Ask HN: Which HN post (or comment) changed your life (or career)

18 points by naskwo 3 years ago | 5 comments

I'm 45 years old and I've consumed many time- (and self-) management books that suggest to avoid news and social media. In general, this is good advice.

The one exception I make is my twice-daily scan of the HN homepage, as, over the years, there have been many insightful posts, comments and links which have helped me tremendously [1]. This includes "Show HN" for tools and platforms that helped me gain an edge (Algolia, Sqreen) and comments which help to negate rabbit holes.

So, I am wondering: which posts (or insightful comments) have helped you?

[1] A big thank you to the HN moderators who ceaselessly do their best to maintain a consistent quality.

anon2022dot00 3 years ago |

Many helpful discoveries I gained from HN such as Otter.AI for voice memos, Execute Program for learning Javascript, article on John Carmack on method of learning by recreating from base specs, Flowchart.fun as text to diagram tool, trying-out Math Academy, second brain apps such as Obsidian and Dendron are also inspiring, article on Gitlab forcing everyone to use Mac inspiring me to use WSL2, and Large Language Models are the most useful breakthrough

bennysonething 3 years ago | |

Hi, can you link to John carmack article. I've tried googling and can't find it :)

naskwo 3 years ago | |

Thanks for sharing!

otras 3 years ago |

When I was trying to transition into tech and find my first Real Developer job, I found a job posting for a local startup in a Who is hiring? thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14242143) and reached out. They ended up taking a chance on me as a junior developer. It helped to kickstart the rest of my career in tech, and it absolutely changed my life.

Perfect example of the role luck can play. Glad I checked that thread that day.

bjourne 3 years ago |

I mean, don't you think that is expecting a little too much from a social media post or comment?