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unregistereddev

499 karma · joined March 22, 2022

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unregistereddev··on DoorDash to Acquire Instacart
I get this, but there are a few scenarios where grocery delivery is genuinely amazing.

- My parents are determined to age in place in their home. They get tired more easily than they used to, and aren't capable of doing as much. Especially in the winter, grocery delivery is a huge help for them.

- People with disabilities may or may not be capable of going to the store. Even for the ones who are capable, it is a much larger time commitment.

- For parents of young kids, leaving the house isn't just putting on pants. It's checking diapers, getting the kids to wear shoes, and timing the trip so it doesn't interfere with naptime, feedings, etc. This is a temporary phase! It doesn't take long before the kids are big enough to enjoy a trip to the store.

unregistereddev··on New 14‑inch MacBook Pro with M6
> They missed a chance to have the lady holding an iPad though.

Yeah this was a big miss. Farmers typically don't bring laptops out into the field, but tablets are extremely common. Tablets aren't nearly as susceptible to damage from dirt and dust and are easier to use on the go.

unregistereddev··on New 14‑inch MacBook Pro with M6
That is RealTree camo, not military camo. And it's really not a crop field? I'm guessing this is AI-generated. It's odd. It looks like a backyard garden, because you have mixed greens with kale, plentiful weeds, and marigolds (which are commonly used to keep pests at bay in small, hand-harvested gardens, but cannot be mixed into mechanically harvested fields). But the permanently-installed drip irrigation says commercial operation.

My guess is this photo was taken in a local garden co-op or small farmstead, but it looked too barren to use for advertising so they added a bunch of plants later.

unregistereddev··on What is going on with ceiling fans
Maybe off topic, but I think part of the problem is toilet paper. Sure, maybe some people are out there dropping 5 Curic logs every couple of days. But I've more commonly seen (Disclaimer: Low sample size here, I just grew up with a large family and little privacy) people take an arm's length of toilet paper, wad it up into a rather large ball, and use it for one wipe. Repeat several times until clean. Then hit the flush lever and walk away. There is no courtesy flush. There's only a naive hope, and perhaps a prayer, that it all goes away. If the toilet clogs? That's a sign there is a problem with the toilet. They do not think the problem might be them.
unregistereddev··on I don't want the details
I think there is a subtle additional level of trust that the author didn't call out. As the author noted, the SVP trusted that everyone involved in the issue responded rationally and professionally. But they left out the part where the SVP also trusted that the author and their engineering counterpart had already analyzed what happened and how.

The SVP doesn't have time to dig into the "who did what and when" timeline of a problem. They do need to communicate that they're willing to invest resources in preventing recurrence. Was the team burned out by noisy alarms? Then the SVP needs to hear "We're spending time improving automation to reduce alarms, and tuning remaining alarms to make them less noisy. This will take engineering time away from feature work." Or maybe the system had a single point of failure that broke, and the SVP needs to hear "We're redoing X to eliminate a single point of failure, but it will increase our infrastructure budget by $Y".

The SVP is inviting a higher level discussion around what resources need to be consumed in order to be sure this doesn't happen again. And they're opening the door to defending that use of resources.

unregistereddev··on Dystopian Surveillance Is Becoming a Reality
One intriguing use I encountered was a doctor who automatically transcribed the conversation during an appointment. This has HIPAA concerns, of course, and I think (hope, at least) that this was in the context of medical software that is designed to be HIPAA compliant. But it was an interesting way for a doctor to try and avoid missing something in conversation.

I agree with you that it's weird outside of professional settings.

unregistereddev··on What algorithm did Windows XP use to choose your initial user picture?
I remember Apple products being the realm of graphics designers, videographers, and other art professionals back in the XP days. I thought they went mainstream later, as Windows Vista coincided with the iPhone release.
unregistereddev··on Aging brains blend memories together instead of just forgetting them
These stories scare me. I'm happy that you were able to enjoy glimpses of your mother's past.

Mine is showing signs that several of us believe to be dementia, but she refuses to be seen and screened. It has gotten worse over time - repeated conversations, sometimes inside the same phone call, and a shift from "can't remember things if she doesn't write them down" to "needs to ask on multiple occasions because she hasn't remembered to write it down" - but not to the point where she seems to be a danger to herself.

