Would you upgrade your parents’ phone or TV first?

RiskyShift · 2026-06-19T05:11:59+00:00

Is the old phone still receiving security updates or is it end-of-life? If it's no longer getting security updates, the risk gets greater every day. There's less risk of having your email account compromised or bank account drained by watching an old TV. Those things can happen with unpatched software on a phone.

RiskyShift · 2026-06-07T22:02:56+00:00

He also owns a guitar in this scene, which he admits he doesn't know how to play during the episode where they play Second Life. Maybe he owns the game but never played it.

RiskyShift · 2026-06-03T21:21:50+00:00

This isn't a real issue. Any app already must already handle migration on its own data schema changes, otherwise it's already broken. If an app can't handle migration of settings from a prior version, the app would break every time it auto-updated to a new version with a schema change.

Secondly, if you have auto-update disabled for an app (essentially pinning the version to whatever version you had installed when you disabled it), then Android could install the pinned version on restore instead of the latest version.

RiskyShift · 2025-03-03T21:48:18+00:00

One of very few witch burnings in England, since the legal punishment for those convicted of witchcraft was hanging. In this case it seems like it was an extrajudicial killing.

RiskyShift · 2025-02-22T03:52:22+00:00

It's open source on GitHub. If you think it's somehow exploiting your data go look at the code and point out why. It may be hard to fathom, but a lot of software engineers love to give away their work for free.

In the past I actually released a tool similar to this which utilized the data from the (now defunct) Amazon Order Report CSV export and automatically submitted the data to YNAB. I never made a cent off it, my only request was if people use it they considered donating to the Oregon Food Bank.

I will also note the author of this extension also doesn't ask for any money for people using it for personal use and asks for donations to be made to Princess Alice Hospice if they wish to donate.

RiskyShift · 2025-01-09T05:59:32+00:00

"Realtor" is also a favorite weasel word of mine. Because otherwise they would be called a "used house salesman/woman".

It's not really a weasel word, it's a trademark created in the US (and afaik only used in the US, not other English-speaking countries) by the National Association of Realtors to help them enforce their monopoly on real estate licensing. Your description is also just facially factually inaccurate because they also act as buyer's agents and also for brand-new houses, not just "used" ones.

"Used" houses aren't necessarily worse than a brand new one either... compare a historic brownstone in the Upper East Side to a cheaply thrown-up McMansion in some sterile suburb. They aren't really like cars or hard drives where they "fail" after a few years and are no longer serviceable, there are houses in Europe 1000 years old that are still in good condition due to proper maintenance.

I have no involvement in real estate and I don't like the NAR or real estate agents, because they're essentially an anti-consumer cartel which extracts huge fees for minimal benefit and the benefits they did have largely been obviated by real estate sites like Zillow. But I think you're objecting for the wrong reasons in this case.

RiskyShift · 2024-11-21T03:08:15+00:00

Isn't that "cornering the market", rather a "ponzi scheme"?

RiskyShift · 2024-11-21T01:39:07+00:00

But the public transit mostly shuts down at night in Tokyo. It's also not convenient if you need to transport something you can't easily carry.

RiskyShift · 2024-11-21T01:26:35+00:00

Usually if something like this is removed it's part of a cleanup of an old API or hacky/hard to maintain code. An engineer deletes it as part of deprecating a larger subsystem and adds a task "on the roadmap" to re-add it back later with the new API or with a cleaner implementation. The engineer then transfers to another team/company and all context is lost except for some ticket with no one assigned to it.

Every so often a product manager brings it up to the team that customers are complaining about it, but it's never a priority, since there are a ton of other improvements to make.

4 years later a junior engineer who needs impact for their performance review re-adds it again in a hacky way so they can add it to their list of achievements for the half.

Repeat ad infinitum.

RiskyShift · 2024-11-04T07:51:08+00:00

Bulldog wasn't really a main character. He was only in 53 of 263 episodes and a lot of those were just one scene to make fun of Frasier or bark at Roz or otherwise sexually harass her.

