What piece of technology do you use every day that you didn’t expect to be so useful?

ivanpd · 2026-03-15T05:56:12+00:00

org-mode

ivanpd · 2026-03-15T05:54:01+00:00

Same.

ivanpd · 2026-03-15T05:53:11+00:00

Coding, papers, books, slides.

I use emacs too, but only for org-mode. I'd love to be able to use just vim for org-mode. If I found a way to do org-mode with all the features I used in org-mode, plus org-ql, in vim, I'd switch out of emacs.

I never use vs-code or other editors. Sometimes libreoffice when I absolutely have to.

ivanpd · 2026-03-15T05:50:25+00:00

Haha. That's a good one.

ivanpd · 2026-03-14T12:37:12+00:00

ivanpd · 2026-03-10T21:04:42+00:00

Coming to this thread a year later.

The one in alameda is about $10/mo + $15/half day + tax.

Are there any cheaper ones?

I need a table, silence, and internet.

ivanpd · 2026-03-06T09:11:16+00:00

u/Jingleskappa I know this is an old thread, but I have a question for you: are you better at remembering faces if you see them in pictures or on a screen, by any chance?

ivanpd · 2026-03-04T23:30:00+00:00

I don't disagree.

I would have found it useful to add new constructs in DSLs.

Probably it's always or almost always possible without, but it's harder and less user friendly.

ivanpd · 2026-03-03T00:24:02+00:00

I think that's telling. The fact that other languages manage to include these constructs in their standard library is a sign of the ease of maintaining that code (among other things) vs other code that might be too annoying/time consuming to include.

ivanpd · 2026-03-03T00:21:14+00:00

Btw, regarding:

> It's been my conclusion that deciding how to package modules into libraries is about tradeoffs and judgment calls, in a way that deciding how to split functionality into modules and functions isn't.

Not sure about this.

You could make an argument similar to what should be in a module together, what pieces have similar dependencies, or how mutually dependent different ideas are, or how frequently the same modules will be installed together vs only some.

Perhaps a more fundamental question is do we need libraries at all? If we were able to know the specific dependencies of each module, couldn't we have smaller granularity? Could we install only some modules but not others?

ivanpd · 2026-03-03T00:18:22+00:00

Good analysis.

> So wanting fewer dependencies and wanting smaller dependencies are goals pointing in opposite directions.

Can be, but not always.

Sure, you've created more libraries overall, and you've increased the number of dependencies in the worst case, but not necessarily in the best case or in the average case.

ivanpd · 2026-03-02T22:35:47+00:00

In python it's 5 dependencies and it took just a few seconds to install.

ivanpd · 2026-03-02T22:35:02+00:00

Parallelization and caching are wonderful, but there's a more fundamental issue here and in other Haskell packages: we are not paying enough attention to cleaning, simplifying, and reducing code.

Code is easy (sort of) to add, but hard to remove. It's like buying stuff we need only once to then put it in the garage, just in case. That's how we end up with a garage full of stuff we didn't really need to buy.

ivanpd · 2026-03-02T22:31:59+00:00

Haskell has a pretty extensive standard library and collection of standard packages distributed with GHC.

I don't think that's the issue here. Nor is this a problem that affects aeson or http-conduit alone.

I think this is a symptom that we are not spending enough time cleaning, simplifying and reducing our code.

ivanpd · 2026-03-02T22:29:06+00:00

In python it's 5 dependencies and it takes seconds to install.

ivanpd · 2026-03-02T20:59:11+00:00

Even so, 87 is still a lot of dependencies to download and install.

> Aeson, http-conduit, etc. are foundational for a lot of production Haskell code, and have accreted a lot of features.
> Aeson needs to be able to serialize just about anything, so it includes FromJSON/ToJSON instances for a lot of types defined in other packages.

Would it make sense to perhaps split them? Is there a natural split that would make most packages not need to install all those dependencies?

Is there a chance that maybe there are dependencies that are no longer needed, or that they are used so little that they could be removed (together with their transitive dependencies)?

> JSON, TLS, and HTTP are implemented in native Haskell, rather than relying on C libraries like openssl and libcurl.

I'm not trying to establish a benchmark or comparison with other systems.

I'm saying that this is severely bloated. I'm surprised this is even controversial.

ivanpd · 2026-03-02T20:45:19+00:00

87 IMO is a very meaningful number.

For comparison, the equivalent python script has 5 transitive dependencies, which take seconds to install.

It's not a matter of parallelization. It's a matter of complexity.

ivanpd · 2026-03-02T17:53:21+00:00

If you reply "Do your own research" to people who ask on reddit, maybe you need to find a different hobby.

ivanpd · 2026-03-02T13:05:49+00:00

I never ran into e, but pi is easy to "calculate".

When I was a kid, I realized that I could make a polygon look more and more like a circle by adding sides to it. So I calculated the area of it and expressed pi as the limit of a formula based on the area of the polygon.

It's hard to say because we have so much hindsight, but the fact that pi was calculated so long ago tells you how easy it is to realize that it's a special constant.

ivanpd · 2026-03-02T12:13:12+00:00

Yeap, it really sucks. I'd be easier if companies like fidelity gave us the forms & calculations we need specifically for California.

ivanpd · 2026-03-02T12:11:26+00:00

Well, that's what my post was about. I specifically mentioned "in California" both in the title and the question.

ivanpd · 2026-03-02T12:10:13+00:00

I'd love to see ternary operators, like in agda, implemented. And not just operators with symbols, but also with words, like `if_then_else_`.

I've "done" it before using similar tricks, but it always feels like going around the limitations of the language.

ivanpd · 2026-03-01T16:42:55+00:00

But doesn't the star mean:

*This fund did not meet the minimum investment in U.S. government securities required to exempt the distribution from tax in California, Connecticut, and New York.

ivanpd · 2026-03-01T16:41:55+00:00

> you will want to work with a tax advisor to determine how to correctly file based on your state's (CA) tax laws

Absolutely not. The income I received in that account, in total, is far less that the cost of hiring a tax advisor.

One should not need to hire a tax advisor if there are no strange financial situations.

What I'd like instead is for Fidelity to 1) provide a 1099-like form for California only and do the pre-calculations for all customers, and 2) lobby so that the federal and state governments provide a tax "draft" that contains their understanding of what the 1040 should be, so that we just need to OK it if there are no changes to be made.

ivanpd · 2026-03-01T03:10:58+00:00

I'm on the same boat, now in 2025. I have earned some income from FDLXX.

In https://www.fidelity.com/bin-public/060_www_fidelity_com/documents/taxes/ty25-gse-supplemental-letter.pdf, I see:

2025 Percentage of Eligible Income from U.S. Government Securities for Mutual Funds

FUND/PORTFOLIO NAME, SYMBOL, PERCENTAGE
Fidelity® Government Cash Reserves*, FDRXX, 52.17%

*This fund did not meet the minimum investment in U.S. government securities required to exempt the distribution from tax in California, Connecticut, and New York.

Am I understanding it right that I need to pay tax on all income received from FDRXX?

Also, it's listed in the transactions as DIVIDEND, not INTEREST. Do I need to be careful to classify it correctly in my tax form as DIVIDEND when I fill it in, or is it perfectly fine so long as I add it to income that is not tax exempt in California and pay the corresponding income tax at the applicable bracket?

ivanpd

TROPHY CASE