mojzu

I wouldn't disagree that decomposing a system in this way before implementation is a net positive, however I think different stake holders view plans like these very differently. If you discover partway through development that the library you planned to use for a feature will not work and as a result have to revisit your plan, then some stake holders see that as a failure or delivering late because to them the original plan was an iron-clad guarantee whereas to developers that's just an expected part of the process where not everything can be known ahead of time

I quite like the idea of a ratcheting mechanism, something like copyright for a few years is free, then the creator must pay an increasing amount of money to extend it every X years up to a maximum of the creators lifetime

It's unlikely to ever happen as it would require a lot of political wrangling, but I think a system where you only gain copyright protection or the ability to sue for damages by submitting your work to a repository/archive would be beneficial (either for free or very low cost). Then when copyright has expired the archive can make the work available to the public

It probably is against the ToS, but it's also perfectly legal first amendment speech, which undercuts Elon's claims that he's turning Twitter into a free speech platform. Seems more like a Elon-sanctioned speech platform

I wouldn't be happy with it but that doesn't make it illegal. In some countries it might be considered libel/defamation depending on what was said, but those standards vary wildly between/within countries and are to my understanding generally not considered criminal

And permitting lying or misleading speech is a pretty core part of free speech, it might be socially frowned upon or disincentivised by terms of service/moderation/other methods, but it's certainly not illegal

For the purposes of opening a bank account or for getting a loan then it would be considered identity theft. Pretending to be someone else online though? That's perfectly legal free speech in the US as far as I'm aware

I'm not a big Twitter user but am often bombarded with right wing content on other sites like Reddit and Youtube no matter how often I try to tell the site/train the algorithm that it's not content I'm interested in seeing whatsoever, the idea that conservatives are being silenced when I (a left wing Brit) am constantly seeing their content is frankly ridiculous

Wouldn't these points also apply to the internet itself? Large monopolies in infrastructure, having to teach people what domains are, diplomatic conflicts between nations over access to information/infrastructure, prolific spam and scams, etc.

The internet did grow out of telephony so perhaps it's not surprising that it shares many of the same qualities, however I think these government vs private debates often ignore that the failures and shortcomings of these systems are usually a result of both bad government intervention and bad private actors, not solely one or the other

Very much agreed. I also take issue with the 'received wisdom' that eking out productivity from people at any cost to their physical or mental health is actually producing more benefit over the long term, it seems more likely to me that it's just externalising the increased societal/healthcare/other costs for short term benefit

Personally I quite like the settings change, perhaps I didn't spend enough time with the old one but it felt rather clunky/disorganised to me. Whereas now they're roughly approximate between devices there's less for me to remember. I'd agree no one expects a computer to work the same as a phone/tablet, however when it comes to such basic things as settings having the same interface and syncing things where it makes sense is a positive for me

I recently ran into this setting up a laptop for work and how user hostile this step had become made my blood boil. There is no option to setup an initial local account unless you intentionally provide bad input to the Microsoft login page, I ended up just wiping the machine and installing Windows 10 from scratch

I'd really like to able to send invoices to Microsoft and other companies like Dell who pull this bullshit for wasting time in my life to work around this stuff (and I wonder how much potential productivity is used up by these practices)

That's true, and there may be valid reasons to remove a library and reimplement that 10% yourself such as for performance, stability or educational reasons. However if the library is performing as expected, does not using 90% of it make it any less valuable? If the problem has been solved in a satisfactory way and remaking it doesn't bring benefit or solve a problem then it seems wasteful to spend the human time to do so

I think they mean that it's code they're not having to write/test/maintain themselves because presumably if you pick a good enough library the quality of code/features are better then what one individual or team could do

While there are issues with this approach like the article outlines, personally I believe it to be better then the alternative of countless developers reimplementing the same feature sets over and over because honestly that just seems like a waste of human time and talent

Yeah this would be an improvement I think, considering how little I've seen iPads used in portrait mode it's a little surprising they haven't done it already. I'm guessing it's to support the pencil charging, since the new iPad does have cameras in the expected landscape location but only supports pencil 1

It seems like they were just a client for Instagram which was stripping out the ads, which would probably be a pretty clear cut violation of Instagram ToS or whatever API they were using, so I'm not surprised Google/Apple would remove it from their stores

The screen size/battery size would probably be larger on a price competitive Android phone then the SE, however I doubt you'd get as fast a processor/as many years of software updates either so it really depends what you prefer. I may be biased though having the SE, think I'll only bother to upgrade it when Apple finally switches to USB-C

The number of other 10 minute jobs I passively ignore a month could probably take up a significant portion of my free time, and many of those would probably provide more reward then trying to send a signal to a billion dollar corporation this way (shopping around for slightly better contracts, accounts, finding the cheapest variant of a product, etc.).

