AlchemistCamp (u/AlchemistCamp)

AlchemistCamp commented on Bypassing Google's big anti-adblock update 0x44.xyz/blog/web-request... · Posted by u/deryilz

fooker · a month ago

Great, except firefox is pretty bad nowadays.

Not their fault of course, with people not testing websites on non chrome derived browsers.

AlchemistCamp · a month ago

Firefox has been my main browser for almost 10 years and I haven't encountered any challenges other than availability of plugins, but even that has been a very rare issue.

AlchemistCamp commented on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (July 2025) · Posted by u/whoishiring

AlchemistCamp · 2 months ago

SEEKING WORK | Remote | Fullstack Engineer / Fractional CTO

Location: Taipei, Taiwan (US citizen, open work permission)

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: No, but I can shift my work hours up to four hours in either direction.

Technologies and tools: Elixir, JS, Ruby, Python, Golang, Rust, Tailwind CSS, PostgreSQL, Docker, AWS, Digital Ocean, AI (learning)

Resume/CV: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1J5FlE_Yj_x3gZmA5IRZcAywz...

Email: (in resume)

Hi there! I'm Mark and I've worked alternately as an engineer and entrepreneur for fifteen years, in Beijing, in the SF Bay Area and remotely. Most of my work has been with smaller startup teams, but I've worked at a large scaleup as well. Experience building tech for education, real estate, automated trading, e-commerce and gig platforms. I also have some experience rescuing outsourced projects

I generally work in spurts 1-4 year spurts (either a single role or a series of contracts) and then take an extended break to learn new skills. Now looking for a contractor role at a 5-20 person startup. I prioritize learning and impact.

Languages: English (native), Mandarin (years of use professionally), Japanese (previously a ~B2 level, now limited)

AlchemistCamp commented on YouTube No Translation addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/... · Posted by u/doener

bravesoul2 · 2 months ago

Isn't Spanish spoken alot in USA?

AlchemistCamp · 2 months ago

Yes. In America, there are over 60 million fluent Spanish speakers, which is more than the entire population of Spain. In many southern and southwestern parts of the country you can do just about anything you need to in Spanish and being bilingual is a big plus for any kind of public-facing work.

AlchemistCamp commented on Interview with Francine Prose [audio] laphamsquarterly.org/cont... · Posted by u/keiferski

blindriver · 2 months ago

I can see this just fine.

AlchemistCamp · 2 months ago

That must be nice.

They’re probably blocking based on geolocation or something similar. I’m on an iPhone, using Safari and no VPN.

AlchemistCamp commented on We’ve had a Denisovan skull since the 1930s, only nobody knew arstechnica.com/science/2... · Posted by u/Bluestein

whatevertrevor · 2 months ago

Sounds like this was pre search engines, so Tommy's bookmarks might just be a collection of cool sites that was spread peer to peer. I remember getting CDs of curated games and demos in the late 90s (and not just licensed demos from computer magazines, but also cracked versions of games that went around).

AlchemistCamp · 2 months ago

Sounds like Craig’s list.

AlchemistCamp commented on Interview with Francine Prose [audio] laphamsquarterly.org/cont... · Posted by u/keiferski

AlchemistCamp · 2 months ago

I flagged this because upon following the link, all I get is:

Forbidden

You don't have permission to access this resource.

AlchemistCamp commented on Phoenix.new – Remote AI Runtime for Phoenix fly.io/blog/phoenix-new-t... · Posted by u/wut42

prophesi · 2 months ago

What packages in Elixir have you found unmaintained/missing in the ecosystem? Genuinely curious.

AlchemistCamp · 2 months ago

Probably the highest profile and most consistent example would be Stripe. The most popular Stripe wrapper for Elixir’s docs point to a 2019 Stripe API version: https://github.com/beam-community/stripity-stripe

Worse still, the quality of Stripe’s own docs have really degraded this decade for anyone not using a language they have an SDK for. Most of their newer docs assume m have a drop-down toggle for on backend language with a few popular languages and no option for “other”. Example: https://docs.stripe.com/billing/quickstart

None of this is a fault of anyone working on Elixir or Phoenix but it definitely has an effect of discouraging some of the fledgling entrepreneur types who Elixir would otherwise be a near perfect fit for, as Rails was in the late aughts.

AlchemistCamp commented on Self-reported race, ethnicity don't match genetic ancestry in the U.S.: study science.org/content/artic... · Posted by u/pseudolus

maeil · 3 months ago

"Maintain the purest racial pedigree"? What does this even mean in actual terms? And there is no desire to accept what?

AlchemistCamp · 3 months ago

I don't know what that person meant but, like many in the region, Koreans have family registries (戶籍) that record their family lineage. At least among people I've known who have spoken about theirs, Korean family registry records tend to go back much further than the median east Asian country.

The names of the systems related to this registry are slightly different in Chinese, Japanese and Korean but you can see links to Wikipedia entries for each of them from here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%88%B6%E7%B1%8D

AlchemistCamp commented on Why I wrote the BEAM book happihacking.com/blog/pos... · Posted by u/lawik

MarceColl · 3 months ago

So now you need several servers, an orchestrator, tons of YAML, arcane and terrible error messages and a devops team to kind of match the BEAM? That's... not a good look

AlchemistCamp · 3 months ago

Yes. This is a big part of what initially drew me to Elixir. It's more than feasible to run a server on a cheap VPS, get great, though not quite Golang or low-level language performance and have a much easier scaling story when you need multiple machines.

More importantly, you generally don't need an external queue service, in-memory KV store, task scheduler or many of the other things that JS/Ruby/Python stacks need. By consolidating just about everything but the DB in a single, well designed system, it's possible for a very small team to take on relatively large challenges on a smaller budget.

AlchemistCamp commented on Duolingo CEO tries to walk back AI-first comments, fails htxt.co.za/2025/05/duolin... · Posted by u/Improvement

teekert · 3 months ago

My daughter gave up because the mascot turned more and more scary (she’s not allowed to use the iPad that much). Any alternatives?

AlchemistCamp · 3 months ago

Not knowing what language she’s learning, it’s a bit tough to say. Many have an app with lots of reading material with audio and assistance tracking learned words, tap to dictionary lookup, etc. It’s a pretty good category and a lot of kids enjoy them.