troncheadle's comments

troncheadle | 8 years ago | on: Google relaunches Glass for businesses

Given what I know about the aviation industry, it's extremely unlikely that this was the first and second time he has done this task. We might be looking at the millionth time and million-and-one time. Memory is probably not a factor.

troncheadle | 8 years ago | on: A startup’s Firebase bill suddenly increased from $25 to $1750 per month

A couple more things regarding the trivialization of the engineers work:

1: Just because work is done does not mean it is important 2: It is possible to say that the product is not special or unique and yet the hard work that is done to keep that product up all of the time and scale it to many of customers is special.

troncheadle | 8 years ago | on: A startup’s Firebase bill suddenly increased from $25 to $1750 per month

I can definitely do that. I only collect payments up front, so fork it over and I will have it for you tomorrow, likely even tonight.

I think what I said ("I don't understand what firebase does that is so killer or unique") is very different from what you are reading ("firebase is useless, firebase's engineers do stupid work, and google is full of student execs with money that pay millions of tech that can be build by one dev in an afternoon"). I think your characterization of my statement is more than a bit unfair.

I'm still at a loss for what firebase is beyond a key value store with web sockets. I think it would be a problem to scale a platform like this on ones own -- maybe that's why to use Firebase? I've used it in hackathon settings where I didn't want to roll my own backend, or to mock web-sockets pre Django 1.9 / Channels.

Still, if I had a business that depended on a key value store with web sockets I would definitely build it myself.

troncheadle | 8 years ago | on: A startup’s Firebase bill suddenly increased from $25 to $1750 per month

I have to say... I don't understand what about Firebase's offering is SO killer or unique. I feel like it would be very easy to roll one's own custom 'Firebase.' I'm unsure as to why anyone would ever choose to predicate their businesses continued existence on another platform, especially one that can be replicated in like, an afternoon.

troncheadle | 8 years ago | on: How Craigslist Makes Money

Forbes is unequivocally the worst website I have the displeasure of being linked to on a regular basis. Readability is quickly approaching 0. This page kept hijacking my scroll thru the article to keep an ad at the top of my window. Horrible, horrible, horrible.

troncheadle | 8 years ago | on: Get started making music

This is a great illustration of how we grapple with the abstraction of scales and key over time.

First, you have tabs, which describe the physical position of the notes on the instrument.

Then, we have root / chord type notation, in which we describe the starting position and shape of the notes on the instrument, and the musician must translate that information to the physical position of the notes, on the fly.

What is important about this second stage is that the musician has a pretty good grasp on how to play, and can usually sight read a piece and get a pretty decent version of it just by tracking chords, or in the case of the piano, just chords and the melody on the other hand, or a small pattern.

Finally, we come to roman numeral notation, which describes the chords based on their relative position to the root note of key, not the chord. This is a powerful abstraction. It provides incredible insight into the relationships between music, notes, chords, and progressions of chords at a level divorced from the 'root' of that key. A 9th played over a minor 7th chord is going to give you a very similar sound in any key. This is a great skill for songwriters and composers, who need to have a strong working intuition about things like what chord will sound good in this progression, or what notes we want to appear in our melody (which is related to the chords beneath it).

troncheadle | 9 years ago | on: Bose Headphones Spy on Users, Lawsuit Says

> The reason why I bought a bluetooth toothbrush was for a ranking system

We are truly living in a modern fall of rome. We will choke on our bluetooth enabled toothbrushes, 700 dollar juicer machines, our fucking fitbits. We've ravaged the earth to adorn ourselves with decadent shackles and we will reap the consequences with fake tans and ultra clean teeth.

In the past year I've gone from being an environmentalist to a big fan of the end times. We're going to eat ourselves out of a home, and a few billion years later, the Earth will still be here, not missing us at all. Fuck it, get three bluetooth toothbrushes next time.

troncheadle | 9 years ago | on: Facebook Announces React Fiber, a Rewrite of Its React Framework

And I would love if my 2001 Honda Accord was compatible with Tesla's autopilot, but I understand it is not a realistic expectation.

I'm not sure why you'd expect the web to be a. Mostly text and b. able to render easily on obsolete devices.

The web is becoming a robust application delivery platform. That is so, so awesome. Most people do not want to be stuck with shitty looking, text only websites. Moving the platform forwards necessitates that it will use more resources. Increased resources availability and consumption over time is fairly consistent across most aspects consumer computing.

troncheadle | 9 years ago | on: Cellphone Spy Tools Have Flooded Local Police Departments

So what is the move if you are caught with your pants down, and a LEO is requesting access to your actual phone? Does a factory restore wipe all data, or is in necessary to wipe, fill up with bunk data, wipe again?

I don't know about everyone else but my phone is has data including me talking about controversial opinions, intimate photos, and various other data that I would not want anyone else to have.

troncheadle | 9 years ago | on: FBI Is Building a Watchlist That Gives Companies Real Time Updates on Employees

Just... so much wrong here. First and foremost, you are still characterizing an entire movement by it's worst actors, so the point of the poster above you stands.

Second -- 'Ferguson' was a community reacting to a state sponsored murder -- not a 'BLM protest'. They weren't out there for BLM, they were out there because Ferguson cops enacted violence on their community.

Finally, calling 'in defense of looting' required reading is not endorsing or defending looting. You aren't a Nazi because you read Mein Kampf. It's an interesting take and I'm sure Deray has a nuanced opinion on the issue -- but nah you're just going to keep mischaracterizing people and movements to fit your world view.

troncheadle | 9 years ago | on: FetLife Announcement

There are things that, in the interest of global freedom, need to be taken out of the hands of corporations and government, permanently, forever. The transfer of value is definitely one of them.

troncheadle | 9 years ago | on: Police seek Amazon Echo data in murder case

> but who knows if the voice data or even the query itself is still stored after deletion, just not visible to us end users.

Almost definitely yes. I've never known a tech company that truly deletes anything

troncheadle | 9 years ago | on: 30-Day Vanilla JavaScript Coding Challenge

> I explained to her the difference between an app and a web site (we're making a web site)

What did you say here? I've been thinking a lot about this lately -- In my opinion, a websites are a part of an 'app': the client.

troncheadle | 9 years ago | on: Foursquare’s CEO says Yelp is shaking down local businesses

I've moved twice in the past four years and I have gone to yelp for food recommendations a few times -- totally useless, sadly. Always wants me to go to Papa Johns or some other chain. The days of interesting food discovery via yelp are over. Oh how the mighty have fallen.
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