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toddh

908 karma · joined November 13, 2007

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toddh··on A disturbing thought. A world where the marginal cost of software is free
Agreed. That's why this is different and so powerful. People will solve their own problems that they are experts in. The downside is that they don't know what they don't know. Real expertise helps. But I think that's solvable.
toddh··on A disturbing thought. A world where the marginal cost of software is free
Presumably, it would be useful and interesting to them? I'm not really talking about producing apps for an app store. In that case, I think you are right. More for individual or organizational needs.
toddh··on A disturbing thought. A world where the marginal cost of software is free
Sorry if I wasn't clear. I'm talking about the practioner side rather than the consumer side where the capabilities and costs are high.
toddh··on A disturbing thought. A world where the marginal cost of software is free
Or Any source software eats the world.
toddh··on A disturbing thought. A world where the marginal cost of software is free
The sword has two edges for sure. And if you're not a programmer, only one edge matters. But if you are...
toddh··on Om Malik has died
That's so sad to hear. I only met him once about acquiring my High Scalability blog. That didn't happen, but it was obvious he was one of those wise people who was both kind and very smart. Not a combination we see often in this world. A real loss...
toddh··on Show HN: WebBase-III – dBASE III rebuilt in the browser with its own interpreter
I have the same pair of glasses. My first paid programming work was dBASE II and later FoxPro. I don't look back on MySQL + Perl with the same affection. You could really get stuff done in those environments.
toddh··on Show HN: I built another to do list. But it does a lot
The thing is, it's real. Or it was for the golden era of cheap tokens. When tokens get expensive, we'll see how that changes things. With AI, you can think in terms of features rather than implementation; that's a totally different way of working.

I first programmed in C on a PDP 11 many years ago. I'm curious what you mean by "public vs. dev mode"?

toddh··on Show HN: I built another to do list. But it does a lot
I've always sucked at marketing. For HN, I decided to be honest because that's the kind of people who read HN.

And it really does do a lot. That's not hype. It's full-featured as I could make it without turning into something it's not, like a calendar or "productivity system."

At the heart of it is the mechanic of a rotation list, not forgetting what's next, but that's just the beginning.

toddh··on Show HN: I built another to do list. But it does a lot
According to app store optimization theory, that means you were never a potential customer anyway. If that's true or not, who knows?

None of my other apps have ever had a hard paywall, and success was not a result. So I tried something different this time.

In the end, I just couldn't go with a hard paywall; it's against my nature. So, on the paywall at the bottom, there's a "not now" button that lets you use all the features of the app without paying for 7 days.

toddh··on Show HN: I built another to do list. But it does a lot
You got the gist of it. Then it just kind of took off.

The TLDR:

Where it started: me standing in front of a long aisle of dog food bags at Costco, racking my memory for which kind I was supposed to buy next for my finicky golden retriever, Kilo.

How it ended: me building Rotation List, so nobody will ever have to forget again.

I explained more in:

https://www.indiehackers.com/post/ai-killed-the-mvp-whats-ne...

With an AI assist, there was no reason to stop adding improvements as I thought of them, so I didn't.

toddh··on My Experience Report Using AI to Code – From an Older Programmer
AI is the new go-to intention implementation method and will largely subsume all the others.
toddh··on Revisiting Apple’s ill-fated Lisa computer, 40 years on
It was a magical machine. I remember programming a chess game in Pascal, and all the API calls were like a hundred characters long.
toddh··on Instagram is shifting to videos – users aren't happy
While having to respond to TikTok is understandable, what's their point of differentiation? It's hard to tell the difference between the two now. Maybe that's a good thing for insta?
toddh··on Why is it so hard to give Google money?
I use a normal credit card that I use everyday and they canceled my account for no reason that I can see at all. No reason. No appeal. And they keep sending me email to create ads! This is despite paying for google domain, apps, and google drive space forever.
toddh··on We don't have a hundred biases, we have the wrong model
The deeper problem is modeling goal setting. We know people will hurt themselves and to punish others and economics is stuck at thinking people only wish to maximize value. People are much more complex than that.
toddh··on People with low BMI aren't more active, they are just less hungry, 'run hotter'
Zone 2 training repairs mitochondrial disfunction and burns fat. An explainer here: https://maxapps.info/zone2training.html
toddh··on Two dead after Tesla drives into back of parked semi at FL rest stop
This implication a 66 year old with decades of successful driving experience is likely to crash doesn't track.

https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/overview/age-of-dr...: drivers 65 to 74 account for 13.7% of licensed drivers, but represent only 6.9% of drivers in all crashes and 7.7% of drivers in fatal crashes.

toddh··on Physicists see electron whirlpools for the first time
electron field?
toddh··on Ask HN: Why is Lex Fridman so successful with his “tech” podcasts?
He talks to interesting people and has interesting conversations. That's my definition of a good podcast.
toddh··on Expats are moving to Portugal
If you are from the US the food is different and is regional. The Algarve is very proud of their traditional seafood. If you aren't used to Mackerel and Cod and Sardines it's hard to get used to. As you move north the dishes change.

The bread is awesome everywhere.

toddh··on I'm tired of Google's business products
This is exactly my situation. There is no recourse.
toddh··on Apple unveils contactless payments via Tap to Pay on iPhone
I think on the vendor side it's a lot harder than it looks. This isn't the kind of thing Apple is good at.
toddh··on Stones as Medium, Beach as Canvas
They're beautiful, but years ago I was on a white water river rafting trip and the guide knocked down any human generated rock art he would find.

The reason he said is it was hubris to insert your ego into other people's experience of nature. It distracted from what was already beautiful and transcendent.

I'm not exactly sure I fully agree with him, but when I go to the beach and see these installations, I do tend to see them as intrusions, rather than art.

toddh··on Key M1 Mac Engineer Departs Apple for Intel
It's very true and an often under appreciated reason for the healthy startup culture in california.
toddh··on Video of Tesla on Autopilot Crashing into Stopped Truck at 75mph
Maybe you could. https://twitter.com/TAndersen_nSCIr/status/14733171491712000...

Tom Andersen: Your eyes have much wider brightness range than any video camera ever made, and many many times better than the $1 camera on a Tesla.

That is not a representation of what human eyes would see. It's a cheap video camera.

toddh··on Web3 Is Not Decentralization
And whomever owns the interpreter owns everything.
toddh··on How much load can be served from 1m² of sunlight
Can you elaborate a little more on your setup? That sounds interesting.
toddh··on Ask HN: Ever lost your love for coding? How did you get it back?
Sure, burnout is a real thing. Do lots of other things. Wait for an idea to find you. It should be just for you. It's not for money. Or ego. Ignore the devil on your shoulder that says it won't work, that it won't make money, that it's not furthering your career, that it's not solving the world's problems, that it's not padding your resume. Don't worry about how long it takes. What language it uses. What stack. What other people will think. Just do it because it interests you. If you still find that rewarding then your love is still there. If not, then perhaps the love has truly faded.
toddh··on gRPC for Microservices Communication
CORBA usually evolved into a very service / data oriented approach moving type value pairs around. Really only example problems were OO. At least that's how it worked on the number CORBA projects I was on.
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