This really hits home. Probably 99.999% of users won't have issues with Google's products / services, but if you're one of the unlucky few, you're helpless.
All you can hope for is to make enough noise on the internet to get a Googler's attention. None of the normal escalation channels work.
My issues with Project Fi / Google Store were not resolved via their online chat, nor their phone support, nor emails to their product support, nor any of my posts on their product support forums, nor any tweets at various Google accounts.
Only after a blog post received attention on Reddit did I get a call from head of support who was able to resolve my issue.
Paint.net is a wonderful, wonderful application that I'm unfortunately very hesitant to recommend to friends/family because the website has a lot of malware ads with giant download buttons right next to the actual download button
I guess the Windows Store route might be better or providing a direct link to the download, but I've actually stopped talking about paint.net because I wouldn't want someone to Google it, go to the website, and end up with malware instead.
As much as everyone decries “walled gardens”, think about how much better of an experience this would be for all involved if this was an app on an app
store on a platform with a sane security model:
1. You would download it and be less hesitant to recommend it, knowing that it couldn’t do anything crazy to your computer.
2. You would be more likely to buy it from a trusted store where your credit card is on file.
3. The author could make money the simple way - you give him money instead of him depending on a bunch of malware ads.
And author would merely need to give 30% of income to said app store. And fight through an approval process and risk being banned at Apple/Microsoft's whim. Truth is, all the major desktop OSes have app stores these days, but going through iTunes is a mess. Apple once forced me to use 2FA through my iPod Touch I had registered...yet didn't have on me (I'm assuming they presumed I was an iOS user).
Paint.NET could easily charge for their app (or go with freemium model), but they decided along time ago to be freeware.
It’s a simple math equation. Could they make 42% more revenue (slightly less they would have to pay transaction costs either way) by going through a trusted source where people could buy with less friction? If there were no friction to get people to pay for products on your own website, why do people sell through Amazon? It’s trivial to setup a website using something like squarespace to sell your product on your own.
The “fight through the approval process” is exaggerated. Millions of apps get through the App Store every year. How much of an issue would it be to get a paint app on an App Store?
Truth is, all the major desktop OSes have app stores these days, but going through iTunes is a mess. Apple once forced me to use 2FA through my iPod Touch I had registered...yet didn't have on me (I'm assuming they presumed I was an iOS user).
Yet and still thousands of app developers do it everyday.
If you aren’t forced to use 2FA, what’s the purpose of having it? I’ve had to call home to get my son to read off my 2FA code on my iPhone that I forgot to sign in to AWS. If you aren’t an iOS user, there is an option on iCloud to send it via SMS.
Paint.NET could easily charge for their app (or go with freemium model), but they decided along time ago to be freeware.
People are much more likely to pay for something the less friction there is. I’m much more likely to buy something from Amazon/Apple/Steam/Microsoft where my payment information is already on file than I am $random website as are millions of others.
One thing that's nice about the Windows store is you sometimes get more licenses to install it on multiple PCs than you would if you bought the program directly from the developer. I know photoshop elements is like that. In general, I have bought most of the software I use on windows through the MS store if it's available there. But, generally it isn't.
Paint.NET became irrelevant when it became closed source. These awful malware buttons are just another example of the same mentality that led to changing the license.
Wait, Paint.net is closed source, and the website knowingly has malware buttons? That makes me extremely hesitant to use the app anymore. If they're unscrupulous about putting those buttons on the website, who's to say they aren't putting actual malware inside the app?
Someone was taking the Paint.Net source, bundling with OSS plugins and replacing all the names/copyright as another piece of software. The person doing so is in another country from the author, so the author decided to close the source.
If you're on Linux or Mac, there's a recreation after Paint.Net called Pinta. It's passable on windows and mac, but the linux version has been very buggy for me, it doesn't seem to be well maintained either. Which is a shame.
I really do like Paint.net a lot, but as GP mentions, actually getting a novice through the download process is scary to say the least.
The last open source release was in 2009, and I recall there being some weirdness with the code being open, but the icons other resources weren't. There where a couple of forks around years ago, but non of them went anywhere.
You can clearly see on the second screenshot the same text and the boxes with the languages etc as on your link. Are you maybe using an adblocker, because I see exactly what the screenshot shows when I click your link and turn my adblock off.
The next line of code in JavaScript isn't always going to be executed after the previous line is complete. This is unlike Python, which generally executes each line after the previous line is complete.
Hence all the callbacks, promises, async/awaits patterns to learn in JavaScript..
The next line in JS is guaranteed to execute immediately after the preceding one; except in the case of callbacks (including sugar, like promises), which are also executed sequentially, but deferred until they are explicitly called by whatever they're passed to. In fact, one of the biggest complaints about JavaScript (that it can block the main thread if it tries to do too much in one frame) is a consequence of this guarantee.
