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godot

2,378 karma · joined February 1, 2015

Hi, I'm not related to the Godot game engine. I picked this username before Godot engine was as popular as it is now (or at least I hadn't heard of it in early 2015. Sorry!). The name is a reference to the Phoenix Wright character prosecutor Godot, which is a favorite character of mine.
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godot··on RawTherapee
Before clicking, I legitimately thought this was going to be some sort of urine analysis med tech startup. What is the reasoning behind this product naming? Does therapee mean something in photography?
godot··on Angry Reviewer
Yeah, I was wondering about this. What is actually angry about this?

I had to take a moment to think about whether the suggestions are satire or serious, as it's hard to tell sometimes these days, but even after thinking about it -- whether this is satire or serious -- I still don't really see how any of the suggestions are angry. If serious, they are helpful. If satire, it's funny. No anger sensed. :)

godot··on Why did Airbnb dump React Native? (2021)
First thing I noticed as well! I think nowadays younger developers mostly simply equate "web frontend" with "React" subconsciously. :)
godot··on A fake job offer took down Axie Infinity
Also wonder if the PDF exploit works for only local/native PDF readers (e.g. Adobe Readers) or also web-based. If someone occasionally checks their personal email from a work laptop, chances are they'd only use the Gmail preview to open the PDF. It seems like most engineers wouldn't get all the way to downloading a job offer PDF to their work laptop and opening it up there.
godot··on Tell HN: Coinbase now requires physical address of recipient in crypto transfers
Not sure about "likely much cheaper". Those methods are either funded by VC money (for the case of early startups) or in the case of bigger companies, their other products that monetize you in other ways.

BTC is expensive to transfer, but other options like LTC are not. It takes a small fraction of a penny (in USD value).

godot··on Why is Apache clinging to OpenOffice?
There is indeed a product with the name FreeOffice, in the same category, by SoftMaker.
godot··on Ask HN: Monitor with physical dials for brightness/contrast?
Thank you, this works great for my current monitor on Windows. This is a good replacement for what I need.
godot··on S.F. population fell 6.3%, most in nation, to lowest level since 2010
I agree with you and GP; I'm just pointing out that the article does mention it as a primary reason:

> Experts have said the Bay Area’s high housing costs and remote work policies, particularly for the tech industry, fueled out-migration during the pandemic, as residents sought cheaper homes and more space. Almost all California coastal cities lost population, while the more affordable Central Valley and Inland Empire saw gains.

My observation from the discussion here is that there are a lot of people here still raving about city life (especially as pandemic tapers down) and how people are moving back in, etc. I think it's suffice to say everyone has a different living preference, and remote work enabled people who otherwise didn't want to live here, to move away, which in turn also opened up some spaces for people who wanted to live here but found it too expensive, to move in. The real question is probably how the numbers work out. Are there a lot more people who wanted to move away and are doing so now? If so, home prices and rents would drop. If the opposite is true or the numbers are about even, then prices wouldn't drop or would drop less.

godot··on Please stop disabling zoom
"width=device-width, initial-scale=1, user-scalable=no" seems like basically a setting that some tutorial had once posted many years ago, and all responsive sites just blindly took it as gospel; because it was supposed to give you one unified view for your site on mobile.

Understandably, back in the days (and maybe still the case now) the default behavior for web browsers on mobile were to load the same desktop site but zoomed out -- it wasn't a great experience, so devs looked for a way to avoid it.

I think it's fine to build a mobile responsive site with "width=device-width, initial-scale=1" (that gives you a default view that is built for mobile) but there is little reasons to have "user-scalable=no".

godot··on Translate a message 10 times into different languages and back
I took a Stripe marketing email that just landed in my inbox to test this out:

"How to stay competitive by building ecosystems of connected experiences that reward loyalty The power of localized payment methods to boost global revenue growth Whether recent crypto growth is sustainable or even warranted"

Kinda amusing how much shorter the final translation is:

"The environment that surrounds the environment? The status of international funding development Don't last"

godot··on Twitter set to accept Musk's $43B offer – sources
I don't totally disagree with you but that is a pretty purely monetary investment point of view. From Musk's position it seems unlikely he's viewing it as an investment; there are plenty of better investments in the world and he also has plenty of room to grow in his own companies already. It seems much more likely he has things in mind he wants to do about Twitter with regards to it being the de facto town square.
godot··on We analyzed 100K technical interviews to see where the best performers work
You and the person you reply to are both right. Having been on both sides of the aisle, after working for almost 2 decades, this really makes me not look forward to switching jobs anymore. Interviewing for a job really is the worst part of working as a software engineer.
godot··on Why the Black MacBook Cost More
I would've written something just like this a few years ago, but when the M1 was released, things really changed. It really is a lot faster than most other laptops for many types of work, and especially so for its price point.
godot··on $625M worth of ETH drained on Axie Infinity's Ronin Network
I'll actually try to add and defend crypto a little bit here:

> I think this is where insurance companies generally pop up as a solution.

Real legitimate DeFi protocols are now often supported by DeFi insurance as well. I know nothing about Axie Infinity and have no idea if this applies for them at all.

