sholladay

It is, but in casual conversation, “government” often means the people/party currently in power (of the executive and/or legislature).

You can see this when people say “[X] is unable to form a government”. They don’t mean unable to form a judiciary.

A lot of times, people just need a gentle nudge, or an official blessing from an authority figure, to go ahead and make the change that is necessary. You can tell people to manage up, to fully own their work and their process, etc. But a lot of humans don’t want to step on others’ toes or be perceived as acting out of line. A worker on the assembly line might know the best way to make the line run more smoothly but it’s easy to think that’s “not my job” or “above my pay grade”. Sometimes all that’s needed is to tell them, “Yeah, go ahead and do it.”

Getting that to happen more automatically is one way out of this situation, but that tends to cause problems of its own, with blurry lines of responsibility and authority. So it works best with relatively flat organization structures, which aren’t used much in large organizations.

A lot of GitHub’s secondary features are like this. The Issues tab and Discussions tab are so similar, with slightly different feature sets. And users will happily use both for feature requests and bug reports, with varying degrees of quality, so then I just have yet another thing to stay on top of. I think Discussions were made to reduce noise in very busy repos, but I generally find something useful in the noise. It’s really just a way to ignore users. As a result, I always turn off Discussions and just let people file issues when they feel it’s appropriate.

I like macOS but we should be honest about some of its basic functionality being unintuitive. The “traffic lights” were pretty confusing to me for a while. Green button made the window grow but not fully maximize - I never understood the point of that (though, nowadays it goes fullscreen, which is great). Yellow minimizes, fine, whatever. Red appears to quit, but actually doesn’t, it merely closes the window, which is confusing for the simple case of only having one window. And the analogy of traffic lights doesn’t really work.

The classic one that everyone talks about is the weird way apps are installed by dragging an app into a folder, signified only by an arrow, with no explanation of what it’s doing or why. Also, that UI wouldn’t always show up, I believe because the app itself has to be coded to trigger it. So sometimes I would end up with an app running without having been installed. Therefor some of my apps wouldn’t show up in Launchpad, etc. Now that I understand the process, it’s pretty cool. And it’s simple, in a sense. But it fails any definition of intuitive.

The scroll direction of a mousewheel cannot be controlled independently from a trackpad. So one or the other is bound to feel wrong to most people.

There are simple things Apple could change to fix most of these, but I think it’s overlooked just because “that’s how it’s always been”.

Not yet, they’re trying to say that galvanization prevents rust and therefore it’s stainless. I don’t want to spend much time on this and they are probably betting on that.

In the future, I’m just not going to buy a product unless it specifies the alloy number, like 304 or 310 stainless. At least then there’s a lot less wiggle room for wordplay. It will unfortunately disqualify a lot of legitimate products that just don’t specify.

Are you aware that none of that is required when signing up for a site that supports passkeys?

I think there is some confusion here caused by sloppy use of terminology among FAANG and the standards groups. You’re right that, strictly speaking, Apple defined “passkeys” as synced credentials. And you’re also right to point out that, as a result, in order to consider them secure, you must trust Apple’s key storage and E2EE iCloud syncing, or the equivalent from other vendors. I wouldn’t blame you for being skeptical about synced credentials. The convenience may not be worth it for you.

However, crucially, synced credentials are just one type of FIDO2 credential. The other is a hardware-bound key from a “roaming” authenticator (aka a “security key”). These are never transmitted, never synced, and you can buy the security key hardware that generates and stores them from many different vendors, all of which are designed to be interoperable.

In other words, all passkeys are FIDO2, but not all FIDO2 are passkeys. Yet, when a website says it supports passkeys, it probably means it supports all FIDO2. And that’s because WebAuthn, the browser standard used to implement passkey registration and authentication on the web, supports all FIDO2 credentials, not just passkeys.

