CoffeePython

Seems to be a lot of interest in this space.

I’m trying to combine the “rote-ness” of anki with learning by doing.

In Deliberate Python[1] I’m combining spaced repetition lessons with small exercises that encourage you to really focus and get the question right the first time.

The encouragement to get it right the first time, as often as possible, is something I learned from learning music. Practice makes permanent

[1] https://www.sendfox.com/deliberatepython Note: this project is pre launch so this is a newsletter where I’m giving progress updates. Plan to launch into beta in a month or two

I’ve been using brain.fm and found it’s perfect background music for programming. I actually feel more productive when I use it

This is probably one of the best investments most people can make.

Think about it. If you become a more effective learner it can have a huge compounding effect.

This course is one of my favorites. Thanks for sharing it!

Spaced Repetition is a super power! I think learning about learning is one of the best things you can do for your personal and professional growth. I've noticed a huge growth in my own learning journey since diving deeper into how spaced repetition and other techniques can help you.

I've also been more intentional about my time programming at work. Focusing on certain things to improve on a daily/weekly basis. Most of our day to day work is more akin to a performance than deliberate practice[1].

I also noticed that I didn't have a great way to use spaced repetition with programming skills, so I've been working on a platform that lets you practice python fundamentals with spaced repetition. It's pre-launch but I'm documenting progress on my newsletter[2].

1. https://deliberatepython.substack.com/p/is-programming-at-wo...

2. https://www.sendfox.com/deliberatepython

I have a budget sit stand setup. I bought the autonomous ai DIY sit/stand kit and paired it with an IKEA butcher block countertop.

Sit stand has been a game changer for me. I love being able to switch it up when one or the other gets tiresome.

I’m looking to upgrade my chair soon. It’s the standard IKEA office chair. Don’t remember the name but lots of folks recommend it for a budget option.

In general for someone trying to get in the field I typically say get a degree IF it makes sense in your lifestyle.

New grad from high school and wants to get into CS. Get a degree if you can afford it.

Took a few years off of college, really interested in CS, can afford to go back to school (even if afford means loans and it is a public university). Get a degree.

Mid 20's with family and children, main breadwinner, can't afford to stop working. Think hard about the decision to go back to school. Explore other options.

In general, it just has to fit with your lifestyle.

In your particular case I'd highly suggest not going. You already have a bachelors and a masters. Plus 5 years experience. The barrier to entry to get into the sub-field you're interested in isn't credentials at this point.

I'm very surprised none of the videos on the serenade landing page have audio.

I would love to see/hear what it's like. I'd suspect adding audio to those videos would be a win on conversions.

Do a lot of visual artists have programming skills these days?

Or I guess a better question is, do artists who have programming skills get higher pay, attention,etc from employers in this field?

I guess I’m curious to the state of the field of digital artists wrt programming.

Great read!

Wish there were pictures easily found on the main landing page of the game.

I tried to try it out but didn’t get admitted into a room.

There’s only text in the rules, so it’s hard for me to know what type of game this is.

I think investing in some better UI would be great :)

Good job shipping something! Just a little too much friction IMO

I love how Lex's podcast has really taken off lately. His conversations very closely match to my interests.

Also in general, long form podcast conversations are such great entertainment. I've learned a ton from his podcast conversations. Excited to spend the morning listening to this one. Lattner seems like an extremely fascinating guy

I’d definitely second this. I’m no NLP expert by any means but SpaCy makes it so easy to hit the ground running and start doing interesting things with NLP.

I was very surprised to see how small the team was but it looks like they have some great talent. A little bit off topic but the FastAPI creator works at explosion. Using FastAPI has been the most enjoyable Python web development experiences for me.

I like that the (potential) value prop for an individual user increases as more people join the platform. Seems like a pretty novel idea for the whole "flywheel" concept.

Just saw this comment but wanted to respond.

Yes this is a thing and happens semi-often.

Keep in mind I was servicing over 75 locations and each had at least 3 tanks.

