minimalismhuh

Born into a dysfunctional family (father beat the sht out of my mother, me, siblings). My mother in turn beat the sht out of me & my siblings. I had trouble in elementary school. Had to repeat classes, graduated from high school late in life. Worked mostly in temporary low-paying jobs, then went to school for 3 years doing basically nothing. Dropped out, then worked again somewhere, then went to school again pursuing a computer science degree (60% complete).

My life is just a big f*cking maze (too many trial and errors, esp. unnecessary ones: "doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results"-kind of mistakes).

Now in my early 30s going to school with Gen-Z (feeling as the only Yoomer stuck in there), still having financial troubles (hard for me to make ends meet), wondering if this grind will ever come to a halt? Especially when 3 decades have passed, and you never really worked in a "real job" being "socially awkward" and lonely for most of your life.

How can I make up for my lost years? I can't this is the realization. Time can't be brought back. So this is out of the equation. All I can do now, is look into typical recommendations/life advice/studies/findings and optimize as much as I am comfortable with:

- water fasting (mostly following Valter Longo) - cold showers (b/c it helps against depression and ease my Reynolds syndrome) - socializing (not easy for me, but I must try it at least b/c: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/04/over-nearly-80-years-harvard-study-has-been-showing-how-to-live-a-healthy-and-happy-life/) - omega-3 and other supplements (good for easing depression caused by trauma/loneliness)

I am no expert, I don't understand these studies fully, but they at least give me some sense of direction to "steer" my remaining life out of this misery. (At least I hope so.)

1 year until I prospectively graduate. Let's see how this life of mine unfolds.

I don't like Stack Overflow, but I need an alternative to it. HN is where I genuinely feel safe and happy! Is there anything programming related that resembles the HN community?

So with "HN-like" I mean: with the HN community guidelines enforced. Also, it should be friendly and welcoming like HN.

I know I am getting annoying, but I am really desperate in this matter. I really need a community like this for programming discussions and help.

Topics of interest: C, C++, graphics programming.

I know it is utopia, but I also hope for a HN-esque YouTube, Amazon, Google etc. I am rehashing this yet again, but you can see/sense that I really, really want this to happen!

Or let me rephrase this to: do you know any other community like HN?

Also: sorry for the annoyance (of rehashing myself constantly).

Have a nice and happy New Year! :)

It seems like much of the world has become Americanized either way. As if Rammstein's song "Amerika" got its way. Companies adopting anglicisms ad infinitum instead of using native counterparts. Sometimes it gets so odd, that people start mixing English and their native language and speak in "Naglish" (I made that one up). You also see the soft power influence that America has in non-American media. Think of Japanese games like Resident Evil. "Leon S. Kennedy", or Snake from the Metal Gear Solid series. America seems to be a safe bet when it comes to designing art. Crysis is another example despite being a German-based company, the themes are American again. American fast food chains wherever you go, American products, stores, holidays and company culture. However, while this is ongoing, the people (esp. older ones) haven't really embraced the American mindset. Meaning, accepting and living with people of different backgrounds be it cultural or otherwise. At this point I wonder whether each nation can become another "Amerika" on its own. I wonder if the whole globe can just become the United Continents of America or something. But tribalism is a strong human instinct it seems, and it is a natural "force" by itself.

So is globalism for the long run? Or is it utopia?

The HN posts that sparked this submission:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19987462 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15242968

The intend is not to spark another "Breitbart-esque" tirade on this issue. Rather an honest, constructive "Sam Harrisian" discussion of this topic.

So what strategies do you think are going to keep you relevant in the future?

Things like "no-code development platform" or NCDP will perhaps lessen the demand of web developers. Unreal Engine and Unity have maybe lessened the demand for game engine and graphics programmers. It might be wrong to extrapolate out of these 2 trends, but it looks like more and more software developer positions will become less demanded/requested as we're heading towards full automation. And the resulting jobs are going to be more and more boring. So you are going to configure something rather than code something up from scratch.

My strategy, albeit likely flawed, is:

- focus on fundamentals: so instead of learning a graphics API like OpenGL 2.1 or OpenGL 4.x, study the fundamental algorithms underlying hardware and software. IOW: write a rasterizer, a ray tracer from scratch with only the standard libraries of a given programming language. (E.g. write a pure C++ software rasterizer or ray tracer by only using the C++ STL. Then output the result into a simple image format like PPM.) I mostly ignore the naysayers here telling me that I am wasting my time reinventing the wheel and what not, but I actually really enjoy that process of learning why and how something works in the deepest levels.

- focus on the core subjects that will give you the most bang for your buck: linear algebra has haunted me throughout my studies, so instead of resisting it, embrace it. You can't escape linear algebra really, if you are doing computer graphics, neural networks (back-propagation), Fourier transforms, image processing, probability theory. It's everywhere, and it is the most useful subject for computer science majors IMHO. Then maybe algorithms and formal and non-formal languages like (C, Japanese etc.). Everybody speaks English nowadays, so why not pick-up a new (human) language?

What are your personal strategies?

I'm looking for an Obsidian-esque file explorer that works in combination with the Johnny File System. There needs to be a better way to browse through files without the Windows Explorer. You should be able to tag files/folders and connect/link them together (like in Obsidian). Is there such a tool out there?

References: https://obsidian.md/, https://johnnydecimal.com/

It occurs to me that you have to have a lot of online accounts for various things and purposes. I am sure you have at least a couple of these accounts:

Gmail, Outlook, Protonmail, Tutanota, GitHub, Dropbox, Standard Notes, FC2, Amazon, iTunes, GOG.com, Steam, itch.io, Twitter, YouTube, FC2, HN, Stack Overflow, Discord, Linkedin, Netflix, Spotify, Mubi, Grammarly, eBay, Bitwarden, SimpleLogin.io, Firefox Relay, Firefox Lockwise, ...

Furthermore, the incentive to have even more accounts is growing as more and more services are entering the online market.

Here's a data point serving as a primer:

"In the U.S. the average email address is associated with 130 accounts."[1]

Having this many accounts is practically not maintainable. Why? If you are serious about security, you need to make sure that the provided data is up to date. Things like passwords, your registration email etc. are all things that need to be updated. But why keep this large amount of accounts when you end up not using most of them at all? It might be better for you to regularly delete accounts that you are not using. Doing this also helps you avoid potential data breaches.

So in my opinion, you should also practice the habit of getting rid of stuff in the online world. Minimalism apparently reduces stress after all[2]. And evidently, people are drawn to simplicity and minimalism. A popular example might be Apple and its products.

What is your approach? How do you go about this issue? Do you maintain 100+ accounts? Don't you think having 100+ accounts (even with a password manager) takes a mental toll on you?

The purpose of this "Ask HN" is to solicit interesting approaches from people with good heuristics.

Reference: [1] https://digitalguardian.com/blog/uncovering-password-habits-are-users-password-security-habits-improving-infographic [2] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/anxiety-zen/201612/minimalism-when-living-less-means-more-mental-health