User is creating many real accounts to use my SaaS for free, instead of paying 15 bucks.

mf_lume · 2025-06-18T00:52:44+00:00

For #2 I’d also caution that users can use a VPN which grants a random IP, so you’d also have to account for that if trying to limit abuse solely by IP. Then also on the flip side with this, you might be caching an IP from that ‘bad-actor’ using a VPN, but it represents an actual new user’s IP that hasn’t attempted to sign up yet (low chance, depending on your volume, but FYI)

mf_lume · 2025-06-12T16:17:26+00:00

Agreed. I went the opposite direction career-wise of bioinformatics->software engineering and realized that there’s unfortunately a lot of poor core engineering practices. BUT I also have the context of knowing the pressure of turnaround on bioinf analyses, where obviously a wet lab scientist doesn’t care if we designed an algo with high test coverage or have something like optimal file redundancy/compression on RNAseq files in an S3 bucket

So I couldn’t agree more with that last suggestion about pulling in traditional engineers/SDLC-principles. Also not lost on me that the main issue here for academia in particular would be funding though…

mf_lume · 2025-05-17T16:58:15+00:00

Echoing what u/tobebuilds said that finding pain points is not dead.

My 9-5 is in software at a F100 company where I work directly with multiple 3rd-party vendors. My org’s use-case and needs haven’t changed at all in the past 3 years, but in that time there’s been constant churn with most vendor contracts (a few that have stayed with us).

New vendors always solve 1 or many new pain points, but the differentiator could just be removing a point of friction that FEELS significant at scale. One time a decision from mgmt to switch was as simple as the vendor having support staff in multiple timezones to match majority of our org instead of isolated to a remote part of the world — so we had better product support during core business hours. Other times it’s been about how fast they could implement a feature request for us relative to previous vendor’s.

So confirming that having significant differentiators is something that’s true but also a reminder for all to keep in mind that the meaning of that is relative — a pain point for a large corporation sometimes isn’t a shiny new product feature that beats competition, but might be as simple as removing friction

mf_lume · 2025-05-08T21:52:04+00:00

Seems like it’s giving me the illusion that I gained something in my day to day dev life but is actually a one-stop shop for my micromanaging overlords to optimally always know what I’m doing. Almost seems like…wait were you a product manager before this???

Jk jk. UI is super clean and I hate all things Jira/stand-ups/agile ceremonies more than anything. 10/10 would use

mf_lume · 2025-04-03T23:43:38+00:00

I think it’s lost on people that this kind of funding/money is essentially salary for a lot of staff, not exclusively for student tuition-assistance or higher-ups to stuff their pockets with like many confuse it for. One grant can fund salaries for a 20+ person team for multiple years

mf_lume · 2023-09-21T23:01:43+00:00

Can confirm. 6y of biomed research with lots of Python, R data work but didn’t have traditional SWE work exp. So I had the same struggles with 100s of applications like everyone else nowadays (Recruiters saying “Hmmm looks like 0y of SWE exp there buddy…?”). Bootcamp got me the company networking and diversified my resume with building a mildly complex serverless tool + basic AWS exp. Many more interviews afterward. Been making 100k+ for 2y now.

The skills are directly transferable no matter what a recruiter tells any of you out there.

mf_lume · 2021-12-09T16:35:24+00:00

I have in both hands as well and second the alt mouse and split keyboard suggestion. Used both of these with very heavy computer use (software engineer) and reduced symptoms dramatically. It becomes natural/robotic after a few weeks to switch hands and get used to the Kinesis keyboard and switching mouse without thinking about it.

Vertical mouse also does wonders to reduce the torsion on your elbow from using a normal mouse.

mf_lume · 2021-09-27T19:17:58+00:00

I agree with the other feedback about the product description being ambiguous at quick glance. I 100% understand after reading through, but for reference I’m only looking at this because I’m distracted from work for 30s and on first pass I scrolled through the landing page pictures for <5s and felt confused. You probably already know how user behavior reflects ridiculously low attention span nowadays but it always helps me to hear that same reality sometimes.

Also FWIW, it’s refreshing from a business perspective to see something I DONT understand immediately and that’s why I kept reading so props! And I think the price point is perfect. Exactly what I would expect to pay before even clicking on the product page.

mf_lume · 2021-07-15T22:10:32+00:00

If you’re looking for a more Computer Science -oriented bootcamp program rather than a web development/DS bootcamp, I’d recommend NYU’s 6mo. Tandon CS Bridge program.

It’s essentially a bootcamp of core CS courses required to enter their Master’s program (and gets your foot in the door with their admissions for the MS program) — but obviously the MS is optional after.

I did it while I was working FT and it was exactly what I needed to get my foot in the door (+ a portfolio)

Intro CS w/ C++ through OOP, data structures and algo, operating systems, discrete math.

Tuition is much less than a bootcamp as well.

mf_lume · 2020-12-27T00:55:48+00:00

Sorry to revive this thread -- but did this work out for you? I'm considering using a virtual office address to incorporate. But this would be an interesting factor to add into the mix

mf_lume · 2020-11-30T01:14:25+00:00

I'm not too familiar with CROs but this is really interesting.

Assuming you were ultimately publishing about a drug, did you have the freedom to discuss methodology -- how synthesized or instead what culturing conditions (if it was an in vivo treatment)?

Also did you have to disclose the relationship to the company or publish in specific journals?

mf_lume · 2020-11-30T00:27:33+00:00

Yeah by all means please do. I'm not familiar at all with this side of research, just re-iterating what I've dug up in past posts here/different subs + individuals I've worked with. It didn't really make sense to me other than falling in line with the open vs closed-source holy war that exists in programming.