The most common way for water to get into the tanks was through the fill ports that the fuel delivery drivers filled the tanks with.

Seals could go bad, or the driver could forget to close a lid 100% of the way. Couple that with high water from rains and you’d typically get a high water alarm.

I think our system was setup to alarm if there were more than 3 or 4 gallons in a tank. These tanks are enormous. I don’t remember the capacity but they had many thousands of gallons of fuel.

Water goes to the bottom of the tank naturally and sets off an alarm. This alarm also stops the pump from running.

We’d call out a vacuum truck to pump the bottom of the tank (usually this cost A LOT of money. $1000 for 15 minutes of work)

Then we’d fix the entry point where water came in. If the alarm cleared on the system, we could turn the pump back on.

I worked as a maintenance technician at a gas station for 6 years before I switched into software engineering.

Some interesting things about gas dispensers/pumps:

- What most people call a gas pump is a dispenser. The actual pump is submersed inside the underground gas tank.

- mid grade gas is just premium and regular gas that is gets mixed at the dispenser before the fuel is dispensed.

- Holding the hose up high and pulling the trigger does not allow more fuel to drain from the hose after reaching your prepaid amount

- people drive off with the nozzle still in their car surprisingly often. There is a magnetic breakaway so the hose will disconnect and not pull the dispenser over.

I can probably think of some more of people are interested

I had to read that headline about 10 times before I kind of understood what it was saying. Reading the article helped though.

Tire costs probably aren’t thought of because all cars need tires and consumers are used to paying for them.

I tried setting up new insurance for a couple properties I own. It took 4 or 5 phone calls and the insurance agent just kept talking so much. Sometimes I just don't have time for all the banter. I have kids, a full-time job, etc. I don't want to spend my free time talking to some stranger on the phone. I kept telling him to email me the details and he would call anyway and "it will only take a minute".

If there was a lemonade for insurance broker type deals then I'd use it in a second. (i.e. I want to bundle my landlord insurance, personal home insurance, and auto insurance)

> Businesses using the same concepts and business models outside of this scope have potentially less competition, higher available market, and higher upside purchase exit.

What type of businesses are you talking about here? Non-software or just non SaaS?

I was pretty decent at music in high school. No interest at all in tech or programming. Went to a top 3 music university for a year and burned out. The hours required were intense. The competition was fierce, and the outcome of getting a music ed degree wasn't that bright either.

Transferred to a nearby university and continued music education for a year. Competition was less fierce but the hours required to stay in the school were still intense. Much more than a CS degree required.

I had my first son during my second year of university. Dropped out. Got a job at a regional gas retailer that's known for paying their people exceptionally well. Moved into doing maintenance. Did maintenance for 5+ years at said gas station. It was great! Pay was good, troubleshooting skills got much better, and I liked most of my job. I ended up meeting my SO there also! Downsides were 50+ hours/week, work weekends, on-call, work holidays, can't choose schedule, work overnights, etc.

Had a breaking point with my boss at gas station. He screamed at me over something small without letting me explain. I couldn't go get another job in the same industry that payed nearly as well. I had bronze handcuffs basically (not as good as golden handcuffs). I had been tinkering with diy project at home and ended up buying a raspberry pi and learning some python. LOVED it.

I started going to university again at 24 for computer science. I worked full time doing maintenance and did 8-12 hours of school per semester in computer science. I felt super behind too.

I joined a programming club that changed my life. Met a ton of great people who set the bar for programming higher than I thought. Won a few hackathons, got hiring letters at a few internships (which I ended up not taking due to needing to maintain my insurance for my son and needing a full-time income).

I went to a ton of local meetups and met one of the partners of the consulting firm I currently work at. He did a mock interview at a meetup with me. We connected on linkedin and he hired me a few months later.

I've been at my current job almost 2 years now. It's been fantastic. I still love programming as much ever. Love the people I work with, and love working in tech.

There are some truly amazing people in the trades.

