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BenSS

687 karma · joined September 27, 2010

Having fun with mobile apps now.
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BenSS··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (September 2023)
National Grid | Remote from NY, MA, ME, CT, PA, NJ, RH, NH | Full-Time

National Grid is an energy company but currently highly committed to a large digital transformation, along with green energy efforts and DEI. My current team is hiring at least 3 more people to work on replacing the current mobile app that serves all of National Grid's customers in the US. There are many other roles open as well, though not all teams provide remote options.

Senior Mobile Engineer: https://jobs.nationalgrid.com/USA/job/Brooklyn-Senior-Mobile...

Senior Software Engineer: https://jobs.nationalgrid.com/USA/job/Brooklyn-Senior-Softwa...

BenSS··on Dark Horse Discord
Discord is one crisis away from imploding if they don't get serious about moderation tools and parental controls. They're turning a blind eye to the issues around tweens/teens interacting with much older folks online in pursuit of growth.
BenSS··on America Finally Admits Recycling Doesn’t Work
The way we currently do it doesn't work, but that doesn't mean that it's not a worthwhile thing to do!

If we were all slightly less lazy and were willing to separate things more like other countries, it would work much better. Or, be willing to pay the true costs of many of the materials.

BenSS··on Near-record strength El Niño still on track to bring a wet California winter
It's very worth it. I can't find the link now, but there was a great article about traditional wier/retention pond building in Africa that both provided water but also helped recharge the local wells. The system had fallen into disrepair, and one local evangelized rebuilding the structures. It really took the entire community to rebuild and maintain, but improved the quality of life massively.
BenSS··on Google’s Eddystone – a flexible, open-source iBeacon alternative
Shorter range, proprietary setup/configuration process, cycle IDs (crashing some android bluetooth stacks). They really want you to pay for the backend - wouldn't be surprised if they're sold at cost.

The batteries don't last as long as advertised either, but that's pretty much been true for all of the devices I've tested.

BenSS··on Google’s Eddystone – a flexible, open-source iBeacon alternative
You can definitely get the hardware for <$15 in bulk if you source it yourself. There's a huge variation in quality though, as with most of the China stuff. If you're willing to deal with the caveats&lock-in of the Gimbal Beacons you can get those for $5.

Feel free to hit me with beacon questions, I've got a bunch of varieties sitting on my desk right now.

BenSS··on Mobile Last?
The other one on iOS is edge-dragging to go back/forward in the navigation stack. Neither of these things is -hard- to implement with current tech either!
BenSS··on BattleBots may be coming back in 2015
I'd pledge in a second if there was any mention of fixing the rules that made it boring to watch in the first place. Everything became a wedge or a spinning can o' doom.
BenSS··on Hacker News API
Great news, I've avoided touching my iPad reader because of the whole scraping issue to get at some of the data. Now I can justify updating for iOS8 + the new API. (just hope it gets approved in time)
BenSS··on The Man Who Smuggles Trader Joe’s into Canada
There are TJs in Pennsylvania, and they can't sell alcohol at all. It might be a factor but not the overriding one.
BenSS··on Nearables: Why a global lost-and-found network is finally viable
It's been viable for at least a year in other forms. (Have a small demo system) However, there are some technical and social challenges associated with such a database. Most notably it would be very easy to poison the well as a thief/opportunitist. There's zero security around what beacons represent themselves as, it takes less than a second to clone one with a smartphone app.
BenSS··on How I work as a digital nomad
Fixing broken projects is a super valuable skill to have and can be rewarding in its own way. I've reached the point where I hardly ever say "whoever wrote this was an idiot" and see why it ended up that way in the first place. More than code debugging it's also social and process debugging. You can probably tell by this point I also don't mind this kind of work (anymore).
BenSS··on Ask HN: PG: What is happening with the Washington Post story about Ferguson?
Very curious about this too. 198 points when I returned to the discussion and it's not displayed anywhere in the first 5 pages.
BenSS··on In Ferguson, Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery gives account of his arrest
What's going on with the moderation here? Nearly 200 points and it's vanished from the first 120 results of the site.
BenSS··on Just let me code
Xcode still has some weird bits, but it's greatly improved lately. I well remember cursing the crashing multiple times a day. There are some wonderful additions to it I wish Apple included by default that NSHipster covered recently.

