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donmb

223 karma · joined January 26, 2014

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donmb··on Mistral raises €3B
Mistral is not that bad as the comments here suggest. I am not using it as a frontier model but with simple RAG tasks and its doing great. Also OCR is pretty decent. It's a positive development that Europe is at least trying. Alternative would be: do nothing.
donmb··on Commodore 64 released September 1, 1982
Back when writing 500 lines of code by simply typing it line by line from the "handover" booklet the C64 shipped with. Then running it and it magically made a frog-game appear where you hit "space" and the tongue of the frog needs to catch a fly. Then forgot to save on the 5,25'' disk and everything was gone. Good times :)
donmb··on Migrating from DigitalOcean to Hetzner
We are currently moving from heroku to Hetzner. Same story, thousands saved / month.
donmb··on Show HN: Apfel – The free AI already on your Mac
Local AIs are the future in times of limited resources. This could be the beginning of something big. I like that Apple opens up like this. Hopefully more to come.
donmb··on AI Is Garbage and a Bubble
> AI tools are currently being sold way below cost to get into the market. That is unsustainable.

This is wrong on so many levels. Most companies (including our agency) bet on self hosted "free" LLMs to solve every day problems. The only costs we have is hardware and electricity. And that won't increase on a high scale. Furthermore, AI is already driving productivity measureable in our company. What will probably happen is that software prices will drop big times but this is fine and predictable. Still engineers are needed to solve business processes, discuss with customers and find solutions for their problems.

donmb··on AWS multiple services outage in us-east-1
Asana down Postman workspaces don't load Slack affected And the worst: heroku scheduler just refused to trigger our jobs
donmb··on When we get Komooted
In my opinion, all the criticism surrounding Komoot is just envy. The founders worked hard for over 15 years and have now made a well-deserved exit. People are just jealous. Period.
donmb··on I Love Ruby
We love it too and so far we could solve any problem with it.
donmb··on Safari releases are development hell
Safari is the new Internet Explorer. We need to face it.
donmb··on Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps
The review process is completely random. One day they accept your app completely, the other day your "iPad screenshot is a strechted iPhone image" or something. Its just frustrating.
donmb··on Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce
Just some pre IPO moves.. leading to more productivity and revenues.
donmb··on Why don’t we do email verification in reverse?
We send temporary passwords by email. So we reach two goals: 1. User can Login immediately 2. User email is automatically verified because if the email is invalid, he never receives the temporary password
donmb··on You Don't Need the Cloud
exactly. not everyone can afford a sys-admin or has the background OP has
donmb··on You Don't Need the Cloud
I can agree with most of the article but consider that not every startup has a sys-admin or can afford one. We are also a startup and we use AWS + heroku because we don't want to focus on setting up a ruby server and handle deployment pipelines and all that. This is the BIG advantage of cloud. Yes we don't use a lot of AWS tools but S3 is "pay as you go" exactly for that reason. The only reason we might need to switch to a Hetzner-like architecture is because our customers want the data to be in Germany. No other reason could move us there tbh.
donmb··on Vue Native (2018)
I was using Cordova with VUE.js and had fantastic results in both iOs and Android, using "Buefy" as my UI framework.

I started with Nativescript and ended up in building a WebView which I then simply included.

I haven't tested Vue Native yet but wanted to know why Cordova seems to be on the decrease :( I feel like I have to develop in Vue Native or Nativescript soon to not lose track. However, I always liked the Cordova/Vue combination and I could realise fantastic apps with it.

donmb··on Forklift truck drivers who never leave their desks
Wondering why they are sitting in front of a PC with a helmet :-D
donmb··on iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro
Putting your phone next to your Macbook and letting it being charged wirelessly would be an innovation. MagSafe on a phone does not make much sense as it would fly away anyways if you hit it hard. USB-C consistency would also be nice.
donmb··on How can we, as web professionals, help to make the web more energy efficient?
What we always forget in this debate is how much energy the web actually already saved through - for example - more efficient logistics, shorter communication ways etc etc

This is something we need to consider in the calculation.

And lets say all data centers would work completely "green" - wouldn't this discussion be obsolete?

donmb··on Fuck You Startup World (2016)
At least here in Germany, this culture seems to be over. It was declining and after Corona, it has changed completely. More and more smaller companies also value that you have family, friends and social life and home office becomes a normal thing, thanks god.

But I agree with a lot of these points after working 5 years in a startup. The biggest problem is that you try to increase your runway even though the business model does not seem to work. Instead of making it profitable as soon as possible, you try to grow and grow and hire people you don't even need. This was the worst experience. And then letting those people go again is even worse.

I hope that we get back to the ground and try to build solid and profitable business in the future instead of blown up air castles with no value at all.

donmb··on [dead]
Because you never know when you're going to want to fight demons.
donmb··on Show HN: Kvak.io – Online Notepad
cool, looking forward :) I will abuse this then as a grocery shopping list to share with my girfriend
donmb··on Show HN: Kvak.io – Online Notepad
Also you could easily get rid of the "?n=" param I guess and just build a slug like http://kvak.io/fsf2o1r6yw5
donmb··on Show HN: Kvak.io – Online Notepad
What would help a lot, if you could customize the generated parameter in some way. Together with the password feature noone could "hack" into it anyways.
donmb··on Show HN: Kvak.io – Online Notepad
This is amazing. As simple as it can be. Good job!
donmb··on When Should You Not Use Rails?
I agree with the article. For instance, I was using Rails a lot in the past when I was bootstrapping small shitty projects to get a "taste of the user" and validating my ideas. For more complex projects I am using Ruby business oriented frameworks (trailblazer is a great choice here!) but I flavour it up with some ActiveRecord and ActionMailer as its very convenient. In general, the whole Rails framework became too much for my projects and to blown up.
donmb··on Firefox Voice
Interesting concept but I don't think it is practical in an open office environment when you sit next to your colleagues and speak to your browser.
donmb··on Web apps aren't tech. They're “tech”
Ok we got it. Websites/Online-Stores and custom coded backends are not "tech" according to the article (much as CDs/Videos are not tech). But still the ways of building these things change every day. UX/UI patterns change. Frontend Frameworks change. Its all about the tech in "tech" in my opinion. The web and how we perceive content in 10 years will be much different than it is today and its our job to make this happen.
donmb··on Ask HN: I am at a startup for 7 years. What's next for me?
You have the exact same history I do, except I am working in the startup for 5 years, not 7. I will found my own thing in 2 months with 2 really talented people with sales and marketing background. I look so forward to do my own thing, making my own decisions etc. Good luck to you.
donmb··on KeePassXC 2.6.0 Released
I like the design of X more Not sure what is better in XC though
donmb··on KeePassXC 2.6.0 Released
I like the simplicity/design of KeePassX more than XC
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