Hacker News Reader

_f1dqon Apple may stop producing Vision Pro by the end of 2024

I can't believe MacRumors has stooped so low.

Headline: Apple May Stop Producing Vision Pro by the End of 2024

First paragraph: Apple has abruptly reduced production of the Vision Pro headset and could stop making the current version of the device completely by the end of 2024

_f1dqon Microsoft breached antitrust rules by bundling Teams and Office, EU says

You mean like how Outlook injects an ad into nearly every email I receive encouraging me to use Copilot for sales even though I'm not in sales and think Copilot is, in classic Microsoft form, buggy, bloated, and nearly unusable beta software that they're plaguing on their customers and charging them for the privilege?

_f1dqon Ask HN: Conflicted about my FAANG work place

It sounds like you're pretty secure in your job but generally unfulfilled so there's no reason you can't start a business on the side. That way you can find fulfillment while providing for your family and still moving solidly towards financial independence.

With regards to financial independence, I recommend reading the likes of Mr. Money Mustache. He was able to achieve it in his 30's making less than you do.

_f1dqon Ask HN: Why did Visual Basic die?

I can write HTML/CSS/JS and a few back-end languages like PHP in my sleep but there's no way I could hand-code a web app as fast as I could a desktop app in 1997 using VB.

I would LOVE it if I could, though.

_f1dqon As a psychiatrist, I diagnose mental illness, and help spot demonic possession (2016)

Banachek, one of the best mentalists in the art of magical entertainment will tell people before a show, "This isn't real. I'm not actually reading anyone's mind." Yet he has said that after that same show, people will come up to him and tell him that he is, in fact, reading people's mind.

The human capacity for self-delusion knows no bounds, it seems.

_f1dqon Ask HN: What are some technically inspiring movies, TV shows or documentaries?

Code Rush is one of my go-to's when I need inspiration. I was in tech when it came out and it really inspired me how much a group of dedicated programmers could do. https://archive.org/details/CodeRush_616

Same for Triumph Of The Nerds and its follow-up, Nerds 2.0.1 - A Brief History Of The Internet. Fascinating to hear what went on in the back rooms and halls of the people creating the Internet and Web. https://archive.org/details/nerds-2.0.1-a-brief-history-of-t...

Hackers Definitely some unrealistic Hollywood effects but, it's fun and is a good representation of how tech in the 90's felt.

Antitrust It's fun to see the obvious digs at Bill Gates. John "Maddog" Hall consulted on this film which is why you see things like Gnome on all the screens. I got to talk to him in the hall at a conference once right after Antitrust came out. Really interesting guy.

Sneakers: One of my all-time favorites. The premise wasn't super-realistic (guy figures out a back door to all encryption and murder ensues) but the technology of the time was otherwise pretty accurately represented, and the acting is superb.

You'll notice that all of these came out over 20 years ago. I haven't seen much since that captures the feeling of what being in technology felt like to me. People still had that sense from the 60's and 70's that technology could be used to make the world better. People really did want to use technology for more than making money off of ads and personal data.

_f1dqon If software engineering is in demand, why is it so hard to get a job?

I had a similar interview with a different company last year. Three guys and me on a Zoom call with me sharing my screen trying to solve a coding problem that in no way resembled anything I have ever encountered in my 25 year career. When I got stuck they just stared at me. They would not give me any hints whatsoever. They just stared at me.

When the interview was over I thought, "Is this how working with these guys is going to be?" If I ran into a problem and went to them for help, would they just stare at me, waiting for me to figure it out on my own?

They didn't extend an offer to me and, based on my performance in that interview, I can't say I blame them. I'm not sure I would have accepted if they had, however. That experience really left me with a bad taste in my mouth and a low impression of that company.

We as an industry really REALLY need to figure out a better way of conducting interviews.

_f1dqon T-Mobile Confirms It Was Hacked

A lot of people fear losing their money more than they fear death. I think corporate capital punishment, in theory, could work. The other side of that coin, however, is the number of people put out of work if that were to happen.

Either way, there needs to be far stiffer penalties levied against companies who don't secure their systems better and lose sensitive customer data.

_f1dqon Architecture of Lisp Machines (2008) [pdf]

Do you have any recommendations for a Lisp Machine emulator for Mac?

