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scarlac

523 karma · joined February 25, 2016

https://github.com/scarlac

[ my public key: https://keybase.io/scarlac; my proof: https://keybase.io/scarlac/sigs/G_TSbwfuDn88bOFcdF4PxEYDnSAGD128eygAP56vL20 ]

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scarlac··on I tried to cancel Virgin Media broadband contract
They also have the benefit of putting the merchant in a bad standing. Chargebacks usually incur a fee as well as credit card companies monitoring the chargebacks per 1k transactions. If the number gets too high you (the merchant) will be sanctioned or cancelled.

So please use chargebacks. I speak as a former merchant: We hate chargebacks - they are an effective deterrent.

scarlac··on Zsh and Fish’s simple but clever trick for highlighting missing linefeeds
I just tested in Terminal.app (macOS) with zsh and several things happen: If you do nothing but run `echo -n 'hello world'` and then resize the window, the next line prompt will be jittery (it'll jump left and right as you resize but ultimately return to the correct position). My prompt is "14:41:44 ~ ️ <cursor>" and if I resize fast enough, the previous line (the one with the output `hello world%` starts displaying characters on the right side. Characters from the next line. If I do it fast, it becomes obvious what it's doing: Fragments of the next line is copied to the previous line, so the right part of 'hello world%' is filled with: `111141414:314:3914:3914:39:` after a few resizes.

If you press return again (executing no command) then the buggy output is now fixed and no magical behavior occurs.

It may be easier to just see, so here's an example: https://www.loom.com/share/5eab7cfb4590475a8881fe3e91d92738

scarlac··on Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone
> Turned into a serious drug venue and eventually fell apart

This is not true. I am Danish and my apartment is in Copenhagen. It's in fact so successful it has turned into a tourist attraction. Lukas Graham[1] is a Danish musician who grew up there. I don't see how this community can be called a failure.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lukas_Graham

scarlac··on The Italian Covid contact-tracing app is now developed in open source
I would encourage you to read up on the technology behind it. It was intended to be anonymous to such an extend that some governments went out and said they wouldn't use it because of the lack of tracking. The methodology has also been laid out quite extensively, and it's an opt-in approach.
scarlac··on Lawmakers begin bipartisan push to cut off police access to military-style gear
I can only give my own opinion.

De-criminalize recreational drug-use. Community arrests of recreational users with no victims causes a bad image and puts young people on a path to being full time criminals.

Increase training. If you fall back to instinct too quickly and you're equipped with guns, you're likely to commit large mistakes like murder.

No immunity. Police offers already defend each other. Immunity makes just gives them a license to kill. Over time, they'll learn they can get away with pushing people around and hurting them under umbrella immunity + team protection. Legal immunity must stop.

Full medical insurance, no co-pay (Do all officers have this already?). If an officer has to fear he'll get ruined from an injury then it creates unnecessary pressure for him to shoot first.

scarlac··on Study of the effect of Vitamin D, Magnesium and Vitamin B12 on Covid-19 patients
It can be measured with a blood test:

> The most accurate way to measure how much vitamin D is in your body is the 25-hydroxy vitamin D blood test.

https://www.webmd.com/diet/guide/vitamin-d-deficiency

scarlac··on Intelligent disobedience
Assuming you're genuinely asking. I believe it's because feelings and intelligence would mean that animals suffer pain like we do, which would imply that we are cruel for eating or using them as we do.

The best analogy I can come up with that many Americans would relate to would be slavery, when slave owners would insist on dehumanizing them. They were both financially and emotionally invested in the idea that slaves could be used and abused.

