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why-oh-why

217 karma · joined March 30, 2016

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why-oh-why··on NeverSSL
What a waste of money. The code is hosted on GitHub and it takes 1 minute to move the site to GitHub Pages.

$0/year, forever.

why-oh-why··on AirPods Pro Page Performance
What really annoys me is that it’s 2019 and companies, even Apple, are still doing these unnerving “parallax” sites that force you to scroll riiight there to read a paragraph. Overscroll? You’ll have to scroll back.

How’s that a good experience?

On mobile it would be super easy to just have it snap in place: one flick goes to the next “slide.”

But no. Let’s treat websites as videos and the scroll as a way to manually play them.

why-oh-why··on The Smartphone vs. the Camera Industry
I just got an 11 Pro for the camera. A lot improved but it’s not a panacea. Blurry photos are still likely in the evening. Photos straight into the sun actually worsened because of the HDR (that I can’t disable anymore), making the sun and nearby clouds look like they have a “shadow”
why-oh-why··on NSO hacked WhatsApp to spy on top government officials at U.S. allies
I don’t comment on the “Jewish are smarter” comment but I always attribute their success to their culture and work “mind”.

Sort of similar to how “Asian parents push their children to become doctors.” It’s not necessarily that Asians are smarter, but they do work hard to achieve what they want… statistically speaking.

why-oh-why··on Six cars aced new pedestrian detection tests
I’m a fan of Tesla but when you see that their system is not a bit better than the competition (they’re all failing in low light conditions), I don’t know how they can claim autonomous driving “coming soon.” Especially after Uber’s death you’d think that this specific condition would be given extremely high priority.
why-oh-why··on CorkScrew: A tool for tunneling SSH through HTTP proxies
That’s exactly like bypassing the electrical grid.

It’s like having a “free” street light and, instead of just enjoying the light, you pull its cables and plug your AC in.

The free service is just for the light.

why-oh-why··on Goodbye, Flash
Yeah have you tried authoring and animating SVG in 2008? Full of (browser support) holes and extremely poor performance, even on the "powerful" iPad in 2011. Flash by comparison would have been a breeze even on mobile.
why-oh-why··on Ask HN: I want my tech lead's job
That’s not how it sounds to me. It’s entirely possible that someone less competent is in a position higher than yours.

Also modesty won’t get you anywhere in your career.

why-oh-why··on The evolution of the web, and a eulogy for XHTML2
This was not avoidable.

Had the XHTML2 standard been adopted by many, browsers would have still had to support all the other non-X HTML documents, which would have never disappeared.

HTML5, with the exception of the new elements, just formalized the existing web parsing strategies for better cross compatibility.

As a web user, I don’t miss the days of XHTML sites randomly completely breaking because some tag wasn’t closed.

As a developer, I only miss XHTML2’s support for `href` on any element.

why-oh-why··on Stack Overflow is doing me ongoing harm
More context: https://judaism.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5193/stack-...

However I’m not familiar with the situation.

why-oh-why··on Naming the ‘iPhone SE 2’
Why would they name a new phone with a number that sounds 2 generations old? At least 8 and 10 were released together.

It would make to call it iPhone 11 Lite or something alone those lines (iPhone 11T?)

why-oh-why··on You cannot cURL under pressure
Which makes sense. cURL is a relatively “dumb” request tool.

Same goes for youtube-dl versus wget. The latter is a relatively “dumb” download tool.

why-oh-why··on Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong
One country can have various entry requirements for its regions. China’s own Hainan island lets me enter visa-free for 30 days while Mainland China doesn’t.

Same identical country, different rules.

why-oh-why··on HEAD – A guide to <head> elements
You don’t even need those. Safari will automatically look for a file on the root and so does Android.

Still, I know what you’re talking about and it’s awful how many “gurus” suggest all that noise.

why-oh-why··on Learn Just a Little Awk (2010)
That’s kinda backwards. One should point to the source and if that is no longer available then fire up the Machine.

In this case the archive.org link is a 403 for me while the original works.

why-oh-why··on Australia uses new technology to catch drivers on phones
Only twice? That's a great rate.

Keep in mind that:

- Most Vietnamese traffic is on 2 wheels; motorbikes are inherently less safe, that's not necessarily related to traffic rules.

- "The [US] federal government estimates that per mile traveled in 2016, the number of deaths on motorcycles was nearly 28 times the number in cars." [1]

I would classify Vietnam as safer for a biker than the US.

