proamdev123 (u/proamdev123)

proamdev123 commented on The DuckDB Local UI duckdb.org/2025/03/12/duc... · Posted by u/xnx

drdaeman · a year ago

I'm sorry, I must be exceptionally stupid (or haven't seriously worked in this particular problem domain and thus lacking awareness), but I still can't figure out the use cases from this feature list.

What sort of thing should I be working on, to think "oh, maybe I want this DuckDB thing here to do this for me?"

I guess I don't really get the "that you want to learn something about" bit.

proamdev123 · a year ago

I’m not the person you asked, but here are some random, assorted examples of “structured data you want to learn something about”:

- data you’ve pulled from an API, such as stock history or weather data,

- banking records you want to analyze for patterns, trends, unauthorized transactions, etc

- your personal fitness data, such as workouts, distance, pace, etc

- your personal sleep patterns (data retrieved from a sleep tracking device),

- data you’ve pulled from an enterprise database at work — could be financial data, transactions, inventory, transit times, or anything else stored there that you might need to pull and analyze.

Here’s a personal example: I recently downloaded a publicly available dataset that came in the form of a 30 MB csv file. But instead of using commas to separate fields, it used the pipe character (‘|’). I used DuckDB to quickly read the data from the file. I could have actually queried the file directly using DuckDB SQL, but in my case I saved it to a local DuckDB database and queried it from there.

Hope that helps.

proamdev123 commented on IronCalc – Open-Source Spreadsheet Engine ironcalc.com/... · Posted by u/kaathewise

no_wizard · a year ago

Much of Excels dominance is due to its legacy pervasiveness in certain industries/ roles (notably finance or financial related but there’s strong bureaucratic use of it as well asan ad-hoc tracking tool for instance) and the fact that two generations of people grew up using it.

I’ve noticed over the years that younger generations are far more used to using Google Sheets since schools and universities have strong adoption of Google Workspace. As a result, I’ve seen less and less use cases that were once believed to be Excel only domains turn out not to be.

I’m not going to proclaim the death of Excel by any means but it’s not as ironclad of a leader position as it once was. There is however some increasingly niche cases where Excel can do things that Sheets can’t, or doesn’t do as well. One non obvious (for todays environment) use case being offline portability, Excel being a standalone program really helps here.

That said, they both suffer from one issue that’s the same, which is there is no ergonomic way to run business logic rules over the calculations easily (and some cases at all)

proamdev123 · a year ago

What do you mean by “run business logic rules over the calculations”? Genuine question.

Don’t most people embed business logic into their spreadsheet formulas?

Or is there something else you’re referring to?

proamdev123 commented on Review: ReMarkable Paper Pro amandariu.com/review-rema... · Posted by u/luu

pilotneko · a year ago

I have been really interested in this device, but the proprietary stylus really turned me off. In addition to not working on any other e-ink reader/notepad, it is a mystery to me why they went with a stylus technology that requires charging.

proamdev123 · a year ago

I agree with your sentiments. Makes me think that they are going for vendor lock in. I don’t know if that’s true, but it does feel like it.

proamdev123 commented on Review: ReMarkable Paper Pro amandariu.com/review-rema... · Posted by u/luu

swores · a year ago

I think you've been misinformed - ReMarkable pens have replaceable nibs (tips), because they get worn away as you use them, but they are not powered at all (unless there's a new aspect to the Pro's market that I'm not aware of?)

For what it's worth: the reason it needs those tips is they are what helps it feel like writing on paper, but the tips can be put into third-party stylos - if you search Reddit or elsewhere you'll find plenty of people discussing alternatives.

proamdev123 · a year ago

You are correct about the previous ReMarkable stylus, but OP is correct about the ReMarkable Pro stylus.

They have introduced a new, proprietary stylus that requires charging. And it’s incompatible with any other device, including previous ReMarkables.

proamdev123 commented on The Death of the Minivan theatlantic.com/technolog... · Posted by u/throw0101d

fakedang · a year ago

To add to that, in Europe I've seen a lot more folks now preferring SUVs because in an accident, many buyers approach it with an "it's better to be alive in your SUV, even if it was responsible for killing the small car passengers" mentality.

proamdev123 · a year ago

Or alternatively, “It’s better for me and my family to NOT be the ones dead in a small car if we get hit by an SUV.” mentality.

proamdev123 commented on Deliberate Practice and Acquisition of Expert Performance: A General Overview onlinelibrary.wiley.com/d... · Posted by u/JustinSkycak

isaacfrond · 2 years ago

It's always chess or music, sometimes basketball. But how does one become say, a first class lawyer, or a teacher, or any of the 99% of human skills that do not have easy performance metrics?

proamdev123 · 2 years ago

Chess and music are the gold standard for deliberate practice because they have been around for hundreds of years and have been studied long enough to have clear paths, techniques, and metrics to getting to certain levels of skill.

That said, even something like being a “first class lawyer” can be broken down into a collection of very specific skills that can be learned and practiced deliberately to improve one’s performance. And the early stages of learning in any field likely have many of these specific sub-skills that are obvious and not particularly difficult to learn.

For example, if you’re an aspiring trial lawyer, one very specific sub-skill to learn and practice deliberately is vocal intonation and projection in a courtroom environment. This is a basic, fundamental skill for that goal, and getting good at it by practicing deliberately will move you towards that goal.

