vinniep
@vinniep@beehaw.org
- Comment on Apple to Australians: You’re Too Stupid to Choose Your Own Apps 1 week ago:
I think everyone jumping on this and trying to argue that Apple is so very wrong in this assertion that people will get bombarded with malicious garbage is coming at this from the wrong angle. The part that I think we should be pushing back on in the argument that, in order to protect them from themselves, we should allow Apple to restrict them unilaterally.
People, in general, make just awful decisions in terms of security and quality of the apps they download. We’ve seen it since the very first app store and it continues today. “But Android apps can be side loaded and it’s not that bad” Yes, it is that bad. The fact that you, someone that is more informed and experienced than the average, can navigate this successfully and safely is not an indicator of the general population.
Ultimately, the argument that people will mess this up is objectively true. The place we should push back is the argument that we should allow Apple to protect us from ourselves.
If Apple believes they can cultivate a safer and higher quality app store, they should take that message to the people. Convince them that if they stay in Apple’s app store ecosystem, they will be happier and safer. If you can’t convince them, though, the law should not allow you to force them into compliance. If we have a variety of marketplaces, they will need to differentiate themselves from one another somehow. That’s most likely going to be on price, but we could also have someone step up to make a market focused on security, privacy, or some other value proposition.
“It won’t expose people to bad apps” is just the wrong argument. We should instead just say “Yeah. And?” The freedom to make that decision, and possibly make those mistakes, isn’t the problem - it’s the point
- Comment on Some subreddits could be paywalled, hints Reddit CEO - 9to5Mac 10 months ago:
NSFW subs are exactly where my mind went as well, but monetizing some of that content could prove legally fraught. Instead, I’d wager the scope narrows a bit to a very specific OnlyFans type of model. Weren’t they already looking at paid awards that provide a cash reward to the recipient? Sure sounds like a tipping model to me 🤔
- Comment on U.S. sues TikTok for collecting kids’ data without parents’ permission: Justice Department calls TikTok’s age-gating methods ‘deficient in multiple ways' 10 months ago:
The best case would be to protect everyone’s privacy, not just the children OR teens
The difference is that an adult can consent to having their data collected by these companies, making the investigation and enforcement a more nuanced endeavor. A child cannot, so it all becomes far more straight forward and easier to go after the offending companies.
- Comment on To Fix CrowdStrike Blue Screen of Death Simply Reboot 15 Straight Times, Microsoft Says 11 months ago:
There’s nothing magical about the 15th reboot - Crowdstrike runs an update check during the boot process, and depending on your setup and network speeds, it can often take multiple reboots for that update to get picked up and applied. If it fails to apply the update before the boot cycle hits the point that crashes, you just have to try again.
One thing that can help, if anyone reads this and is having this problem, is to hard wire the machine to the network. Wifi is enabled later in the startup sequence which leaves little (or no) time for the update to get picked up an applied before the boot crashes. The wired network stack starts up much earlier in the cycle and will maximize the odds of the fix getting applied in time.
- Comment on The world's only coal-to-nuclear reactor plant just broke ground in Wyoming 1 year ago:
I had to dig up some other sources for info, but this is the case. The new plant has nothing to do with coal, but it is being built to replace the power production and local power related jobs in that area.
Sources:
- Comment on Paying everyone the same salary, no matter where they work from 1 year ago:
The article is critical of GitLabs model, not celebrating it.
What GitLab does is far more open than what you’ll see elsewhere, but the formula is actually pretty near to what most companies do already: Have pay bands for positions, and then a modifier based on the region, level factors, and some other inputs. Normally this produces a range, not a straight number, and then negotiations take place within that band (which is also why this information and formula is not typically shared).
As for the idea of paying a flat salary for a position regardless of where the person works, that is simply a non-starter for most companies, and essentially creates a race to the bottom to locate the region of the world that will produce qualified workers for the lowest possible salary possible. We as a society have no problem seeing fast fashion or other manufacturing that do this as being exploitive and evil, and this model is exactly the kind of thinking that drives that behavior. If we stop caring about where a person lives and instead look only at salary vs production, we will only ever hire in the absolute lowest cost of living places in the world capable of producing acceptable workers.
We need to look at this from another angle as well - Companies are buying labor, much in the same way that they buy raw materials, property, or utilities. When buying any of these inputs to your business, how do you decide how much to pay? Certainly you do not sit down in a board room and agree on a number and then go out into the world with that number and attempt to purchase what you need. You start by looking at what the going market rate for those inputs are. People, like materials, have some wiggle room in those numbers, and sometimes paying a little more will get you better quality or more reliability, so you will need to make decisions there to determine where on the spectrum you wish to fall, but never would you pay significantly more than market rate, nor would you be able to pay significantly below.
I see this kind of discussion constantly in the last few years, and often in terms of tying inflation to annual salary increases. “If inflation was 10%, why is my annual raise only 5%?” - because overall inflation was 10%, but the inflation in the cost for a person that can do your job was only 5%. It’s truly and honestly that simple. You are a commodity item that goes to the highest bidder - act like it.