Granted, I've written primarily JavaScript for the last five years, but it's pretty straightforward to reason about. Any language that lets you respond to events, I/O, etc. is going to require that you reason about things over time - JavaScript is no outlier here.
The way you've written your remark, it sounds as if JavaScript executes lines out of order, or will wait an arbitrary amount of time to move from one line to the next. Obviously, neither of those is true.
You have things backwards. Python has threading, JavaScript does not. Potential breaks in execution are limited and explicit in JavaScript but almost ubiquitous in Python.
async/await is pretty easy to use... plus if you want your robot to be able to perform multiple actions at once (i.e. rotate a camera to stay focused on an object while moving) having asynchronous capabilities seems like it would make things easier.
That being said I have zero robotics experience, just a lot of JS experience lol :shrug:
And I've had issues trying to leave less than perfect reviews - seems like only after I spend time typing up the review (and sometimes uploading photos) does Amazon come back and say, sorry can't publish this.
Seems like a dark pattern to encourage only positive reviews.
YES! I have this happen to and notice the same patterns. I honestly think there is grounds for a lawsuit here. Whether or not that would be a successful lawsuit is another question, but the threat of one could get Amazon to change its tune.
How do we know this is not anything more than a gimmick to get a 'zentail-20' affiliate tag on the way to shopping on one of Amazon's busiest day so they can get their referral commissions?
The author of this blog must have uploaded an image without the big red block to mask the private key, realized their error, and replaced it with an image of it blocked. However they didn't remove the unblocked image first. Ghost (the blog engine here) just appends a number to the image when you replace it without changing the filename, so it's easy to find. See the two URLs below:
The only reason I blurred and obfuscated where I could was just for "best practice" not for real security. I knew if I didn't people would comment that I should've ;)
> I knew if I didn't people would comment that I should've ;)
That and following good practise even when not actually necessary due to other mitigations, you obviously hint to less experienced readers what good practise is.
With people discussing reverse-engineering the pixelated images to access the keys, the merits of masks, security, etc it seemed like a lesson worth sharing for everyone's benefit here that an email wouldn't have accomplished.
Even just the half of the key in that secreenshot is likely to be sufficient to recover the whole thing as well - RSA private key formats have a ton of redundant data.
That'd be interesting if I could tell Facebook (or whatever social media) I want to be closer to my family (so it surfaces family posts) or local community (so it surfaces geographically close posts) or that I want to lose weight (so it surfaces motivational/dieting posts) or I am training for a marathon (so it surfaces running/training posts) or I went through a bad breakup recently (so it surfaces pictures of puppies and my single friends living fun bachelor lifestyles), or that I want to learn programming (so it surfaces programming things). Or like a button for "Only show me positive, happy stuff".
I mean, I guess you can achieve all of that with a carefully curated Newsfeed / friends list, but it's different than having the dials for what you want to feel/accomplish (how you want to be psychologically manipulated) and the AI could periodically check in ("Am I making you happier?" or "Do you feel inspired to run more often?") and adjust how the content is being surfaced.
That’s the thing though, right? How do you optimize for two contradictory objectives? The “simple” answer is that you align incentives and avoid the problem by redefining it.
You mean distinct objectives, and the answer is with weights (sliders, usually on the UI.) Align what with what? And how is taking these choices out of the hands of the principle and handing it to the agent avoiding principle-agent?!? But in any case how does this relate to your previous comment?
The issue is that they see an opportunity... give you that control... or give that control to someone who will pay them more than you can for it.
I've been a bit surprised that none of the news aggregator sites (including HN) realized that in most cases what 'most people' want is not what any individual user wants. And we have the technology for actual personalization of newsfeeds. But then that puts the control in the hand of the user... and I suppose they simply don't see that as alluring.
Press and hold on the notification itself. Alternatively, press and hold on the notification and start to slide left/right (still holding) to reveal a gears icon. It should be a shortcut that takes you to the notification settings for that app with the option to toggle them on/off.
Huh I had quite a miserable time with Project Fi customer service. Phone calls, emails and chat failed to resolve my issue. Only after countless Tweets / Reddit posts / Official Google product support forum posts that went on for nearly a week did I get lucky and finally talk to someone who could help me.[1]
They gave me $50 off a month's bill at the end of all of it but it was such a frustrating ordeal. You couldn't pay me $500 to do it all over again. Their customer service is a joke. After spending time on their product support forums, I was far from alone.
