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basisword

24,050 karma · joined April 5, 2011

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basisword··on People hooked on vapes try a new way to quit: cigarettes
It's an idea I've considered. Quitting cigarettes was much easier than quitting vaping has been. You can vape in your home, most places and at most times. You don't have any concept really of how much you're using. With cigarettes you have to take time, go outside, and you can literally count them making it easier to track your reduction.
basisword··on Unreal Agent
When did we just give up on the challenge of giving something a unique name? I see products launch everyday on HN now that just take a well known brand and use it as their own. I thought this would be a feature for Unreal engine.
basisword··on 9 Ads per Minute: FIFA Cup 26 – "the price of the beautiful game"
TV license is 'required' for all live TV (all channels) + iPlayer. Also if you're watching live sports through e.g. NowTV's website you still need one. It's much wider reaching than just the BBC channels.
basisword··on GPT-6 Sol and Luna
iOS development mostly. I'm using the Pro plans as it's work on personal projects outside my day job and I'm able to get just enough usage from those plans to get me through each day.
basisword··on GPT-6 Sol and Luna
I've been using Claude Pro and recently gave Codex a try again. Both on the $20 plans. I get so much more usage with Claude. It's night and day for me. Codex runs out constantly, whereas Claude I hit limits very rarely.
basisword··on 9 Ads per Minute: FIFA Cup 26 – "the price of the beautiful game"
ITV also requires the TV license so those also aren't free.
basisword··on 9 Ads per Minute: FIFA Cup 26 – "the price of the beautiful game"
Why did you act like you did know in your original comment then?
basisword··on 9 Ads per Minute: FIFA Cup 26 – "the price of the beautiful game"
All of those sports have about 2 hours of advertising breaks during the game. Football has one, at half time, and that also includes some analysis.
basisword··on 9 Ads per Minute: FIFA Cup 26 – "the price of the beautiful game"
How are those things in anyway related? The morality around gambling is very debatable. The morality around racism is not.
basisword··on US halts flights at busy East Coast airports, says fiber line cut
>> With low-enough engineering quality, you don't actually need saboteurs

While I agree, that’s just what they told us. Not sure I believe it anymore. The fact the first UK one happened immediately after they sanctioned Israel is also just a big coincidence.

basisword··on Singapore’s National Library Board offers micropayments to build reading habits
Seems like a simple problem to solve for the schools. Don't accept typed work. Handwriting only. It was 25 years ago now but I remember learning cursive about age 7 or 8 and it was something we worked on for no more than a few months. And I feel like most kids were excited to be able to write like 'adults'. It's really not some insurmountable challenge.
basisword··on Disney+: New user agreement allows ads before movies in all subscriptions
If you have time to 'consume' the 'content' on Netflix you have time for a few ads.
basisword··on US halts flights at busy East Coast airports, says fiber line cut
The UK ATC system was down again today for the second time this month. I'm no conspiracy theorist but hard to believe those two + this are 'accidents'. I believe the Netherlands has also had several issues recently.
basisword··on macOS 27: Workaround to avoid downloading AI models and save storage
You don't need to. Use the alternatives.
basisword··on Disney+: New user agreement allows ads before movies in all subscriptions
Yeah I'm familiar with that. I guess it all depends on the sport and country. Ads during the sport is quite unusual in the UK for example so we get that NASCAR feed where the camera continues with no commentary during US ad breaks. We also have a cool setup for Indycar where a local UK commentator jumps in to talk over the feed while the US goes to a break. For MLB (on their own league pass product) we get a blank screen or non-ad montage thing in between innings (although as I mentioned in another comment that's its own kind of hell).
basisword··on Disney+: New user agreement allows ads before movies in all subscriptions
1. I hate the MLB one the most. I'm international so maybe it works differently but each season they come up with these horrible clips that they play on repeat. Sometimes it's a little short history snippet or this season some stuff about food. Problem is they have minimal content and so many breaks that by day two of the season they're tortuous. I'd rather have ads.

2. It probably depends on what sports we're talking about. Again, I'm thinking internationally where they've started showing La Liga this season.

basisword··on Disney+: New user agreement allows ads before movies in all subscriptions
I wonder if they're AB testing? I think I got 2-3 ad breaks over an hour and each was just two 30sec ads.
basisword··on Disney+: New user agreement allows ads before movies in all subscriptions
I recently switched to the Netflix sub with ads. Totally worth it. The non-ads packages are ridiculously expensive now and the ads they show are few and far between.
basisword··on Disney+: New user agreement allows ads before movies in all subscriptions
If you're talking about sports stuff:

1. Now you just have a blank screen. Sure some people might like that but others will think there's an issue with the stream.

2. They're purchasing the rights to show the sports stuff, not actually producing it themselves and removing the ads would make the cost of the rights astronomical.

Even when expensive linear TV packages were the norm, they still came with ads. With live TV paying has never negated the need for ads.

basisword··on Singapore’s National Library Board offers micropayments to build reading habits
How does this work? In school if they’re forced to write in cursive surely they still have to write the same amount? And if it’s writing in their spare time that has reduced they can write non-cursive so that shouldn’t be a blocker.
basisword··on Singapore’s National Library Board offers micropayments to build reading habits
I’d guess most people are endlessly scrolling photo/video on their phones rather than reading.
basisword··on Xcode 27.1 Beta Release Notes
Because despite Apple having clear guidelines a huge number of developers think their 'custom UI' is what customers really want. When they don't. The best apps use system components and follow the HIG. Always have, always will. Your custom tab bar is stupid.
basisword··on Xcode 27.1 Beta Release Notes
They finally released the full experience a few months back. I think their original excuse (years ago) was that 'people take photos on iPhone so iPad is unnecessary for Instagram'.
basisword··on Stallman: Thousands Dead, Millions Deprived of Liberties (2001)
I've never been super alarmist about this stuff. But recently was looking back and it really is staggering the amount of simple freedoms we've lost in the last 25 years. Partly through government overreach for 'security' and partly through technology becoming so pervasive. It really feels like rules get added regularly, and none ever get removed. Things just get stricter. And with technology we add a layer of self/citizen policing of everything. The 'disallowed' but relatively innocent things we could get up to as kids/teenagers just 20 years ago kids today could only dream of.
basisword··on The Google Play app review process now regularly takes longer than a week
I think it only applies to newer accounts and individual rather than company accounts. To make things worse, Google doesn't allow you to switch an account from individual > company. You need to create a whole new account.
basisword··on The Google Play app review process now regularly takes longer than a week
For all the complaining about Apple's store, the Play Store has always been worse imo. You can't even release an app without first doing a beta test with at least a dozen people.
basisword··on Israeli Minister Threatens Filmmakers' Citizenship over Gaza Documentary
They're both Israeli. Why should they leave their country? The right move is to expose the evils and try to improve it.
basisword··on iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27
>> Although for some reason the AI organise tab option is not showing up on me.

From what I recall, I had this in the first beta then it disappeared and never came back.

basisword··on Nike exits the S&P 100 after 18 years and a $200B market-cap wipeout
When was this different? The 'traditional masculine' man doesn't shop - his wife shops for him.
basisword··on Mullenweg has returned as CEO after attempted board ouster
We need to go back to a time when a CEO 'trolling' or acting like this would be career suicide. It seems like half of the biggest tech companies are run by people with the emotional and social intelligence of 3 years olds.
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