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Layvier

160 karma · joined December 28, 2018

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Layvier··on Don't Waste the Good Days
I'm already doing that, the main issue is then getting back on people's schedule. I somehow end up going to sleep at 6am if I follow my mood...
Layvier··on Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?
> Do people regularly run into coworkers like me during their career and simply ignore it because they find it too awkward to criticize them?

Kind of, I definitely know a few. But generally those profiles are not incompetent, and can support the team in times of pressure. Also there's periods in my life where I'm definitely not so productive, so it's nice to know I can slow down as well without having to worry. The main issue is that it slows down the pace of the whole team — not just their work, but the energy in the group. This can be frustrating for team members who like to get stuff done and an energising, motivating atmosphere.

Side note: when you think about the salaries of profiles like that for the amount of code/functionalities/effort produced, it also makes you realise how much a side project is worth "cost-wise" — easily a few hundred thousands dollars. I do think these kinds of profiles deserve their salaries overall, the company definitely agrees to pay those high salaries for what is produced. The ones much more productive should be be paid accordingly though, which is rarely reflected.

>Do I have imposter syndrome and I am actually a 10x developer whose laziness makes them a 1x developer?

You're probably pretty good and with good potential if you were putting in the effort and practice. But you'll never know, and excellence is generally indissociable from passion and commitment. In my opinion you're not an imposter but not that far from it either. More engagement is expected basically, but at the same time companies have so much trouble recruiting that they are still happy with what you're producing.

Layvier··on Ask HN: Solo-preneurs, how do you DevOps to save time?
I've been using a simple circle CI setup and AWS beanstalk on my side, and for the databases I only look for fully managed. I've had a few issues with beanstalk but it still saved me a lot of time, and it's pretty easy to find AWS credits. It's pretty good also to avoid wasting time on SSL setup as everything is integrated (if you use a load balancer) with Route 53 and ACM. Beanstalk uses application version so it's very easy to rollback to a previous version. I never liked DevOps much so this setup works pretty well for me, and seems quite scalable as well.

If you're not very comfortable with k8s yet I really wouldn't recommend you to setup a cluster for a small project.

Layvier··on Show HN: Alicorn Cloud – Easily move between AWS, GCP and Azure
Really cool, that's exactly what I would except the next generation after Heroku to look like. It's weird that Heroku is still so popular while being so expensive and with a product that hasn't improved in years..
Layvier··on Ask HN: Who is looking for a co-founder? (July 2021)
CEO Cofounder - EdTech Nonprofit - Berlin (REMOTE possible)

The idea: Improve the way people learn by building an open learning map, leveraging crowdsourcing and graph database technologies. Think Google Maps x Wikipedia for learning. It would allow users to navigate knowledge in a seamless and rewarding way, by tailoring the best online content based on what you know, how you learn best, what you want to learn.

State of the project: I’ve been setting up the tech and working on an MVP, which will soon be ready to launch. The next step is to grow the userbase, build a community around the platform and apply for funding. That’s where you come in. Desired profile: Looking for a driven and ambitious CEO with strong communication skills. Aside from the traditional responsibilities of a CEO, this project also requires a fair share of online community management and brand building.

About me: I have a background in applied mathematics, software engineering and graph theory, and I’ve worked in Berlin startups for the past 4 years.

Feel free to share with people you think would fit this profile :). Here’s my email: olivier.ramier@gmail.com

Layvier··on Why do older individuals have greater control of their feelings?
Imo there's a strong tendency for people working in tech/business or with high ambition in general to suppress their emotions as they affect the decision making. However, I'd rather make suboptimal decisions if that means a richer life, deeper connections and a stronger sense of wonder. Trying to be as logical, rational as possible makes life dull and mechanical. In the end as Kierkegaard said, "Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.".
Layvier··on Ask HN: Moving from a product org to a consulting org: What should I know?
Is there some prerequisites to get into consulting alone, e.g. having worked in a consulting org before ? What kind of profile are people expecting ? I have a pretty good tech generalist engineer profile, and I'm considering doing that while working part time on a personal project.
Layvier··on Streaming subtitled box sets is the new Eurovision
Having a stronger shared culture is the basis to a stronger and more unified Europe, and we've been lacking initiatives to do so. Erasmus worked pretty well for the educated class, but entertainment is the best approach to reach the masses. Netflix is a good start but we need much more than that, regular tv should also be partially european channels.
Layvier··on RoadPony is a new way to support musicians by crowdsourcing concerts
I thought that Soundcloud would have tried that a long time ago. There's so much potential for emerging artists, and giving data to the venue about how many people will an artist bring/where to promote the event seems really needed. Good luck with that project, love the idea !
Layvier··on Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index
At least in Europe, the lowest prices (even negative sometimes) for electricity are when renewable energies are producing a lot (e.g. when there's a storm in the north sea). If bitcoin mines are plugged on the real time market of electricity they would have an incentive to turn on when there's a lot of renewable energy produced. Assuming mines optimize their mining schedules on that, there's a scenario in which it could even help soak up the low prices and push investments into renewables.
Layvier··on Escaping the Roadmap Trap
Ever since I worked in multi stage stochastic optimization I think of strategies in terms of decisions at each nodes of a tree of scenarios. Basically you want to optimize on the long term objective function, and take decisions at the optimal time based on the cost of indecision and the estimated benefits of having more information. Having probabilities associated to each branching in the tree of scenario also makes it have baked in risk management. This is not so easy to apply in practice but it is worth doing and allows having a much longer horizon: else how could you make a strategy with decisions in 6 months not being dependent on the results of the decisions you take now ? As another comment pointed out, the main goal of product roadmap is communication, strategy is something else. In this case the roadmap could be the most likely path to take in the scenario/decision tree, with diminishing confidence over time based on the probabilities observed.

