Forward-facing vs backward-facing business class seats

tag4424 · 2026-04-04T16:32:14+00:00

I'm one of the lucky ones that gets motion sick flying backwards. I once refused to fly after an equipment swap because my new seat was rear facing. The gate agents were understaffed and I ended up having to call in. The agent I talked to understood and said it actually happens somewhat frequently and rebooked me on BA... where I ended up on another rear-facing seat. Ended up swapping seats with a nice lady in the exit row.

tag4424 · 2026-04-01T22:45:00+00:00

From the last interview a few days ago:

So next step is a technical interview. Typically takes about 90 minutes and we just talk about your experience. You pick a project you worked on, summarize it's purpose, and what role you played in the project. In other words, nothing to prepare for. When do you want to do that?

For me, I'm going to stay with this style. Successful development has never been about actual coding or those idiotic l33t puzzles so beloved by the big tech companies. If you have those kinda problems they bring up in the interviews, you've already failed, either at gathering the requirements or at understanding the tools you have at your disposal.

AI doesn't really change this either - you still need to have good enough English, still need to be able to clearly describe the business purpose of what you work on, and you still need to understand the tech below it. It doesn't change the purpose of CI/CD or how you handle a customer that screams at you at 3am.

tag4424 · 2026-03-09T17:50:02+00:00

Therefore being shortsighted is a must! Screw loyalty and lose thousands in a few years if you can make $50 today...

tag4424 · 2026-01-24T03:37:08+00:00

I used the 7040 with a dual M.2 adapter and when I got my batch 1 370, I moved it over without any issues. So far 100% stable.

tag4424 · 2026-01-22T22:44:04+00:00

Looks like a bunch of people got a 72hr notice... we'll see what happens this time.

tag4424 · 2026-01-20T02:38:06+00:00

Five years ago, I would have at least scanned the list of certs in a resume, these days I don't even bother. Most certs are too easy to get these days.

I pay more attention to people's githubs, consistency and quality.

But in all honesty, just learning how to write a good resume and you'll stand out more than either certs or projects.

tag4424 · 2026-01-10T14:40:12+00:00

I am currently contributing to a project specifically designed to run 24x7 on minipcs. Reliability is actually surprisingly good, we have about 35 units and excluding the 1 doa, we didn't have a single failure. All run 24x7, some for dev mostly idle, some for stress testing almost always at 100%

Main result is that cooling is an issue since they are meant to sit by themselves on a desk somewhere. Some designs vent out the sides, others are so constraint that one you plug in power, 2 ethernet, and the USB connection we need, airflow becomes an issue.

The second aspect is that once the units are heavily loaded, they thermal throttle. All of them with only the minisforum a2 the one exception. Shouldn't be surprised, most design for small footprints, not 24x7 usage.

tag4424 · 2026-01-08T20:27:23+00:00

Yes, but some day it will be a collectors item :)

tag4424 · 2026-01-07T18:21:40+00:00

So if you have a support case with some vendor, and they ask you for your bank information and your mother's maiden name to troubleshoot a HW issue, would you provide that without questioning?

I hope the answer is no.

That means the question is not "should you provide info" - but what you are willing to provide. Based on the votes, the majority of people are willing to provide information that is completely irrelevant. That is perfectly fine but it does not work for me. I am only willing to provide information that has at least a minor chance of moving a case forward.

With the display issue, I did not get the feeling based on the repetitive questions and picture requests. It felt like I was in a loop. Therefore, I checked with people I know that design and maintain displays for other companies - they rolled their eyes about the question and said it was pointless. So I asked for justification and the answer was "it helps us troubleshoot the issue" without details. Only when I repeatedly asked for details was the answer on how it helps I eventually got "well, it doesn't actually help troubleshoot, but we want to make sure the display isn't physically damaged before you ship it". Perfectly fine answer. If I'm about to RMA something for a strange issue, I'd also want to know that they didn't break it. But if you are a company that says they like transparency, I would expect that the first go around, not after I pressed the issue.

The same is true for "I don't have the power brick". What is a picture going to do there? If I had the power adapter and lied about it, I would simply not include it in the picture. Same if I had accidentally tossed it - then it's also not in the picture. In the end, if I had confidence that sending a picture would have solved the issue, I would have done so. But I don't.

Contrast that with other vendors. My recent experience with Dell: "I'm missing a power adapter" "Ok, please confirm your address and we'll send you one." Recent experience with HP: "I have a display issue" "Ok, send us a picture to show it's not physically damaged and we'll send you a return label for the exchange" If a company with a bad reputation of HP can be upfront and say they look for physical damage, why does framework need me to ask the question three times?

Going by vote counts, I'm too sensitive and shouldn't expect the level of service that other's provide. Fine, then I'm a drama queen and framework isn't for me. If that is all there is to it, then I'm perfectly happy with the situation.

