I'd be willing to bet it's more likely entrenched leadership that needs to be replaced. All of the 10x engineers in the world can't fix a bad vision forced on them.
A lot of design in the early era of UIs (until sometime mid-~90s~ Edit:: mid-2000s) was based on a lot of research. From academic research to ergonomics to plain old user research. They wouldn't always get it right, but they were learning.
Modern designers wouldn't understand what a book is if one hit them in the face. And their "research" is all vibes: "Quantified factors" are "32% increase in subculture perception", "a 34% boost in modernity" and "a 30% jump in rebelliousness" https://design.google/library/expressive-material-design-goo...
Bloody hell that google design webpage is terrible to read. And it changed my mouse cursor and made it lag too?
It looks to me that the research they did only showed them mockups, not actually using this new design. And why are all color choices so bad right now? They just scream, it puts you on edge just looking at it.
I'm assuming it's because nobody can just leave something alone. It's always gotta change, it's always gotta be made "better". And it probably generates a lot of marketing, good or bad.
If they leave it alone on what else would they be working on? Not on something in somebody's else department so it's either being layed off or convince the board that each year's iteration on the same things is the next groundbreaking invention.
You're describing the classical dichotomy between progressives and conservatives, a dichotomy which extends far beyond the political sphere to which is usually is applied. Whether it is in the arts, in architecture, in engineering, in design or in software development. UI design in particular seems to attract the type of person who is among the first to pull down Chesterton's fence [1] with no though given about what might be lost by this action.
Now that I'm getting older I like to pull out my "curmudgeon card" and blame it on the younger generation. New graduates entering the work grew up spending more time on mobile phones than laptops/desktops, and I wonder if these changes are to cater to this market that's shifting from mostly-mobile screen time to mostly-desktop. I imagine it's not too long before this segment is the majority.
I feel like we saw similar changes with the previous shift where new graduates knew GSuite and MS Office was some the software their parents would complain about. It's my shibboleth for identify my generation of computer users.
The recent Android 12 changes really messed up the alarms UI in particular.
Used to be when your morning alarm goes off on the bedside table you can just reach over and swipe right... now there are two buttons at the bottom of the screen and you have to look at it and carefully press the correct one.
Also when setting an alarm it used to be set after you selected the day and time. But now they added an extra 'save' button. I am not the only person who thought they set a morning alarm and got a nasty late surprise.
Just changing things for no reason and making them worse.
Android is _mostly_ OK. Their stupidest move (so far) was mandating edge-to-edge apps without a way for users and apps to opt out of them.
Otherwise, the UI stays mostly the same, just becoming a bit more bloated ("finger friendly") with every release.
The most annoying thing for me is the waste of screen space from the bubbles around notifications and menu options. Apparently, having stuff floating now gives a "perception of lightness and motion".
[EDIT] I removed an extremely sarcastic comment. It was quite puerile.
I am a bit skeptical that they are "reaching for the best."
Once you start to hire and promote folks with a certain "corporate culture," they start hiring and promoting folks that fit that culture (and driving out ones that don't). I suspect that the problems actually started years ago, and now, those managers are hiring less-than-stellar SWEs, managers, and designers.
The thing about the really good people at Apple, is that they don't need to be subjected to an ugly corporate culture. They'll take their toys and go home (or to other companies), which is pretty much exactly what the less-than-stellar people want. The dichotomy of hiring high-Quality talent, is that they don't need to work for you, so you have to figure out ways to keep them. Often, money isn't the biggest driver. The good ones don't do it [just] for the money, and they'll always be able to make plenty, so, as their manager, you need to figure out what they really want.
if all you can create are electron apps then you are not a developer.
>cross platform
many programs are cross platform, without the need of Electron.
>open standards
???
>easy compatibility with websites
Electron isn't necessary, e.g. Telegram.
>easiness to keep updated
not Electron exclusive
Electron exists for lazy "programmers" to make their products as fast as possible, without caring for code quality and their customers experience. This is why managers love it, it saves money: you don't need to hire proper software engineers nor allocate an appropriate amount of time to develop and maintain your product.
Electron is part of the enshitification of the web and the IT in general.
