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equalarrow

1,079 karma · joined December 29, 2010

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equalarrow··on San Francisco Asks: Where Have All the Children Gone?
Yes, the city got rid of school buses.

BUT, they still keep the different morning start times left over from bussing. Some schools start at 7:30, some 8:15, some 9 - these are all things you have to consider when picking your lottery list.

Just for the record, we picked 30 schools and spent oct & nov touring schools. The system is ridiculous and a failed experiment in my mind.

equalarrow··on Turbo Pascal Compiler (2013)
One day, when I was still in high school, my dad brought home a DEC mini (dunno which one). It had 2 8" floppy drives and an actualy terminal that would sit on top. When you would turn it on, it had these 2 huge fans in the back that sounded like an airliner taking off. It was still in its 8u rack chassis.

When I turned it on for the first time, it booted off of what must have been some kind of rom and dropped straight into UCSD Pascal. I was programming at home at the time via Basic & 6502 assembly, and when I saw the Pascal prompt, I was like, awesome! (I had a class at school using Turob Pascal)

I spent a lot of weekends in our cold garage (over the winter) hacking on that machine. I wish I would have saved some pictures. I made a star trek type game and (my fav at the time) a database ala dBase.

Good times..

(Mobile typo edits)

equalarrow··on Lyra: a platform for deep, meaningful conversations with people you care about
Sounds good, thanks for the reply. I guess my only other question on this is how portable can/will/is the data if someone wants to leave?
equalarrow··on Lyra: a platform for deep, meaningful conversations with people you care about
First off, this is great timing since I'm removing my facebook account (which I never use anymore).

I still feel like it would be nice to have something like a feed for my close members of my family. I can use IM to send messages to my parents, but a feed wld be nicer maybe.

I've played around with ideas like this in regards to non-profits, not having ads, keeping data private, and going long term. I'm not sure if the authors can post their tech stack, but I'm sorta scratching my head wondering what their stack requirements are and how $4/year will keep this going for a long time.

And while we're at it, how long is the plan? Decades? I only ask because in the way corps operate now, everything is short term. Outside of the megaliths (Google, Apple, FB), how many companies with your data can claim to be multi-generational? I ask this seriously, thx.

equalarrow··on What I Wish I'd Known About Equity Before Joining a Unicorn
Great post and I totally agree. I recently talked to my financial advisor about my current company and we went through all the numbers for various pricing scenarios (of a public offering) over the next 4-6 year, at various valuations. From his point of view, he encourages me to stay the course - quite the opposite from most of the tech friends I know (most usually don't stick around after a few years).

On a side note, I haven't used it in a long time, but why all the hate on Jira? I mean, I remember it does everything including making my breakfast for me, but is it really that bad? I don't remember it being that bad, but maybe others would like to chime in on why they like/dislike it?

equalarrow··on Why are we all moving away from Apple?
I see this type of comment a lot. It's not just iOS, Android now has a review process and Google will keep driving in the Apple direction because it is successful. And if it's like the op says where everythig is in the cloud, then walled gardens don't matter much as long as your service has a native app or mobile web (hint, they probably have both).

What's the really big issue is privacy (which I know is gone) and what facebook is doing to the world. Everyone likes to bash on Apple lately, but Apple is 'acquiring' a lot less of your personalized data than the social networks and Google are (they are also trying to take the lead in being privacy first).

Facebook is just a big ad platform and dont forget 'free' == you are the product.

equalarrow··on Atlassian acquires Trello for $425M
Yah, we're fighting this too. We have back and forth with various devs on our team - some use github, we all have to use Tracker.

Just curious as to what you think Github could do to fix this. I have a list of wishes and I'm always curious what other people have.

equalarrow··on Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
Because there is a massive difference between sharing revenues / idea and making a business profitable off a clone.

You could copy a lot of ideas out there right now, but that is the smallest part (in my mind) in making a business out of it. The coding and 'making' of the product, is actually the smallest part.

Getting any consistent revenue, marketing, growing your user base, reducing churn - those are all much harder than actually building or copying something.

There are _many_ ideas on github right now with real working code & permissible licenses you could just grab and try to make a business with. So why aren't there profitable, sustainable businesses popping up all over because of this? (Hint: coding is not the hard part, idea is not the hard part)

equalarrow··on Easy 6502 – How to get started writing 6502 assembly language
I loved this so much that I bookmarked it to my home screen. I used to do 6502 assembly as a kid. My biggest achievement with it was creating a database application (I had spent the summer doing some data entry work with dBase and loved the idea).

I can't wait to get my son into all this stuff. 8-bit Basic first, then assembly. I think he's gonna love it and I love the fact that people still enjoy the 6502.