scarlac··on Electron 9.0
If you sniff the network traffic you’ll find why: it essentially is a hybrid html and native app. All pages of the App Store are set up in XML and loaded server side, hardly ever cached. Just like <select> in HTML iTunes uses similar structure to instruct and deliver native or semi-native components. It’s a big web page. And it’s slower than Safari. That’s why.
scarlac··on React Native for Windows and Mac
There are. A lot of components have been deprecated and are being moved out into community-maintained versions. Some major examples are: Camera library, Photo Library integrations, Date/Time picker, AsyncStorage, and more. This is a large scale effort from the dev team to decrease core size: https://github.com/facebook/react-native/issues/23313
scarlac··on React Native for Windows and Mac
It's worth mentioning that apart from Javascript, there is nothing 'web' about React Native. To put it simply: You use Javascript to control native components. Electron and React Native are wildly different. React Native is set up to look like web development, but it is not. It makes it easier to get started, but over time you'll have to appreciate the native platform underneath.
scarlac··on Comparing HTTP/3 vs. HTTP/2 Performance
They did mention multiple geographic locations as well as RTT (Round Trip Time) which is somewhat equivalent to latency, no?
scarlac··on Masks4All: Wear a mask to stop the spread of Coronavirus (Jeremy Howard)
This is an unfortunate side effect of how it's worded in many English articles. And like a game of telephone, the precision is lost in communication in social settings/media and people are telling each other to not wear masks (at least that's what I'm seeing)
scarlac··on Masks4All: Wear a mask to stop the spread of Coronavirus (Jeremy Howard)
Considering humans often use masks like these to conceal their identity, it's probably going to be difficult if not impossible to make it work reliably. For those using an Apple Watch it will be easier to pay that way.
scarlac··on Masks4All: Wear a mask to stop the spread of Coronavirus (Jeremy Howard)
Try translating using things like face-cover / mouth-cover / facial protection / facial protection equipment?
scarlac··on DefaultApp
Yes, at least officially for Windows. The official fork: https://github.com/microsoft/react-native-windows
scarlac··on The dystopian world of software engineering interviews
Push for change. Show others the alternative. I have worked with teammates to change hiring culture and gotten some fantastic feedback. Change will happen if you push for it.

Here're my points:

1. Supply candidate with a challenge that I built myself, tested with a co worker

2. Test should have many small goals and bugs: Get more data points on what they achieved, don't make it binary!

3. Challenge should include real bugs from when you built it. e.g. typos, wrong attribute names like 'innerHtml' instead of 'innerHTML', forgetting an import, etc.

4. Make results runnable / viewable (for front end work)

5. Explicitly tell candidate that Google is not just allowed, but expected

6. Allow candidate to ask questions so you're not dehumanizing them (but don't always give a straight answer)

7. Follow up with questions like "what do you think could be improved?"

8. If candidate spends more than 10 minutes on any of the challenges, allow them to skip it

Get as many data points as possible from an interview. Make it as close to real life as possible.

scarlac··on No engineer has ever sued because of constructive post-interview feedback
At a former job we ended technical interviews with the question: "So, how do you think you did?". It allowed candidates to raise points and what they'd want to do different. Some candidates used the chance to ask for feedback at which point I could choose to agree with the candidate or elaborate on solutions.

It avoids some of the defensive stances candidates may take when given feedback (because they go first) although it doesn't tell a candidate how they did badly if they weren't already slightly aware.

scarlac··on Sony surprises with an electric concept car called the Vision-S
Keep in mind this is a concept car. Most companies never do anything with their concepts, and if they do it never looks anything like what they showed. Recently Dyson sadly announced they gave up on their EV attempts.

However, I hope I'll be wrong. There is room for more players in the EV market.

scarlac··on Engineer says Google fired her for notifying co-workers of right to organize
The notice was added to a relevant page (a work organisation consultant webpage), from what it looks: https://medium.com/@ksspiers/google-fires-another-worker-for...
scarlac··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (December 2019)
Tesla | Software Engineer | Fremont, CA, USA | Onsite | Full-Time | https://www.tesla.com

The Digital Experience team at Tesla is building the next generation products and supporting infrastructure which allows our customers, living in 60+ countries, to understand, interact and purchase our amazing vehicles and energy products. You should be proficient with React Native and Redux. Familiar with Objective-C, Java, and/or TypeScript. Minimum 2 years of experience with mobile development in some form.

