weehobbes

Ok, in the extreme case, that's a fair point. Tests can't be unlimited in length. But I don't think it's actually that tricky to draw the line. If a typical school test is 1 hour during class, just give students the option to come in at lunch or a free period for an extra period for extra time if needed. That seems easy and reasonable enough to me.

Agree!

That's a much bigger meta question, like what's even the point of putting timing constraints on any test?

Logistically, my kid has to go a testing center at the school during his free period and/or lunch periods for his extra time. I can imagine that if everyone got extra time, it would be a logistical nightmare.

But I think the reality is that our educational system had just decided that faster is better and that speed is a legitimate way to grade and rank students. Which is stupid.

I have a teenager who is at an academically rigorous college prep school. He is incredibly bright and one of the best students in the school. But he has an accommodation in math for extra time because he has a form of dyscalculia which makes him very prone to misreading and mixing up in working memory the numbers, symbols and other formulas. He understands all the concepts well, but his disability results in calculation/mechanical errors unless he has the extra time to check his work multiple times for these errors. I believe this kind of disability and accommodation is legitimate, but I understand why others may disagree. He even says he often feels guilty for getting extra time when others don't. I am sure there are also people who abuse the system and get accommodations when then don't actually need them.

"In retrospect Sandy Hook marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over." –Dan Hodges

Just curious, anyone using Siri regularly these days? If so, how/for what? I keep trying Siri every once in a while but it doesn’t seem to stick. Only use I find is setting an alarm now and then, but I still often just open the app to do it manually.

It’s also one more possible point of failure. My adapter causes intermittent skipping and cracklings noises, probably because the contact points aren’t secure. So I’ve basically stopped listening to music and podcasts on my iPhone 8 Plus because of it.

I don't think this is a common case for "regular users" but in my library of coding books, I find both very useful. For example, O'Reilly has a very different style/quality compared to Packt. And it's helpful to know when the book was published to know it's recency and whether it may be outdated.

I find all notifications and badges disturbing which is why I turn all of them off on my iPhone except for phone calls/text messages from my family, alarms I set, and calendar appointments. Nothing else is so important that it needs to interrupt my work or peace of mind.

I realize that many company cultures won't allow this. But it is a huge boon to productivity and peace of mind.

I check my apps when I want to check them, not when the apps or other people want me to check them.

I love Colemak and have used it for years. Typing with it feels absolutely great compared to QWERTY (mostly with less finger travel to reach common keys) but I agree that it's not worth the switch for most people. It took me about 2-3 weeks to be able to type functionally, and then about 6 months before I was as fluent as I was with QWERTY. Hardest part was remembering that the S key was moved right by one key - I kept mistyping S for almost a year.

I did try Dvorak before Colemak and really hated it. Not only was Ctrl+XCVZ a pain, I found that my left pinky got very strained because of the position of the L key which is a very common letter in the English language.

After learning Colemak, I tried practicing QWERTY occasionally to be "bi-keyboard" but I just could not do it. The more I practiced QWERTY, the worse I got with Colemak. So eventually I had to drop QWERTY. Now, whenever I use someone else's computer (usually just to do a small task), I have to hunt-and-peck and it makes me sad.

I'm really surprised that Gumroad has such low gross margins. For April 2018 $65k gp on $273k revenue is 24% gm. It looks better in December $135k gp on $341k revenue is 40%, but still lower that what I would have thought. Is it credit card processing fees? Server costs? What am I missing?

Few thoughts: For me personally, I experience a lot of ego depletion during the day. But having kids tends to do that. There's no way I can write at the end of the day, I'm just way to mentally tired. Also as someone who both codes and writes, writing is far more emotionally taxing. Coding is problem solving - there is usually a clear path to follow and I generally know when I've solved a problem. Writing for me is unclear and amorphous. There is almost never a road map, and I never really know when I've "finished." Finally, I think that lark/owl stereotypes are overblown. Up through college, I was absolutely an owl and did my best work from 10pm to 2am. Once I entered the workforce, I was forced into becoming a lark and after a painful transition, loved mornings and did my best work from 6am to 10am. 18 years later, I'm still a "lark" but from time to time, I have to pull late nights and my "owl" tendencies come back quite easily for short periods of time. But I need 8-9 hours of sleep... I can't do both lark and owl at the same time. I think studies show that the vast majority of people are in the middle - neither larks nor owls, and for those people, I believe you can train yourself to be whichever one you want.

Also referenced in the news article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2018/10/04/app-sca...

Has anyone else had issues with these deceptive scams in the Apple App Store? I feel like there should be a watchlist of scammy apps somewhere to warn users.

Another +1 for Colemak. I tried both Dvorak and Colemak about 8 years ago. I hated Dvorak, mostly because it ruins ctrl+z/x/c/v shortcuts. Also, right pinky hurt from frequently typing 'l'. Colemak is awesome. Much easier to learn, works well with most keyboard shortcuts, and is has worked well for me ergonomically.