>Now Paris “on the whole” agrees with the draft. France welcomes both mandatory chat control and client-side scanning.
A few months ago, a broad security law was passed by the National Assembly in France. Initially, this law contained provisions, including the scanning of private messages, which were removed from the main text by a large majority of lawmakers, as it was deemed too intrusive.
The few officials (including Macron) who now claim that "France is OK with chat control" represent a minority that currently holds power in a country whose government was ousted less than two weeks ago.
There's a bunch of people organizing against those crooks on the OG Stop Killing Games discord. Just type "stopkillinggames" into Discord's invite box.
One interesting note: The group has even identified a suspected Russian spy network tied to the Russian telco MTS. MTS paid a close to $1B fine for unsavoury business in Uzbekistan [1] and is known to operate GFW and similar tech [2] in Russia, Ukraine, Armenia, Turkmenistan and Belarus [3] for example. The company is trying to get at people's biometrics, by posing as a KYC / Online Safety Act compliance company. [4] They probably do provide the services, but one can imagine where the data is also going.
As a parallel thread mentions, anything related to Chat Control and other Internet control things immediately becomes a target for state actors trying to undermine democracy. [5] In my opinion, it is also often initiated and pushed for by them.
> As a parallel thread mentions, anything related to Chat Control and other Internet control things immediately becomes a target for state actors trying to undermine democracy. [5] In my opinion, it is also often initiated and pushed for by them.
War is peace, isn't it ? /s
I am not against chat control if they start making public the chats of politicians. I know, it's not gonna happen. National security.
Interesting that this national law was pushed by people in an alliance around Macron: the same team which might sign the opposite for the EU. Just a drop in an ocean of nonsense, from where such a dangerous bill might emerge.
Trying to enact such complete and utter surveillance, as the whole country slowly slides into right-wing populism is an idea that is so utterly ridiculous I struggle to find the right words.
It is beyond stupid, beyond malicious. The closest I might come to describing this would be 'suicidal'.
What always interests me in these type of cases is how do hackers get identified? Aren't they savvy enough to use some sort of proxies to cover their tracks?
Hack a wifi, connect longer-range radio IoT module, link it to your base, attach it to a firework rocket, hide it inabush near the target wifi, hack, ???, ignite.
Wrong. The vast majority of Apple fans don't care about Android. I never see "Apple fans" going in threads about random Android stuff and talking about it. On the opposite, I see a lot of Android users complain and talk in every single videos regarding anything Apple on YouTube.
I will preface this with: Apple is _far_ from perfect, sometimes they even fail the “good” bar and I have serious issues with the direction they are going on some products/software. However, I see them as the lessor of two evils. I understand you might not agree, that’s just the conclusion I’ve come to.
> Wrong. The vast majority of Apple fans don't care about Android.
This is my experience as well. I prefer Apple products but I have Android phones/tablets (test devices) and know there are aspects where Android is better.
That said, I have some friends who make it their life mission to mention any Apple/iPhone failing to me. I just don’t get it. I literally never bring it up, or if I bring up anything Apple related it’s just me excited about a new device I got, never in the context of “look how much better it is than Android”. Even then, I’ve learned to temper my excitement lest they see it as an opportunity to tell me all the problems/issues they have with it. I don’t follow Android news closely, I don’t share “gotcha’s” about the hardware/os, etc.
It reminds me this scene in Mad Men [0], I literally do not think about Android or Android users but I know a couple Android users who seem to obsess over Apple products/users in a way I cannot relate to and do not understand. I can bet any negative Apple news will be relayed to me by them, I literally could not care less about the Android ecosystem issues (of which I see many).
My experience is very similar to yours. I am the biggest Apple critic I personally know (don’t get me started on Tim Cook) though I don’t even share a tenth of it because I don’t want to bother my non-technical friends. But I do use a Mac and an iPhone because I prefer them to the alternatives. If I had my way, several things about those products and the company would be different, but at a certain point I had to make a choice and get on with my life.
Still, I have found several people who are outright Apple haters and can’t fathom that anyone who uses their products is anything but a brainwashed puppet. These people talk about Apple more than their most ardent fans. It’s an irrational amount of hate I only ever see from meat eaters who hate vegetarians.
