patja

He is a snappy writer, but everything he writes is pushing his personal agenda around his pet issues.

Why does Amazon serve me ads on the Kindle for books I already bought from Amazon that are currently loaded on that Kindle? Sometimes it is mystifying how many opportunities to better serve their customers and shareholders they leave on the table. I guess it comes down to priorities.

Plus the 5% kickback isn't too shabby.

Based on the popularity of WhatsApp, yes most people don't give it a second thought.

I'm sure this study that may not have been actually performed has been loosely replicated by many managers using their own teams' actual data. I've certainly worked in organizations very familiar with figures they calculated for the cost to fix defects early vs late.

I have the free personal hobbyist license and also love it. Learning how to use it to make my own custom models was one of my most gratifying pandemic personal growth projects. Very empowering.

They use an incredible number of off the shelf shower grab bars I recognize from Home Depot in the interior of pretty much every ship. I find things like that a bit distracting.

I kept looking for a connection to the Squeezebox media player. I don't think there is one.

Same thing happens with relocation expenses. Many employers make you pay them back if you leave within a year. That's normally quite a sum, and can be even bigger if the employer paid closing costs or otherwise made a new hire whole for selling a home in order to move.

All it asks is to hand over all your private contacts. For me that is a ridiculously high price.

I feel exactly the same.

But it was a bit infuriating to realize how huge an impact it was having on my kids who were being socially excluded for the sin of Android. Many children have ipads and hand me down iphones with no SIM just for iMessage, which they all just refer to as texting.

I've always been stunned by how irrelevant the ads were on my Kindle, until I became so annoyed I paid the fee to turn them off. Ads for Kindle ebook titles I had already purchased, ads for household cleaning products, ads for books in genres I have never read (romance), etc. My spouse still gets them on their Kindle so I can see things have not improved one iota.

I actually found it a bit offensive, as in "how stupid do they think I am to be tempted to buy a book I already bought from Amazon", mixed with being puzzled and confused over why a company like Amazon would do such a disservice to its shareholders by doing advertising so very poorly and leaving money on the table.

This reminds me that there is a fascinating Econtalk podcast episode on the subject of how the kidnapping insurance market works. Companies who have employees working in parts of the world where they are at risk of kidnapping for ransom have access to insurance against this risk.

Two of the things that struck me about this market are (a) the insurance companies require their customers to get serious about mitigating the risk. Employees all have to attend training on how to avoid kidnapping and what to do when it happens, the insurance customer has to take other measures to limit where they go, the customer has to beef up physical security, etc. And there are some situations they refuse to insure, so that's a big red flag. The insurance company becomes a partner in doing everything they can to prevent kidnappings. and (b) customers are sworn to secrecy and may not reveal that they have this insurance. Employees don't know they are insured against kidnapping. They don't want kidnapped employees spilling the beans.

The insurers have local negotiators in their employ who often have longstanding relationships with the kidnappers.

Anyways, a bit tangential, but I learned a lot about this niche industry, and it gave me more of an appreciation for how insurers can raise the professionalism of their customers in their efforts to minimize risks. A similar approach with the benefit of setting standards could definitely apply to cybercrime insurance.

https://www.econtalk.org/anja-shortland-on-kidnap/

My group of close friends tried playing online, where nobody knew who was which country. Some had trouble disassociating the back stabbing role play from our real life relationships. It nearly destroyed a few relationships.

It is pretty common knowledge in the area, especially with all the brewers of beer and coffee who care quite a bit about water composition.

The city regularly publishes tests breaking it all down:

http://www.seattle.gov/utilities/your-services/water/water-q...

I can't even recall the last time I saw a physical fight. Last time I participated in one was around 1980.

That works until your city decides to allow unhoused people to take over the parks with tents and generators as has happened in some cities in the US.

Huh. It is interesting to read this study that claims all kinds of bad things happen with water below 50 ppm TDS. I've been drinking Seattle tap water (under 50 ppm TDS) for over 50 years and have never heard anyone suggest we need to add minerals to our water to avoid these risks, or that our tap water poses any health risks whatsoever.

I'll admit I pay it just to hang onto my ancient 3 letter gamertag.

I'm also not seeing anything here that meets the definition of the word "salary". These details matter if you are trying to be taken seriously.

Just speaking for how it works in Seattle, buy nothing groups are often more about making hyper local connections with neighbors and not quite so focused on the efficient transfer of goods. For example as soon as one gets too big, they split it up into smaller groups. It diminishes the audience for your post. I've also observed some odd behaviors in the buy nothing groups on Facebook I've been on where it seems like people are putting way too much effort into a posting for one single t-shirt or dress with elaborate descriptions. It seems like there's something going on that's not just about getting rid of stuff.

Freecycle on the other hand has broader distribution in one sense in that they don't force you to limit your audience. And no reliance on Facebook.

She is remarkably circumspect about these details. Lots of references to people being allegedly from Harvard or appearing to be from Harvard. It does feel disingenuous to put that out there and not provide a single example.

Seems like a good case for a strict content security policies and self hosting static assets.

I don't know if it is a placebo, but many births by cesarean section are medically unnecessary, and can cause harm.

The US CDC (Center for Disease Control) currently recommends male circumcision for positive health effects.

On one of my first programming jobs, they weren't quite ready for me, so they just told me to read all the manufacturer's documentation on the platform we were using. I managed to read most of it cover to cover. Within a month I was being recognized for doing things others who had been there a year weren't even aware were an option. I've always been the type to open up a new application and explore what every single menu option offers, as well as at least digesting the whole table of contents/index to the help file or documentation.

I just finished playing The Witcher 3 on Xbox and feel Cyberpunk is far far below the visual quality of The Witcher. Partly because the HDR is so washed out, but there simply isn't nearly as much detail to it.

There is an aphorism that captures this: once you announce it, it is no longer altruism.

If you want something more than the Wikipedia content, try the book Wittgenstein's Poker. My book club read it about a decade ago and it's one of the few titles we keep referring back to.

Key features like the spatial effects only work with an iPad or mac. So now you have a dependency on Apple keeping that part going for years as well, if you want to keep using them as you would have expected to at launch.