News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

pedrig

Re:Transformers Explained Visually on Wednesday September 23, 2026 @04:14AM (#49813056)
Very interesting analogy, thank you! When I initially learned about linear regression, i learned that to capture non-linearities, instead of choosing a more complex, non-linear hypothesis function, I can just come up with "arbitrary" features for my data set. Basic example: house price calculation. Obvious features are square_meters, age, n_rooms, ... But I can make even this linear model learn complex connections by transforming or combining these input features and add them as additional inputs, such as n_rooms * age, or log(square_meters) or whatever.

What you're explaining sounds very similar. Is it, or am I understanding it wrong? (Idk why it's so hard for me to understand this attention thing...)

to me it seems that "normal" (non-tech) people just dont bother even looking for better options. they dont know and dont care.
Re:Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (Nov 2025) on Tuesday November 11, 2025 @06:44PM (#45894456)
I'm working on a paragliding track visualizer: https://skyviz.io - I started it just for myself, then it kind of got out of control, and now I'm spending wayyy to much time on it After many years of working on enterprise crud apps, it's so refreshing to actually use some maths and 3d programming again :D But now it seems the the only way forward to make more out of the product is by doing marketing... Something that is absolutely NOT my area of expertise nor interest
Re:Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (October 2025) on Monday October 13, 2025 @05:46PM (#45573692)
I'm working on a tool to track and smoothly visualize paragliding flights in 3d: https://skyviz.io.

It started as a side-project for my own needs. I wanted to share flight replays of my paragliding tracks on instagram, but there just was no tool for it, so I hacked something together. People seemed to like the resulting videos, so I figured I could build an UI for it and publish it and see what happens :)

Re:Corona Game: A simulation of how Covid-19 spreads on Thursday July 08, 2021 @06:35AM (#27770259)
Coolio! :) I built something similar [0] a while ago. My goal was to _visually_ demonstrate how fast a virus can spread. I wanted to make it is easy for everyone to get an understanding about exponential growth and how different measures can have a great impact on the spread of a virus.

Disclaimer: This is an unpolished toy project. It was built in a weekend by simple dude who likes to code but has no idea about virology and epidemiology.

[0]: https://patricsteiner.github.io/corona-simulator/

> The only other thing I can come up with which could be easier than Scrum Master is to apply for a manual QA role. I don't think I have to say more, but essentially, you will look like you've worked around the clock when really you just click a button at the beginning of the day and then go to sleep again.

Laughed out loud at this hahaha. There is one dedicated manual QA guy in my team that perfectly fits this description. And he probably earns more than I do.

Re:Is that ship still stuck? on Thursday March 25, 2021 @07:26PM (#26586955)
Discussions like these are why I love HN. Sorry for non-constructive response, but this time I just had to say it. Great laugh.
Re:We created a fake language to root out resume liars on Wednesday March 10, 2021 @05:43PM (#26417436)
I am really surprised so many people actually use recruiters :O Why not just look for a job yourself? They are so annoying to me, I can barely imagine anyone actually taking them serious...
Re:My Third Year as a Solo Developer on Tuesday February 02, 2021 @03:24AM (#25998503)
> Once you build the MVP, how will you find customers? Can you skip to that part without even building the MVP?

It's not that I've never heard this before, but my excitement just gets in the way and wants to start building immediately :P So it's good to hear this again, I really need to take this to heart... Thanks!

Re:My Third Year as a Solo Developer on Tuesday February 02, 2021 @03:10AM (#25998421)
Wow, that looks very promising, thank you :) Just signed up.
Re:My Third Year as a Solo Developer on Monday February 01, 2021 @06:32PM (#25995605)
I just read your whole journey since quitting google and it was very inspiring, thank you :) Glad to hear you still feel like it was the right choice. I am now where you were 3 years ago: I just quit my well-paid SWE job without any concrete backup plan and all I have been dreaming of for years is being an entrepreneur. It either happens now when I'm still young, or never, I figured.

However, I am still quite unsure how to actually get the ball rolling. My current game plan is to just brainstorm for a week or so and then start building the best idea I came up with during that week, then give myself a release deadline of one month for an MVP and see if I can raise some interest.

But after reading the paragraph about ideas[1] I am not sure anymore if this is a smart approach or not... What do you think, what's the best thing to do to get to that initial spark?

[1]: https://mtlynch.io/solo-developer-year-2/#pursuing-the-right...

(sry, non-native speaker)

Re:WhatsApp loses millions of users after terms update on Monday January 25, 2021 @12:09PM (#25905732)
can confirm, i too am positively surprised that most people i meet are absolutely willing to switch.
Re:Ask HN: Should I learn Angular in 2021? on Monday January 18, 2021 @07:44AM (#25821223)
Depends on what you want. It surely will stay relevant for many years, and angular jobs will not go away anytime soon. If you are interested in it or you find a job that requires it, just learn it. It's not like it's gonna take a year to learn it. IMO if you are a SWE, it takes maybe a week or even less, and you will be ready for most angular jobs.
For that I use my own group-chat on whatsapp(kicked everyone else out) - super convenient :P