So much history and memories with the machines it powered..

equalarrow··on Ask HN: What web framework do you use? Why did you choose it?
Rails because I've been using it for a lonnnng time. Last month I got a subscription to stationcode.net and it's been handy for code gen. Talked to the owner and he said more is on the way.
equalarrow··on Tim Cook assures employees that Apple is committed to the Mac
The only wm I loved and stuck with on Linux was Windowmaker. Your comment is why - NeXTStep was awesome and missed..
equalarrow··on How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists
Most of the people I work with use Python, Swift/Obj-C, Sketch, and Ruby. Every single one has a Mac laptop. I don't see any of these people switching soon.

I've played around with Linux (Elementary and Fedora) and it's usable for most of the Ruby and Python guys, but it's just not the same. Not the same attention to detail (even with macOS shortcomings) and not the same apps.

Windows 10, similar thing. It's getting better, but it still feels overly complicated and kludgy.

macOS isn't the be all end all - it still has its issues, but I don't see anyone but the hardcore crowd defecting anytime soon. I think a lot would have to change at Apple in order for this to happen. Like, several cpu series behind or just blatant massive missteps. (Some would argue these have happened, but I don't think so yet.)

equalarrow··on Bootstrapping a SaaS Startup from Scratch 
"How ironic of you showing in the particular post. He's precisely referring to people like you and your illegitimate interviewees at IndieHackers who all claim to be overnight successes."

This is a complete bullshit statement.

I've read every interview and Csallen has made on IH - it's a solid site with great interviews. I haven't read anywhere where he or any of the interviewees has claimed overnight success. Quite the opposite really. He's done a lot of hard work.

I don't think he's misrepresented anything and he built a great site. I wish him all the best!

equalarrow··on AirPods are now available
My only problem with these is they're not comfortable. No, I have not worn a pair, but the speaker part is just like the current standard headphones and I've never found those comfortable. I think the pairing and siri integration, etc is all nice though.

I still have a $25 pair of Sony earbuds I bought in an airport store years ago. They are comfortable, sound great and have the mic support. Sure, they have the cord which is annoying, but I've tried Shure, Bose and a lot other wired & bluetooth earbuds and none of them sound as good as the Sony pair I have.

It's too bad Apple didn't include some kind of silicone adapter for comfort because if they did, I would consider the AirPods. But again, they're just uncomfortable.

Oh, and my wife likes her Apple headphones because they let a lot of outside sounds in. That's another reason I don't like the Apple headphones and I have a pair of Beats for noise canceling when I want it. I didn't see anywhere that the AirPods had noise canceling, so you're probably going to hear a lot of background noise when using them.

equalarrow··on Why Kakoune – The quest for a better code editor
I don't want to belittle anyone's work or inventions, but I think modal editors are old and outdated. They've had their time in my mind.

Bret Victor gave a great talk about programming and tools: https://vimeo.com/36579366

His talks always blow me away.

equalarrow··on Things You Notice When You Quit the News
I remember specifically one day, I think in Oct '11 walking up the stairs from the train station and seeing someone reading a newspaper with some heading like 'US is going to look at invading Iraq for 9/11'. I just remember thinking _WHY_, that didn't make any sense.

Of course we all now know, but it was just so weird to see that because I knew it had little to do with any of what was going on (I also knew Saddam was an ally before).

But, such is the bizarro world we live in now.

equalarrow··on Things You Notice When You Quit the News
Or just dropping out of facebook and having face to face relationships with those that matter most. That's what I did and I don't feel any worse for it. My relationships are better too because they're actually real.
equalarrow··on Things You Notice When You Quit the News
> Paying attention to current events and bearing witness to some of the darkest aspects of human history is important at a societal level and if you don't think it is important to you personally then consider yourself lucky to live a life where the real world doesn't creep in often.

But, how do you even know what really happens? Mainstream news is ridiculous in its intent because it literally is "if it thinks it stinks, if it bleeds it leads". There is nothing good to get from mainstream news. Nothing. Sliced and diced to the most emotional snippets you could conceive of.

I feel bad for people that just get trampled on from all over the world, but that's as far as I let it go. During the 2nd Bush election I went all out, I was into trying to 'make a difference'. I protested, traveled, got involved with local and national groups, was surveilled, and literally was putting my safety on the line to try to make the world a better place.

In the end, he still got re-elected and some of the most corrupt people in U.S. history continued their rampage. It was bad enough the first time, but the second time completely just blew away my foundation of what I thought was just in the world. I never trusted the news or politicians after that. They are not here for 'us'. They ALL have an agenda whether you like it or not. There is such a disconnect between 'content' and real people - it's pathetic and there's no where that that comes out more than from tv.

