Hacker News: McWobbleston

New comment by McWobbleston in "CatalanGate: Spyware operation against Catalans using Pegasus and Candiru"

McWobbleston — Mon, 18 Apr 2022 13:18:00 +0000

Yes, because Catalonia was resisting the fascist coup with their own revolutionary struggle to collectivize agriculture based on consent of the farmers, and worker ownership led by the labor unions who had been providing education and other community services for years.

Its a lesser known fact that George Orwell wrote a book on his experiences there, and that the people's struggle inspired him so much he took up arms and joined them. The guy who's work people claim is an indictment of socialism, fought for it against the rise of fascism.

New comment by McWobbleston in "In Defense of Bitcoin Maximalism"

McWobbleston — Fri, 01 Apr 2022 15:02:35 +0000

IMO there's a couple of networks that have provided a killer app, but Bitcoin maximalism and ETH dominance completely overshadow them. I've followed loosely since 2009, never got into it because I knew the UX would be a problem, but little did I realize markets don't always evaluate technology on merit (an important lesson). It's wild to me now to see networks that have solved the UX problem, but other networks are so entrenched people ignore it or downplay it because it's a risk to their existing investment.

New comment by McWobbleston in "Belgium approves four-day week"

McWobbleston — Tue, 15 Feb 2022 16:57:15 +0000

I think it will in some cases and others it won't. I feel like I would have a hard time making good progress in software if Thursday was a wasted day like Friday often is, but I imagine some people will be able to knock out good progress in 3 days and get back into it the next week

New comment by McWobbleston in "Belgium approves four-day week"

McWobbleston — Tue, 15 Feb 2022 16:53:33 +0000

This is assuming the 38 hour worker isn't doing other productive things off the clock. I think it gets a lot less clear if any significant number of the 4 day workers are producing useful works in their new free time or helping with productive actions that aren't well suited towards a profit motive

New comment by McWobbleston in "Android 13 virtualization lets Pixel 6 run Windows 11, Linux distributions"

McWobbleston — Mon, 14 Feb 2022 15:43:32 +0000

I've definitely been surprised by the sentiment here lately that iOS devices are more secure. I don't know enough about iOS to evaluate that claim, but my impression of phone security is to basically assume it's been unlocked by someone even if most apps are successful sandboxed

New comment by McWobbleston in "Why is the Zoom app listening on my microphone when not in a meeting?"

McWobbleston — Wed, 09 Feb 2022 17:32:07 +0000

Which is wild to me because my immediate thought upon learning was ok, how long until I can get off Xorg?

New comment by McWobbleston in "Is It Even Worth Working on FOSS Anymore?"

McWobbleston — Fri, 24 Dec 2021 15:38:58 +0000

I could see it if you use the project for proprietary purposes yourself and are not the only contributor, or if you want to reach a wider audience with the project. In general though I'm surprised how large the permissive OSS ecosystem is, but I'm very thankful considering it makes my professional life easier

New comment by McWobbleston in "Is It Even Worth Working on FOSS Anymore?"

McWobbleston — Fri, 24 Dec 2021 15:35:01 +0000

It's fun to see someone else describe the tokens for votes model. I've been working on my first 3D game trying to think of how I would support it if it's OSS while giving players direct input about the direction and what's implemented. Definitely a pipe dream for me right now but I'm really hoping I can manage to get to a state where that's a problem I have and people to collaborate with on solving

New comment by McWobbleston in "Is It Even Worth Working on FOSS Anymore?"

McWobbleston — Fri, 24 Dec 2021 15:25:53 +0000

It's really unfortunate how unfriendly games are to modding both technically and legally today. We've certainly missed out on a lot of potential

New comment by McWobbleston in "Reddit files to go public"

McWobbleston — Thu, 16 Dec 2021 14:44:49 +0000

Sadly the niche subs end up following the same path, and as someone who has done that Reddit is starting to feel like it's lost its charm. I think it boils down to upvote/downvote system steering discussions to a particular kind of consumer that doesn't align with what I'm there for and it gets worse over time. It's so rare for me to find insightful comments there anymore, it's really turned into intellectual junk food. And it's not that it's not valuable, I need that sometimes too, but it seems like that's crowded out everything else

New comment by McWobbleston in "Firefox on Unix is moving away from X11-based remote control"

McWobbleston — Fri, 29 Oct 2021 13:41:27 +0000

Yes, it's weird seeing the X is dead sentiment considering some of the most popular distros are still using X, and Wayland has only recently caught up with comparability for workflows like screen capture. I'm unfortunately stuck on X because of my NVIDIA system, but I hadn't been all that interested in Wayland until recently. AFAIK there is also some work to be done on the gaming side no?

