I've been watching a slow enshittification of Discord over the last few years and preparing to move to the Next Thing in a year or two, but this actually seems like a great move, and technically interesting. Is there a downside/drawback I'm not seeing?
This does seem a nice feature and definitely a step in the right direction but why use e2ee for video and audio but not chat? That's afterall where most of Discords activity is happening
Because E2EE causes an absolute ton of friction to the chat experience. Stuff that you expect to just work like chat history and searching no longer works.
Haven't used WhatsApp but presumably it indexes client-side. On Discord people want to search large servers including messages since before they joined, so this approach wouldn't really work.
A note for engineers looking for jobs, based on this and about a thousand similar posts: If you joined a "remote" company that went remote during the pandemic, no, you didn't.
Look for companies that went full-remote before 2020, or after ~2022. Otherwise, it can't be trusted.
Companies that went full-remote around 2020-2021 are more likely to try to drag people back into the office, but I wouldn't suggest that you don't interview with those companies.
The best thing you can do is get to the finish line, get the offer sheet, and demand that your position as a full-time remote worker be written into your agreement with the company.
FWIW I know someone who did exactly this with a defense prime, and the crazy fella actually won the battle with HR when they tried to bring everyone back into the office.
Worst case scenario, they say "no," you decline the offer, and you've sent a clear message to management. It might feel like a few hours of wasted time, but we as industry practitioners have the power to make this a normal interaction between a prospective hire and a stubborn corporation.
This might work, but it also guarantees you will be first on the chopping block when layoffs come around. I have seen this happen first-hand multiple times: any employee with a special arrangement that doesn't meet what the executive team desires will be let go at the first chance, even if they are a huge asset to the company.
Not to say you shouldn't try that approach. Just that you'll have less job stability.
Agree 100%, even if you can manage an exception it does not look good to be the odd man out. It's easy to imagine people like this being the initial "easy choices" when layoff discussions happen. Not saying people should just roll over, but if you can manage an exception and see work from home as a requirement, I'd view that as your opportunity to maintain employment while looking for a company that takes remote work seriously
Yup, and I think the only guarantee for a remote-first workplace is if the whole company
( or at least the whole engineering dept. ) is spread out enough that there is no possible plan for an in-office setup.
Seems like most these types are building niche products (e.g.: tailscale) and not just SaaS or CRUD-with-AI ?
While layoffs can be pretty horrible, getting a severance package (or even just a "severance package" in the style of not being allowed back to work during the WARN Act period), can be a pretty good deal and/or vacation that you've needed.
Most companies in the US are hiring workers at-will. There are no contracts and anyone can terminate employment for any reason. I don't think that would work in the United States for most non-contract roles. It might work for contractors and for people in Europe.
Look up "constructive dismissal". If WFH is in your contract and they try to pull this RTO nonsense, you can quit and it counts as a layoff -- they're on the hook for paying your severance.
100% of people who told amazon "My contract says fully remote" did not win the argument. With at will employment, companies are free to change their agreement with you at any time and you're just as free to leave.
I joined a company in late 2020 that had gone remote at the start of the pandemic, and this crossed my mind.
The deciding factor for me? The founders had since moved to different locations across the US. That put their money where their mouth was more than anything.
It says something that posts about Stripe stealing or improperly holding funds are so common that the subreddit feels a need to make a rule about it.
Also, I think Stripe and PayPal especially have absolutely been known to seize and not return funds. There have been lawsuits about it, e. g. https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/closed-settl... (though that was mostly about consumer accounts).
They skimped on the tablet, grabbing a <$100 device for cheap. It should be a ruggedized / semi-industrial device with an expected lifetime as long as the device it controls, so at least 15-20 years.
That would set them back at least $800 (2021 prices: last time I had to spec a ruggedized tablet), which probably means $1200 out of the customer's pocket.
OTOH, they can find an industrial display + a Linux SoM (system-on-module) that can run linux or Android for under $200 in quantity.
Same diff though: no one cared, so they got what was cheap.
The first time you do it, just get the job done as described.
The second time, look for ways the two might be similar, but don't spend a lot of time on it.
The third time, generalize and assume there will be a fourth, fifth, sixth, etc. time.
In the example the top poster gave, the first time it was requested, I would just write up some code for triggering the notification. The second time, maybe there's a shared class (or whatever) for notifications with text passed in. The third time, now maybe we need the ability to specify notification text in config or DB or through user-triggered actions.
Ideally, the business should have their processes defined before ever implementing them technically. So these architectural questions should mostly be addressable from the start. Knowing hoe the processes look upfront can actually lead to some wonderful designs rather than constant reactors. We had a system that we knew from the start would have multiple UI layouts for multiple workflows that shared mostly similar data. We were able to build the UI to dynamically build the pages based on the data.
Carl's Jr was also piloting a similar technology. An AI took my order a few weeks ago, and mostly got it right (but didn't understand that I wanted "no sauce" with a certain item and gave me a side of sauce instead).
