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brunellus

47 karma · joined October 17, 2017

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brunellus··on Programming Isn't Special
Indeed, I stick with convention unless there is a compelling reason to deviate.

Plus, there’s a broader argument that convention allows greater creative flexibility. As Flaubert wrote, “Be regular and orderly in your life…so that you may be violent and original in your work.”

brunellus··on World Capitals Voronoi
I really enjoyed this.
brunellus··on The Emacsification of Software
Hello! I recently released a paid macOS Markdown reader for this reason. You can learn more here: https://terramar.dev/products/filo/

(Please excuse my self-promotion.)

brunellus··on The future of version control
roryokane thanks for this example. I tend to stick with git CLI and this was new to me.
brunellus··on Boston built a ton of lab buildings. Now many are empty
Agreed. Non-competes always seemed incongruous to the tech/startup zeitgeist of the last 10-15 years. But just by walking around in Boston, one can simply look at the architecture and infer it’s a parochial, old school little city. Power struggles abound, and corporations tend to dominate there.

Increasingly I have come to believe that managers learned to represent their tech companies as “startups” in order to justify disorganization and less than stellar salaries.

brunellus··on Two men die in Ironman Cork competition in Ireland
Indeed. Sports involve risk, and competition is about learning to navigate those risks. This implies a right to self-destruction. Without this sports are void of courage and competence, and their value is greatly diminished.
brunellus··on For long-term health and happiness, marriage still matters
Tolstoy phrased it more beautifully

“If it were not so frightening it would be amusing to observe the pride and complacency with which we, like children, take apart the watch, pull out the spring and make a toy of it, and are then surprised when the watch stops working.”

brunellus··on Chrome was delivered without any sprints at all (2021)
I’m pretty sure Lafayette had been training for this since he was around 12-13 years old.
brunellus··on The World Excel Championship is being broadcast on ESPN
We
brunellus··on How to write a Git commit message (2014)
The individual commits aren’t interesting until you need them. They should be organized such that they remove the desire to squash them together.

Having a well written commit history is in the spirit of the tool and is the more professional approach.

brunellus··on Ask HN: I am studying economics and want to work in Tech. How?
I was in a nearly identical situation to yours about 10 years ago.

At the end of undergrad finance/economics studies I recognized I needed more technical expertise, so I went to a grad program and learned as much as I could about econometrics. I thought this would eventually position me as a consultant/data scientist.

As I studied, I realized programming was my favorite part of the work.

I used these skills in a few different roles. A couple years later a friend/mentor suggested that I just consider becoming a software engineer.

I never pictured myself in a pure tech role. It worked out better than I would have guessed.

My suggestion is that an engineering role is not as far away as you imagine. You have time to make a career in it, so you should reflect on if you’d enjoy it.

brunellus··on We don’t use a staging environment
Which part?
brunellus··on SEC plans to 10x the definition of “accredited investor”
Great point, I wasn’t aware of this.
brunellus··on SEC plans to 10x the definition of “accredited investor”
The variety of investments available to the middle class is already too small.

The people who would be disqualified from investing by these increased restrictions are shrewd enough to not need such protection.

brunellus··on Those writing extensively on note-writing rarely have a serious context of use
Totally. All of this crap mounts up to being a form of prosperity gospel.
brunellus··on Why won’t anyone teach me math?
I’m glad I’m not in college anymore
brunellus··on The data are clear: The boys are not all right
I’ve tried to articulate this a few times but you’ve bested all of my attempts.
brunellus··on Spotify deletes 70 Joe Rogan episodes
Totally. The irony of this is lost on so many.
brunellus··on Why our team cancelled our move to microservices
This point is reminiscent of the Chesterton’s Fence concept discussed on HN recently
brunellus··on Why isn't there a universal data format for résumés?
Indeed if there were a standard format, there would be competitive advantages to using other channels to showcase your experience
brunellus··on Student loan forgiveness is regressive measured by income, education, or wealth
It’s a good question. I would be interested to know which economic forces drove the price changes.

I suspect that prices could still increase even in spite of public funding decreases due to the point in my original post.

But to me, all of these side effects can be thought of as fruit from a poisonous tree, and thus unjustified.

brunellus··on Student loan forgiveness is regressive measured by income, education, or wealth
My original argument still stands.

And the government was perfectly capable of bailing out private companies at the end of Bush Jr’s second term.

brunellus··on Student loan forgiveness is regressive measured by income, education, or wealth
There’s no need to measure anything. The problem with student loans is qualitative.

Banks are allowed to make unsecured loans and the borrowers can’t usefully declare bankruptcy. Colleges have every reason to raise prices and lenders have no skin in the game.

It isn’t any more complicated, and no amount of data analysis can possibly refute this.

brunellus··on My Experience as a SWE Intern at Goldman Sachs
Interesting observation. What were the implications?
brunellus··on A few words about that ten-million-dollar serial comma (2017)
If you don't understand Oxford Commas, you aren't fluent in English.
brunellus··on Tell HN: Interruptions cost more than the duration of the interruption
This is simple economics. There is an "overhead" cost required in order to start a task. Each interruption means stopping, then starting again, incurring this cost repeatedly.

The people who force these interruptions don't care about these costs. Sometimes they're naive but more often they're willfully ignorant.

brunellus··on Ligatures in programming fonts: hell no (2019)
Design Blogs With Polarizing Titles: Hell No
brunellus··on Being a PhD student shouldn’t be bad for your health
How extreme would the health detriments have to be such that it’s no longer an “entitled” view?