JZL003

Cool I work in spatial transcriptomics, it's still early days but not too far off we're going to get great resolution and great capture. Especially for the brain, and maybe even tumor micro-environments it could be really cool

I mean you're right, I coded it quick in bash. The actual `grep` is of course bulletproof but I don't have a bulletproof notification system. If I was on a local unix machine I'd use `mail` but I mostly check gmail. I can use a simple smtp bridge but it's not always reliable

I've been meaning to set up automated testing where it sends an email every day and then I use something like google apps script to make sure it goes through. Like a cronjob checker but for email, maybe it already exists

I think I'll start using it but I'd like self hosting only because I want to set it and forget it for years potentially, and I don't want to have to check to make sure it's still working

Oooh I think this is great

Another one, as an example, check the FDA food and drug alerts for medicine you take. I guess the pharmacy should email you but who knows, it's just filtering an xml for a set of regex. I built a cheap example myself on a micro self hosted server I use for other things

Having quick and easy email behind a very simple url is great. Another usecase I use is I have a tiny http endpoint which just emails based on the url parameter (e.g. since it's only me my.server.com/email?msg=DONE_AI_training). Then I can use it to notify me when a long running job is done, using curl or the easy off the shelf requests that's in any language

I think the dropbox sync is pretty good. I self host and I know the keepass db is encrypted but I don't want to worry that my self-hosting is always immediately up to date. And I trust dropbox well enough, I think

I also don't love keepass getting access to my entire dropbox. But the easy solution is just to make another dropbox account with just the keepass file, and share it with my main dropbox, it'll sync the edits but force insulate the keepass permissions to a single file

I do the same with org-mode sync, might as well

Speaking of literate-calc mode is AMAZING for these sorts of things. It lets you use emacs-calc in a notebook, so you get units, unit conversions, solving. It's great for quick calculations and units make sure you know immediately if you need to divide or multiply.

I use it all the time to make benchmarks for how long something will take, the memory, etc

