Hacker News

Ask HN: Free phones given to poor used to launder crypto?

Hacker News - Fri, 10/25/2024 - 6:57pm

So world.org uses iris and face scans to validate cryptocurrency and they give free phones to the poor in San Francisco. Any chance they're using the phones to take pictures of my face and iris and launder Bitcoin? It would be being done to the poor throughout San Francisco - there's been subtle hinting that there may be some kind of kickback for not saying anything, but I have no idea. Is it true?

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41950718

Points: 1

# Comments: 1

Categories: Hacker News

Show HN: Discover Your Core Values

Hacker News - Fri, 10/25/2024 - 6:40pm

Hey HN,

A few years back I did a core values discovery exercise with my positivity coach and I found it to be a transformative experience. It's been a process I've recommended to friends time and time again, but usually it requires a second person to walk through the process.

There are tools online that do a similar thing, but I find almost all of them to be kind of predatory and scuzzy - a lot of coaching woo without a lot of substance.

This "wizard" guides you through the simplest form of a values discovery exercise. It's forever free - and I'm curious to know your thoughts.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41950570

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Categories: Hacker News

Python 3.8 has reached EOL

Hacker News - Fri, 10/25/2024 - 6:23pm

Article URL: https://peps.python.org/pep-0569/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41950432

Points: 3

# Comments: 4

Categories: Hacker News

Ask HN: Are my HPC professors right? Is Python worthless compared to C?

Hacker News - Fri, 10/25/2024 - 5:56pm

I'm a PhD student implementing a finite element code. It simulates electromagnet waves passing through heterogeneous material. This code has to run in parallel, and run fast. I've been using old C libraries like PETSc to do this, and honestly, I do not enjoy working with C at all. Its esoteric and difficult to understand, and just overall feels like I'm using a tool from the 70s.

I want to rewrite my simulation in Python. Every single HPC professor I had told me that Python is worthless for HPC and I should use C or C++ (they generally think Rust is interesting but don't recommend it).

I don't understand this way of thinking. My thought is to write it in Python, profile it, and if needed, rewrite the slow parts in C. I can use CuPy to run my code on a GPU, or mpi4py to run it in parallel with MPI. If I get my code working and prove that what I want to do is possible, but still need more performance, then I can write it in C as a last step.

What do you think? Should a young PhD student in HPC really be investing all their time in C and not consider Python as a reasonable solution?

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41950211

Points: 4

# Comments: 6

Categories: Hacker News

Show HN: LogMyBP – A little blood pressure log utility I made for my parents

Hacker News - Fri, 10/25/2024 - 5:55pm

I've always been a bit nervous to share my little projects, but I convinced myself to start throwing things out there.

LogMyBP is a tiny (arguably toy) app I built to help my parents keep track of their blood pressure readings. Following an episode, one of my parents needed to log readings three times daily, in three different positions. At first they did it on paper, then a gsheet. Seeing as how my folks aren't the most computer-literate, I was doing a lot of tech support to help set up and maintain this gsheet template. Naturally, I decided to over-engineer a solution.

LogMyBP is intended to help my parents, who can use a web browser, email, and a smart phone just fine, but get frustrated when creating accounts, remembering passwords, or installing apps. This requires none of that - they just have to put in their email address and readings, and the app takes care of recording and retrieval. It does so by creating an "account" using their email address on the fly, and lets them verify and reuse it with an emailed magic link. Once logged in, they can export their readings to a formatted text file for printing, or a CSV file to open in sheets or excel and bring that to the doctor. I also tried to keep the UI descriptive, high contrast, and very simple.

Technical bits: I decided I'd build this quickly with the help of an LLM, just to see how far I'd get. ChatGPT did a great job, but I'm enjoying Claude Sonnet as of now. It's a Python, Flask, Tailwind, and SQLite app, running on Fly.io. ChatGPT and Claude are really good at Python, as well as HTML templating. I suck at the latter, and they saved me a ton of time. I also attached a self-hosted version of Plausible since I wanted to learn how to do that vs use 3rd party telemetry.

Feel free to play around with it.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41950202

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Categories: Hacker News

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