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biogene

57 karma · joined August 14, 2023

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biogene··on How the Mac didn’t bring programming to the people
That may be true, but the point was about empowering the end user. Making programing popular through the app store (arguable) is a separate (also important) topic.

Empowering the end user to not look at the computer as a black box that they have no idea about how it works is quite freeing and mind-expanding.

In the long term, I do believe there is a real risk for programming to become a niche where you end up asking for permission from the h/w vendor before you are allowed to write code on the device. We're slowly heading in that direction with app stores being bundled with the OS, and we may end up in a situation where you can only install s/w through the app store. And only "authorized" persons can download IDEs and dev tools. A large population that has no concept of programming is likely to not oppose this because the vendor will throw the security/privacy boogeyman at them, about "unauthorized" developers writing software that can harm them.

biogene··on Google says it can’t fix Pixel Watches, please just buy a new one
>The commenter said “Shit action is Ok, but boy that other company is worse” and that just doesn’t compute for me.

If you're using quotes, you should be quoting something I actually said, rather than making stuff up. Don't worry, I'll tell you exactly what I think, so you don't have to do that.

biogene··on Google says it can’t fix Pixel Watches, please just buy a new one
I'm talking about component level repair, not recycle. Apple doesn't offer that service, and has never offered that service. They tell the customer to replace entire motherboards (costly + wasteful) which is so costly that its often cheaper to just buy a new device. Repairing a product by replacing a part that costs 50 cents is a lot better than extracting rare earth elements from the planet all over again. This isn't about forcing Apple to repair stuff, I just want them to get out of the way. Also, I don't mean to single out Apple, they're just a popular target, many companies have the same anti-repair policies.
biogene··on Apple Tech Support Staff Urged to Stay Mum on iPhone 12 Radiation Issue
Thanks, but I want my beliefs to be based on more truths and fewer falsehoods as much I can, so your input doesn't really help me with my goals.
biogene··on Apple Tech Support Staff Urged to Stay Mum on iPhone 12 Radiation Issue
Why would I give a theory when I don't even agree with your position. That is a bizarre request. I don't quite understand what point you're making except calling it a problem.
biogene··on Google says it can’t fix Pixel Watches, please just buy a new one
> but the company that provides repair services up to 7 years and battery replacements for Macs up to 10 years is somehow worse than that because they refuse to provide access to parts to third party repair shops that don’t join their program?

Apple is well known for forcing customers to swap expensive internal components (instead of repairing them) and contributing to greater e-waste. They force suppliers to not sell parts to independent repair stores. It sounds like you're not very familiar with it, so I won't blame ya.

I have the option of not taking my car to the dealership and instead doing simple stuff like oil changes myself, or taking it to a mechanic I trust. I'd like the same option for my electronics. If you don't trust anyone except Apple, you can keep going to them.

biogene··on Marc Benioff: “I don’t work well in an office”
I agree with you, people are twisting your words and setting up a strawman.
biogene··on Apple Tech Support Staff Urged to Stay Mum on iPhone 12 Radiation Issue
How does that change the decision of not letting the company's accountant comment on safety?
biogene··on Ex-Finance developers mock McKinsey's monitoring metrics
IMO, you can take the dev word out, many productivity metrics are of dubious value, because corporate people love applying structures and systems to problems, only due to the fact that it is a structure rather than any inherent benefit.

Person A might need a completely different style of management/metrics than Person B, and Person A after a year might need yet another style of management/metrics. Its all messy and ad-hoc, because such are humans.

(Not a perfect analogy) If you replace humans with processors, and work with code, its the same efficiency paradox that devs know all too well. You apply an abstraction to solve a design problem, even if you already are aware that the Good™ solution is a hardware specific optimization or a new API design just to solve that one problem. Abstractions are seen as seemingly scalable, give you flexibility and leverage in other ways so they are Better™.