New comment by McWobbleston in "WhatsApp scaled to 1B users with only 50 engineers"

McWobbleston — Mon, 25 Oct 2021 13:30:38 +0000

I would hate to be stuck on the same product or set of features, but I very much enjoy getting to a point where I know all of the systems, how they relate, and roughly where all the functionality lies and who's worked on what. It takes a lot of time to develop that experience and it's so valuable, and it seems so strange that companies don't want to select for this and we're dominated by a culture of job hopping every 2-3 years because it's the only way to maintain appropriate pay. Then companies wonder why everything is over budget and never on time

New comment by McWobbleston in "PipeWire: A server for Linux audio and video streams"

McWobbleston — Mon, 13 Sep 2021 01:08:57 +0000

Has anyone had a chance to test how Pipewire works with low latency? I'm excited at the idea of replacing my Pulse+ALSA setup, but I'm also looking for the lowest possible latency I can get as I use my DAW as an instrument :)

New comment by McWobbleston in "California bill passes, giving Amazon workers power to fight speed quotas"

McWobbleston — Thu, 09 Sep 2021 19:36:40 +0000

I think it's important to highlight the difference between productive and profitable here. There's likely many things someone could do that's more productive, as in creates a benefit for those around them, but those productive things aren't always paid. What these workers are doing is getting the highest wage they can by engaging in work owners of capital believe will lead to profits from the market

New comment by McWobbleston in "For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm"

McWobbleston — Thu, 12 Aug 2021 13:39:41 +0000

WFH will happen because firms practicing will be saving significantly on expensive office space that can be used to hire developers, especially in COL areas, and with remote not being the norm they are able to attract talent they would not have otherwise. It will take time but I will be surprised if full time onsite is still the overwhelming norm it was in 10 years

New comment by McWobbleston in "I went to the office for the first time. I fucking hated it"

McWobbleston — Wed, 28 Jul 2021 15:08:55 +0000

And only be able to afford a 700sqft studio if I'm lucky

New comment by McWobbleston in "I went to the office for the first time. I fucking hated it"

McWobbleston — Wed, 28 Jul 2021 15:02:45 +0000

Unfortunately even in Chicago I found the commute to be exhausting when I lived right next to a train. It was still 40+ minutes if you got there right as the train was leaving, and most offices are still 10-20 minute walk from the stations. Living closer was possible but then you'll be paying significantly more on rent for less space (a problem for families)

New comment by McWobbleston in "I went to the office for the first time. I fucking hated it"

McWobbleston — Wed, 28 Jul 2021 14:56:56 +0000

I can't describe how distracting it is for me personally to have to overhear every screen share in a physical office, and how great and easy it is to do it remotely and even pull in another couple people if something they're knowledgeable about comes up

New comment by McWobbleston in "I went to the office for the first time. I fucking hated it"

McWobbleston — Wed, 28 Jul 2021 14:50:45 +0000

I think this is an org-smell though, I shouldn't miss out on important details because I was in the stall or taking a quick walk either. My first job was remote communications oriented despite being overwhelmingly in-office employees, and it was amazing how much information you could find by searching communication channels and wikis. The norm was to ask questions and talk about impromptu problems in chat, and if you needed to collaborate you went to designated areas or scheduled a meeting. Remote workers weren't out if the loop and on site new hires like myself had a huge wealth of searchable info to absorb

New comment by McWobbleston in "Fable 3: F# to JavaScript compiler"

McWobbleston — Thu, 10 Dec 2020 21:26:49 +0000

We've been using it in production for a web service for over a year now, it's been a pleasant experience. dotnet core and ASP.NET are great platforms/ecosystems and F# has no trouble piggybacking off all that success.