I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself

Re:I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself by hansvm on Friday August 01, 2025 @07:38PM (#44763599)

Interesting. I still have a bricked phone from my onboarding at Google, and no internal people cared either. There's a tool I could have used to fix it, but it's accompanied by a message saying that if you use it without permission you'll be fired.

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Re:I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself by xmprt on Friday August 01, 2025 @08:22PM (#44763864)

> accompanied by a message saying that if you use it without permission you'll be fired

Probably why none of the internal people cared either. They didn't want to be the person on the line in case it was determined that the usage wasn't valid.

I'm curious how you bricked it beyond repair though. Most devices have a way to enter a recovery/flash mode where you can upload your own firmware from the bootloader. And if you haven't unlocked the bootloader then I don't get how you could have bricked it unless there's an Android bug... which would have probably triggered a more serious look.

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Re:I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself by odo1242 on Friday August 01, 2025 @09:52PM (#44764298)

Most likely, the tool to upload the firmware from the bootloader required some sort of hardware signing key, which was present within the tool that he wasn’t supposed to use without permission.

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Re:I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself by bongodongobob on Friday August 01, 2025 @11:32PM (#44764699)

A company the size of Google will for sure have it enrolled in MDM that prevents that.

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Re:I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself by withinboredom on Saturday August 02, 2025 @07:31AM (#44766743)

It used to be, if you left a provider without paying for the device on time, they would remote-brick it, which would burn a fuse so it wouldn’t work anymore. I used this to get out of paying for the device once (Verizon), since I couldn’t use it anymore, why would I pay for it?

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Re:I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself by hamandcheese on Saturday August 02, 2025 @12:55AM (#44764988)

> There's a tool I could have used to fix it, but it's accompanied by a message saying that if you use it without permission you'll be fired.

Sometimes I name certain APIs/function names/whatever with a "do_not_use_or_you_will_be_fired" suffix. Generally for hacks I don't want people to copy-pasta. I can't actually fire anyone, but it gets peoples attention (especially more junior folks).

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Re:I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself by cyberax on Saturday August 02, 2025 @01:56AM (#44765176)

React has a bunch of those: https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/ddf8bc3fbac7aefbf557e...

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Re:I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself by cyphar on Saturday August 02, 2025 @03:44AM (#44765582)

Of course, it doesn't stop people from asking if they can use it: https://github.com/reactjs/react.dev/issues/3896

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Re:I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself by userbinator on Saturday August 02, 2025 @01:24AM (#44765076)

FRP? Plenty of ways to bypass that, even without any official tools.

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Re:I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself by rmonvfer on Friday August 01, 2025 @05:38PM (#44762781)

This is the level of epic I aspire to in life

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Re:I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself by makeitdouble on Friday August 01, 2025 @06:13PM (#44763043)

Except they're working at Amazon now.

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Re:I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself by danillonunes on Friday August 01, 2025 @06:37PM (#44763212)

Next level epic is hand your resignation letter right after you get unbanned. "My job here is done."

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Re:I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself by daymanstep on Friday August 01, 2025 @07:38PM (#44763600)

And then banned again the next day.

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Re:I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself by naniwaduni on Friday August 01, 2025 @08:05PM (#44763774)

tbh you could probably easily have enough gripes with Epic to do this too... but then you'd have to move to Wisconsin.

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Re:I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself by kQq9oHeAz6wLLS on Friday August 01, 2025 @08:42PM (#44763974)

At least their headquarters are cool

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Re:I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself by ants_everywhere on Friday August 01, 2025 @07:13PM (#44763465)

Yes, but now they have free bananas

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Re:I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself by jcgrillo on Friday August 01, 2025 @06:21PM (#44763096)

seems like they could turn this into a lucrative side hustle "super premium secret support" embrace the technofascist feudalism!

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Re:I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself by userbinator on Saturday August 02, 2025 @01:26AM (#44765082)

That's actually how a lot of laptop and phone schematics and related repair information gets leaked.

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Re:I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself by emmelaich on Friday August 01, 2025 @11:25PM (#44764676)

I'd love for this to happen for me. I lost my Amazon account because they miswrote my phone number - having a single leading digit invalid for international use. So couldn't use text MFA and my phone with the OTP app had died the previous day.

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Re:I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself by carlmr on Saturday August 02, 2025 @04:56AM (#44765872)

My biggest Amazon annoyance. I'm often looking for some product, reading Reddit and other reviews. They usually link to amazon.com.

Then it asks me to switch my profile to American/$. But then in order to order I need to switch back to Germany/€.

It's just super cumbersome. Just let me view stuff from any region without switching profiles. If I order from that region you can tell me to switch profiles. But not just for viewing it.

In the same vein. Why is there no, I want this thing, but from a German seller.

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Re:I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself by Nition on Saturday August 02, 2025 @05:40AM (#44766084)

Reminds me of when someone links to a product on some (non-Amazon) website, I go there, it says "this is the US site, you should go to the [your country] site!", I click OK, and it takes me to the homepage.

