Chirael

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read HN through lynx for this exact reason.

Sounds like an ansible [1]. I thought this was from Orson Scott Card but apparently it pre-dates him, instead going back to Ursula Le Guin.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansible

I touch my face and even chew on my fingers as a nervous habit (hey, better than smoking or vaping, right?). If a mask kept me from habitually touching my face I'd consider that a win.

Absolutely, I agree 100%. Instead of trying to be all things to all people, I think they should stay focused on being a great email client. Based on the comments on this page it sounds like there’s certainly enough work to go around just with that goal.

What did they abandon it for, QBO?

Some of them probably made the assumption that by the time 2020 came around, they would be long gone and it would be somebody else's problem. And they were probably right.

Even bigger deal is the Y10K bug. But I'm sure these software systems won't still be running then.

It was the least untruthful thing he could say.

YouTube is starting to do this as well. For example they've made it so that accounts with less than 1000 subscribers can't do live streams any more. Not coincidentally, 1000 subscribers is the threshold for monetization (i.e., when ads start getting shown on all the account's videos).

A lot of smaller channels are upset about it, since live streams were one of the ways they were /getting/ to 1000 subscribers in the first place, but you can't fight the platform :(

There was a decent podcast on this about a month back, on Bloomberg "Odd Lots": https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-11/this-is-w...

I've been in touch sporadically with the author/creator since the original two episodes in 2018 and he's put a lot of work into it. I remember those two episodes fondly and for their high quality, and am really happy more are coming out.

I hate to say it, but it's perfect training for the world they'll live in once they enter the work force. It's the same thing there - you have no expectation of privacy when you're using the organization's equipment, if you want to do something sensitive you have to use your own equipment and data plan, and even if you do that, you risk being disciplined for doing something personal on the organization's premises/time.

That killed it for me right there, don't even need to go to the site. Thanks for saving me the trouble.

I got a new laptop about 6 months ago and have refused to install Chrome on it.

For the few cases where I need anything Google related, I use Edge. Basically, Edge gets all my Google related tabs, and Firefox with uBlock Origin gets the rest of my browsing.

I did have to train myself not to control-click links in Gmail though, and instead copy-link, paste-into-Firefox.

Yes, lock pickers love to work on LOTO locks because of this; you can see a lot of these videos by searching YouTube for #LotoLockTuesday

It’s nowhere as good or fine-grained as uBlock origin, but I’m surprised no one ever seems to mention (or use?) Firefox Focus and it’s associated Safari content blocker. Seems to work really well for me on my iPad and iPhone, at least for general ad blocking.

If you have to ask, you don't understand.

But at least the resale value of a house is generally a /lot/ better than the resale value of a diamond.

Sounds like it would be a big incentive for companies to stay private as long as possible.

Isn't that one of the reasons Hacker News exists, to fill those other 7.5 hours?

I wonder if there’s any relation between this and “Made in China 2025” [1]. Seems like it would be a lot easier if there are no more trade secrets from the government, and the government has representatives in various Chinese companies [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Made_in_China_2025 [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/23/china-to-place-government-of...

How is an oppressive and/or corrupt environment any more welcoming to innovators in a longer time horizon?

It pushes innovators out, which is strategically problematic long-term. If you were an innovator, would that be the kind of environment you'd want to stay in?

You may find this article helpful in some way: “How to Improve a Legacy Codebase” [0]

[0] https://jacquesmattheij.com/improving-a-legacy-codebase

“We’ve never needed it before, so why do we need it now?” (actual argument against it at my current workplace)

Every day.

Keypads are good, especially for higher end rentals. Another lower tech (and probably more secure TBH) option is small format interchangeable core (SFIC) locks where the core can easily and cheaply be swapped out between tenants. Landlordlocks.com built a business selling this concept to landlords. I’m only jealous I didn’t think of it first :)

With the Internet and YouTube I don’t think it’s as much of a lemon market as it once was. The information is out there, pretty accessible actually. For example it’s not hard to find that Master and Kwikset might not be the highest security compared to other options. The problem isn’t that the information is hard to find, it’s just that most people aren’t willing to spend more for higher security (could be a few hundred dollars more once you multiply it by a few doors) and it’s easy to convince yourself cheap locks are “good enough” - after all, someone could break a window, kick in the door, etc.

To be fair, they're generally around the same quality as Master locks. :D

See "Analog: The Last Defense Against DRM" [0]

[0] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/09/analog-last-defense-ag...