keraf

Having spent a lot of time at a hangar at international airport in Africa and flying there, I can say that there's a thin line between crashes and incidents that could have resulted in a disaster. The former being extremely rare while the latter occurs so frequently it's scary. Between pilot errors, ATC mistakes and bad aircraft/airport maintenance, I've witnessed and heard of many near misses and incidents that have miraculously not turned into something worse. Passengers are completely oblivious what they narrowly escaped.

I often talk about my experience to my peers in Europe. They have similar stories, albeit not happening as frequently. Looking at accident reports on Aviation Safety Network [0] and breakdowns on YouTube such as videos from Mentour Pilot [1], some of the factors that contributed to crashes still occur frequently without resulting in an accident. It's usually a combination of multiple failures that lead to it. My flight instructor used to tell me, every aggravating factor (i.e. lack of sleep, low fuel quantity, complacency, assumptions, etc.) fills a glass which leaves less and less space to luck until it runs over.

[0] https://asn.flightsafety.org/ [1] https://www.youtube.com/@MentourPilot

Or negligence :-)

I'd love to see this happen to every billion dollar company that doesn't have a bug bounty program. Offering zero incentive for reporting vulnerability just encourages hackers to exploit it for their own advantage or to wreak havoc.

As a paying customer, I expect better from these companies and personally wouldn't blame the hackers for exploiting their findings if no program exists.

Would love to see exactly this but running on an ESP style board (with Ethernet). As well as an API or web interface to trigger manual WoL calls.

Nice project, thanks for sharing!

Seeing the same post month after month. Links are usually dead. Still applied, got rejected immediately despite ticking all the boxes. Not sure what to think about this company...

Location: Nomad | Geneva, CH | Prague, CZ | Zanzibar, TZ

Remote: Yes (Async or GMT -1 to GMT +3)

Willing to relocate: No

Technologies: .NET/C#, NodeJS, TypeScript, React, Rust, NextJS, Remix, AWS, Terraform, Electron, Tauri, PostgreSQL, Redis, ClickHouse

Résumé/CV: https://rafael.keramid.as/ | Full CV available upon request

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rafaelkeramidas

Email: rafael {at} keramid {.} as

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Hi, I am Rafael, a nomading full stack engineer from Switzerland. I have over 12 years of experience across a multiple industries (gaming, hardware, SaaS, ...) and company sizes (Fortune 500 to less than 10 people startup). I describe myself as a passionate software generalist with architecture and social skills, designing solutions from idea/whiteboard to production deployment, while also being able to lead and mentor teams.

I have taken a year off working to focus on obtaining a pilot license and personal tech projects, keeping my skills current. I am now looking for a gig, either contract or full time, 100% remote (I am fine traveling a few times per year), ideally for a startup with an interesting product.

I am also offering consulting work. If what you are looking for is a one-off job, I am happy to deliver a complete slice with documentation and handover to the permanent team.

Happy to discuss opportunities, answer questions or send you my full CV via e-mail.

They have a whole page dedicated to it [0]. To be fair, I mean it with a bit of sarcasm. How can you collect so much data and call it privacy. I definitely believe they do a better job than most companies though, even though I dislike how aggressively they are pushing sync features.

[0] https://www.apple.com/privacy/

For a privacy conscious company such as Apple, turning off Bluetooth when not needed should be encouraged. Keeping it on 24/7 makes you trackable, you're broadcasting a unique identifier.

Honestly, for my parents it has been a delightful experience. They have quite a basic usage of their computer, mainly web browsing, some Excel/Word, managing files like photos, and occasionally printing.

I didn't brief them much, I just installed and configured everything that was necessary for them, and let them figure out the rest. To my surprise, they managed everything on their own! Which made me realize how far UX went in the Linux world.

In terms of maintenance, every six months when I get home for a visit, I run some updates and answer some of their questions. It's very low maintenance, especially compared to Windows.

Also, I noticed quite an interesting side effect when installing Mint for non-techy people. They feel empowered because I trust them to run Linux, which they believe is reserved to the elite techies. This also makes them respect their computer more, which in turn makes them run into less issues as they are more careful with that they do.

