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aed

286 karma · joined August 26, 2010

In New Orleans.

Find me online at www.dunn.us

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aed··on Ask HN: What's the oldest piece of code still running in your stack?
I went digging through some old folders out of curiosity and I still have things I wrote in middle school and high school. (Not code, although I was starting with HTML at the time but that's lost to Geocities.)

Anyway, a bit of an indirect answer to your question but I found a paper I worked on in November 2000 (when I was a junior in high school). The works cited is below. None of the links still work. It could have been completely plagiarized and no one would know!

Fast Facts – Ancient Rome’s Coliseum. 21 Nov. 2000. The History Net. <http://www.thehistorynet.com/HistoricTraveler/grandtour/0996...>

Gladiator. 21 Nov. 2000. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. <http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/0/0,5716,37695+1+3...>

Gladiators. 21 Nov. 2000. The Roman Empire. <http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Stage/3591/gladiators.html>

Gladiators. 21 Nov. 2000. <http://www.geocities.com/EnchantedForest/Fountain/5832/gladi...>

Scott, Ridley, dir. Gladiator. Perf. Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Richard Harris, Connie Nielsen, and Djimon Hounsou. Dreamworks, 2000.

Haggard, Cristin. Roman Entertainment, Vicious or Victorious? 21 Nov 2000. <http://www-relg-studies.scu.edu/projects/fal96/1300pm/~chagg...>

Lee, Eugene and Justin Strickland. Roman Gladiators. 21 Nov. 2000. <http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/7917/menu.html>

Meredith, Karen. A Contempt for Pain and Death. 21 Nov. 2000. <http://www.omnibusol.com/ancadd2.html>

aed··on Ask HN: How do you use 5–10 minute gaps productively?
Downtime / doing nothing is so crucial for letting your brain marinate over a problem or idea! Leave those gaps be.

Option B: Have a side project or personal you're hacking on with Claude/Codex and pop back to the terminal to respond to the latest prompt / get in cranking on the next feature.

aed··on How I archived 10 years of memories using Spotify
This is cool! I love stuff like this, it's fun to use stuff like this to see the passage of time a little more clearly.

Similar ideas:

I've been keeping notes in Roam Research for nearly 6 years now. Whenever I'm writing notes for that day, I'll go back to the same day 5, 4, 3, etc. years ago and see what I was working on.

I also recently went through the trouble of getting all of my running data into a spreadsheet. I started in 2018 and have gone through three different apps. Currently on my to-vibe-code-list: a little app that takes all of my runs from Apple Health and makes a neat dashboard showing pace, miles, routes, etc. over the years.

aed··on I optimised my vibe coding tech stack cost to $0
Thanks for this list!

A couple of questions I have:

1. Why not use supabase auth? I’m using it for a little project and generally like how much you get out of the box with supabase. Curious why you like stack auth.

3. Why 3 analytics tools? I’m thinking about implementing post hog in a little project I’m running right now, and generally would like to avoid having to have a lot of tracking!

aed··on Skills Officially Comes to Codex
Could you explain more about your metabase skill and how you use it? We use metabase (and generally love it) and I’m interested to hear about how other people are using it!
aed··on How do you retain what you read from nonfiction books?
I have the same exact problem! I'm super impressed by people who can read books and memorize the details. And I tried really hard to do the same.

So here's a different perspective on solving this problem: don't bother!

I'm sure you have other strengths. Lean into those and don't worry about trying to be the guy/girl that can recall details from books. Life gets much easier when you don't try to fight things that don't come natural to you.

So what do you do about your non-fiction reading? Keep reading! You may enjoy it more when you're not trying to read with an agenda and you're relieved of the burden of trying to memorize. Even if you can't recall the details, your brain will be folding ideas from what you're reading into the things you're working on and you'll have breakthroughs.