A while back I had a friend who (by choice) uses both a Mac and Android describe to me what they disliked about the iPhone when they used one for a few minutes, in a tone that sounded like personal criticism and disappointment. What do I care? It has nothing to do with me, the products I use aren’t a part of my identity.
Another friend, one who uses Windows and Android, used to grill me about Apple on every chance. I mostly ignored it, but eventually just explained: “Look, it’s not that I think Apple is flawless. On the contrary, I think they have plenty of flaws. But I have tried many operating systems (he, on the other hand, always lived on Windows and Android) and Apple’s are the ones which fit what I need to do the least badly”. To his credit, he understood and never again touched the subject.
My philosophy regarding operating systems, text editors, and other subjective sources of flame wars is pretty simple: Use whatever makes you happy and works for you. I don’t care what that is, as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else. If you ask me a question or an opinion, I’ll try to answer it as truthfully and with as much relevancy as possible for you. I’ll tell you if there’s something I think you may benefit from knowing, but you control the conversation. But if you just want to ignorantly gush about my very informed picks, I’m not interested. Live and let live.
This always gets me. I, as an Apple user, have more vitriolic and in-depth criticisms against Apple than any Android user I know. When Apple haters start their rants, it’s always one of a few superficial talking points that are nowhere near the actual biggest issues of the company or its devices.
As someone who uses both sides (android phone, mac book and a few other apple products), I'll shit on everything that needs to be shat on.
Samsung's new notification bubble that is laggy, gets in the way and is hard to dismiss without launching the app it was for? Moronic.
Apple's "superior UX" of app installs via app store, oh wait but to uninstall it, you have to go to finder and delete it aka breaking the UX flow (should be same place). Idiotic.
Apple do make some of the best laptops tho, the m series is great, best touchpad imo.
For all these things it just sucks that all the companies suck. Focus is on shareholders and growth across every domain now. There's a reason companies can chuck billions at the AI bubble for fun - which is hilarious and all those billions and they still haven't solved problems with models that have been solved locally, got the vibe coders on it I guess.
It extends beyond videos. I have a friend that works at Apple. In social gatherings, he'll be vague about where he works, to avoid having to hear people defending their Android phones and shitting on Apple. I thought he was exaggerating, but then he showed me. It's super weird.
If ESA is "lacking innovation" I wonder what your favorite space agency innovated compared to them in the past decade.
But yes, let's keep polluting more and more the low-Earth orbit to make sure we cannot send any more satellites ever again! You are lacking intelligence.
The vast majority of the debris is from China and Russia irresponsibly disposing of waste and testing weapons but I see no mention of them in the article. The only cause is a thinly veiled reference to SpaceX. Controlled satellites in LEO, whether you like it or not, are not orbital debris. It's a classic hit piece.
The French do the same against illegal gold miners in French Guiana Amazon. They have approximately 1,000 soldiers compared to up to 9,000 illegal prospectors. I can't imagine how a single unit will be capable to curb anything when you look at the size of Brazil's Amazon.
Wireless sensors, synthetic aperatire radar, aerial surveillance all are things that exist. These things have existed since Vietnam and are significantly better now than they were then. The record for Lorawan sensor mad range was ~1,300 km / 830ish miles. You could partition the rainforest into grids and use these sorts of sensors if you wanted to be excessively thorough. Not easy or cheap, but very doable with today’s technology and a bit of customization.
Note: my grandfather invented some of the rf sensor technology designed to be airdropped by the US military over the forests of Vietnam for this exact thing. It worked well for what it was designed for.
The larger prospectors will be tied to hard to move assets (cyanide leach pools, crushers, screens) in semi cleared areas near rivers. The unit will have helicopeters and possible access to sat imagery.
The plan would be to gather intel, map, and move through, one group at a time with enough soldiers (50 to 100) to deal with smaller unmiliterised enclaves.
Probably true - but having a great many soldiers in an area where there are an extremely isolated people such as the "uncontacted" Yanomami also poses its own risks. If they're focusing on the most sensitive areas with highly trained personnel and making use of the impressive knowledge and expertise in Brazil's Indian affairs department, FUNAI, much could be achieved. The situation in French Guiana is quite different, with perhaps only small numbers of Wayãpi living in isolation.
