HN user
Good content is not easy.
Especially when the scuttlebutt is that they're not going to be doing anything more risque than PG-13. It's true that not every good TV show needs constant swearing and gore and T&A to be good, but artists need the freedom to push envelopes. Apple TV+ is likely going to be as bland and generic as a friday night broadcast TV lineup.
In fairness to Facebook (which is a phrase I never thought I'd type) Whatsapp's Signal-derived end-to-end encryption was implemented almost a year after Facebook bought it.
Of course, there's still the flaw of backups to Google Drive being unencrypted. But fortunately that's not the default setting.
True, I didn't mean to imply officially-sanctioned engineers are better than developers in all things, or that one can't be both, or that glacially slow and careful programming is the right approach in all circumstances. I just have issues with developers in companies with "move fast and break things" cultures calling what they do "engineering".
Same phenomenon for me in southern Ontario. My ISP (Start.ca) is using Rogers' infrastructure. Evenings equal poor streaming video performance on all sites despite an otherwise-perfect connection. If I connect to a VPN, video performance mysteriously improves instantly.
If I were of a suspicious mind, I'd wonder if Rogers is pulling some backend shenanigans to discourage cord-cutting.
If Apple does adopt RCS, it's likely only as a fallback for iMessage, much like SMS today. And rather than Apple abandoning control over their messaging platform, I'd sooner bet on Apple releasing iMessage and Facetime for Android with a small subscription fee. Probably in the range of US$1-$2/month.
If there's one thing that Apple hates more than lost profits, it's handing over control of anything to carriers. Cheap-subscription iMessage/Facetime for Android would strangle RCS/Duo in the cradle and put a thumb in the eye of the carriers, while bringing in some steady and significant regular revenue. Let's not forget that Apple is already offering a subscription service on Android, Apple Music. They're not averse to the concept.
As a Canadian with a lot of iron rings in the family, it's always so weird to see the phrase "software engineer". It just doesn't feel like it's been earned.
Apples to oranges. Javascript is an open-standard language, not a closed black box runtime like Flash.
And even if one can afford Apple hardware, I'd bet on there being significant overlap between the "has keen interest in security" and "likes to fix own hardware" crowds. I could easily afford to have an all-Apple household. I don't, because I don't like Apple's attitude towards individuals fixing something rather than buying new.
As someone who dealt professionally with security issues from about 2000 onwards, many involving Flash 0-days, I have about as much fond remembrance of Flash as I do for polio or smallpox. I regard it as an infectious scourge that humanity has finally largely eradicated, and we're healthier for it.
That was actually quite informative, thanks for the link.
FastMail support is worse than Google and has fewer features.
Actually I use Fastmail, and am a big fan. I've never had an issue reaching support. Of course I've rarely had to, the service is pretty reliable.
As for features, I could flip that around on Gmail. Does Google rigidly adhere to imap/carddav/caldav standards so that standards-compliant clients have no problems whatsoever in connecting, or are there still cheerful little "quirks" when trying to use non-official clients with Gmail?
Needless to say, never using a Google service again.
The only Google services I bother with are search, maps, youtube (in a non-logged-in viewing-only capacity, not a posting-my-own-videos capacity) and the android play store (paying for apps via gift cards). I don't trust google not to cancel new services on a metaphorical moment's notice, and I don't have any faith in reaching a human being if I have a billing problem. So I make sure not to tie my life in any way to my Google account.
It feels strange to say, as an old school Linux fanboy who vividly remembers the Halloween document release, but I tend to point "I want to move my business to the cloud" friends/acquaintances to Office 365 instead. Say what one will about Microsoft's scummy behaviour over the years, but no-one can claim they aren't into Office 365 for the long haul. And while it's not exactly easy to get a human being at Microsoft to fix a problem, it's certainly easier than Google.
Because you have a very accurate nose.
Agreed. I'm one of those oddball half-GenX/half-millennials, but I spend a lot of time around Gen Z's. (Not in a creepy way, I'm just the eldest cousin in a huge close extended family.) I think the way Gen Z handles tech is awesome. They're quick to apply skepticism, common sense, and a concern for privacy. I think us oldsters could learn a lot from them.
