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ss48on Apple avoids job cuts because it didn’t overhire like Google and Amazon

However, if you hire twice as many people, potentially twice as many people will be competent the following year.

ss48on Why is there so much useless and unreliable software?

Engineering is not always implementing the best solution, but implementing a solution that completely or partially solves the problem at hand. In engineering, the fact that the solution is suboptimal is immaterial compared to the outcome. It may have ramifications to future problems that are possible following that, but that is a separate engineering problem that can be considered separately and decided upon accordingly.

Transferring ideas and software discovery are difficult problems. Expecting everyone to know that tech x is superior to tech y and singularly pursue development of tech x is unreasonable.

Most people prefer work with a solution that you are familiar with or caters to a particular technology stack. JSON is a first-class citizen of Javascript, but can be secondary in other programming languages. Anything that provides the least cost or effort to resolving or minimizing the extent of the product at hand is all that is needed. There is almost never a case where point B must follow or supersede point A. Point A continues to solve the problems it was designed for or turned out to be useful for by chance: the technology can continue to be used where it is known and regarded.

ss48on Best courses for a layperson to learn law?

https://www.law.cornell.edu/

Not a course, but a good resource for finding up-to-date versions of laws in the US.

ss48on GitHub to lay off 10% and close all offices

If people were the same, there would be not as much discussion on this forum.

ss48on Acrobat PDF rendering engine added to Microsoft Edge

Has anyone come across any cases where the Acrobat rendering engine did a better job than the one used in Chrome and Chromium?

ss48on Flutter desktop isn’t there yet

I largely agree with this when the application will be used heavily on each platform. I think desktop + mobile cross-platform does work when one platform is primary and the second secondary (ex. IOT devices). You can then have an interface primarily focused for an embedded application, and then when data transfer or settings for the embedded device needs to be configured, configuring it from the desktop is easier, and having a similar interface all around is beneficial.

ss48on Ask HN: Does the HN commentariat have a reductive view of what a human being is?

I think so. There's an undercurrent of thought that what we will be able to create will be vastly superior to what we had before. This results in a perception of past accomplishments being inferior to future accomplishments and a singular focus on making everything conform to these future technologies, whatever means necessary. There needs to be an appreciation of things as they are, and what that enables at that time, so it can inspire the development of future technologies and keep others at bay and let existing systems continue.

ss48on Ask HN: Why doesn't Apple allow Pro features on a iPad Pro

Probably Surface Pro 9 with SQ3 chip. Apps for consuming content are more limited, but for Microsoft Office and other Productivity Apps, it's pretty good.

ss48on Spotify reducing employee base by about 6%

In this respect, I think that they're hoping that if they get enough experienced and higher income people laid off, that can compensate for the loss in productivity and the reduced workload with whoever remains.

ss48on Ask HN: Why are toggle switches replacing checkboxes? Isn't on/off less obvious?

I think it's because of a shift to mobile and setting screens that autosave. Using on/off switched is a common convention on mobile operating systems like iOS. When you are setting up something without hitting apply, the sense of activating a switch seems more like committing to the change compared to the checkbox.

ss48on Ask HN: How do I write good documentation?

https://diataxis.fr/ gives some good guideline for classifying types of documentation .

ss48on Ask HN: What is the current Windows UI tech? Silverlight? UWP?

I would guess the Xbox Game Development Kit. You could probably use Unreal Engine with this.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/gaming/gdk/

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/gaming/gdk/_content/gc/get...

Microsoft lately seems to try to have .NET target every platform, but has a different framework for different combinations you want to target.

ss48on Ask HN: What $500-2500 product improved your 2022

A large Smart TV to replace a projector.

We replaced a projector in our conference room with a 65" TCL Roku 4K TV. Meetings have never been better, and text is really crisp. Even in Zoom and Google Meet Meetings, it is so much easier to see and read what's on shared screens by participants.

ss48on My bad habit of hoarding information

I ended up using an extension called Tabs Aside (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tabs-aside/) and watch later for this. Then have an extension to open a random bookmark or shuffle through the watch later playlist.

It's not so much about hoarding as much as it is about a broader range of content. The internet can only be focused on discussing so many things in a day. I find that not saving news articles and current events really helps in this regards to maintain a useful list of things to read through that might be worth learning about more or exploring.

ss48on Moonwalkers: Shoes that make you walk faster (pre-order)

Wired made a video of it here, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qe4CHWulnDs that gave a good idea of what it's like using them.

ss48on Ask HN: Why did Frontend development explode in complexity?

I think the Frontend is mostly what gets promoted by Sales and Marketing when selling the product. The complexity results in trying to exactly meet what they request, or give them enough to talk about being new in the product. Performance improvements for the most part can only take up a few lines. New features, on the other hand, can take up countless pages if needed.

ss48on How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

I think that's mostly from them laying off a lot of their QA department in 2014/2015 timeframe. Even with Windows 10, I would have issues with the taskbar abruptly reloading.

https://www.ghacks.net/2019/09/23/former-microsoft-employee-...

ss48on How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

I've been using StartAllBack for this after upgrading to Windows 11, and it's worked out pretty well.

ss48on How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

GNOME3 was released in 2011, and around then, KDE did the same major overhall. I haven't seen too many major changes in the overall approach to the UI either has taken since then. Probably the most dramatic was the GTK4 update, which took quite a while.

ss48on Ask HN: What was the best software that you used during 2022?

