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dangrover

3,960 karma · joined August 20, 2007

Web: http://dangrover.com Email: dan [at] dangrover [dot] com. Twitter: @dangrover

[ my public key: https://keybase.io/dangrover; my proof: https://keybase.io/dangrover/sigs/8JOz3mCK2pk_g7BbH-g2sHcHu8bKWWnrrmi6v0gVN6c ]

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dangrover··on DMS 1.5 "The Wolverine" Released
I've been really enjoying using DMS as a daily driver. I had been partial to Cosmic DE, but the overall visual appearance, pace of development, and ecosystem around DMS made me switch.
dangrover··on Show HN: Open-source Workspace (mail,docs,spreadsheet,drive) web/iOS
This looks really cool and more modern than Nextcloud. From the homepage, I was a little wary of the idea of hosting my own email server -- doesn't that require a ton of effort due to spam? Or can I use it with an external provider and use this as webmail?
dangrover··on Adding the "Move to Trash" function to System 7.1
Why does he have to use a hex editor for this, can't you just edit the menu directly in ResEdit?
dangrover··on Show HN: NativeVision, helping React Native devs to build XR apps for any device
Also, other characters in XR have predilection to say stuff like "You can't make it spicy enough for me!" and “Holy moly, Stromboli!”
dangrover··on OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns
ChatGPT#
dangrover··on Americans Are Still Spending Like There’s No Tomorrow
It incentivizes you to continue saving the principal, rather than dump it into house. For others, higher rates disincentivize taking marginal credit card debt and large mortgages. Fewer businesses will get credit and will have less to spend on employees (who might otherwise be bidding up wages against other prospective employers).
dangrover··on Racket frustrates me
Northeastern, Rice?
dangrover··on Show HN: WinGPT – AI assistant for Windows 3.1
Such a cool project! Also the example conversation in the screenshot is hilarious.
dangrover··on GGML – AI at the Edge
There's so much potential for this as a tech powering all sorts of products, I hope it doesn't just become some Tarsnap type thing. (judging from initial site)
dangrover··on SimCity 4 was released 20 years ago
Agree with this. There isn't really much challenge in managing the city itself after a certain point. You're just expanding.
dangrover··on Ranking by Engagement
Loved Tom Cunningham's internal posts when I worked at Meta, great to see he has public blog!
dangrover··on Richer UI install available for desktop
Can Chrome just hurry up and add those so we can be done with Electron?
dangrover··on Richer UI install available for desktop
It doesn't make sense because the barrier to "apphood" in whatever Chrome defines to be an app is scarcely more than making a manifest. The distinction between a chrome app and a webpage is very minimal. What user problem is being solved by this? Why do I need a screenshot of the "app" (i.e. webpage) I am already using?
dangrover··on Meta is about to start its next round of layoffs
I was there 2016-2022. The hiring boom in 2020 was definitely palpable. Entire vast orgs of teams who had no context on the problem they were solving, previous efforts, etc, because they were all so new.
dangrover··on San Francisco could collapse – what should California do about it?
Tech money should be flexed in politics more. We’re paying taxes too, right?
dangrover··on San Francisco could collapse – what should California do about it?
Yes, Haney was originally very NIMBY in his politics but has become more moderate.
dangrover··on Meta Layoffs
I was a PM at Meta from 2016-2022. I work at a startup now and have to write detailed specs and deal with lots of small details —- something I was discouraged from doing as I rose in rank at Meta and scarcely did after the first year. Looking back, I don’t even remember what it was that I did if not that —- lots of strategy docs, aligning other teams, but no specs. I am having to unlearn a lot of bad attitudes and habits to do new gig effectively.

I remember when I left feeling funny that there were as many people working on metaverse stuff as were in company when I joined (like 16k), and it’s mind boggling to me now that the layoffs are affecting around same amount.

dangrover··on Build full “product skills” and you'll probably be fine
It would be funny if, after years of research, that was the only condition it exhibited such behavior under. “Sooooo what fields should be (hiccup) required for users to register an account? Which version of React did you want it written in?”
dangrover··on GPT-4 does Jerry Seinfeld on Linux
That's pretty good!
dangrover··on Visual ChatGPT
This was counter-intuitive to me too! I was recently playing around with some of the LLMs that can run on consumer hardware (via KoboldAI, RWKV, etc) and, boy, are they not as good as ChatGPT despite consuming all my Mac's resources. Meanwhile, can get Stable Diffusion images in under a minute!
dangrover··on On Management and the Maginot Line
This misunderstands the management that happens in companies. Of course you need to sort through goals, figure out priorities, get groups to align on key decisions, monitor them, direct resources towards them, and have people who can do unpleasant things like talk to users and customers, do research, etc. The bazaar composed of only programmers randomly working on parts they think are interesting or fun can’t achieve the same results in solving end users problems because it isn’t incentivized to.
dangrover··on Web 3.0: When in Doubt, Do the Opposite
The writing here reminds me a bit of that of a friend who succumbed to schizophrenia. Just unconnected word salad. What did I read?
dangrover··on Home Depot is introducing power tools that won’t work if they’re stolen
Margins can be low in some kinds of retail. Not sure how it stacks up for Home Depot
dangrover··on ORBIS: The Stanford Geospatial Network Model of the Roman World
And why isn't "elephant" an option for mode of transit, especially for this route?
dangrover··on How to Design Programs (2014)
My undergrad intro class used this. At the time I found it patronizing and silly and artificially limiting, having coded before (the design recipe, the different "levels" of scheme).

But I saw some of the wisdom in the approach when I later tutored the class. People would try to rush into coding problems without doing real analysis of what the cases would be, and had a foggy notion of different parts of program having a "contract". HTDP and the design recipe makes that muscle memory for beginners which is pretty nifty.

dangrover··on Product Manager vs. Product Marketing Manager vs. Product Owner
This was what I thought when I was an angsty engineer in early 20's, and I guess what motivated me to become a PM, where I realized it wasn't true.

Doing the PM job well -- being rigorous about the product, its goals, its strategy, customers, how it interfaces with the external world, and figuring out how to distill that down internally to empower your team -- takes as much intellectual horsepower as engineering. I had to stop writing code every day to realize how deeply complex and interesting the non-code world can actually be. A good example is the passage in "Superpumped" about how Travis Kalanik validated the idea for Uber with deep research. It's not just bullshitting through meetings.

I think the issue though is that, unlike eng, there is no obvious intellectual "floor" for PMs (equivalent of fizzbuzz for programming), so you've probably dealt with lots of bad, lazy, incapable ones.

dangrover··on A comparison of city building games
It's really good! I like that the zoning is more realistic and the finances seem to make more sense (e.g. when you hit $0 cash you start borrowing automatically, rather than having to explicitly take out a loan, and also you have to pay emminent domain when you destroy someone's building). Also the regional scale is neat.
dangrover··on A comparison of city building games
The wall I hit with this game was that once I figured out how to get the country self-sustaining enough to mine and refine uranium for export, it effectively gave unlimited money, and less point in figuring out all the other industries.
dangrover··on A comparison of city building games
You might like the game City State. The actual citybuilding part of the game is pretty inconsequential, but there are a ton of policy choices that play out in interesting ways.
dangrover··on What Working At Stripe Has Been Like
This happened to a friend too, got totally ghosted by Stripe.

This is generally how our industry works, though, which is that it's not worth it to go through loop for a job unless you were referred by someone on the inside.

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