(Just add this for unit conversions

``` (after! calc (defalias 'calcFunc-uconv 'math-convert-units)) ``` )

Yes! Thanks that's exactly what I was hoping for. Sadly I'm not in nyc so I can't use it but that makes sense to me

I know this is overly optimistic but I've been inspired reading about maid cooperatives in NYC https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/opin...

What if there was a driver cooperative competing with Uber where there wasn't huge overhead.

I honestly don't understand what their huge operating costs are, too many swe? Ubers self driving push was dead on arrival and sold for a loss

Is it managing accidents and ensuring passenger safety?

I don't even know if there's brand loyalty because the apps are so commodified and the drivers can work on any app

I've been hoping for an open source/community driven/minimal version of the app. A software dev puts together a very simple version and takes minimal overhead, no fancy features but geolocalized requests

I know I'm oversimplifying how much Uber does but it doesn't seem profound or impossible, 'just' network effects. And if I knew the drivers for a bigger cut and hypothetically it was cheaper for me too, it'd be so great

good memories :-) I started programing with google apps script.

I think it's a great starting point for students because it's totally free, abstracts over the coplications of oauth (for small things I still prefer it because it's so effortless) and you can combine google apps in fun ways. Considering many students live out of gmail + google docs, it's great

And having a GUI version of the app makes interacting with other students easy bc they can always edit the google sheet (aka database), forms, gmail, etc

I also have a lot of issues with versioning data. But look at git annex - it's free, self hosted and has a very easy underlying data structure [1]. So I don't even use the magic commands it has for remote data mounting/multi-device coordination, just backup using basic S3 commands and can use rclone mounting. Very robust, open source, and useful

[1] When you run `git annex add` it hashes the file and moves the original file to a `.git/annex/data` folder under the hash/content addressable file system, like git. Then it replaces the original file with a symlink to this hashed file path. The file is marked as read only, so any command in any language which tries to write to it will error (you can always `git annex unlock` so you can write to it). If you have duplicated files, they easily point to the same hashed location. As long as you git push normally and back up the `.git/annex/data` you're totally version controlled, and you can share the subset of files as needed

what geopolitical and science do you read/follow? I can find pretty alright science (either very high level or just papers at some point, some industry niche websites strike a better balance), but not that many geopolitical sites I feel good about

wow this is a great article, so readable

I work at the broad institute and it's a pretty cool place, can be long hours but they're investing heavily in software and the like. Can be a nice intermediate between research and applications

What about backblaze b2 with rclone, I'm sure there's a front end somewhere and with the clousflare cdn it's no egress cost. Or clousflares storage amounts

I appreciate that even an official google linked youtube video gets copyright striked

I guess I agree on principle and diet is understated. But let's say, as has happened recently, you're looking at Alzheimer's or lewey body syndrome and you find the gwas returns a lot of results for a certain cellular pathway (like a stress response or where a cell breaks down misfolded proteins, leading to plaques). You can look for small molecule drug which targets that, or try a fancier treatment to target that exact protein. But how would that insight extend to diet?

Beyond just eating more health (in whatever way) and exercising more, which does go a long way. Thse drugs are trying to be extremely targeted and intricate in now they work

If you're interested and a US citizen, look into the All of Us program by NIH. They're going to sequence a million people's genome (!!) and allow researchers to use it. And they're doing it in a very careful safe way. It will mean many researchers will have your deanonymized genome (and it's up for debate if it's possible to truly future-proof deanonymize a genome) but it's not sketchy at all and will be a huge help for future generations IMO.

And if you're in another country, especially european ones, look into other research programs, there are lots round

The thing is it's not much data in absolute terms, but it's not going to change for over human timescales and tells you something about your entire family, going back generations in the past and many in the future. On the other hand, look at GWAS studies, if you have many people and know if they get a disease or not, you can narrow down exactly what parts of the genome are implicated in the disease, and start designing drugs for it. It's hard work and doesn't always work, but it allows us to go from high level disease phenotype -> exact mechanistic problems

Also for anyone who likes weird scifi, read Cory Doctorow's Rapture of the nerds, it has an amazing audiobook and is just fun and clever

I agree, I don't think diamond age gets enough interest. It's one of my favorite books and the ending is unsatisfying but at least upbeat. Seveneves is also tons of fun. And if you know anyone who likes history, his older Baroque Cycle is pretty great

I haven't heard this in an interview or anything but I think now Stephenson is older and successful enough, he just writes the books exactly how he likes. Diamond age feels like he was agonizing over every word to keep everything so short. But Fall, and his newest book Termination Shock (which I also didn't like most of) ,just feels like an author who likes writing. Both have these amazing moments, which reminds me like a jazz musician, where it's almost effortlessly insightful and funny. But with no editing or second thoughts

I live in a similar place and I'm with you. I knew it was inflation but I almost started to believe I just started eating out more or something. But it's a very noticeable jump

Cool that phone is a nice find. I also find having a separate audiobook phone nice (smaller, better battery life,no notifications when I'm 'reading'). But I went for the Samsung Galaxy S3 mini. It's really underpowered but super tiny so can fit in a pocket with my other phone, has a great battery life, and expandable sd card. I haven't paid for a 2tb sd card but a 512 gb works fine and is almost full now

The Android app 'smart audiobook player' is a godsend, really thoughtful app. And you can use an equalizer to reduce high pitch tones which I find easier to listen to

I'm a really heavy overdrive user, and I wouldn't trust the waiting time. Join multiple libraries as well - the limiting factor is if the library has bought the book not the waiting time. Their prediction algorithm seems to assume everyone keeps it for the full 14/21 and many people don't. Also most libraries have multiple copies which speeds things up a ton

Because the best secret tip is that overdrive doesn't encrypt their mp3's. They even admit it at [1]. I don't know about iOS but on android it's just stored plaintext in the android system. So you just get on hold for books and whenever they come in, download then, and don't have to worry about loans. I try to be nice about this and buy the book for author's books I've enjoyed because I want to support artists. But it's nice to not have the limitations of 21 days, especially for longer books

Overdrive is trying to go to libby where they obfuscate the mp3s but they might not push it through

Also don't discount text to speech. It's not as nice as a real narrator but I also walk 5+ hours on weekends and it's nice to be able to listen to arbitrary text. Google's TTS is pretty readable and has a generous free tier

[1] https://help.overdrive.com/en-us/0004.html

I also feel like it gets to a roundaboutway of 'proving' things people already know. More sleep is nicer, unless it's so long it's bc you're sick. Drinking more means more dancing. Days when you sit all day working are less fun than walking around with friends (and, of course, not working then)

I feel like keeping a rough journal and manually revisiting would be more helpful than quantifying and correlating. But financial tracking can be useful, to a smaller degree, and tracking mood changes over big life changes can be valuable I guess. Otherwise, does feel vanity

If you own the server, it might be easier to set up a little smtp client. Or to be more security conscious, a incoming only smtp client like https://github.com/0xERR0R/mailcatcher/ and collapse that dataflow. But pubsub has a monstrous free tier anyway and I also wanted to keep a copy of the emails on gmail which is easier to search

One thing I've thought of is that on android, it's not so hard to get app usage in a custom app, as a proxy for being on the phone. So it could check if you've been on your phone for 15+ minutes and then ping you only then. It would take some app -> server -> telegram app communication

I think bots are a great way of automating your life in fun ways. It's also my new favorite project to suggest to people starting to program, because just a little bit of customizability goes a long way

Tracking mood is great. A simple telegram bot -> a google sheet lets telegram do the mobile/desktop UI and you just control the logic

One overlooked thing is automating financial tracking/categorization. In the US there's no good cross banking api except for email. Almost every credit card, bank, etc can email a receipt (set the minimum amount of alerts to be $0.01). The flowchart for parsing is bank alert -> gmail -> gmail filter by from address adds a label -> google pub sub notices that label and pings a little VPS somewhere -> gmail api -> parse email -> telegram bot

As I type, it sounds complicated but each step is well trod and has tutorials available. Now you have the ability to make custom push notifications for any transaction with < 1 second latency, instead of using the bank app. And it's all under your control. So the telegram bot allows you to categorize those purchases, you can add little notes or put it in categories. The nice thing is instead of looking at the end of the month and having 100+ little purchases and trying to remember if you ate at Starbucks 4 weeks ago, you categorize things as they happen in just a few clicks. And adding a category (one click) at the time implicitly marks the purchase as 'known good', not a suspicious purchase. So you can cross check at the end of the month for purchases you didn't categorize as suspicious.

How do you deal with the downtime. I also find myself constantly resizing instances (although for data analysis where I sometimes need 80+ cores only for a few hours), and the constant restarting and reloading drives me crazy

Maybe for sqlite because it's stored in ssd, it's only 1-2 minutes to shutdown+change parameter+restart if it's scripted?

Where did you get that number, out of curiosity. Google's cloud storage is 2 cents per gb per month and backblaze b2 is $0.005 p/ gb per month. I understand in perpetuity is more expensive but why does it cap out as opposed to being a yearly price per gb (maybe if you assume hard drive storage will decrease at a similar rate?)

Quick envelope math, if they were using backblaze pricing, $5 would give a gb 83 years of storage. But it's unclear if backblaze is actually regionally duplicated