That said, street safety can certainly be improved in Vietnam: people wear dirt-cheap helmets that protect nothing. [2]

[1]: https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/motor... [2]: https://noipictures.photoshelter.com/image/I0000TpoYiE1y2Nw

why-oh-why··on Australia uses new technology to catch drivers on phones
It’s funny you mention Ho Chi Minh City. Vietnamese traffic seems lawless but I’ve come to the realization that people there follow different rules, that’s all.

Example: often you can cut the oncoming traffic off and turn left before them. This has the advantage of not having to wait 2 minutes in the middle of the road hoping that some poor soul will let you go. Instead, you just do it and people will slow down without honking at you (ironically, since they basically use the honk as a “I’m here too” signal)

Which one is better? Having left turns take forever or simply slowing down for 2 seconds when you cross an intersection?

Driving on motorbikes especially is infinitely smoother than in any other countries. I’ll take driving in Ho Chi Minh City over LA any day.

If you cut people off in the US people will honk, get unreasonably mad and chances are a police car will appear out of nowhere.

why-oh-why··on Thomas Cook collapses, stranding 150k UK holidaymakers
That reminds me of my grandma, she used to hand me money “for you to buy some X”

I should give her a call.

why-oh-why··on Postcode loophole enables fraudsters to hijack eBay parcels
You didn’t read. The second line is still your regular address if you live in dense areas.

I was just complaining about addresses and not this specific handling of ZIP codes by UK’s post.

why-oh-why··on Postcode loophole enables fraudsters to hijack eBay parcels
You didn’t read. The second line is still your regular address if you live in dense areas.
why-oh-why··on Postcode loophole enables fraudsters to hijack eBay parcels
Your mailman follows a screen that tells them where to go.
why-oh-why··on Postcode loophole enables fraudsters to hijack eBay parcels
I find it ludicrous that we’re still not using GPS coordinates as addresses. My address would look something like

    First Last
    Street # or Building Name if any
    18.0000 -7.0000
    USA
Basically the “ZIP city, state” line should be replaced by coordinates; 4 decimals are precise to 11 meters.

And in less dense areas you might not need the second line either:

    First Last
    18.0000 -7.0000
Mail is not handled manually anymore so why act like it still is?
why-oh-why··on Show HN: See a Satellite Tonight. No Telescope Required
If you're using Chrome, Google knows your location through your phone (and Google Maps, if you're on an iPhone)

If you're on mac and have an iPhone, same thing is happening across the whole OS.

Available WiFis, even if you're not connected to one, will be used by your OS to provide location as well.

This uses the basic Geolocation API, you can look up how your computer figures out its location for more detailed info.

why-oh-why··on Explanation of the state of uBlock Origin and other blockers for Safari
There’s no double standard. Everyone hates Safari for this too… all the 500 users of it.

Of course you’ll hear a lot more noise from the users of the browser with the larger share by a wide margin.

why-oh-why··on Why you should NOT get a free domain name from your web host
This makes no sense. The domain is not free, there’s a reason why these plans are yearly: you’re paying for the yearly domain registration as part of the domain+hosting.

The domain is still yours and you can move it later just like any other domain.

There’s virtually no disadvantage in this deal unless the provider prevents you from changing DNS records.

why-oh-why··on What’s it like to live on less than $2 a day?
> Like literally any single poor person in the world, that money will go first and foremost to securing basic life necessities (food, shelter, water, medical bills), and the rest is gonna get reinvested in their local town or village (either by starting a business or by paying for education).

Just because you solve their main issue it doesn’t mean that money will be “reinvested” by an uneducated person. You can still have grants for people with ideas, but handing out bills in villages isn’t going to change their lives.

why-oh-why··on Linux Kernel Fastboot [pdf]
> SATA driver init takes 100 to 200 ms even without a real disk

While it’s a joke, they’re not particularly far from the truth, as noted in a different comment here. They do indeed wait for some parts to respond.

why-oh-why··on Saudi Arabia oil facilities ablaze after drone strikes
I have no idea who that is; I just know that any "publication" that uses that language is rather biased and not to be trusted.
why-oh-why··on Saudi Arabia oil facilities ablaze after drone strikes
Nice source.

> The Houthi have clown prince Mohammad bin Salman by the balls and can squeeze those at will.

Perhaps don’t link to propaganda blogs.

why-oh-why··on Ask HN: Are you ok?
I’m not ok, I worked for 5 years as a “freelance” semi-full time, until 2 years ago when work kinda stopped coming in.

I haven’t worked since and got stuck taking care of some popular open source projects I can’t stop working on.

I can’t get out of this loop and my skills are becoming obsolete and forgotten.

I have on the other hand learned the basics of 3 South East Asian languages while living here. That’s all my life has become now.

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