Just some shower thoughts about AI that I had recently. What we have right now is undoubtedly useful. But I wonder if we're too naive to think that we can truly build something smarter than us.
If we should use the right tool for the job, then I think that our brains and AI are two different tools, useful for two different jobs. And we should keep them that way. Just how higher level languages and lower level languages have their pros and cons, each useful in different situations and in different ways.
Hope I can help fellow web devs dodge a bullet… When you deal with legal documents, it's better to forget about HTML semantics and especially CSS styling. If you get too smart around ordered lists and they render incorrectly for some reason, you're on the hook!
Hi there! I'm sharing with you a little tool I made for myself.
Sometimes it's easy to lose track of time and have deadlines get you caught off-guard. Especially when you have some vacations planned. You're like "pfft, there's plenty of time…" and then the invitable "oh, shit" moment comes.
The idea behind this tool is to give you a concrete, visual view of exactly how many workdays and workhours you have. It also allows you to mark your vacations, so you can know how much time you really have. On top of that, you can add your goals and the estimated time you think they'd take in order to get a rough estimation of how they fit in.
Apart from tracking quarters, you can configure it to track any period of time, in case you follow some different parttern. I hope you find it useful!
But I think something's missing from it — the simple act of consistent self-reflection on what you're doing and why. Cultivating this habit is what I call a "metasystem." What do you think about this idea? Does it make sense? How could it be better?
I was suffering from the paradox of choice lately when choosing a framework for a long-term company project. Nowadays it's like thinking of holiday gifts for distant relatives… There's no clear winner, yet there are lots of people with strong opinions out there. They put stickers on their laptops and preach as if {{insert framework here}} was their life. That's when I realized — your framework is not your religion.
TL;DR: Picked React because it's the biggest and most stable cult, but you should experiment with other cults as well because it's about the ideas, not the specific frameworks.
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Hope this can help someone out there who is also pulling the lever of the framework roulette and has to make a decision.
Have you ever used something that "just works" and it actually has done so always, without a miss? I don't think I have. And the more magical something is, the harder it is to debug. When it comes to code, I think it makes more sense to keep things clear and obvious, rather than whimsical and obscure. Make the final product magical, not the software that runs it. What do you think about that?
Browsers are actually okay with <style> tags in the <body> and apply the rules inside. Although MDN says they must be placed in the <head> [1]. Email clients seem to be a lot more restrictive, apparently. Or lazy.
Nope, that doesn't work as well. I tested it before finishing up the article a few days ago. If you put `<style>` in the `<body>`, it gets removed when the email is forwarded and it still looks like shit.
When I first got introduced to email development, I remember I wanted to throw myself off a cliff. I couldn't believe how nonsensical everything was. I kept track of everything in a little text document, which I've now turned into a post.
If you happen to be starting out with emails, I hope this can get you up to speed with exactly how everything is fucked. And if you're an Outlook survivor, I hope you'll find something you can relate to…
I guess I was too broad and pessimistic. By "code does not matter" I meant that it's not worth it to micro-optimize and dig into unnecessary details. It's fine if it's not perfect and has its rough edges, as long as it works correctly and looks as intended.
And I agree that programming is the art! I love it and I haven't given up on it. I just decided that it's better to focus on new and interesting problems.
Valid points! We thought about these things, but we had limited time and we couldn't get to them. As for the route suggestion - this isn't up to us. It depends on our data source and what results it returns.
The fuel consumption by vehicle category is based on averages. We didn't put too much energy into accurate measurements because you can change the consumption on the results page so that it exactly matches that of your car.
We thought about that exact thing! However, we didn't have enough data to make this work. The numbers we display are averages. We'd love to make it more accurate once we have the resources!
I am Hristiyan Dodov, Full-Stack Developer at Oblik Studio and developer of Mission Emission.
I wanted to clear a few things out and say my opinion about the project.
First of all, we're not chemists or scientists and we haven't worked with such either. We've done our best to do these calculations correctly, but there are just so many variables and giving more accurate results
demands more work, time, and information. Although the calculations are rough estimates, they are based on actual facts and research and are not some numbers we made up in our head. We would love to make things more accurate, but we need more support and data. Given that this is a non-profit project, it's a bit overwhelming.
For me, the goal of this project is to raise awareness about air pollution and make you think. Transportation plays a big role in air pollution, while it's an important part of everyone's life, making it easier for people to relate. We display an average estimate of emissions for your journey and then put the numbers in perspective with facts - for example, how much time is needed for a tree to absorb the generated CO2. The goal is to educate people as best as we can and perhaps even change their minds on transportation and make them think about using a greener transport. I don't think it matters how much exactly the air is getting polluted. The problem is that it's a lot, it's getting worse, and things doesn't seem to change. And that's our goal - to provoke a change.
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Electric vehicle emissions:
Some people said that the app sometimes shows that electric vehicles produce more emissions than petrol/diesel vehicles. That's correct. Yes, the electricity itself doesn't directly generate emissions, but the way that electricity was created - probably does. Does it sound more eco-friendly to burn 40 kilos of coal to generate X amount of electricity and travel 10 kilometers, or burn 1 liter of petrol for that same distance? I made up those numbers in my head, but I think it illustrates my point nicely. Of course, this greatly varies with how each country or even city generates its electricity. That's also why it's so hard to provide accurate measurements and it's the reason we use average values. Basically, how green an electric car is depends on how the electricity it uses was generated.
Fuel consumption:
The vehicle category determines the fuel consumption value. It's not 100% accurate because it's based on averages from various kinds of car makes and models. We didn't focus much on that because you can change the fuel consumption on the results page and make it match that of your own vehicle exactly. That's also the reason why we didn't include the exact make and model, load, speed, etc. All of these things come down to fuel consumption, which is the most important part of emissions after all. Instead of putting a ton of settings, we simply put a vehicle category to give a rough estimate and then gave you the ability to change the fuel consumption however you wish.
If we should use the right tool for the job, then I think that our brains and AI are two different tools, useful for two different jobs. And we should keep them that way. Just how higher level languages and lower level languages have their pros and cons, each useful in different situations and in different ways.