With WebAuthn (and most other systems), by default both platform authenticators (which would typically be synced, like you’re talking about, but not necessarily) and roaming authenticates (which would be typically be a USB security key, not synced) are allowed. I’ve occasionally stumbled upon sites that don’t allow platform authenticators, but I’ve never come across one that doesn’t allow roaming authenticators. It sounds like you want is the latter.

Apple could have avoided this mess by simply deciding that “passkeys” are the new name for “FIDO2 credentials” and then we could have synced passkeys and non-synced passkeys. But they apparently thought that was too confusing.

I’m convinced that a lot of the passkey hate ultimately stems from the inconsistent and confusing flows that websites have implemented in the name of backwards compatibility with passwords. I have made some apps where passkeys are the only way to log in and it is such a lovely experience. It can be as simple as a single log in button by itself, with no intermediate pages or other UX. There doesn’t even have to be a form to fill out at all.

The problem of losing physical access to your passkeys is only really a problem if the site chooses to be strict. There can easily be a “Send a magic link” button where you type in your email. It’s the equivalent of “forgot password”. For most systems, it’s already accepted that your security is only as good as your email provider’s is. Passkeys make it straightforward to have an email-less model, but you always could have done the same thing with passwords. No one forced you to implement “forgot password”, it was simply a practical approach that was worth the security tradeoff.

People seem to assume that we should leave that functionality behind in the transition to passkeys but I’m not so sure. It certainly seems more practical than trying to get users to maintain physical backup keys.

The concern about exporting passkeys is valid but you can share via AirDrop. Doesn’t that work on Android now?

Try to give passkeys a chance. I really think the growing pains are worth it.

He convinced me to get a Dyson vacuum. Worst expensive purchase of my life.

Nothing he said was wrong. Dyson’s performance is genuinely excellent. The problem is everything else.

It squeaks as I move it around while vacuuming due to flimsy rubber seals. It doesn’t have a retractable cord or any good place to put it. It has a clever feature where if the vacuum is fully upright, then the accessories are active, otherwise the main floor head is active - cool, except that the upright position never clicks well, I have to constantly fight it. I could go on and on…

None of these things show up on a spec sheet and I didn’t come across them in any reviews either. It looks cool and it cleans well, but every other aspect of it is junk. I’m never going to buy one again.

You should check out all of the voices available on macOS. They still have the original, robotic sounding MacinTalk voices from 1984, such as Fred. They’re fun to play with.

Personally, I think Majel Barrett is my favorite computer voice of all time.

One big problem is that prices are easy to compare, while quality is not.

I recently bought a tub that was advertised as stainless steel on Amazon. I was suspicious but decided to take a chance. Turns out it is galvanized, not stainless. I’m not sure the average person knows the difference. To be charitable, perhaps that’s even why the listing advertised it that way. But the difference matters significantly in terms of performance and quality, especially for certain kinds of products and use cases.

There’s no “sort by quality, best to worst” system like there is for price. No “genuine stainless only” filter. You just have to know certain things.

Shopping in person obviously helps, but you still have to know what to look for. Refrigerators are a good example of this. Most people shop for them in person, yet it’s not at all obvious whether model A or model B will last longer. You can try to use price as a proxy for quality, but the more expensive refrigerators are actually more likely to fail years earlier because of the added component complexity. They’re basically banking on the fact that you don’t know how to read a wiring diagram.

To combat that, lots of people turn to YouTube or reviews to figure out quality. And sure, you can find some good sources that will tell you that top freezers will last longer than a French door model at basically any price, and they might even explain why. But all of those platforms are muddied with perverse incentives, affiliate programs, sponsorships, etc. Again, not always obvious.

We need to make quality obvious. We need to make it comparable, sortable, filtrable, and guaranteed. Poor design needs to be a valid reason to return an item. Manufacturers should be required to label products with an estimated lifespan. Give tax breaks or other incentives to products that include a warranty for its full lifespan.

We have to figure out how to improve the efficiency of making high quality goods, so that everything doesn’t just get more expensive. There should be a public database of the best known designs and techniques for making long lasting items. Patents that relate to longevity could be given extra time to encourage research, but then after, say, 3 years there could be a requirement to license the technology so that it can go mainstream.

