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blatherard

3,136 karma · joined May 7, 2010

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blatherard··on Including “And. And. And. And. And.” in a Google doc causes it to crash
It's been fixed.

> May 6, 2022 Update: We have fixed an issue in Docs related to repetitive use of the word ‘and.’ This fix should soon be in place for all customers.

blatherard··on The best engineering interview question I've ever gotten
Is there a filter that automatically removed "The best" from the submission title?
blatherard··on End of the Line for Uber
Discussion from yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28132830
blatherard··on Delivering local library books to your doorstep
How do you handle returning books? Is there another charge for that, and how does pickup work?
blatherard··on Apple has threatened to remove Amphetamine from the App Store
You seem to be trying to say that each element in itself doesn't invoke the illegal drug use metaphor. Even if that were the case, my argument is that the three pieces bolster work together.

Just like if I named a game "Alcohol" and the logo was a glass with some liquid in it, and the tagline was "Have a good time". Individually none of those would necessarily be promoting drinking alcohol. After all, alcohol has uses for cleaning, and the glass is just a glass, and "Drink in the fun" is just describing what it's like playing the game. But if you put them together, they unequivocally do.

As for there being legitimate uses of amphetamines, I'm not saying there aren't (I'm well aware of these uses, personally). That doesn't mean the off-label uses are legal. AFAIK, at least in the US, using amphetamines solely to "keep awake" is an illegal usage, and the tagline is referring specifically to that.

blatherard··on Apple has threatened to remove Amphetamine from the App Store
I thought I should look at the App Store and see what this app is doing in comparison to similar apps.

The logo is basically a big pill and the tagline "Powerful keep-awake utility" which is clearly alluding to the drug. https://imgur.com/a/RJXHaBa

This was consistent with the feedback the author received: "[the] app appears to promote inappropriate use of controlled substances. Specifically, your app name and icon include references to controlled substances, pills"

Almost all of the other top apps in the app store in the same category use some reference to caffeine either in the name or tagline or description (e.g. "Jolt of Caffeine" or "Owly" which has a logo of an owl in a cup of coffee) https://imgur.com/a/yySBqEL

There's one other, much less popular app called "Coca" which appears to reference cocaine, but doesn't also have a drug-referencing icon or tagline, and which only has 15 reviews. By comparison, Amphetamine seems to be the most popular result, at least for the search term "awake", with 1.37K reviews

The guideline in question doesn't seem to consider excessive use of caffeine as problematic to encourage. "1.4.3 Apps that encourage consumption of tobacco and vape products, illegal drugs, or excessive amounts of alcohol are not permitted on the App Store. Apps that encourage minors to consume any of these substances will be rejected. Facilitating the sale of marijuana, tobacco, or controlled substances (except for licensed pharmacies) isn’t allowed."

Overall, Amphetamine did seem to be pushing the drug-use angle much harder than other apps in the category based on the logo, tagline and title, especially if you consider caffeine abuse not problematic.

Added: I don't have a strong opinion on this one either way, other than edgy naming has pros and cons. Word of mouth is easier, but sometimes a problem like this happens.

blatherard··on We cancelled standups and let the team build
They stopped regular work and had a hack week and morale improved. Now they're back to the regular work and having standups again. What does this show other than taking a break is fun?
blatherard··on Ask HN: Best Bank for Startups?
You might want to check out https://www.grasshopper.bank/, which is a fairly new startup-focused bank based in NYC
blatherard··on Show HN: Terrastruct – A Diagramming Tool for Systems
I had the same label-saving problem in Firefox. Chrome seemed fine.

It would be nice if there was an obvious way to report issues through the interface.

blatherard··on Interested in improving your relationships? Try Nonviolent Communication
These are fairly contrived examples, but in all of them the requestor is making a pretty clear statement of their feelings and what they want, even at risk of being verbose.

The characteristic of true passive-aggressive responses is to avoid direct confrontation, to mask conflict. For example, maybe by making a "joke" ("How's that food of mine that you're eating?") or by saying that somethings okay but not really meaning it ("I totally don't mind that you're eating all my food") or various other techniques.

blatherard··on Desegregation Plan: Eliminate All Gifted Programs in New York
That 90th percentile doesn't guarantee a slot in a G&T program. It's kind of an elaborate system, but depending on what district your child is in or what school you're considering, the effective cutoff can be much higher. For example, my son's program only admitted children with either a 98 or 99 when he got into it 4 years ago. In a district like ours (District 3, which is basically the Upper West Side), a score of 90 won't get you a spot anywhere, unless...

...you have a child with a 90 with a sibling already in a program. If one child tests into a program, then later siblings are given preference over children without a sibling in the school, as long as they have a score over 90.

blatherard··on Secretly Public Domain: Most books published in the US before 1964
> So there is a cutoff before 1964. However, it's not at all clear to me how many times the copyright holders didn't renew their copyrights. I would be unsurprised if the big publishers did typically renew them.

That doesn't sound that surprising to me either, but I don't think that matters for the claim that most are PD now. My intuition would be that big publishers wouldn't be responsible for a large percentage of the published titles in that time period. Certainly, from the standpoint of units sold they would be, but not distinct works.