There's enough to do in life that everyone makes trade offs on what they're willing to spend their limited time on, personally I'm not willing to spend my time solving a problem that can absolutely be solved technologically but is prevented from being so by intransigence

It's a way for some people to try and reinforce the hustle culture status quo that doing unpaid labour for your employer, even to the detriment of your own physical or mental health is a moral or worthy goal that will definitely (maybe) be rewarded. Label/name it in a way that seems derogatory and many people will make the implicit assumption that it's derogatory for a good reason

Hardware bugs can cause hardware damage.

That's true, although I think the original point was that if software can damage the hardware it's running on then that should be seen as a fault/bug, but with cost reduction/market pressures/etc. it is often ignored

And fail-safe doesn't necessarily mean everything turns off because that can be just as dangerous, I take it more as a systems mindset where thought, care and attention are paid to failure conditions and making sure those outcomes pose the least risk. Again something which can often be ignored for cost or expediency reasons

Perfection is probably an unattainable goal but I've been around software long enough that I wouldn't want someones safety to depend solely on one piece of software

I think the argument is less related to hacking, as that would be like making something tamper proof which is a much higher bar. But more like if software can cause hardware damage, that means software bugs can cause hardware damage and potentially pose a safety risk, which should be seen as a critical hardware bug

For example the safety critical systems you mention should absolutely fail-safe at the bare minimum, all kinds of things can adversely affect running software like equipment generating EM noise nearby or someone tripping over the wrong cable

I'm not sure that's a completely fair characterisation, they definitely have an overwhelming market share but competitors such as GOG, Epic, Uplay, Origin do exist and often interoperate with Steam. And while publishers/developers will go to Steam because that's where most customers are I'm not aware of any Steam store policy/rule that says games can't be simultaneously sold through other marketplaces

I agree, I've been a happy customer of theirs for ~20 years and always felt like I was getting a good deal, and many of the annoyances of the platform seem mostly imposed by publishers (origin/uplay logins, online/drm requirements etc.)

Plus often the strategies competitors cook up actively put me off, I don't want the additional overhead of managing more accounts/payment options/social platforms I already have more then I want. And making me jump through those hoops to play an exclusive game will more often then not mean I just don't play the game

Isn't having access to Twitter similar to the use of a sound amplification system? Being removed from Twitter does not remove your ability to speak, move to another smaller platform or setup your own platform, it just reduces your potential audience/reduces your volume. While I'm not a fan of the concentration of power in a few big companies, this outcome is in alignment with current definitions of free speech (private entities get to choose who can use their property)

I agree, given how much I rely on my phone/computer to just work, I'd not personally be willing to make the usability and reliability tradeoffs with switching to something like a PinePhone. Plus there are some other steps you can take to reduce the privacy/security risks of relying on Google/Apple/etc., for example I use PiHole/Tailscale for DNS and Cryptomator for files stored in the cloud

Yeah I didn't quite get this either, personally I have no problem with the SQLite code of ethics because of its inclusion of "individuals are free to ignore or dispute this". But it does also include such lines as "Put your hope in God." and "Be in dread of hell.", which do make it an explicitly and objectively religious/Christian document, which would put it in a different category to mostly secular contributor covenants or codes of conduct in my opinion

Some general examples for me would be:

  - Watching a board game video, here are ways to buy the game/expansions/similar games
  - Listening to a book review, here are ways to buy the book/other books by the author/art related to the book
  - Listening to a tech podcast, here are tech related services that may have been discussed

I'm also uncomfortable with what these companies do with the data they collect, however I think there is a difference in that I directly entered into an agreement with these companies, signed a contract and have some avenues of recourse such as closing my account and moving to a competitor, complaining to a regulator or even going to court.

When it comes to ad companies hoovering up data wherever they can I have practically no options to do anything about it, even figuring out which companies have collected my data would be a sisyphean task

In theory, ads are great, I'd like to hear about products and services that can solve problems or improve my quality of life. In practice, my experience of ads on the web is to degrade the user experience of the page I came to see and to build intrusive personal profiles on what my interests are believed to be (which often seems to result in being repeatedly fed the same ads for products I've already purchased)

Anecdotally the best advertising I have engaged with and bought the most as a result of is content based, not personalised for me in any way (i.e. podcasts before dynamic ads became a thing)

Agreed, in addition the amount of personal information advertising companies collect is staggering and incredibly creepy. I believe an exposed API link was posted to HN some time back that allowed you to query your data from one of the big ones, I like to think I take some care with who I give that data to, but they had almost every phone number, home/work address, email address, social media profile, etc. I'd used over the past 15 years.

Until the advertising industry cleans house and abides to some level of standards and ethics I have no qualms blocking every advert I possibly can

Although I'd agree there is a difference I think these issues are closer than you think, for example if Cloudflare was providing network services to a website dedicated to spam, trolling or harrassment. These things in many jurisdictions are not illegal but many companies will refuse to support them because they are actively bad for business (driving existing or potential customers away, making their own products worse, etc.). Ideals can be great but trying to apply them without considering the effects, intended or not, can lead to poor results