I actually like the concept of inserting the images in between the "LIBRARY" bookends. I agree that the narrow slab san-serif typeface is mildly inappropriate for a library, but it's passable assuming the intent is for the brand to feel bolder and more modern. My biggest complaint is the omission of a logomark. The old logomark was boring and uninspired, and I think Pentagram not doing a logomark was a huge missed opportunity. They had the chance to create a truly iconic logomark for an iconic institution, and instead said "Eh, logotype is enough." It is definitely not enough.

Thanks for your feedback. I have heard from some of my friends who also run small businesses that they also plan to do nothing. I think for a purely practical perspective, it's extremely unlikely that EU regulators will go small software, app or web businesses in the US – I'm sure they have bigger fish to fry. That is, unless the small business does abuse their customers data and privacy resulting in a large number of complaints to EU regulators. Still, I think almost all of GDPR is pretty reasonable and not very costly (time or money) to implement (at least to me).

Thanks mjewtoo, I appreciate the feedback.

Re #1: To be exempt you must fit all 3 criteria: 1. processing is occasional 2. does not include, on a large scale, processing of special categories of data (e.g. religious, political, criminal backgrounds, sexual orientation, etc.) AND 3. unlikely to result in a risk to the rights and freedoms of natural persons I collect a number of emails on my website and apps every day, so I don't think my processing is "occasional". If I collected emails once a year or even once a month, sure I could argue that processing is occasional. But collecting 10-20 email signups per days doesn't seem occasional to me.

2. Thanks for this opinion on this. I think I agree your assessment.

3. Again, I think I agree with you - thanks for you opinion.

Very helpful, thanks!

I'm not a lawyer, but my interpretation of GDPR and the research I've done suggests that my current lead magnet approach (which is at least in the US very common) gives me consent to use the email for delivering the lead magnet, but not for marketing unless there is an explicit opt in for subsequent marketing emails. I think (and I have read) that not getting the user to explicitly check a box for marketing emails is implicit consent and is not allowed under GDPR. Also, saying something like "you cannot sign up for getting this lead magnet unless you consent to marketing emails" is also not allowed. That said, I agree with you that I'm very clear. So maybe I and others are interpreting GDPR too strictly. Here is one article that takes GDPR very strictly: https://kerstinmartin.com/blog/gdpr-lead-magnets

I just found another article however with another solution which may be better. The article suggests instead of saying "Get this free ebook! And p.s. we will send you information and marketing emails about our product." you should say "Sign up for our newsletter to receive information and marketing emails about our product. Also we will send you a free e-book as a gift." It's not as good of a call-to-action, but changing the order does turn into explicit consent for marketing. Source: https://blog.mailrelay.com/en/2017/12/28/new-gdpr#_What_abou...

No, I definitely value my time. I actually (and maybe strangely) have appreciated the opportunity to review my data processes, privacy policies and security. I think my business is better for it. Also, getting compliant is mostly a one-time effort with little maintenance, whereas paying $1000+ every year for a EU representation service that will in reality probably do absolutely nothing is very irritating to me.

That said, your point is still fair. I sometimes spend my time less-than-optimally because it feels "free."

As a solo business owner based in the US, I’ve been spending the last couple weeks learning about GDPR and getting compliant. While it has not been a fun process, I do think in general the regulation is quite reasonable and overall good for the world in general. So far, GDPR compliance has not cost me any money, only time.

There are three problems however that I have with GDPR and I’d love to hear how other small non-EU businesses are dealing with this.

First is the requirement to have EU representation (Art. 27). Since I don’t have any physical presence in the EU, GDPR requires the appointment of a representative. It would appear that a new industry has been created selling non-EU businesses GDPR representation in the EU which in my brief Google searching can cost $1000 per year or more. Are other small businesses owner out there paying for this? Or how else to deal with this requirement? Not a lawyer but this is the only part of GDPR I am tempted to ignore.

Second is the common practice of using lead magnets to collect emails for marketing. My email signup forms are very clear about marketing use, and are double opt in, and subscribers can opt out with a single click. But my research suggests that this is still not GDPR compliant unless there is an explicit consent, which I believe will reduce email signup rates. Also, while Mailchimp has a GDPR form, but it is quite large and doesn’t work embedded in web page headers, sidebars or popups. I’ve only seen one of these Mailchimp GDPR signups in the wild and they opened a new browser tab to present the hosted Mailchimp GDPR form which to me isn’t ideal. How are others handling email marketing signups? Disclosure and checkbox for consent seems a reasonable compromise but I haven’t seen this very often in the wild, at least not yet, that may change come May 25. Not a lawyer but I’m tempted to keep my current forms until I see more websites make changes.

Third, I have a medium sized mailing list (less than 10,000) mostly US based emails which is important for my business. Are people running consent campaigns (as suggested by Mailchimp?) I’m concerned that I will lose a substantial part of my list due to non-response. Again, the list is double opt in and I am very reasonable with my marketing emails. (Not a lawyer) but my thought is to segment my list into EU and non-EU customers and run a consent campaign only on EU emails. Has anyone run a consent campaign and how did it work out for you?

Any thoughts or suggestions from other small and solo business owners would be much appreciated.