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zer0defex

167 karma · joined November 14, 2013

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zer0defex··on OWC Makes MacBooks ‘Pro’ Again with Game-Changing OWC DEC
So buy an Apple and make it look like a Dell. Seems like a winner. /s
zer0defex··on ​Lust for public Wi-Fi trumps security concerns
Guess I'm the odd one out then, I have never and will never use public wifi networks. I don't even trust connecting through client's office wifi networks. On the rare occasion I have no other option in work situations in client offices, I'll use a VPN through a virtual machine completely isolated from my host environment. It's just not worth the risk. Always wear digital condoms folks.
zer0defex··on John Cage’s Gift to Us
Was hoping this was referring to Johnny Cage of Mortal Kombat fame. Left disappointed.
zer0defex··on macOS 10.12 Sierra: The Ars Technica review
Oh, no, definitely not. You're right, that would be absolutely ridiculous. The base 10+ apps or so I mentioned earlier are listed a bit further down in this thread here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12555847

That said, Linux is looking more and more appealing every OSX release and with how much I use it already via docker containers, virtual machines and the like, that will probably be my next move if Apple continues removing power user features from OSX while letting software release quality continue it's decline. There are some amazing open source alternatives available for the vast majority of apps on that list that I've been testing for months now as I honestly don't believe Apple really wants to change to meet the needs of yesterdays power users anymore.

zer0defex··on macOS 10.12 Sierra: The Ars Technica review
This is the entire list from my last install: http://pastebin.com/raw/hrYYMJPi

The base apps I almost always start with are:

- Moom (advanced window management)

- Hyperdock (window previews when hovering over dock apps)

- Amphetamine (stop mac from sleeping)

- Alfred (app launcher on steroids)

- FormatMatch (fast toggle copy/paste behavior to include or not text formatting)

- TotalTerminal (drop-down terminal like Quake's console)

- TotalFinder (dual-pane functionality in Finder)

- Radio Silence (simple outgoing app firewall, less annoying than Little Snitch)

- 1Password (everything OSX's keychain should be)

- Parallels (virtualization, it's still a Windows world)

zer0defex··on macOS 10.12 Sierra: The Ars Technica review
Sure, here's the entire list from my last clean install:

http://pastebin.com/raw/hrYYMJPi

zer0defex··on Apple in talks with luxury carmaker McLaren
You mentioned the first two on the list, why not the rest? Oh... right... including those paints a very different picture:

Retina MacBook Pro: 491 days since last release

Mac Pro: 1007 days since last release

Macbook Pro: 1563 days since last release

Mac Mini: 706 days since last release

Macbook Air: 562 days since last release

To be fair, the non-retina Macbook Pro and Macbook Air should be removed from the list as their place in the product line is now occupied by the Retina Macbook Pro and Macbook respectively.

That still leaves us with some pretty major product lines looking quite neglected.

zer0defex··on macOS 10.12 Sierra: The Ars Technica review
No, I wouldn't say it's fine and haven't been - my HN comment history will attest to that. OSX is showing it's age more and more every year. Yosemite. El Capitan. Sierra. You may as well have labeled them iOS integration package 1.0, 1.1, and 1.2.

I have to install at minimum 10+ 3rd-party apps on a clean OSX install just to reach baseline feature parity with other modern operating systems these days.

zer0defex··on macOS 10.12 Sierra: The Ars Technica review
As a fellow Apple power user, I share your sentiment regarding the sarcasm. It seems like a change happened in the past few years that to love something, means to love it unconditionally, to the point that you must be blind to it's weaknesses and flaws. Blind to the point that to acknowledge them or, gasp, speak of them, is sacrilege. That's a movement I simply can't buy into. How can anything improve if it can't even acknowledge and be honest with itself about what it's weaknesses and failings are?

Introspection isn't always pleasant, but it's quite often the path toward becoming something better.

zer0defex··on Apple in talks with luxury carmaker McLaren
Can you honestly say Apple products "just work" anymore?
zer0defex··on Apple in talks with luxury carmaker McLaren
Wow. Just wow. If this happens, the game has just changed.