I asked the real human at the window whether they liked the AI system. They said no, it made far too many mistakes. In fact, the company was going to be uninstalling it soon because it was wasting too much time.
I can think of about a million reasons that might be, but one which particularly came to mind is that I live in an area where around 40% of people are Spanish speakers as their first language, and many of them speak no or very little English. The drive-thru employees would be completely capable of switching to Spanish (or summoning a Spanish-speaking employee) as needed, but according to the woman at the window, the AI couldn't do that. It also had issues with accents.
None of that is unsolvable, but it's disappointing that it apparently wasn't even thought of.
This is one of the things I don't get about the AI hype.
Why does everyone want to use AI to _replace_ humans?[0] This sounds exactly like a case where an "AI" transcribing a human's order ALONGSIDE an actual human would be a perfect case for optimising.
If the human mishears something for example, they can check what the AI interpreted, but still make their own decisions.
[0] We all know: Greed. AI's don't join unions and don't get overtime pay.
Something that I have not seen studied at all, and which I think desperately needs to be, is the degree to which other viruses which cause similar infections - flu, RSV, other cold viruses - cause "long" symptoms similar to COVID.
I bet they do, and I bet we've been ignoring it for a long time. The number of people whose bodies are changed semi-permanently after a flu or bad cold - messed up sense of smell, brain fog, all the classics of long COVID - are not actually particularly low. Maybe lower than with COVID, but not low.
I think looking at this as "long COVID" and not "long respiratory virus" is making a mistake. It both makes people more alarmist about COVID, and makes people less alarmed about other viruses which are no less serious just because we've been living with them a long time.
What we need are comprehensive treatments for and prevention options for respiratory viruses as a class, not just COVID.
(By the way, in an ironic twist of events, I have COVID for the second time as I write this, post four vaccinations. It's pretty the same as a cold at the moment.)
It's odd how little attention we've paid to the long-term effects of viruses in general. The cumulative effects of the illnesses they cause could easily be carving off multiple years of healthy lifespan for millions of people but until COVID, nobody really cared as long as the majority were able to return to productivity relatively quickly in the short term.
I think part of the reason for that is that COVID was new, and an unknown. Also, severe COVID in the early part of the pandemic seemed much more serious than a cold, though it is less so now.
> Contrary to public belief, he warns, COVID is not like the flu. New variants evolve much faster, making annual shots inadequate. He believes that if things continue as they are, with new COVID variants emerging and reinfections happening rapidly, the majority of Americans may eventually grapple with some form of Long COVID.
> Let’s repeat that: At the current rate of infection, most Americans may get Long COVID.
Vaccines do not prevent transmission, and each reinfection increases your chances for Long COVID. Sure, your second infection might be like a cold, but the third could do you in for good. For the person next to you, it might be 4th/5th infection, etc. But either way, it's a risky gamble for most people to be making blindly, especially as time marches forward with no end game in sight.
> Sure, your second infection might be like a cold, but the third could do you in for good.
I don't think there's evidence of this? Long COVID doesn't 'do you in for good'. The only evidence I'm aware of is that subsequent COVID infections tend to be less dangerous, not more.
But none of this is relevant to my point anyway, really, which is that COVID is not the only virus capable of causing these kinds of effects; it's increased the incidence, but the underlying phenomenon is the same and won't go away if we get rid of COVID somehow.
> Long COVID doesn't 'do you in for good'. The only evidence I'm aware of is that subsequent COVID infections tend to be less dangerous, not more.
FTA:
> A new report commissioned by the Social Security Administration in 2022 says that Long Covid is a chronic illness. People see gradual improvement in symptoms over time, but a plateau may occur 6-12 months post-infection, and only 22% fully recover within a year. Others remain stable or get worse.
This coupled with normalized non masking means reinfections and their consequences will continue to occur.
More than 200 symptoms have been reported in those with long COVID. [1]
Light sensitivity. Dizziness when scrolling webpages. Daily headaches. Intense pain. Brain fog. Allergic to “synthetic fabrics”, and detailed cataloguing of more such "symptoms" can be found in [4].
Interestingly, there are cases where people have ended up with long covid, without ever going through short or medium COVID and in fact, no COVID at all.
The NIH reiterates that there is no definition of long COVID researchers can use to identify the disease, nor should insurers, disability agencies, or physicians use the study’s findings to clinically define or rule out long COVID. [3]
There are lots of covid infections where the person develops no symptoms but gets organ damage or long covid anyway, if that is what you mean about no COVID. Test positive = you have COVID, even if no symptoms. No symptoms and no test = you might or might not have COVID. It might be possible to detect virus reservoirs in people after the infection itself resolves, though.
I'm sure many viral infections potentially have effects that linger.
However, what makes COVID different is it's not really a respiratory virus like flu, even if that is the primary transmission mechanism. It manages to infect many different organs in the body to varying degrees (hence the huge constellation of different symptoms presented).
A couple of notes here. Overall I agree with the point being made but there are a few misunderstandings in this post.
