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johnsolo1701's comments

johnsolo1701 | 4 years ago | on: Google says iMessage is too powerful

This is like suggesting cars' days are numbered because skateboards have become extremely popular. Sure they technically are competitors in some extremely narrow ways, but suggesting so belies a misunderstanding of the underlying uses of each.

johnsolo1701 | 4 years ago | on: Buying Influence: How China manipulates Facebook and Twitter

This might be hard for you to believe, but there are a lot of people who have genuine and consistent empathy for needless suffering, no matter where it happens. You might not hear from us much online, because we often get crushed under the relentless cynicism your comment chillingly embodies.

johnsolo1701 | 4 years ago | on: Log4j: Between a rock and a hard place

When a Javascript logging package has a vulnerability: "Why do you need a package for something so basic as logging? This should be part of JS core lib, or just roll your own."

When a Java logging package has a vulnerability: Sober introspection about the role of maintainers, dependencies, and backward compatibility in the OSS ecosystem.

johnsolo1701 | 4 years ago | on: No YAML

I just use JSON and related tooling instead. Because YAML is a superset of JSON, all yaml parsers also parse JSON.

johnsolo1701 | 4 years ago | on: Senators introduce bipartisan antitrust bill to promote app store competition

If Epic/Tencent forces iOS users to use their app store to play Fortnite, there will be no luring of users based on lower prices.

They will just (effectively) all move over and (effectively) none of them will read any warning text.

God only knows what companies like 100% Tencent owned Riot Games will have running on millions of Americans' phones once they get the elevated access an app store requires.

johnsolo1701 | 4 years ago | on: Captcha pictures force you to look at the world the way an AI does

Just to share the American perspective, it feels like this: Many people speak English, and thus it is difficult/impossible for people from outside the US to discern the difference between domestic and international services. (Not saying Google is a domestic service obviously.) Through historical chance, we don't have the luxury and benefits of a native language like many of you reading this right now.

johnsolo1701 | 4 years ago | on: Captcha pictures force you to look at the world the way an AI does

Honest question - how can you tell the difference between "English speaking sites" and "American sites"? Since English is currently the common international language, when an American creates a site or service for a domestic audience, anyone around the world can still come visit and read it. But how does one know if a service is meant for a domestic audience?

We've all seen services launched by American companies, with American employees, American VC money, that only work within the US, and are only offered in English. We've also all seen how these companies get criticized by people around the world that the service doesn't work in their country and their language. From the American perspective it seems like the rest of the world feels they are automatically entitled to services created here. Even if the stated plan is to eventually roll out to the rest of the world.

This behavior is stunningly obvious when a Chinese or Indian company launches an interesting new product or service for a domestic audience. In those cases, it's hard to find people upset that the service only works domestically or doesn't work in their language. This is because those people aren't falling into the logical fallacy of "American = English = International language = International product".

As a good faith question - if you were an American, how would you create a site or service for a domestic audience without insulting the rest of the world?

p.s. This is a side question non related to this article specifically - obviously google is an international product.

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