Non-obvious remote work techniques • Hacker News Board

Re: Non-obvious remote work techniques

#81

Post by CarbyAu » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 4:01 AM UTC

spurgu wrote: post #78

CarbyAu wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used meet.jit.si once but my own server mostly and I couldn't tell you the difference in user experience. Seemed exactly the same. Video: The default install sets up for 720p. It seems to start notably worse and then scale up to 720p within a minute, often much less. Some congestion control thing I expect. You can set 1080p or other (lower too) resolution limits if you like. I tried 1080p but at ~6-7Mbit per connec…

Missed the edit window of my other post. Just got it setup and it was a breeze, only took ~30 minutes! It's running with Docker (nginx w/ Let's Encrypt, Jitsi on http, port 8000) and it was a bit unclear what specifically needed to be configured in the `.env` file[0] but managed to get it up and running on the first try. So far I've only tried it with 2 people but the CPU barely flinched (a 2 core basic VPS) - most o…

Cool. Glad you got it going and are happy with it! You've made my day. :-)

Two points:

- My only hitch you likely won't come across. The LetsEncrypt will need to update the cert every now and again(months?). On my ubuntu VM install there is a cron job for this. But I leave my VM turned off unless I need it, so every now and again I have to "leave it on for longer" and snapshot after it updates the cert.

- two people use might be a special case where it sets up Peer to peer. So you may wish to test with at least three people before using it in anger.

https://jitsi.org/blog/p2p4121/

Re: Non-obvious remote work techniques

#82

Post by hakfoo » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 4:57 AM UTC

PinkMilkshake wrote: post #47

> makes the mute button easier to find It's odd this is still an issue. I'm not sure why the mute button is not featured more prominently on videochat apps. It's almost the primary feature during a call that makes things go smoothly. Also, there's always one guy who has to say every bloody time, "are you there, have you forgot to unmute?" if you fail to unmute and start talking <100ms after your name has been mention…

We use Hangouts a lot at my employer, and it inevitably slides away the mute/video off/screenshare buttons if you move the mouse away, so when we do the polite "mute until your turn to speak" standups, it tends to 10 seconds of "you're muted" while we frantically fumble with the mouse and repeat our statements.

Re: Non-obvious remote work techniques

#83

Post by chucksmash » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 1:48 PM UTC

hakfoo wrote: post #82

PinkMilkshake wrote: post #47

> makes the mute button easier to find It's odd this is still an issue. I'm not sure why the mute button is not featured more prominently on videochat apps. It's almost the primary feature during a call that makes things go smoothly. Also, there's always one guy who has to say every bloody time, "are you there, have you forgot to unmute?" if you fail to unmute and start talking <100ms after your name has been mention…

We use Hangouts a lot at my employer, and it inevitably slides away the mute/video off/screenshare buttons if you move the mouse away, so when we do the polite "mute until your turn to speak" standups, it tends to 10 seconds of "you're muted" while we frantically fumble with the mouse and repeat our statements.

This drove me crazy in Google Meet. Also had issues with trying to show the Meet bottom toolbar sometimes where it just refused to unhide itself. Mercifully, there's a keyboard shortcut for toggling mute state. Try out `⌘/Ctrl + d` next time.

Re: Non-obvious remote work techniques

#84

Post by Fire-Dragon-DoL » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 3:29 PM UTC

colanderman wrote: post #59

PinkMilkshake wrote: post #47

> makes the mute button easier to find It's odd this is still an issue. I'm not sure why the mute button is not featured more prominently on videochat apps. It's almost the primary feature during a call that makes things go smoothly. Also, there's always one guy who has to say every bloody time, "are you there, have you forgot to unmute?" if you fail to unmute and start talking <100ms after your name has been mention…

Hangouts is the worst in this regard. It hides in a bar off the bottom of the window that only stays visible if your mouse is in the exact correct position. It takes 5 seconds of chasing it to be able to catch it and click it. Why can't it just stay visible??

It's funny because for me, it's always on, and it's terrible because it shows "are you trying to talk" every time my kid screams (very often). The worst part of it, is that it covers the bottom of the screen, even during screensharing.

What is the most important part of the screen when using a terminal?

Re: Non-obvious remote work techniques

#85

Post by Fire-Dragon-DoL » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 3:32 PM UTC

orev wrote: post #80

de_watcher wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some videoconference solutions that are pushed on businesses aren't mature at all: in that Cisco thing when you mute someone it mutes them for everybody (not just for you), so it's hard to have a mixed conference because you either hear people in your physical room twice or remotes obviously don't hear them at all if you use the 'mute participant' button.

I can’t think of a situation where someone would need to be muted and it shouldn’t mute them for everyone. That is not a scenario that I think anyone would expect to work that way.

If you have some people in the same room and some not, this is a very useful feature.

As someone pointed out, all these things already happened in gaming.

Re: Non-obvious remote work techniques

#86

Post by schwartzworld » Sat, Aug 29, 2020, 10:55 AM UTC

dahart wrote: post #28

> Accurate Chat Status > In meatspace you don't walk up to someone's desk and just start talking. This list seems to assume or suggest that chat should only be used for synchronous conversation... Are there reasons to avoid using chat asyncronously? My assumption is that chat can be asynchronous, but I recognize many people don’t want to ask their question until I’m actively responding. I can imagine security concern…

Do people expect immediate responses to chat messages? if I ping a coworker and don't hear an immediate response, I just assume they're busy and use the time to ask my question in detail. am I am outlier here?

Re: Non-obvious remote work techniques

#87

Post by dahart » Sat, Aug 29, 2020, 10:15 PM UTC

schwartzworld wrote: post #86

dahart wrote: post #28

> Accurate Chat Status > In meatspace you don't walk up to someone's desk and just start talking. This list seems to assume or suggest that chat should only be used for synchronous conversation... Are there reasons to avoid using chat asyncronously? My assumption is that chat can be asynchronous, but I recognize many people don’t want to ask their question until I’m actively responding. I can imagine security concern…

Do people expect immediate responses to chat messages? if I ping a coworker and don't hear an immediate response, I just assume they're busy and use the time to ask my question in detail. am I am outlier here?

I don’t know that people necessarily expect immediate responses, I don’t think you’re an outlier. But the article is explicitly calling for accurate chat status for the purpose of being able to chat synchronously and immediately. And there are some behaviors that indicate, if not the expectation to get immediate chat responses, at least the signal of being unwilling to use chat until responses will be immediate. I’m referring to how some people start their conversation with “hi”, and wait to hear back before telling you what they want to talk about.