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In the pursuit of your hobbies, you will find problems. Many of those problems can be solved (or made less onerous) through coding up a toy app.

Or you can tackle the really hard problems if you want. Make a CNC lathe for wood working. Maybe create an app to layout your cuts in the most efficient way.

I don't know enough about crotchet to suggest anything...but I bet there are problems to be solved.

As far as why you wouldn't use an already existing app? Why would you build a birdhouse from scratch when you just go buy one?

steverbon Apple Developer Documentation Is Missing

I disagree. The images showed me what it does, or at least gave me an idea what it would do.

steverbon Sears Hasn’t Fared Better After Bankruptcy

Amazon's current operation had little in common with their modern operation.

Sears had the order fulfillment and distribution know how.

steverbon Pay by the Minute: The CompuServe Era

I remember the scripts we passed around so that you could hop on CServe and download all the things you cared about, read it offline, respond offline and then dial back in to sync.

This was at a time when my 486-33 with its 400MB hard drive and 16MB of ram was bleeding edge (for the first month I owned it at least).

steverbon .NET Core 3.0

I actually went from C# (WebForms) to Ruby (Rails) and then back to C# (MVC).

steverbon Walking Truck

AKA a "6 Wheeler". At least that's what we called them when I was kid. They use differential steering, which makes them a good fit for automation. Don't have to worry about turning a steering column, just shift the power around which the off the shelf ATV already handles.

steverbon Vandalize Your Car

I don't think you and the author share the same definition of what satisfactory results mean. She seems pretty satisfied with it.

You're right, she may hate it in a month or six, but she's happy with it now and I'm pretty sure she knows how to go get a professional paint job if she wants to.

steverbon Vandalize Your Car

I still use the one pay check rule for cars. If it costs more than I make in one pay check, then I can't afford it. It has been a good incentive to get better pay checks. :-)

steverbon Whatever happened to Six Sigma?

I had to look the root word up. So, you're still ahead of my game. :-)

Approbation: approval, or praise.

steverbon The Poorest 20% of Americans Are Richer on Average Than Most Nations

I think the issue is that there seems to be some sort of health coverage cliff, where if you make too much money you aren't covered by government programs, but you still might not be making enough to pay for health coverage yourself.

15 years ago, we just did without health coverage, but we were young and healthy. Not everyone is as blessed.

steverbon 'Major distraction': school dumps iPads, returns to paper textbooks

Many of us (parents) asked, and there were a lot of handwavy answers. I suspect the real reason was that a lot of teachers and school administrators wanted iPads/MacBooks and didn't want to pay for them.

Then again, I'm a cynic.

steverbon The Rise and Fall of Object Oriented Programming

"As an alternative, use stored procedures with Dapper"

I understand using Dapper. It is exactly what I want in an ORM. But I've yet to see anyone make a convincing argument for using stored procedures over using parameterized SQL.

steverbon Airbus has unveiled a bird-like conceptual airliner design

Yeah, it's basically concept art with some hand waving so we can pretend that it's in the realm of eventual possibility.

It does look cool though. :-)

steverbon Seeing France’s Wild Mountains Through a Clouded, Classic Windshield

I learned to drive "three on the tree" in a 76 Ford Maverick.

steverbon Welcome to the K-12 Surveillance State

That's a really good question, and reminds me that school choice was never JUST about what the kid(s) wanted. Logistics was usually part of the planning.

Usually at least two of them were in the same school. The oldest three were each 18 months part, and the youngest was three years younger than the next oldest sibling.

I took some, wife took others, ride share, public transportation (the kids in public school rode the city bus). The kids also learned to be okay with the idea that they might not get picked up as soon as school let out, or they might have to get dropped off half an hour (or more) before school started. They learned to deal with it the same way my wife and I did when we were their age.

All of which became phenomenally easier as they got old enough to drive themselves (and their younger siblings).

It was a lot of juggling, but it was still less work than homeschooling all four of them (which we did for a couple of years), and they generally didn't start going completely separate directions until they hit high school age.

steverbon Welcome to the K-12 Surveillance State

All three. We have 4 kids (3 of them now adults).

We re-assessed every year and decided with the kids what their education environment would look like each year.

One of them, our extremely musical daughter flipped between homeschool, private and public school several times until we found a university model school that worked well with her needs (lots of schedule flexibility to do extra-curricular music things).

You don't have to choose one way and stick with it. Your children's needs will change in ways unique to each of your kids.