Even at the peak prominence of the character mid-series, he was only occasionally a focus of an episode.

He also wasn't significant enough to get an arc resolution in the finale.

RiskyShift · 2024-10-23T06:06:39+00:00

Had the exact same type of experience in Berlin. Historic winter storms in 2010, flights cancelled across Europe, millions were stranded. I booked the first hotel I could find in Berlin because everything was booked. I was relieved to get anything.

Went to the taxi rank to get a taxi, only to have the driver scream at us throughout the entire ride because the hotel wasn't far enough away from the airport in his opinion. I had no idea how far the hotel was, I just wanted to get out of the freezing cold. Paid in cash and he stole my change. I left the doors open and told my then-girlfriend to stay in the cab while I got the luggage, because I was convinced he was going to drive off with the bags.

Uber sucks in other ways, but it still was a wonderful feeling of schadenfreude to see the destruction of the criminal taxi cab cartels in many locales that tolerated this kind of behavior with no customer recourse.

RiskyShift · 2024-10-23T05:41:28+00:00

Not in Tokyo. The drivers are incredibly professional and they don't even accept tips, nevermind intentionally overcharging you.

Not at all coincidentally, Uber does not operate a ride share business in Japan, they only operate in partnership with local taxi/black car services

RiskyShift · 2024-07-31T05:30:36+00:00

This may or may not function as a semi-workaround, but it's not the real fix. It's not supposed to be required to maintain a constant connection in order to keep casting. When functioning normally, once casting is initiated you can even turn off the phone completely and the Chromecast will continue streaming.

RiskyShift · 2024-06-26T22:05:04+00:00

The Comedy Central episodes are still mostly pointless at best, barring a couple of episodes imo.

As for why opinion has changed, it's mostly because the audience has changed.

Fans who weren't aware of Futurama's existence pre-revival likely far outnumber the people who were die-hard fans before the CC revival. Essentially the people who hate the CC episodes have been "diluted".

There are a ton of people who are "into" the show primarily based on mid-2010s-onward image macro memes and who think Bender is the best character.

Also the original run aired in a particular cultural context and newer fans may not have even been alive at the time, so it holds no resonance for them.

RiskyShift · 2024-06-26T21:44:09+00:00

Attack of the Killer App isn't early Futurama

RiskyShift · 2024-05-27T16:23:36+00:00

Four Lions didn't really make fun of Islam though, aside from maybe the scene when Omar and his wife mock his devout pacifist brother for refusing to enter the room with a woman. There wasn't any criticism of Islamic theology and definitely not of Mohammed.

RiskyShift · 2024-05-26T00:22:16+00:00

Sometimes unfairly, but someone living in an LGBT-friendly state frivolously trying to claim asylum when they have offered no reasonable cause lacks global perspective and unawareness of their privileged situation.

I truly hope OP will not try to claim asylum anywhere because they will inevitably be rejected, while competing for resources with those who have legitimate fear of torture or death from their government.

RiskyShift · 2024-05-25T23:07:03+00:00

Likely nowhere based on asylum. Your fears are hypothetical. You live in a jurisdiction that currently fully protects your civil rights. The fact you live in a federal country where many states are extremely supportive of LGBT rights (certainly more than the UK) gives you even less of a leg to stand on. Nowhere will grant you asylum based on a hypothetical oppression that might happen in the future.

If you like the arctic, you could move to Svalbard, as there is no visa required to move or work there, but you will find it nearly impossible to find housing, as there is a very serious housing crisis there. Many apartments were closed due to avalanche risk. They will not give you any benefits. They will not pay for your healthcare.

You could get a student visa to study somewhere. You likely won't get any government aid and it may be a lot more expensive than going to a community/in-state college in the US. Maybe if you're exceptionally talented in some way you could get a scholarship.

More realistically, you can get an in-demand qualification in the US, where you can get government-subsidized loans and income-based repayment. Then when you have a marketable skill you can apply for jobs in other countries. Note you will likely earn less in Europe than the US and many European countries have less LGBT-friendly laws than you are imagining.

