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jmcnevin

82 karma · joined February 18, 2010

[ my public key: https://keybase.io/jmcnevin; my proof: https://keybase.io/jmcnevin/sigs/e9dk8txl5fpNZg9jRPJgpp4NDtI8CiV8NTG1ePGg5ho ]
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jmcnevin··on Dabbling with Dagster vs. Airflow
I'd say give Temporal (https://temporal.io) a look, but there are a lot of options (https://github.com/meirwah/awesome-workflow-engines).
jmcnevin··on Temporal raises $103M in Series B funding
We've been using Temporal for the past year and have found it to be an absolute joy.

Being able to model business processes--some of which may take multiple _years_, and require human approval/rejection steps--using procedural go/java/js, and knowing that once that function starts executing, it is basically indestructible (barring the complete destruction of temporal's backend database), is just really cool. Being able to outsource a lot of the complexity involved in using event sourcing to manage distributed transactions frees up our developers to worry about just the high-end business logic.

Congrats to the team! I'm excited to see Temporal gaining some more traction.

jmcnevin··on “autocomplete=off is ignored on non-login input elements”
Would you ever want autocomplete on, say, a field where you're inputting a 2FA response? Probably not, since any suggestions would be useless.

I find the workaround of "just put some other random bullshit for the value" hilarious. And once developers start over-abusing that as well (they will), then what's the plan?

jmcnevin··on Interview Humiliation
I find this story highly suspect, unless the writer happened to find a company run primarily by sociopaths.
jmcnevin··on A Bitcoin battle is brewing
Previously, on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8712261
jmcnevin··on Uber's dirty tricks quantified: Rival counts 5,560 canceled rides
I've used Uber dozens of times, but stories like this really make me think I should give Lyft a shot. After all, if this company is operating in such an underhanded manner this early in the game, it's troubling to consider what they'd be capable of down the line.
jmcnevin··on The Utter Failure of my Windows 8.1 Upgrade
I'm not sure why MS decided that the release of a free upgrade of their product that's trying to address pain points with Metro would be great opportunity to shove the Windows Store down users' throats. I can't even open Windows Store on my media center PC (hooked up to a 720p television) without increasing my screen resolution past native. That's just irritating.

Do you realize that your Windows 8 license key will not allow you to download and do a clean install of 8.1? You need to download 8.0, install 64 or so important updates, and only then are you deemed worthy of being eligible to download 8.1 through the Windows Store. Who thought this up?

I went the clean install route after my upgrade from 8.1 preview stalled out on the "Almost There" screen for 15 minutes. I rebooted, and all references to my installed applications were gone.

All in all, the 8.1 upgrade wasn't a pleasant experience.

jmcnevin··on Show HN: Starling - geographically analyze millions of tweets
It's worth noting that Twitter had their own project called Starling, but I get the impression they've moved on.

http://rubyforge.org/projects/starling

jmcnevin··on IOS 6 injecting should_group_accessibility_children to POST requests
What does this have to do with client trust? They're expecting the client to access their API a certain way, and the client is sending what is arguably a malformed request. This is, surprise, causing an error to occur.
jmcnevin··on IOS 6 injecting should_group_accessibility_children to POST requests
This (mass-assignment) is fairly standard Rails-fu, so its fair to assume that this could affect a lot of apps out there.
jmcnevin··on Embark Plans 1.3M Transit Trips Since Apple’s Release Of iOS 6
What the hey... I'd love to see support added for the Minneapolis/St. Paul area.
jmcnevin··on Mailgun (YC W11) is being acquired by Rackspace
Rackspace customers can use SendGrid to send up to 40K emails a month for free. I wonder how this might impact that deal.
jmcnevin··on Braid, Super Meat Boy, and Lone Survivor Added to Humble Indie Bundle V
Yep... if you follow the link you received previously, there's a new Steam key available for the added games.
jmcnevin··on Rails 4 will establish a new background job queueing API
I don't believe the intent here is to replace Resque (Resque is awesome), but provide a slim API at Rails.queue that Resque/Delayed Job/BackgroundDRB/Torquebox/etc. could tie into, similar to how Rails.cache works now, in addition to adding a simplistic default implementation.

Considering Rails has always been about best practices--and background job queueing is definitely a best practice--I think this is a great move.