What happens for me is that I read some books that resonate so much for me that they become my "bibles." I can't remember all the details, but they're helpful to me in certain periods of my life. I come back to them every few years or when I think they'll be particularly helpful for something going on in my life and I get to read them with fresh eyes and new perspective.

aed··on Google raising Nest Aware Plus pricing by 25%
This is an extremely helpful list, I’ve been looking to replace my Nest doorbell and would like something non-Google or Amazon.

Do you happen to have similar list for thermostats? I’m using a Nest and would like to get that off Google as well.

aed··on Ask HN: New RevOps guy wants to switch us from M365 to GSuite+Slack
I personally prefer Gsuite + Slack. But I've been on that "stack" for 15 years (although I also still use excel). Hard to say if it's better, because someone coming from the 15 years in the Microsoft world may prefer that.

One anecdote -- I just recently left a large, public company (that acquired the startup I worked for) and they were in the process of evaluating a move to Microsoft (to the point that they migrated some teams over). They opted not to make the switch and there were a lot of complaints from the testing group.

For a 40 person startup, I think two ways about it:

First, I cannot imagine this is the biggest priority right now. Presumably you're trying to hit some growth target. Is this really the thing holding you back? If you're in survival mode, this feels a lot like moving the deck chairs around on the Titanic.

But Second, if you're gonna do it, it's going to be a heck of a lot easier to do it at 40 people than at 60, or 80, or 100.

Overall, I wouldn't recommend doing it unless the ROI looks really, really good. If I was an investor or advisor it would drive me up the wall to hear that this is what you're distracting yourself with right now. And it's one of those problems that when you hit $MILESTONE, you'll have the money/team in place to handle making the migration go smoothly.

aed··on Mailto: Sam Altman – Could ChatGPT Support Threaded Side Chats?
Typing Mind has this feature, as I'm sure some other "LLC Clients" may have as well -> https://docs.typingmind.com/chat-management/fork-chats
aed··on Ask HN: Selling software to company I work for as an employee
That acronym goes back to Usenet days and is really well understood, particularly in places like HN. It’s existed for 100 internet years prior to Reddit.
aed··on Five minutes of exercise a day could lower blood pressure
Yes! I do something similar. I tell people I don’t have a running habit.

I have a getting out the door in the morning with my running shoes on habit.

Whatever happens after that is a bonus. The goal is to just step outside in the morning ready for a run.

aed··on Ask HN: Looking for a cheap hosted BI tool like Metabase for my startup
I'd recommend Metabase, we've used it for years with no issue. Very simple to use and business users can easily get the hang of it and build and filter their own reports.

While I'm at it, here's a killer Metabase feature that I haven't seen in other reporting tools I've used:

While you can save a report to folders and have pretty URLs (your.domain.com/sales-report), whenever you build a report or change an existing report, it gets its own unique URL. (It's long and ugly, but I don't mind.)

Here's how I use it and why it's cool:

- If you're building a report and make a mistake or want to try something else, the back button actually works!

- If you have an existing report (your.domain.com/sales-report) and just need to filter it quickly to (like show all sales above $10K closed by Sam this year) and send it to someone else for some quick troubleshooting, you just filter the base report and grab the unique URL and send it around! No need to save it to a folder.

- I have a library of SQL queries for specific things and I can quickly pop that into Metabase (rather than using the report builder) and send the URL to someone. Again, just not having to go through the motions of saving and naming everything that may only be short-lived is nice.

- Just generally love not having to save every little iteration or filtered version of a report as I often just need it for some quick troubleshooting or discussion. No need to have a junk folder of reports with stuff like ("Sam deals over $10K 2024").

Hopefully I'm explaining this clearly!

aed··on A company that sells lost airplane luggage
Actually, yes -- if you enabled Lost Mode. I have some experience with this situation directly.

On the way home from a trip in December, I dropped an AirTag in the pocket my 3-year-old's stroller and forgot to attach it securely before I gate checked the stroller.

I got the stroller back when we arrived but realized a day later that the AirTag slipped out. I could see it at the AirPort but an ~hour of time trying to recover it wasn't worth it.

I put it in Lost Mode mostly for kicks and when you place it in lost mode you can give people a way to contact you. I left my number.