Zotero. Once they added PDF annotation and improved their iOS app, became a great way for organizing and annotating PDF documents in a single place.

ss48on Ask HN: Switching from Windows to Ubuntu

Definitely consider Kubuntu, which is under the Ubuntu Umbrella. Linux has a lot of different desktop environments. I find the KDE Desktop environment is a lot more similar to Windows compared to Gnome, which Ubuntu uses.

Ubuntu also has some of their preinstalled applications installed using a package format called snap, which can result in slower startup times for some applications. I think Kubuntu does not.

If you don't care as much about having the latest and greatest version of software, also go with the LTS version, which has mostly security updates for 5 years from date of release.

If you want to try it out before installing it, you can get an image from osboxes.org and run it in a virtual machine like VirtualBox.

ss48on I'm 13 years old and this is my portfolio

Nice work.

As a suggestion, the portfolio could be a bit more responsive and adapt to more window sizes. The entire text is too wide for window at 2513 x 1843 resolution, and doesn't reflow as I shrink the width of the window.

Best of Luck!

ss48on Ask HN: How do you artifically stress yourself?

By imagining that someone else with my means and experiences would be able to do better at what I am doing compared to myself doing it by me not perceiving or deciding to do things as they ought to be done. A lot of times, it's not true and even if it was, it's irrelevant. In these circumstances, I think I try to use stress to motivate myself to do better, when the opposite turn out a lot better by staying more grounded in reality and responding to that more effectively.

ss48on Show HN: Obsidian Canvas – An infinite space for your ideas

I don't think it's terribly special. Second brain seems to value the connections between fragments of thought over the thoughts themselves, that these connections will guide the creation or your outlook on thoughts originating from them, a focus on process rather than output, assuming that the output is the result of the process (oftentimes not true). Alternatively, when you are thinking about something, you can quickly find the related thoughts quickly by this organization that can help you advance it faster or more creatively. This assumes that your past thoughts are relevant to your future thoughts which are oftentimes not the case.

It can work well for technical topics that are not quickly outdated and usually have less transitory interpretations, but not as great for subjective things. If you want to have a consistency in your thinking, it can be helpful, but the value of that is also questionable. The last is more psychological, but if you keep getting distracted by a lot of thoughts, by putting them down there and being able to retrieve them when you want, it lets you focus more on things in the present without being distracted by them. If you are exploring a topic over a long span of time, and need to keep reorienting yourself back to the topic, it can be helpful.

ss48on Ask HN: Programs that saved you 100 hours? (2022 edition)

Mailstore. It's an email archiving program, and saves a ton of time in searching for emails at our company by allowing you to search all emails in every email address for what you're looking for.

ss48on Ask HN: Programs that saved you 100 hours? (2022 edition)

Everything Search by Voidtools.

ss48on Ask HN: Have you found that the Inbox Zero method works? How do you maintain it?

No. It forces me to respond to every request that comes in even if it's not that useful. My activities start to conform to the inbox instead of the other way around. What relevance does the order in which things are presented to me have on how I ought to go about accomplishing my priorities. When my priorities change, the system I established for handling and the priority changes. Even if I'm done processing the message as far as I can, there is still more to be done to bring the issues it raises to a close. Sometimes, 2 or 3 items in my inbox are related.

I usually end up with a list of tasks that I resort and relate to one another, and keep reshuffling as the day goes along. When needed, relevant messages can go in a folder with anything else that's needed to address it so that when I return to it, anything that's needed for it is available immediately.

ss48on Ask HN: Are things getting more convenient but less satisfying?

Digitizing experiences (like metaverse, etc), yes, but I think I prefer digitization for completing everyday tasks. There are many times though where I've seen that making physical experiences accessible for those that are not capable of doing those (for financial or health reasons) has been a great source of contentment when it otherwise would not have been possible. If in old age, you're unable to get to a theatre but can still watch it on Netflix or at home, I consider that a win overall.

Things like banking, visa registration, and digital payments have gotten more convenient and accessible and make time for better experiences. I'm glad to have autopay for many recurring expenses and not have to worry about writing a check for every one of these. Making books and notes more portable has improved my contentment.

I have sometimes seen that once things have been made convenient and need to be optimized, they become less convenient than the original service. Customer Service over chat or tickets is oftentimes horrible, and every action you take needs your confirmation. Automation introduced in the customer service over phone is even worse than it used to be. I've started to see ads presented before watching videos on Youtube, and even before being able confirming an Uber or Lyft Ride. That time when you are focused to stay on the screen until they are ready for your decision are neither convenience or satisfying and worse than what originally existed. Here, convenience is being exchanged for profit.

ss48on Ask HN: Software to Write Engineering Calculations?

Word is actually good for writing them down if it's mostly equations. It has tons of shortcuts that can make typing them down pretty quick. Other people can easily open and comment on them.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/linear-format-equ...

When documents got longer, I would also use LyX (https://www.lyx.org/) because word can get unstable with really long documents.

ss48on Largest EU economy can reach 100% ‘clean energy’ by 2035

Does the 'clean energy' include natural gas now?

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/06/europe-natural-gas-nuclear-a...