If you are interested please email sesoliman (at) tesla (dot) com

scarlac··on Power Plant Turns Waste into Energy and Doubles as a Ski Slope and Climbing Wall
Plan has been around for a while, yes, but the building was not open to the public. Apparently that has now changed.
scarlac··on Perfectly Cropped
Exactly. So much so, you'll often see each ad prefixed with a text saying 'article continues below' (for those wondering why that text is there).
scarlac··on Exposure to air pollution is linked to an increase in violent crime
While that sounds like a troll comment, I'm going to say that there's merit to this - at least as a class action lawsuit. When you get sick from second hand smoke and it's been shown to be bad for you, there's a case to be made. If people are being psychologically affected by 'second hand pollution' then there's a case to be made that the local or federal government isn't doing their job (which is to serve the people). A lawsuit can be very real if consistent results are shown in multiple studies.
scarlac··on macOS 10.15 Vista
I won't pretend you have the same interests as me but one of the reasons I personally look(ed) forward to Catalina was the ability to essentially "run iOS apps" (recompiled for macOS).

I can't wait to get rid of some of my Electron apps in favor of proper native ones. That feature alone would be worth the upgrade in my opinion.

But that's not to say I agree with how they've implemented the permissions dialogs. As a developer who had to deal with them I found several glaring bugs in Mojave, not to mention a sub-par UX. I'm sad if they haven't improved on that.

scarlac··on Tesla Model 3 = 24% of Small and Midsize Luxury Car Sales in USA
Long Range Dual Motor Model 3 owner here.

> lower maintenance costs than ICE vehicles

I researched it prior and it seems people pay very little for maintenance. I've personally logged 13k mi in 10 months and literally had no maintenance expenses.

> higher insurance costs than ICE vehicles

There are so many variables to insurance pricing. Not to mention that you can bargain. I honestly have a hard time comparing. My rate is around 600 per 6 months.

> possibility of long delays for repairs (moreso than other EVs)

I've heard about wait times for particular parts. I haven't had an issue myself. I can't compare to other EVs, since I haven't owned others.

> possibility of company going out of business, and impact on software maintenance, software updates, and parts availability (also moreso than other EVs)

This seems extremely unlikely at this point. Should it happen, the car will still charge and drive just fine.

scarlac··on New In Postgres 12: Generated Columns
I agree that it should be used sparingly. But for more than 5 years I've wished I had a computed column feature because you are often thrown into code bases that need refactoring and refactoring 100% in 1 commit is not always the safest way to go. Sometimes you want to migrate a codebase in several steps. Computed/virtual columns are an absolutely fantastic feature and it allows refactoring and migrations at your own pace, or as a fallback.
scarlac··on Show HN: I made a neural net that analyzes privacy policies
Keep in mind that it's analyzing their privacy policy, not their actions. Who a company specifically choses to share the data with and how often they do it is likely not considered.
scarlac··on California Approves Statewide Rent Control
It's not ideal and no silver bullet, but having rents go up means "normal" people living in places for years get pushed out of the city and land lords get richer, faster. It seems to address that issue, which is not all bad on the surface.

It's not the perfect solution, but what do you propose as something better that still helps normal people not get pushed out?

scarlac··on The not so hidden cost of sharing code between iOS and Android
> failed to set the appropriate accessibility roles so the button actually appears as button to a user with the screen reader

Appreciate that you looked into it. On iOS and you do not need to set anything to become screen reader friendly _in React Native_. The default TouchableOpacity with a simple piece of text inside of it will become focusable and iOS will read the text aloud for you. This works because RN uses native elements unlike Flutter, Electron, and others.

In fact, I took you up on the claim that it wouldn't read correctly. I used my app just now which has never been tested or optimized for accessibility. Covered my eyes and began navigating. It works just fine! All tappable elements are indeed read aloud. I was able to navigate through the app settings, change them, go back, and reload other screens, navigate to the updated content, and perform actions on the new content.

Please do not put RN in the same bucket as Flutter or Electron. They are fundamentally differently.

scarlac··on The not so hidden cost of sharing code between iOS and Android
Some of your statements are partially correct, but a few of these assertions are flat out false for React Native. Let's look at them:

> - Binary size. A basic Flutter/RN app easily pushes you past 20MB in app size on iOS, whereas a complex and complete app like Tweetbot is ~7MB.

I have working examples of fairly complex production applications that are <=10 MB on iOS.

> - Poor accessibility. Native iOS apps get a lot of accessibility for free because Apple has done a great job, with RN and especially Flutter you don't get this benefit.

False statement. React Native provides you with ability to tag elements so you can use accessibility-tools to navigate the app. I have recently tested this with a RN app running on iOS 13 using the new voice control feature. Several testing frameworks also rely on these features being available.

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