Some of the absolute best problem solvers I ever met, I met in the trades. I'm talking masters of troubleshooting. Breaking things down into component parts, understanding how systems work together, and being able to pinpoint what exactly was causing the underlying issue. People who just had to know how everything worked. People with knowledge of Refrigeration, electrical troubleshooting, PCB repair, etc.

Working in the trades gave me strong troubleshooting skills.It also gave me an appreciation that a lot of folks in our industry seem to lack for our blue collar brethren. Blue collar != dumb/uneducated.

It's bound to come up in almost every conversation about this topic online nowadays but skilled trades can be great. Especially if you plan to own your own service business. I'm talking Electricians, Plumbers, HVAC technicians, etc.

Competition is low. If you show up on time, present yourself well, and you don't show up to work under the influence, then you can be in the top 10% of the workforce easily.

I worked in the trades for about 6-7 years before switching to software engineering. I took a paycut for my first job in software. I was making $80k in a low cost of living area working in the trades. First year was $55k, on the job training was provided.

Downsides are: - Weekend work is typical - On-call is typical - Hard labor, working in the elements. Freezing conditions and/or 100*F + days working on HVAC equipment is rough. - Non-trade folk will commonly talk to you like you're not intelligent. Not a lot of prestige

Upsides: - Learn valuable hands-on skills. Can be applied to your own home to save money - Physical job = built-in exercise - Low competition - Easy to parlay into a business

That is not pitiful.

I think you should recalibrate to the average. Most new grads have a negative net worth. You are far ahead of the curve and it’s good you are thinking about wealth building, but it’s very dismissive to say 120k net worth is pitiful.

Tried reading through this but without context it’s very unclear what has happened.

Can someone familiar with Rust and it’s communities explain from a high level what all this is about?

Datadog seems like a fantastic product but it is very expensive.

I work at a consulting company and we had a company needing some monitoring setup. Ended up going with Grafana and some AWS resources over Datadog. The cost difference was huge. Datadog would have been around $20k/mo. The grafana and AWS solution was about a tenth of the cost.

What are you using Datadog in a custom dev shop for, and how do you justify the cost?

My impression was Datadog is for very large and very profitable companies.

Predicting markets is a constant battle of finding some alpha to gain an edge over your competitors. Where your competitors are anyone else that is trading in the markets.

Some find alpha with speed. (See Flash Boys by Michael Lewis for a look at the insane lengths companies go to gain fractions of a second advantages). Some find alpha with better algorithms.

You’re positing that because the big tech companies have so much data they should be better at predicting markets. The problem is that having the data is just one part of the problem.

Look at satellite imagery. Every hedge fund worth its salt has probably thought of and has used satellite imagery. Virtually all of them have the same access to it. They purchase it through third party providers. There are undoubtedly unused satellite imagery techniques out there that would allow you to gain alpha in the market.

So why don’t the hedge funds use these unused strategies? Because having the data is only one part of the problem. Analyzing, preparing, cleaning, and finding a useful way to use the data is the other part. Hypothesizing new ways to look at the data that would reveal some insights is a big part.

Data is helpful but it isn’t the end all for making money in the markets.

I was amazed by how much money they lose with Uber Eats[1]. How much longer is that sustainable and will prices need to increase dramatically to even break even?

[1] https://qz.com/1693843/uber-eats-will-lose-money-until-at-le...

Full time job is for a consulting company. Got brought on for some greenfield work that happened to be in the space. Got to learn on the job. Leveraged that experience to land freelancing clients.

By finding a niche and looking for work in that niche. I picked NLP in the financial space and have been able to find work within a couple weeks every time I look. If you search for freelancing threads here on HN you can find some great info on getting freelance work.

It might take a while to make $2k/mo in cash from rental properties. We own two rentals and don’t even clear $1k/mo with both.

Find 20 hours of freelance work at $100/hr.

Sounds reductive but I’ve had good success with this when looking for additional income.

Probably the easiest and most likely to work path if you are already a developer.

Flash Boys by Michael Lewis is tangentially related.

It has some programming related themes. Listened to it while I was working for a FinTech client in the online trading industry.