Everything's broken and nobody's upset • Hacker News Board

Re: Everything's broken and nobody's upset

#151

Post by justincormack » Mon, Sep 17, 2012, 2:04 PM UTC

jiggy2011 wrote: post #147

justincormack wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spotify is so much easier. Once you decide to only manage stuff you create rather than stuff you happen to own, then backup and management get so much easier as there is so much less of it.

Problem is that Spotify doesn't have all the music you want necessarily unless you also add your own files to it. My solution to this would just be a dropbox folder full of MP3 files and a vlc playlist file. I don't use any monolithic player/organiser of music like iTunes or WMP but too a lot of people it seems like it has to be iTunes.

The benefit of liberating yourself from trying to backup and distribute someone else's content is much greater than missing a few tracks. There is plenty of other stuff that you could listen to instead.

Re: Everything's broken and nobody's upset

#152

Post by GFischer » Mon, Sep 17, 2012, 2:06 PM UTC

nodata wrote: post #42

We need public open bug tracking. For everything. No more "put your bug in here, trust us, we'll fix it". They won't. They'll say you're the only one with the problem. Everyone will be so uninspired they won't report bugs.

Public open bug tracking is good, but sometimes the product owner still doesn't care.

My own personal example is Issue 2600 in Android, which hasn't been fixed several years after it was first , and is a big issue for us non-English-character users (particularly the ñ spanish character ).

http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=2600

Re: Everything's broken and nobody's upset

#153

Post by hunterjrj » Mon, Sep 17, 2012, 2:07 PM UTC

engtech wrote: post #149

jmduke wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two things in particular I'll attack here: > - No Kindle You're definitely not alone in this -- a lot of my friends still prefer hard copies over eBooks -- but as someone used to literally lugging three-four textbooks to class, plus periodicals, plus personal reading, there's a clear and definitive value add from the Kindle. (That being said, just because you don't have a Kindle doesn't mean you don't, say, read eBoo…

The big advantage I see to an ebook reader is when you are reading a 500+ page book. Reading Stephen King's 11/22/63 in hardcover on the bus was kind of brutal.

Currently reading GRRM's A Dance With Dragons in hardcover. Brutal! I read the first four on my Kobo (I'm Canadian) and it was a much more enjoyable aesthetic experience.

Re: Everything's broken and nobody's upset

#154

Post by rimantas » Mon, Sep 17, 2012, 2:07 PM UTC

edw519 wrote: post #73

My sentiments exactly. I got so tired of being upset with the horrendous human design in modern technology that I took action. What I've done: - Buy 2 $350 laptops every year. Move all data. Give away old ones. - All contacts in one .txt document. - Memorize most frequently used contacts. - No smart phone. - No tablet. - No Kindle. - No palm pilot. - No Facebook. - New car ('12 Hyandai) with minimal technology. - Was…

I don't think you will ever experience non-horrendous human design with attitude like this.

Re: Everything's broken and nobody's upset

#155

Post by stfu » Mon, Sep 17, 2012, 2:07 PM UTC

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #138

flexie wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smart phones add so much value. In fact, I think it would be hard for most who have lived through the iphone age to go back to the world before. Almost like going back to the times before electricity :-)

I just got rid of mine and went back to a dumb phone. I didn't like being connected all the time, it wasn't healthy for me.

This mirrors my own experience. I had one up to about 5 years ago. And then decided that I my personality is to addictive for things like these. Having not the option to "exit" any boring situation lets me experience the world around me much more.

Re: Everything's broken and nobody's upset

#156

Post by icebraining » Mon, Sep 17, 2012, 2:08 PM UTC

AgentConundrum wrote: post #121

jmduke wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two things in particular I'll attack here: > - No Kindle You're definitely not alone in this -- a lot of my friends still prefer hard copies over eBooks -- but as someone used to literally lugging three-four textbooks to class, plus periodicals, plus personal reading, there's a clear and definitive value add from the Kindle. (That being said, just because you don't have a Kindle doesn't mean you don't, say, read eBoo…

> You're definitely not alone in this -- a lot of my friends still prefer hard copies over eBooks For me, it's because I own physical books, but I lease eBooks. A fact still lost on many people; there was an erroneous post about Bruce Willis suing Apple over digital property, which then spawned several posts saying "TIL (Today I Learned) I don't actually own my music". It worries me that so many people don't realize…

My view is that if you're going to do things of questionable legality after legally buying an object, how is that really different from just grabbing the files from TPB?

It depends on your motivation. If you buy them to Follow The Law™, then yes, it's mostly the same, but if you buy them to reward the people who made the thing, then it's not.

In any case, there are still 40 000 ebooks that don't suffer from such problems, and in my opinion they're still worth getting a reader: http://www.gutenberg.org/

Re: Everything's broken and nobody's upset

#157

Post by pyre » Mon, Sep 17, 2012, 2:08 PM UTC

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #138

flexie wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smart phones add so much value. In fact, I think it would be hard for most who have lived through the iphone age to go back to the world before. Almost like going back to the times before electricity :-)

I just got rid of mine and went back to a dumb phone. I didn't like being connected all the time, it wasn't healthy for me.

Then disconnect your data plan. To me, just having the Android Calendar & Contacts interfaces is a huge improvement over most dedicated 'dumb' phones.

I guess that you still have to have the discipline not to connect wifi, but I don't think that would be too much of an issue. Disabling/enabling wifi on Android is fairly easy. This barrier, though small is probably enough to help keep you in-check.

Re: Everything's broken and nobody's upset

#158

Post by tluyben2 » Mon, Sep 17, 2012, 2:09 PM UTC

luu wrote: post #35

The blurb on the sidebar proclaims Scott's MS experience. It's surprising to see someone with a Microsoft background making this complaint. MS spends more effort than any software company on testing, not only in just plain hiring lots of testers, but also on formal methods. They have some of the top formal methods people in the world doing research for them, and armies of people trying to put that research into pract…

MS has fantastic formal methods people indeed. Rise4fun.com is some of the great stuff coming out of there. However; are they using this? Because it seems to be only research and most programmers (inside / outside MS) will not even vaguely understand how to write formal proofs, even with brilliant stuff like Dafny (which no-one uses obviously as it is a research thing).

I studied in Eindhoven under a pupil of Dijkstra and my father studied under Dijkstra; formal methods are kind of a natural thing for me since I was introduced to computers 30 years ago, but no clients are paying for the kind of time needed to write these proofs. Well, rephrasing; no client of us.

I think there needs to be a breakthrough in the way proofs and software are written; now it's not very practical in most cases.

Re: Everything's broken and nobody's upset

#159

Post by john_flintstone » Mon, Sep 17, 2012, 2:10 PM UTC

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #138

flexie wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smart phones add so much value. In fact, I think it would be hard for most who have lived through the iphone age to go back to the world before. Almost like going back to the times before electricity :-)

I just got rid of mine and went back to a dumb phone. I didn't like being connected all the time, it wasn't healthy for me.

You don't have to be 'connected'. I've got a smart phone, and I use it mainly as a phone. The part I love about it is the great big dial pad. Remove all the apps that revolve around 'connecting' you, and you'll be grand.

Re: Everything's broken and nobody's upset

#160

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Sep 17, 2012, 2:11 PM UTC

[deleted]