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Software for One

ajwaxman.com

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Re: Software for One

#211

Post by latexr »

embedding-shape wrote: post #202
latexr wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, in other words, you read what one person (you’re not talking to some vague notion of “people” in the past) wrote, associated it with other arguments you’ve seen (and quite possibly misinterpreted) before and decided to lump everything together and answer those different arguments and be kind of snarky about it. That attitude is exactly why online (and offline) discourse has gone in the gutter. Instead of addressi…

> than attacked that group instead What on earth are you on about? Take a breath, I'm not arguing for/against anything at all, I conceded myself it's "borderline off-topic", you don't have to take it as I'm trying to challenge anyone's worldview or anything, it's basically an offhand observation. > man instead of straw manning. You may not actually understand what a "straw man" is, as I haven't even attempted to refu…

Come on, if you respond to a comment then expand on it to explain why you made it, hiding behind it being “borderline off-topic” and an “offhand observation” feels disingenuous. Can you understand that?

Here’s a silly example: Imagine you had made a comment about something different on a different thread. Then someone responds to you by saying “borderline off-topic, but I find some comments on HN about this subject to be really stupid”. Would you not be justified in thinking that the comment responding to yours was a response to you?

Maybe you really did mean nothing by it, but are you able to understand how every choice you made contradicts that, even if inadvertently?

> Anyway, clearly a fruitless conversation to continue

Are you also able to understand how this type of high-ground dismissal makes it worse?

> Hope you enjoy the rest of your Saturday

Thank you. You too. Genuinely.

Re: Software for One

#212

Post by IncreasePosts »

nonameiguess wrote: post #114
tptacek wrote: post #15

Things I've built in the last month or so: * A personal music player for Apple Music with an embedded agent loop, so I can say things like "I'm going to work in the wood shop, play woodworking-appropriate music and keep the playlist full and non-repeating indefinitely". * A calorie/protein tracker that takes 1-liner summaries of meals, resolves them to macros with GPT5 calls, and tracks them in SQLite. * A macOS menu…

I feel on the opposite side of a divide when I see these kinds of comments here about people creating bespoke software to address deficiencies they perceive in their daily lives. There's an engineer mindset that tools can solve any and every problem, but do they? Are you quantifiably any fitter than you were before? Better bloodwork, BMI, body fat percentage, anything? Are you creating better wooden goods? More woode…

You've climbed a certain mountain, and you're strolling around the summit on flat ground.

You're looking down on the people at the bottom or middle of the mountain, struggling up hill to reach the peak, and wondering "why are they going through all this effort? Why don't they just stroll around on flat ground like I am?".

They're still building the systems that you already have in place. It's far easier to use a system you already have than to build one from scratch. Maybe not with physical or academic health for you, but I'm sure there's some areas of life that you're lacking in that could use improvements. If you can't think of any, I can give you a hint: empathy. If you try to work on it, you might have to do things like set reminders to call friends on their birthdays, or just to check in. You might have to force yourself outside to chat with that neighbor that you don't exactly like and find some common ground. You might have to set a goal of volunteering a certain amount of time at a homeless shelter, and track those hours.

Meanwhile, there are people who already have buffed up their empathy their entire life, and do all these things(and more) naturally.

Should they look at you and wonder why empathy is so hard for you, and tell you your efforts to consciously improve this part of your life is a waste, since they were able to achieve higher levels of empathy without doing any of those things ?

Re: Software for One

#213

Post by tptacek »

latexr wrote: post #211
embedding-shape wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> than attacked that group instead What on earth are you on about? Take a breath, I'm not arguing for/against anything at all, I conceded myself it's "borderline off-topic", you don't have to take it as I'm trying to challenge anyone's worldview or anything, it's basically an offhand observation. > man instead of straw manning. You may not actually understand what a "straw man" is, as I haven't even attempted to refu…

Come on, if you respond to a comment then expand on it to explain why you made it, hiding behind it being “borderline off-topic” and an “offhand observation” feels disingenuous. Can you understand that? Here’s a silly example: Imagine you had made a comment about something different on a different thread. Then someone responds to you by saying “borderline off-topic, but I find some comments on HN about this subject t…

Oh, you two!

Re: Software for One

#215

Post by mannanj »

fragmede wrote: post #210
bastawhiz wrote: post #207

I love this and agree with it so strongly. But I'm also shaken to my core that there's a $30/mo Neon bill for personal software. Even if it's being used for "slightly larger projects" as well that's a ton of overkill for what seems like mostly read only data. I'm the sort of person who leans on Postgres instead of sqlite, but I'll put aside the sqlite argument for now because the fruit is so low hanging here. These u…

Shit, Cloudflare'd probably do it for free.

I think they already are.

Re: Software for One

#217

Post by antii »

wojciii wrote: post #49
JeffRosenberg wrote: post #27

This was really interesting, but I admit I bumped on this throwaway detail: > Our sleep consultant's plan arrived as a PDF full of conditional logic: wake windows, nap caps, what to do when a nap fails Every so often, you get a glimpse into a whole world you never knew existed.

> Every so often, you get a glimpse into a whole world you never knew existed. I had no idea that people did this. This sounds expensive. Just like other people have no idea that we (Scandinavia) let babies sleep outside in a baby carriage wrapped in a tiny sleeping bag. Fresh air is awesome. Cold air is even better. This works for some babies and is not universal in any way.

[dead]

Re: Software for One

#218

Post by padjo »

Two of my most commonly used apps are my personal nutrition and workout tracking apps. Vibe coded and hosted on a Raspberry Pi. They're exactly customised to my usage pattern so infinitely better than anything I could buy, and they cost me a few hours and a basic Claude subscription.

Re: Software for One

#219

Post by rpdillon »

monsieurbanana wrote: post #205
rpdillon wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was talking to my wife about this a little bit, that the promise of computers has never really been realized in the sense that we don't put power in the hands of the end user. Like one of the most obvious things that a computer can do is run a task periodically at a time to go maybe fetch information and process it. And yet, the average computer user using any commercial operating system does not understand how to…

The average user can and already does that. If they want to regularly fetch their emails and process them, they will install outlook or use the Gmail web app. If they want to regularly fetch and install updates for their games they will install steam. The "run a task periodically" isn't the difficult part, it's processing the data that is. And to be honest I don't think llms will empower that many people, the vast ma…

I agree. It won't empower them because they've been trained to think they have no power.

I wasn't really talking about fetching email.

Re: Software for One

#220

Post by NegativeLatency »

mithr wrote: post #195
spot5010 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a new father, just using so many apps sounds exhausting, let alone building and maintaining them. I would have been very excited about these maybe 10-15 years ago. Now I just want the ability to do things with my phone when my hands are tied up holding the baby.

As a father of two young children, LLMs have been kind of amazing. I’ve historically been someone who has project ideas and has fun building them. But for a few years now I just haven’t had the headspace for it — all I’ve wanted to do in the evening is relax for a bit. In the past month I’ve completed a home dashboard idea I’ve had for years, I’ve built a house management system, a travel planning tool, a guitar chor…

Similarly, I have giant list of ideas from the last 15 years that I’m now easily able to try or build out in ways I couldn’t before
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