jonrx

Buy Online, Pick up In Store.

I used Linux (XPS15) at work for a 3 month period (Pop_OS!), mostly because I really enjoy using Emacs (and the performance on stock Windows is lacklustre). With the exception of bluetooth, which is absolutely tragic on Linux (I have issues with bluetooth everywhere, but this is next level), 40% of my job was actually very good using that computer.

On the flip side, my job uses Office and Teams quite extensively, and the browser experience is subpar. OneDrive sync is also spotty (InSync works ok, but it's not "set and forget" at least for my use-case). Everything works, but it's less easy than on macOS or Windows, so you have the added cognitive load. I ended up having a VM with Windows when I really need it. It got ridiculous when I needed to join Teams on my phone and my laptop to get sound and share my screen.

On top of that, Linux works very well for the fun work. I don't especially like doing PowerPoint decks or blazing through emails, but because the tools are less friendly, I end up spending more time doing stuff I don't enjoy doing. It means that my productivity gets lower. I miss i3, the familiar command line, all the goodies I got to discover and enjoy on my "play" machine, but the 60% remaining got more tedious.

I ended up moving back to a macbook air (which is less powerful than my Dell) because of the "lack of configuration" to get it to somewhere where I feel "peak productive". Some stuff at work I just want to get "done", and ultimately Linux (or the lack of good Linux compatibility with some of the tools my workplace mandates) went in the way.

I used WSL1 a little while back. It was nice, but it was another thing to get setup which I am not familiar with. I'll get windows back on the XPS and try, maybe it'll strike the right balance.

A bummer, really.

I think it's related to the fact that emacs has multiple (very) small files and short-lived processes, which does not work well/fast on Windows. For a while, I ran Xubuntu in a VM just to use emacs, because the performance on my Surface book 2 was unacceptable.

I ended up going in the other direction: kept emacs, got mostly rid of windows (I have it in a VM for the odd occasion where I need to use a windows-specific program. The fact that my company is flexible on the work OS is a huge bonus for me.

I worked in insurance for approximately 5 years, and had a foray in reinsurance for 3. To this day, I find this to be an amazingly complex and interesting industry from an cash-flow perspective.

Insurance is also a weird product from a consumer stand-point: for most people (at least in Canada) there is little to no difference between company offering. If you take P&C, there is a lot of competition for pricing, and a lot of the "end-stream" innovation is about containing costs (fraud, company-owned repair shops, avoiding litigation). Loss ratio is probably the word I heard the most from my actuarial friends.

P&C and group insurance, since everything is renewed every year, see a lot more disruption and effervescence in the market. It's harder to disrupt life insurance when you're on the hook for 10, 20 or even 70 years. I think that participating life was a game changer, and even then, its popularity is really tied to the market. There is a lot of research being done as well to better assess risk without being invasive (fluids, extensive questionnaires, etc.). But when you're on the hook for a long period of time, your mistakes along the way tend to stay for a long time. And going under is -- I think -- worse than any other industry. You pay premiums to insurance companies because you trust they'll be alive in the future!

Speaking of loss ratio, most companies are also now heavy towards automation, again to reduce costs. I know this has been over-played elsewhere in the industry, but here a lot of the key-players are massive and slow moving, and at their scale, little movement can mean a lot of change.

This is a great read. I am especially happy that they are not asking for an email to download the report. I understand why some companies are doing this, but I went from web page to reading with no friction.

I wish that MyFonts has a better way to "test-drive" the font. When writing some small snippets of code, I wansn't exactly sure if it would work well.

Ended up purchasing it, and I must say, it's really fun to use! I find that it makes it easier to go from "focus mode" to "overview mode": it's very readable, but since it looks less blocky than most monospace fonts, I find it easier to navigate larger blocks of code.

I might not use it all the time, but this will keep me smiling for a while!

It's one of the first game I really got into. Ended up finishing it in a little under a week.

It is really is a walk down memory lane.

In section 6.1, [_] is replaced with [ ] (with the second bracket being italic).

Same thing in 6.2 with tail_len = tail len

Seems like the markdown parser partially went into the code blocks.

I smiled when I saw that a javascript browser has no javascript support. :)

I like it. I tend to usually remove the style when I read longer documents. This is prettier while doing the same thing.

What are your next goals with it?