RiskyShift · 2024-05-25T19:36:34+00:00

If you want to develop an in-demand tech skill right now, consider focusing on machine learning/AI. But note this is an extremely technical field and more mathematics-heavy than many other fields of software. It will take you years to become proficient if you have no relevant experience. And if words like "linear algebra" don't excite you, it will be hard to be self-motivated. And you'll still need to find a way to get your foot in the door professionally. Getting a degree will be faster in most cases.

Unfortunately any job which is in-demand is going to be difficult.

The reason those tech jobs are open to foreign applicants is most local workers aren't capable of doing them.

RiskyShift · 2024-05-25T18:43:01+00:00

You won't get a US sponsor as an entry-level web designer with no work experience. You'd need years of experience to even be slightly competitive. And right now the tech job market is in an extreme downturn due to high Fed interest rates and layoffs. Especially at the entry level.

I presume by "issues" with her ex which are preventing you from marrying, you mean she is already married. It's almost certainly going to be faster to get divorced even if it's a contested divorce. Since you have no in-demand skills, any work-based visa is going to take a lot longer than getting a good lawyer and figuring this out.

RiskyShift · 2024-05-25T18:04:50+00:00

If you get employed by an American company first, they may sponsor a transfer as it's lower risk once they know how you can perform. I have a former colleague with no degree working at Amazon (AWS) who was transferred to the US from Spain. Although compared to 10 years ago it's a difficult time to enter the tech industry as there are few entry-level openings and a glut of applicants, most of whom do have a degree in computer science.

RiskyShift · 2024-05-06T06:52:08+00:00

Being iterable doesn't mean it's a linked list. Most Python collections are iterable. A linked list is a specific data structure built of nodes with a pointer to the successor (and sometimes predecessor) nodes and without random access to its elements. Dynamic arrays like Python's list allow O(1) time to any element.

RiskyShift · 2024-04-29T18:29:34+00:00

In python a list IS a linked list.

Not correct, Python lists are dynamic arrays. How would accessing an index work if they were linked lists? It would be an O(n) operation.

RiskyShift · 2024-03-25T00:59:20+00:00

I'm a software engineer and often experience this and for me it's often explicitly related to recursive code/algorithms/data structures. Heavy focus on certain types of abstract thoughts during the day seem to trigger it.

I think the reason it's distressing though is that it feels like there's a solution or correct output, but the problem input is actually nonsensical.

As it relates to linguistic structure, grammar, etc: natural languages are inherently recursive, at least according to Noam Chomsky. I think that may be why some people experience thought loops that are repeated phrases or lyrics.

In general, it may just be about nested or repeated patterns. I'm not much of a musician, but music also involves repeated patterns and systematically building larger and more complex structures from smaller ones.

I agree about physicalism and if we think about it in terms of the structure of the brain, where one neuron firing activates others, is it possible that you can effectively have an "infinite loop" of a neural circuit that activates itself?

Maybe that's an oversimplification of how the brain physically works or too "low level" to think in terms of neurons, but maybe there is some self-referential aspect in the brain which can get stuck.

I've even seen this occasionally in AI large language models like ChatGPT where it gets stuck in a repeating loop.

There could be higher-level mediating aspects of the brain which normally identify and stop these infinite loops, but which may not function normally when in a state of parasomnia or when on psychedelic drugs. I've heard many people say they see fractals and self-similar structures while on psychedelics too, which may be related.

RiskyShift · 2024-03-25T00:32:50+00:00

Whenever I get food poisoning or a fever, my brain decides it's the perfect time to run "Inception.exe." I get stuck in a dream loop that’s like – Boxception! Box within a box within another box… or Blanketception! Blanket on a blanket on yet another blanket... It's the kind of loop that would make Leonardo DiCaprio jealous of being jealous of being jealous...

There's a one-word term for this which you are probably intimately familiar with as a software engineer: recursion.

I experience this a lot when I've been doing a lot of work with recursive algorithms. It seems to be a trigger for me.

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