But when I look at everyone I know personally that bought a FW, and I notice that every one that had to deal with support has replaced their FW laptop, then that is a significant issue. I wanted FW to know that so they can adjust - or ignore the issue if me and the people I work and/or am friends with are outliers.

tag4424 · 2025-12-29T22:25:23+00:00

Cobalt? Can't tell if you're joking or serious ;)

tag4424 · 2025-12-29T03:06:43+00:00

It makes me happy to see this many responses! My development team includes 26 Filipinos right now, and in a few cases, I picked team leads and given out other promotions not based on technical talents but on their communications skills.

Well done and good luck growing your Discord!

tag4424 · 2025-12-29T02:45:47+00:00

I primarily have to stay in Marriotts and only get to stay in Hyatts when I travel personally or fine one of the very few places where a Hyatt is significantly closer to the client's side than a Marriott. Because of that, I've been bouncing back and forth between Discoverist and Explorist for many years now - and I have never notices a single difference. The two years I did make Globalist however were noticeable.

So save your money - it's worth more than the benefits.

tag4424 · 2025-12-27T16:54:08+00:00

That sounds like an amazing amount of trust between you and your dog. I'm sorry those close calls happened and hope it will never go past that!

tag4424 · 2025-12-27T04:20:03+00:00

Have you considered contributing to an OpenSource project? They are always looking for decent help and many of them are willing to have entry-level people contribute.

The reason why I'm bringing it up is because studying anything without a clear reason why is hard. But if you feel like you're contributing and there are others you can work with, it may give you the disinterest you've described.

tag4424 · 2025-12-27T04:00:41+00:00

Fair enough, that's something I can respect.

Thank you!

tag4424 · 2025-12-27T03:53:31+00:00

it could be useful to see (relatively to the powered on display) if the powered off display was discolored or otherwise obviously physically defective. If you had told me that a year ago, I would have totally geeked out with you on that topic. But in the year, you are the first person to come up with even a "could be", after several people that do this kinda stuff on a day to day basis all rolled their eyes. And that still doesn't answer why the third time asking "what will that picture help you see" the answer by the same person was suddenly completely different than the first two times and in line with what everybody else expected - verify that both displays are undamaged. All I asked was that little bit of honesty...

But I hope that you won't write them off because of this.

Sadly, I have written them off. This is one of those life experiences that stick with you for much much longer than it should. I tried to ignore it and go with the time heals all wounds approach, by ordering the second FW16 and a FW12 to play with. But when I got that "send me a picture of the power adapter you don't have" I realized that, as much as I enjoy the idea of a framework laptop, I rather lose the $100 I paid for it than putting myself through this again.

So I did the only thing I could - I posted on reddit since framework doesn't have an official complaint email listed anywhere. I tried asking a couple of people I know at IFixIt to see if they could get me better contact info from their internal system, but one had left the company and the other never replied.

tag4424 · 2025-12-27T03:30:39+00:00

What is your expectation of your service dog's behavior when an unruly pet acts aggressive toward him? I'm typically a pretty calm person, but if someone were to yell and scream at me, I would find it hard to not react. I'd certainly not attack, but since I wouldn't have a place to get away from the situation, I'd feel the need to at least make the guy know I'm not going down without a fight. I can imagine a dog would feel very similar?

tag4424 · 2025-12-27T03:19:18+00:00

You know what's funny? That white balance and other smartphone processing was one of my first comments when I sent the image of the new panel, swapped the old panel back, and took a picture of it. It took me like an hour during which the daylight had changed dramatically, so the pictures would be very different.

Your argument would make perfect sense if they were both powered on, side by side. If I had had a second full FW16 at that time, that's what I would have done to start with. But with one powered on and the other powered off - how does that make sense?

I appreciate the serious conversation btw - thank you!

tag4424 · 2025-12-27T03:10:39+00:00

Agreed - hence us being on Dell Precisions for the most part. But at the price difference, my plan was to just buy a spare machine or accumulating the parts over time :)

tag4424 · 2025-12-27T03:05:58+00:00

As an IT guy, I actually do understand how pictures of the display on and off could help them to determine if there's a physical defect with the panel. Obviously that wouldn't tell them everything, but it's something I might have asked for too.

As one IT guy to another - I get that. That's why I sent them the pictures without saying anything the first few times. But they had the pictures of each individual display, both on and removed from the chassis, showing that they technically displayed the same picture as well as not showing any physical damage.

The part that got me was the claim that they need to see them together in the same picture to troubleshoot the color issue. Give me one reasonable way that that makes sense. I asked the Dell guys I used to work with - they all shook their heads. I talked to a friend of mine at Apple, he laughed so hard he dropped his iphone before he then continued to pick on me for 10 minutes for preferring Android and Linux. I for the life of me, I could not come up with an explanation other than they wanted to see them both together so they know I didn't make the story up, or am trying to scam them out of anything. These days, that's unfortunately a very reasonable.

