News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

ludicast

Re:2023: Year in Review on Sunday December 31, 2023 @05:10PM (#38827956)
Big fan of her wizard zines.
Re:Bram Moolenaar Passed Away on Saturday August 05, 2023 @12:49PM (#37013908)
here's hoping he had a .swp
Re:Why Learn Compilers on Monday May 29, 2023 @09:27PM (#36120180)
Very well done. Took a brief glance through your series and seems to cover most of the important deets.
Re:Show HN: JSX Syntax for Jinja Templates on Tuesday January 24, 2023 @05:11AM (#34501790)
very nice!

I play with some of the jinja in rust variants (askama/minijinja/tera - minijinja being by the creator of jinja) and could see this something like this working well there as well.

Re:Vim is touch-typing on steroids on Friday January 13, 2023 @01:31AM (#34364596)
I don't find myself needing the browser too much when I code. Other than to reload a page if I'm tweaking something on the FE.

Not that I know everything, but I view informational browsing as a distraction while programming. The LSP augments most of the knowledge gaps for me.

If vim isn't for you that's cool. But I find other editors for me are this-is-fine.gif.

> Without the promo code people are reluctant to try it.

Yeah, I mean I used the promo code, was just complementing that you hit on something I was jumping into regardless. Feels like most subscription kids apps are $9 a month max (I lost track of all we pay for), but I didn't blink at you being way above.

> We kinda have to know the grade level to send the right books... I haven't heard that as a privacy concern.

I might have slightly misphrased this. Basically some parents would be super involved with an app like this (we tend to be) and want to self-serve a little bit more. As a more extreme example - and not your beachhead customer for sure - there are plenty of adults who read at a low level and would feel more comfortable with there being an "other" option in there.

But I get the opposite side too. It is a lot simpler to have it tied to their school grade. I'm just sort of thinking out loud about removing barriers because I think something like this might be super useful for kids

> What do you mean by it feeling like a growth hack?

Might be a silly point of mine. But I mean by adding anticipation/delays into the mix, even though they are enforced by real-world shipping factors. There are plenty of public domain books - many of which families already own (or can print pdfs of) - that can be there to seed the collection. So the blank library on day 1 is silly.

Also, maybe I am projecting my own anticipation of the box arriving.

Another note, it seems that the requested features (privacy levels and interests) are not available for edit after registering.

Sounds like a great app, was hoping for something like this & immediately signed up

Initial onboarding flow comments

- nice product/market fit - I almost missed the promo code but wouldn't have been a barrier to paying

- imagine that at 25/mo (+ another 25 for books) it's also kind of expensive for families who are impoverished and might need it more (believe lockdowns were way way worse for their kids).

- felt like there weren't enough "none of your business" options. Like I have 2 kids of different age but similar reading levels. Even though they go to actual schools, I just selected that they were homeschooled to preserve some privacy

- wasn't clear how to handle siblings. I went with setting the options based on the one who needs it more and hopefully it doesn't get confused by both a girl's voice and a boy's voice (edit: after signing up I see the add-a-child option in the online profile)

- this should have been more clear: "Can Ello use audio recordings to provide additional features and to improve the service?". I selected no, even though I would have wanted my kid's voices saved to make the experience better for them. I just felt a single checkbox was insufficient here because there should be multiple levels of privacy+information implied (and where kids are involved that's way more sensitive an issue)

- annoying that after signing up there was no preview book available in the app, just a sad & lonely "hurry up and wait" page. would be great if there were immediately some books that they could read in case they already had them home or in the library (go with something popular here). otherwise it feels like a growth hack is being used on my kids

But looking forward. My kids really enjoy math+chess apps (esp the dragonbox family) and we usually work IRL to reinforce what the apps teach (also Epic and some others). Happy to share more thoughts, esp once they get to playing with it.

Re:I have reached Vim nirvana on Wednesday December 28, 2022 @02:38PM (#34164935)
100%. Astronvim gives me everything I'd ever want from an IDE, plus with another dozen or so lines of config I make it my own.
Re:Ask HN: How did you stop drinking? on Wednesday October 12, 2022 @07:53AM (#33175617)
> I actually have beer in my fridge and wine from before the pandemic ... so I'm pretty sure I don't have a problem anymore.

Lol well said

Re:Ask HN: How did you stop drinking? on Wednesday October 12, 2022 @07:42AM (#33175518)
That's where I heard about it too!

Very simple book and loved her talking about it. She possibly saved lives just by sharing her story.

Never been a smoker but the take that it's marketed as addictive is something I never considered

Re:Ask HN: How did you stop drinking? on Wednesday October 12, 2022 @07:12AM (#33175281)
Lot of wisdom here. I agree with everything you wrote.
Re:Ask HN: How did you stop drinking? on Wednesday October 12, 2022 @07:05AM (#33175244)
This naked mind is a great recommendation.

