obscura

Yes, this is undoubtedly also a factor. Cities offer incentives to these large companies to open offices because they have an impact on their surroundings (see [1]). Workers support surrounding businesses; with the workers at home, these businesses must surely struggle. I can't imagine that the cities are not putting pressure on the large companies to bring workers back to the offices.

[1] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/making-sense/heres-what...

> The most important thing I learned was that old computers are still fast — and quite usable as a daily driver.

I have to point out that your build isn't entirely an old computer. Having an SSD makes a major difference. If you were to use an IDE HDD or even an old SATA, you'd probably think differently.

Nevertheless, an interesting exercise.

While this the feedback in this mail indicates a problem, even if you remove the emotional language I don't believe it's constructive. Constructive feedback would not just indicate a problem, but also provide guidance/suggestions on how to correct it.

I sympathise with the author. Why should one have to put up with mails like this? I understand the argument of being professional, but it's very draining to have to absorb personal attacks and ill-mannered outbursts while never being able to respond in kind.

Given that the sender didn't provide constructive feedback, is seemingly not contributing financially, and can simply choose to not use the application, I don't see why a response in kind shouldn't be given. To me, Don's response was mild.

The animated GIFs are really distracting and detract from the writing. I eventually deleted them from the parts I hadn't yet read.

I have to say that Crump was incredibly forgiving and put in a lot of extra effort. I don't think anyone I've been taught by would have gone to this much trouble.

I'm afraid this is nothing new. I experienced similar frustrations - archiving didn't work, there were no notices about downtime, and support response was abysmal despite a Twitter account that was very active about US politics - all back in 2017. I left disappointed and with a refund in 2018.

You've tried two models of two non-Mac brands and one Mac laptop, and have concluded that all laptops except Macs "seem" to be problematic...

What a ridiculous post.

As with so many opinions these days, it's at one extreme and ignores the middle ground.

For some apps, the big issue is when you schedule the downtime to happen. If you are truly customer-centric, you should schedule for a time that causes the least disruption for your users. Of course, a decision like this depends on other factors - the number of users likely to be affected, how critical the app changes are, costs, etc.

I've noticed a number of companies in my country taking sites and apps offline in the middle of the workday when they're very likely to be in use. To me, this is unacceptable - the work on the app should be done after hours.

Nice article - I enjoyed reading it. The examples are interesting in that they show how difficult it is to cover all the scenarios one can encounter when trying to anonymise data - e.g., double encoding. However, Avast should have analysed the data, spotted issues like these, and fixed them. Of course, the problem is they didn't have the incentive to do so.

This whole issue is another example of how hard it is for all of us to make good decisions about privacy. Most people wouldn't think about privacy being a problem when using Avast. Even if you do read the privacy policy you actually can't be entirely sure what's being done with your data (which you indicated in your original October 2019 article). However, it appears that you're safe because the data will be anonymised. There's nothing more for you to do at this point other than trust that Avast is handling anonymisation correctly.

I wonder if it's actually possible to anonymise data effectively yet still make it useful. Based on literature such as the academic article you referred to [1] and another I looked at a long time ago [2], it seems to me that with enough seemingly unrelated data you can identify most people.

[1] De-anonymizing Web Browsing Data with Social Networks [2] Robust De-anonymization of Large Sparse Datasets

I also recommend checking out the Affinity products. They're feature-rich, affordable and continually being improved.

I hope that in the wake of this more people start supporting the alternatives. More comepetition means more choice. Adobe's software is excellent, but they're far too dominant. The alternatives may not be good enough for everyone right now, but they're good enough for many of us and they're improving all the time.

The Affinity suite is great and affordable for me as a hobbyist. Many of the open source packages are also excellent.

This sounds like a flawed development cycle. Where's the end-user testing?

In defence of the developers/programmers, many people are really bad at explaining what they want, not least because it's often not what they actually need.

If a designer is designing something that looks good but doesn't work well (i.e., solve the problem), they are bad at usability/UX. They should be getting user feedback on their design before it's implemented - that's what user-centred design is about.

There's often a gap when it comes to understanding requirements - between the end-user and the developer, between the designer and developer, etc. Requirements gathering is actually a specialised skill and one of the key duties of a business analyst.

Added to the problem is the general lack of funding around the world for infrastructure, owing to the fact that politicians control the purse strings and infrastructure isn't "sexy" [1][2]. Building something new that can be named after someone is no doubt easier to fund than the maintenance of something that already exists.

"we always forget that maintenance in perpetuity is much much harder"

I imagine that part of the problem is that the heavy maintenance for large engineering projects begins years or decades after completion. Upon completion, it's hard to imagine these huge creations falling apart; add to this an element of "this won't be my problem (I won't be here in 50 years)" and you've got a recipe for short-term thinking - especially by those who don't have the expertise (read: the politicians and bureaucrats).

[1] https://www.marketplace.org/2015/05/19/americas-infrastructu... [2] John Oliver: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpzvaqypav8

What are "basic facts"? Surely the point of most research is to uncover new facts? And what is "reference material" if not other research - research that you're using as a foundation for your own?

It's fair to question things, especially if they don't make sense to you and even if acknowledged authorities are behind them. However, (1) something that you may question is not necessarily something I may question, and (2) questioning may be a waste of time.

