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alexjray

246 karma · joined November 6, 2014

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alexjray··on How many times will my son see my parents?
I made this. My son is about to turn one.

My dad is 72 and my mom is 63.

I ran the life tables against how often we visit which was about once a month. At that rate my son would only see my dad 148 more times and my mom 248 more times before they passed away.

That was a bit shocking to me so we started seeing them more, now about every two weeks. My dad comes for breakfast, and my mom comes for lunch.

After running the numbers again my son will see my dad 321 more times and my mom 561 more times before they pass away. Small change, big difference.

Obviously all these are estimates. I averaged the years using the SSA 2022 period life tables and have the detailed method I used linked on the page.

The calculator behind the page is a small thing I built called Tend. You can run your own numbers, I would be curious if it changes anything for you as it did for me.

alexjray··on Waymo in Dallas
Can't wait for this in my town. I also can't wait to see people freak out over them.
alexjray··on Show HN: How many more times will you see your mother?
The service is partially a reminder app but actually does the work for you.
alexjray··on Writing code is cheap now
"Writing" code is cheap but this just scratches the surface. Its a completely different paradigm. All forms of digital generation is cheap and on the verge of being fully automated which comes with self recursion loops.

Automated intelligence is now cheap....

alexjray··on Software Survival 3.0
Yeah I don't buy the build internally argument. Its not necessarily the building of an internal tool that is the problem it's the maintenance and service level guarantees that you get from a vendor that are arguable more valuable so you can focus on the thing that matters for your company. Product market fit is now more important than ever and there are so many additional options now; focus on the "right" thing is more valuable now than ever before.
alexjray··on Will AIs take all our jobs and end human history, or not? (2023)
Even if they automate all our current jobs uniquely human experiences will always be valuable to us and will always have demand.
alexjray··on The unbearable frustration of figuring out APIs
Show me the incentive and I can likely guess how hard your API is to use.
alexjray··on Ask HN: What AI systems have you adopted across your work and personal life?
Yeah that feels like the right approach to enable the code generation to test itself which then becomes a matter of specification and functionality definition instead of worrying about code quality.

Are you doing all of this in cursor or something like Claude code?

alexjray··on Ask HN: What AI systems have you adopted across your work and personal life?
There is a common theme of "the end result is all that matters" but there are pretty big long term repercussions of design and implementation choices. For side projects and POC experiments this feels like the right approach but the risk flip flops for large scale projects that have the more risk associated with them. Maybe it is just through testing and validation checks?
alexjray··on Show HN: Picknplace.js, an alternative to drag-and-drop
Not trying to diminish the work at all because it works well but I hate this UX pattern. There is likely a reason this hasn't been done. If it wasn't for the pick -> scroll -> place instruction I would have no idea how to use it.
alexjray··on Open-Source Software Is in Crisis
Typical OSS is a luxury belief.

If it's not supporting a business it typically fails and is being supported by businesses as a proxy.

The core issue is that maintainers have a luxury belief counter to this. OSS is a strategy/tool for companies.

The only exception to that is fundamental software that creates entirely new markets that can sustain it like bitcoin.

That being said there is no crisis, sustainably supported OSS will continue to thrive.

alexjray··on T-Mobile will start charging a $35 fee on all new activations and upgrades
I honestly think starlink is eventually going to replace major carriers
alexjray··on My dad's resume and skills from 1980
The fact that he lists his height and health cracks me up
alexjray··on Unemployment falls to 3.5% in Sept, payrolls rise by 263K, job market strong
They will do whatever it takes to stop the wage growth spiral
alexjray··on A prompt engineering guide for DALLE-2
The Open AI clear content policy is quite interesting to me. It's reasonable but clearly controlling.
alexjray··on Switching to a four-day workweek (2021)
I like the idea of having a four day work week that everyone is expected to work and one day that is a flexible optional deep work type of day. No required meetings and no shipping etc. The idea being that people can choose to take it off if they want to or work half the day etc.
alexjray··on California Considers Doubling Its Taxes
Doesn't matter, people are leaving and people aren't coming in.

Other states are seeing the exact opposite.

alexjray··on California Considers Doubling Its Taxes
It's a combination of a lot of things. But the data is clear people don't want to move to California and the people who do live there are leaving.
alexjray··on California Considers Doubling Its Taxes
https://www.capolicylab.org/pandemic-patterns-california-is-...
alexjray··on California Considers Doubling Its Taxes
38% decrease in people moving to California 12% increase in residents moving out of state last year.

In San Francisco Bay Area, it's even more stark. There was a 45% decrease in entrances from other states to the Bay Area and a 21% increase in residents leaving for other states.

alexjray··on California Considers Doubling Its Taxes
This is insane. People are already leaving the states in droves. If this passes they are literally shooting themselves in the foot.
alexjray··on Illegal movie streaming service Popcorn Time shuts down
This is a joke
alexjray··on Illegal movie streaming service Popcorn Time shuts down
Let's start a DAO for it
alexjray··on Sources: OpenSea Eyes $13B Valuation
Open sea sucks, crashes all the time
alexjray··on Web3? I have my DAOts
This is the same argument as fiat. The fact that it's paper is not what makes it valuable...
alexjray··on How to Save a Ski Town
Utah sucks, go to Colorado
alexjray··on How to Save a Ski Town
Famous last words; would love to see where Crested Butte is at in five years. The only business that will be left will be the ones supporting the rich second homers why wouldn't it just stay like that or even get worse?
alexjray··on How to Save a Ski Town
100%, the amount of houses that are just sitting up at Park City, Sun Valley, [insert popular ski town] is shocking.
alexjray··on US housing price higher than housing bubble 2008
What do the gray columns represent?
alexjray··on It's time for a data-first front end revolution
You summed it up perfectly, react-query aims to literally solve this exact problem.

It does it quite well I might add.

React, Mobx etc are all reactive frameworks exactly for this reason. Given a set of data render x, update the render every time the data changes.

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