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ellisv

1,336 karma · joined February 20, 2015

Data Team Lead @VirtualFacility prev. @Groundspeed, @Powerley, @FarmLogs
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ellisv··on Data collected by cars and sold to third parties
People who live in cold or hot places like to prestart the climate control in their car.
ellisv··on Google AI Mode shows same products 21.6% more expensive than traditional search
Yes, I feel this is like when I look for a hotel and see a low price through a sketchy website but it is because it is a non-refundable member-only price. I wonder what the actual click through prices are. Sellers might try to serve higher prices to AI models but I'm not sure that would be useful to them.
ellisv··on HashiCorp co-founder says GitHub 'no longer a place for serious work'
Most developers have experience using GitHub. The UI and concepts are familiar. The friction for adopting features like Actions is relatively low.
ellisv··on SpaceX says it has agreement to acquire Cursor for $60B
I honestly can’t believe how poorly JetBrains has done. I used to love PyCharm but now it’s so far behind. I still use DataGrip but it is absolute dogshit when it comes to agentic coding.
ellisv··on American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis
It's called the nondelegation doctrine, which forbids one branch of government from authorizing another branch of government to exercise its functions.

Because Article One vests "all legislative powers" to Congress, they cannot delegate legislative powers to the Executive and Judicial branches (because then not all legislative powers would be vested with Congress).

ellisv··on Avoid UUID Version 4 Primary Keys in Postgres
About 10 years ago I remember seeing a number of posts saying "don't use int for ids!". Typically the reasons were things like "the id exposes the number of things in the database" and "if you have bad security then users can increment/decrement the id to get more data!". What I then observed was a bunch of developers rushing to use UUIDs for everything.

UUIDv7 looks really promising but I'm not likely to redo all of our tables to use it.

ellisv··on Using Git add -p for fun (and profit)
also barely readable with dark mode
ellisv··on SQLite JSON at full index speed using generated columns
I wish devs would normalize their data rather than shove everything into a JSON(B) column, especially when there is a consistent schema across records.

It's much harder to setup proper indexes, enforce constraints, and adds overhead every time you actually want to use the data.

ellisv··on Python Data Science Handbook
These types of books are always interesting to me because they tackle so many different things. They cover a range of topics at a high level (data manipulation, visualization, machine learning) and each could have its own book. They balance teaching programming while introducing concepts (and sometimes theory).

In short I think it's hard to strike an appropriate balance between these but this seems to be a good intro level book.

ellisv··on Advent of Code 2025
I never liked the global leaderboard since I was usually asleep when the puzzles were released. I likely never would have had a competitive time anyway.
ellisv··on Migrating to Positron, a next-generation data science IDE for Python and R
The IDE has been available for awhile.
ellisv··on WeatherNext 2: Our most advanced weather forecasting model
Precip.ai or go grab the MRMS data yourself
ellisv··on Ask HN: Is GitHub down for you as well?
We can't pull/push to our repos

    git@github.com: Permission denied (publickey).
    fatal: Could not read from remote repository.
    
    Please make sure you have the correct access rights
    and the repository exists.
ellisv··on Apple reports fourth quarter results
For tasks like planning travel I often am trying to optimize multiple goals at once. I might find cheaper flights on certain days but more expensive hotels. This is much easier on larger screens because you can view more information side by side.
ellisv··on Using AI to negotiate a $195k hospital bill down to $33k
The most impressive part to me is finding the right channel to communicate with the hospital. We had to dispute a billing issue with our hospital and it simply wasn't possible to talk to any person that wasn't part of the "patient relations" team. Billing problems went through patient relations who talked to the billers.
ellisv··on American solar farms
> Also, the rainfall. Some farmers go from morning to night never saying a word that isn't a complaint about the rainfall being wrong.

Yes. Some of them use proper rain gauges but some just complain about it. Basically none of them understand the difference between a point measurement and an areal average estimate.

ellisv··on We will no longer be actively supporting KuzuDB
With property graphs being adopting in the SQL standard, this isn’t surprising.
ellisv··on Does our “need for speed” make our wi-fi suck?
MoCA is how I get Ethernet upstairs. Works great.
ellisv··on Self hosting 10TB in S3 on a framework laptop and disks
Plants look very portable
ellisv··on LoRA Without Regret
I also mistook it to be about LoRa and not about LoRA
ellisv··on Walking Michigan City (Indiana)
Indiana Dunes National Park is weird and only became a national park because Pence was VP.
ellisv··on Teardown of Apple 40W dynamic power adapter with 60W max
This is good to know!

I might use these in my basement remodel since I can easily install deeper boxes. A right angle connector cable would also solve the issue of the port direction.

ellisv··on Teardown of Apple 40W dynamic power adapter with 60W max
The IKEA SJÖSS has ports on the front face rather than down or side.
ellisv··on Teardown of Apple 40W dynamic power adapter with 60W max
I wish they'd discount their 35W dual port chargers or that I could find a similar 3rd party charger.

My main criteria are (1) dual USB-C ports to charge multiple devices in one location, (2) compact enough to not block the other receptacle, and (3) ports face down/to the side so can fit between the wall and furniture. Unfortunately most chargers fail at least one of these.

ellisv··on Kenvue stock drops on report RFK Jr will link autism to Tylenol during pregnancy
This is also explained as a genetic factor as chromosomal abnormalities and replication errors are more frequent although cumulative environmental exposures may also play a role.
ellisv··on Kenvue stock drops on report RFK Jr will link autism to Tylenol during pregnancy
Admittedly I haven't read the whole study. But how do they account for the confirmation bias in their review – the fact that null results typically aren't published. Studies that look at an intervention (Tylenol) and fail to find an association are less likely to include it as a variable in their model or less likely to publish a null finding.
ellisv··on Kenvue stock drops on report RFK Jr will link autism to Tylenol during pregnancy
It's important to note our understanding is far from complete. There may be more genes associated with autism than we currently know. So 30% of cases may have a known genetic factor but that doesn't mean 70% don't have a genetic component.
ellisv··on Weather Radar APIs in 2025: A Founder's Complete Market Overview
MRMS is generally much better than RIDGE
ellisv··on Homekit-steam-user-switcher: A way to remotely switch Steam users using HomeKit
This is beautiful.
ellisv··on Show HN: Apple Health MCP Server
I’m on mobile and can’t try it out first hand right now but looks great.

Does it include health records (eg from Epic)?

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