varlock

I guess that's probably where all the questions are, thank you. I admit I've never even notice its existence!

Another one by the same author, which I heartily recommend, is "The Ideal Team Player". Read it many years ago, and I still use it as a basic framework when I interview candidates (in a nutshell, you want someone humble, hungry, and smart).

I personally wouldn't recommend "Death by Meeting", though. Maybe it's just because it didn't resonate much with me, so YMMV.

I usually take (half seriously) Machiavelli's view: luck does play a role, but it's not the biggest factor and the rest is up to you.

So, focus on what you can control, and luck should impact the result less.

Thank you, great pointers!

+1 on "Fluent Python" by Ramalho. I enjoyed and benefitted from the first edition so much that I'll get the second edition which is due to come out soon (Apr 29). I would say it targets intermediate developers more than beginners.

For me it was "The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity" by C. Cipolla. A very short book that illustrates, in a subtly-humorous way, how stupid people are far more powerful than one would think.

Thanks for the confidence boost! It's always too easy to self-criticize.

In the beginning I actually thought about Django or Flask (my background is mainly in Python), which I wrongly dismissed because I thought the main part would have been JS - so I chose ReactJS given the wide availability of tutorial and support. Flask would have solved some issues such as login etc. As they say, hindsight is 20/20 :)

I started off a template, which took away the need to think about web design. For React, I did follow quite a few tutorials - from how to route through pages, to hooks to unit tests - but the process is quite slow (though I do enjoy it).

And then there's setting up gitlab pipelines, docker images, deployments to AWS... it's a lot for a one-man band with only a few hours to dedicate.

I'll have a look at Netlify, maybe it could take some of the above away. Thanks for the suggestion!

I wasn't aware of neither bubble.io nor webflow. Good to know they're there. Given what I've got in mind seems more to be an app rather than a website, I'd probably give a shot to the former.

Maybe not, as I'm actually leveraging existing APIs, so effectively it'll be a wrapper around those.

I think it's been released yesterday: https://github.com/mrc-ide/covid-sim

People can have the same idea but execute and follow through with very different results. Or not execute at all as is my case ;)

But I see what you're saying. Most of these, I suspect will become clear after people start using the product (e.g. breadth of offer, delivery, differences in the environment).

Others should probably be clarified from the start (e.g. price, quality/expectation).

Thanks!

Regarding the example of Stackoverflow vs Mailchimp, it'll be definitely more on the Mailchimp side.

As for the niche to pick, it's not yet clear to me what I can focus on - it looks like we're targeting the same people - but maybe it'll be clear after a while. Maybe, as @matijash was saying, I can start without differentiating and then do it down the line.

In terms of resources, it shouldn't cost much in terms of money, but it'll probably be in terms of time, as it'll be hard to fit the day job, family and this side hustle together.

Also, thanks for the link - definitely an enlightening read!

You're right, had I discovered this earlier or in a few months' time, it wouldn't probably have made much difference.

I admit I've never thought about _not_ being different from the start. Thanks for the encouragement!

Interesting book. Having read a bit about some critics about it - namely, that it was heavily based on the work of a colleague of the authors - may I also suggest the work of this third person (Arthur Elliott Carlisle)? It's an article entitled "MacGregor" and a copy can be found here: https://www.alampi.com/MacGregor.pdf (no affiliation with the website).

Generalizing the topic, does anyone know if there is a map of subjects/branches in mathematics and books/blogs/etc giving examples of real-world applications?

Personally, I know the (existence of the) maths behind some applications (e.g. JPEG -> DCT) because I have learned it while at uni, but in general, if I encounter a mathematical subject I struggle to find examples of its application.

Can't believe no one has yet mentioned the PASTA theorem - Poisson Arrivals See Time Averages (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrival_theorem#Theorem_for_ar...). It is one of the theorems I remember the most from my Queuing Theory classes at the university!

Not a geneticist either, but this is something the book "The Gene" by Mukherjee can explain.