Makes me think of a recent incident in Seattle where an aggressive driver in a large truck sped up and passed intentionally close to a bicyclist to intimidate them (incredibly, incredibly dangerous). This happens frequently enough as any cyclist can attest, but it was special because it was caught on camera and shared with the police. The cyclist tried to report it as attempted murder (and even the former mayor of Seattle described it as such), but the police department said, "This looks like an inconsiderate/unsafe pass. An officer would typically need to witness a violation in-progress to be able to stop the driver & confirm their ID to issue a citation." Nevermind that there was clear video of the whole thing.
About a month later a car hits and kills a cyclist and runs away. Who knows, maybe the driver was trying to do a non-prosecutable "inconsiderate/unsafe pass" that got a little too close.
In 2003 a work colleague and I were crossing 5th ave in Seattle headed to lunch. While legally crossing, multiple cars ran the red light, collided with each other, then struck her. It was truly a miracle that she lived; frankly her being significantly overweight was likely the only reason she was saved. I was very lucky to jump back out of the way and avoided being struck.
That same year, there were two other car-pedestrian accidents at that same intersection with at least one involving the fatality of a German tourist.
When I was called by the Seattle Police Department as a witness to the accident, they did everything they could to tell me that we had been jaywalking, rather than recognizing that no, multiple cars had in fact been speeding trying to make it through the already red light. Fuck the police.
In reality, I'd say that my co-worker's life changed for the better. She lost a lot of weight, took up new activities, moved to the Bay Area, and had a new outlook.
For me, having seen all of it in moving detail, I guaranteed it resulted in undiagnosed PTSD.
In 2005 I was in Seattle watching a couple with a small child receive a citation for jaywalking because they were still in the road after the red hand stopped blinking. While the officer was writing the citation I saw the lights change and three cars ran the red, then at the beginning of the next cycle a car jumped the green to make a left before oncoming traffic. The officer didn't even look up.
Cars run red lights all over in downtown Seattle. Probably every other day I see a near-miss that if pedestrians were simply following their WALK sign and not being extra cautious they'd have gotten run down.
The most frustrating is when cars run red/yellow lights and then block the intersection so other traffic can't proceed on their greens. (Annoying when you see your bus coming but it can't get through an intersection because cars are blocking it). And the police don't care. There will literally be a police officer helping direct traffic out of a garage just feet away from vehicles that ran red lights and are now blocking intersections or trying to drive through a crosswalk as pedestrians are using it.
But boy are they eager to issue jaywalking tickets to pedestrians.
When we were kids, my brother got chastised by the police for getting hit by a car while riding his bike 'dangerously' along the non-stopping direction at a 2-way stop.
It's a pretty good way to impress upon a kid that the police are operating on some other end than simply enforcing the law.
Almost got hit in downtown Mountain View of all places over the summer when a car ran a red and we had entered the crosswalk after the pedestrian signal turned to walk.
It's insane that a driver would try to run a red in an area teeming with pedestrians in the middle of the day.
While cyclists have the right to use the road and I don't want to see anyone hurt, I don't understand the apparent lack of sense of self-preservation it takes to cycle on a busy road. Bottom line, if a cyclist becomes entangled with a 4,000+ pound vehicle, it doesn't matter who's at fault: the cyclist loses.
I myself only cycle on low-traffic streets or dedicated bike paths.
Am grandparent poster. I also ride and race road bicycles and that means on busy public roads, too. We are aware of the bottom line, as you say. Cyclists will lose a fight with a car or even a motorcycle and there's no two ways about it.
But, while I dunno about other people, I'm not going to let risk prevent me from living my life. I'm going to ride my bike, consequences be damned! However, I probably have what most people consider an unhealthy tolerance for risk, so I'm not a particularly good person to sample.
That used to be me, however, if you go fast enough with a bike, those low-traffic streets (likely more turns/intersections) or bike paths slow you down considerably. There is a happy medium (big enough road either with separated or minimal traffic), but not always available.
Honestly, I simply can't wait for AI to dominate driving and remove increasingly distracted humans from the loop.
This is why when I need to enter a lane of traffic on my bike, I make sure I'm right in the middle of it. I'd rather stay to one side so cars (or other two-wheeled commuters) don't have to fully change lanes to get around me, but I've had plenty of experiences like the one in the video and I've decided that it's better to be safe than sorry.
In Orange County, on average one person a week dies from getting hit as a cyclist. Knowing that, it's the true road warriors who risk riding on the main roads. I use the beach boardwalk which is pedestrian only and it goes 30 miles roundtrip. That's plenty.
All you can hope for is to make enough noise on the internet to get a Googler's attention. None of the normal escalation channels work.
My issues with Project Fi / Google Store were not resolved via their online chat, nor their phone support, nor emails to their product support, nor any of my posts on their product support forums, nor any tweets at various Google accounts.
Only after a blog post received attention on Reddit did I get a call from head of support who was able to resolve my issue.