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ebzlo

361 karma · joined March 14, 2007

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ebzlo··on What makes Claude Code so damn good
Yes technically it is RAG, but a lot of the community is associating RAG with vector search specifically.
ebzlo··on Amazon employees push CEO Andy Jassy to drop return-to-office mandate
A lot of comments are indicating you're alone on this, but I'm finding the contrary. Our team doubled in size in the last 6 months or so with an office mandate (to almost 20 now). With aggressive hiring goals, we discussed whether we might have to transition to a remote company to satisfy market expectations, but found that as long as we're completely transparent in the initial conversation, there are people who are all-in on RTO.

One of our recent senior hires specifically wanted an in-office role and a lot of our junior engineers are hungry to learn from the seniors.

What I suspect is there will be a divide in the coming years and as long as companies are open about who they are, people can make the choice of where they want to work.

ebzlo··on South Dakota first to ban TikTok on state-owned devices
This makes absolutely no sense to me and even as an American, often times reads like anti-China propaganda. If the algorithms are showing STEM content on the Chinese version of TikTok, it's likely the result of two reasons:

1. Chinese children prefer STEM content and the algorithm is providing that to them.

2. It's enforced by the Chinese government or someone who believes this kind of content will benefit the Chinese future.

In the case of #1, this is a cultural issue and we have no one to blame but ourselves.

In the case of #2, which I believe is what most folks who say this are suggesting, I can't imagine why children would then proceed to download the app, use it for hours a day, only to learn science and math. Sure, some may enjoy it (as some in the US would as well), but a vast majority of that market is going to reject this and delete it from their phone. In fact, we have this in the US -- we have educational TV shows, you can visit a library on your free time, etc, but kids don't do it-- because they're kids.

ebzlo··on Google is shutting down Stadia
It seems to be strongly synergistic with a lot of their existing product offerings.

Getting the technology done even better means that Chromebooks and Androids (or even the browser) could be heavyweight gaming machines -- and thereby increasing those audiences.

As those audiences grow (and they're already big), having better hardware streamlined into Stadia means they immediately have insane distribution power. If you consider mobile gaming dominance in Asia, and the ability to release triple-A games immediately to a billion devices worldwide, that creates huge leverage over iOS.

Then as you said, GCP. I think someone with an idea and roadmap was there, but FAANG incentive programs don't reward people focused on the long game.

ebzlo··on Send text messages for free using Python
Twilio has an API to identify the provider. https://www.twilio.com/docs/lookup/api

Still costs money, but if you're sending a lot of messages, this would substantially reduce the costs.

ebzlo··on America is stuck at home, but food-delivery companies still struggle to profit
Sorry for the late reply: https://www.starship.xyz/
ebzlo··on America is stuck at home, but food-delivery companies still struggle to profit
I think for both of these companies, the path to profitability is eventually cutting out the human aspect for automated delivery. Self-driving cars is a good vision for the business and a very end-result. And for food delivery, I'm seeing more of those robotic carts that contain food driving around sidewalks in the Bay Area.
ebzlo··on Britons abandon Facebook as usage plummets by more than a third
> The number of online interactions made on Facebook’s mobile app in the UK plummeted by 38pc between June 2018 and June 2019, according to the analytics firm Mixpanel.

I find it hard to believe that Mixpanel has any kind of insight into this kind of information.

> Interactions, which occur when users click on a web link or advert inside the Facebook app, declined in seven of the last 12 months, with an average monthly fall of 2.6pc.

I think a more likely explanation of the decline is the following if all they're doing is tracking link clicks (I assume these are aggregate figures for all their clients):

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kathleenchaykowski/2018/01/11/f...

ebzlo··on Ask HN: Do you know of any good product taking advantage of NLP?
I'm the founder at Akia (https://akia.ai). We're using NLP to help hotels with the number of inbound they receive from guests who are coming on or staying on property.

Though I'm not personally a regular user, from what I've observed, the AI is able to very, very efficiently resolve a significant number of requests because a lot of the messaging is the same: "what's the wifi?" "bring me towels" "can i get my car?" etc.

The application of NLP for a niche industry has felt particularly appropriate for a small startup where in contrast, doing generic NLP really feels like a boil the ocean type strategy that makes more sense to those who have the resources (google/apple).

ebzlo··on Show HN: Akia.ai automatically negotiates cheaper rates at hotels for you
Hey guys! I'm the founder of Akia. We launched this chrome extension after we found that a two-sided approach to this market would help us drive sales.

To those who are testing: Akia shows up during the checkout process once you've entered payment and contact information.

Looking for feedback, questions, thoughts, or some first users on the product. :)

ebzlo··on What happened when Buffer stopped using Slack on Fridays
I think the distinction between async and sync messaging is really critical here and highlights a different form of communication that folks are incorrectly using Slack to solve.

When I was at Facebook, this type of communication was extremely abundant and took place on Workplace. When you are pushed information, there is some expectation to respond (as highlighted by the author). However, Workplace's opt-in type of communication via feed didn't have this problem. And interestingly isn't really prevalent outside forums and groups (which I don't think are used commonly at companies).