I run AdGuard at my parent’s home and it’s crazy the amount of logs (blocked DNS queries) I get from the TVs alone. Before that Windows was the biggest offender but I switched them to Linux Mint since.

Still prefer that over dependence on the cloud which is problematic on metered internet, slow connections or the day they decide to shut down their servers.

Ghost for my personal blog and also photography portfolio. Been happily using it for years, easy to self host. Quite surprised not to see more mentions of it here.

Two days per week in the office isn't remote :-)

A metro station in Prague (JZP) got recently renovated and shortly after the opening, ads were absent. It was a breath of fresh air, finally being in a space without visual pollution. In the following weeks, the metro station was plastered with ads again and people complained.

I can’t remember the details of the story, but it was found out that whoever owned that space (council, city or public transport company?) charged a really small amount for the ad space, to the point where removing it was a very negligible loss in revenue. So they removed all the ads again.

It’s undeniable the most beautiful metro station in Prague. Freshly renovated, cool design and no ads.

At one of my first jobs, the codebase was massive and feature flags were heavily used. My first task given by my boss was to remove flags that have been enabled in all environments for a while. Great and engaging way to introduce someone to a new codebase, it's relatively easy and can be done with little assistance right of the bat, you also get to commit code in your first days and it reduces tech debt making everyone happy.

Been doing that with my new hires in other jobs.

The revenue tunnel vision disease that PMs have, totally ignoring features and other important things that have not a direct impact on that number. Hopefully we'll get a vaccine soon!

On a more serious note, security breaches can happen to anyone. Might not be fair to assume it's the PMs negligence. In fact, I met some that really saw the value in security and cared to dedicate the resources on it even if that meant not shipping more features.

IANAL but using the LV logo and their recognizable pattern to sell your own wallet, especially given that they also sell wallets, is a pretty bad idea.

I don't believe the issue here is the repurposing of the bag but rather the commercial use of it by creating a "competing" product. The author states in their video [0]: "Louis Vuitton went undercover to buy one of my repurposed wallets [...]". If it was done as a challenge for YouTube or a unique piece for your personal collection, LV probably wouldn't have bat an eye.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDAg1aVnnH4

Less parts, smaller size, lower speeds and capped data for a higher upfront and monthly price?

I get that it’s convenient depending on your use case but it doesn’t look really that good of a deal versus the standard one. Unless I’m missing something?

Good luck finding the air tag among 15'000 tools

The lack of care for e-waste produced makes me sick. Spotify should at least open the hardware or sponsor a contest for a smart re-use / open source firmware for the device, would probably cost them less at the end and make them look better.

Not sure if the star is supposed to indicate the biggest city or the capital, but if it's the latter, Tanzania has it wrong. The star is on Dar Es Salaam but the label over it says Dodoma, which is the name of the actual capital but it's more in the center of the country.

Do you have any models to recommend? Especially some that could last in harsh environments (dust, high temperature, insects, ...).

I bought a FP3+, still using it after 3 years, but would not go Fairphone again. Despite supporting what the company stands for, I feel they didn't deliver on their promises.

I was hoping for more upgrades to be available over time, but that was never the case. Instead, two new models appeared with a year interval and the 4 didn't even get any upgrades. Worse even, the 3.5mm jack was removed, following the trend of getting customers to buy headphones with a limited life time due to their battery. The promise of being the responsible choice for the planet is fading away.

I also faced issues when it came to repairing my device. After only 3 months the USB-C port died, impossible to charge it and once out of battery, I couldn't get my data from it. I contacted the support and they offered me two solutions: I send in the phone, it will get fixed but wiped clean or I order the part online and they reimburse me (they couldn't just send it from the repair center...). I chose the latter as I didn't want to loose my data and felt it was the more ecologically responsible choice, especially since the phone is so repairable. Well, the part was not available on their store, checked every retailer in Europe and third party parts don't exist. I was stuck with a brick for 4 months. The irony is that if I had an iPhone or Galaxy, I could get it fixed the same day at the phone repair shop around the corner...