[Edit] Also, schools change year to year depending on staff and pupil turnover. There's no honor in torturing your kid with a school situation that is just not working for them, especially if you have other options.

steverbon During World War II, Steinway Produced Special Pianos for American Troops

I was actually issued a Singer manufactured .45 in the US Army in 1990. It still fired just fine.

We switched to 9mm not too long after though.

steverbon New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It

My solution to this has generally been to add a "1997 - 2000 Various Previous work history available upon request" at the bottom.

And then just carry a copy or two of the full CV with you to the interview. If someone wants to see it, let them. Generally interviewers have just been curious.

steverbon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (March 2019)

Ministry Brands | Senior Softwre Developer | Knoxville TN | ONSITE | https://www.ministrybrands.com/careers/

We are the leading Software-as-a-Service (“SaaS”) platform for Faith-Based Organizations (“FBOs”). We are the only comprehensive End-To-End technology solution for FBOs who are at the early stage of technology adoption propelling rapid growth. We are a single team, supporting a family of partners who share a common vision: empower the church to produce better results through technology. Currently, we serve our clients in five key areas:

* Online giving

* Church management software (ChMS)

* Website design and content management

* Mobile applications

* Finance and accounting software

We equip over 80,000 churches in the United States and abroad with some combination of the above services. Our vision is to be the leading provider of software, services, and information platforms for churches, ministries, and those they serve.

The Senior Developer position is responsible for writing application code to contribute to the full lifecycle of development from concept to post-production support and maintenance of server /OS/desktop/ web / mobile applications and services. This position will develop application code, contribute to version-controlled source code repositories and will manage assigned tasks to create measurable value and deliver software to market using industry recognized agile methodologies and best practices. The Senior Developer will be responsible for coding according to prescribed standards and guidelines set forth by the architects and leadership teams and must demonstrate quality, brevity, and timeliness in all deliverables.

Required Education and Experience

* 6+ years of professional experience performing software development.

* 1+ years of professional experience performing quality analysis tightly coupled to the software development process.

* Expert knowledge with respect to the following:

* C#, .NET (Standard and Core)

* JavaScript (JQuery and AngularJS), HTML5, CSS3, Bootstrap

* Relational Databases (SQL Server preferred)

Ministry Brands is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.

steverbon The Trendy Perks Employees Don't Want

Or both. My current employer has unlimited time-off and I personally insist that every one on my team takes at least two one week long breaks every year.

Sometimes you can tell someone is starting to burn themselves out. I figure it's better to take the (possible) productivity hit from them being out for a week or two versus the long term hits of either them being at work and just performing horribly, or quitting altogether.

steverbon Apple stock trading halted; pending news imminent

Apple lowered revenue guidance to $84 billion, down from the $89 to $93 billion it had previously projected. The company lowered gross margin to about 38 percent from between 38 percent and 38.5 percent.

From: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/02/apple-warns-on-q1-results.ht...

steverbon Leaving NYC for Nashville

We have tech, but it isn't an overwhelming driving force, and it's heavy on the enterprisey side. If you know C#/Java/Javascript you won't have any trouble staying employed.

steverbon An Amazon revolt could be brewing as tech giant exerts more control over brands

After reading the article it looks like this is an early stage of Amazon trying to deal with the confusion and mess that the Amazon Marketplace is causing.

I sincerely hope they get that mess figured out.

steverbon A History of the Sentence "Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo." (1999-2015)

Lord in heaven, German compound words have always broken my brain.

steverbon When and why to clean up your code: now, later, never

Fair point.

steverbon When and why to clean up your code: now, later, never

Remember that updating references is usually a global update. Now you have to test EVERYTHING that used that reference.

I've had so many projects bitten by an overzealous dev who decided to update the version of a library because newer = better and then we spent the next three weeks chasing bugs/differences between the versions.

Edit: Curious about the down votes. Would someone who disagrees care to illuminate me?

steverbon The Places in America Where Most Income Goes to Rent

Data Source: BusinessStudent.com

Makes sense that college towns would be over-represented.

steverbon Improving the way kids are taught to read

I concur. We used that book to teach three of our children to read at ages 3 to 4 and it is mind numbing. It worked for our kids though. One of them was reading "The Hobbit" when she was 5 years old and except for being a professional musician she's more or less a normal young adult now.

steverbon Ford Is Finally Getting Serious About Making Electric Cars

I wish someone made an actual light truck still. Even the little trucks are monstrous now.

My 85 Toyota would be dwarfed by a modern light truck.