Macha's recent activity
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Comment on Switzerland's Nemo wins Eurovision as UK comes 18th in ~music
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Comment on Switzerland's Nemo wins Eurovision as UK comes 18th in ~music
Macha Link ParentAlso the anti-israel vote was divided. Croatia (for the flag similarity to the Dutch team's flag after their competitor was banned), Ireland (for real world political stances), France (for pointed...Also the anti-israel vote was divided. Croatia (for the flag similarity to the Dutch team's flag after their competitor was banned), Ireland (for real world political stances), France (for pointed comments about peace in rehearsals and at the end of the performance)
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Comment on Seattle’s law mandating higher pay for food delivery workers is a case study in backfire economics in ~finance
Macha (edited )Link ParentTwo possible explanations: When there were fewer players in the delivery space, then more delivery orders went to fewer players. If you're the only pizza place doing delivery in your vicinity in a...Two possible explanations:
When there were fewer players in the delivery space, then more delivery orders went to fewer players. If you're the only pizza place doing delivery in your vicinity in a dense city, then you can probably batch deliveries and send your driver out with 2/3/4 deliveries and deliver while still warm. When app based delivery puts way more restaurants in range, then suddenly the order base is way more spread out so even if you get the same number of orders, they're no longer geographically clustered and so you're sending 1 driver, further, with one pizza.
There's also the tradeoff with customer acquisition costs. If the product costs $8 to make and $4 to deliver, and you sell it for $15 with no delivery charge, then each onsite order earns $7 and each delivery earns $3. But if offering delivery earns you extra customers at 3x the rate that customers switch from collection to delivery, that may still increase your net profit even if eats your margin. This is fine within one business, that $4 is effectively like a marketing cost. But once delivery is externalised, well Uber Eats isn't going to deliver to your customer for minus 4 dollars. So they're either going to pressure you to sell them the pizza at a discount or pass that fee to the customer, along with their own markup. And in a world where everyone in a 15 mile radius is doing delivery, the competition is much higher so it's harder to get that customer quantity boost just by doing delivery.
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Comment on California says restaurants must bake all of their add-on fees into menu prices in ~finance
Macha Link ParentThe first is sometimes not entirely accurate. e.g, it would indicate buying soda in quantities other than 2l is foolish. But as a single person, a 2l soda would be flat before I get to the end of...The first is sometimes not entirely accurate. e.g, it would indicate buying soda in quantities other than 2l is foolish. But as a single person, a 2l soda would be flat before I get to the end of it. Similarly 12-packs of eggs, 1kg packs of meat, etc.
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Comment on Is Nebula worth it? in ~tech
Macha (edited )LinkSo I subscribe but I don't actually use it that often. I have YouTube premium so I don't get Google ads on YouTube, and not every channel I watch is on Nebula so even for those that are on Nebula...So I subscribe but I don't actually use it that often. I have YouTube premium so I don't get Google ads on YouTube, and not every channel I watch is on Nebula so even for those that are on Nebula I usually find out about their new videos from the YouTube feed. Sometimes if it's a long video or the creator specifically calls out bonus nebula content I'll switch over to the Nebula version, but mostly I see it as a sort of meta-patreon for a bunch of creators where I want to support them, but not enough to sign up for 50 coffees a month of individual patreon subscriptions.
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Comment on Reddit shares soar 14% after company reports revenue pop in debut earnings report in ~tech
Macha Link ParentTo the point that /r/programming was made private by one of the non-admin mods, with the top mod being one of the admins since that early day, and it took them months to notice that an admin-owned...Apparently when Reddit first launched, /r/programming was a default sub, and one of the most popular subs. Nowadays it's relatively niche (which is why it's no longer a default).
To the point that /r/programming was made private by one of the non-admin mods, with the top mod being one of the admins since that early day, and it took them months to notice that an admin-owned sub was on the blackout list, even after most other subreddits had relented.
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Comment on Fear the Mad Catz - The worst video game controllers ever in ~games
Macha Link ParentI seem to recall X to drive being kind of common in PS1/PS2 games before we transitioned to the modern standard of triggers for this. For that matter, X to shoot also happened occasionally if I...I seem to recall X to drive being kind of common in PS1/PS2 games before we transitioned to the modern standard of triggers for this. For that matter, X to shoot also happened occasionally if I remember right.
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Comment on Ireland can’t blame its anti-immigrant problem on Rishi Sunak – The sudden arrival of European-style populism in Irish politics is the result of thirteen years of government complacency in ~misc
Macha (edited )LinkI think the upcoming elections will be the show here, but I don't think this movement has the popular support here proportional to the press coverage it's getting (especially abroad). Opinion...I think the upcoming elections will be the show here, but I don't think this movement has the popular support here proportional to the press coverage it's getting (especially abroad).