Another, totally different, specific sub-skill to develop towards that goal might be learning and practicing how specifically to organize your reference material in such a way that you can access it within, say 10 seconds in front of the judge and jury. Another might be writing effective briefs and/or motions.

Even these examples can be broken down further into very specific sub-skills that can be deliberately practiced. After many, many years, you could have a collection of skills that make you a “first class trial lawyer”, similar to how had to learn and practice very specific sub-skills such as openings, end games, and effective use of each specific chess piece.

At the end of the day, each field consists of a large number of specific sub-skills that each contribute to the overall performance level of the individual.

proamdev123 commented on Deliberate Practice and Acquisition of Expert Performance: A General Overview onlinelibrary.wiley.com/d... · Posted by u/JustinSkycak

isaacfrond · 2 years ago

It's always chess or music, sometimes basketball. But how does one become say, a first class lawyer, or a teacher, or any of the 99% of human skills that do not have easy performance metrics?

proamdev123 · 2 years ago

Chess and music are the gold standard for deliberate practice because they have been around for hundreds of years and have been studied long enough to have clear paths, techniques, and metrics to getting to certain levels of skill.

That said, even something like being a “first class lawyer” can be broken down into a collection of very specific skills that can be learned and practiced deliberately to improve one’s performance. And the early stages of learning in any field likely have many of these specific sub-skills that are obvious and not particularly difficult to learn.

For example, if you’re an aspiring trial lawyer, one very specific sub-skill to learn and practice deliberately is vocal intonation and projection in a courtroom environment. This is a basic, fundamental skill for that goal, and getting good at it by practicing deliberately will move you towards that goal.

Another, totally different, specific sub-skill to develop towards that goal might be learning and practicing how specifically to organize your reference material in such a way that you can access it within, say 10 seconds in front of the judge and jury. Another might be writing effective briefs and/or motions.

Even these examples can be broken down further into very specific sub-skills that can be deliberately practiced. After many, many years, you could have a collection of skills that make you a “first class trial lawyer”, similar to how had to learn and practice very specific sub-skills such as openings, end games, and effective use of each specific chess piece.

At the end of the day, each field consists of a large number of specific sub-skills that each contribute to the overall performance level of the individual.

proamdev123 commented on People who won't give up floppy disks bbc.com/future/article/20... · Posted by u/hoppyhoppy2

rm445 · 2 years ago

People might remember the faux-cassette tapes with an analogue audio input, that you could use to play music from other sources on a tape-only car stereo.Does something similar exist for legacy floppy drives? Like a fake floppy with a micro SD card slotted in.

Packing it into an actual diskette might be challenging - I guess you'd need to read an encoder on the rotation. Perhaps if you had some legacy musical or scientific instrument with a tape drive you'd be better swapping out the whole drive with something that presented as a floppy drive to the device?

proamdev123 · 2 years ago

> the faux-cassette tapes with an analogue audio input

It was called a “cassette adapter” (for anyone interested in looking it up).

proamdev123 commented on Institutions try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution effectiviology.com/shirky... · Posted by u/walterbell

atoav · 2 years ago

I actually quite like my organization and the people within it. They are all decent people that are mostly try to make the project/thing good and don't fight silly fights.

The reason I wrote what I wrote is because the need to consider more of the communicative context is something inherent to all communication, not just to (bad) workplaces. Most people would profit from recognizing this, even outside work, e.g. in a relationship.

proamdev123 · 2 years ago

Are there any resources you’d recommend to learn this? Or is this just something you have to learn through trial and error?

For context, I’m someone who has big blind spots in this area and trying to figure out how to overcome them. Typically, I just develop a set of internal “rules” or principles and then run everything through those rules/decision tree. I’ve been able to overcome a LOT of previous blind spots in this way.

The challenge is that few people are willing and/or able to articulate the principles involved. When I find a book or person who can and will explain the principles and patterns, I’m golden. If not, I’m lost at sea.

Any resources you could recommend would be greatly appreciated!

proamdev123 commented on Defecting by Accident – A Flaw Common to Analytical People (2010) lesswrong.com/posts/GG2rt... · Posted by u/sicromoft

colanderman · 2 years ago

I agree -- I find such "padded" criticism condescending as well. It feels as if the commenter thinks I am not capable of emotionally handling basic factual feedback. Or (in the "wizen"/"wisen") example, not capable of understanding why spelling is important or of looking up meanings myself in a dictionary.

I do not take offense, because I know the commenter means well and is erring on the side of kindness, but personally I'd rather see "s/wizen/wisen/". It communicates no offense (by being low-effort on the part of the commenter), and respects both my ability to research on my own why I made this particular mistake, and my own motivation to correct the mistake.

Stick to the facts.

proamdev123 · 2 years ago

Your comment is interesting because it shows the dilemma posed to those of us who struggle to communicate positive intentions without unintentionally upsetting people.

On the one hand, there are people who would be offended by a reply of “s/wizen/wisen” _because_ they feel it’s low-effort, nitpicking, and/or talking over their heads (not everyone would even understand that comment, even on HN).

On the other hand, there’s many people like yourself and many commenters on the original article who feel that “padded” criticism is condescending.

The dilemma is that both the “Stick to the facts” group and the group who feels that “just the facts” is rude — feel strongly that they are right and everyone else should know that.

At least you’re willing to assess the intentions of the speaker rather than attacking. Unfortunately, not everyone will do that.

Perhaps the real takeaway is: there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to interacting with people.