There's a lot more niche, technical, academic, low-end, etc works even though most people consume the mass-market popular stuff. I would expect that all those long-tail things to be the ones that never got renewed, and to be in the majority as far as titles go.

blatherard··on Secretly Public Domain: Most books published in the US before 1964
The important point in this article is that the NYPL just recently digitized the relevant records, thereby making it possible to determine whether a copyright was renewed. The old rule of thumb (anything after 1923 is presumptively protected) was used because looking for the absence of a renewal in a multi-decade span of printed records just wasn't feasible.

The linked post in the article is very detailed and has more background: https://www.nypl.org/blog/2019/05/31/us-copyright-history-19...

blatherard··on Art's sale value? Zero. The tax bill? $29M
(2012)
blatherard··on One-on-one meetings are underrated, whereas group meetings waste time (2017)
I think the author should consider acquiring some facilitation skills, rather than rejecting any other model than him and someone else talking.
blatherard··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (May 2019)
The Orchard | Software Engineers; DevOps Engineers; QA Automation Engineers | NYC or London | Onsite | https://www.theorchard.com/about/careers/

Hi, I'm an Engineering Director at The Orchard. We're hiring for lots of engineering-related roles in NYC and London, including on my team (which is responsible for digital distribution of music). We're one of the premier distribution companies, preferred partners of both Spotify and Apple (at least last I checked, the only digital distributor with this distinction). We do a lot with Python, React and a lot with AWS, plus a number of other interesting tech, in a nicely laid-back environment.

Here's a blurb I cribbed from a job listing about what the company does: "The Orchard is a leading music distribution company distributing music from artists such as Ozuna, Jorja Smith, Run The Jewels and Kelsea Ballerini. With cutting edge operations and an unparalleled global team, The Orchard partners with companies of all sizes to make their music available across hundreds of digital outlets and physical retailers around the world. At The Orchard, the focus is to provide a comfortable, social and engaging environment to encourage productivity and creativity."

Drop me a line at pinfieldharm@theorchard.com if you'd like to learn more or just chat.

blatherard··on Rise of Candida auris embodies a serious and growing public health threat
Germ is a layman's term for "microorganism", or perhaps "pathogen", both of which most assuredly include all the little things that make people sick: viruses, bacteria, fungi, etc.
blatherard··on Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg Addresses the Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 Report
"We're taking a comprehensive, disciplined approach, and taking the time, to get the software update right."

So what approach did they use the first time around?

blatherard··on Sony to slash smartphone workforce
There is zero chance they withdraw from gaming. Take a look at the latest earnings report which covers through Dec 2018. https://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/library/presen/er/pdf/18q3_...

Slide 11, "Q1-Q3 FY2018 Results by Segment" shows that all of Sony had an operating income of a bit over 800 billion yen. Of that, about 250 billion came from gaming and network services (so hardware + PSN, basically). By comparison, mobile communications _lost_ about 50 billion.

blatherard··on They paid $100k to ride on Xcor's space plane. Now they want their money back
As far as I can tell, no such tickets were ever sold [1]. There was a "First Moon Flights" Club that they ran that had about 100K members, but that was free.

[1] https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/9656/how-much-di...

blatherard··on Facebook ends platform policy banning apps that copy its features
> The move will significantly reduce the risk of building on the Facebook platform.

What's to stop them from reversing the policy change? Once bitten, twice shy.

blatherard··on With Facebook at ‘War,’ Zuckerberg Adopts More Aggressive Style
Use this handy bookmarklet (which, ironically, uses facebook to circumvent the wsj paywall):

  javascript:window.location.href='https://m.facebook.com/l.php?u='+encodeURIComponent(window.location.href);
blatherard··on GoDaddy to suspend domain name Gab.com tomorrow
Context for those unfamiliar with Andrew Torba: https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/12/pro-trump-ceo-gets-booted-...
blatherard··on GoDaddy to suspend domain name Gab.com tomorrow
Oy, thanks, fixed.
blatherard··on GoDaddy to suspend domain name Gab.com tomorrow
gab.com was founded as a safe space for the alt-right, going so far as to choose a frog as their mascot (a reference to "Pepe"). gab.com just got a heavy dose of bad publicity from the fact that the terrorist who murdered 11 people at a synagogue in Pittsburgh spent a great deal of time on gab.
blatherard··on Uber’s Restaurant Empire
Seamless had virtual restaurants at least 5 years ago. I remember in particular my wife liked to order burritos from a certain restaurant, named "Coastal" on the UWS. We tried visiting the restaurant based on the address, and found out that it was actually "Citrus", an upscale latin american place with an entirely different menu (that has since closed).
blatherard··on Dear Spotify, please let me unlink my Facebook account
Super, thanks!
blatherard··on Dear Spotify, please let me unlink my Facebook account
Also, it would be nice if Spotify could bring back the ability to follow friends without requiring Facebook.
blatherard··on New York’s Elevators Define the City (2016)
(2016)
blatherard··on Glycemia, starch, and sugar in context (2009)
I'm not familiar with Ray Peat, why's it surprising for his article to be here?
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