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troycarlson

307 karma · joined February 10, 2015

Twitter: @troy_carlson
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troycarlson··on Bitcoin Is Time
Move from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake?
troycarlson··on Ask HN: Best way to annotate videos for ML?
I've had 2GB+, 4h long videos labeled in CVAT. What problems did you run into? Can you annotate at a reduced FPS?
troycarlson··on Ask HN: What did you do to improve your company?
This is my observation across several companies/teams. The options seem to be either sacrifice "real work" time to make a good presentation or make a half-ass presentation and have people criticize the low quality.

Do people here think "no prep" presentations could work? Where it's agreed that nobody will do any prep but simply talk about something they're knowledgeable about? Or share their screen and walk through their current project? Everyone in the audience knows that the presenter wasn't "allowed" to prepare so the expectations are lower, but people still get exposed to other engineers' work.

troycarlson··on Ask HN: If you could reinvent the web browser, what would you do differently?
Interesting concept. I imagine web pages which behave like a shared Google doc.
troycarlson··on You download the app and it doesn’t work
It is literally a play from their book, Rework. See the essay "Pick a fight."
troycarlson··on GitHub Codespaces
My thoughts:

* Some teams do this already with git data...but if it's free as part of a team's development platform then maybe the less sophisticated managers who don't know how to interpret the data will misuse it?

* If the editor is heavily instrumented then even more granular "productivity" metrics could be extracted, like time spent with the tab active, etc. which aren't available with a vanilla install of other editors. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

troycarlson··on Ask HN: What Happened to GitHub's Atom?
Ever tried YouCompleteMe? I love it for Ruby, Python, JavaScript.
troycarlson··on Ask HN: What are some purchases that increased the quality of your life?
A barbell, plates, squat stands...so I can get in a decent workout whenever I want without driving to or waiting for equipment at a gym.
troycarlson··on Ask HN: Show your own blog/vlog
Oaxaca link appears to be broken...it links to the Taiwan post.

Great write-ups, btw.

troycarlson··on FaceApp Now Owns Access to More Than 150M People's Faces and Names
The Facebook login flow requests permission to access your "photos". Does anybody know what that entails? Can they freely query your photos edge on the FB API?
troycarlson··on Ask HN: Is it ok to drop IE11 support for SaaS product?
If you have the time/resources, show those users a message urging them to upgrade and provide links to newer versions. Then monitor traffic levels to see if usage declines to an acceptable level. Depending on the volume of remaining traffic you get, you may be able to contact those users and figure out why they haven't upgraded.
troycarlson··on Ask HN: Any jobs that fit my background? In dire straits
Apply for Data Engineer positions?
troycarlson··on Ask HN: How can one speed up development on solo programming projects?
Outsource some/all of it to freelancers on Upwork so they can make progress while you sleep, work a day job, etc.
troycarlson··on Ask HN: How do you manage your resume and job applications?
I recently used a Google Sheet with company name, date applied, status, action items, a link to the job description, etc. If I applied with a custom resume I add that to the same Google Drive folder with the appropriate name. Add color to the status column to make it a bit easier to scan. Move rejections to a new tab and keep post-mortem notes if you have any after phone screens/interviews (so you can study what you messed up on). It got the job done.
troycarlson··on Ask HN: Where do you work on your side-hustle?
Sometimes I'll get up really early and put in a quality hour or two at a coffee shop before starting my 9-5.
troycarlson··on Ask HN: Your subjective takes on living a non-boring and pleasant life?
Here's what I try to do:

- Outsource chores or tasks I hate doing (like shopping and laundry).

- Optimize for free time where I have no obligations...I find that very pleasant.

- Say yes to things I've never tried before...if I hate it I'll say no the next time but I'll forever be able to tell people I tried X. This also makes conversations with strangers and acquaintances easier because I've tried a lot of stuff and can contribute to more conversations.

- Travel with friends. This can be hard to coordinate but is incredibly fun.

- Treat myself on occasion. I try to minimize the "stuff" I own but I just bought a nice pair of shoes that I've been looking at for a while and they make me happy every time I wear them.