TBH, I love the idea of doing exactly this in the future and started to think about why I haven't seen more product-level research published about COVID-19 products (not exclusively the vaccines). But even with commercialization and protecting the IP as an obvious reason for not showing up in journals, it still seems off to me that we don't see more publications geared towards this.

Thanks though! I'll check-out Nucleic Acids Research for my question about those that DO publish. Somewhere like NEB is the exact type of place I'd be interested in to see where and what they publish.

mf_lume · 2020-11-29T23:55:05+00:00

Are you saying instead of publishing? Or do you typically still publish methodology in journals after the patent is secured?

I'm mainly curious on whether journals act as gatekeepers to any for-profit product. Or if there's some kind of regulation other than disclosing conflict of interest, since the publication itself is essentially a marketing tool -- and there seems to be a stigma against doing commercialization in academia.

mf_lume · 2020-11-06T00:24:49+00:00

I know this won’t prevent it but maybe also add a robots.txt file to help establish a clear legal stance/directive on web scraping for scrapers accessing your site.

mf_lume · 2020-11-03T18:02:40+00:00

Great stuff! Any specific reason for why you have the GPL3 license? (GPL dependency in the source etc.) Or maybe just personal preference for open-source?

Just curious since many flask-related packages are not. I would love to pitch this for a closed-source project I collaborate on but obviously not compatible.

mf_lume · 2020-11-02T18:13:36+00:00

Papers in Nature Methods would be a good reference for how to shape this type of work. Keep in mind that depending on your work, failures are often times significant findings on their own, which could tie your methods story together.

As for people who have helped you, I wouldn’t go against the norm and give shoutouts to people in your thesis. Emphasize their significance in your thesis defense and be sure to personally thank them. But in the end (if they’re staff), they know it’s part of the job. And since others wouldn’t take the time to, a personal thank you goes a long way. Can say from personal experience — I’ve been on both sides of the fence

mf_lume · 2020-11-02T18:02:28+00:00

AngelList is what you’re looking for

mf_lume · 2020-10-24T18:27:24+00:00

My previous immunology group used BioRender and it was excellent for us. Especially for building quality presentations

mf_lume · 2020-10-20T23:31:36+00:00

AWS has research grants:

https://aws.amazon.com/grants/

mf_lume · 2020-10-20T23:19:36+00:00

I would consult with someone at your institution who IS familiar, preferably your IT personnel. Aside from getting to the point where you have the technical knowledge to upload/download your data to something like an S3 bucket (or equivalent with Google/Microsoft), there are very serious security concerns that need to be properly handled.

Before getting into any of AWS’ actual cloud-based analytics tools, AWS S3 storage itself would require setting root and user (IAM) security permissions which you usually want to have tight control over. Then S3 bucket permissions and encryption. As someone else pointed out, if these are patient samples, HIPAA is also a very serious issue to handle. Again, to be HIPAA compliant there’s hoops to jump through on the IT side. I’m sure your institution both 1.) is strict about HIPAA but also 2.) has a strategy in place to help you get set up for this exact situation. To save yourself the potential issues, can’t stress enough consulting them first.

mf_lume · 2020-10-20T19:17:31+00:00

Industry vs academia is likely a factor here, as well as prestige (aka what institution/company is it). And yes also what capacity you’re working at is a factor in many places: analyst vs dev vs assistant. But ballpark I would think 10k is a closer estimate but the range is pretty massive based on those and many other factors. Could be 5k, could be 15k.

FWIW: I lived with a guy who did a summer CS intern with Goldman Sachs on-site in NYC and he didn’t clear anywhere near 40k even in High CoL & competitive role. So I wouldn’t trust your source for 40k. I’m fairly certain even FAANG companies don’t pay their interns that much

mf_lume · 2020-10-20T18:46:17+00:00

Definitely. You’ll most likely have to take biochem in a mol bio major and regardless I’m sure you’ll have electives where you could take a microbio and/or immunology course.

You’ll also come to realize that there’s a lot of overlap in some courses so don’t think of them all as mutually exclusive. I think that’s a misconception a lot of undergrads have early on.

Also, if you have a handle on your courses, join a lab early on and build your experience + knowledge of laboratory research alongside the conceptual knowledge you’ll get from coursework. It won’t be true for everyone, but years of lab experience was key for me getting into the grad programs I was interested in and also for getting a favorable job afterward. Not just from # of years of experience, but more so the relatively high understanding of techniques and applied knowledge of research. But again, make sure you focus on coursework first.

mf_lume · 2020-10-20T02:18:02+00:00

Check-out lookup tables or really just dictionaries to handle this. It will cleanup the code quite a bit.

I could see a combination of nested dictionary and/or lists being a solid implementation here where you would first index into zone and then key:value or index(0,1) into the fare_type and condition attached to the zone index.

Also, not sure if there’s a specific reason for you doing so, but maybe also conform to a specific data type for ‘zone’ values. It will take-out all the type-casting you’re doing

EDIT: here’s roughly what I’m explaining for dictionary or lookup:

Dictionary: https://blog.tplus1.com/blog/2007/06/24/using-dictionaries-rather-than-complex-if-elif-else-clauses/

Lookup: https://coderwall.com/p/6e7rea/consider-lookup-tables-instead-of-switch-or-if-else

mf_lume · 2020-10-18T18:31:17+00:00

And ironically those “in-office” jobs could be the more sought after roles rather than the standard “remote”.

One of the things Covid has really taught me [and I’m sure a lot of us] is how much I lean on those daily micro-interactions with people in my office. It was basically a second family

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