I think splitting out that kind of behavior was beneficial, it wasn't email (which is a push that people ignore), but rather a subscribe where there was no stigma to be late, and people could take their own time to catch up on posts.

ebzlo··on A Man Who Stood Up To Facebook
You can export your data: https://www.facebook.com/help/131112897028467/
ebzlo··on Ello: an ad-free social network
Not necessarily, Facebook started in the MySpace-era and was restricted. Sometimes exclusivity can be a perk.
ebzlo··on Poll: Would you take $10M now or start your own company?
I think the decision is a lot harder than a lot of people here are making it out to be. I immediately equated the question to one of my mostly unsuccessful startup ventures (to which I would immediately take the $10 million).

But the premise of the TV show emphasized the potential of the algorithm he developed. He had some serious IP on hand. Granted it's all fictional, and $10 million is not some trivial amount of money, but if you came up with an algorithm that proved P=NP (to put it in perspective), I'd say selling that IP for $10MM would be foolish.

And if I had that sort of IP, and if I was a person clever enough to come up with that in the first place, I'd take the $200k easy.

ebzlo··on Google Code Jam – Contest scoreboard
Same thing happened to me, but the fourth was so much more fun to solve than the third.
ebzlo··on Facebook to remove messaging from core app
This app already exists, previously the Facebook app handled both, they're just deprecating the messaging functionality from the main app.
ebzlo··on Facebook to remove messaging from core app
It does this when the Messenger app is installed.
ebzlo··on Quick tip for developers who use OS X
I don't cat files too often in my workflow so I guess I don't have that pain point, but I find find iTerm2 has this minor annoying latency (kind of like typing on a wireless keyboard on low battery) that ultimately drove me away from it.
ebzlo··on Ask HN: Should I get mentored by this guy?
I agree with this response. Specifically highlighting the problem being a matter of practicality vs idealism. One of the things you learn as a young programmer is that bad code is inevitable when your resources are limited.

A practical generic solution, for example, that takes an extra 10 days to do, sounds fantastic from an engineering perspective-- we're trained to think this way. But on the business side of things, you may have a timeline for a feature to nab a client, or not enough budget for those extra 10 days, etc.

My opinion on these matters now generally falls into the it depends camp. Take his mentorship, because it sounds like he understands that every engineering solution is accompanied by a business solution and they must be agreeable for both parties (that said, he does seem a little jaded, so you don't have to take absolutely everything he says to heart-- there are companies who will give less weight to the business side of things, but the reality is that the consideration will always exist).

ebzlo··on Apple’s Touch ID: A 500ppi Fingerprint Sensor Built Into iPhone 5S Home Button
Someone above mentioned you could add multiple fingerprints as well. I'm guessing this includes other fingers as well as other humans.
ebzlo··on Hermit: a font for programmers, by a programmer
It's negative, but I can definitely appreciate the honesty. Those who don't like it can ignore it, but I'm happy to see comments like this peppered about rather than a series of congratulatory messages and "obligatory" pats on the back.
ebzlo··on iOS 7
Honestly, theyre starting to look very similar.
ebzlo··on Click on a few dots and this program will guess your age
I'm 28 and it guessed 29. My girlfriend is 21 and got 31, looks like the approximations all feel like they're very close to 30.
ebzlo··on Automatic: Your Smart Driving Assistant
I'm sure I paid more than this for BMW Assist in my car (I think like $100-$300, can't remember). I was in an accident a couple years ago; it wasn't a terrible accident, but if it had been, the service it provided would have been well worth the price tag (notifying all the right people, making sure I'm okay, tracking my location for me, etc). If the functionality is similar, this is easily worth the $65 price tag on that alone. If I'm a parent with a first-time driver, you can bet I'd pick one up for my kid.
ebzlo··on From Show HN to Funding In Less Than 3 Months
One thing I'm always curious about is how you gauge success after a post on HN.

While I understand there are variables for every business, I literally have nothing to use as a gauge other than my own experiences.

So if you don't mind my asking, how many emails did you guys receive from being posted on HN?

ebzlo··on Show HN: Taurus.io launch - Set up product tours for web apps in 15 min
After being in beta for almost 4 months and a ton of great feedback from HN, we've finally launched Taurus. We're still looking for ways to improve the product so any feedback or comments are of course welcome.
ebzlo··on Don't Be Lazy, Use HTML Labels Correctly
I always remembered this as being "invalid" HTML, but a quick Google search turns up nothing. Can anybody shed some light?
ebzlo··on What was the strangest coding standard rule that you were forced to follow?
I've been asked that I avoid using classes, because my boss didn't understand OOP (LAMP stack).
ebzlo··on How we allowed users to customize the look & feel of our app with only 4 options
;)
ebzlo··on How we allowed users to customize the look & feel of our app with only 4 options
Too many would be interesting, but we could definitely drop it down to 2 or 3. I had thought about putting every option into an advanced tab, but figured that would add to clutter. We'll likely revisit it if people start asking for it.
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