Performance focused devs are the complete opposite they give you maximum efficiency, by have a near-perfect match with the code>compiler>hardware. But at the significant cost of increased dev timelines, code complexity, stress, etc. The manager equivalent here would be the same where they are able to match their own style to the specific person they're managing. But these styles are impossible to create a universal system around.

biogene··on Ex-Finance developers mock McKinsey's monitoring metrics
How many managers have you had? Seems like an odd generalization.
biogene··on Google says it can’t fix Pixel Watches, please just buy a new one
Ideally you will have a different definition of repairability for each category of devices or even per-manufacturer. Policy wise, the problem is the specificity of the legal language/phrasing.

To me the easier approach is to make exclusive supplier contracts illegal in the retail segment. A third party repair shop should be able to buy the same parts as Google and offer a repair service if Google is unable to provide one.

biogene··on Google says it can’t fix Pixel Watches, please just buy a new one
I think its OK if they can't fix it. The problem comes when companies like Apple (don't know about Google) block right-to-repair legislation, or block access to parts for third-party repair or generally spread FUD about third-party repair.
biogene··on Apple A17 Pro SoC single-core benchmark score close to Intel i9-13900K,AMD 7950X
Is this peak or sustained? I can't imagine an SoC inside a water tight (IP68?) enclosure having better heat management.
biogene··on Apple Tech Support Staff Urged to Stay Mum on iPhone 12 Radiation Issue
Yep. Regardless of whether it is positive or negative, you don't want your general employees commenting on the safety of the companies products. On such sensitive topics, you want to leave the floor open to SMEs and recognized industry experts.
biogene··on How I stay reasonably anonymous online (2022)
Thanks for proving my point. Goodbye.
biogene··on How I stay reasonably anonymous online (2022)
Most elections are about electing the least-bad person. Bush started wars, Biden/Obama dropped bombs on civilians (even US citizens), tortured detainees, trump.. well we all know what trump did. Most voters either voted for biden or trump, both have done "awful shit". Every politician has done "awful shit".

If you can't find a single positive impact of trump's (or any politician) policies or a single positive thing musk has done, consider that you maybe be in an echo chamber yourself, or you're just deluding yourself into thinking you have some kind of moral high-ground.

biogene··on How I stay reasonably anonymous online (2022)
Sure, someone could have a bad take, could be simply wrong, or simply have a different opinion. Why do you assume that I cannot differentiate between them?
biogene··on How I stay reasonably anonymous online (2022)
If you express a reasonable opinion that is even mildly positive, or even ambivalent about musk or trump you get mass downvoted, and people assume you completely lack integrity. I have seen this exact behaviour on HN for years, and the mods do nothing, and the bad-actors are often the long-term users with tons of karma. I'm not into conspiracies so I won't speculate as to the reasons.

Anyway, that in and of itself doesn't bother me - The parent was trying to present a "holier than thou" attitude towards Reddit. I merely pointed out that HN is not all that great when it comes to that.

biogene··on How I stay reasonably anonymous online (2022)
I don't know to what extent this person goes to hide their legal name, but with public records, its fairly easy to find your residence if you own a home or some other property.
biogene··on How I stay reasonably anonymous online (2022)
Somehow, I can't imagine how HN is any better. Reasonable comments are mass-downvoted when people disagree with you on seemingly hot button topics - blm, vaccines, musk, trump, immigration, lgbtq etc. I know many people who had to create new accounts because of this.
biogene··on The right to data ownership is the only way to take on Big Tech
>Whether they can legally do it is a currently pending issue (see Andino v. Apple) but the main point is that even if they could, it's still wrong.

This is incorrect. There is absolutely no question at all about the legality of copyright or of the rights afforded to the owner by it. This lawsuit is over the use of the word "buy" and about terms of service on a specific content platform.

