Hacker News: MAGZine

New comment by MAGZine in "New York City declares state of emergency amid flash floods"

MAGZine — Fri, 29 Sep 2023 23:17:25 +0000

How many people need to be affected, in your opinion, to have a bonafide emergency?

New comment by MAGZine in "The Philips Hue ecosystem is collapsing"

MAGZine — Wed, 27 Sep 2023 01:36:04 +0000

my lights turn themselves on gradually, with the sunset. They also turn themselves off if they're still on late at night, or when I leave the house.

New comment by MAGZine in "Pixel 8 leak promises 7 years of OS updates"

MAGZine — Tue, 26 Sep 2023 02:54:13 +0000

I was buying expensive wired earbuds long before airpods were a thing. if anything, they normalized spending $200 on audio equipment.

passive audio protection > active sound canceling. Unlike most people, I don't find losing earbuds and surprisingly discharged earbuds to be 'features'.

New comment by MAGZine in "Amazon to add limited ads to Prime Video starting in early 2024"

MAGZine — Fri, 22 Sep 2023 11:51:27 +0000

I'm lightly amused by the choice to include the word "limited" in the headline.

Sorry, "limited" ads are still ads, no matter how you try and downplay it!

New comment by MAGZine in "Why do software nowadays take so much more memory and processing power (2020)"

MAGZine — Sat, 16 Sep 2023 20:56:03 +0000

Because software is more complicated. And more complicated software (in addition to the primary effect of being complicated) is further slowed by abstraction and indirection, which slows performance but doesn't increase functionality.

Software that ran on dos or windows 3.1 WAS fast. But it also didn't have much in the way of UI.

New comment by MAGZine in "MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD: A randomized, placebo-controlled phase 3 trial"

MAGZine — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 23:31:17 +0000

It's a control. A baseline. That's the whole point. And especially with the therapy trials they're running, its not like it'll hurt people to have been given a placebo (unlike if you were to say, trial an HIV antiviral with a placebo)

New comment by MAGZine in "Carrefour puts ‘shrinkflation’ price warnings on food to shame brands"

MAGZine — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 15:18:27 +0000

what, like all of the palm oil that's now in chocolate?

New comment by MAGZine in "Googlers told to avoid words like ‘share’ and ‘bundle,’ US says"

MAGZine — Thu, 14 Sep 2023 20:20:08 +0000

I don't think anybody is saying that you should have to go to jail for everytime you said something dumb! But if you are going to be acting anticompetitively, it sure is a dumb idea to send a memo about it--followup email or not.

New comment by MAGZine in "Googlers told to avoid words like ‘share’ and ‘bundle,’ US says"

MAGZine — Thu, 14 Sep 2023 20:09:14 +0000

Is anyone surprised by this? I'm reminded of two emails zuck was famous for sending. The first email incorporated the use of such banned verbiage. The second email, sent just a handful of minute later, seemed to speak to an imaginary jury, explaining why his last email was not anti-competitive nature.

I can only imagine some lawyer freaking out, dialing up zuck immediately, and dictating the followup email to write.

New comment by MAGZine in "A Senior Engineer's Check-List (2019)"

MAGZine — Sun, 10 Sep 2023 19:13:32 +0000

> A senior engineer should make evidence based decisions, as should any engineer.

... sooo there is no distinction between a senior engineer and a non-senior engineer? you've really said nothing in this comment.

senior engineers have seen enough things to know what the right solution is in many cases, without having to take a bunch of time to collect evidence. that's what makes them senior, not just 'good'.

New comment by MAGZine in "3 Republicans just saved California’s magic mushroom bill"

MAGZine — Sat, 09 Sep 2023 13:53:36 +0000

The latest drug epidemic was caused by the pharma industry hooking people on oxy, and then the government clamping down on legal supply. Addicted people are still addicted and will get their fix. We just forced people into expensive black markets filled with cut product.

And actually, when you have people going to the black market for relatively benign things like weed, mushrooms, coke, ecstasy, etc, you expose them to these things getting cut with opioids, and developing an addiction they may never have intended. Why? Because it's profitable for drug dealers to have addicted customers.

The more interesting question to me is why you think prohibition still suddenly start working.

New comment by MAGZine in "Chicago’s parking meter disaster"

MAGZine — Thu, 07 Sep 2023 13:57:44 +0000

Not paying pensions should be illegal.

I think after Sears and the rest, people prefer money now vs money later. But if I knew the money was good, I'd rather not manage it myself.

New comment by MAGZine in "Wikipedia is much deeper and nuanced than imagined"

MAGZine — Wed, 06 Sep 2023 14:15:05 +0000

Why edit the title? This article is barely about the hosting costs. And also yes, it's well-known wiki has very healthy revenue despite it's desperate sounding pleas for donations.

New comment by MAGZine in "Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?"

MAGZine — Thu, 31 Aug 2023 03:52:32 +0000

Have you looked at how the tech giants before you have solved this issue?

New comment by MAGZine in "Changing my relationship with GitHub Copilot"

MAGZine — Tue, 29 Aug 2023 05:36:32 +0000

The biggest thing copilot needs is the ability to toggle it off in VSCode with a keyboard shortcut.

You can trigger a 'disable copilot' popup from a command, but not a full-fledged toggle. Maybe I'm missing sometime this author is using?

If I could just toggle the whole thing on and off with the press of a button, it would be more useful. Sometimes I just need to write code undisrupted.

New comment by MAGZine in "Wirecutter CEO Sells Top Reviews for Kickbacks a Pay to Play Strategy Exposed"

MAGZine — Sat, 26 Aug 2023 13:38:19 +0000

I find it a little strange that xdesk is so staunchly opposed to affiliate programs. I can see now they would see this as a "kickback" scheme though I don't know I personally agree with that view, at least if the program is provided universally (like Amazon's).

Brian was understandably not in an enviable position, it's hard to operate a business with no income.

I guess the biggest thing for me is it undermines what Wirecutter is all together. It's one thing to ask for an affiliate program. It's another thing to stop accepting review models and lead your readers astray with not actually attempting to provide the best information.

I feel like in the last few years Wirecutter has gotten worse. Less empirical, less thorough in their product line surveys. What can you expect if you try to review the best of everything, I guess?

New comment by MAGZine in "Coffee grounds make concrete 30% stronger"

MAGZine — Wed, 23 Aug 2023 16:28:16 +0000

grounds are fantastic in an active composting environment. they make really great, nutrient-rich soil. less so for indoor plants with their tiny, relatively sterile environment. Indoor plants usually suffer from two problem wrt coffee grounds: a "that's going to mould," problem and a "that's too acidic on it's own to be useful," problem.

New comment by MAGZine in "S.F.’s top-paid employee makes $640K. Here’s what every city worker gets paid"

MAGZine — Tue, 15 Aug 2023 04:45:36 +0000

imagine the turmoil that would break out in tech if there was such radical salary transparency?

New comment by MAGZine in "Montana loses fight against youth climate activists in landmark ruling"

MAGZine — Tue, 15 Aug 2023 01:25:02 +0000

I'm sorry, you're saying that in the same way children shouldn't need to vote, women shouldn't need to, vote? Or are you arguing that children should be involved like this and more, but just doing it obtusely?

New comment by MAGZine in "Montana loses fight against youth climate activists in landmark ruling"

MAGZine — Tue, 15 Aug 2023 01:21:24 +0000

Iirc they had amended the Constitution specifically with vague wording because Montana has historically been exploited by large corporations, and they wanted to make it easy for citizens to protect the environment.