granos

Crazy issues like that definitely do happen. But, this speaker output power issue being due to a file transfer error doesn't feel right. Do the perform any kind of integrity checking on the fw before installing it? Even an md5sum on the package seems like it would almost certainly have caught this. Either this wasn't caused by a file transfer problem, or their fw update process has some serious design issues.

If the SDK in question is just a thin wrapper on REST then sure, it isn't providing very much value. But most of the SDKs I've used implement higher level logical operations -- things that require understanding the intent of the API/data model and how things are supposed to fit together. By being able to write my code against that higher level abstraction I'm able to save time and offload some of the responsibility for knowing how the pieces all fit together to the people who know that best. Ultimately my goal is not to make REST requests, it's to provide value to my customers, and the APIs I call are means to that end.

If you haven't done so already, you REALLY should look into setting up an LLC for contract work in the US. Legally separating your business assets from your personal assets is very important. It doesn't cost a ton -- varies by state and whether you involve a lawyer or not. It will make your taxes a bit more complicated, but consider that the cost of insurance against somebody trying to sue you and take your house.

It somehow feels wrong to tell Apple that they can't sell Apps in their own App Store.

It's always cheaper to add one more patch, or bring in the contractor one more time than it is to rebuild the entire system from scratch. In aggregate this stops being true eventually, but I imagine this isn't a part of the system that may people are even aware of until it breaks -- and at that point you need a fix yesterday.

I'm currently living this. About a year ago I inherited a large codebase that has been allowed to accumulate tech debt for the past 5 years. This was all done in the name of adding new features and keeping the business competitive. But it's time to pay down the debt.

I've had MANY frank conversations with both product and engineering leadership about the current state of the world. The VP of engineering is onboard and understands the pain of what we're going through. Product is a bit harder to convince, but just as important -- probably more important. They understand that my team is having to spend 20%+ of our time just bringing the code into this decade, because I set that expectation early and reinforce it often.

I argued AGAINST a from-scratch rewrite because I knew it would never be ok to stop shipping. But I have been able to convince them that slowing down now will let us move faster later.

I may be wrong, but I'm fairly sure that FF licenses Widevine.

Hypothetically, if you could cause earthquakes in a controlled way, it may be possible to perform periodic small stress relief quakes rather than allowing one big one to occur naturally. We can't stop it moving, but maybe we can make it move on our terms.

Imagine a giant cube around the entire earth that touches in 6 places -- one on each cube face. Pick 3 faces and place a detector where each touches the earth -- on the surface. You can rotate the detectors around on the surface so that you get an arm in each axis relative to the center of the earth.

I used to work for a company with a very large user base. On 2 separate occasions we found code with GPL2 notices. One was in a header file and the other was in a monitoring script (we were technically distributing this script because of our corporate structure and who was running the servers).

Management took the issue very seriously -- in both cases the code was pulled and the features rebuilt. Annual trainings were introduced to make sure people were aware of licenses and that they can't just pull in code without looking. The company actually contributes quite a bit to open source.

You're absolutely correct that most companies wouldn't take the risk. I've seen this taken so far as to need Legal approval for including any new libraries. Unfortunately a lot of developers don't understand what they are doing regarding licenses. They don't understand that they are taking a risk on behalf of the company when they include code with a copyleft license.

Every place I've ever worked for has used code in production with licenses requiring attribution, but it's very rare that I've seen it actually done.

I wouldn't say that playing WoW costs your dearly or is detrimental or toxic to people. I will say that all of the people I've known who played games to their own detriment or in a way that was toxic to their lives were playing WoW. It is attractive to people who want to escape from their problems and not solve them. Because of this, it has somehow come to be seen as a cause of that escapism. It definitely becomes part of a vicious circle -- I play too much WoW because I'm stressed -- I'm not more stressed because I play too much WoW -- but that's the fault of the player, not the game.

Revoking all tokens and probably unpublishing anything published since eslint-scope 3.7.2 was released (maybe limit it to things published with a token that was issued after 3.7.2 was published) is the only way to really be sure

Seriously. I've been on a deployment that failed because China blocked access to Github for a little while over some piece of code in some repository. Make sure your dependencies are available.

Linus or the contributor? I can see an argument for either.

I've lived in areas where the pedestrian walk buttons are non-functional and also in areas where they extend the length of the green light in your direction. It's way too much effort to determine if they work or not, so I'll just continue mindlessly mashing them until the light changes anyway :)

Yes to all of those things. I used to work for Riot and the level of fandom is no less than any other sport I've ever seen. I'm not personally a fan, but people definitely watch together and chat/text/tweet each other with what is happening. The community in America is smaller than NFL fans.

You could definitely put an RF tag on a floppy and then have detectors at all exits like a retail store does with merchandise. Hell, you could use a "mantrap" like banks do so that you automatically catch the person on their way out.

Buy him a sewing machine (assuming you don't have one) and some supplies. There are tons of videos online to teach technique, and it isn't terribly expensive.

They are also exploiting economies of scale.

For Amazon, the marginal cost of a server is very small. For some startup, bringing up and maintaining a data center is astronomically expensive. By going with a cloud provider instead of hiring their own staff and buying their own hardware they save lots of money. If you don't need control over the hardware and networking and such then you can save money on the responsibility for it.

No.

I've had to explain to clients on numerous occasions why I enabled TLS between things in the same data center. Security requires layers and just because the data is on a network you own doesn't mean nobody can get in.

This is purely anecdotal, but I've used apple maps twice this year (accidentally - search for maps and hit the wrong icon) and it's taken me to the wrong place both times. I live just outside of a major metropolitan area; suburban but not rural by any stretch of the imagination.

I've never had Google Maps take me to the wrong place. At the end of the day, getting where I want to go is the primary concern. If they product doesn't work consistently then I'm just not going to use it. Hopefully my experience is not typical.

I once requested sample data to work against while triaging/fixing a production issue and was given an unredacted copy of the production database. Lots of customer names/addresses/phone numbers/emails in there. I nuked it from orbit when I was done.

The contrapositive would then be that if you find some really janky/unreliable feature that people are using, it must be pretty important to them and you should tread lightly when modifying it.

I've been able to get from the airport entrance to my gate in under 30 minutes. It was around 2am going from LAX to PHL and there was a long-ish (maybe 20 min wait??) line behind us at security. We still waited another 45 minutes at the gate. So 1 hour on the departure end is reasonable. At arrival I don't see 1 hour being unreasonable either.

They do. In fact, I just logged in to change my password and had to go get my phone from another room so I could read the code. The annoying thing is that they don't support Google Authenticator or some other TOTP/HOTP token generator. It sucks trying to log into services that use SMS based 2FA when you are not in an are where you get cell reception.

They don't even have to never win. It just has to cost them enough that their margin is smaller than that of some other venture.

Very. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_jamming

Does something like this actually cost them a huge amount in sales or do people know enough about the internet today to just come back in a few hours and try again? I know that personally, if I'm buying from Amazon, I would just come back later and try again.

This is over a decade old now, but is still very appropriate http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/?joel.3.219431.12

I dislike developing in Java. I am not a fanboy by any stretch of the imagination. That being said, someone who takes the time to understand how the JVM works and how to configure their processes with a proper operator's mindset can do amazing things in terms of resource usage.

It's easy to poke at Java for being a hog when in reality its just poor coding and operating practices that lead to bloated runtime behavior.