>Their (and my) point is that the practice of trying to put DRM (and licensing terms in general) into consumer products and IP goods that are meant to be experienced/viewed is a predatory and unethical practice. Copyright law allows for a balanced level of control over the works at issue, but the companies want more than that so they lock them behind contracts of dubious enforceability and essentially try to remove the rights consumers traditionally held over copies of media they purchased.

Thankfully, there are tens of thousands of talented artists all over the world who will take your money and create artworks for you. This continues to be the case, so what rights of yours have been taken away; Its not clear to me.

biogene··on Microsoft has not stopped forcing Edge on Windows 11 users
Oh yeah, I completely understand. I'm not necessarily in favor of forced bundling. All I'm saying is that sometimes there are benefits when there is a single vendor who can do tight integrations. Apple being the other obvious example with their (supposedly) seamless hardware ecosystem integration.

In theory, something like Linux has a good model with multiple distributions, with each making different choices for the end-user. In practice, only a handful of distributions get any kind of traction and/or support.

biogene··on The right to data ownership is the only way to take on Big Tech
I agree about the contention, the counter point that I'm making is that nothing has changed or eroded. I believe that art works can have ownership claims, and that intellectual property is real.

Assuming a work-for-hire type contract, you own the stuff you paid someone to create. Then YOU can do whatever you want with it including licensing it or selling digital tickets or copying it to a thousand different devices or distributing it for free.

biogene··on The right to data ownership is the only way to take on Big Tech
Legally speaking, unless you have a work-for-hire type contract with the artist, you don't have an ownership claim. You purchased a digital 'ticket' that lets you view the artwork according to someone else's terms and conditions.
biogene··on The right to data ownership is the only way to take on Big Tech
Digital media goods are more akin to buying tickets, rather than actual albums. We always had subscriptions for stuff like TV, so I don't know what the erosion is here. Even today, you have options for entertainment that don't involve a subscription.

Anyway, as far as s/w is concerned the problem is not subscriptions, I believe its the symptom. The root cause is the lack of a sustainable model to fund mainstream/retail software development. You can find small/medium businesses that don't sell subscriptions, but for e.g. there is no counter to companies like Adobe. Devs want to work for "successful" software companies with high-pay, perks and benefits, and all "successful" software companies sell subscriptions.

biogene··on Germany Will Force 80% of Gas Stations to Install EV Charging, Too
That is a valid point, but is there a reason to not change the grid first? As it stands the EV campaign slogan of "environmentally friendly" is missing a "... eventually".
biogene··on Microsoft has not stopped forcing Edge on Windows 11 users
Its often the case that when apps crash (on any OS) due to bugs, its the OS that gets blamed by the user. It is easy to say "blame Dell", but you'd have to be familiar with the code-base to know whose fault it was.
biogene··on Microsoft has not stopped forcing Edge on Windows 11 users
I don't think Linux is as bad as people claim, but it isn't as good/easy to use as people claim either. One problem I see is that the distribution of software is tied to the package manager. If you install any complex (esp stuff that uses web+database+python,etc) app outside of this system, I've seen dependencies break when updating software. MariaDB/Laravel upgrades have been painful.
biogene··on Microsoft has not stopped forcing Edge on Windows 11 users
Yes, I'm sure it is. But for me, so is Windows and OSX.
biogene··on Microsoft has not stopped forcing Edge on Windows 11 users
Sure, nobody can say you "can't do" something with Linux. But the "can't" is more meant as "can't easily do".

To give you an example - I have a small+fast SSD for my OS and a large+slow spinning disk for data storage. When I install software on Windows I sometimes point to the other drive. This task is easier to do on Windows. The last I looked at it, Linux had a solution, but it was very convoluted. I see computer hardware and software products as purely a means to an end, I will use whatever that gets the job done.

Each person only has a limited quota of things that they can give a lot of energy to, and for me F/OSS is not something that I particularly go out of my way to support. My 'things that I give a shit about' quota is filled to the brim with the work I'm doing in healthcare.

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