I drank about half as often as you.

Enough to want to cut back, not enough to let me hit rock bottom.

Have gradually been moving towards sobriety myself if only because I'm finally taking it a little more seriously.

Huberman rec is great too.

Re:Ask HN: How did you stop drinking? on Wednesday October 12, 2022 @07:02AM (#33175214)
That's what I do. At least put some level of effort between you and alcohol.
Re:Daily coffee may benefit the heart on Thursday March 24, 2022 @07:19PM (#30796744)
This is always my thought as well.

I believe coffee drinkers are less likely to commit suicide too, which definitely would align with the purpose a job gives you (fwiw).

Re:Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice? on Monday December 27, 2021 @08:24AM (#29702288)
I'm generally apatheistic, but live as if a more playful zen buddhism is "spiritually correct". Closer to church of Dudism if you've ever seen that parody religion.

I barely meditate anymore, but think a few minutes of it is a handy daily practice. At least to have in your back pocket

Re:Ask HN: How to break the habit of bad financial management? on Saturday December 04, 2021 @06:15AM (#29440160)
If at the beginning, Dave Ramsey. His baby steps helped us tremendously. You really only need a few watchings to get it, and he has a great presentation style.

I'm not a Christian, so the evangelical parts were odd. But they did get the passion across in a more memorable way.

My masked son had a low pulse ox in his checkup. About 80, the same number that with covid should necessitate a hospital visit.

Supposedly a lot of kids have needed to demask to get a good pulse ox. As a parent this terrifies me.

I dont think you realize how unpopular the masks and lockdowns are among people. Especially when it comes to kids being masked.

I believe the platform for the right has consolidated to - ending mask/lockdown/mandate - letting parents have a voice in their children's school agendas - making fun of runaway inflation

This is going to be difficult to run against, in many states besides "Mississippi".

Re:Ask HN: Do you know any good audio books for developers? on Saturday December 21, 2019 @04:53PM (#21853561)
I could see that, especially if it was read by him.

Watched one of his pluralsight on docker a few years back, remember his speech patterns were really cool.

Re:Scott Adams Has Some Ideas for a Calmer Internet on Saturday November 30, 2019 @09:14PM (#21673373)
It's really easy to "mindread" that somebody is doing something for malicious reasons.

But that's frequently enough incorrect. Setting up a "virtual truce" where we all forgive quick apologies leaves us a little happier IMHO. Yeah we might be a tiny bit naive for this, and some bank robbers might slip through the cracks, but a less anap-judgy world is a nicer place to be overall (at least from my experience).

Over the years, I've really come to appreciate Penn Jillette as a public person. Always pops up with new interests and insights.

Believe it or not, something about his recent appearance on Rogan inspired me to cut down my drinking. Just the way he made a life of temperance seem aspirationally cool (and not just cool in a Christian rock sort of way)

Great idea, not sure why you're bored down. The slow as shit FDA has killed more people than Stalin.
Re:We Need a Safer Systems Programming Language on Thursday July 18, 2019 @07:16PM (#20474912)
Scala native seems promising. Would love to see monad hipsters dancing with bare metal.
Agree with your math choices. Professor Leonard is an underrated workhorse - every few months I refresh my knowledge on his channel.
Re:How to parent more predictably (2018) on Thursday June 13, 2019 @10:53AM (#20175443)
Thank you for recommending this. I'm going to try this method with my "less easy" kid.
Re:More evidence that autism is linked to gut bacteria on Saturday June 01, 2019 @07:12AM (#20068627)
2016 is calling :)
Re:Turing as a Runner (1999) on Friday March 22, 2019 @09:56PM (#19468573)
Pretty sure Turing was a tremendous runner so seems a true reflection of that at least.
Anarchism.

Seriously.

Once you embrace the chaos, all of the toxicity is practically pornographic.

Tragedies are sad though. Just take comfort that they are less frequent all the time.

I'm not a doctor, but I have had valve-sparing aortic root replacement surgery done myself. think the reason the valve wasn't done was maybe

1) it's a big decision that the surgeon might not have felt comfortable making

2) there are safer valve replacements coming out (neither metal nor animal) that the FDA (in America) should eventually be approving. This caused one surgeon I'd spoken to to wisely delay the decision. Perhaps this article is describing the specific valve but it seemed to be metal.

3) I dont know how bad the regurgitation is on the valve, it might not have been time

My 0.02 - see the absolute best surgeon you can get for this (in NYC his name is Takayama, don't know where you are). And depending on your root/valve dance, get a "gated ct-scan" rather then a run of the mill that most doctors recommend.

Re:Think Dave Ramsey Gives Great Advice? Think Again on Wednesday March 06, 2019 @07:30PM (#19324500)
lol at someone with a lawyer husband who still needs 2 consecutive car loans but writes an expose of Dave Ramsey.

Yeah that's an ad hominem but still come on...

Older »