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tomorgan

1,387 karma · joined June 13, 2012

Blog: http://thoughtstuff.co.uk
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tomorgan··on If you're going to vibe code, why not do it in C?
I expect this has been said before, but why not do it in whatever language you think has been written about the most, with the greatest amount of referenceable data and examples. Which probably isn't assembly, and probably not C either.

Which will probably store up a problem for the future, with an outsized amount of programs written in languages that were popular on SO when models started learning...

tomorgan··on Josh Topolsky of The Verge Is Joining Bloomberg
Wow. I guess we'll never know the full facts, but I didn't think that was a move which the Josh Topolsky I thought I knew from Engaget/ThisIsMyNext/Verge podcasts would have made.

Just goes to show: you never really know people. Or, of course, that every man has his price ;)

Unless there's going to be a techie Bloomberg podcast - I'll miss Josh's work.

@TheVerge: hopefully you can now put all this behind you, and crank it into second gear. There's still so much potential in what you have.

tomorgan··on Facebook was down
lol at "down in Wales" making it a pretty big "down"

j/k ;)

tomorgan··on Facebook was down
and from here (UK)
tomorgan··on Suicidal Software Developer
About the only useful part of this response is: I feel for you. I understand what you're going through, and I'm going to try and convince you to stick with it.

The rest of this: well, take it or leave it.

Sounds like you've managed to coincide two bad things in one go: a bad place in your career, and a bad place in your relationship. You've ended up with a double-whammy, so it's hit you hard.

From (limited) experience, I'd say let the relationship thing sort itself out. I know how it feels now: and it'll take 6 months before you wake up and go through the day, and then realise that you didn't think about it all day. That's when you know you're over it. Until then, just accept it. There are no shortcuts.

Meanwhile, focus on the job. It's the thing you CAN change. If you don't like it, change it. Maybe, even if it's "ok"... change it anyway. You need something that will distract, excite and occupy you for the next 6 months.

That's what I did anyway (also from the UK, also sporting a beard and feeding a cat). Change the career if you need to, because it's easier. Go and do something that makes you happy, for short-term (and long-term) happiness. The rest will sort itself out.

just my 2p

tomorgan··on Freelancer keeps degrading the coder experience
OK... so go make a better Freelancer. We're uniquely gifted in that if we don't like or agree with something, we can go and do different.
tomorgan··on Major U.K. Real-Time Train Database Opens Up To More Developers
nothing about our trains is "Real Time".
tomorgan··on Ballmer sells windows1.0
It wasn't a very constructive OP! I've watched it about 10 times though. Is that "except in Nebraska" at the end? Is that a tax/sales restriction thing? (I'm not US based)
tomorgan··on Microsoft CEO Ballmer's full goodbye note to staff
His own stock just went up $1B from when he announced. That must be depressing, in a good sort of way.
tomorgan··on Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months
This story is Developing, Developing, Developing...
tomorgan··on Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months
Is it too soon to start discussing who is going to replace him? Any thoughts? I'm guessing not Sinofsky...
tomorgan··on US court rules masking IP address to access blocked Website violates law
and that, kids, is why making APIs is so darn important!
tomorgan··on Vine-1-1: Call 911 while you vine
I can't work out if I'm appalled, or reluctantly admitting that this will probably become popular.

A service to allow real time video calls direct to EMS would at least have a useful application. This is just rubber necking. Please don't expect me to like all your vines of mangled road traffic victims.

tomorgan··on Ask PG: How would you react if the NSA asked you to open up your HN database?
I think the problem is that, by the time the NSA ask, it's too late. That's why these companies are prematurely shutting down, they realise this. The only way to avoid handing over the data is to get rid of it before anyone comes asking for it.

The short answer to the question is: nothing. You can do nothing. Apart from a film-style hitting-a-big-red-button-deleting-all-data-irrevocably-and-starting-a-small-basement-fire ... but that would probably land you a lifetime of prison.

tomorgan··on What to do while waiting on my incorporation?
Either start putting together blog posts, so you can continue to pump out good content even after you get too busy to write it (technical, domain based, but "proper" article, not just puff pieces) , or adding features.

Although you should arguably wait on adding features until you get feedback.

I'm still at the 'building MVP' stage, but I have an Evernote file called "Awesome things to do to product when done" with links to ideas, products, blogs etc I see as I'm going along but don't have time to do now, or it's not appropriate to do now.