> Microsoft don't want to be entirely dependent on Intel, especially as Intel's share of the global microprocessor market is rapidly shrinking,
He says Intel, but means amd64 architecture - Intel isn't the only or even the dominant consumer computer processor manufacturer these days, especially for desktops/laptops.
> Recall takes snapshots of all the windows on a Windows computer's screen (except the DRM'd media, because the MPAA must have their kilo of flesh) and saves them locally.
I wonder if I could cause Recall not to work by just playing some DRM'd content half-transparent over whatever I was doing...
> Now, "unencrypted" is relative; the database is stored on a filesystem which should be encrypted using Microsoft's BitLocker.
If you have that enabled, which most people don't.
> Worse: even if you don't use Recall, if you send an email or instant message to someone else who does then it will be OCRd and indexed via Recall: and preserved for posterity.
I don't see this as a problem; there's nothing stopping anybody you send anything to from taking a copy of it. You can't take emails or IMs back. It's just dumb.
> Suddenly every PC becomes a target for Discovery during legal proceedings.
This was already true and common.
> Some commentators are snarking that Microsoft really really wants to make 2025 the year of Linux on the Desktop, and it's kind of hard to refute them right now.
Or, people will just keep using Windows 10, which is what >70% of the market is already doing.
Basically everything is "one reason" for the TPM requirement. The real main reason is that they want all Windows 11 machines to have a chain of trust. With TPM 2.0 in the minimum requirements, this is something they can now actually count on. That means not only can they enable every preexisting security feature that relies on the TPM, they can also ship things that have a hard dependency on it, without making users worry about whether their computer supports it.
> Or, people will just keep using Windows 10, which is what >70% of the market is already doing.
Support ends in late 2025 though. They've been trying to push the upgrade aggressively lately which is what got me to switch over my last machine early, so now I am happily Windows-free. And honestly, Mint is not much more complicated than Windows, while being immeasurably safer to use, it's just that Microsoft has inertia and a propaganda budget.
> I don't see this as a problem; there's nothing stopping anybody you send anything to from taking a copy of it. You can't take emails or IMs back. It's just dumb.
I may trust someone personally, but not trust their ability to administer a system. This requires me to do both if I am sending information to somebody.
Same reason I don't give out my real phone number unless I know how someone handles their phone. Doesn't take any malicious intent to grant Contacts access to all kinds of malicious apps. Other peoples' computers have to be assumed hostile.
I refurbish and sell Windows XP machines as a side business; there's a surprisingly large market for them. My customers mostly break down into the following groups:
1) People looking to play retro games
2) People looking to work with legacy hardware, especially in manufacturing and healthcare
3) People who want the comfort/familiarity of an older operating system
I'm always careful to issue a disclaimer that Windows XP should never be used for anything where you need security, in practice, I don't see much of an issue. The reality is that although XP is a tempting target in terms of vulnerability, it's not widely used enough to be useful to modern malware.
The machines I sell come with Windows XP Delta Edition[1], which as far as I know comes with all the available updates for XP already installed - no Legacy Update necessary. I've been using the Mypal browser [2], but will definitely try Supermium!
All the laptops I sell with Windows XP have Windows XP or newer OEM license keys included with them, so yes, it is legal, or at least legal enough that I don't think Microsoft or anyone cares. XP Delta Edition has the same featureset as XP Pro for licensing purposes, though the licensing of some of the software with it is muddier.
That said, as there's currently no way to legally buy Windows XP from Microsoft (or any official source), it's not really harming anyone to just install it wherever, in my view.
I also sell Windows 10 machines, and they all come with genuine licenses (often also OEM, or I buy them). I often get questions about whether my Windows 10 systems are genuine Windows, but nobody has ever asked about XP.
A big reason that nobody is switching to Windows 11 is because Microsoft actively makes it impossible for most consumers to do so. They're trying to force you to buy new hardware by obsoleting the vast, vast majority of Windows 10 machines - even though those machines are completely capable of running Windows 11!
If they simply allowed people on older devices to install Windows 11, those usage numbers would double or triple basically overnight. I don't think most non-HN people care about spying, but they also don't care enough about having the latest version of Windows to buy a whole new computer. I can't imagine why Microsoft thought they would.
The big question is what happens when Windows 10 support ends, about a year and a half from now. Microsoft will basically be creating one of the biggest security disasters of all time by no longer providing updates for Windows 10 to keep it secure. It's hard to believe they'll do that, but all signs point to it. Support ending is not going to convince people to start throwing out perfectly functional computers.
Microsoft is doing about what Apple does except more as a one time thing. 7th Gen Intel chips launched in early 2016. These machines will lose support for Windows 10 in October 2025. Most Macs are supported about 5 years for full OS updates and about 2 more years of security updates though this all varies a bit OS to OS version.
As an example, when macOS 12 (Monterey) reaches end of life in a few months, MacBook Pro pre-2017, MacBook Air pre-2018, iMac pre-2017, and Mac Mini pre-2018 will all be unsupported and no longer receive security updates.
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