I watched the AirTag go from my home airport to Scottsboro, Alabama and I knew the lost luggage store was there, so I was confused.

A week or so later I got a call from a service company that handles lost and found for Southwest Airlines. There were able to use an iDevice (presumably) to get my contact information since I had placed the AirTag in Lost Mode. They mailed it back to me for the cost of shipped. I assume if they don't find the owner it goes to the lost luggage store mentioned in the article.

aed··on Ask HN: I have 176 logins/accounts. How many do you have?
Interesting question! I just checked and, wow, I have 922 accounts in 1password. (From 10+ years of use.)

It’s funny you bring this up because I’ve thought about “cleaning up” 1password before. But all the extra accounts are not really in my way.

I never use oauth (like to create a new account / password for everything). All of my work-related accounts are in there from several employers. Lots of passwords for (probably dead) servers. I count 28 logins for salesforce.com from past employers, various sandboxes, and consulting gigs.

aed··on Ask HN: Does anyone else get sick when their vacation starts?
You’re not alone! And you may be surprised (or not) to learn that it’s a thing and it has a name: Leisure Sickness

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leisure_sickness

I hope you’re able to find a way to fight it off in the future!

aed··on Ask HN: What does your BI stack look like?
Stitch for ETL (really just the E and L part)

Redshift for storage

dbt to transform the raw data into something warehousey

Metabase for viz

aed··on Ask HN: When will we have mobile browser extensions and ad-blocking?
Haven't seen 1Blocker mentioned yet, which is what I use on iOS: https://1blocker.com

No complaints and for the reasons you mention, I can't imagine browsing on mobile without it.

aed··on Share your screen on Zoom with ultrasound
We only have a couple of rooms where we have the Owl plus another microphone, and those are rooms that are a little bigger than what is suggested for the owl so having the wireless mics help.

The owl pro seems to have been an improvement there. We only have one pro right now, but the speaker is much louder and mic a bit better.

aed··on Share your screen on Zoom with ultrasound
They've had this feature for sometime and it is pretty cool. :)

About a year ago there was an ask HN about conference room systems. I had just recently gone through the process of selecting and went with zoom. The "airplay" feature was one of the reasons why.

Here are my notes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19455428

Edit to add one note: They recently (last six months or so) added a feature to allow you to share multiple screens at once. We've setup most of our conference rooms with two screens so it's really cool when two people in a room can wirelessly share their screens and you're able to see both at once.

aed··on Ask HN: What's your conference room tech setup?
If you want cheap:

In some of our huddle rooms we just have a simple $100 logitech cam with a jabra usb ($60).

We're also trying out some Logitech Conference Cam BCC950 devices (<$200).

All of our iPad controllers are from the Apple refurb store.

aed··on Ask HN: What's your conference room tech setup?
Just went through this in the last year at my current job. Each conference room had a Mac mini with a keyboard attached and sometimes people used zoom, sometimes gotomeeting, sometimes hangouts. If you wanted to share a screen locally, it involved changing inputs on the TV and making sure you have an HDMI cable with the right dongle. As a result, the rooms were a mess.

Inevitably, it always took some kind of effort to get connected to the correct system and the meeting started.

After evaluating a few options, we’ve moved to zoom rooms. Our sales team was already using zoom and it was an easy decision to roll out zoom to everyone. In my opinion, it was best to have one way and only one way have a meeting. It’s paid off, because it’s now effortless and default. We're really happy with it.

The zoom room setup requires an iPad controller and a Mac or PC to run the zoom software. Everything is setup in kiosk mode and even on reboot, zoom automatically starts up. I don’t even keep keyboards in the rooms because there’s no reason to touch anything but the iPad controller (which is also in kiosk mode so you can't accidentally close the zoom software).

For sharing a screen locally it's done wirelessly and it’s as simple as clicking “share screen” and most of the time it picks up what room you’re in and starts sharing your screen (if not, you just type in the sharing code). No more looking for a cable and dongle. It's pretty cool to be across the room from the TV and be able to share your screen without friction.

