Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: I made a simulator for personal finance

projectifi.io

51–60 of 266 posts

Re: Show HN: I made a simulator for personal finance

#51

This was also posted 9 days ago [0], when OP created their account, with 3 other also freshly created accounts (with no other activity on them) praising it. Make of that what you wish. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26862841

I dont see how this is a problem. its a game of chance to get trending or not, if you have a good interesting project

Re: Show HN: I made a simulator for personal finance

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, I know the word, and agree it's not uncommon. My point was that user to whom I replied seems to be using it in a generally negative way. > looks interesting but I think it is still a little bespoke As if "bespoke" is the opposite of "interesting" or othwerwise a counterpoint to a good review. As I understand the word "bespoke", it carries no negative nor positive charge - just means "made individually to order",…

I think the parent was trying to express that the app seemed designed for a specific demographic, and didn't generalize as well as it could. (And they therefore suggested a feature that would help it function well for a broader audience.)

Yes, that is how it was intended.

Re: Show HN: I made a simulator for personal finance

#53
post #51

This was also posted 9 days ago [0], when OP created their account, with 3 other also freshly created accounts (with no other activity on them) praising it. Make of that what you wish. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26862841

I dont see how this is a problem. its a game of chance to get trending or not, if you have a good interesting project

The explanation [0] they gave makes it a non-issue for me, but it’s very relevant mentioning in general, even more so for an app that asks for your financial data.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26970025

Re: Show HN: I made a simulator for personal finance

#54
Nothing makes me more annoyed than when simulations like this make assumptions which don't make any sense. For example.

>"Note: currently, ProjectiFi taxes inheritance as ordinary income for simplicity and to maintain a conservative estimation strategy. More nuanced options that more closely mirror current inheritance tax liability scenarios are coming soon."

This is an absolutely ridiculous assumption. Federal inheritance/estate taxes in the US don't start until $11 million. If you can't figure that out your app is not ready to publish.

Re: Show HN: I made a simulator for personal finance

#55
post #54

Nothing makes me more annoyed than when simulations like this make assumptions which don't make any sense. For example. >"Note: currently, ProjectiFi taxes inheritance as ordinary income for simplicity and to maintain a conservative estimation strategy. More nuanced options that more closely mirror current inheritance tax liability scenarios are coming soon." This is an absolutely ridiculous assumption. Federal inher…

I guess that's why they are in BETA? Nobody makes perfect product in their first attempt.

Re: Show HN: I made a simulator for personal finance

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the feedback! I've thought about maybe creating a version which is wrapped up as an Electron app and runs natively and with no google analytics, etc. Does it sound like that might alleviate some of your concerns?

I guess I should also add that with the current web version, you can opt out of sending telemetry data via cookie preferences, and with the Premium version you choose whether or not you want your data persisted or not. (there is also a button to remove all your data at a later date if desired). Perhaps something else that might be helpful to add is an import/export button so you can save and load data locally(?)

Can I ask how you are using the telemetry that you collect?

Re: Show HN: I made a simulator for personal finance

#58
post #34
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How?

By doing all of the computation of user data clientside, and making all of the persistence in localstorage. It’s very doable, especially with small data. Unfortunately, you have to take projects’ words that they do this on good faith as an end user. You’d need to GET the app bundle, and then firewall the tab / disable your network interface to be certain that no data is leaking out. It’s not so easy to control this a…

> Maybe we’ll see some innovation in this space from browsers in the future, where an app can identify itself as local only and then be sandboxed by the browser.

That would be a really cool 'HTML5' API — let the page do:

  document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', () => {
    // some bootstrap
    document.goOffline();
  });
Which could prompt the user — "this web page wants to disable its own internet access. Do you want to continue? (Refresh the page to reload from server)[OK/Cancel]" — and then it can do longer use the internet & has its own storage which gets wiped before it's allowed back online.

Would allow all the benefits to devs of doing things in the browser (if that's their choice), & end-users could trust that it was truly offline.

Re: Show HN: I made a simulator for personal finance

#60

There is no reason at all for this to be server-hosted. I have of course done this for myself a very long time ago creating an effectively identical feature set using spreadsheets and even put them onto Microsoft's sharing pages (no idea what happened to them, it was such a long time ago). I'm not saying this isn't a better solution than Excel. You work with what's available at the time. But there is nothing at all a…

How is installing an executable on my machine and then entering my financial info any less sketchy than entering my data into a website? The average user would still have to take it on faith that the data isn't going anywhere, and as an industry we have spent the last 20 years telling people not to download unknown software onto their systems. I think it would be a complete own-goal for the builder of this to switch to that model.
Post reply on HN