> (still thinking it's a solution waiting for a problem)

IMO, although this has been said many times the past few years, I think we're starting to get past this. In a very simplified view, DeFi protocols that do lending (e.g. loans based on collaterals), can do this fully automated, and it's because "the money is programmable" thanks to smart contracts and value stored. This type of lending took human work to do in TradFi and has overhead, in both costs and speed. I feel like this is the start of what real solutions/applications look like; it's something that wasn't possible before.

godot··on ‘This game is so realistic it feels just like working overtime’
Do you think your age and life (work) experience did that for you? I have noticed myself feeling considerably differently towards different games too. Games I used to enjoy (like Starcraft) back in the days, I enjoy a lot less as an older guy now and having worked for almost 2 decades. It takes a lot of mental effort to keep up and do well (macro-ing and managing my econ, also micro-ing my army, etc.). Whereas if I play some Fortnite with friends (as a 40 year-old...) it's just pretty relaxing overall and I still enjoy gaming that way.
godot··on Higher-income people are worried about the economy
I don't think this mentions anything about housing or mortgages. I think it's a bit simpler than this. Higher income people currently already have their basic needs met and have a good amount saved up for eventual retirement. When people's current needs are met, they think about the future, the economy affects it. Lower income people are currently struggling to make ends meet. You'd already be worrying about it everyday, the economy getting worse basically feels like noise that you don't have time to add to your worries.
godot··on Browser in the Browser (BITB) Attack
I miss the old Windows 95 days of every open window having a visible tab on the panel next to the Start menu. But of course, nowadays everyone has dozens of open applications at all times, so it's a less feasible design.
godot··on Browser in the Browser (BITB) Attack
Reminds me of the old 90s days of Apache with .htaccess files Auth setup.
godot··on Custom JavaScript controls can't capture the nuance of form fields (2021)
This thread just makes me think of the thankless job of native frontend developers working on Linux/macOS/Windows OSes that made these nuances and behaviors work exactly to a specific standard. Ok, maybe not thankless in the case of Mac and Windows since they probably got paid. :) But yeah, I imagine all the edge cases aren't easy to handle.
godot··on Stablecoins: Growth potential and impact on banking
This question presumes the envisioned future is where each person has their own non-custodial wallet that holds stablecoins that they use in transactions, no?

If the current trajectory is any indication, it's more likely that everyday users would mostly hold custodial accounts at organizations (e.g. Coinbase, like banks) and use stablecoins that way, which control aggregate wallets, and trackability stays within the org level (also like banks). Probably not as easy for the public to access (possible in data hacks) but just as easy for government access.

godot··on Ask HN: Have you ever written a not-to-do list? How did it work out?
Happy or miserable would be subjective based on how the person takes it. But I can tell you the "prematurely age" part is simply because of the amount of work it takes to raise a child. This is universal, for all children. I don't think anyone who doesn't have children can correctly estimate the amount of work and effort a child takes to raise. That amount of work takes a toll on your body and the aging is the result you can observe of that parent.
godot··on Please make a dumb car
There are things I agree and things I disagree, which leads me to think this is a pretty opinionated topic.

For example with navigation, I thought the phone does it the same but having experienced a Tesla I honestly vastly prefer the Tesla navigation. The bigger screen makes it much easier to glance where on the map I am. You can mount a phone anywhere and it won't be nearly as easily visible. (The GPS screens on my older cars are definitely worse than the phone though)

For climate control I agree fully that the older dials and buttons work better. The problem with temperature control is your body is human and you don't always want a constant temperature. I remember in my very old cars from the 90s and early 00s there's way less I have to adjust for temperature. There's a position on the dial that is pretty much always right to use for the entire season. Nowadays if I set it at 68 it's too cold on some days and too hot on some days, depending on what I'm wearing, how I'm feeling that day, etc. I have to adjust it up or down, and then next time I drive I have to adjust it again.

godot··on Get ahead by not shooting yourself in the foot
I feel like I agree with this in principle but the examples almost feel backwards to me. The bullet points under buying a house seems to be specifically about: 1) Overstretching your budget to buy bigger houses than you can afford, 2) Buying somewhere very remote where there are no job opportunities if you don't work remote, 3) Leisure options and friends are far away. None of these points are about buying a house itself as a decision (vs, renting).

Depending on your timing and location, renting is way more of a shoot-yourself-in-the-foot decision than buying a house. I graduated from college in mid-2000s and after a few years finally saved up to buy a house in early 2010s. Plenty of my peers saw no real need to this and continued renting through the decade of 2010-2020 while seeing home prices rise to unaffordable levels. I acknowledge that I got lucky in my timing and location (bay area), but it's hard to imagine a scenario where buying doesn't make sense when you can afford to. If nothing else, a (fixed rate) mortgage at least guarantees your monthly housing payment won't increase, vs rent. The decision to rent (as in, not being forced to rent because you cannot afford to buy) seems way more footgun-ish.

