traviswingo

I actually started doing this about a year ago and it was the best thing I've ever done for me mentally. I purchased 12 of the same shirts, three pairs of the same jeans and two pairs of the same shoes.

I found that, not only am I not worrying about what to wear in the mornings and focusing more on important problems, I'm more confident around others. I forgot how influenced our wardrobe choices are by our peers. I used to dress while dwelling in the future, which is a recipe for anxiety. Now, I put on the same thing every morning, on autopilot, and think about a problem I'm trying to solve.

It's really working great for me.

Oh yeah, startup founders with venture backing aren't biased about this topic...

This happened at one of the first startups I worked at also. They were burning through a ridiculous amount of capital on AWS silly charges here and there. I think they were spending somewhere in the range of 5-6x what they really should have been spending just because they were "testing" features and forgetting about them.

It's why all of my projects sit on DO and I only really use Route 53 from AWS.

Do we know the acquisition price?

I meant things that pertain to longevity - like jellyfish that don't die but simply "restart" their lives, or regeneration. If you look at tardigrades, there is a lot that is possible that we cannot yet do. But yeah, I understand where you're going.

I'm a huge believer that humans can cherry-pick the best traits of many different species and apply them to ourselves. It might sound like science fiction right now, bit give it time and we humans will have unlocked some crazy things that we claimed to be "impossible." It's always impossible until it's done. And to be honest, I think the second something is thought of, it becomes possible. I live for this shit.

I feel like people are upvoting this without following the link and looking first...

I concur in that performance and security are very important in building software. I would, however, opt for a less performant version of a product if that means releasing it a couple months earlier than the alternative.

I think it's possible to build very well performing applications on a tool like Electron, and once the market has proven that your product is in heavy demand, then you can re-approach it and decide to go native or revamp it using some lower level tools.

Yeah...I could do without the RAM munchers.

Well done!

I can understand the author's frustration with popular tools being very simple and somewhat overkill underneath, but I almost take it as a sense of frustration with himself.

Electron was built to ship products as soon as possible. Most of the time, no one gives a flying fuck if the tech stack is the "right" choice and as efficient as it can be. I'd be willing to bet my net worth your users don't care at all how you built it, just that it does what they want it to do.

In the end, for most companies, it's more about shipping product that sells than spending 5x more time writing it in C# because "you're an engineer so you should act like an engineer." That's not how the world works. And until you figure that out, you'll constantly be left behind by others who made compromises to capitalize on the market.

Early optimization is the root of all evil.

Yeah. I've tested it before and it looks very promising, but I'm not sure the overhead is necessary for my use case. I'll need to run some tests against all options and figure out where the equilibrium lies between cost (size, memory, price, etc.) and functionality/ux.

I have looked into libpostal. I'm not sure the overhead is completely necessary for my use case. Since posting I've toyed with usaddress and it seems nice. It's a python library so I've had to pull it into my project (node.js) with a child process but it seems to work very well.

Thanks. I found this after adding the reply below since I felt the need to verify :)

I'm automatically parsing the user input and using the geocoding api data output to link their address with their account, and then I'm charging for services that are placed by using this address. I'm currently under the impression that automatic parsing without using the data in a Google Map is against the TOS, but haven't been able to verify this 100%.

I always go with the stack that I'm most comfortable with, unless I'm using an existing stack at a company I'm working for. Learning a new stack because it's "popular" is a recipe for disaster if you're incorporating into a product you want to use or want to charge others to use. You'll spend time trying to figure out how to do things that you already know how to do in another stack.

Any stack will get the job done. Use the one that yields you a shippable product in the end.

My stack is ExpressJS, AngularJS, PostgreSQL, NGINX, DigitalOcean, Route53, PM2. And I fly through it.

First let me say that I don't smoke marijuana. I'm not a fan.

Now, I'm glad that this happened. Franky, I was sick of so much attention and focus on something so harmless. There are horrific problems in this world that need to be solved, and some high people drinking Slurpees on a couch watching cartoons shouldn't be the focus of our attention. Plus, the tax on this will bring a lot of revenues into the state.

I would honestly refrain from telling people you were fired in that case, and simply state you were laid off. I would then begin to infer that something fishy was going on internally and that you're probably better off not being involved with the company anymore.

It really sounds to me like management didn't know how to deal with the situation and a "performance review" was simply their scapegoat, and not the reality of why they let you go. I wouldn't be surprised if you were performing at a high level and they were just trying to cut the team down to the originals. These things happen all the time. Good luck to you!

I get the sense that many commenters misinterpreted the point of this study. This isn't about show-boating some newfound, great cryptography method, this is about teaching computers to re-write their own code.

If you can write software that improved itself better over time, our species as a whole would advance at incredible speeds. Think about all the possibilities that could evolve from self-maintained programs. Obviously the thought is a bit scary, but it's also incredibly exciting!

http://traviswingo.com is my personal site.

I built an interactive unix-based terminal to navigate my projects and resume. I'm planning on adding a better layout though since it's been pointed out to me that the people actually looking at my site to hire me won't know what to do with a terminal :p.

I used to always "wince" when I had to use Windows or other Microsoft software. Now, Windows 10 is an absolute dream over previous versions, Office is pretty much second to none, and Microsoft's initiatives into hardware (Halolens) are pretty damn awesome. I'd say the company has made me into a non-hater again.

The pain point Pulse solves is the difficulty that developers have in accessing user utility account data. As much as there has been a push for programs like green button connect, these programs will only be touched if the utility has some sort of monetary compensation for doing so. The adoption rate has been annoyingly slow, which is why applications that better educate users on energy usage and consumption haven't been built.

Opower is actually an example of what could be built using Pulse. Opower provides a data driven breakdown to customers to educate them on their energy usage - these are the types of tools I'm hoping to make easier to build in the future. There definitely aren't enough tools like that, and energy efficiency is a huge problem that needs to be solved.

This service focuses heavily on the solar installer side to provide a quick way to quote customer on new solar installations.

Pulse focuses on developers.

I think the worst part about this is that I wasn't even surprised throughout the entire story. Anyone who has been a freelancer has dealt with the random, uncalled for threats from clients to give you a bad review or try to suspend your account. It's the reason I gave up on working on platforms like Upwork and Freelancer almost immediately.

Building a personal network is way easier to find contract work and you'll make more money in the end while creating real relationships that will help you foster your career.

I'm sorry this happened to you, and I'm super glad you revealed this persons name publicly. Good form.

I've just updated the details with a couple examples. The goal isn't to tell people what to build, but to make it easier for them to build things. I figure, lower barriers to entry and watch the possibilities unfold.

This is a really important advancement in circuits. We were reaching the physical limits of silicon and it was only a matter of time before we would have to find an alternative to continue the upward trends of transistor performance.

Ah I see now. That makes sense. I wasn't aware of those, but it's cool to know people can't mess with the upvotes that easily. Thanks for clarifying.

Where did I ask people to do that?

We have to register as a company with a tax ID. We plan to open it up as a flat subscription model based on the amount of requests required. There will be a free "developer" plan that allows unlimited use with request limits.