HN user
contact(at)polyra(dot)com Founder at https://PlotAPI.com and https://DataCrayon.com
It was often brought up in conversations with universities and their libraries - having them made things more convenient. The books were selling for a year or so without ISBNs, no problems either way!
Things like this are why I purchased some ISBNs and self-publish/distribute.
The books (e.g.:Data Analysis with Rust Notebooks[1] and Practical Evolutionary Algorithms[2]) are doing well, and whilst I'm likely "leaving money on the table", I'm happy with how it's going.
[1] https://datacrayon.com/shop/product/data-analysis-with-rust-...
[2] https://datacrayon.com/shop/product/practical-evolutionary-a...
Similar for the PlotAPI docs [1] which are all Jupyter notebooks!
Pen plotters are great fun. I set mine up a while ago - a slightly cheaper setup than most https://shahinrostami.com/articles/my-pen-plotter-setup/
I run a plotting/visualization library.
Instead of a time-limited trial, we have just one of the plot types (Sankey) freely available indefinitely (https://plotapi.com/page/sankey/).
We tried a time-limited trial, and we just ended up with people re-registering new accounts every 2 weeks.
Yes! I need to test it on some devices first, then re-register as a play store dev.
My daughter wanted an app like this that would help her with sheet music, so that was enough motivation!
I was tinkering with Unity at the time, so I thought I’d use it to make future releases on other platforms a little easier.
I’ve tested it on a few iPhones, iPads, and a MacBook Air (running the iPad app). It’s worked nicely on those. I don’t recommend using the AirPod microphone as I noticed some poor recognition on the lower notes!
Nice analysis and visualisation! I used a Pareto approach for my exercise and a project I’m working on - https://limitgym.com
I used to write long and technical blog posts. I think it's unlikely someone will go out there way to give you negative feedback, i.e. not constructive.
My motivation came from my younger days where everyone (including myself) had their own little corner of the Internet, made with things like AngelFire and GeoCities. I missed that.
Nowadays, I prefer to make short posts, e.g. [1, 2, 3]. Of course, before I started, I had to write my own static-site generator... It's been years since I've ran my Patreon and I don't post on YouTube like I used to, so there's little to no engagement - which is OK with me.
[1] https://shahinrostami.com/articles/different-adjustments-for...
[2] https://shahinrostami.com/articles/my-pen-plotter-setup/
[3] https://shahinrostami.com/articles/colours-and-patterns-whil...
It doesn't work for me on Safari, macOS, M1: "Error: WebGPU not supported".
WebGL pixels works in the same browser, e.g.: https://plotapi.com/docs/visualizations/terminus/#default-vi...
Official Rust book is great.
If you want to give Rust a go through Jupyter Notebooks, check out https://datacrayon.com/data-analysis-with-rust-notebooks/set...
Could you elaborate on why you switched away from it?
I started using KaTeX sometime after 2015 because it promised to be fast (the fastest! [1]). I had to change the representation of a bunch of expressions because KaTeX didn't support some environments, whilst MathJax did. It was a trade-off I was willing to accept at the time.
Many years later, I started writing a personal static-site generator. I wanted comparatively lightweight pages, so rendering server-side was an option. I re-evaluated MathJax vs KaTeX again and this time I leaned towards MathJax, as speed was no longer an issue for me. It looks like KaTeX has broader support now [2].
I was using KaTeX for a while on DataCrayon (e.g. https://datacrayon.com/practical-evolutionary-algorithms/pop...), but recently switched to server-side rendering with MathJax.
I'm happy with the way it looks. I'd used KaTeX over MathJax previously because I found it rendered pages faster.
Nice project! I was gifted a pen plotter [1] a while ago and have enjoyed it so far. I would love to build one that supports larger pieces.
[1] https://shahinrostami.com/articles/my-pen-plotter-setup/
I made a VESA mount for my iPad [1]. It wasn't exactly brain surgery [2], but I thought it was cool!
