dovetailcode | 7 years ago | on: The phone-makers bringing back buttons
dovetailcode's comments
dovetailcode | 7 years ago | on: Amazon cargo plane crashes in Texas
Why don't they just ditch imperial measurements altogether?
Also, that description sounds like tracing a bug through a few layers of software where there wasn't proper error handling along the way, just trusting the data being passed around.
dovetailcode | 7 years ago | on: Ask HN: Reality for the Average Developer Outside Silicon Valley/Big US Markets?
Having moved from one non-top-tier US city to another, look for an area that has a lot of tech activity spread across multiple industries. If there are a few startups in the area then that is better as well.
If there is a large downturn in the technology space, a place like Silicon Valley is going to see more of an impact. Multiple industries like tech, insurance, banking, biology/medicine, etc. in an area will help if there is a downturn in the economy for a specific industry.
dovetailcode | 7 years ago | on: Amazon in Its Prime: Doubles Profits, Pays $0 in Federal Income Taxes
Do you have to have the heft of an Amazon to take full advantage of loopholes, etc.?
Can the existing tax law be fed into some software which will outline an appropriate path to owe $0? Its all just a bunch of rules, sub-rules, etc., likely with thresholds. If it is similar to personal taxes (e.g. claim medical costs if total is over 7% of adjusted gross) then this is something software should be able to handle.
Or is corporate tax law an area that only can be done with a large team of humans?
dovetailcode | 7 years ago | on: Ask HN: How would you implement a secure online voting system?
It really should just be a national holiday. I think I read one of the states decided to get rid of Columbus day and have a holiday on election day.
dovetailcode | 7 years ago | on: Ask HN: How would you implement a secure online voting system?
Why is online voting needed? As technologists we are sometimes suggesting and using technology to solve problems where technology creates more problems than it solves. If voting systems are online, they can be corrupted/hacked en masse. If it is paper, the corruption/hacking is much more logistically harder to accomplish.
Take the US presidential election as an example. Voting happens on the first Tuesday in November and the winner takes office on Jan 20th. That is over 2 months elapsed time. We don't need to know the winner on election night. Even if it takes 3 weeks to get accurate counts in a close race, there is still plenty of time for transition.
dovetailcode | 7 years ago | on: I want to start to learn web development.Where to start
A lot of suggestions here I agree with and I would specify HTML first, then CSS, then JS would be my prescribed order, and only vanilla/standard of those - no frameworks.
The reason is you need to understand the markup on a web page with HTML before you can alter its look/feel via CSS and before you start altering either via Javascript.
Frameworks will come and go over time, if you know the foundational aspects of what the frameworks are doing it will be easier to pick up the next framework that becomes popular.
dovetailcode | 7 years ago | on: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
"American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America" by Colin Woodward.
The illuminating thing for me was the history of different groups, where they were from, where they settled, where they migrated and basically how these cultures remain in those areas for the most part.
Maybe I had a naive view before, but after moving from one region to another, it was enlightening to see things described this way and help understand aspects of southern culture.
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Maybe Blackberry could make one, their keyboards were awesome. I might even pay $50-100 for some such thing if it is designed right.