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MichaelCollins

6,129 karma · joined July 8, 2022

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MichaelCollins··on Wayland Protocol Finally Ready for Fractional Scaling
Just do yourself a favor and stick with using what already works. Don't upgrade to the new shiny thing unless you already know the reasons why you want to.

Among all the other technical issues, Wayland devs have an attitude issue. Users asked for fractional scaling for years and were faced with flat refusals and insulting quips from the wayland developers. The only reason they've added it now is because Valve asked them for it. Wayland devs think users are worms and corporations are gods.

MichaelCollins··on Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan
> People are safer on the street.

Only if you narrowly define 'people' to mean the tiny minority of people who are thieves, and exclude the overwhelming majority of people who aren't thieves. Thieves are safer on the street but everybody else is safer with thieves off the street. You've got your priorities skewed.

MichaelCollins··on Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan
> Amazon isn't a pawn shop

Right, pawn shops are held to a higher standard. They have a relationship with the local police and are made to keep records. Amazon is a better fence than your average pawn shop.

MichaelCollins··on Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan
That's not necessarily a smoking gun; public libraries often give away old books they don't want to keep around anymore. About a quarter of the books in my personal library are ex-library books, but none were stolen.

Of course if it's some popular in-demand book, it was almost certainly stolen. Most of the free library books I've scored are 50 year old textbooks about obscure/obsolete topics.

MichaelCollins··on Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan
> But surely Amazon is literally handling stolen goods? Is there a smoking gun email?

If Amazon were a mom and pop fence, the local cops could bust them in a sting. But Amazon is a huge megacorp, so even if the cops try to catch them in a sting nothing will stick because Amazon will claim their shear scale rendered them completely oblivious to everything and therefore not criminally culpable.

Yeah, it's bullshit.

MichaelCollins··on Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan
> cuts into your margins

It's not as though the thieves hire workers to do this for them. It's something they can do themselves while tweaking.

MichaelCollins··on Congressmembers Tried to Stop the SEC’s Inquiry into FTX
Accurate maybe, but very imprecise.
MichaelCollins··on Congressmembers Tried to Stop the SEC’s Inquiry into FTX
Removing each other from committees is a far cry from kicking each other out of Congress. That has only happened twice since the 19th century, and both times it came after a criminal conviction. Merely being an absolute idiot isn't enough to get a 2/3rds vote to kick out a congressmen because that would be mutually assured destruction; they all know they're all absolute idiots so they don't expel each other out for that.

Also,

> Both the House and the Senate make their own rules,

The rules for expelling congressmen are set in the US Constitution, they don't just make it up as they go. Unless you're talking about their ability to amend the US Constitution, but that's even less likely than kicking these guys out the normal way.

The best way to get them kicked out would be to have them convicted for bribery/corruption, then you might get a 2/3rds vote to expel them.

MichaelCollins··on Congressmembers Tried to Stop the SEC’s Inquiry into FTX
This comment makes no sense in the context of America. I guess you're from a country with some sort of Parliamentary system where governments are formed when a party is elected?

In America, parties aren't elected and don't form governments. Accordingly, an American political party cannot kick out a congressman, much less replace one. To remove a congressman requires a two third vote (from congress, not from a political party); this never happens in the modern era without a criminal conviction as the impetus. And nether congress or a political party can simply bring in a new congressman; you'd need another election for that.

MichaelCollins··on Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan
You know Singapore unabashedly beats the shit out of thieves, right?
MichaelCollins··on Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan
> "The stores are insured bro, why do you care if people steal from them? It's not your problem maaan."

This is why I care. Criminals degrade society and we all suffer for their greed.

MichaelCollins··on UK households set for largest fall in living standards in six decades
Made a new account, huh?
MichaelCollins··on Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad
Apparently Airbnb will delete any review that criticizes a property for something the property owner can't fix. Loud traintracks with trains blasting by at 3am every morning? That's not the property owner's fault, so that's a bad review.

As if reviews exist only to give constructive feedback to property owners, rather than to warn other renters away from a bad experience!

MichaelCollins··on Show HN: Speed up your site by running JavaScript when the browser is idle
Who's 'we'? The user, or the web dev? Most javascript exists to scratch the itch of the webdev who made it, doing shit no user ever asked for.
MichaelCollins··on Show HN: Speed up your site by running JavaScript when the browser is idle
Every web dev seems to think that their site specifically is the reason everybody in the world bought a computer.
MichaelCollins··on UK households set for largest fall in living standards in six decades
> Brits should realize this is not 1921.

