawn, dance;
      @evening, sing;
      read (books,$poems,stories) until peaceful;
      study if able;
  
      write me if-you-please;
  
  sort your feelings, reset goals, seek (friends, family, anyone);
  
          do*not*die (like this)
          if sin abounds;
  
  keys (hidden), open (locks, doors), tell secrets;
  do not, I-beg-you, close them, yet.
  
                              accept (yourself, changes),
                              bind (grief, despair);
  
  require truth, goodness if-you-will, each moment;
  
  select (always), length(of-days)
  
  # listen (a perl poem)
  # Sharon Hopkins
  # rev. June 19, 1995

It's not even a good or bad thing on its own, you've always known it was part of the game: the sun rises, bigger animals eat smaller animals, tides come in and out; yet learning to live with it on your skin affects you deeply. Anyway, thanks for your comment.

- Borges, Ficciones (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ficciones); that's the quintessence of mind-blowing literature: an unparalleled mix of genius, culture and crazy imagination.

- Celine, Journey to the End of the Night; a harsh, hopeless journey to the bottom of humanity. It's not an easy read even though the style is so simple. Think Houellebecq, but much better :)

- Dostoyevsky; I was obsessed with him when I was younger. "Notes from the underground" is one of the best introductions to existential nihilism I can think of. "The Idiot" one of the few books that made me cry.

- The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony; if you're into Greek literature, this book will become your Bible; it requires a lot of attention and dedication though, it's incredibly dense.

* Watsi - https://watsi.org/ - A nonprofit healthcare crowdsourcing platform

* Akvo - http://akvo.org - Akvo builds open source internet and mobile software which is designed to support international development partnership networks, and make cooperation and aid activity more effective and transparent

* DuckDuck Go - https://duck.co/ - Delivering a world-class search engine with great results and great privacy and with open-source instant answers at its core

* Electronic Froniter Foundation https://www.eff.org/

* Greenpeace - http://www.greenpeace.org/

* A bit meta, but good for inspiration: http://www.nonprofittechforgood.com/

Also, I suspect a lot of companies are exploiting the fact that bright people in our field will be happy to work on stuff they don't believe in as long as you throw interesting problems at them. It's a tradeoff I can understand, but it still is a tradeoff. To answer your question, I'm 25.

What are some lesser known companies that are doing anything good for the world, and could benefit from my programming skills? [0]

I'm confident platonic-like meta-discussions [1] about what does it mean to do good can be avoided by applying some cheap common sense, so the question is left broad on purpose to fit multiple viewpoints.

Also, it's not like saving children is the only way to fit the profile; I'm sure there are tons of great companies involved with scientific research, activism, helping minorities, saving the whales, fighting global warming, treating loneliness, creating communities for older people, helping butterflies to mate and so on that I never heard of; and I'd love to get up in the morning knowing that my work will do a little more than increasing the GDP and selling ads.

Just to make it clear: I'm not looking down at people who sells ads for a living, but I'm in a very lucky position (white young male from a first-world country, with no debt and nobody depending on me) and I want to leverage this. I guess a lot of like-minded people out there would do the same if they knew where to look. Apologies for the --verbose.

TL;DR: see title

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXuFrtmOYKg [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_of_the_Good

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9434447

Points: 11

# Comments: 7

So at the end of the day no hot girls care about anonymity, they care about not being judged for their choices, and for the better or wrong we still need a hip app to make it happen.

Which in turn is quite ironic: the philosophy was around since the 60s, but the implementation is unmistakably a product of contemporary capitalism.