mosburger

Joined 19 years ago

Karma
1,370
Submissions
410
Member since
Feb 9
Fifty-something polyglot developer, occasional engineering manager, and sometimes wannabe entrepreneur.
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Recent submissions

Comment · 1 month ago
Yeah, I tell myself this every time I remember clicking "Cancel" on Ameritrade and deciding not to buy Apple stock in 1995. I probably would've sold when it doubled, thinking myself very clever. I wouldn't still have it today.
Comment · 2 months ago
I think it's cyclical. Punk in the early 80s was a reaction to the excesses of 70s superbands (e.g. Johnny Rotten's "I hate Pink Floyd" t-shirt). Then things built up again to "monsters of rock" arena tours, The Spice Girls, and hair bands before getting torn down again by the likes of Nirvana.

(Hell, rock and roll was born as an anti-establishment thing in the 1950s)

Maybe we're just due for another one of the inflection points where being anti-cool will become cool again.

Comment · 2 months ago
maybe they start by not adjusting your rates based on your habits, but just nagging you.

Aetna already notices when I don't pick up my prescriptions on time and emails me about it. So I could imagine a dystopian future where the insurance company makes you install an app instead of using an insurance card (or at least makes this the default/easier), and the app sends you a push notification when it senses you're too close to a McDonald's and says "Do you really need that double cheeseburger? It's your third one this week! (and Apple Health says your heart rate ain't looking so great)"

I know there are a zillion reasons this couldn't happen exactly like that now, (e.g., you'd have to give permission for all of this) but how far off is it?

Happier, fitter, more productive...

Comment · 2 months ago
aw neat I'd love to try doing this for its predecessor GWBASIC (my first programming language on the Tandy 1000EX)
Comment · 2 months ago
it'll become nefarious when they start selling it to health insurance companies.
Comment · 2 months ago
I use it as a daily driver with few if any problems, but I'm on macOS. Maybe their Linux support is particularly crappy?
Comment · 2 months ago
Here's yet another anecdote of near-zero real value to add to the pile: I treated my severe treatment-resistant depression with ketamine infusions. It's obviously not the same as psilocybin, but I believe the current thinking is that psychoelics and dissociatives both have some positive effect on neuroplasticity, and that sorta checks out in my case. I'd say you need to combine it with some good cognitive behavioral therapy - it seemed to make CBT a lot more effective for me where it failed in the past because my brain was more open to rewiring. I haven't been re-treated in a few years now, but I still feel a lot better.

But you're also totally right - my story is just an anecdote, and these sort of headlines that used to have cannabis as a miracle cure for all types of things seem to have been replaced with headlines about psilocybin (or occasionally, ketamine) curing everything instead. I totally get the skepticism, but I'm a believer that we might be onto something w/r/t depression or other things that are treatable via CBT at least - the article mentioned "combined with talk therapy" ... not sure what therapy method was used alongside the psilocybin.

Comment · 3 months ago
I'm pretty sure that this sort of thing happens for stuff in big box home improvement stores like Home Depot and Lowe's, too. Things like plumbing fixtures that appear to be identical to counterparts in smaller stores will have off-by-one or suffixed product numbers, and are made with cheaper plastic internal parts than when purchased elsewhere.
Comment · 4 months ago
I was an internal beta tester for AltaVista while I was doing a co-op at DEC in 1995. Good times.
Comment · 5 months ago
Comment · 5 months ago
Checkout.com (UK) might be another worth checking. :) [I'm a "payments guy" for my day job].
Comment · 5 months ago
I wonder if the author considered moving payment processing to Adyen from Stripe? They're also EU-based and a bit more... well known? I liked integrating with them in the past.
Comment · 6 months ago
IMO one of the cool things about Wallet is the notification that appears on the homescreen when you're in proximity of the venue or time of the event and automatically displays the pass when tapped. I wonder if "create your own" will be able to do that (I'm not sure how it would)?
Comment · 6 months ago
I said this elsewhere in the comments, but I think there's sort of a fundamental tension that shows up sometimes between DRY and "a function/class should only do one thing." E.g., there might be two places in your code that do almost identical things, so there's a temptation to say "I know! I'll make a common function, I'll just need to add a flag/extra argument..." and if you keep doing that you end up with messy "DRY" functions with tons of conditional logic that tries to do too much.

Yeah there are ways to avoid this and you need to strike balances, but sometimes you have to be careful and resist the temptation to DRY everything up 'cuz you might just make it brittler (pun intended).

Comment · 6 months ago
I think there is often tension between DRY and "thing should do only one thing." E.g., I've found myself guilty of DRYing up a function, but the use is slightly different in a couple places, so... I know, I'll just add a flag/additional function argument. And you keep doing that and soon you have a messed up function with lots of conditional logic.

The key is to avoid the temptation to DRY when things are only slightly different and find a balance between reuse and "one function/class should only do one thing."

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