halo

5 ms·

1.
by halo 1mo ago
I have a love-hate relationship with spreadsheets and Excel. Spreadsheets are good for ad-hoc tasks on small-to-medium amounts of data (let’s say the old 64k row limit) of medium-to-low complexity. In practice, that covers a lot of tasks. T
2.
by halo 6mo ago
Wonder if the reaction would be the same if Wine was conditional on buying a license to Windows.
3.
by halo 6mo ago
In my experience, good mature organisations have clear review processes to ensure quality, improve collaboration and reduce errors and risk. This is regardless of field. It does slow you down - not 10x - but the benefits outweigh the downsi
4.
by halo 10mo ago
BT was only successful if you take a very narrow view of success. They dragged their heels on rolling out ADSL to maximise short-term profits from ISDN which has had a hugely negative effect on the country. Government spent decades figuring
5.
by halo 11mo ago
If this is the case, why are many other EU postal services still state-owned (e.g. Ireland, Poland, Cyprus, Greece)? The UK left the EU 5 years ago yet it’s still being used as cover for UK political decisions.
6.
by halo 11mo ago
On a similar note, I’ve always liked the idea of being able to mark functions as pure (for some reasonable definition of pure). The principle of reducing state changes and side-effects feels a good one.
7.
by halo 1y ago
That telephone monopoly was privatised - and later dragged their heels on rolling out broadband because ISDN was so profitable, causing untold damage to the UK tech economy as the country fell behind on connectivity. It’s a great parable of
8.
by halo 1y ago
I’m beginning to think my reluctance to shamelessly copy has held me back in life. It’s clearly more widespread than I naively assumed (and I say that without casting judgment).
9.
by halo 1y ago
I’m convinced a major reason Windows Phone failed is because Google didn’t support it for self-serving reasons. It rarely gets mentioned but no YouTube or Google Maps apps is a big deal and a major barrier to adoption. The tech giants don’t
10.
by halo 2y ago
If nothing else, it’s clear communication and shows they have seen the online discourse. We’ll see if they follow through. There’s a certain logic to it too: they’ll be far more interested in upselling to existing Canva subscribers than sel
11.
by halo 3y ago
My understanding is that these sorts of sites allow companies to pay to boost positive reviews to de-emphasise negative reviews, not remove bad reviews. Still somewhat shady.
12.
by halo 3y ago
The biggest problem with Bristol is how much of it has been taken over by upper and upper-middle class people moving from the South East.
13.
by halo 3y ago
Yes and no. Isn’t there an argument that Gmail and Outlook.com (combined with Microsoft 365/Exchange Online), while superficially interoperable, have enough market share that their actions make running other mail providers very difficu
14.
by halo 3y ago
Real-life stores do this as well - make individually profitable changes (local maximums) that eventually make the whole experience so miserable that you no-longer want to shop there. Direct upselling is the most obvious, along with constant
15.
by halo 3y ago
I mentally group Flash, Visual Basic and Visual FoxPro together as dying because they were unfashionable in tech circles despite being highly productive and practical. They never got effectively replaced and we will very slowly end up with
16.
by halo 3y ago
I wonder how many VPN providers are secretly government honeypots set up by security agencies. I suspect most of them.
17.
by halo 4y ago
Can you expand on “supply-side problems”, “economic reform” and “structural issues” without filtering it through euphemisms?
18.
by halo 4y ago
Stop making me feel old you insensitive clod.
19.
by halo 4y ago
I’d argue a major role of a manager is to make decisions and take responsibility for them - it’s not employees don’t “want to”, that’s usually not their job. Everyone unilaterally making their own decisions creates an inconsistent mess. To
20.
by halo 4y ago
There was a 3-part BBC TV series by the author called "How It Works" which convered essentially the same material which I far preferred to the book - I don't have a stream link, unfortunately.
21.
by halo 5y ago
I'm convinced the inability to easily play Blu-Rays and similar on computers is a major contributor as to why the format hasn't had the same traction as DVDs and may have accelerated the removal of disc drives from devices. Such a
22.
by halo 5y ago
I agree there’s nothing inherently wrong with non-experts, typically journalists, expressing opinions, perspectives, and anecdotes in long-form, especially on topical subjects. I just wish there was an easy way to find and separate it from
23.
by halo 5y ago
This feels attempted shakedown of the console manufacturers to get them to pay for Unity for their licensees. Looks like Sony and Nintendo have coughed up while Microsoft have not. Not sure I can blame Microsoft for not wanting to pay.
24.
by halo 6y ago
The basic salary for a UK MP is £81,932, with additional pay for additional responsibilities (such as being a minister). The median UK salary is around £30,000.
25.
by halo 6y ago
Couldn’t you say the same for most industries?
26.
by halo 6y ago
What software is generally used for this? Is there anything available for the average person that doesn’t require spending a small fortune?
27.
by halo 8y ago
I tried using Multi-Account Containers because I loved the idea but found the user interface rather clunkier and more manual than I hoped. What I really want is for it to be optimised for the common use case with each domain automatically p
28.
by halo 8y ago
I read this book recently and don't remember Close suggesting that Pontecorvo was misled or blackmailed by the USSR into defecting. Instead, Close's theory is that the USSR legitimately-but-wrongly believed the net was closing in
29.
by halo 8y ago
Many major PC games publishers and developers have chosen either to not to use Steam or have reduced their support including EA, Epic, Microsoft (including Mojang), Riot, Activision Blizzard and Bethesda.
30.
by halo 8y ago
Windows Phone was good. The subsequent attempts to turn desktop Windows into Windows Phone were infuriating and ill-conceived. Almost everything that I liked about Windows Phone did not translate to the desktop.

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