justuk
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10 years ago
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on: Ask HN: Why are developers so obsessed with starting their own business?
Developers spend their day building the foundations for other people's businesses. As a developer, you would have to be severely lacking in motivation to not want to do it yourself.
justuk
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10 years ago
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on: Your Ubuntu-based container image is probably a copyright violation
It's appealing because Ubuntu is the distribution that people are most familiar with. These sorts of issues aren't seen as important outside of the legal niche.
It's like when you install a copy of Debian and look for Firefox, but instead see something called Iceweasel - I assume that still happens? The name is so passive aggressive.
justuk
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10 years ago
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on: Okay, Feminism, It’s Time We Had a Talk About Empathy (2013)
I don't think you understand because I was being too concise. There are standard feminists and I have no problem with them, in fact, many even bat for both sides, so they will help to promote equality issues that men face.
On Twitter however, there is a more extremist crowd who go after people, manipulate facts, get people fired (who dare to have a different opinion), organise offended mobs, all sorts of unfortunate behaviour. To put it simply: they are pushing their selectively puritan views on bystanders who give in too readily and, in the process, become famous from those actions.
justuk
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10 years ago
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on: Okay, Feminism, It’s Time We Had a Talk About Empathy (2013)
Your comments are fine in my book. They reflect an uncomfortable reality that many don't want to accept. And yes, the link isn't the best of sources, their owner courts controversy and has made some terrible mistakes recently.
justuk
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10 years ago
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on: Okay, Feminism, It’s Time We Had a Talk About Empathy (2013)
To work in technology, especially programming, you have to put a heck of a lot of effort into the subject. If it's not some legacy technology then that also means learning constantly (on your own initiative). That's what I like about programming, it rewards knowledge and ability - whereas other careers reward other attributes.
I look at the Twttier-style feminists (I don't mean the traditional equality types, but the extremists) and can only think that they are doing it for their own gain. If they really wanted to participate in their targets of anger, they could just do what everyone else does: work hard at a hobby for years, even decades, and maybe, just maybe they too could dominate the field.
justuk
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10 years ago
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on: A Linux User's OS X Experience
It's a usability mindset thing. Apple's software is great if you can live within their vision. Microsoft aims at everyone from newbie to an elite power user. Linux, well, you can do anything you want but it's on your head if you screw it up (or it screws itself up).
To view it from a political perspective, it's a scale from authoritarian (Apple) to libertarian (Linux). Those who are used to surviving on their own probably don't appreciate the rules (like putting up with superfluous visual effects).
justuk
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10 years ago
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on: The Verge's web sucks
The great thing about advertising is it funds you no matter if you are famous or not. Bad thing is you have to live under their corporate censorship and all the baggage that goes with using third party sellers (privacy and inefficiency).
To use some of the examples in the article, not everyone can rely on national license fees (BBC), corporate sponsorship (NPR), consistently making a loss (The Guardian), search engines (Mozilla), having a legacy business (CNN) etc.
justuk
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10 years ago
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on: Accenture will get rid of annual performance reviews and rankings
A lot of the big names are smaller competitors who were bought out. If I wanted to buy into a big name like that, I would make sure their founding headquarters were based nearby and that they are run by the same soft of people that started it.
justuk
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10 years ago
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on: Why Britain has ‘ghost trains’
Our rail system is set up to be mediocre and expensive. Much of it was built privately long ago, then it was nationalised, cut down and improved. Then is was 'privatised' - I use quotes because the train operators don't really have a say in what they do. The banks own the trains. The network is run by a non-profit. The government funds it, decides on the rules but takes no responsibility when it goes wrong.
justuk
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10 years ago
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on: Uber has defeated Bill de Blasio’s plan to rein them in
I have heard several interviews with drivers. It reminds me of every other VC funded technology company that creates a platform. Those drivers do well as early adopters, but I suspect its downhill (for them) in the long term.
justuk
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10 years ago
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on: Today, 30 years ago, Commodore introduced the Amiga
Been reading about modern Amiga hardware recently like the upcoming X5000 with Amiga OS 4.1. Almost tempted to try it. I forced myself to use Windows, OS X and various Linux for years, but they never felt right.
justuk
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10 years ago
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on: How two bored 1970s housewives helped create the PC industry
Amiga was well represented until the late 90s when the print magazines died off and that was the death knell. Both Amiga and Atari were in Computer Shopper too, albeit token pages.
justuk
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10 years ago
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on: Google+ Photos Is Shutting Down
About a week ago I decide to look through all my friends' profiles and decide whether Facebook was worth keeping. It made me realise how much of their posts never made it to the wall (or whatever it's called) - bear in mind I only have about 50 people on there with a third are posting nothing. I ended up permanently deleting the account as it's just not worth it.
justuk
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10 years ago
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on: Google+ Photos Is Shutting Down
That's one of the reasons why I stopped using G+. I couldn't figure out how to make a public link on G+ to a YouTube video - without the comment appearing on YouTube. It got to a point where I would look on Vimeo etc to see if they had the video to link to.
justuk
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10 years ago
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on: Dropdowns Should Be the UI of Last Resort
It seems like a step backwards in sophistication all because these mobile devices were grouped into the same category as desktop. We go from tools that look like they were aimed at adults to simplistic toys. I see it all the time in user comments when websites switch to responsive designs. It's like we don't give a damn about desktop users because they are no longer fashionable.
justuk
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10 years ago
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on: Dropdowns Should Be the UI of Last Resort
It feels like desktop is taking a hit for the team because a less sophisticated member is tagging along. I watch all these websites convert over to responsive designs and very few of them are a step forward. It's like they've gone from tools aimed at adults to toys for children.
justuk
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10 years ago
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on: Banner “Fraud” Doesn’t Matter
Click fraud is the opposite of impression based advertising. Click fraud is when the bad guys encourage people to sign up for services or click on links that offer a sales based bounty and are rewarded for their actions.
Impression based brand advertising is a different model to click based lead advertising. The former places all the risk and work on the adveriser, the later pushes it towards the publisher. If you run a website that's hugely popular and don't want to waste your resources on other business's ad campaigns then selling by impression is the only sensible option.
justuk
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10 years ago
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on: Dropdowns Should Be the UI of Last Resort
I dislike the way mobile has become the new lowest common denominator for web development. It used to be IE6 because it was antiquated but now it's anything with a touch screen - mainly thinking how hover has been relegated to visual effects even though it's fine on non-touchscreens.
justuk
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10 years ago
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on: Amiga Reloaded – A new Amiga motherboard using original MOS/CSG chips
Same here. If I were to buy an Amiga today I would expect a modern computer with an Amiga feel. Something that's a bit like Linux but without the bloat and complexity. Come to think of it, OS X is the closest.
justuk
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10 years ago
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on: The self-hating web developer
PHP is perfect for newbies. It's flexible. Has lots of functions built in. Several mature frameworks available. It's in active development. Hugely popular so lots of people to ask. Easy to set up a dev environment. No need to learn server admin as almost all hosting services supports it. I could go on and on.