Heh, well stated. The sun set on the British empire a long time ago. Expectations need to be adjusted accordingly.

MichaelCollins··on FTX’s ownership of a U.S. bank raises questions
I'm saying Bankman-Fried has hurt a few orders of magnitude more people than Alex Jones, and allowing him to give interviews and flippantly defend himself is going to cause a lot of emotional trauma.
MichaelCollins··on UK households set for largest fall in living standards in six decades
> I don't really understand the perspective your are saying.

He thinks that helping Ukraine defend themselves against a foreign invasion qualifies as "warmongering", obviously he's a Russia-aligned troll. Don't waste too much time trying to unravel his thought processes.

MichaelCollins··on FTX’s ownership of a U.S. bank raises questions
> What is the definition of violence?

You've already conceded that words can hurt people (Alex Jones), so why are you trying to backpedal that now?

MichaelCollins··on FTX’s ownership of a U.S. bank raises questions
I bet more than one corner shop worker had money in FTX.
MichaelCollins··on Amazon’s already greenlit an FTX miniseries
Once Bad Blood was published. It took a few years for the dam to break, but once it did the rest of the media piled on quick.

The FTX dam broke a few weeks ago and so far the media generally seems unenthusiastic about covering the story. Most people I've mentioned it to haven't heard of it yet; that's the media's fault.

MichaelCollins··on Amazon’s already greenlit an FTX miniseries
The animation studio that did Stuart Little.
MichaelCollins··on Amazon’s already greenlit an FTX miniseries
This matches my experience. The only people who've heard this story yet are those who keep a finger on the pulse of either tech or crypto news.
MichaelCollins··on FTX’s ownership of a U.S. bank raises questions
This is a huge red flag. Bankman-Fried is acting like the fix is already in.

I won't believe this guy is actually going to prison until they slam the iron bars closed behind him.

MichaelCollins··on “Invalid Username or Password”: a useless security measure (2014)
Twitter or discord, why do these require me to confirm an email or phone number when reddit doesn't? Why do shop websites like Etsy require me to confirm my email address before I even decide to purchase or sell anything? If you're worried about credit card fraud, confirm my identity when I give you my payment info, not when I'm merely registering an account.
MichaelCollins··on “Invalid Username or Password”: a useless security measure (2014)
> The reality is, most regular sites do need a reliable way to contact you for business reasons.

In these cases, which I think are more unusual than usual, a email can be required during checkout. There's almost never a valid reason to require a confirmed email account during account creation, before the user has even decided if they want to make a purchase.

MichaelCollins··on “Invalid Username or Password”: a useless security measure (2014)
[x] - Send me emails about product updates.

(Receiving these emails should be opt-in. But companies often find lame excuses to ignore this preference so I prefer to not hand over my email address at all.)

MichaelCollins··on Tax filing websites have been sending users’ financial information to Facebook
By shear fortunate coincidence, we happen to live in a time when all our institutions are pure and good, for the first time in human history!
MichaelCollins··on Cyborg Soldier 2050: Human/Machine Fusion and Implications for DoD (2019) [pdf]
> but we're also not the dystopia that cyberpunk itself depicts.

In most cyberpunk media, there is a middle/upper class who have enough money to insulate themselves from the dystopian hard edge of society. They continue to live in pleasant suburbs or high-rise buildings, they buy everything they need and dutiful follow the rules and stay on the garden paths created by the corporations milking them.

The "punks" are those cast out of the garden, because they don't have enough money or because they lost favor with the corporations for some reason. They congregate in the shadows, stealing and hacking to make ends meet because they have no other choice. The people in the comfortable middle class may not even notice these punks existing; their lives are structured to shield them from exposure to the punks.

MichaelCollins··on AP fired reporter after dangerous blunder – Slack chats reveal chaotic process
> which would be technically WW3.

I think it's important to remember that NATO isn't an unthinking machine that executes mechanistically. Supposing Russia had been responsible for those missiles, I sincerely doubt that would have been the start of WW3. Nobody really wants that outcome, so the humans in the loop would bend over backwards to find a way to prevent that. This might mean pretending to not notice the missile strikes, or asserting they were accidents. I think both Russia and NATO would prefer Russia admitting to an accident and paying out some reparations to a full blown WW3.

WW3 happens if there's really no other choice, as perceived by NATO and/or Russian leadership.

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