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xmprt commented on Show HN: Base, an SQLite database editor for macOS   menial.co.uk/base/... · Posted by u/__bb
borg16 · a day ago
can someone tell me what are some common use cases of such a tool? may be i'm not the intended customer base, but am curious to know what others are using it for.
xmprt · a day ago
It's not for everyone but I can think of 2 use cases immediately:

1. If you're a developer, then you're probably using sqlite to store data and having a GUI for checking/modifying the database is probably handy.

2. Most application by other developers (even massive companies) use sqlite to store data under the hood even if the file doesn't appear to be named `.sqlite`. So if you want to tweak certain settings that aren't exposed to the end user, then you can use this to do that in a more user friendly way rather than crack out a command line tool for sqlite changes.

xmprt commented on Writing a good design document   grantslatton.com/how-to-d... · Posted by u/kiyanwang
tremon · 16 days ago
I usually work on infrastructure as code, and I usually swap out the third layer of the design for the first layer of the implementation. You need a fully-specced functional design and a high-level technical design, but I've found that in many cases the technical implementation details can change as the project is developed, and that means either the low-level technical design and the implementation go out of sync, or there a heavy bureaucratic process in place to prevent that -- but the natural solution is to have the low-level design and the high-level implementation to live in the same place.

That still requires the rest of your process, and perhaps even places more emphasis on those documents. The infrastructure implementation needs to follow from the high-level technical design which needs to follow from the functional specification. Because as you say, the implementation needs to be reviewed against a specification. What are you reviewing if the spec is incomplete?

xmprt · 7 days ago
I see the third section as more of a feasibility assessment and for people to comment on whether the technical design is sufficient and extensible or to look for alternatives. It's ok if the design diverges from the implementation but I'd still look for it in a design review so people can point out any flaws or security/scalability issues proactively.
xmprt commented on Show HN: Anchor Relay – A faster, easier way to get Let's Encrypt certificates   anchor.dev/relay... · Posted by u/geemus
xmprt · 7 days ago
I'm sure some people would find this useful but forgive me if I'm not ready to hand away my security to some unknown third party company. I don't know the first thing about CAs but Let's Encrypt really isn't that difficult to understand.
xmprt commented on How to rig elections [video]   media.ccc.de/v/why2025-21... · Posted by u/todsacerdoti
xmprt · 12 days ago
I agree to some extent but there were a lot of advantages that Trump had that aren't particularly democratic. Electoral college gives more weight to rural voters. First past the post sucks. It's easy to mislead people because most metrics are lagging indicators (which is why neither party will ever fix the deficit). It also helps that his electorate tends to be less educated.

> they are incompatible with a fair debate

Considering his polling tanked after debating Harris and then he refused to debate again, I'm not sure if you can make this argument.

xmprt commented on Perplexity Makes Longshot $34.5B Offer for Chrome   wsj.com/tech/perplexity-m... · Posted by u/eduction
Wheaties466 · 15 days ago
It sounds like you need to be using the research function, which takes ~3 minutes but does a much more in depth search to find more relevant data.
xmprt · 14 days ago
3 minutes is too long for exploratory searches, where I'm not sure what I'm even looking for. And 3 minutes feels too short for deep research which I'm expected to trust some complex result which I either don't know enough about myself (that's why I'm searching for it) or know enough about to the point that AI probably can't do something that I already couldn't within a couple minutes.

I think the sweet spot for AI results is around 10-30 seconds. It's fast enough that I'm willing to wait for the results even if I'm not sure I'm exploring the right topic. And it's also fast enough that even if I knew what to search for, it can give me summarized results faster than I could read on my own.

xmprt commented on Enlisting in the Fight Against Link Rot   jszym.com/blog/archiving_... · Posted by u/jszymborski
ants_everywhere · 15 days ago
I've never quite understood URL shorteners. They seem like a way of opting into link rot and sending tracking data to third parties who aren't necessary for the client-server connection.

Is there a major benefit I'm missing? I could kind of see them if you have a character limit, want to hide the URL, or have to type a URL manually. But manual typing is rare, and even microblogging services are expanding character limits. Hiding the URL seems slightly sketchy, but you can achieve it without a shorter URL so maybe that's not a real benefit.

Anyway, I'm actually curious about this because people seem to love them.

(and this is aside from all the very valid issues and concerns people have with Google shutting down a widely used service).

xmprt · 15 days ago
I never used them for shortening the URL but it helped to give a human understandable name to a link. For example, if I'm linking to a Google Doc, then I can either share the base64(?) link that Google autogenerates, or share short.link/insert-name-here.
xmprt commented on I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself   skeptrune.com/posts/doing... · Posted by u/skeptrune
buggy6257 · 25 days ago
I specifically attempted to get a job at Discord so I could submit a PR to make giant emojis be a toggle setting rather than automatic. I know the feeling.

(If anyone works at Discord, please me and the rest of my server are begging you)

xmprt · 25 days ago
Discord is an electon app IIRC so in theory it should be possible to make a client side mod which fixes this. Not sure if that would result in your account getting banned though...
xmprt commented on I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself   skeptrune.com/posts/doing... · Posted by u/skeptrune
hansvm · 25 days ago
Interesting. I still have a bricked phone from my onboarding at Google, and no internal people cared either. There's a tool I could have used to fix it, but it's accompanied by a message saying that if you use it without permission you'll be fired.
xmprt · 25 days ago
> accompanied by a message saying that if you use it without permission you'll be fired

Probably why none of the internal people cared either. They didn't want to be the person on the line in case it was determined that the usage wasn't valid.

I'm curious how you bricked it beyond repair though. Most devices have a way to enter a recovery/flash mode where you can upload your own firmware from the bootloader. And if you haven't unlocked the bootloader then I don't get how you could have bricked it unless there's an Android bug... which would have probably triggered a more serious look.

xmprt commented on Atlassian terminates 150 staff   cyberdaily.au/digital-tra... · Posted by u/speckx
rdoherty · 25 days ago
I worked at Yahoo in 2008 when they laid off thousands and yes every single person got a calendar invite and met in a meeting room 1:1 with a manager. It was difficult but they did it. Times definitely have changed.
xmprt · 25 days ago
Did the people who got a calendar invite know that they were getting laid off in advance?
xmprt commented on Show HN: A GitHub Action that quizzes you on a pull request   github.com/dkamm/pr-quiz... · Posted by u/dkamm
throwaway889900 · a month ago
Just submit a PR that removes the action so it doesn't run on the branch before the merge! If devs aren't reviewing the code anyways, will they even catch that kind of change?
xmprt · a month ago
You could set up some hardcoded rules so that the PR is never merged without human review if it touches the github actions.

u/xmprt

KarmaCake day4400April 23, 2019View Original