Brazil is rolling back the free-for-all that was established under Bolsonaro, but if they're handling it delicately, that's likely good news.
They should have a lot more troops involved, for sure, but GEF can be very efficient by leveraging surveillance tech.
Brazil deployed SIVAM [1] about 20 years ago. At the time it was a state-of-the-art radar surveillance system. Not sure how they kept up with tech advances, but it still gives a significant edge to the GEF unit.
Spotify, King, DICE and Mojang are some commercial software successes. All from Sweden.
If you don't think the entertainment industry counts for much, I might remind you Linux was originally made in Finland. (Linus Torvalds is half Swede half Finn iirc)
Spotify was made up of 75% US employees since the moment it validated its value.
DICE is a failed studio. Battlefield 2042 was one of the worst AAA video game launches of all time (with Cyberpunk 2077 by Polish studio CD Projekt Red being another) after a rocky Battlefield V launch and there is no reason to believe they will come back from it.
King makes low quality micro-transaction-riddled games for addicts.
Facebook is just scams and intervenes with elections. Google is just privacy hell that sells your data for ads. Amazon is in the business of abusing its workers. Point being, it was asked for success. Not if people like the company or not.
What a cynical interpretation. These companies have QoL for billions, directly and indirectly. You are just normalized to it now.
For some reason I don't see you blaming Cambridge Analytica - the actual company running the interference by exploiting APIs - for the interference itself.
Did the point go above your head? Because my point was that the EU companies mentioned also have earned money and been used by billions of people, no matter if the other commenter likes them or not.
To earthwalker99: You got downvoted to death because you called out downvotes against you, but to explain more issues with your argument: Capitalism is a system of organizing society based on private ownership of the means of economic production. You're saying capitalism is about prioritizing the rights to capital accumulation by the current holders of capital, which is one specific form of capitalism, often called crony capitalism.
Private ownership of the means of production is more orthogonal to workers rights. There are capitalist economics in countries with very strong workers rights and unions, but where the means of production are still privately owned. Capitalism is fully compatible with strong family and medical leave protections, even though those who own the means of production are disincentived in the short term from giving workers rights. The fact that the US is worse on workers rights isn't a problem unique to capitalism.
So called "right to work" laws that actually give employers the right to fire for no cause. As long as an employer doesn't say what the cause was, employers in those states can fire you for "no cause" even if the hidden reason would be an illegal cause if they stated it. It's only illegal if someone gets caught specifically saying the firing was because the employee is having a kid. Coincidences are not considered admissable evidence in those courts.
I think you’re conflating “at will employment” with “right to work”.
The first allows no-reason, no-notice termination of employment by both parties (which doesn’t really work - the employee usually needs income more than the employer needs a single employer).
> Those downvoting me for sharing the literal definition of capitalism should at least have the self-respect to defend themselves.
I downvoted because it is off-topic and very obvious flamebait, as simple as that.
No one downvoted you just for sharing the dictionary definition of capitalism, you woulda gotten plenty of upvotes for that exact same comment in a thread where it was actually relevant.
If "capitalism" is the reason that it's ok to fire someone because they're about to have a child, then capitalism is garbage and should be discarded.
Systems that prioritize money over humans are disgusting, and, sadly, we have far too many of them in modern society.
Note that we implicitly recognize this through law: there is no such thing as a "free market". Markets are regulated, and we have things like FMLA because we understand that capitalism is heartless, and if we allowed it free rein, we'd live in a dystopian society that no one except the wealthy elite would actually want.
Unfortunately, even with all that, we still don't control enough of capitalism's negative effects on people.
That's why I downvoted you. Also, don't complain about downvotes. That's against the HN guidelines, and will usually get you downvoted further; complaining about downvotes rarely leads to interesting discussion. If you're unsure why you're being downvoted, maybe that's your problem, not ours. No one lacks self-respect because they see an obviously-crappy comment, downvotes it, and moves on without "defending" their vote. The entire concept you are trying to push with that is nonsensical.