After all of this, I've decided to just act locally and contribute to causes that want to fight the good fight but, in my mind, are in for a lot of suffering and struggle (eff, aclu, center for human rights, amnesty, etc). It takes a toll on one when you are struggling and it's nonstop uphill.

My wife and friends are always coming up to me with the latest tragedy that has surfaced on facebook. family members, the latest shooting or crash, or death or whatever. I choose to remove myself from all of this because it does _no good_ to me and for me.

Unless I actually go to those places and involve myself with those struggles (see point 5 in op), then I'm just fooling myself by being 'concerned'.

Tv and news is a waste of precious time and there are much better ways to affect and change the world than being sedentary and 'informed' yet doing nothing.

equalarrow··on Confessions of an Instagram Influencer
Well, honestly, I'm not sure how anyone could expect any of this to be genuine or real.. Sure, there are a lot of normal folks posting normal, routine things on social networks, but Instagram was not purchased for $1b to be a mirror of real life (or is it??). Twitter is a public company, with shareholders and revenue they have to make. While we have all become acclimated to 'free' products and expect them, typically if it's free, you are the product.

I stopped using social media because we probably do have to question every interaction - unless you physically know the person.

I have spent time over the past few years in marketing and nothing in that world is genuine. I bet most people on all the social networks with a significant following are trying to sell something at some point. This isn't meant to be cynical, just realistic. And with (what I've read) 20%+ fake accounts on facebook - what do you think most of those are for? They're not to propel society and humanity forward.

I'm ok not being an easy 'influencer' via likes or follows. I prefer to influence and engage with colleagues and friends is the slow, real world. At the end of the day, I don't have any guilt that I've potentially ripped anyone off and when my head hits the pillow, I don't feel compelled to be checking my phone.

There are ways to not be a luddite and have meaningful relationships through technology helping. But technology being the only driver, in my mind, is just not real.

And I actually build technology every day, so I don't say any of this lightly. My biggest challenge in the coming years is to help my kids find balance when they reach that point of wanting a phone. I am not looking forward to that because the odds are stacked against 'the old guy'..

equalarrow··on Apple Abandons Development of Wireless Routers
Exactly. I have a few things wired in the house where they're actually close enough to a switch. But for phones and tables and laptops (we have several), wired is not an option.

This is also shitty news because I had very high confidence that an Apple router would not ship with any kind of malware or other crap I don't need. Now, I have to find something better, comparable in price, and works well with Mac household.. Sad face.

equalarrow··on Ask HN: Restarting the YC Podcast – who would be most interesting to listen to?
Agreed. I'm still scratching my head on why he would back Trump. Reading Zero to One right now and it's great.

But, I guess there's just stuff I don't know about Trump that would make Thiel support him. I'm not trying to say this in a negative way - I just am trying to figure out the connection(s).

So if you could get him on a podcast talking about this, it would be awesome!

equalarrow··on What Pro Computing Could Be
This is true of macOS as well now. You can defer it, but you're nagged pretty consistently. There was a time I remember when installing updates on OS X didn't require a reboot unless it an os update. Now, so many things are tied together.

This doesn't require a system reboot, but if you're updating Xcode, you can't if iTunes is open. I understand shared libs and things, but I don't really see that much difference anymore between rebooting for Windows updates and macOS updates. YMMV I guess.

equalarrow··on The Steve Jobs email that outlined Apple’s strategy a year before his death
But now it looks like Microsoft is figuring it out. Azure is doing great, the Surface Pro got more love than the MBPro, and Microsoft is actually courting developers with VS.

Google? They prob have the best AI, but I'm sorta skeptical that the Pixel is gonna work for them. They've never been able to brand and command like Apple has in this regard. For cloud though, they destroy Apple still.

equalarrow··on The Steve Jobs email that outlined Apple’s strategy a year before his death
I had a buddy who dreamed about this when the iPad first came out.

Swift Playgrounds is a first step in that direction. There's still a lot of work to do, but you can technically write Swift on an iPad right now, so why not just add an IDE that will compile directly to device (no simulator required).

Would I be surprised to see this happen for an iPad 'Pro' a few years down the line? Nope, not at all, especially given how Apple touted that the Pro cpu specs can take on tasks once reserved for "workstations and PCs".

equalarrow··on Switching from macOS: The Basics
Totally agree with this. Except, I've never liked the KDE look and feel. It's like the worst glossy cartoon ui ever. Yuk. To be fair, I haven't looked at it recently, so the gloss might have been toned down or removed.

But to your point of bug fixing, I absolutely agree. macOS is plagued by this as well, but mot to the degree Linux DE's are.

