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londev

62 karma · joined April 13, 2017

Full stack developer in London.
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londev··on Father builds exoskeleton to help wheelchair-bound son walk
I’ve only managed to get more advanced treatment in the UK (still nothing ground breaking) by having private medical cover in addition to the national health care. Thankfully as the national health service covers all the basic care it’s possible to get private cover for around £40 per month.
londev··on Facebook being investigated in Germany for tying Oculus use to Facebook accounts
Same here. I was tempted to buy one until I read about the guy who’s device is useless as Facebook banned him.
londev··on The cost of 1GB of mobile data in 228 countries (Feb 2020)
I’m currently travelling through Italy and I can have full strength 4G but almost no data connectivity. I don’t know how anyone manages to use their data allowance here.
londev··on Who still needs the office? U.S. companies start cutting space
I love working from home but I’m about 30-45 minutes out of central London and friends and family often ask me why I don’t want to go into an office in town for the buzz, it must be difficult working at home with a baby running round, etc.

I honestly wouldn’t give up working from home for triple my salary. The flexibility to come and go as I please, not losing time to a commute, watching the kid grow up. All priceless to me.

However, I have enough bedrooms to use one as an office, a garden I can work in during summer. I can understand if I had to work at the kitchen table with the family making noise around me I would be yearning to go in to the office.

londev··on Why it’s hard to kill the Bloomberg terminal (2019)
I’ve not used Symphony for a year or so but it felt like the kind of thing my team could have built in a couple of months. I wouldn’t use it in the same sentence as Bloomberg, other than to say Bloomberg has nothing to worry about.
londev··on Why it’s hard to kill the Bloomberg terminal (2019)
As an example of what exchanges charge for licensing the data (not including a feed for the data, just a licence to use it) I have to pay £18k/year just for a London Stock Exchange licence. Then I have to pay for the feed.

Charging for access to the data feed seems fair enough, but licensing the data? For a company that has a monopoly over what I consider public data £18k is outrageous.

londev··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking Freelancer? (August 2019)
SEEKING FREELANCER | Remote for UK based company

Helping support a legacy PHP app and dragging it into the modern day, or potentially superseding it by developing a suite of Wordpress plugin tools.

We work with regulated financial services companies and have a highly specialised CMS system. It still works very well and our clients are very happy with what we produce but I am constantly aware we need to start upgrading the app to support the clients of the future.

Long term contract for someone with the right skills. Not concerned with time zone and completely flexible with hours.

londev··on Tesla co-founder and CTO JB Straubel stepping down
The sooner the music stops on this monumental fraud the better.

While initially starting the race and pushing the development of electric cars forward I’ve got a feeling Tesla’s implosion will end up denting people’s confidence in them.

londev··on Webvan
Almost every one I know in the UK has their groceries delivered. According to the official stats it’s only 7% of grocery spend though.
londev··on Spectre.css – A Lightweight, Responsive and Modern CSS Framework
We’ve ended up with our own, not so much a framework but a set of commonly used mixins and set of SASS files - some of which might even be empty placeholders - that stop us trying to work out the same issues over and over.

I treat it a bit like adding packages with NPM, just adding the small bits we need to achieve certain things.

When I’ve tried to use proper frameworks before they have always been too opinionated and I would find myself working around them.

londev··on Elon Musk Settles SEC Fraud Charges
Musk can no longer pump his own stock. He has been as good as handcuffed by the SEC settlement. I believe he can no longer raise.

The lack of insider sales and no raise over the past year, despite the precarious cash position, tells me something is preventing a new stock offering or not placing.

londev··on Elon Musk Settles SEC Fraud Charges
It uses VINs registered by Tesla themselves now, weighted with a few other factors according to @tsrandall on Twitter.
londev··on Elon Musk Settles SEC Fraud Charges
Elon Musk and Tesla are still facing:

- A DOJ criminal enquiry into the same 420 tweet

- A whistleblower suit about misrepresentation of its rate of vehicle and battery production

- Another whistleblower suit about covering up a large theft and a narcotics ring

- A class action over racism

- Complaints about union busting

- A defamation suit over pedo accusations

- Investor class actions over the Musk family bailout acquisition of Solar City

And probably lots more that we don’t yet know about.

That so many people in tech are holding this stock and are even proud of the company is shocking to me. Sustainability can only be pushed forward with sustainable finances and the Tesla balance sheet is a horror show.

Tesla will file for bankruptcy protection in 2019.

londev··on Ask HN: What percentage of your users are using social login?
At https://chartlocks.com we have around: 45% email 30% Google 20% Facebook 5% Twitter
londev··on Building a Bank with Go [video]
I met a couple of their team at Golang UK last year, some great tech leadership there by the sounds of things.