I love my mother, but she is difficult. She also has grown with age. While she is difficult now, she used to be abusive and manipulative. My father would never speak ill of her, but from some things she's said I believe she was worse before she was raising us. If my mother regresses to an earlier state of mind, we will both need professional help. She will need professional care, and I will need help to not internalize the way she treats me.

unregistereddev··on Wendell Berry has died
I'm actually with you. Having read some of Wendell Berry's work, he comes across to me as an impractical dreamer. Not only do his ideals not scale to support humanity, but he refuses to acknowledge the external impact of his decisions.

Henry David Thoreau's writings about self-reliance are harder to tolerate once you learn that he was supported by family. Yes he lived in the woods, but his mother literally brought him food. In the same vein, Wendell Berry's writings about technology are harder to tolerate once you learn that he made his wife type up his manuscripts for him to be sent on to publishers.

It's worth having deep conversations about the impact and value of technology in modern society. It's also hard to take a sermon seriously when it's being preached by a hypocritical curmudgeon.

unregistereddev··on Where did all the public bathrooms go?
> that never meant us any harm

This is absurdly false.

I think the war with Iran is not justified. It is a waste of money, a waste of human life, and a waste of our world influence. But there are many in Iran who literally wish death to the USA. The founding manifesto of Hezbollah - an organization so tightly coupled to Iran that they view the Supreme Leader of Iran as their ultimate clerical authority - lists its first objective as resistance against the US.

unregistereddev··on A joke domain purchase turned in geopolitical warfare
Ditto. My experience with AWS support has been generally disappointing.
unregistereddev··on Claude writing a macOS driver for my obscure HP printer built only for Windows
I don't think so, no. It does not appear to be functioning as an OSX device driver. It's just hosting a network print server in docker.
unregistereddev··on Repair Cafe – Fix Your Broken Items
Yes, I no longer pay extra money for Logitech. If the quality is as bad as a cheap offbrand from China, why wouldn't I pay less for the cheap offbrand?

I'm glad to pay for quality, but Logitech no longer seems to offer good quality.

unregistereddev··on Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full
Yep. If you had the CPU overhead available, you could speed up your entire computer by enabling full-disk compression and then defragmenting. It's difficult to accurately describe just how slow it was to move data to and from a spinning platter over a PATA interface.
unregistereddev··on 3D Pinball for Windows (1995)
There's a set of lights in the lower left-hand edge and on the very upper right-hand edge. When it's time to select a mission look for the yellow arrow near those lights. Hitting the lights lets you select a mission. Sending the ball up the ramp confirms the mission. I don't quite remember what the missions were - typically "hit some combination of things" - but they were worth a lot of extra points and/or an extra ball.
unregistereddev··on My midlife crisis Corolla is fast, furious, and modded
Right or wrong, there are a lot of people who treat guys differently based on what they drive. In a corporate office there is social pressure to drive something that fits your role. Can you ignore that pressure? Of course. Do what you want and own it. But that pressure is still there.

When you have a 2-seat sports car you can't be the one who drives when the team goes out to lunch. If your car looks more expensive than your coworkers' cars, they start to gossip about how you can afford it.

Declaring it a midlife crisis is an attempt to get ahead of that. They're saying that they didn't buy it to avoid driving the team to lunch. They're saying that it's a rare treat, not something they could easily afford. They're saying that this car isn't their personality, it's something they wanted to enjoy.

Is any of this necessary? No. But it might cut down on rumors, and that put their mind at ease.

unregistereddev··on Neverclick: Desktop application for performing mouse actions with your keyboard
Microsoft Trusted Signing only tells me you were able to get a key.

If this is intended to be an open source project, transparency would go a long way. The source code and actual history will make a big difference. If this is not intended to be an open source project, then hosting it on a source control system is misleading.

Not releasing source code is fine, but then you need to build trust. Is it paid software? Is there a company or a known name behind it (in which case, can you host it on that entity's website)? At minimum, toss up a website that describes what the software does, what the usage terms are, and whether it collects information about user systems and/or uploads data anywhere. Bonus, scan it with Windows Defender and a couple other malware scanners. Advertise that it scans clean.

unregistereddev··on My midlife crisis Corolla is fast, furious, and modded
The normal corolla does not have a turbo at all. Besides the turbo, the GR Corolla has a completely different engine, different transmission, all wheel drive, limited slip transaxle and differential, and completely different suspension.
unregistereddev··on Neverclick: Desktop application for performing mouse actions with your keyboard
This reeks of likely malware.

