is0tope

An question that interests me in all of these: How did you come up with the idea?

I'm curious to hear from someone who has used such a framework to build a profitable business or startup?

Not a founder, but a serial side-project'er. Initial prototype typically has no tests, at least for the bits that are wired. Specific bits of complexity will have unit tests. At some stage might add integration tests using something like docker compose.

Use TDD for bits that have very limited scope and function. For instance, an order book class or similar. Otherwise code first, test bugs if needed. For smaller projects (that aren't critical espc.) overtesting can kill your momentum and motivation, which is an often overlooked resource.

Indeed, I've always thought there is a veritable bounty of great SciFi stories to put into film. The recent popularity of SciFi shows suggests to me that we will start to see more works transferred to the big (or small) screen, though as always this seems to be a very hit or miss process.

Personally, I'd love to see e.g. The Culture novels be made into a show, or series of films. There was talk of making a Consider Phlebas TV show some time back, though I don't think it went anywhere. Heinlein's "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress" could also do well as a stand alone movie, though possibly with Heinlein you would need to tone down the polygamy themes.

As to why PKD became such a cinematic mainstay I can't quite tell. I would think part of it would be to do with the fact that many of his stories were less about the "lasers and spaceships" part of SciFi, and more about the moral and human aspect, meaning costs could be saved on big budget set pieces ala Star Wars.

Slightly off topic, but the author should really reconsider the flashing title and logo. It is incredibly distracting.

Sony XM4 headphones. They are pricey, but a fantastic bit of kit. The noise canceling is not perfect but good enough that sometimes I will just wear them while walking around even if not listening to anything. I like how they "dull everything out" giving you room to think.

Maybe this is a bit off topic, but does anyone know the legal footing of having a business with another businesses name in it? For instance, this tool uses the word "YouTube" in its name, though it is used as only a part of it, and it is not a competitor. I've always wondered how this works.

For my blog, Hugo + Netlify. It's free, simple to use and works well.

Many years ago I took (oddly) a physics class called (iirc) "Self Organisation" while doing a year abroad in Germany. Despite being a quite small class, it really inspired me from the perspective of self organizing systems.

I find structures like conways game of life, or slime mold or sand dunes to be fascinating for this reason. That from unit simplicity can emerge aggregate complexity, imitating facets of nature.

Two item that always come with me in my day bag along with my laptop are a simple A5 notebook, and a pen.

In my case any design be it software, a drawing, or project or something else needs to start with a couple of rough diagrams and notes on paper. I have tried numerous times to do this electronically and it has failed every single time.

Not sure why, but there seems to be something about the fluidity of writing that allows you to get thoughts and expressions down quickly in a way that boxes and flowcharts just don't facilitate.

Most of the time I view these notes for a few days while I work or write proper documentation and after that they are left behind. I have several stacks of various notebooks lying around filled with stuff like this.

Indeed, but once you start getting to that point I'd argue you are starting to get beyond a prototype. But you raise a good point, id say if the intention is to throw the code away (which you probably should) then if add as few tests as will allow you to make progress.

I've always favored exploration before implementation [1]. For me TDD has immense benefit when adding something well defined, or when fixing bugs. When it comes to building something from scratch i found it to get in the way of the iterative design process.

I would however be more amenable to e.g. Prototyping first, and then using that as a guide for TDD. Not sure if there is a name for that approach though. "spike" maybe?

[1] https://www.machow.ski/posts/galls-law-and-prototype-driven-...

One thing I really like about kdb+/q is the fact that it has strict right-to-left execution/precedence. While I know it's a standard, I don't want to deal with bodmas, or whatever it is. Having right to left makes it clear and unambiguous how it will execute. Saying that, it does also encourage huge one line abominations. Everything in moderation i guess...

I've usually kept a rule that you should avoid stacking, and if you must only one level deep. The fact that you have to stack in the first place typically suggests that PRs aren't being merged fast enough. Stacking in my personal experience usually leads to merge conflict hell as changes and PR suggestions get merged underneath you.

I'm sure there are various other options, but that's not the point. If you ask someone to take a supermarket salary and postpone their life till their mid 30s,then don't be surprised that people choose other paths.

In another life I might have considered doing a PhD after I finished my masters. My father (who has a doctorate) quickly put me off that idea. Looking at what you have to do and get paid to do a PhD (at least in the UK) it feels more similar to being a struggling artist busking in the streets while trying to finish their "killer track".