If a paper that says mixing red and blue paint makes green paint has a thousand citations, perhaps you don't need to question it because others already have. If you can't reproduce it, the simplest thing to do is ask an expert who says it is possible to do it.

The garbage journals are a plague. You publish one article in a legitimate journal and in next to no time these worthless journals (and conferences) start spamming you, even if what you wrote has nothing to do with what they're supposedly publishing.

I don't see how this is practical. You could spend a lifetime testing the work of others and still not get through it all, let alone get to working on anything original. Progress is made by building on the work of others.

Haven't thought about Tucows in many years... I used to love exploring it to find new software to try out. There were so many interesting utilities and such to enhance Windows 95/98. Would love to give it one last browse. Ah well! Thanks for the good times, Tucows.

Agreed! I used to love exploring those discs, which were jam-packed with new demos and utilities, or new games or add-ons for existing ones.

Depends on where you stand... If you're one of the people who comes to rely on the product, then your answer would probably be "yes".

The cost of the experimentation is people wondering what product they'll discontinue next and whether it'll be one that _they_ rely on. If you find yourself asking this often enough, you'll probably start moving out of the Google ecosystem. How is this good for Google?

Yes, I understand that products need to pay for themselves, but Google keeps drawing people into services that they then shut down. It's frustrating for users and damaging to Google. What's the cost of the damage to their reputation?

> The vast majority of consumers don't care about this.

You may be right, but how exactly is someone meant to make an informed decision when they don't know what their TV is doing? It's unreasonable to expect the average person on the street to be an expert on the subject and to have fully researched everything before walking into a store, so if the TV's packaging doesn't say anything about the subject, how do they learn?

> However, to remain price competitive with the other TVs on the shelf in WalMart, they need to rely on ad revenue.

Which other TVs are you referring to? And is this really the case or are you speculating? Surely a company the size of Samsung can be competitive without having to resort to this sort of activity?

Yet another example of the customer coming last. Are TV's that force ads on customers heavily discounted? If not, the manufacturers are earning extra revenue while the customer loses their privacy and gets nothing in return other than annoyance.

It's a good illustration of why privacy is so complicated: most people wouldn't think that in buying a TV they're compromising their privacy because they don't know about ACR and such. The manufacturers, of course, know all about it, but it's not in their interest to share the information - specifically, to do so in a way that empowers the consumer to make an educated decision at purchase time. (Or am I wrong and they do in fact explain everything "on the box"? I haven't had to buy a TV in a long time.)

Ha ha, I was also putting in rude queries aimed at them. Perhaps someone in a backroom somewhere will see them in a log and have a laugh.

Not the best of articles, IMHO. It has too many broad statements and seems to be trying to be a "one size fits all" bit of advice.

I like the metaphor and agree with this sentiment: "the problem of understanding what customer needs, as opposed to accepting what the customer is asking for".

A few points:

1. The customer has a say in the requirements. They are often the domain expert. Even if they have no expertise, they need to be regularly consulted otherwise you still run the risk of delivering software that no value to them.

2. Understanding the business and eliciting requirements is often beyond the ability and scope of the software developer. These are the skills of a business analyst. Of course, developers can and do have these skills, but it shouldn't be assumed that they do.

3. Proper business analysis may lead to a solution that doesn't involve custom software. The article doesn't seem to allow room for this.

4. Implementation is often important to the customer. Many won't be comfortable to leave everything "below the surface" to the software developer.

Another way to do it is to seal up hive and put gasoline in it (the fumes kill the bees). I've seen this done with a hive that had AFB.

As I understand it, they instinctively go for the head and eyes of predators.

This is definitely an immensely aggressive hive. In my limited experience, even the ones I've seen opened up and worked on were not as bad as this.

I've also been using it for years. Its feature range and performance is phenomenal.

See my reply to nisuni above. I was referring to DIY masks, which is what the topic is about. Masks are definitely critical for health professionals interacting with those who are sick.

Of course not all masks are completely useless. By "these" I was referring to the item of the topic, namely "DIY masks". They are only somewhat effective in preventing droplets being transmitted when you cough or sneeze. They are less effective in stopping you coming into contact with the virus because they simply do not effectively filter it out.

What medical staff wear are masks that are effective at filtering out viruses. Read this [1] on the FDA site for a good explanation.

It's well established that there's a global shortage of masks. [2] They're made in China and they can only make so many because the manufacturing requires special equipment. [3]

[1] https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/personal-protective-equi...

[2] https://theconversation.com/the-global-effort-to-tackle-the-...

[2] https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/16/8149292...

Only health professionals should be wearing these. The public should not be wearing them as there is already a global shortage and they are badly needed by those caring for the sick.

From what I read, these are only useful if you're sick and trying to reduce transmission. While they're better than nothing, they're not better than proper masks. [1] Isolation, social distancing, covering your mouth/nose correctly when you cough/sneeze and handwashing are more effective measures. [2]

I don't imagine that these DIY masks should be used more than once (as is the case with most masks), so you'll probably need to make a lot of them.

[1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258525804_Testing_t... [2] "Should I wear a mask to protect myself?": https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/q-a-coronaviruses