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alphalima

96 karma · joined March 18, 2020

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alphalima··on GCP Europe-West2 Outage
We have workloads up on a & c so I think it is contained to the b zone.
alphalima··on GCP Europe-West2 Outage
Yep, I'm pretty sure it was just b, we've got nothing running there now. Annoyingly one of our DBs failed to start after failover, so we're running around now.
alphalima··on Real-time map of Great Britain's rail network
There is definitely some smoke and mirrors to this. I watched a stationary train next to me get about a kilometre away before it started moving in real life.
alphalima··on Google API keys weren't secrets, but then Gemini changed the rules
You are wrong that increasing projects have no cost; many services have project based costs (Cloud Armour rules cannot be used cross project at the base tier), many services (mostly observeability) degrade significantly cross project, the Google Cloud Console _sucks_ cross project.

You are also wrong in saying there are no projects that could reasonably have a safe api key made unsafe by this exploit.

One example, a service that has firebase auth must publish the key (Google's docs recommend). Later, you add gen ai to that service, managing access using IAM/service accounts (the proper way). You've now elevated the Firebase Auth Key to be a Gemini key. Really undeniably poor from Google.

alphalima··on Like MS Excel, Pivot tables never die
Are you talking about linear programming. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_programming
alphalima··on Gridfinity: The modular, open-source grid storage system
This is how to do it.I also round the edges of the cutout.

Also, there is an extension for freecad to make non rectangular (e.g. "p") shaped bins.

Most satisfying, least productive things I've done this year!

alphalima··on Show HN: Gov.uk Vue, a Vue Component Library for the Gov.uk Design System
Nice!

I've been using GOVUK stuff for my own purposes for a good-long while now, this should speed up the process.

I'll try to plug your thing into Json Forms [1], then I'll be back to the good old days.

[1] https://github.com/eclipsesource/jsonforms

alphalima··on Show HN: Gov.uk Vue, a Vue Component Library for the Gov.uk Design System
Hey Matt,

Super cool to see this, and congrats on 1.0!

One question, has the GDS stance on Javascript softened, namely progressive enhancement being essentially mandatory [1], since I last worked with you? Is the target for more controlled user groups, non-govuk projects, or do you do SSR to give a usable first HTML response?

[1] https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/technology/using-progressi... Last update: 16 December 2019

alphalima··on Engineering principles for building financial systems
On the best practices, as noted by others, there are probably classes in your standard lib/ commons lib that cover this stuff better than storing in integers (e.g. BigDecimal in Java and Python Decimal have precision and rounding mode concepts built in).

Something I've found valuable is on is managing euler units/ratios (e.g. proportions 10^1, percentages 10^-2, basis points 10^-4) . Enforcing a standard that all interchange, data storage has either the same scale, _or is stored with its scale (and not in the name)_ will reduce errors hugely significantly.

alphalima··on How a software glitch at the UK Post Office ruined lives
I have also banned "random", replacing with "intermittent", in the past.
alphalima··on I think GCP is better than AWS (2020)
Yes, especially around Looker. It's so strange/non-cloud. The 0-users 0-usage price is $5,000 per month.
alphalima··on Google no longer offers new domain registrations
Unfortunately cloud domains domains are going to managed by Squarespace.

> Since Google Domains is the underlying domains registrar for Cloud Domains, there are some important changes that we want to share with you.

> What do you need to know? Upon closing of the Squarespace-Google Domains transaction, Squarespace Domains will become the registrar for your domains managed by Cloud Domains.

alphalima··on By 2028 there must be fast chargers every 60 km on the EU’s key motorways
Not only that, the sums involved and siting (relatively unprotected) are going to be very attractive to theft, driving up the cost to secure.
alphalima··on Podman Desktop: A Free OSS Alternative to Docker Desktop
I had similar issues with a different VPN/Proxy at an earlier role. I solved with https://github.com/sakai135/wsl-vpnkit and trusting the root certificate of the proxy on the rancher desktop WSL2 vm (Assuming you're on Windows as I was).

Docker desktop pays for itself by solving these issues though IMO (I wasn't able to get a licence at the old role however)

alphalima··on How to make fermented hot sauce (2021)
A slightly different beginner lacto ferment is turnip + beetroot "pickle". 9 parts turnips, 1 part beetroot, 2% salt of combined turnip + beetroot + water, all by weight.