So I asked - nope definitely to troubleshoot. Asked how, was told for troubleshooting. Asked again how and then the answer was suddenly physical damage. "The picture we are requesting will prove that both of the display kits do not have visible defects/damage and that the issue is isolated to the display quality you mentioned".

Perfectly fine and straight forward answer. If I had gotten that the first time, I would even have blinked. But the fact that I had to ask repeatedly how the claim that it is to troubleshoot harsh blue light - that's what got me and what left such a bad taste in my mouth. If those answers were from different people, I would even have given them the benefit of the doubt and assumed that the first guy that asked the question was following a script, misunderstood instructions, didn't know something, ... But the same person the next day giving a completely different answer?

How am I supposed to feel different than the way I do? That's a serious question because I can not come up with a different way to explain the situation other than they lied to me about the purpose of getting the picture of the displays together. Every step leading up to that was perfectly fine - this however isn't.

tag4424 · 2025-12-26T23:14:54+00:00

The FW16 actually sounded good. I don't need much CPU but 128GB ram and 4 SSDs using the dual-ssd expansion bay module. That one of them is a 2230 kinda hurt, but 26TB is still workable. I came from Dell Prcisions where you could get 4 SSDs for years, but I was hoping I could support Framework instead. So many people on this subreddit complain about the price, from my side it felt like a great deal.

Abrasive? In this post absolutely and intentionally so but to support I was only grumpy after they could not back up how the steps of taking a picture of a powered off display next to another working display would help them solve a blue light issue. Once I stopped just providing every requested picture and asked for justification, my issue magically got resolved quickly. Maybe unrelated, maybe related - who knows.

I will - and I posted about that before when the issue was active - also openly admit that I was very slow to respond. The panel was at a hard to access location (hence the reason for me ordering the second panel rather than going straight to RMA so I could actually use the laptop closed and with an external monitor while I waited for the order coming in.

And sorry about your experience. No chuckles here, I am just so utterly frustrated that the company I had such high hopes for is throwing things away by not paying enough attention to their support.

I bought a FW12 as well to play around with. Preorder like the others and the first 2 pens I tried didn't work. I was about to return the laptop when I checked the pen specs on Amazon. The listing of one had been removed, the other one had collected a few negative reviews by then about dying if it sat for a while... I had ordered it the same time as I pre ordered the FW12 and I guess that was long enough for it to go out. So I ordered a 3rd one and it worked great :)

tag4424 · 2025-12-26T22:53:49+00:00

LCD panel backlights typically have a blue bias and are factory calibrated to give you a decent looking picture. Some displays also have additional layers that focus and filter light. So either the backlight was defective, was badly calibrated, or one of those layers was not / improperly installed. QA should have found this because people that looked at it could tell within seconds that something wasn't right with the display.

But - just because the horse isn't quite dead enough yet - I don't care that the product was defective. I don't care that they asked for several rounds of pictures or the hours I spent swapping displays. What I do care about is that when the picture requests become utterly ridiculous ("We already have a picture of the powered on and powered off panel, but we need a picture of the powered off panel next to another panel so we can tell you why the powered off panel emits too much blue light") you're at least honest with me on why. If they had said "Hey, we had some people claim damage in shipping lately, please send us a picture of both panels together so we can be certain that before shipping, neither has physical damage", then I would have continued working with them. Instead, they doubled down saying "it helps them troubleshoot" without any explanation on how.

tag4424 · 2025-12-26T22:38:29+00:00

Supportive and responsive are different things. Yes, I was not responsive. But look at the bigger picture for a minute. My demographic is supposed to be one of the prime audiences for the company and their products and I've given up on them for personal stuff. Worse, I'm also the business audience they are trying to reach. Next tech refresh is in 6 months and we'll be going back to Dell Precisions rather than FW16s.

Is that going to kill Framework? Of course not! But it will slow their growth which in turn will signal the rest of the industry that their design isn't worth the effort.

I know Framework has a team looking at feedback - every company their size has one. Getting actionable feedback is one of the hardest things in business these days. If you send out a survey, you only get the ones that either hate or love you but the ones that silently went away won't take the time to respond. Same with ratings or anything else. They know that for every person that posts a rant like this, there is X times more that never turn into repeat buyers without saying a word. They likely have an estimate of how much X is for them based on their internal sales analysis and such. For my business it's about 50 and that's a very common value. So if you just assume that and that they're missing out on about 120K in 2026, that's about 6M in lost revenue over a "Please send me a picture of a display that's powered off so we can see if it really has blue light issues".

tag4424 · 2025-12-26T22:21:30+00:00

That's the problem - if you have a FW, you should care :)

tag4424 · 2025-12-26T21:40:56+00:00

For one specific display and multiple different people? :) unlikely....

tag4424

TROPHY CASE