_f1dqon My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

There is a lot about the sexual events in this post that, to me, highlights something I feel is important which is: we parents need to get better had having conversations with our children around sex.

This girl was feeling uncomfortable and crying but at the same time "didn't think those behaviors were problematic". I can't help but wonder if her parents never sat her down and discussed situations like this and, I get it. That's a really uncomfortable conversation to have with your child. It is, however, an important one.

This doesn't just apply to girls by the way. We parents need to be telling our sons what kind of behavior is and isn't acceptable. It's not enough to expect them to figure it out. Who are they figuring it out from if not us? Probably other inexperienced boys.

Please don't rush to put words in my mouth by thinking I am suggesting the guy in the article is innocent of the accusations. I'm making no commentary on either party from this article. That's for the courts to decide should one or both parties choose to take that course of action.

I'm simply saying it is important that parents overcome their discomfort around discussions of sex with their children so that the children can make informed decisions.

_f1dqon Apple sued for terminating account with $25k worth of apps and videos

I'm as big an Apple fan as they come but they've got some work to do in supporting their services.

My wife bought a subscription box with her Apple Card and somehow the subscription service assigned someone else's email address to her account and won't let her change it. For reasons I can't quite understand, that service sent her one box out of a six-box subscription so my wife called to dispute the charges with Apple Card. For a few months now she's bin in this Groundhog Day like cycle of them taking the money off the bill but then, after contacting the subscription service I assume, will put the money back on her bill until she calls to dispute it again.

Now, I know this is Goldman Sachs she's dealing with and not Apple but, it is called the "Apple Card" and I feel like Apple needs to step in and make Goldman Sachs do the right thing.

_f1dqon Facebook is pushing back on Apple’s new iPhone privacy rules

Apple isn't perfect, I'll admit that all day long. But, frankly, the "absurd prices" argument just doesn't hold water to me. I paid almost $3000 for the MacBook Pro I'm typing this on--eight years ago. Meanwhile, everyone I know that has had PC's have gone through at least two replacements during that time. A little over $300/year for a computer is a bargain. I pay three times more for Internet access!

_f1dqon Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

from a financial POV working for a startup is--how should I put this?--suboptimal. Your equity is probably worth nothing (even if you get acquihired, liquidation preferences probably mean all non-founder stock is worth $0). The hours are worse. The benefits are worse.

This has been my experience over a 20+ year career of working mostly at startups. If you choose to work for a startup, assume the equity will be worthless. Don't even factor it in to your compensation package. It's a false lure.

In many other ways, though, I don't regret working for startups. They're fun and exciting, at least when you don't have a family, and you can learn a lot in a short amount of time. They're good proving grounds for anyone with an entrepreneurial bent, in my opinion.

_f1dqon The FCC Has Fined Robocallers $208M, Collected $6,790

Because many, if not most of these calls are scams.

_f1dqon Who Killed the Scrollbar?

I see this happening a lot. "Mobile first!" doesn't mean "Mobile only!"

_f1dqon Explanation of the state of uBlock Origin and other blockers for Safari

There is a lot of confusion around this issue. Some people are taking this to mean that Safari has completely banned ad blockers, which isn't the case. Instead they've switched to a model that matches what they've been doing on iOS which is content blocking[1]. Content blockers give Safari a list of triggers and actions to take when something matches a trigger.

For example; you can have a trigger which contains a regex that matches all images and stylesheets for a given domain. The action can be one of several options, one of which is to block that item.

One advantage this technique provides over ad blocking is that there's no data to be phoned back home. It is, in essence, a mask that is applied to a web page before rendering. Also, it's very lightweight. It's literally just a JSON document which means Safari can perform better.

Now, I'll admit it's not foolproof. Apple and the content blockers have some work to do on it. I'm noticing some issues with it myself after having upgraded to Safari 13. But from a privacy perspective, I personally much prefer this technique.

1: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safariservices/cre...

_f1dqon -2000 Lines of Code (2004)

The irony here is that when Microsoft was developing OS/2 for IBM, the latter started requiring updates (similar to the OP) showing KLOC's written in a week, and the then Microsoft engineers lamenting at how stupid that was.

Congratulations Microsoft. You've now become the bloated mid-80's IBM you used to hate.