For instance, it was announced yesterday that Stripe is coming to the UK, so that blog post has gone into my list so that when I come to add payment, I don't have to think too hard about options. (Actually, thinking about it, you could certainly be coding the Stripe stuff now, even though you don't have the bank account in place... you know you're going to need it)

tomorgan··on Github is down again
seriously, are we going to get a HN submission every time github gets DDOS'd?

I think we all know there's a problem now, and if github is acting up, we'll check the status page. Not sure we need a submission every time...

tomorgan··on How Happier treats its interns
It's great to see a positive working experience on HN. There's lots of "why I quit" and "help, I'm drowning" experiences, but this one has made me a lot ... Happier?

Good job, and thank you. I'm downloading your app now.

tomorgan··on Bebo is back (video)
A funny video demonstrating that Beebo isn't, in fact, growing up at all.

+1 for "possibly the largest collection of cock and balls"

tomorgan··on If Amazon is the future of work, then be afraid
I think it's just capitalism, and economics.

Consumers are constantly pushing down the prices on everything, expecting more and more for less and less. Faced with this reality, companies have to streamline and become more effective in order to succeed and profit. This is what Amazon are doing.

We moan about having to pay for baggage, choosing seats, food and even using the bathroom on flights now - but this is solely because of our want to push down the headline price of flights. The price has been reduced...but the cost is still there.

AFAIK, Amazon aren't doing any illegal, they're just working very efficiently.

tomorgan··on No shooting at protest? Police may block mobile devices via Apple
How would this even work?

At it's simplest: enable Airplane Mode, record a bunch of stuff, reconnect and transmit.

They'd have so many hoops to jump through to try and keep it on during Airplane Mode I think that it wouldn't be worth it.

tomorgan··on 'Safety issues' prompt Apple charger trade-in programme
+1 to Apple here - they don't have to do this.

But maybe it's the cheapest way to: a)deal with fake chargers b)turn a -ve story into a +ve c) still sell chargers at a profit.

tomorgan··on [dead]
I guess related to yesterday's ddos attack (https://status.github.com/messages)

Hope this isn't an Apple style maintenance window whilst they deal with a loss of data....

tomorgan··on Show HN: Please, review my one month project - SiteStatr.com
typo in description on the front page: missing "are": Our team constantly enhancing the functionality of our software and adding new features to provide the best web service.

Also, can you explain how this is different from Alexa - what extra information it provides?

tomorgan··on Luxury toilet users warned of hardware flaw
This is a toilet of a story! In order to effect the "hack" you'd need to be close enough to flush it by hand! Yikes, my toilet at home is susceptible to attack by the same method.

I think if you have an hacker in your bathroom, you have bigger problems.

Flip side: will this spurn a new army of "sanitary hackers" who break into unhygienic bathrooms and flush toilets that the owners have neglected to attend to? Brown-hat hackers?!

tomorgan··on “Please let me know if I should stop developing apps for Google Products”
I think your HN title would suggest otherwise.

I also think there are development enhancements you could make to your application to work around these problems. Maybe you won't get any response from Google until you have 2M users? What are you going to do about it? There have been some excellent suggestions in the comments for working around this (longer waits before retries, premium level retries etc). Do these first, increase user base, then contact Google when it's less easy for them to ignore you.

tomorgan··on Hubot
Hubot has a pretty interesting history, especially when you consider how crucial it is today to the daily operation of stuff at Github. There's a really good interview which has some stuff in it about Hubot from Hanselminutes (with Paul Betts and Justin Spahr-Summers of GitHub): http://www.hanselminutes.com/375/on-culture-and-remoteness-a...
tomorgan··on After Three Months of Using a Standing Desk…
Thanks for the honesty. I'm always about 'the next paycheque' away from getting a standing desk, but never commit to it.

You seem to suggest an anti-fatigue mat was really important - this true? Did you try without it? What happened?

tomorgan··on Developer demands “big contribution” from Microsoft before supporting WP8 and W8
I see it as a non-story. Even if that was what they meant to say (although they seem to have changed their mind since), it's more of an observation of Microsoft's practice of paying established applications to port.

Besides, I'm not sure they're really want to become contractually obliged to produce (and maintain?) a WP port...

tomorgan··on SQL Injection Galore
I think this is a great idea, and an area where someone as big as Github could make a MASSIVE difference. A CodeSmell metric! Allow contributions to add extra smells to langauges, and then it looks after itself.
tomorgan··on Hands on with Bootstrap 3 - A landing page
what are you projected timelines for your book? I need to learn Bootstrap "properly" for a project, sometime in the next 6-12 months, and wondering whether your book will be around in time!