This doesn’t solve everything. Some products need more specific approaches. Food quality is a problem. Housing needs to be both more affordable and higher quality. But I think with enough changes to incentives, the culture could shift towards seeing the value in making things well.

Disagree. The TNG computer was used via voice input when it was efficient to do so, which is exactly how it should be. There were plenty of computer consoles, laptops, and tricorders/phone-like devices that were also used, especially with certain types of tasks. The crew could technically fly the ship and fire weapons via voice commands, but that only happened occasionally, in situations where it made sense. Also, when Picard wants to record himself playing a musical instrument, saying “Computer, begin recording” is simply convenient. It serves no purpose to the story or explaining anything to the audience. It’s just a tool. One that I would very much like to have.

The best example I can think of in favor of what you are saying, where the computer does kind of serve the story and helps the audience, is the episode where Doctor Crusher gets stuck in the warp bubble and she has a lot of conversations with the computer about what is happening. But even then, she is out of her element, needs a lot of help from the computer, and it seems more convenient to do so via voice than anything else. She still travels to different areas of the ship to carry out actions, even though she probably doesn’t have to in case. The computer is clearly at its best for simple actions and answering questions, even if it can do more. The characters understand that and use the technology accordingly.

In my view, intelligence includes an ability to learn and adapt to never-before-seen situations. And then general intelligence is an ability to apply that across a wide variety of domains.

Machines can certainly recognize patterns and achieve goals through brute force trial and error. They can also use the results of previous iterations to change their behavior in future iterations, which we could call learning. I wouldn’t necessarily say they are good at brand new situations, but there has definitely been progress.

However, last I checked, a seemingly very intelligent LLM still struggles to play Chess at a basic level, let alone drive a robot or other non-language tasks. Its architecture and ability to learn seem a long way off from being general.

Vision models, being able to encompass language and much more, seem to me like a theoretically closer step to AGI. Yet, there is a lot more to the world than just what we can see.

On the other hand, in humans, vision certainly is not necessary for intelligence. So there is something more fundamental, neither vision nor language, that high levels of intelligence are based upon. Once we figure that out, I think we will be able to build AGI.

Unfortunately, they don’t have to be very successful to have an impact. Even just their introduction to the marketplace normalizes the concept, just a bit. Google Glass failed and so have other camera-equipped glasses, but notice that they keep popping up. Look how many companies have made them, and for how many years. Collectively, it’s moved the needle. I know someone who uses them regularly, mostly for recording rollercoaster rides, but that’s still plenty for a surveillance company.

Facial recognition is becoming common enough that it’s no longer very surprising if you’re in a crowded public space. Malls argue they need it to catch thieves, airports argue they need it to catch terrorists, and so on and so forth.

Privacy is like Humpty Dumpty, except he’s being poked to death.

Shout out to AVA for running all tests async by default, which not only finds order-dependent issues, but also race condition and other timing related issues.

https://github.com/avajs/ava

Amazon built their own in-house logistics network because UPS et al. weren’t cutting it. They offer one-hour delivery for a lot of basic items where I am and it’s not even a particularly urban area. I think in urban centers those same items have 15 minute delivery. They are also the only ones who will consistently deliver on Sunday, when your local store might not even be open.

There are still lots of good reasons to shop local, but I’m not sure speed is the best reason.

In my experience, Etsy and Amazon are both following the same trajectory. Lower quality, lower value, fake and imitation products becoming more common, etc. On Etsy, it used to be the norm that a product would be unique, interesting, and probably handmade. Now, there’s a decent amount of 3D/screen printed junk that might also have some AI slop thrown in for good measure. The corporations have also moved in, just like they did with Airbnb.

