tommilukkarinen

We made an Android game whack a mole. I prepared it so far that she only had to make drawing routines and click handling. I always stopped the session soon, as it requires lot of capasity from the Child and is tiring.

Lovely insight.

"This was an incredibly dumb move, as employees will become “quiet quitters” and lose morale."

Suppose you need to cut employment costs. Is this always better than firing staff?

- For employees: you share the burden instead of some facing hard options (firing) so if you are a team player, this is the choice for you. Those who have options in the market, can still leave for greener pastures; if this was the deciding factor, perhaps they were not too committed on the job anyway? If your unit was on the brink of being profitable (such as being few percent on the negative)), it was just brought to the profitable side, and it might be that now the entire unit can keep their jobs.

- For the company: you still have the option for downsizing, and you just bought time to plan it more thoroughly.

How about talking it out with one of the managers. Someone you think you can talk to. Talking can immediately relieve the situation, at least make you feel better that you got it shared.

If you think you might be facing layoffs, Talks might even have a goal for you like spending some of the worktime on relevant technologies in other teams.

I do not believe in 'how to do the bare minimum', it's often big part of mental health to be able to contribute.

I am sorry for your situation.

Legion gaming laptops (and I guess all similar) are fast. If they can run games, they can run compiler. At least this is an issue for me, compiling server on my own laptop takes time if there's not enough power.

Vaadin meets all your requirements. It has some templates so you can basically make an app by just commenting stuff out.

Plans are not for reading but for writing. When you write stuff down you think about it = you plan. For others it should be enough that they know you made a plan. Unless they think they can deduce if it's a good one by reading it.

I use as little Apple technology as possible, using frameworks like https://www.electronjs.org/ - to reduce my dependency on Apple.

App Store is not unique, it is a platform copied from other vendors such as Nokia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovi_(Nokia).

Users pay for the phones.

There is no 'merit' left for Apple (or Google) to collect fees or to impose rules.

This is an essential part of software design today in General. If a part of your system takes time to develope, it should be an instinctive signal to look an alternative. When all of your time is spent on creating value for the customer instead of tweaking technology, you are on the right path. If you find yourself tweaking, you need to stop and look for alternative approach. This does not mean hoarding more tools as I have seen many do, because tools have a maintenance cost.

I am trying to cure myself with a surrogate.

The surrogate is Facebook Oculus Quest VR.

This might seem funny at first, but there are some advantages: while you stare at the screen, you also move at the same time, which I feel is important for health. The battery runs after an hour or so, and you have to put the device away. At this point I usually feel the need to do something again, but I'm no longer 'after work tired', and can do something productive like go jogging or do house chores.

The experiment is still going on, I feel it is promising.

The comment reminds me of Nokia end times. Everyone said they mastered logistics.

This article is interestingly promotes kinda flawed communist thinking about 'overperforming losers'.

Most companies make 'reasonable' profits or even losses. You could say normal range for profits is -5% to +10%. When the company is people intensive, it basically means, that revenue is paid in salaries.

For better salaries to be paid, profits must grow first. For profits to grow, existing people must perform better. If profits don't grow, salaries can't follow.

Now when profits grow, we face a decision on how to split the new profits, and it does not always fall on the existing employees. Sometimes profits go into hiring new people, sometimes they go into pockets of the owners. But I have also often seen in my 25 year career, that performers are compensated.

I have also always seen the costs rise, and the costs been mostly salaries. So profits eventually go to the pockets of the employees.

So actually it is good idea for everyone to perform, because if the profit growth stops, salary growth stops as well.

Anyway, my bottom line is that this 'sociopath, clueless, loser' is flawed thinking, but probably something people genuinely believe in just like many people believe that vaccines are bad.

Rising standards of living seem to have correlation to suppression of religious instinct.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_instinct

I had difficulties understanding religion, until I had few religious experiences in the span of few years. Looking back, it was most definitely some sort of brain chemistry.

As environment becomes more stable, brain probably has less chances to get into religious channnels.

They did that at 2015 already? Man... I thought it was a never thing that they got rotten.

For digital service/content providers Play-stores are a must-have.

For this kind of companies these platforms are a government like power, except that you cant really appeal.

We managed to reach a person. He indirectly threatened that we could lose our developer account if we continue to insist.

Also in our case similar apps were allowed to remain in the store.

Spent last summer building a one room log cabin.

In the end I wound up using makita battery powered chainsaw. You can do precision work and quickly too.

I did not have any skill before and my vacation was short, but theres now a 5' by 12' cabin, 8' tall, on my yard.

This summer it's the floors, roof etc.

The video is much cooler of course, just saying if you want to try something with limited time.

I had help every now and then. Looking back it's a project for two people definitely. Logs are heavy and having four eyes is better than two, especially as a beginner.

This is the other side of the Play-store problem. The other side is the tax.

Play store employee can ban your app = destroy your business at any time. The reason can be 'new policy', 'misunderstanding' or something more problematic, such as influence from your competitor to the employee.

A 'power to destroy business', should not be a click away from some random employee.

"This thread is like a piñata"

Cudos for having master class control of the word. My favorite punch bag are play stores, root of all evil.

A list of cycling subjects that split opinions about 50-50 in this news group would be hilarious.

"Besides being a dream for micromanagers, it seems to be more about signalling progress vs. actually making progress."

Sounds you would like proof that scrum does not work. Instead, how about looking at the parts that could work for your team, and discuss if you should adopt?

When we need a bit more torque, we tend to adapt more process and when we have plenty of time to waste we abandon process and take it easy.

