Hacker News: smrr723

New comment by smrr723 in "Once poor, always poor?"

smrr723 — Tue, 28 Dec 2021 23:19:03 +0000

> Of course they still struggled more than me to pay their day to day expenses while I had the chance to be backed by my parents.

As others mention, this is why free education should provide everything that the children need to be able to take advantage of said free education.

I know many folk who went through the UK's free education whilst their parents struggled to even ensure they had breakfast, or lunch money. What does that do to a child's ability to concentrate and perform well in class?

The same goes for school uniforms - I remember a few who I went to school with couldn't afford the schools own brand of uniform and would just wear the closest matching unbranded clothes their parents could find - and would often get made fun of for it.

IMO - free education should include a healthy breakfast and lunch to ensure everyone is given the best chance to succeed. (The definition of healthy in the UK is another issue - our school meals growing up included some of the cheapest food available like chips, pies, sausage rolls).

I'm a fan of how Finland have tackled this issue by making private schools effectively illegal - so that all schools have the same level of funding. A nice side effect, or I guess perhaps the intended effect is that if wealthy parents are having to put their children to the same schools as working class kids - then they're going to do their best to ensure these schools are up to standard. Everyone benefits.

This video gives a bit of a glimpse into the Finnish school system - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xCe2m0kiSg

New comment by smrr723 in "More bosses give four-day workweek a try"

smrr723 — Sat, 22 Feb 2020 12:05:31 +0000

You have some sort of rota - half the office gets Mondays off on January, then in February, they're off on Fridays.

Having tried both, 4x8 is far better. I don't do much during 5x7 evenings anyway because I'm drained after 7 hours at work, so I'd much rather just cram that into 4 days and have an extra day of rest.

New comment by smrr723 in "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (January 2020)"

smrr723 — Fri, 10 Jan 2020 22:45:25 +0000

Hi! How do you treat multiple applications to your Backend roles, given you have so many? If I get turned away from one, will I be penalised if I apply to another Backend position the following day? And are these positions hiring all year round? They've been up for quite a while.

New comment by smrr723 in "Ask HN: What mistakes did you make when starting as a consultant/freelancer?"

smrr723 — Sat, 07 Dec 2019 16:57:36 +0000

> Estimation. Devs are notoriously bad at it

I wouldn't say devs are bad at it. It's more that software development is very hard to estimate. Unless you're doing exactly the same type of work with an identical setup every time - like billing people to install a Wordpress site, it's often impossible to estimate the exact amount of days or hours something will take, especially if you're being paid to fix a bug or a problem to which you don't yet know the solution.

New comment by smrr723 in "Tesla Cybertruck may be unsafe for other road users: Australian safety chief"

smrr723 — Sat, 30 Nov 2019 00:39:27 +0000

It'll still crumple. There's a difference between a guy hitting the door with a sledgehammer and a vehicle driving full force into the side of the truck.

New comment by smrr723 in "Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?"

smrr723 — Wed, 27 Nov 2019 12:52:25 +0000

> That means, infrequent brutal deadlines, minimal (pref. zero) commute, opportunity to learn, and spend time with family and friends and be of use to society at large.

This is what I'm aiming for in the near term, but how on earth do you find a position with infrequent brutal deadlines?

New comment by smrr723 in "Tesla Cybertruck"

smrr723 — Fri, 22 Nov 2019 11:09:29 +0000

It means that F=ma - the bigger you are, the safer you are. The driver of a small 2 seater car is going to be worse off than a huge semi if they both collide.

New comment by smrr723 in "Tesla Cybertruck"

smrr723 — Fri, 22 Nov 2019 10:32:25 +0000

April 1st was my first response too. I mean, seriously? This is ridiculous. Is aerodynamics just out the window now?

New comment by smrr723 in "Ask HN: What's the most valuable thing you can learn in an hour?"

smrr723 — Wed, 20 Nov 2019 14:11:41 +0000

What resource did you use to learn it?

New comment by smrr723 in "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (October 2019)"

smrr723 — Tue, 01 Oct 2019 20:44:10 +0000

Is this remote US only, or global?