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nmpennypacker

52 karma · joined February 18, 2018

[ my public key: https://keybase.io/nmpennypacker; my proof: https://keybase.io/nmpennypacker/sigs/ES6KvCp45whxUaL4q3-pZYnc7SG1LHaldBImyMD4VKA ]
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nmpennypacker··on Effectiveness of an walking intervention for the prevention of low back pain
I had a disc injury about two years ago, so this is fresh for me. I've always been pretty active and consider myself to be in really good shape, but I started running longer distances leading up to a marathon and bad things happened. I think my hamstrings tightened up, which pulled on other things, and it all came to a head during a golf swing where I could hear an audible crack. Pain was 9/10 and I couldn't stand up straight for a solid month.

After 12 months of trying many things, including 6 months of PT, I believe the following things to be true: - Walking is better than sitting because it gets things moving - Ice as soon as possible if you have a flare-up - Strength core/training is essential. I have always been in good shape from a cardio perspective, but never lifted weights. Now I have 12 weight-lifting exercises that I do 2 sets of 20 at the gym twice per week. Also, I do 40 lunges on a Roman chair at home every day, which my physical therapist told me is the single most important exercise.

It's a lot of work and it takes a lot of time, but I seem to recover faster if I have a flare-up, and they're not as severe. Also, I feel like I'm in better shape overall. It's nice to have some muscle instead of being a noodly-ass dude who can run a long way.

nmpennypacker··on ChatGPT Now Losing Users
I use it only for cooking, but for cooking I absolutely love it. It generates surprisingly good recipes, and I don't have to read a 5000 word story on how someone found and fell in love with the turnip to get them.
nmpennypacker··on Microwaved plastic containers release microplastics into food
Looks like the study was performed on a liquid, so I guess definitely don't microwave soup. Wonder if the effect is the same with a food that doesn't have as much contact with the container. Anyway, like many commenting here, microwaving food with plastic fallen in the "it just seems wrong" category for me, so it's business as usual.
nmpennypacker··on Updating my website from my iPad
Yep, I've updated GitHub pages sites from my phone with the editor many times. Not ideal, but works in a pinch.
nmpennypacker··on Can we make bicycles sustainable again?
Absolutely! I have a Litespeed T1SL, and I'm very happy with it. I've heard great things about Moots bikes as well, but they're about twice the price and they don't make a rim brake model. The main reasons I went with the Litespeed were the rim brakes (I can fix mechanical components myself), and the fact that you can peel off the decals, so the bike looks like fairly generic, minus a badge behind the seatpost and one on the stem tube.
nmpennypacker··on Can we make bicycles sustainable again?
I ride a titanium bike with rim brakes. It was custom made, and relatively expensive ($5,000 USD), but it is the only bike I ride, and it will last my entire lifetime, and more (it will require occasional component upgrades, just like any other bike). Plus, the ride quality is superb. I've found that, as with most things, investing in quality over quantity is the way to go. My bike may have been slightly 'less green' to manufacture, but I only need one, ever.
nmpennypacker··on The creator economy: the top 1% and everyone else
I was thinking the same thing. The repetition of the variations of the phrase "the creator economy...upper echelon of..." are painfully redundant.
nmpennypacker··on Ask HN: What is the most unique website you’ve come across on the internet?
https://oopsallmarquees.com for obvious reasons :)
nmpennypacker··on RIP Stack Overflow Jobs
That's a shame. I've landed two jobs on SO jobs and in my opinion it was extra motivation for maintaining a SO profile and being active in the community - a real one-stop-shop. Sad to see it go. It was the first place I looked when thinking about changing jobs. I particularly liked the 'remote' checkbox, and the fact that you could filter by salary range.
nmpennypacker··on Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?
Atheist here. Yoga, running, and hiking do the trick for me.
nmpennypacker··on Why do we still permit tobacco use? (2015)
I'm a cigar smoker as well and I think it's unfortunate that cigars are often lumped in with other tobacco products.
nmpennypacker··on A Retrospective Look at Mac OS X Snow Leopard
There has only been one UI change since Snow Leopard that I would consider to be an improvement, and that is the option to enable dark mode. Big Sur reminds me of Duplo Legos.
nmpennypacker··on Farewell, macOS
I did this with a ~2011 MacBook Air that came with a 60G hard drive. A couple of years ago I went to upgrade OSX and it turned out I didn't have enough disk space, even with minimal apps installed, so I wiped it, installed Ubuntu and ended up having 45G left over. It was a great way to extend the life of that hardware and I haven't had many issues. The only apps I'm using are terminal and a browser, though.
nmpennypacker··on The vocal ranges of the greatest artists of all time
Bingo. I'm not sure that her rendition of the Star Spangled Banner was taken into consideration by this site.
nmpennypacker··on Ask HN: Is all of FAANG like this?
I don't understand how that's 'ethnically' wrong. Yes, all of FAANG companies are like this. In order to work for these companies you have to become comfortable with the idea of being paid more to do less.

