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rubbingalcohol

2,297 karma · joined December 3, 2012

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rubbingalcohol··on Apple Pro Display XDR Review
The fact that Apple went to the trouble to develop a Windows driver for the Pro Display XDR but lock it down so it only works on Macs running Boot Camp - there is no justification for that other than malice.
rubbingalcohol··on Tech giants sued over deaths of children who mine cobalt
You literally want to place the blame solely on a third world country for the deaths and disease of all these child laborers when it's our first world addiction to their resources driving the injustice in the first place? Who is in a better economic standing to improve this situation?

Would you have no problem buying ivory, since it's the poacher who acted immorally, and you as the end consumer have no responsibility as to how it was supplied?

I don't throw this word around lightly, but what we are enabling in the Congo is evil, and all so we can drive expensive electric cars and pretend like we're making the world better. It's pathetic.

rubbingalcohol··on The Dark Side of WebAssembly (2018)
But arguably Webassembly is also dumb and has no reason to exist, so there's that on top of it being a great way to obfuscate malicious code.
rubbingalcohol··on Shields Down (2016)
I think the shields analogy is misplaced. Also, a manager blaming themself for the choices of their employees shouldn't be a hard rule. As a manager I do my best to create a good environment for my employees, but I'm also not omnipotent, and the actions/inactions or simply the market position of the company as a whole can be impossible for me to control and be a bigger factor than anything I could do immediately for my team. Understandably the buck stops at the manager, but we can all only do our best and sometimes that's not good enough.

I guess to simplify:

Shitty manager ===> Employees leave

Employees leave =/=> Shitty manager

> Happy people don't leave jobs they love.

Debatable, but worth noting that some people are never happy.

rubbingalcohol··on Tinder Lets Known Sex Offenders Use the App. It’s Not the Only One
If Tinder forced people to do background checks, propublica would do a similar write-up about how invasive that is and how it disproportionately affects [affected group]. The only way to win this game is to not play.
rubbingalcohol··on Estimated $64M loss as SF street conditions and costs drive out Oracle OpenWorld
The far-right is already seizing on this story as proof that San Francisco is just like Venezuela.
rubbingalcohol··on Ask HN: What should people not do with their work computer?
Don't use a work computer for any personal or side projects. Otherwise the employer may be able to claim copyright ownership over the work.
rubbingalcohol··on HackerOne breach lets outside hacker read customers’ private bug reports
They paid the hacker $20,000. That's a nice way of shooting the messenger!
rubbingalcohol··on The iPhone 11 Pro’s Location Data Puzzler
Still doesn't answer why some Apple services have granular control and others don't. The implication in offering the controls is that you could control how the phone uses location data. Excluding some services from the controls negates the value of having controls at all.
rubbingalcohol··on The iPhone 11 Pro’s Location Data Puzzler
> “It is expected behavior that the Location Services icon appears in the status bar when Location Services is enabled. The icon appears for system services that do not have a switch in Settings.”

My question then is WHY? If they allow granular control over some location collection settings, but not others, and the only way to disable background collection is to turn location off entirely, then doesn't this defeat the purpose of offering granular control at all? What possible reason could there be for having it set up this way?

In my ideal scenario, Maps would have location access when open or navigating but nothing else.

rubbingalcohol··on H-1B in 2020: Immigration Visa Faces Further Restrictions
The law also says there can be no gender wage gap.

I've worked at several big tech companies and they all abused H1B's. The immigrant workers were paid a lot less than citizens. It pissed me off because the immigrant workers were treated like crap and also I would imagine it puts downward pressure on my own salary.

I worked at a company that gave referral bonuses to employees for new hires. It went like this: $2,000 for a white. $3,000 for a black or Asian. $5,000 for an Indian. HMMM.

There's little incentive for an individual to report anything. You've seen how "whistleblowers" get treated. Up against a big company with a legal department, chances are good that they know how to put up chaff, redirect, deny and obfuscate their abusive practices. Why stick your neck out when it's a systemic problem?

rubbingalcohol··on AMD’s Entire Ryzen 9 3950X 16 Core CPU Inventory Sold Out in Japan
Don't you mean 14++++++? They still can barely get 10nm working in laptops, much less desktop or servers. By the time they do, AMD will be far ahead of them process-wise.
rubbingalcohol··on Intel is losing against AMD – Engadget
I'm running a Threadripper 2950X in my primary workstation, Ubuntu 19.10. I have not encountered a single CPU-related issue with compilation in the 6 months I've been using this setup. In fact I've had less trouble overall than I've had on my MacOS laptop. IMO Linux has finally reached a point where it's solid enough for general purpose desktop use.
rubbingalcohol··on Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?
What would you do with your career if you could do anything you wanted? It's hard to give advice without a sense of what you'd rather be doing.