I think it's because those with political influence who espouse xenophobic views also tend to dislike the poor. "Taxpayer" as an identity has connotations of "only the landed gentry should have a voice in society's management", whereas "citizen" connotes equal rights and a voice in society regardless of income.
"Do you have anything light?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxqjsyfbcd4
the messy parts of the UEFI ecosystem
The jokes practically write themselves.
Citizen sounds like a pretty awful word choice in a country with so many non-citizen immigrants though (and non-immigrants for that matter). It's sound like they're deliberately being excluded.
I was referring to its use in the context of an election, which is often limited to the citizenry (in any democracy).
Also, where I live, public figures who use the word "citizen" to refer to ordinary people often don't use it in the literal sense of the word when discussing public-interest matters. They're often using it to emphasize the responsibilities and rights that all people have in relation to the broader society. In other words, where I live it's not often used in an exclusionary xenophobic way, but instead in an inclusive common-purpose way that emphasizes our shared humanity. The xenophobes here tend to prefer "taxpayer".
I think a lot of the entrepreneurs here are having difficulty in competing on the open market with the FAANGs and not-quite-as-big-as-FAANGs-but-still-big companies. They don't really want to end the tech industry's free reign. They just want to see themselves replacing the current top dogs.
We are not consumers, we are people.
I often base my vote, when all the candidates in a given election have similar policies, on how they refer to people.
Use of "Consumers" loses my vote instantly. "Taxpayers" is a yellow flag - if used in specific situations that involves concern over major public funds going to private businesses (like building a stadium for a pro sports team) I'll let it slide but otherwise it only raises suspicion in me. But if a politician consistently uses "citizen", I'll give them a little mental gold star.
Morals and integrity are foreign concepts to marketers. I used to think that marketing had a place, if properly used. After working with marketers for a decade, I just consider them and their whole wretched field a lost cause. I have no sympathy, no empathy, no compassion for any of them. Nowadays I make every effort to use only paid services whenever possible. (If any Fastmail devs are reading... I frickin' love you guys.)
My go to has been "ceo@example.com" for years.
I think I may make the effort to learn how to make a Firefox extension to automate this. Scrape "about us", "contact", etc. page in background for first email address, then autofill it into the email spam form. Boom, done.
Are you asking for a hypothetical scenario where I was the web developer in question having to stand up to some marketing drone?
Take a closer look at the key phrase in my post: "makes no effort". If a web developer who's trying to pay the rent makes even a single comment to the marketing drones about how email signup forms might not be a good idea, and asks if they're sure they want to do it, then that web developer has my sympathy and not my hatred. But if they just cheerfully say "Yes sir!" when the marketing drones make that demand, then I hate them just as much as I hate the marketing drones, because at that point they are marketing drones.
Ah, but most other countries don't share a border with Iran. Wouldn't it be a funny old coincidence if Turkmenistan's economy just happened to completely collapse, and the US saved the day with some generous aid packages coughandsomemilitarybasescough? A funny old coincidence.
I like you.
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Dear every web developer in the world who makes no effort to fight your employers' marketing department on this: I hate you.
But then of course the aircraft got saddled with requirements from three different branches of the military at once which made it extremely difficult to design and build and thus very very expensive.
Sounds rather like the Space Transportation System. During design, it went from a compact inexpensive passenger shuttle with modest payload capability, to a complete pig of a ship. And all because the Air Force contributed cash on the condition that it be capable of classified high-payload-pass missions to polar orbits.
It is nothing short of a tragedy that fully-reusable compact shuttles with flyback boosters (like the Rockwell P333) lost out to the disposable-booster design that was eventually built.
Modern nation-states are perfectly capable of dealing with climate change issues. They're the only entities with the power to properly do so. The problem lies in industry-bought politicians preventing those nation-states from enacting effective policies.
cost savings (ala the F-35)
What.
I was thinking more along the lines of removing features to simplify maintenance, Gnome 3 style.
"Good news, General. We've found a way to lower maintenance costs in the cockpit systems by 10% if we removed this thing here on the blueprints, so we've already gone ahead with that change."
"But that's the emergency ejection system!"
"Yes, and our data indicates that it's almost never used. It doesn't really make sense to devote manpower to keeping a system running that few people ever need. If we get rid of it, we can free up developer-hours to making the canopy opening/closing action a little smoother. Everyone uses the canopy."