My advice to you would be to pick up a more rewarding side-project, or to use the in-between hours to do something that you enjoy. Ride a bike or something. Think of your main gig as a function to make money. If it's working, and working efficiently, then you have a good function. If you have extra time as a result, use it wisely. Time is your most precious resource, and it is finite.

I spent the first few years of my career as a developer working for startups, and the break-neck pace is thrilling, but the stakes are low - you might break things for a few thousand people, none of whom expect perfection from your application. Think about how many people are potentially affected by a change to (for example) the F codebase. That's why it takes so long to release a one-liner, and justifiably so. For a FAANG company, prudence > professional development. Take the money and run; enjoy your free time and use it wisely.

nmpennypacker··on Linux team approves new terminology, bans terms like 'blacklist' and 'slave'
So is it wrong to use a master branch now? If so, it'll be interesting to see how Git(*) responds to this.
nmpennypacker··on Next dream job can be in an HTTP header
I've seen job links in HTML comments, too. Imgur used to do it. They may still do it, but I'm too lazy to check :)
nmpennypacker··on Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?
I've learned that small businesses generally have high expectations for relatively small amounts of money. As a result, I stopped doing freelance work unless there is a lot of money involved.
nmpennypacker··on Programmers Should Plan for Lower Pay?
Whether or not programming salaries will go up or down in the next x years is anyone's guess. Everyone should plan for lower pay, regardless of what their profession is.

If you get used to living on 1/2 of what you make, or 1/4 of what you make with a partner, you'll pretty much always be fine. Not having kids also helps.

Set the bar low, and plan for the worst. Planning for the worst is also a good practice in programming. :)

nmpennypacker··on Ask HN: PostgreSQL or MySQL?
Personally,PostgreSQL. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, but my standard arguments in favor of Postgres are that it: 1. Enforces data types natively. I've shot myself in the foot before with MySQL and 'polluting' data. 2. JSONB support makes it easy to use a 'hybrid' schema if you want NoSQL-like behavior or a junk drawer to shove JSON into.

Regarding your conversion questions, it's common to have an app that communicates with several databases, but I don't know of any architecture that would allow ACID transactions in two engines simultaneously.

As far as converting data, it all depends on what your development preferences are. I work mostly in the Ruby ecosystem, and I can tell you that I've used ActiveRecord to a Postgres database, and exported the results into a SQLite file. I'm sure it would be possible to use an XML parser like Nokogiri to convert XML into a SQLite file as well. If you prefer another major programming language, the tools likely exist to accomplish the same thing.

nmpennypacker··on Ask HN: Configuration Management for Personal Computer?
I do the same. For me it's as simple as installing ~5 homebrew packages (I can get the same packages for my Linux machines), the Opera browser, and a copy of .bash_profile and .vimrc, which I keep in a Github repo. Having to migrate machines has made me trim down my development toolset significantly. I now know exactly what I need, and can go from fresh machine to the environment I'm accustomed to working with in < 1 hour.
nmpennypacker··on Ask HN: What is your blogging platform of choice in 2018?
Gatsby + Github pages