I've used multiple desktops since the 90's and loved it. macOS has had support for a while, but the animation switching from desktop to desktop was horrendous. I got a utility to fix that, but it's a joke they don't just include a checkbox to toggle the animations. This is one huge UX fail in my mind.

equalarrow··on Switching from macOS: The Basics
Fedora is ahead of RedHat server, kernel and package-wise. That's the point: pish the edge with the desktop, keep the server conservative and very stable.

RedHat makes their money on support licensing for the server. Employees are paid to work on Fedora, but it is not the RedHat product.

equalarrow··on Switching from macOS: The Basics
I think this is one big problem with the OSS community: there is no concept of 'value'.

People complain about iOS' race to the bottom, but in the OSS community, I frel like this has been there for a long time. "You want to _charge me for it_ ?! Pffft!"

We may complain about macOS now with Sierra but for thr most part, macOS has been stable for a long time. I haven't seen a kernel panic in probably a decade. Not saying it's perfect, but there's a point you hit when people are paid to make things happen and macOS hit that point yeats ago.

I would argue Elementary provides a lot of value and should therefore weed out the complainers and worst of the bunch by charging. I would remove the 'pay what you want' and just charge $30 or $40.

We don't live in the Star Trek universe yet, so people still need money to live. I fully believe in and support companies, individuals, and groups that provide a good value for what they charge.

I _want_ those people making great things and doing it full time. Otherwise, you just get abandonware or crappy products where people don't fix bugs because they have a day job to deal with. That's the reality in my mind.

equalarrow··on Return of the Mac (2005)
Yah, I definitely hear ya. I'm totally scratching my head on the power things. The fact that they invented MagSafe and then toss it because of the C connector really boggles my mind. Especially since a 3rd party - Griffin - made their own tear away magnetic connector. And again, no cord for the brick seems really idiotic too. I just don't get that. Those things were _progress_.

I don't mind getting new connectors. I wasn't outraged at no headphone jack on my iPhone, even though I listen to my earbuds every day. Ok, so I need a little 2" dongle, big deal. Apple used the space for other things, cool, makes sense, moving on. An all C-style port MBPro, ok, that's fine with me. Progress. Move on and I'll take the latest Thunderbolt speeds.

But, the touch bar, yah, I dunno. One one hand, I was totally one of those people that, when I saw the iPhone and Steve said we're going to use a virtual kbd, I was like, awesome, makes sense, move on. Touch bar I _could_ see some cool uses. I do like the touch id part. That seems useful. I would agree tho on underwhelmed on specs that were late and raising the price. I've always maxed out my Mac laptops, so they've always been expensive, but technology is supposed to get cheaper every year and besides touch bar, there's no real new tech in the MBPro.

I like Tim Cook, no grudge against him. But it does feel like the peak of Apple innovation is over. iPhones are all just incremental every year. Apple TV is like, meh (even tho I have one and that's all we use on our tv). The Mac Pro is stagnating while Microsoft (of all companies) actually released a kick ass looking new desktop - hell hath frozen over. Apple has exited the screen business. Their Airports, which once (a long time ago) were really good, are now just meh. I have all these products and more and there is now a definite push going on to dumb down of all their products in regards to the Pro user. The sun is setting on us.

I'm not horrified by this per se since what really seems to be going on is Apple is milking it now. They probably have another 5-10 years where they can do this, but after a while, I think people in general are going to start looking for alternatives. Developers I work with are already talking about this - the influencers are on the move.

All a company has to do is create a good enough MBPro circa 2010 with modern specs, clean up Elementary so it looks less like a cartoon desktop, and get some bigger name native apps and they would be set. If you could enable 'grandparents mode' while keeping pro mode in tact, then the influencers might be able to recommend it.

equalarrow··on Return of the Mac (2005)
Yah, I think Windows has gotten a lot better since the Vista days. But, VS - I was trying out porting some iOS Obj-C to run on Windows. Impressive that it actually worked, but VS was like, blech.

Granted, Xcode is a piece of crap too - it's so buggy and unstable a lot of the time. But I can at least read or figure out what's going on. VS, tiny fonts, things you can't read, tons of "what's this for?" configuration.

After my playing around with it (and I used the first few versions of VC years ago) I was thinking, yah, I don't think I could get into this dev environment again.. :-\

equalarrow··on Return of the Mac (2005)
Hmm, I've never worked at a company where this was a requirement. In fact, I've worked at companies where the majority of the time, the developer environments never came close to the production environments.

What has mattered most is that a staging env mirror the prod env. This I have experienced and built numerous times. Also, an integration env between development and staging has also been fairly common.

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