Opinion polls put Aontù, the largest party that actually has an anti-immigration policy, at about 5%, which seems more representative.
I think there are real failings in the housing sector — People have seen immigrants housed and feel resentful that many in their 30s are forced by economic circumstances to live with their parents. That has certainly led some vocal groups to attempt to pin the blame on immigration rather than the collapse of our construction sector in 2008, and our planning system which means that developments can be held up by NIMBYs or rival developers for 5+ years.
I don't think blaming immigration for the housing crisis is quite a fair reading of the situation. Some of the anti-immigrant voices are feeding on that to try and give people someone to blame, but housing has been screwed since 2014/2015 which is also close to our local minimum for immigration. And most of the housing that immigrants are being put in is stuff that native Irish people would rather live in their parents than deal with. Think 8 people in a 3 bedroom apartment, or hotels, or disused office buildings etc.
I think tying the immigration increase here to the UK's small boats nonsense is also foolish. The reality is most of the numbers are Ukrainians and I do think this is a case of our government actually looking at the fact that our official neutrality policy prevents us contributing militarily to the situation in Ukraine and so saw taking in a much larger amount of Ukrainian refugees proportionally than the rest of western Europe as a way for Ireland to contribute. And I mean there's definitely been some hate directed at Ukrainians (and before them it was Brazilians and before that it was Polish), but this hate really blew up since the Dublin riots where people started tying it to Muslim immigrants which are really a small proportion of the increase.
That makes me a bit embarrassed to be Irish, to be honest. In general, I think our immigration policy of 2012-2022 was pretty reasonable given the challenges we had, and I think while the government clearly did not think through the practicalities of how many Ukrainian refugees they took in, we are in a time where there's a land war in Europe and considering how much that e.g. the UK, Germany and France are contributing, the least we can do is take in some refugees. I'd hate for us to shift to being more nasty on the matter, just because our government uncharacteristically tried to do the right thing.
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Comment on Weekly Israel-Hamas war megathread - week of April 29 in ~news
Macha LinkIsrael shuts down local Al Jazeera offices, in dark day for media (The Guardian) ... ... ...Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices, in dark day for media (The Guardian)
Israeli authorities shut down the local offices of Al Jazeera on Sunday, hours after a government vote to use new laws to close the satellite news network’s operations in the country.
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Israeli officials said the move was justified because Al Jazeera was a threat to national security. “The incitement channel Al Jazeera will be closed in Israel,” the country’s prime minister posted on social media after the unanimous cabinet vote.
A government statement said Israel’s communications minister had signed orders to act immediately to close al Jazeera’s offices in Israel, confiscate broadcast equipment, cut the channel off from cable and satellite companies and block its websites.
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Al Jazeera said the accusation that it threatened Israeli security was a “dangerous and ridiculous lie” that put its journalists at risk.
“Al Jazeera Media Network strongly condemns and denounces this criminal act that violates human rights and the basic right to access of information,” the company said in a statement. “Al Jazeera affirms its right to continue to provide news and information to its global audiences.”
A pre-recorded “final report” listing the restrictions placed on the network by a reporter in Jerusalem was broadcast on the network after the ban came into effect.
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The Foreign Press Association, a NGO representing journalists working for international news organisations reporting from Israel, the West Bank and Gaza accused Israel of joining a “dubious club of authoritarian governments”.
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Comment on Take-Two publishes WARN notice about seventy layoffs and studio closure in Seattle, possibly affecting Kerbal Space Program 2 developers Intercept Games in ~games
Macha Link ParentIn this case, the pre-takeover studio was also not, by all accounts, a great place to work, which resulted in turning over the entire dev team.In this case, the pre-takeover studio was also not, by all accounts, a great place to work, which resulted in turning over the entire dev team.
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Comment on I made a mistake, I started using Reddit again in ~talk
Macha Link ParentI think people have a very poor idea of what Reddit-the-company can do in terms of bans, and what Reddit moderators can do. Subreddit moderators have no idea if you're using a VPN, do not have...I think people have a very poor idea of what Reddit-the-company can do in terms of bans, and what Reddit moderators can do. Subreddit moderators have no idea if you're using a VPN, do not have access to shadowbans, or invisibly removing comments.
In this case, it appears the moderators just enabled the Reddit ban evasion detector and assumed its accuracy is 100%.