Quoting from the book (chapter "Regulation, Replication, Recombination"): "A gene, in short, possessed not just information to encode a protein, but also information about when and where to make that protein" ... "Proteins act as regulatory sensors, or master switches, in this process — turning on and turning off genes, or even combinations of genes, in a coordinated manner."

So you have a feedback loop, whereby a gene encodes a message to build a protein that regulates a gene. To get back to your original question, a mutation might encode a different protein which might react to some environmental changes to produce a change in behavior.

So many fond memories! Unlike many here, Slackware was not my first distro. I had tried Mandrake first, then RedHat, then grew more and more uncomfortable with their packaging system, and after a brief stint with Gentoo (admittedly, it was too early for my skills, back then) I met Slackware. It was love at first sight.

It was lean, nimble, skeletal almost. No frills, just perfect. My Athlon just flew with it - something I would never experience with Mandrake or RedHat! The (lovely) price to pay was that you would have to learn more about the internals. I would pay that price time and again!

And though I eventually moved to Debian (because, again, of the packaging system) I very fondly admit Slackware was my first true love.

Thanks for all you taught me, Slackware.

I usually ask "So, if you have got nothing to hide, would you shower naked on your balcony for everyone to see?"

Normally you wouldn't, because there could be effects you find displeasing in the best case and harming in the worst case, such as getting ridiculed/discriminated/ostracized/etc.

Collecting private data about you can get you categorized in a similar way, carrying the same potential ill effects.

Re: information is the unknown message. Think of it this way.

You read the newspaper each day. Every day it's got the same news: "Today the sun shines." This is no useful information (no entropy) and you can predict it very well.

Second scenario. You read the newspaper, but each day it states that either "Today the sun shines" or "Today is raining" with 50/50 probability. That's maximum entropy. That's useful information, which you can't reliably predict.

Maybe I'm missing something, but IMO using isinstance, issubclass and explicit checks achieves the same effect, and is probably more readable. Or not?

Discussion for the same topic but on the official link (nobelprize.org) is here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15382678

Not OP, but got the same laptop. "Jumpy trackpad" [1] and "stuck key" [2] problems are the ones I feel most.

They should have been fixed by the latest firmware (apparently still in 2015) but I can still experience them sometimes. I believe I have the latest fw (I'm surely >= 06A), but can't check ATM, so chances are I'm not on the latest. Then again, I admit I can work with it almost seamlessly (dev-work from CLI mainly).

[1] http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/os-applications/f/46... [2] en.community.dell.com/techcenter/os-applications/f/4613/t/19637021

Quite useful indeed! If I may, I'd love to see references for each concept.

I appreciate anyone can look "sample space" or "parametric inference" up on Google, but it'd take some time to find some authoritative source (especially for people like who do not work with stats every day). It'd be awesome if I could see a "[1]" and a reference (or list of references), either online or offline, where the concept is defined.

Great initiative! Are you considering setting up a blog / github page / anything to keep track and coordinate the effort?

I'm asking because though I'd love to help I know I won't be able to commit to it full-time. So it would be great to be able to follow up and get an idea of where the project is going, what areas it is tackling, etc.

Also, maybe a "Show HN" could help spreading to a wider audience whatever you set up.

Interesting that no one has mentioned Google Keep - it works for me, mostly because it's available for both Android and IOS and as a web service. I have to admit syncing is not always perfect, though. Just curious, any particular reason why others don't mention it?

It is a bit hard to follow the listings as they don't use a monospaced font. A part from that, very detailed and useful article.

An interesting read on the subject, although not exclusively focused on multi-tasking, mostly US-centric and at times a bit wordy, is "The Organized Mind" (https://amzn.com/0147516315) by Daniel J Levin, a professor in Psychology.

Among other things, he explains why multitasking seems rewarding: it "creates a dopamine-addiction feedback loop, effectively rewarding the brain for losing focus and for constantly searching for external stimulation".