- Fake commit history

- No source code, despite being hosted on github

- Windows-only binaries available for download

If I weren't on my work computer I would pull down those binaries to see what is in them. It sure smells fishy.

unregistereddev··on My midlife crisis Corolla is fast, furious, and modded
That is not a modern Corolla iM. The iM had about 130hp. The GR has 300. The iM had comfortable, "sensible Corolla" suspension. The GR has race suspension.

This is not a "basically stock" corolla. It's actually a really cool car with a fun story behind its design. Toyota's then-CEO Akio Toyoda is a big car nerd and an accomplished race car driver. The GR Corolla was his dream car. He was directly involved in the design and development of the car, and personally took the prototypes to the track for test drives to provide feedback to the engineering team.

It's ok that this is not your thing, but please do not be condescending towards other people's hobbies.

unregistereddev··on My midlife crisis Corolla is fast, furious, and modded
I've wanted a Porsche my entire life. Doesn't have to be a track monster - actually, I'd prefer a lower-powered one. I want the handling of a Boxster, but a truly fast car is only fun on the track.

When I was young, I couldn't justify the cost. Now that I'm a bit older I could afford it, but I can't spare the time for a hobby. With kids still in child seats, I had to stick with a practical car.

When I'm 50? The kids will be old enough to sit up front. I probably still won't have a lot of time for a hobby, but I do have money now.

Buying a midlife crisis car doesn't mean that you feel it's a rite of passage. It doesn't mean someone felt like they had to. It might just mean that for the entire first half of their lives, there has always been a reason to /not/ buy the expensive toy they wanted. They finally treated themselves.

unregistereddev··on Slate EV truck starts at $24,950
There are new hybrids available for $30k. There are new vehicles available for $22k. There are reasonable used vehicles available for $10k.

The problem with the Slate isn't that cheaper vehicles exist. The problem with the Slate is that you can buy nicer, better equipped vehicles for the same price.

unregistereddev··on Slate EV truck starts at $24,950
I completely agree. A base Prius is $30k. A base Kia Niro is $27k. Those are hybrids and not EV's, but 50+mpg is not bad. Those also come with power windows and many other features and creature comforts that the Slate doesn't.

$35k is not outrageous for a new car, but the Slate is supposed to be affordable basic transportation. Slate is selling barebones, stripped down basic transportation for the price of a middle class family car.

unregistereddev··on Reid Hoffman says SpaceX 'not an AI company', xAI 'complete train wreck'
This is nitpicky (and it supports your point, I'm not arguing): Colocated data centers became a commodity decades ago. Currently they are a scarce commodity that's in high demand, but I agree with you that this will eventually come full cycle.
unregistereddev··on Alan Greenspan has died
During his tenure, yes. Volcker remains famous among finance nerds, because it turns out he was right. He caused a recession and risked his own job, but in doing so he successfully reigned in runaway inflation.

While Volcker was controversial in his time and celebrated later, Greenspan was widely respected in his day. I remember Greenspan being sought for interviews national television to help explain finance topics to the general public.

unregistereddev··on AI didn't delete your database, you did
Just in case this isn't hyperbole, no. It means an LLM should not be given that much privilege and that you are responsible for reviewing the tool's output and approving its actions.
unregistereddev··on Artemis II will use laser beams to live-stream 4K moon footage at 260 Mbps
Eh, separation of concerns. Given NASA's PR budget, it seems reasonable that they should be able to produce quality launch coverage.

The many people involved in safely launching a rocket are not responsible for providing launch coverage, and the people who provide launch coverage are not allowed to interfere with the many people involved in safely launching a rocket. If they're going to do a bad job at one of those jobs I'd much rather they do a bad job at providing launch coverage, but the two are not mutually exclusive.

unregistereddev··on The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein
He was a talented con artist. While I don't have the link offhand, I recall reading an in-depth article the New York Times published on Epstein's rise. He gained connections first by exaggerating his own credentials, and later by exaggerating the depth and nature of his other connections. He was very good at convincing people that he was someone they needed to know.
unregistereddev··on India's Electric Two-Wheeler Market: Rise, Reset and What Comes Next
This is true in the USA where motorcycles are expensive toys. When I visit India, most motorcycles on the road seem to be very quiet in comparison. The constant sound of horns is more annoying than the engine noise.
unregistereddev··on Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?
> It can refactor very well but that's it.

Can it though? I thought it was most useful for writing new code, but have so far never had it correctly refactor existing code. Its refactoring attempts usually change behavior / logic, and sometimes even leave the code in a state where it's even harder to read.

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