Hacker News Reader

F_J_Hon Friends don't let friends export to CSV

meh

What did you learn?

F_J_Hon AI-enhanced development makes me more ambitious with my projects

Does chatGPT now have a Reddit plugin?

F_J_Hon Stanford President and Law-School Dean Apologize to Judge Duncan

Many would agree, but it's not relevant to the free speech debate

It's the same logic as those who made the "this guy kinda sucks though" argument based on George Floyd's criminal history to deflect from what the issue really was about - policing practices.

F_J_Hon “Laws” of software estimation for complex work (2021)

Maybe the company won the deal because the CTO and CPO said "yep - we can do that in 12 weeks" whereas the competitor said "we need to confer with our building teams to estimate the full project timeline" and promptly lost the deal...

F_J_Hon Woman ‘dehumanised’ by viral TikTok filmed without her consent

Joking aside, Something I find fascinating about ancient wisdom literature that has been in circulation for centuries - honed and refined generation after generation, is how succinctly key concepts are boiled down in ways that can be easily grasped/remembered. (In this case, avoiding conflict of interest/segregation of duties.)

F_J_Hon Job interview questions engineers should ask, but don't

I've hired a lot of people over the course of my career, and questions like this would be a major red flag. I'd pass on the candidate.

Completely fine to ask how performance is measured and/or how performance reviews are handled, but the nature of these questions is off-putting. Is a candidate trying to figure out how they can get away with being a low performer? How would their poor judgment in asking questions like this show up elsewhere? Likely a high-maintenance individual.

And, the caveats at the end of the comment indicate the author knows these questions would not make you look good to the hiring team. If the company hired you anyway, probably wouldn't be a good place to work.

F_J_Hon Elizabeth Holmes found guilty

Former Enron employee here - I have some swag I was given when I first started (lunch kit, values booklet, etc. Also have some golf shirts and baseball caps.

Worth anything?

F_J_Hon Data Fabric vs. Data Mesh: What's the Difference?

Now hearing about "data lake houses"....

F_J_Hon How is bamboo lumber made? (2016)

Related - cool "circular economy" company in Vancouver that collects chopsticks from restaurants and, using a similar process, makes some pretty amazing stuff: https://chopvalue.com/

F_J_Hon Plotly.py 5.0

Awesome - thanks!

F_J_Hon Plotly.py 5.0

Love the Icicle charts.

Anyone know if they will become available in Ploty.js?

F_J_Hon Plotly.py 5.0

Plotly is fantastic - great to see another release. Have been using it to integrate charts into Oracle Application Express (APEX), which works really well, and provides for much more interactive data visualizations over the built-in APEX charts.

F_J_Hon Minimum Viable Self

I feel there are people who have found healthy balance between not using Twitter at all and "focus everything through the lens of the twitterverse".

F_J_Hon Minimum Viable Self

>>I simply don't inhabit it, and I don't feel that I'm missing out.

I've wondered about this - but how do you know what you are missing out on? For example, if you were active on twitter or LinkedIn and carefully cultivated those profiles, who knows what life changing connections you may have made? (I've seen several people comment on getting jobs, business partners, fellow hobbyists, etc. on twitter.)

*edit: missed a word

F_J_Hon Microsoft's low-code strategy paints a target on UIPath and other RPA companies

So you'd ban MS Access? Why do people use it as opposed to an "IT Sanctioned" tool? If you IT dept does not have time to provide the tools people need to do their jobs, and you take away one of their tools, what/who fills the productivity gap?

F_J_Hon Microsoft's low-code strategy paints a target on UIPath and other RPA companies

Yes this happens...sometimes. And, other times, (as reflected in comments ITT), there are many cases where a low-code solution built by a non-dev have brought huge benefit. (I've seen this myself - see below - MS Access apps that saved hours and hours of work, but which IT had not time to look at.) I've also seen the sentiment in your comment lead to an outright ban by IT dept. of all low-code tools, for no other reason than the "slippery slope fallacy" that "if we allow this, we could potentially have a big mess to sort out one day". And in doing so, summarily kill a ton of innovation and productivity.

One anecdote I remember - a regulatory change created a major issue for a billing department. They went to IT to get their help to address it, and were told "sorry, no time to even talk to you right now. Come back in six months. Actually, make that 8 months." So, a tech. savvy person in the billing dept. built something in MS Access that solved the problem. They were thrilled. When IT heard about it, they tried to get the guy fired. Billing Dept. manager had to go to bat to make sure that didn't happen.

F_J_Hon I Used to Be a Human Being – How we are all becoming information addicts

How is Catholics & Protestants killing each other for hundreds of years in Europe related to easy access to the vernacular English Bible?

F_J_Hon Inside a viral website

Thank goodness for creative people who think of new and ingenious ways to use tools differently than originally intended. It's the heart of innovation.

F_J_Hon Suez Canal says traffic in channel resumes after stranded ship refloated

All jobs are easy to the person who doesn't have to do them. ~Hold's Law

;-)

F_J_Hon Don't End the Week with Nothing (2014)

Even better: I optimized SQL queries for Nameless Corp to improve admin interface load times by 20%, which boosted profits by 20%.

F_J_Hon What I learned in two years of moving government forms online (2018)

Didn't he specifically address this, in the section where he brought up "salami slicing"?

F_J_Hon On the death of my family's dairy farm (2019)

Also a Canadian. Likely most people don't care about it because they don't really know about it, and the additional price that goes to subsidizing farmers is also not material for many people. Also, many who live near the border make a bi-monthly trek into the US (pre-covid) to buy milk, eggs, and gasoline.

re: >> "I don't actually know anyone who cares about it" see: https://imgur.com/gallery/BTOog

F_J_Hon Excel Never Dies

>> "Then, like a lot of Microsoft products, leaves you hanging when it's time to get serious."

This is like a moving company saying their small moving vans "left them hanging" once they outgrew them and started doing national vs. local moves. A tool that proves useful at one stage is not useless because it can't be as useful at ALL stages.

The great thing about Excel as it enables you to do the one thing that kills most start-ups, projects, etc., which is simple to start.

F_J_Hon Excel Never Dies

For me it's SQL and then simply visualizing.

F_J_Hon Fecal transplant turns cancer immunotherapy non-responders into responders

"Can I smoke while I pray" vs. "Can I pray while I smoke"

F_J_Hon Doubting Thomas

>>Browne, who counselled with intimations of Ecclesiastes that “it is a vanity to waste our dayes in the blinde pursuit of knowledge” is an antidote to all this—to doomsayers and optimists and all those who prey on the human need to understand. He knew very little. We should all be so wise.

Hmm...that hit home. Too much reading, not enough doing.

F_J_Hon Systems design explains the world: volume 1

One thing that changes the calculus, (at least for business applications), is the advent of "low code" platforms, which significantly change the economics.

If you've ever used one, you can see how quickly (and iteratively, which is key) you can spin up new functionality.

F_J_Hon What If You Could Do It All Over?

Some people are quite good at increasing their "luck surface area".

F_J_Hon What If You Could Do It All Over?

Reminds me of "Buridan's ass" named after a 14th century French philosopher who described a donkey dying of starvation while standing between two perfectly good stacks of hay, because it couldn't decide which to eat.