On the jobs section, the way most people choose jobs is insane, not by choice but more because it really is that hard and luck-based choosing a job. Over my career, I got to the "choose a random company whose recruiter just happened to reach out" point and landed a job, twice, and these both happen to be jobs I loved and stayed for a long time. Notably, another time, I moved to a company because I had a lot of friends working there so I knew I'd enjoy the people there, it didn't work out after a year and a half for other reasons than the people. The point of this all is, it's just really difficult to know what really matters at a job and company, so it's really hard to call this a footgun decision.

godot··on I got pwned by my cloud costs
These stories almost always boil down to this fundamental conflict of what you want for a personal project vs a business. (though in this case yes, Troy Hunt's HIBP is larger than a lot of startup businesses)

In a business setting, you want your service to stay up, at the cost of spike in costs if accidents or mistakes happen.

In a personal project, you want there to be hard limit on cost, and your service to go down if spikes call for it. (I'm relatively sure that no one wants their personal projects to incur a bill of thousands of dollars by accident.)

godot··on FalsiScan: Make it look like a PDF has been hand signed and scanned
Don't most PDF reader software (Adobe or otherwise) have the functionality to let you imprint a signature onto a PDF file and save it as a new file? You'd have to set up your signature (likely by scanning it) the first time, but once it's done, you can "sign" PDF documents with by clicking a couple buttons. I've done that for a ton of documents by now and have never heard a complaint.
godot··on Crypto.com accounts had unauthorized withdrawals
From my experience as a user, you don't have a password. They log you in via an email link, you have a PIN, and you have 2FA.
godot··on Teaching how to code is broken
IMO this was why the early web was so powerful as a way to on-ramp new developers. I learned coding a little bit before the web, from school materials like writing Pascal programs in DOS, in early 90s. Those were fun little exercises for school, but that was about it. In the late 90s I got the internet and got curious about making web pages, did View Source everywhere and taught myself HTML and basic CSS/JS (nothing more advanced than alert boxes and such at the time) while in high school, and it was what really got me to start my career in software engineering.

Building a web site gives you all the "why"s. It gave you a motivation to learn different aspects of coding. Whether it's the presentation layer in HTML, or application logic in PHP and Javascript. Conditions, loops, arrays and even data structures all make sense when you have all the context of the thing you're trying to build.

godot··on Charge, Baby, Charge for Parking
I feel like that's not all of it; there is a certain expectation for parking to be free from many people and I feel like it's because the demand for parking can be drastically different in geographically nearby locations.

For example, in the bay area, parking in SF is difficult to say the least and usually in paid garages. But go less than 30 miles to east bay (far east or south east bay, not Oakland or Berkeley), parking is much more plentiful everywhere and the expectation for parking is free.

If you live in the east bay and visit SF once in a while, you are coming from a daily life of the expectation of free parking to suddenly seeing signs for $20 a day, $50 a day, and so on. Without really consciously thinking about the economics and thinking, oh, it makes sense, because millions of people want to park in the city, it can definitely drive some emotional responses. If you live in SF and have thought about the economics and have accepted that parking is expensive, then the emotion and impatience and anxiety can be reduced/removed by the UX.

godot··on Computers as I used to love them
> No, seriously. It’s so simple I thought I missed something. But no. After you run that binary, you have a fully operational node of Syncthing. It’s ready to sync with any other Syncthing node, no other setup necessary. There’s no installers, no package management (but there are packages if you want to), no registration, no email, no logins, no password creation, no 2FA, no consents, no user agreements.

The most similar experience I had to this in recent years was using a program called wormhole for peer to peer file transfer: https://github.com/Jacalz/wormhole-gui

It was refreshing in a similar way; I download and open up the program, a friend does the same, and we can send files to each other, with a code genereated from the program. None of all this accounts stuff.

(For what it's worth, file sending has a similar issue as backup/sync that the author described -- most modern services are some centralized/cloud form, as opposed to the old days of ICQ/AIM/etc. where you could actually establish a direct connection to a friend and send files.)

godot··on Chatbots: Still dumb after all these years
I haven't used anything with GPT-3 first hand (chatbot or other use cases) so reading this article was one of my first exposure to it. It somewhat surprises me that a chatbot powered by GPT-3 doesn't seem that much different from the SmarterChild of AIM in the late 90s / early 00s. That was 20 years ago.

Short of any real break-through in AI, I feel that a chatbot just isn't something most consumers want to use.

A few years ago I bought into the chatbot hype for a while (the Facebook Messenger API opening up for building chatbots was a major catalyst for that particular hype cycle; that was when I was into it), and explored a lot in building one and other AI services that helped build one. It was quickly apparent that for the most part it's simply an iteration of the "answer machine navigation tree" that 800 numbers already had, just in text form.

There was a widespread notion at the time that users wanted chatbots for reasons like wanting to speak in a human langauage with a company to get what they need and solve problems as well as having context from chat history. I think the industry has confused the mechanism (the chat) with the intention (speaking with a human). Consumers prefer a chat sure, that's because they don't want to waste time being on hold on a phone (anyone who has called customer service at any big org or the gov't would know); but ultimately their intention is to speak with a human that can solve problems. When problems arise that require speaking to a human, that's usually not something a bot or a program could solve.

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