I appreciate all the efforts Fairphone put in setting up more responsible supply chains. But in my opinion they still failed on their sustainability promise. The devices aren't well supported, it's difficult to repair them and they quickly fall behind due to the lack of upgrades (that also goes with the main board not being replaceable). New devices follow the disastrous trends of other brands with a new model each year and removing the headphone jack. Sure, they are a business and need to make money, but not by going against their own values.

As said, Zanzibaris are very tolerant, they will let you exist in peace regardless of how you look, your gender, sexual orientation, religious believes or nationality, they just don't care. I know of trans people spending their holiday here without any incident, at most it was just their taxi driver being curious but at no point they felt unsafe.

Don't abuse their tolerance and respect their customs. The same way you'd expect someone to respect you and your house rules if you invite them home. You just have to accept that people live differently in different parts of the world, maybe it's not them that are intolerant.

I'm convinced a global tech event can be hosted in Zanzibar where everyone is welcome and safe.

> out of respect for the local population.

You're a guest, there are some cultural do's and dont's and holding hands in public is one of the latter, even for heterosexual couples. I don't hold hands with my girlfriend in public even though it'd be totally safe to do so, it's disrespectful because it's not the local custom to do so.

In contrast, many of my LBGT friends in European capitals fear to show affection with their partner in public, with most having faced harassment and some even assault. According to our European values it should be normal and safe to express affection to our partner in public regardless of our genders, but the reality is sadly different.

The claims of Zanzibar being unsafe for LGBTQIA+ communities is ridiculous. I live there and it's the most tolerant place I lived in so far. There are laws, but as long as you mind your own business and don't disturb others, you will be left alone. I've even been to same-sex weddings here (between foreigners of course, same-sex relationships are still taboo between locals but they do exist) and have gay friends living on the island that never reported any incident (unlike in Europe).

Still, there are some things that should be avoided in public, out of respect for the local population. Kissing and holding hands for example is not well seen, even for heterosexual couples. Despite this, even if you happen to do it in public you will never face verbal or physical aggression from anyone, maybe just some frowns but even that is rare.

Pushing our views to countries that are still developing is Neocolonialism at its best. We take our progress in the West for granted, but it took us time to get there. Give the tools for Africans country to develop on their own, they will get there in their own time, there are many other pressing matters to address first.

My side project GTAMap.net (not active anymore) helped me land my dream job at Rockstar North.

Long story short, I got into programming by wanting to make my own SA-MP (San Andreas: Multiplayer) server back in the days, I was totally addicted to GTA. I then went on to learn other languages and ultimately built GTAMap.net, a interactive web map for the GTA series.

When I moved to Edinburgh, I realised Rockstar North was based there. I couldn't let that opportunity pass and applied for a junior IT support job. During the interview phase they saw my projects and the maps one in particular. They then got me another interview with the web team for an engineering role, which I ended up getting!

Dream came true, I spent 4 years there surrounded by amazing people and working on some incredible projects, I learned so much there. GTA is what got me into programming and 8 years later I end up working on it.

If the goal was really to stop cheater, they'd provide an API in their XDA to let game developers reject unauthorized controllers. That way, ranked matches could take advantage of this to make competitive games more fair. If people want to have more fun with cheats in a single player game using an unapproved third-party controller, they should be able to do so!

I'm baffled how posts related to Russian software always get politicized... Can't we just celebrate good free and open source software and leave politics out of it? Don't like who's behind it? Just fork it or don't use it at all!

Software is software, people are people and governments are governments. Stop mixing it all together, it's a hypocrites minefield. If you're feeling so righteous about the countries of who writes your software, just throw your computer out of the window.

Exactly this. I'm running a de-googled Android device without any social media on it. Sure it's not as convenient, but I find myself with all the benefits outlined by the first paragraph of that article, with the extra tools that help make my life easier.

For example, my sense of orientation got a lot better but I'd be doing myself a disservice not to use OSM in a city I'm not familiar with. The slow loading and time for the GPS to lock on makes it more of a "only if necessary" use, I mostly end up asking for directions or figuring out my own way via public maps, I enjoy that more.