Ron Dennis and Tim Cook. If you replaced Tim Cook's name with anyone else, I wouldn't believe it could ever work. Tim Cook though has already shown how awesome he can work with a manically focused leader driving vision and strategy. All of the sliding of Apple's quality since Job's passing, ceased in one brilliant strategic move.

Bravo Tim Cook, bravo. I'd be shocked if Elon Musk didn't pee himself just a wee bit after hearing this news.

zer0defex··on Mac OS X: Sane way to switch between windows
I love all of the advanced functionality hidden just beneath OSX's user-friendly veneer. Sadly, it's been one of the first casualties in the post-Jobs Apple. Every new release of OSX along with Apple's own apps, the first thing I check is holding down the alt/option key while clicking the various menu items to see what nuggets of alternate functionality appear. Every day, every release - less and less, if any at all. So sad.
zer0defex··on The Apple Goes Mushy Part I: OS X's Interface Decline
Just the built-in apple notes app - starting with El Capitan it has checklists now
zer0defex··on The Apple Goes Mushy Part I: OS X's Interface Decline
cDock: http://w0lfschild.github.io/app_cDock.html
zer0defex··on The Apple Goes Mushy Part I: OS X's Interface Decline
Microsoft has clearly identified this weakness as well. It's no coincidence the bash prompt has suddenly become available in windows...
zer0defex··on The Apple Goes Mushy Part I: OS X's Interface Decline
Exactly why I make mine transparent: http://imgur.com/a/AXNy9

Contrary to popular belief these days, contrast is not the enemy.

zer0defex··on The Apple Goes Mushy Part I: OS X's Interface Decline
Absolutely right.
zer0defex··on The Apple Goes Mushy Part I: OS X's Interface Decline
And I turn it on EVERY time I setup a new OSX install - I want to bloody well know for damn sure whether I'm on HTTP or HTTPS when I'm on websites and some stupid little lock icon ain't gonna cut it when I'm passing credit card and banking info over the net. A problem further exacerbated by the SSL variants (extended-validation SSL certs causing green text showing company name to appear beside the lock icon - bankofamerica.com compared to news.ycombinator.com for example). This article is dead on the money.
zer0defex··on The most alienating thing that happened to me as a female engineer
How does she know gender actually had anything to do with the difficulties she was/is experiencing? Sounds like the author may be what the book "Leadership & Self-Deception" terms as "being in the box", which is to say her own behavior/attitude is doing way more to manifest these scenarios, much more than anything her co-workers probably have done. Something about this article just seems off... 90% of it complaining about not getting to watch a certain TV show at work (could she not go to her own desk and watch whatever struck her fancy?), while the much clearer example of sexual harassment in the car is tacked on the end as little more than an afterthought...

Then again, she comes across as rather passive, so I wouldn't be surprised if she's also uncomfortable with confrontation, so maybe this is her way of passive aggressively sticking it to the person in the car story? Who knows..

My advice: find a female power executive to serve as a mentor / career coach for a few months. Ideally a real hard-ass that pulls no punches when it comes to getting shit done, knows her shit and gives zero fucks whether an employee is male, female, penguin, or alien provided the work is done right, done well, and delivered on-schedule and most importantly, has no qualms about laying down the wrath of god on any employees slacking off and/or delivering shit quality work.

Seeing someone like that in action up-close and personal, while also benefiting from their input and guidance on her own situations encountered would I think pay huge dividends toward future career growth and happiness.

zer0defex··on Signs point to Apple abandoning OS X branding in favor of MacOS
Never was a fan of the OSX release names during the post Steve Jobs era at Apple. MacOS x.x like iOS is fine to me.
zer0defex··on Ask HN: What did you learn as an early engineer?
+1 on the point about execution. So true.
zer0defex··on Ask HN: What did you learn as an early engineer?
Knowledge != Experience. Education, Sex, Race, pffh - all bullshit - experience trumps all of it. Top talent doesn't need bullshit technicalities and qualifications to shine and anyone that uses any of the above to tear others down has hit the glass ceiling of their own ability and see no other way to look good without tearing others down. In day to day life, these people sometimes seem like they are getting ahead, but in my experience, you can't escape karma and these folks almost always get weeded out over time (on a competent team).