Super tasty, not spicy, can be done in 5 days, fermentation kicks off quickly due to sugar content in beets so you get quick feedback.

alphalima··on Windows HEVC video codec from Microsoft costs $0.99
I'm sure Apple csn afford it within their hardware sales margins.
alphalima··on How Graphviz thinks the USA is laid out (2021)
I wonder if adding River Thames crossings will improve things. That's a major component of the tube map.
alphalima··on Show HN: Pg_jsonschema – A Postgres extension for JSON validation
I don't view that as a loss. JSON by itself is just a string with no context information so either the context is in the programmer's head, in a human-readable document, or in a schema file.

Adding a schema to it seems natural to me (as someone who prefers strong-typing), and the JSONSchema implementation seems pretty lightweight and sensible.

I'd go even further down the mining XML's legacy route and add better XPATH2.0 + XQuery - style support. XQuery was a great tool, so expressive. Though it did spawn XQueryX [1] which I'm still unsure whether it was a joke or not.

[1] https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/xquery/0596006349/ch22s...

alphalima··on Ask HN: Experiences with low-code systems?
You've hit the nail on the head about my reservations.

Regarding your recommendation, were there any libraries that exist already?

Otherwise, I assume that you mean:

1) write some code to derive a CRUD/RPC OpenApiV3 Spec from some data-at-rest spec/JSON Schema other (e.g. RDBMS Table)

2) generate endpoints conforming to that spec and wire it to persistence

3) generate UI components that allow you to drive requests to those endpoints.

4) build something to serve backend + front-end

Those steps look like a low-code system to me?

alphalima··on Ask HN: Experiences with low-code systems?
> but you definitely have to work within the constraints of the system. If you try to push the boundary too much on what's "expected" it becomes painful very quickly

Hah, that's the problem with every framework!

alphalima··on Ask HN: Experiences with low-code systems?
Thanks for the great comment!

> SDLC is a frequent pain point.

I've dealt with that pain before with other tools (promoting DataDog montiors + dashboards comes to mind). This area seems like it'll be even more painful so I'll definitely be filtering by that critereon.

> On the last question...

My particular use case would be for some human checkpoint in an otherwise-automated system. I'd hope to pull in all the contextual information, provide the decision-maker with a text box and an approve/reject decison.

> Worst part here is I feel like this is really often something that will come with using the product. Often the use cases documented and sold really seem like all you'll need.

Yeah, that's what worries me about low-code. I know it'll be a bit of a slog to do all these full-code, but it's a known quantity.

alphalima··on Ask HN: Experiences with low-code systems?
That does seem like a neat solution. Does it support user-tasks in workflows (i.e. block until someone clicks a button)?
alphalima··on Ask HN: Experiences with low-code systems?
Thanks for the detailed feedback! Yeah, I'm not a fan of the SSO tax (though I respect that they've got to eat).

Agreed on the all in one docker solution, it seems like a choice made to get things off the ground, not one predisposed to effective prod operations (storage being the major headache, though I assume there's not too much stored on disk).

Regarding the more complex application, do you think you could pinpoint what quality caused the low-code version to be too complex?

alphalima··on Ask HN: Experiences with low-code systems?
Great, thanks for responding! I'll be taking a serious look. I completely understand the motivation behind Appsmith, it's kind of exactly why I'm evaluating tools like these.

Out of interest, what proportion of your creators are engineers vs SMEs? Reason why I'm asking is that I'd be very nervous of letting non-engineers (without an understanding of just how much damage they could do) create write apps.

alphalima··on Ask HN: Experiences with low-code systems?
Thanks!

I'll take a look, I'm much happier in Python than JS so a big plus for me.

alphalima··on Smart mushroom growing device for beginners
Typically, a block (made by the methods outlined elsewhere ITT) will give you 3-4 flushes before it's spent. I can only assume these blocks are similar.

Not defence of the product, definitely not for me, removes the fun part of mushroom growing.

alphalima··on Tell HN: Never Trust 'Lifetime' Licenses
Hah, that's a case where Windows wins out. Win + . is a great little utility ♥
alphalima··on Stop Interviewing with Leet Code
Yes, I do exactly the same with a contrived example in a take-home coding assessment (with some failing test cases to not waste their time). Always seems to be a good indicator, especially of their ability to communicate technical concepts.
alphalima··on JSON and Virtual Columns in SQLite
Exactly the point I was going to make. It's also relatively trivial to generate view statents from the schema of the object if required for analytics (not fast though).

Much better than a crazy ORM rat nest in my experience.

alphalima··on Gitlab from YC to IPO
Executive Assistant?
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