picks_at_nits

6 ms·

1.
by picks_at_nits 6y ago
100% agree. It may be futile with the vast majority of their users, but every person who actually cares about it and becomes more informed though advocacy is a modest win of some kind.
2.
by picks_at_nits 6y ago
a printer manufacturer will tell you that ink cartridge DRM is not a defect, or some smart juice press manufacturer will tell you that its online-only requirement and juice pack DRM is also not a defect. There's a phrase for this: &q
3.
by picks_at_nits 6y ago
Are they? The amounts of arguments and toxicity on that despicable website (enough to prompt highly-upvoted posts about quitting the website every so often) suggests they aren't? This is a very interesting point, to which I will say
4.
by picks_at_nits 6y ago
They are not being transparent about your experience being manipulated for the purposes of generating engagement either. Most non-technical people don't immediately associate "contains ads" with "will use all kinds of n
5.
by picks_at_nits 6y ago
We don't get to declare what Twitter is or isn't. It has evolved over time from a kind of microblogging platform into an algorithmic-timeline social network. As a user, I don't care for it much, but in no way is it "defe
6.
by picks_at_nits 6y ago
Beware. One thing that happens to people in a homogeneous community is that the out-group shaming becomes invisible. So everyone in every little community thinks that their community is respectful, but the other communities are about hating
7.
by picks_at_nits 6y ago
What you describe in the first paragraph is not censorship. There's a whole thing around censorship not applying to private platforms, but even if you argue that the word "censorship" applies to a private entity moderating th
8.
by picks_at_nits 6y ago
+1 Your handle "freeopinion" reminds me that although people often say "you get what you pay for," just because something's free does not mean that it's worthless.
9.
by picks_at_nits 6y ago
Let me reframe this: You are the director of engineering. I am a manager reporting to you. You ask me to hire and lead a team to build X, which will generate $Y in revenue. But I tell you that everything is delayed, because I'm having
10.
by picks_at_nits 6y ago
FWIW, I think that's terrible interviewing on their part. Literally looking for their wallet under the lamp post because it's easy to pick nits in your homework assignments, but difficult to determine whether you could be a produc
11.
by picks_at_nits 6y ago
My own writing on the subject of this industry falls into two pretty cleanly divided piles: The writing about programming itself is "impractical" and "romantic," because that writing is for those who have an affinity wit
12.
by picks_at_nits 6y ago
I am deeply, deeply romantic about programming. I consider it an act of self-actualization. But answering the question literally, I am not representative of everyone in the industry, and that's a good thing. It's easy to feel roma
13.
by picks_at_nits 6y ago
"When you're holding a Shunting Yard Algorithm, every Domain-Specific Expression Language looks like a compile-to-RPN-and-evaluate-with-a-stack-machine nail." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shunting-yard_a
14.
by picks_at_nits 6y ago
I'm against just heaving that technology out over the fence into the hands of consumers and leaving it up to consumer reports and/or individual consumers to decide if it's safe enough. Safety is a 'picking up nickels off
15.
by picks_at_nits 6y ago
I'm not gonna debate the "appropriate level of liability." My point has to do with what you're signalling. If a thing is alpha-level, and real humans can get killed, I wouldn't let random people buy it and use it i
16.
by picks_at_nits 6y ago
"It may not hold up in court but it can't hurt" If you sell someone something with a nudge-nudge, wink-wink, and they get killed using it, it absolutely hurts. You may be able to weasel out of being held accountable for it, i
17.
by picks_at_nits 6y ago
It really does depend upon the consequences of failure. Naturally, I want my children to learn to laugh at themselves when they fall off a bike. In my case, I taught them this by laughing at myself when I fall off my bike, so I am modelling
18.
by picks_at_nits 6y ago
This may not be the most constructive way to make the point, but this is a feature of any speculative asset. If the market as a whole has a very high confidence it will continue to rise in value, few people will want to trade it for goods a
19.
by picks_at_nits 6y ago
If you are buying and selling real estate in a functioning jurisdiction, hiding your identity by making the payment opaque is not going to do much for you. There are title deeds and tax rolls. In many jurisdictions you have obligations like
20.
by picks_at_nits 6y ago
Consider this a specification for a date range defining when his account will be restored. Now we can parse the statement as follows: 1. Indefinitely: The date range has no end. 2. And for at least two weeks: The beginning of the date range
21.
by picks_at_nits 6y ago
+1 for the correct use of the phrase "begging the question."
22.
No, Elon Musk is not about to blow this Covid-19 testing thing wide open(emmabell42.medium.com)
10 points by picks_at_nits 6y ago|1 comments
23.
by picks_at_nits 11y ago
We can accept that perfection may be impossible, difficult to obtain, or a poor tradeoff against other factors. But that doesn’t mean that all imperfect designs are of equal merit.
24.
by picks_at_nits 11y ago
From now on, when I write “RTFM,” I will also link to this comment.
25.
by picks_at_nits 11y ago
Nope. Why did the investors allow the founders to take cash off the table? To align interests. Meaning, to swing for the fences instead of making safe, conservative decisions and building a lifestyle business that would minimize the chance
26.
by picks_at_nits 11y ago
It looks like Dr. Hilbert “Bertie” David reads Hacker News: https://gist.github.com/raganwald/0880ccce85eafd60d38f
27.
by picks_at_nits 11y ago
> It's also a kick in the gut to efforts to fix the shortcomings of ECMAScript like ES6 [1]. irony alert: Brendan Eich has said publicly that CoffeeScript was the impetus for several of the features that made it into ES-6, like fat
28.
by picks_at_nits 11y ago
> It's a social thing - to prepare the reader for what may strike them as an unpleasant (yet I believe is true) perspective I’m perfectly aware of what this is supposed to do on the surface, but I am sharing with you that there is a
29.
by picks_at_nits 11y ago
Whenever I ready “Sorry to ____, but...” I wonder to myself: 1. Is the speaker truly appalled at saying the thing that follows, but it's a radical, earth-shattering insight will cut through the Gordian Knot, e.g. “I’m really sorry to q
30.
by picks_at_nits 11y ago
A metaphorical suggestion that you have an axe to grind is a description of your behaviour, not a criticism of you as a person. You obviously dragged your baggage into this discussion. It’s your baggage, drag it everywhere you like, but do

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