BrenBarn

21 ms·

511.
by BrenBarn 11mo ago
I find it somewhat sad to see so many people bag on StackOverflow as if it were a total failure. It's true that there were some negatives, but the brusque attitude and rapid question closures were often in response to a genuine flood
512.
by BrenBarn 11mo ago
Well, I hope you're right too. :-) I just see the trend as towards more of this, not less.
513.
by BrenBarn 11mo ago
I use SourceHut and I'm glad it exists but its workflows leave much to be desired.
514.
by BrenBarn 11mo ago
Why is the onus on people to step up and fix X11 instead of on the people pushing Wayland to just stop pushing it? There would be no need to "fix" things if people weren't pushing an incompatible system that can't do wh
515.
by BrenBarn 11mo ago
Yeesh. Not optimistic about this. Fingers crossed but it's really frustrating when people feel this rush to move off the old way that's working in favor of a new way that doesn't yet do everything the old one does.
516.
by BrenBarn 11mo ago
More and more people seem to be migrating away from Github. Now if only there were some Mercurial solutions among the alternatives. . .
517.
by BrenBarn 11mo ago
I think the question is do you want to actually stop certain entities from using the project, or do you just want to send a message? If you want to actually stop them then ultimately there is only one way, which is you sue them. If you&
518.
by BrenBarn 11mo ago
Such a poison pill could be considered a feature insofar as it discourages consolidation of companies.
519.
by BrenBarn 11mo ago
Then why would I care?
520.
by BrenBarn 11mo ago
I don't think you're going to become part of a majority, or at least not via that path. Companies are competing on obfuscation. Most people don't have the energy to even attempt to determine which companies are reliable. P
521.
by BrenBarn 11mo ago
I suppose we can hope, but I don't see the trend going that way. Without some kind of regulatory support, there's not much incentive for anyone to pursue that. It will be more profitable to produce tons of crap that breaks quick
522.
by BrenBarn 11mo ago
But why does that matter? I mean what is the practical relevance of whether they have a massive blind spot or are deliberately trying to make as much money as possible?
523.
by BrenBarn 11mo ago
Even better, they should be required to publish the communication protocol as soon as the device is released.
524.
Ask HN: How are you preparing for the impending Android sideloading changes?
4 points by BrenBarn 11mo ago|0 comments
525.
by BrenBarn 11mo ago
Every so often we see titans of some sort amassing large amounts of money to influence regulations, laws, and society in general. This is another in that tradition. The lesson is that what we need to regulate is not "tech" or &q
526.
by BrenBarn 11mo ago
Wow so RStudio has switched from being a "real" desktop app to another webview-based thing? Bummer. I hadn't used RStudio for some time but now I probably will continue to not do so. . .
527.
by BrenBarn 11mo ago
It's good advice, but I don't think it's sufficient anymore. I'm quickly losing faith in any kind of "vote with your dollars" argument that by not using the app you can pressure the company to provide a functi
528.
by BrenBarn 11mo ago
> In that world, they feel believed and valued, and are encouraged to think of themselves as brave instead of scared. Medical culture, in contrast, tends to approach preventable tragedies as teachable moments. This is a mistake. Crises
529.
by BrenBarn 11mo ago
Yes. Also the same applies to companies. There should not be companies that are growing to $100 million revenue while losing money on a gamble that they will eventually get big enough to succeed. Good first, big later.
530.
by BrenBarn 11mo ago
It "works" only on a certain timescale. We don't have sufficient incentives and penalties to make things fail quickly. A relevant example in the tech world is data breaches. If data breaches resulted in a thorough public a
531.
by BrenBarn 11mo ago
> When you’re experiencing hypergrowth the whole team is working extremely hard to keep serving your user base. Also known as "working hard to keep making money". > In this mindset it’s challenging to take a pause and consid
532.
by BrenBarn 11mo ago
So you need to do an fsck? My big question after reading this article (and others like it) is whether it is enough to just power up the device (for how long?), or if each byte actually needs to be read. The case an average user is worried
533.
by BrenBarn 11mo ago
I went into this assuming the answer would be "Whatever they think will make them the most money," and sure enough.
534.
by BrenBarn 11mo ago
> While it may seem to be a smart money move, it can result in a costly productivity and innovation lag for the economy. This is backwards. How about "while it may seem like it's good for the economy when people buy things, an
535.
by BrenBarn 11mo ago
I still don't really get what you're envisioning. If a government just has a "strict duty to enforce a civil remedy", how does that "empower individuals"? In particular, does it empower all individuals, or
536.
by BrenBarn 11mo ago
I don't really get why corporate death penalty and Zuck in jail is not a good idea. It might not be the best idea, but I think it would absolutely be better than what we have now. Even a random-chainsaw-esque destruction of Facebook,
537.
by BrenBarn 11mo ago
Another possibility would be to somehow incorporate the possibility of publishing the algorithm and providing some kind of "under the hood" view that reveals to people what determined what they're seeing. Part of the issue c
538.
by BrenBarn 11mo ago
I do not see any equivalence between corporate power and government power. The population as a whole controls government power. Corporate power is constrained only by government power. I think one of the most pernicious notions in our so
539.
by BrenBarn 11mo ago
In my conception, part of the corporate death penalty would be personal asset forfeitures and prison time for individuals who knew or should have known about the malfeasance.
540.
by BrenBarn 11mo ago
My anecdotal observations suggest it's pretty different. One thing is you can (and do, if you're a kid) carry it everywhere with you and stare at it all the time. I think the phone UI where each app takes over the whole screen a

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