This will also allow other gems/plugins to have an easy way to push their own jobs into the queue rather than trying to support a bunch of different queue implementations.

jmcnevin··on Something is deeply broken in OS X memory management
Wow, thank you for this. The delay caused by this behavior has been driving me crazy for a really long time.
jmcnevin··on Indie artist trying to claim his domain name
For those who aren't familiar with MC Frontalot, might I suggest you check out "It is Pitch Dark," his rap about Zork.

http://youtu.be/4nigRT2KmCE

jmcnevin··on HAML: the unforgivable sin
FYI, you can wrap any line of Ruby at a comma, provided there is one.
jmcnevin··on Carmack: Doom 3's engine ready for open-sourcing, awaiting 'OK' from legal
I guess this will get _someone_ using id tech 4... doesn't look like it ever got much love from a licensing standpoint.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id_Tech_4#Games_using_id_Tech_4

jmcnevin··on Skype founders gunning for Netflix with Vdio
As an rdio subscriber, a streaming video service that offered some sort of integration with rdio would be pretty interesting. A single subscription plan that would allow for unlimited streaming of music AND movies could be huge.
jmcnevin··on IOS 5's "Cleaning" Behavior
For the record, I almost immediately filled up my allotted iCloud backup space because of rdio, because I have 4.6 gigs of music synced for offline use, and it wanted to back that up.

Solution: I disabled backups of rdio data.

jmcnevin··on IOS 5's "Cleaning" Behavior
Is it possible that a user could use Instapaper to save a document that they wouldn't be able to download later, even if they had access to an internet connection? If that's possible, I think Instapaper would have every right to store things in the Documents folder, since you're asking it to create something more akin to an archive than a temporary cache of data.
jmcnevin··on JRuby 1.6.3 Released
...three weeks ago!
jmcnevin··on Firefox 4 is here
I just noticed that FF4 also has shiny new javascript confirm and alert popups, complete with a lightbox effect. Nice!
jmcnevin··on Firefox 4 is here
I'm a little conflicted about the Firefox Sync feature. On the one hand: yay! On the other... it's a lot more difficult to set up sync in Firefox than in Chrome. I got to work today and was dismayed to discover that I couldn't simply login to Mozilla's server and sync up my bookmarks from home, but that I needed the sync key from my computer at home to get this working. Boo. That, or you need to have the devices you want to sync in the same place and use a Netflix-like "Add Device" feature.

I get it. Encrypting locally is more secure, but they've made this system SO secure that it's actually irritating. I wish I at least had the option of foregoing this sync key business.

Anyway, now I know to put my sync key on Dropbox so this doesn't happen again.

jmcnevin··on IPad 2 Official Specs
They must have had some room to spare in that case to bother putting in a rear camera.

Look at the screenshot of the camera app: http://www.apple.com/ipad/built-in-apps/camera.html

Notice the placement of the "record" button. Now imagine holding the device up to take a picture with two hands.

Even assuming another app developer will come along and fix this, who's going to use a tablet as a giant, awkward digital camera?

jmcnevin··on Command-line CSS spriting
No love for ImageMagick "montage"?

http://www.imagemagick.org/script/montage.php

http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/montage

jmcnevin··on ZFS for Mac OS X Breaths New Life
I'll be that guy.

breath = noun breathe = verb

"Breathes" New Life

That is all. :)

jmcnevin··on EC2 Micro Instance as a Remote Bittorrent Client
There's a number that do... and apparently you can install transmission as an add-on to dd-wrt:

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Optware#Installing_torr...

jmcnevin··on Twitter IDs to roll past 53 bits in a couple days (may break javascript apps)
Being in that majority of people who haven't built Twitter-scale systems in the past, could someone explain to me why Twitter is moving to a new form of twitter ID in the first place? What is wrong with their current system?

Also, it seems strange that they would include the new ID in string AND integer form in their JSON. I realize that they don't want to break existing javascript apps, but isn't there a significant bandwidth cost in adding that sort of kludge to the API when you're serving a quadrillion of these api requests every day?

jmcnevin··on Within 3 days another power outage at Linode (Fremont)
What you've described here would make an AWESOME movie. Granted, I'm not sure how one would work "Datacenter" into the title and still sell many tickets.
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