If you are lazy and dont want to work, you probably dont want processes that expose your slack.

It's long time ago so I don't remember well, but at least the camera was not fast (I was working with camera stuff at the point so that's what I paid attention to). It was slow, barren of features and looked like developed hastily by a student.

The thing with iPhone was the capasitive screen, which made touch UI work. At the point I had already worked with phone touch UI:s for seven years, and that's the thing that felt like magic.

The point is, that it's not a static situation, but can get worse. I don't know what you are doing, but we are a normal SaaS company. The current situation is that we can pretty much avoid problems with Apple and Google like Netflix is doing.

But if FAANG are allowed to go rampant, eventually they will grapple us like they have done for the game industry. And it will not end with us, they will continue to expand their umbrella until there is regulation.

OR - our kids will live in a world where FAANG gets 30% of all transactions and it will look like CP2077. If we don't get regulation, we can all just sell our current businesses and buy FAANG stock.

And I'm not happy with the current situation. I think game industry too deserves to be free of the tax and FAANG administered regulation.

Think about the regulation in the shoes of a business owner. Apple decides if you can make business - they can make a fair sounding rule, but your business is affected by weird chance or by Apple employee mistake. The business you built, the one with all the good intentions and the users in the center, disappears.

30% is not just for apps but all digital content like Spotify. Now if we see a future where Apple wins and dominates: everyone creating digital content for a living will pay a 30% tax to Apple. Forever including your grandchildren. Now lets take it a step further and think a world where all services like cleaning are bought with Apple products. Everyone will pay a 30% tax to Apple, forever. The thing is, that we cant allow an exception, as we would be allowing the rest of it. Then there's the other side that they make the rules. So for an example if an apple employee makes a mistake and bans your business from the store, you have no way to appeal. Unless you are big enough like Epic. If Apple wins in court and then in markets, we truly have Orwellian reality.

When you put it this way, it makes perfect sense. My first computer C64 came with Basic pre-installed and that's how an eight year old learned to code. I guess the equivalent would be, that there would a button 'code' on the browser UI, and that would lead the user onwards.

It looks the consensus here is pretty much that anyone who tried the latest tech understands that we have went beyond a certain point here.

Comparing to phones, I think this is the point where we have keypad-phones. Content is still limited, but using your imagination you can create good experiences.

Personally, I switched to VR/Quest gaming from PC this autumn, and I feel good about it. I feel healthier than sitting in front of PC. I also feel less isolated with the family, as we have more 'playing together' now. As a developer, I'm exited to try out to create new kind of experiences, like I did 16 years ago with phone SDK's.

If you think yourself as a creator, I think you feel a fool if you wait another ten years - seeing the times when a single person could do something meaningful, going past.

Right, this is the network effect behind it. There is never before experienced convenience as you buy your apps, movies, books and songs from one place, which is in your pocket. Then there's the other store for all tangible things (Amazon). The list goes on, MS for business apps, Facebook for social media. Google for information?

Apple is already $2 trillion? If we think it as a bad company, is it too late, is it already too big to stop?

Browsing forwards, I looked upon mentioned Sherman and Clayton acts. Clayton act seems to be specifically about mergers.

It looks to me that Sherman act might not be applied to app stores because it excludes 'historic accident and growth' - but could it be up to discussion, because Apple and Google have changed rules after getting dominant position? Specifically preventing external payment mechanisms.

https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-a...

https://www.justice.gov/atr/competition-and-monopoly-single-...

The article shows how competition and increased demand drop the solar and wind price. How obvious when you think about it, technologies that are based on building plants have limited competition, or even legislation that prevents competition, so there is no similar drive for price. While panels can be made anywhere and installed by normal people.

I'm a bit slow thinker, so it took me some time to put this into words. This article helped me to do it.

Google and Apple app stores are mechanisms which are used prevent, snuffle and destroy competing digital services. They prevent competition by collecting 30% tax. They snuffle competition by setting their own rules and controlling app store visibility. They destroy competition by closing companies from stores. Why it is important, is that smartphones are the most used platform to consume digital services. Digital services can be apps, music or anything distributed digitally.

Why it is financially so small business right now, 15Bn for Apple right now, is just that they have not used their full leverage yet.

Why you need to make rules for all App stores, for example Facebook virtual reality, is that it is feasible, that these will later become platforms, mainstream customers expect to have services.

How it works (if further explanation is needed): 1. If you are offering digital services to consumers or companies, your customers will expect them to be present in both platforms. 2. You have to pay tax, so both of these companies take a cut of your business, which prevents competition. 3. They can add offer the same service, and advertise it over your services, which snuffles competition. 4. Even been closed out by either of these, likely destroys your business.

4 happened to one of my products

I'm building a new product, and I think it is likely, that Apple and/or Google will use 3 to compete against me in some timeframe. Even if they don't I will be paying 30% tax forever.

Edit: Now that I think about his further, nothing prevents extending their reach to nondigital services as well, such as airbnb sales - they just need a new 'innovation' to the app store rules

We had this:

https://sphero.com/collections/all/products/sphero-sprk-plus

Good about this: 1. easy to get started 2. kid can really do programming by herself 3. fun so you are likely to get it out more than once 4. programming happens with the phone, so your kid might already have the computer needed 5. feels high quality

This is really inspirational, according to the instructions it would also take only a day to make with a friend. A day well spent I would say.

Does anyone know what kind of generator setup you should get for charging a car battery? A link would be helpful. If used car generator is ok, how to get one from aftermarket?

The video is awesome, how it is made?