iwidji

iwidji, 6 months ago

My best guess as an AI engineer is that the AI is to detect the difference between cars that are parked vs cars on the road that are stopping at a light and then take the picture at the right time.

I don’t think the article says the bus drivers initiate the photos — presumably SEPTA would rather have drivers drive than framing the perfect shot — so it makes sense to have AI fit in there.

iwidji, 7 months ago

I’m going to say something unpopular: I think you should make it possible for users to pay you for premium features like notifications.

Writing software is a hard thankless job. I’m sure there are many in the community who’d like to help you so that you can be more recharged and sustained in your pursuit to make Memmy better.

It’s admirable you want to keep it free, I hope there’s always a great free version. But I think you should consider a premium route, for features which actually do cost money to operate, and make a few bucks out of it too.

iwidji, 8 months ago

She gets a lot of undeserved hate but I always felt like her decisions are fair or she corrected it in the appeal. Maybe not the decision I’d like to see happen, but it always made sense as per the judging guidelines

iwidji, 9 months ago

So I’m someone who has to use an orthopedic shoe because I have (really bad) flat foot. So to add more flavor text,

• It is true, orthopedic isn’t really a regulated term, so it gets thrown around pretty aggressively with little meaning.
• Some shoe companies genuinely are creating orthopedic shoes for people with actual foot problems. For me personally, I use Orthofeet brand because I find them to straddle the very weird intersection of shoes with extra wide toe boxes/foots, and terrible arch support, and flexible + lightweight materials. They didn’t pay me to say this, I’m just really really happy with them after nearly a decade of jumping between brands.
• Sometimes orthopedic shoes are not enough… like in my defective case. In my case, I have Orthopedic Insoles which are NOT the same things as the flimsy things in the supermarkets. They’re actually custom molded to my foot, to prevent my skeletal structure from collapsing more under the horribleness of my flat foot. Between my shoes and my insoles, this is literally the difference between me being unable to walk and me being able to run a bit.

iwidji, 9 months ago

But I would add, don’t hold back money from your higher interest accruing accounts if you have it, if you’re trying to optimize the interest. Once you have the money, deposit it as soon as possible, so interest begins accruing on it, even if it’s not the beginning of the month yet.

In other words, if you hold back money, it’ll never accrue interest. You’re not going to get exponential or compounding growth on money that wasn’t accruing interest. You only get that once it begins accruing interest.

iwidji, 10 months ago

Disclaimer: I’ll be honest, I haven’t read the exact mechanics of the student loan ramp plan that Biden proposed, so there might be something else to the plan that overrides my thoughts.

But in general, if you are accruing interest on the loan but aren’t dinged, you have to consider the impacts of compounding interest.

• If you have a $100 loan (just to keep the numbers simple) with a 3.4% APY, that’s $103.4 for the year.
• Next year, it’s not $103.4 again. It’s $103.4 with another 3.4% APY. That makes your second year payment to $106.9 for the year, which is a 6.9% increase over your first year…
• The year after that, it’s $110.5 for your third year, which is a 10.5% increase from your original loan.
• The year after that, it’s $114.2 for your fourth year, which is a 14.2% increase from your original loan.

Note that this is not a linear growth – it’s not 3.4 + 3.4 = 6.8%. It’s exponential the longer you don’t pay for that first year because you’re now not just covering the principal (the base cost) but also the interest that was applied on top of that principal, compounded year-after-year.

All that to say, so long as interest is accruing, it’s almost always a smart idea to pay any loan off. However you are right, that due to inflation, it’s possible High Interest Savings Accounts can accrue interest greater than 3.4% so you may come out ahead. But be sure to run those numbers out for real with respect to compounding interest – don’t just think “Wow 3.4% is less than 4.5% interest in my savings account!”. Make sure you will come out ahead, make sure your loan lets you pre-pay with a larger payment at the end of this 12 month grace period, etc.

But just double check your math and be sure things will turn out the way you do.

iwidji, 10 months ago

For those who didn’t read the article, important note.

The valuation decrease was as of May 31.

It wasn’t even after the Reddit apocalypse! What is going to happen next?

iwidji, 10 months ago

I think that’s a fair take that’s likely to happen. It really depends now on what Reddit does to try to normalize things or blow things up more. I think if they try to just rebuild relationships with their new group of users, they may survive.

But they also seem equally as likely to find a new way to screw themselves over…