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Re:I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself by qwertox on Saturday August 02, 2025 @07:57AM (#44766897)

With Amazon it's even worse, if you click on an US Amazon product link on an Android device:

My app is set to use Amazon in Germany. I click a link on a page and this opens the app. The app says it needs to switch to US. If I do that, I'm signed out of my German account and end up in an empty US account. I also think that I didn't even land on the product page afterwards. So I had to sign out of that US account and re-sign in into the German account to use the app normally.

So I basically just can't see the link unless I long-press and select open in new tab.

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Re:I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself by opan on Saturday August 02, 2025 @07:17AM (#44766649)

I get this from the Nothing (phone) emails, the direct links in them go to the UK site, but if I let it redirect me to the US site, it's just the homepage. Extremely annoying.

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Re:I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself by throwaway6612 on Saturday August 02, 2025 @09:12AM (#44767335)

This is also infuriating for all those sites that take to their homepage when you log in instead of taking you back to the page you were viewing.

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Re:I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself by chupchap on Saturday August 02, 2025 @06:17AM (#44766321)

It doesn't work that way. A link is to an ASIN (unique product in Amazon). The same product might have a different ASIN in a different region. The product description, title etc might vary.

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Re:I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself by cobbzilla on Saturday August 02, 2025 @07:42AM (#44766813)

Clearly there exists some higher-level product concept with a mapping of country->ASIN for that product. How hard is it to lookup the correct ASIN?

Maybe you end up on the home page when there is no ASIN for your country? There should be a nicer message telling you that’s what happened. But if it always dumps to the home page, that’s just dumb — Amazon could easily do the lookup.

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Re:I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself by LeifCarrotson on Saturday August 02, 2025 @08:19AM (#44766994)

There's no such mapping, you could do a text search and if the item name matches then maybe US ASIN 2785334 should correspond to UK ASIN 3894948, or maybe some third party just named something ambiguously. They're essentially GUIDs and essentially separate businesses.

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Re:I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself by nilamo on Saturday August 02, 2025 @09:39AM (#44767518)

We all recognize this as an anti-pattern that has directly led to a poor customer experience, right?

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Re:I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself by zoover2020 on Saturday August 02, 2025 @12:50PM (#44769130)

Sorry this is just not true. ASINs can be the same cross marketplace. There are lower level identifiers available if needed

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Re:I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself by LeifCarrotson on Sunday August 03, 2025 @11:46AM (#44777362)

To be precise, sometimes there are matching ASINs and other identifiers cross-marketplace, but often they are unique.

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Re:I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself by johnbatch on Saturday August 02, 2025 @09:53AM (#44767648)

https://www.amazon.de/dp/1408855658 And https://www.amazon.com/dp/1408855658 Are both the same item. Same with https://www.amazon.de/dp/B086WQWSNT/ And https://www.amazon.com/dp/B086WQWSNT/

Seems like changes .com to .de works with every item i can find. Some just won’t be deliverable in a different geo.

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Re:I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself by snickerdoodle12 on Saturday August 02, 2025 @12:32PM (#44768957)

> The same product might have a different ASIN in a different region

But why?

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Re:I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself by 0xTJ on Saturday August 02, 2025 @06:14AM (#44766295)

It doesn't work in all cases, but I can often replace the .com with .ca. It doesn't guarantee availability, but can at least check if the same listing is available on the Canadian store.

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Re:I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself by carlmr on Monday August 04, 2025 @01:12PM (#44788687)

If it works in some cases it's a simple lookup if the same item exists then show that. And if not you can show similar products in your region.

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Re:I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself by MagerValp on Saturday August 02, 2025 @08:32AM (#44767074)

> In the same vein. Why is there no, I want this thing, but from a German seller.

eBay used to let you filter results by region, but apparently that ruined some kind of metric and the option is gone. When buying games or books or what have you I only want sellers in the EU. I don’t care that it’s available in the US or UK, shipping and duties are going to be 4x what the product is worth.

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Re:I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself by jodrellblank on Saturday August 02, 2025 @10:27AM (#44767893)

This https://i.imgur.com/fTRrVnP.png is not gone, look it's right there.

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Re:I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself by Symbiote on Saturday August 02, 2025 @02:42PM (#44770189)

It was gone for years, it's useful that they've recently restored the option.

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Re:I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself by MagerValp on Saturday August 02, 2025 @05:27PM (#44771684)

It’s gone for me, and there are a lot of frustrated support threads from other Europeans so I’m not alone.

I managed to find the option on the advanced search on ebay.ie, but I still get page after page of American items as the result…

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Re:I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself by jp1016 on Saturday August 02, 2025 @11:19AM (#44768332)

its a pain, and the option to switch it back is hidden inside the accounts section, which is hard to find and even take 3-4 clicks.

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Re:I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself by stevage on Saturday August 02, 2025 @08:24AM (#44767031)

Yep. I had no luck getting my Facebook account unblocked until 9 months later when by chance I did some work for them. Instantly unblocked.

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