The most common issue for me is what happened when I bought a custom dog bowl, thinking the ceramic was made by the seller. Later stumbled upon something similar and realized it was just an off the shelf bowl and the dog’s name had been painted on. That not worth nothing, and it was still probably nicer than what I could’ve gotten on Amazon, and maybe I should’ve asked before buying. But there’s just a lot of that, “make a quick buck” type of stuff and it’s not always obvious.

Everything I said applies to overseas labor, too. I’ve worked at both types of companies, those that co-locate support with the product teams, and those that pay bottom dollar and don’t care at all about support.

With the latter type, there’s still almost always a line of communication to corporate. And the support staff still try to help. They are decent human beings, even if the end result kind of sucks.

> That human would have also been hopelessly uninformed for all the same reasons.

Not really. At minimum, a half-way decent support person would ask a few people internally or search Slack before answering.

In fact, they would have likely already heard about the new product at lunch or something.

The cookie banner is a significant accessibility problem, for blind and low vision users, among others. I would like to see a stronger push to attack it from that angle.

Mistral and ElevenLabs seem to be doing pretty well.

Also, here in the U.S., we’ve managed to screw up so badly on data privacy and basic rights that the EU has been systematically replacing their entire tech stack with sovereign components.

I understand the appeal, but let’s be honest. Costco is designed for rich people who think they are frugal. You drive your big SUV there to load up on months worth of food and goods, which you can only do because you have a big house with enough storage for all of it. And who cares if some of it goes bad because you can always go back for more and hey it was so cheap anyway. You even pay a membership for the privilege.

Music producer here. High resolution audio is useful for editing and anywhere there might be downstream processing or format conversion that may or may not be high quality, let alone lossless. The article covers that pretty well.

However, the article claims that the final distribution doesn’t need to have a bit depth of more than 16. That does not match my experience. I can tell the difference between my renders that are 16 bit vs 24 bit. I cannot tell the difference between 44.1 kHz and higher sample rates, and that’s consistent with the math (Nyquist-Shannon), but bit depth is a different matter. Would be fun to participate in a double-blind test that includes my own tracks and others.

My guess is you are deleting the word each time. Unlike the FUTO keyboard, the iPhone keyboard will give you different results each time after you delete because it assumes that if you delete a word, it’s probably because the autocomplete got it wrong, so it gives you a different result on the next try.

A workaround is to use the Notes app and use the return key to make a new line after each try, rather than deleting. That should give you more consistent results.

This keyboard seems to ship with a dictionary that includes a lot of curse words. No more ducking around.

> it doesn't deal well with doubled vs single letters, etc.

You mean like the two E’s in “feel” or the two L’s in “fell”? I just tried and it handles them well. Are you aware of the circling technique? When you want to double up on a letter, you briefly circle it slightly. I believe some keyboards let you hover momentarily without circling.

Try it, swipe F-E-L, it should complete to “fell”, then do the same thing again but form a small, tight circle over the E, it should then complete to “feel”. Works for me every time.

If sunscreen is supposed to provide specific health benefits, namely to reduce cancer risk, then it is a drug, not a cosmetic. Regulations should ensure it provides the intended effect without undue harm. Cosmetics are given more leeway because they are, in principle, neutral from a medical perspective. Why would you want to treat a cancer related product like that? Saving upfront time and money, at the risk of having to spend a lot more time and money later in healthcare, is not a good reason. If anything, we might head the opposite direction. Some people think we should start regulating dietary supplements as drugs rather than food.

I encounter this all the time, I just want to help people and pass along things I’ve learned but it’s not always received well. For sure, many adults would not want to be told how to tie their shoelaces.

My only advice is to start by approaching the problem. “Hey, do your shoelaces come untied often?”

Do you not consider Tunguska an explosion? It’s always described as such. IIRC, it never even hit the ground. Sure, a lot of the damage was caused by the air being compressed from above, but it created an air burst, which would have released a lot of energy in every direction.

Open models are pretty good at this point but the problem is that they are limited by the tooling and infrastructure that surrounds them. For example, the last time I tried to set up web search with an open model, the experience was pretty bad.

The only winning move is not to play.