We have 15 zoom rooms now in all of our office globally (New Orleans, Austin, Cairo).

We do dual-monitor setups in almost all of conference rooms, save for the smaller huddle rooms. In our new office, I did a 3 monitor setup for a large conference room. To be able to see faces and content being shared is great. Product/dev teams love it particularly because it's easy to review specs or code and see the face of the person you're talking to.

Mentioned elsewhere in this thread, we use Owls (owllabs.com) and have 8 of them in use globally. The team loves them. Particularly for cross-cultural conversations it’s helpful that the camera is in the center of the table and you can see the speaker’s face (vs. being a fly on the wall).

For microphones, we like the VTech VCS704 ErisStation with wireless mics. It’s trained everyone to think to grab a mic before beginning to speak. We put a pricey, high quality MXL AC-360-Z in our new conference room and I think I’m going to switch to a Vtech. There’s just something about the act of grabbing a mic and putting it right in front of your face. People tend to talk with a laptop in front of them, or hands in front of their face, or from the end of the room. There’s something about having a physical object that makes people stop and grab one before speaking. It’s made me think that microphone sound isn’t a tech problem so much as it is a people problem.

This is not my primary job but something I took on. Happy to answer any questions or provide more details about our setup.

aed··on Show HN: SpreadServe – Cloud automation for Excel spreadsheets
This is awesome. Excel is such a valuable tool for its ease in prototyping and testing calculations, but the "classic" challenge is when/how to operationalize it.
aed··on Countries where Americans can study at universities, in English, for free
Louisiana has a similar program. If you have a 2.5 GPA and at least a 20 on the ACT, your in-state tuition is paid for (for the base award). You can also qualify for an additional stipend for having higher GPA/ACT scores.

Myself and many of my friends got our degrees with $0 debt.

http://www.osfa.state.la.us/MainSitePDFs/TOPS_OPH_brochure_8...

aed··on How to tell when a robot has written you a letter
Maybe it's because they have different goals?

The Nigerian-mail-fraud-scammer needs to get the gullible person to respond. If that's 1 out of 100,000 people, they need to do what they can just to get that 1 to respond. If 100 out of 100,000 respond, they have to sift through the "noise" of not-so-gullible people to find the true gullible one.

In this case, they just want to get you to open the letter and read the sales pitch (the goal isn't to find gullible people).

aed··on Take a Shelfie: Rewards for out-of-stock items
Judging only by the screenshots of the app in the iOS app store, and not by downloading it and using it myself:

* It appears you get 100 points for a shelfie.

* According to the listed rewards, it takes 10,000 points for a $5 walmart gift card

* Thus, you'll need to take 100 shelfies for $5.

My assumption is that different products / stores will award different point amounts so it will probably just depend.

aed··on Dyson 360 Eye
This guy got pretty popular on reddit due to his knowledge and willingness to share.

Just in the past couple of days he started a YouTube channel and posted his first video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEJSACjCL2g

aed··on NY Times releases military surplus gear data on GitHub
Looking further at the metadata, the author is "Williams, John A DLA CIV DISPOSITION SERVICES" and the company is "Defense Logistics Agency"
aed··on Amazon Local Register
You may be right, I agree that it's bound to happen at some point. I think one big difference is Amazon is rolling out revenue-producing products and Google was rolling out non-revenue-producing "experiments."
aed··on Show HN: Shortwhale – Get fewer, shorter, and better emails
Seems like this will most effectively work with high profile people / people in demand.

As an average Joe, my thought process:

- I'm not going to make my friends and family contact me this way. It's just too impersonal. If a friend insisted I contact them this way, I probably wouldn't bother.

- I can't enforce this at work, as much as I'd like to. Not to mention I'm cc'd or included in on a lot of emails that go to multiple people.

But for people like Dan Ariely, this could work great.

aed··on Fitbit Raises $43 Million
There's this handy definition: http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html
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