- Only use social media for staying connected instead of entertainment. If I want to send a message to someone specific or look at pictures of my nephew, I'll log into Facebook. But as soon as I find myself scrolling through any sort of "feed" I pinch myself and log out...it's 95% bullshit I don't care about and 100% stuff I don't NEED to see right now anyway.

troycarlson··on What tech stacks are indie hackers using for their apps, and why?
Same here.
troycarlson··on Ask HN: What observability effort have had the best impact on your company?
Any suggestions for getting graphs on a TV in the office? I usually have monitoring tools like New Relic open in my browser but I'd like to have these aggregated on a wall mounted TV for the team to look at together.
troycarlson··on Kissmetrics has either sold or lost control of their domain, with no warning
Neil Patel was one of the founders of Kissmetrics, so at least it's not like they sold off the domain to some random person.
troycarlson··on Ask HN: Solo app devs, how do you do user testing?
One tool I use is Mouseflow, primarily for session playback. It's super helpful to see how users are interacting with the app, qualitatively, and has helped me find bugs and UX issues that never made it into the error logs.

https://mouseflow.com

troycarlson··on Ask HN: How are you building cross-platform (mobile and browser) apps?
I made a React web app and then had an iOS "container" built with some minimal native iOS functionality to make everything feel more native. Here's an overview of how the iOS app was made: https://www.vsanthanam.com/writing/2018/5/9/web-app-containe...

It works great for my simple web app. Obviously, your mileage may vary.

troycarlson··on Life as an entrepreneur can be a tough and lonely ride
I loved the marketing video on your Product Hunt post. It's the first app video I've ever laughed out loud at (the message thread emoji's). Great work.
troycarlson··on Ask HN: Side project you're working on?
https://getdevour.com (marketing site and old app)

https://app.getdevour.com (new app I'm slowly migrating users over to)

This is incredibly niche at the moment, but people who follow Renaissance Periodization nutrition templates can upload their template and turn a complex spreadsheet/PDF into a simple, filterable app experience. Soon expanding to more nutrition plans.

troycarlson··on The Unhealthy Desire for Prestige
One interpretation of this is leaders viewing a young, "hungry" employee who likes to spend money as being more reliant on a salary than someone who's identity isn't so tied to spending money. If the hungry one needs a steady salary to maintain their lifestyle, they're more likely to be loyal to the company because they can't afford to leave. Of course that depends on the employee being someone the company actually wants to keep around and and whether the company can afford to pay them above market value.
troycarlson··on Ask HN: How do you keep up the energy to work on side-projects after work?
This is my life.
troycarlson··on Ask HN: What books do you keep on your desk?
This book has helped me recognize various cognitive biases and heuristics that I or the people around me are demonstrating. Sometimes people say things that just "feel" wrong and this book has helped me identify and name why it feels wrong. It can get a little dry at times, but for the most part the research and examples are memorable. I also find the framework of the "two systems" to be a simple reminder to slow down and think about things that surprise/frustrate me before arriving at conclusions (or responding to that frustrating coworker :P).
troycarlson··on Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation
I like the part where he says, "We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can't then we don't deserve to serve you." Facebook doesn't "serve" consumers, it built an RPG that harvests user data and sells it to the highest bidder.
troycarlson··on Unnecessary medical care is harming patients physically and financially (2015)
Bundled payments are slowly gaining traction and help align incentives a little better.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundled_payment

troycarlson··on Introducing Uber Health, Removing Transportation as a Barrier to Care
I believe a missed appointment will cost the provider more than the cost of a ride. Also, I believe CMS reimburses for non-emergency medical transportation, which may include Uber Health.

https://www.cms.gov/medicare-medicaid-coordination/fraud-pre...

troycarlson··on Ask HN: Change career at age 30 in 2018?
I think the intro level courses from Harvard, MIT Open Courseware, etc. are excellent resources for people just getting started. Instead of watching that 3rd episode of TV on Netflix...just watch an MIT lecture. Then watch it again next week and see how much you remember. And the week after that. Throw it on while you’re cooking or doing laundry or something.
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