For whatever it's worth, I'm going through a similar dilemma. My compensation is high, but I don't feel fulfilled by the work and there are other things I'd rather do for less money. Unlike you I'm in a startup and leaving would really mess things up for them, so I'm holding out.

rubbingalcohol··on AMD Threadripper 3990X's 64 cores promise monster rendering
Well it's not a rumor anymore, AMD announced it.
rubbingalcohol··on AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3960X and 3970X Review
They use a heatspreader (solid metal surface, the "top" of the chip) soldered to the actual cores. Then you slap a heatsink or water block on and tighten it down on the heatspreader with the help of a thermal interface material (metallic goo). The actual cooling done by the heatsink or water cooler is pretty basic and similar to what you'd find inside cars or home A/C units.

With "280 watts" you can still use an off-the-shelf Noctua air cooler or any number of all-in-one water coolers.

rubbingalcohol··on AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3960X and 3970X Review
I don't really see how the pricing is ridiculous though. They're still way cheaper than what Intel charged for the same cores a year ago, and they have more cores than Intel can even offer on their best workstation chips. If you compare against 28 core Xeons, the new Threadrippers are a downright bargain.
rubbingalcohol··on Microsoft Comic Chat
I loved Comic Chat because I was 12 years old. I couldn't figure out what "lol" meant and it was really funny seeing the characters saying it with just a blank facial expression lol
rubbingalcohol··on Nike won’t sell directly to Amazon anymore
Amazon sells so many counterfeit Nike products that I've been using Nike and Adidas' online stores for quite awhile.

Amazon is so bad when it comes to counterfeits that there are only two conditions that will lead me to purchase an item there anymore:

- Either the item is listed as being sold by its original manufacturer and fulfilled by Amazon

- Or I just need something and don't care if it's cheap Chinese crap

I'm sure with Nike officially leaving Amazon this will only get worse. But practically any other big brand you're still looking at paying full price for knock-off merchandise. I can't believe Amazon gets away with having their "head in the sand" to this degree.

rubbingalcohol··on Benjamin Libet's argument against free will is being questioned
To say an argument has been "debunked" implies that the argument holds no credibility, or the rhetorical equivalent of "I'm right, you're wrong." It is an attempt to shut down a discussion and provide fodder for ad-hominem attacks against those who dare to disagree.

In other words, The Atlantic should be ashamed to run a headline like this because it is antithetical to rational discussion.

rubbingalcohol··on UK Met Office Climate Dashboard
Anthropogenic? People keep throwing out terms like "clear" and "settled" and when asked to elaborate give responses like "it's in the science." So what specific conclusion in the science is now beyond questioning? Citation needed.
rubbingalcohol··on UK Met Office Climate Dashboard
Yes and in the meantime it's burning steadily hotter.
rubbingalcohol··on UK Met Office Climate Dashboard
There's nothing "settled" about question #2. The extent to which humans are responsible for climate change, comparative to external factors (such as the sun heading towards the end of its hydrogen-burning life), is very much debatable.

You can use adverbs like "absolutely" and "unreservedly" but that doesn't make your statement greater than an opinion.

rubbingalcohol··on Thousands of Facebook internal documents and emails published online
The documents are not "explosive." The title should be updated to remove linkbait.
rubbingalcohol··on Robinhood Traders Discovered a Glitch That Gave Them ‘Infinite Leverage’
If you borrow money knowing you can't or won't pay it back then yes, it's fraud. But it's more complicated in this case, because the dude could argue he expected major gains and believed there was no way he could lose.
rubbingalcohol··on Illegal drones ground water-dropping helicopters in Maria fire battle
I didn't advocate shooting down drones. It should not be done under normal circumstances due to the falling debris hazard. But of all the ways to shoot down a drone (assuming it were necessary to protect public safety), using a shotgun is probably the safest, and I agree this should be done by police. Unless perhaps you're a firefighter trying to dump a helicopter full of water on a fire, and then I think most reasonable people would make an exception there too.
rubbingalcohol··on Illegal drones ground water-dropping helicopters in Maria fire battle
It's relatively easy to shoot down a drone, you can do it with birdshot. The problem would be falling debris and the safety hazard that represents. Might be a moot point in cases of fire, but in general that would be a pretty specialized startup around a task that a basic shotgun would already excel at.
rubbingalcohol··on Epstein's injuries look more like murder than suicide, noted pathologist says
Yes, both cameras that watched the cell and hallway outside it had "technical difficulties" and there was no recoverable footage around the time of Epstein's death.
rubbingalcohol··on Dark.fail: Is a darknet site online?
Yes
rubbingalcohol··on Focusmate – Virtual Coworking Helps You Get Things Done
If a service provides a useful value that people are willing to pay for at $50 then why shouldn't the service provider charge $50?
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