The major change is building the Jupyter Notebook 7 interface with JupyterLab components so that the two applications share a common codebase and extension system.
This is interesting! Looking forward to testing the purple theme I use [1]. I wonder if extension developers will need to maintain three sets of instructions now? JupyterLab, Jupyter Notebook >= 7, and Jupyter Notebook < 7
The one I was gifted (https://shahinrostami.com/articles/my-pen-plotter-setup/) will have been more affordable https://idrawpenplotter.com
Looks great! I was gifted a pen plotter 6 months ago and wrote a short post on my setup and workflow https://shahinrostami.com/articles/my-pen-plotter-setup/
I used to write about evolutionary computation, data science, and other tech bits. I'm on my sabbatical right now and mostly writing pieces with no real common theme. I recently wrote my own static site generator - that held me up a little!
I’ve just relaunched https://shahinrostami.com after spending a little too long writing the static site generator that now generates it. That, and https://datacrayon.com, have been the catalyst for several opportunities that have come my way.
I use my own link shortener when including links in images/gifs/videos. Easier to type out, especially on mobile. E.g. m8.fyi/darn and m8.fyi/pok
Evcxr is great, and I used it to write Data Analysis with Rust Notebooks [1]! There's also this video on getting up and running with it [2], although it's 2 years old.
Ultimately, the ecosystem isn't yet as convenient as something like Python. I used to keep an eye on "Are we learning yet?" [3] - although it's been a while now!
[1] https://datacrayon.com/shop/product/data-analysis-with-rust-...
I was after something like this a while ago. Settled on Umami https://umami.is/. Great projects!
A couple of years ago when checking out Rust for scientific work I started looking for familiar ground, e.g. Jupyter notebook support. I was happy to find google/evcxr's Jupyter kernel [1] and started writing an early access book on Rust for data analysis [2].
I still check _Are we learning yet_ [3] to see their recommendation on the state of the ML stack (including data processing and structures) in Rust. It still lists "the ecosystem isn't very complete yet.", which is how I felt at the time!
[1] https://github.com/google/evcxr/tree/main/evcxr_jupyter
[2] https://datacrayon.com/shop/product/data-analysis-with-rust-...
I started learning Rust a few years ago, with the intention to use it for data science.
I ended up writing a book, "Data Analysis with Rust Notebooks", where I demonstrate using Rust + Jupyter Notebooks for tasks I'd normally use Python for. It's a good experience, although there are some additional limitations when using Rust as a notebook kernel.
[1] https://datacrayon.com/shop/product/data-analysis-with-rust-...
It started as a solution for myself, i.e. a tool of convenience.
I made it available for free as an endpoint, and then it gained enough popularity to frequently hug my server into submission. After speaking with a few users, it turns out they were happy to pay for it. So I made it a SaaS!
I've enjoyed growing it over time, and seeing how others use it.
Mine is https://datacrayon.com
For the last few years with PlotAPI [1], it's been mostly about communicating early and managing expectations. The emails hit my phone, so I always reply within a reasonable time to confirm I've seen their email, thank them for their business, and some timeframe of when I can get around to addressing the issue.
Besides that, I've kept things simple and built my own tools around deployment - so making quick changes/fixes are easy for me as a team of one.
I'm refreshing the docs site [2] right now, which I hope will reduce the number of emails I get and make it easier for customers to get the answers they need (even to questions they didn't know they had) themselves.
I built https://PlotAPI.com with Django, htmx, Alpine.js, and Tailwind CSS. I was new to all 4 of those technologies and learnt whilst on the project, it was a great experience.
It was my first time using the Stripe API too, which has the nicest documentation I've ever seen!
I've recently started remaking parts of it in a static site generator I've written focussed on Jupyter notebooks. The first part I've replaced is the Docs (https://PlotAPI.com/docs) - it's a WIP!
Somewhat related to this is Kardashian Index [1]