I'm sure you've seen the image showing the creation of a simple program and the variations created during different stages of a programmers career (http://www.ariel.com.au/jokes/The_Evolution_of_a_Programmer....). You aren't the exception, you will find yourself following this exact progression in your career.

Oh, and mind your ego, rockstar's aren't worth the trouble if they are a complete asshole to everyone around them. No one, I repeat, no one, is worth so much. Also, don't tie your self-worth to your career and job level - it'll hurt 10x more if and when you get laid off or fired the first time. It's not personal, it's just business.

Last thing, no matter how valuable you think you may be to the company, the closer you are to the frontline of bringing new money into the biz and the easier this correlation is seen by management is the real measure of how important you are to the company. Sales is the lifeblood of any company, don't fool yourself into thinking technical ability by itself trumps someone half as good as you technically but 3x the salesman you are.

zer0defex··on Dropbox May Not Be LeBron James, but Is Still in the Game
Nail on the head right here. The only thing Dropbox has these days is consumer confidence in it's syncing process. Beyond that, they trail every competitor feature-wise and frankly, they are succeeding despite their management, not because of it. Recent product enhancements have been, let's be honest, mediocre at best across the board and show no signs of that changing anytime soon. They exist now solely due to brand recognition when it comes to cloud file sync'ing and the moment one of their competitors cracks the consumer confidence equation with the brand image to match, Dropbox is done.
zer0defex··on Serving 6.8M requests per second at 9 Gbps from a single Azure VM
Fellow innocent bystander here: I agree.
zer0defex··on Microsoft Edge's JavaScript engine to go open-source
Ditto - and I agree, underdog doesn't quite feel like the right word. It's more like yesterday's champion coming out of retirement to deliver some good old-fashioned ego checks on today's cocky up-and-comers. Either way, it's fun to watch.
zer0defex··on Half a year later, the Apple Watch feels like a stalled platform
Have to disagree on this one. The 6th gen iPod nano (https://support.apple.com/library/content/dam/edam/applecare...) is my absolute favorite, so if they made the Apple Watch able to be an iPod without accompanying iphone AND able to support bluetooth wireless headphones, I'm sold. Perfect fitness form factor.
zer0defex··on Apple.com vs. Microsoftstore.com 3rd party scripts
Incorrect.

All requests to metrics.apple.com and securemetrics.apple.com are going directly to Adobe Analytics, a third party analytics provider and part of the larger Adobe Marketing Cloud. The only reason the requests appear as 1st-party is down to Apple going through a few relatively simple steps that most companies do to configure their DNS to route a certain sub-domain specific to their analytics to an Adobe server and completing a first-party ssl cert request/setup process. Once the data enters the Adobe Marketing Cloud, depending on their specific implementation, they can then link that data across all kinds of other Adobe Marketing Cloud platforms to both track and target your ass down to the millisecond like everyone else. Boom, you've been third-partied.

Adobe bought Demdex for fucks sake. 1st or 3rd party means jack shit these days.

zer0defex··on MI5 'secretly collected phone data' for decade
I used to want to visit the UK, not so much anymore... when you find yourself mulling over how best to protect yourself in the same way you'd prep for attending something like defcon, it sort of loses its zeal.

Edit: wow, the downvotes are coming fast on this one, guess i found a nerve. needle

zer0defex··on Photos of people without their phones
Being a technologist, I (we?) are probably more sensitive to technology presence in day-to-day life, so this strikes a chord. The joke of the evolution of a software engineer (https://medium.com/@webseanhickey/the-evolution-of-a-softwar...) has become reality, but for society in general.

Sometimes simplicity and lack of connectivity is for the better.

zer0defex··on Is Tesla Doomed?
While traditional car makers can catch-up relatively quickly on some fronts with big budgets, they'll still miss the boat in terms of what makes Tesla so appealing - innovation and progress pushed forward by the company rather than the market is a huge sell.

Musk respected Jobs and his accomplishments at Apple for a simple reason: "It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them."

Big auto is reactionary, and until that changes, nothing will change (for them).

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