FWIW, Apple has never required storyboard. You can do everything in code if you -really- want to do it that way, no problem. Personally, I like offloading a lot of the visual stuff to storyboard/xibs unless you start getting crazy with custom animations and so forth.

BenSS··on Firefox OS Apps run on Android
Same thing I thought about! Strategically it was a terrible decision. Why build a native OS/2 app when a win app will run on both.
BenSS··on Automate the iOS build/test/deploy cycle with Distiller and Hockey
I want this, but: The product is not explained. It actually took a bit of clicking to finally find the setup process under documentation.

Minor nit, your blog header doesn't link back to the main site.

BenSS··on Are you paid to look busy?
Does your manager know that so much of these meetings a redundant? A good manager insulates other employees from this kind of meeting brutalization and avoids adding to it if at all possible. Unfortunately, there are many managers that think they exist to hold meetings.
BenSS··on Ask HN: Our Kickstarter project is failing
Your reward tiers are pretty good, but the video goes for a full minute utill you get to the actual game. Lots of talking heads doesn't make the user want the game!

Has anyone else written about the game yet? You want it covered in other places than just Kickstarter. Are your existing fans sharing/promoting it? Have you made it easy for fans to share content about the game outside of Kickstarter? If you don't have a group of people excited about the game already and willing to promote it, your project will probably not succeed. There's nothing wrong with pulling it and retooling.

BenSS··on The inexplicable rise of open floor plans in tech companies
There's a HUGE difference between a corporate open office plan and a co-working layout. Corporate typically is "here is your desk, don't change anything" combined with the judgmental politics of having to watch what you do. The more informal spaces that you can actually choose where, and what you're doing is far different.
BenSS··on I Knew a Programmer that Went Completely Insane (2013)
Half days aren't worth it. An entire day off is worth at least 3 half days. You still have work hanging over you for the rest of the day, and it usually ends up being far less time 'off' than you planned on.
BenSS··on A birthday present from Broadcom
Would be awesome if we soon see OpenCl on the RPi. Now I've got to go find mine!
BenSS··on TestFlight Owner Burstly Acquired By Apple
Funny that I tweeted @ the author this morning since they've written about TestFlight before, wondering if they knew what was up. One way to get an answer when the company isn't talking!

I hope Apple keeps the essentials here, and integrates it with iTunes Connect. They seem to be more interested lately in making it useful!

BenSS··on TestFlight shuts off SDK access
Well, here's why. http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/21/rumor-testflight-owner-burs...
BenSS··on TestFlight shuts off SDK access
What I'm wondering as well, or if they're remaking it into 'FlightPath'. Either way the company has been -very- quiet on this and Android support going away.
BenSS··on Girl Hopes Punny Coverletter Will Get Her Noticed By GoogleX
Seeing 'Aol.' in the leading image on the portfolio site http://www.marytaodesign.com seems like a strange choice when you're trying to get a job at Google.
BenSS··on IBM layoffs strike first in India; workers describe as 'slaughter' and 'massive'
This is completely normal business for IBM. I saw it too many times during my tenure there and it was obviously well overdue for the India branches.

There are regular cuts across the board, and there is actually very little attention paid to the internal ratings of the employees or keeping well-functioning groups together. Everyone left behind is expected to take up the slack, and additional hires are only made when things break badly enough for upper level management to be aware of it.

BenSS··on New Dell UltraSharp Monitors
I was excited by the 3840x2160 resolution until I saw that it was 32". That same rez at 27" would definitely be worthy and replace my current setup.
BenSS··on iOS 7 Tech Talks
Usually is free, I was lucky enough to get a spot at one last year. Really great event other than a few scheduling snags. The access to the Apple employees is probably the biggest perk!
BenSS··on Phonebloks
Why would you -have- to? I've never broken any of those things personally, other than the typical battery charge degradation. If the camera+battery+memory are modules, it may be cheaper just to replace/tradein the main body over doing a repair.

Handwavy on the costs, but modular is definitely more expensive - being able to trick out your phone with bigger memory and large-aparture camera may be worth it to a certain set of customers.

Agree it's a wonderful but hard to implement concept.

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