No wonder the most promising students drop out and go on to join finance or tech firms - the pay is an order of magnitude higher.

This resonates with me also. I've gotten into a nasty habit of always trying to do everything myself.

I recently launched a project for tracking crypto market data and suggesting trades. I went to Fiverr to see if I could get someone to design me a UI, and after going around one guy quoted me ~1.2k USD.

I decided that I could do it myself, and proceeded to spend multiple evenings working on it. I did learn something true, but it delayed the launch by weeks and if I factored my hourly rate in i probably "overpaid" several times over.

Getting past this "do it all" mentality is going to be one of my goals for the remainder of the year.

Probably noone will look at it. HN is imo not the best for sharing your own content as the rules and moderation are fairly heavily skewed against it. Having said that, if it gets traction on HN and ends up on the front page it will do very well.

Also, don't worry too much about perfection. It's actually better to launch something before it is perfect, since the hard part is not actually doing the project, but getting anyone to care. Better to get That step out of the way as fast as possible.

Yes I'm sure they can quickly log on to discord from jail.

Yes I suddenly noticed it, looked at the title, noticed it was floating too (panic). Looked at the URL bar, not floating, phew.

For a second I though had been dosed with something hah.

I would say for side projects, your best bet is just to make a blog and talk about them, that's what I do anyway [1]. The projects themselves can live wherever, such as a VPS etc. For blog posts these days there are IMO two choices to make:

1. Self publish, I.e. Host the blog yourself. There are many options but I personally go with Hugo/Netlify which uses git and markdown as my "backend" and has the upside of basically being free.

2. Use a publishing service such as Medium or Substack. This is easier, but you have less control over your content that you would self publishing.

Irrespective of this, getting people to read anything you write is the hardest part. You need to share your content, talk to people etc, it takes time.

[1] https://machow.ski

Any suggestions for roles after the SWE "tour of duty"?

Yeah, I highly doubt that any line employee is going to tell the CEO they did a bad job.

These happy clappy "systems" usually fail to take into account (almost biological) realities of how power structures work.

I used to work in a bank and wrote an interview script for my department (kdb+/q market data). It mainly consisted of having the candidate sit in front of an interpreter, and walk them through a script which looked something like:

1. Load a data file here

2. Tell me some facts about the data

3. Here's another dataset, can we use both to figure something out.

4. One of the executions for this order is missing, how can we find which one.

5. Here is a data feed, can you write a process to ingest the data and calculate something in real time.

I by far preferred this system to the alternative which was to ask trivia questions and see if the candidate memorised the docs. There is of course some value in asking basics, or to elaborate etc. But on the spot algo questions are usually only useful in filtering people who either like leetcode problems, or have grinded them for the last 6 months.

Like the Market Forces plug :)

While I see your logic, ultimately using a credit card makes a lot of sense as long as you pay it off on time. Not only do you get the (small) benefits of the cashback or points, but you have added fraud protection also.

Not sure how it is where you are, but where I am the payment is automatically done every month from your bank account. There is 0 chance of missing a payment, as long as you have a sufficiently positive floating balance in your account. If someone do not, then I would question their suitability for a credit card in the first place.

Horns definitely have a use, a fact that was made clear to me when driving a bike in Vietnam (horn is critical to let people know you are passing in a big group).

However, what should be penalised heavily is blaring your horn in frustration or when stuck in traffic. This happens near where I live on a daily basis, and causes my blood to boil. It seems for these people it is almost instinctual, and they will do it at the slightest slowdown or inconvenience.

Not a big fan of enforcement actions, but this is incredibly anti social and provides zero/negative utility. A couple of weeks of police camping intersections and handing out liberal fines might perhaps encourage a change in behaviour.

Thanks for sharing it! I made this a few weeks ago as part of a blog article and was really impressed how easy three.js was to use. Overall much easier to get into than using C++ and OpenGL where the window setup required several hours to set up back in the day.

Love this. I also was wondering how to do this cleanly, and in my mind it seemed to make sense to apply the rules to the sand, but onto a blank canvas so as not to have the sand interfere with the sand below.

Doing it from the bottom up solves this problem, however I think in a general sense (eg. with different sources of gravity it would become more tricky!

https://machow.ski Pretty happy I got my name with the tld. I write about finance.