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Comment on All the good email clients go to hell in ~tech
Macha Link ParentGeary's current design predates Apple Mail's current Big Sur era design, for what it's worth. I remember looking at that redesign of Apple Mail and thinking "wow, that looks like Gnome mail"...Geary's current design predates Apple Mail's current Big Sur era design, for what it's worth. I remember looking at that redesign of Apple Mail and thinking "wow, that looks like Gnome mail" (which is what Geary is labelled in your typical Gnome install)
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Comment on Looking for advice on replacing my motherboard in ~tech
Macha Link ParentIt's got no onboard RAM which is going to hurt performance, I personally would avoid.It's got no onboard RAM which is going to hurt performance, I personally would avoid.
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Comment on Texas is replacing thousands of human exam graders with AI in ~tech
Macha Link ParentSeeing how some education software has botched the rollout of e.g. anti-plagiarism software before, and blamed the students for the computer coming up with the wrong answer (or even some...Assuming the limitations of the AI are understood and systems are put in place to ensure that the scores are accurate, I don't have a problem with using this to improve efficiency.
Seeing how some education software has botched the rollout of e.g. anti-plagiarism software before, and blamed the students for the computer coming up with the wrong answer (or even some enterprising individual educators with LLMs specifically last year, remember the "ChatGPT says your essay is written by ChatGPT" stories/drama last year), I'm not sure we can assume that.
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Backdoor in upstream libxz targeting sshd
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Comment on "PS5 has no games" in ~games
Macha Link ParentI think the problem as well is it's not just the PS4, but the Series S that is going to continue to constrain game design. The Baldur's Gate 3 local co-op showdown was one case where a developer...I think the problem as well is it's not just the PS4, but the Series S that is going to continue to constrain game design. The Baldur's Gate 3 local co-op showdown was one case where a developer squared off with "look, we just can't have feature parity on the series S to the series X/PS5/PC", but most developers aren't going to risk their xbox revenue. A lot of devs would just constrain local co-op to keep players on the same screen, or drop the feature for consoles altogether.
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Comment on Redis adopts dual source-available licensing in ~tech
Macha Link ParentIt's the companies switching to shared source licenses that started to paint it in terms of obligations. Like a lot of their messaging is "people don't support open source like they should so...It's the companies switching to shared source licenses that started to paint it in terms of obligations. Like a lot of their messaging is "people don't support open source like they should so we're forced into switching to this kind of license".
That's why the distance between how they treat the products they build on and how they expect people building on them to treat them bothers me.
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Comment on Redis adopts dual source-available licensing in ~tech
Macha Link ParentThe thing that burns me about this move, is that these software companies are building on the real open source ecosystem and not contributing to that as they feel people should contribute to them....The thing that burns me about this move, is that these software companies are building on the real open source ecosystem and not contributing to that as they feel people should contribute to them.
To put it another way: Where's redis' funding of Lua and GCC? If they took the approach redis did, would redis have been built? Or the Linux kernel that their hosted service runs on?
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Comment on Reddit pops as much as 70% in NYSE debut after selling shares at top of range in ~tech
Macha Link ParentMeanwhile their CEO said during the API kerfuffle that they were unprofitable. Which is it?82% margin
Meanwhile their CEO said during the API kerfuffle that they were unprofitable. Which is it?
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Comment on Does anyone else have posting anxiety? in ~tech
Macha Link ParentOn some sites, especially HN, I've found this to be less and less true as time goes on. A lot of the cause of rewriting/deleting drafts is the burden of making pedant proof posts on sites like...Everyone who responds usually means well.
On some sites, especially HN, I've found this to be less and less true as time goes on. A lot of the cause of rewriting/deleting drafts is the burden of making pedant proof posts on sites like that.
The other part is when topics approach on the political and then you get people from either extreme trying to have a go at you because you're seen as both too much in favour of a point and insufficiently in favour of a point at the same time.
My "favourite" example of this was discussing IMAP. I remember thinking while writing a post, that I can't just say email providers should support IMAP because IMAP in the spec doesn't support TLS and I knew in context I'd get yelled at for that. So I put IMAPS in my post, but as predicted, someone yelled at me there because there's no spec for IMAP over TLS officially so officially IMAPS isn't a thing despite approximately every email provider supporting it. I suppose they wanted me to include that whole aside in my post about data portability as much as explaining all that would derail from the point I was trying to make.
I remember this clearly because it was a point where I realised just how unpleasant the site culture had become even outside the politics-adjacent topics. But Reddit and twitter had gone through similar transformations. I think it's a point scoring mentality egged on by things like the upvote or retweet counts.
I'm not saying it's the only or even the primary reason people voted for them but "settle for croatia" was a big thing on social media after Joost's ban.
The point is not that Croatia was impacted heavily by anti-Israeli voters. The point was that if your vote is entirely politically motivated pro-Israel, there's a very obvious course of action to vote for Israel. If your vote is entirely politically motivated anti-Israel, there are at least 3 options that were widely discussed on social media.