Multi stage stochastic optimization is often used in finance/trading (e.g. portfolio optimization), I highly recommend to check it out.

Layvier··on Ask HN: Show me your half baked project
http://sci-map.org/

The idea's to build a collaborative graph-based learning map to learn seamlessly and optimally whatever's your learning goal. It's open source, non profit and I'm looking for contributors ! The tech stack is Neo4j/Node.js/TypeScript/GraphQl on the backend, React/Typescript/Chakra UI/Apollo client on the frontend. I would also need help on the design. My Twitter: @olivier_ramier, email: olivier@sci-map.org. Hit me up if you're interested !

Layvier··on Ask HN: Who's looking for a co-founder?
I'm working on a non profit, collaborative knowledge sharing platform for personalised learning. It would be a kind of learning map allowing seamless and optimal exploration the knowledge space. I'm close to finishing the MVP. I'm based in Berlin but willing to move to the US, and I'm looking for a cofounder with great communication skills (I would be the CTO). Here's my Twitter if you're interested: @olivier_ramier
Layvier··on Seeing Theory: A Visual Introduction to Probability and Statistics
I didn't know about, seems very similar indeed! I will check it out in details, thanks a lot for sharing !
Layvier··on Seeing Theory: A Visual Introduction to Probability and Statistics
So so cool ! And it goes to show how poorly probabilities and statistics are usually taught, it's such a waste. I'm working on a non profit project aiming in parts to aggregate this kind of pedagogical tools into a collaborative learning map and serving it in a personalised way: https://sci-map.org. Early phases still, but if people are interested to contribute please hit me up!
Layvier··on Ask HN: Anyone a social entrepreneur, i.e. placing social impact above profit?
I'm starting an open collaborative knowledge sharing platform for personalised learning that would be registered as a non profit if things go well. First release on the way: https://sci-map.org/ From what I've seen there's really few social projects aiming for an exponential growth, startup style.
Layvier··on Tired of note-taking apps
Tried roam research for 2 weeks, don't think I'm going back. You almost never read your paper notes because you quickly can't search them.
Layvier··on Ask HN: What weird or hard problems are you trying to solve?
Online learning, particularly personalised learning aimed for self education and continuous learning. I'm trying to model the knowledge space as a graph, index learning material (free online resources right now then user generated content) on this graph and then provide different ways to navigate this space. I'm trying to address the "best way" for someone to learn a specific concept, and to help people identify the knowledge they miss/are looking for. The project would be open, collaborative and a non profit btw.
Layvier··on On Cultures That Build
I think it's also related to how capitalism derives towards ultra specialisation of individuals. We help solving a very specific (often very indirect as well) need of society, extremely efficiently, and expect all our needs to be fulfilled in return. Or at least that's what we assume the system should do. But the system is never well adjusted, we just inherit it from another time. And no one makes the effort to try to improve it. We think voting is the only job we have to do in that regard, when in practice we simply contribute to perpetuating an inefficient "management", that accumulated a lot misaligned incentives over time...
Layvier··on OpenChakra is an open-source visual editor for React
I've been using Chakra UI for 3 months now, I can confidently recommend it ! It's simple, highly flexible, well designed and the maintainers are responsive and open to ideas. There's of course of few issues, e.g. the color mode with Next.js or some components missing but no real blockers AFAIK
Layvier··on The Next 50 Years of Databases (2015)
Nothing about graph databases ? I thought it was on the rise
Layvier··on Svelte is the most beautiful web framework I've seen
How would it scale for a bigger app ? Shipping a library with the app like react creates poor performance for small components for sure, but abstractions must become worth it beyond a certain scale no ? I guess the compiler could also create abstractions when it becomes worth using them ?
Layvier··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (June 2019)
Freighthub (https://www.freighthub.com) | Software engineer / Frontend engineer/ Software architect / Team lead software engineering | Full Time | Onsite | Berlin / Porto

We are building the backbone of global trade.

We are a digital, asset-free freight-forwarding company located in Berlin, run by experienced entrepreneurs and fueled with outstanding talents and leading industry experts. We are looking for self-starters and visionary thinkers that not only want to put a dent in the universe, but also like to be surrounded by people inspiring them.

Back-end: Event driven microservice architecture (Kubernetes), Node.js + Typescript, MongoDb

Frontend: React, Typescript For more role details, see our careers page: https://freighthub.com/en/job/

To get in touch, email me: olivier.ramier at freighthub.com.

Layvier··on JSON as configuration files: please don’t (2016)
If the alternative is YAML, I'll keep JSON...
Layvier··on AlphaStar: Mastering the Real-Time Strategy Game StarCraft II
I think there's a lot more to limit than average APMs and reaction time, in order to have human-like capabilities. For instance:

- the context switching cost of multitasking

- the precision/speed tradeoff : pro players adjust the mouse speed according to what they want. Selecting exactly the units wanted is very difficult, AlphaStar seemed to do it perfectly.

- the timing precision of an action

With restrictions such as these, I'm honestly confident that AlphaStar won't beat human players anytime soon (once the human players adopt the interesting findings of the AI).

I'm mostly interested in how it will change the meta. Players are often biased by their experience, and regularly the meta shifts entirely without any significant balance update, simply by players finding original strategies

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