News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

ExpendableGuy

Thank you. I will fight this new trend of 100% Slack/Teams/Etc. as long as I possibly can.

Email provides a barrier between you and the work -- email isn't a real time form of communication. Chats, meanwhile, imply immediate response. Hell, these apps even show when you're active -- I've gotten passive-aggressive messages like, "I know that you have DND on, but can you confirm you're seeing these messages?" chats outside of working hours.

I get why Slack/Teams/Etc. is a great supplement to email, especially when it's a smaller internal team collaborating. But ditching email is a terrible idea.

Re:Netflix Removes “Basic” Ad-Free Plan in U.S. and U.K on Wednesday July 19, 2023 @12:11PM (#36788745)
Blu Ray is really going through a renaissance. After extra features were stripped from releases in 2010s, boutique Blu Ray labels have made buying movies on physical media fun again.
Re:Netflix Removes “Basic” Ad-Free Plan in U.S. and U.K on Wednesday July 19, 2023 @12:05PM (#36788660)
I'm sure the HN audience already knows this, but Tubi is basically an ad-supported version of what Netflix was back in the late 2000s / early 2010s: a handful of marquee movies and TV shows with a ton of filler and diamonds in the rough. I'm finding myself watching Tubi more than Netflix these days.
Re:Netflix Removes “Basic” Ad-Free Plan in U.S. and U.K on Wednesday July 19, 2023 @12:01PM (#36788582)
The golden age of streaming is long over. Pricing is going up, options are going down, and we're arguably in a worse place now than we were when cable was all but required.
Re:The Shut-In Economy (2015) on Tuesday March 07, 2017 @11:42AM (#13811811)
Worth noting -- two of the startups mentioned in this article, Homejoy and Washio, are closed.

Also, services that delivery groceries, cooked meals, or laundry/drycleaning are not new -- they were just given a facelift for a different consumer base. An article like this failing to mention that is a pretty big oversight imho -- it even trends into "back in my day..." territory.

If anything, this new economy is correcting for the car-dependent "convenience economy" that was implemented over the past 30 years or so. The milkman was replaced by milk in every corner store. Diners and luncheonettes were replaced by take out and carry away. Catalogs were replaced by "big box" stores.

It reminds me of the comparison of "head stuck in a newspaper" to "head stuck to a smartphone." Some people try and argue the latter is more egregious, but why?

Re:Comcast will treat Rokus like CableCARDs, not set-top boxes on Thursday February 02, 2017 @04:36PM (#13554908)
So Comcast is proposing charging customers $9.95, minus a $2.50 credit, for using a Roku instead of a second set-top box?

What is incentive to the consumer for using a Roku instead of a second set-top box then?

Re:NRA complaint takes down Surge's 38,000 websites on Thursday June 30, 2016 @06:12PM (#12012241)
This issue is murky for two reasons:

1. The Yes Men is assumedly not paying to promote this video (so it's not "an ad"), 2. The message is not electioneering.

We're used to seeing, "paid for by" and "I approved this..." messaging in electioneering ads that are regulated by the FEC. The NRA, a 501(c)(4), has to play by different rules to keep its status.

IANAL, but I'd assume that the NRA would need to argue that the video puts their 501(c)(4) status at risk to warrant legal action outside of just playing the copyright/damages card.

Re:Can Netflix Survive in the New World It Created? on Wednesday June 15, 2016 @04:31PM (#11911951)
Aren't DVDs still a major profit-winner for Netflix? Last I checked 5 million people were still subscribed to receive DVDs, and their subscriptions were more profitable than streaming-only ones. DVD subscriptions, however, are declining.

Something people forget about the Qwikster debacle: video game rentals were teased. The fact that Netflix never explored this again really bugged me. Imagine if Netflix bundled video games into their DVD rental plans -- I think they'd be able to start boosting DVD rental numbers again, and thus boost profits.

Re:eBay customers’ personal data was compromised in March on Wednesday May 21, 2014 @01:28PM (#7779489)
So I logged into eBay for the first time in over a year to change my password, and noticed that eBay edited my reply to a buyer's feedback.

Has anyone else heard about eBay doing this? I have no way to edit it back to the way it was from what I can tell. It's infuriating -- they changed the word "Buyer" to "Seller" to make it sound like my reply to feedback was referring to myself.

Re:Cover is joining Twitter on Monday April 07, 2014 @12:48PM (#7547641)
Bummer. I really liked Cover.

Based on "Cover will remain available in the Play Store while we focus our attention on our work at Twitter," it's unlikely that it will receive updates, and may get pulled altogether soon.

Re:More News Is Being Written By Robots on Friday March 28, 2014 @12:22PM (#7488186)
Reminds me of this: http://youtu.be/IC3W1BiUjp0.
Beggar Prince was one of my favorite games of the 2000s. I played the hell out of that game. I miss the SNES versus Genesis debates on the playground.
Re:Facebook's Lookback on Tuesday February 04, 2014 @10:09AM (#7177842)
I laughed. At one of the song's dramatic points, it showed a picture of a fork that you can split in half to become chop sticks.
Just thought I'd share this for context:

> "It takes about 10-15 years to develop one new medicine from the time it is discovered to when it is available for treating patients. The average cost to research and develop each successful drug is estimated to be $800 million to $1 billion. This number includes the cost of the thousands of failures: For every 5,000-10,000 compounds that enter the research and development (R&D) pipeline, ultimately only one receives approval."

Source: http://www.innovation.org/drug_discovery/objects/pdf/RD_Broc...

It's easy to say now that this mass Myspace migration happened, but its downfall was much more than Facebook showing up. e.g., It had a ton of technical issues, and it got really ugly / unwieldy.

If you're interested, the book "The Facebook Effect" does a good job describing the fall of Myspace.

Re:The end of the Facebook era on Tuesday December 17, 2013 @10:01AM (#6921421)
"Social" isn't a fad, but channels dedicated to being "social" might be. This is pure conjecture, but I think a major component of Twitter's success was that participating did not require you to use an official Twitter client. Ubiquity spurred growth. It's an example of "social media," not a "channel for social."

Another major component of Facebook's decline was their lack of a mobile strategy. Again, pure conjecture, but as mobile use in teens increases, the mobile experience matters more -- the Facebook app was unusable for a long time, and that probably had an effect on growth and reputation.

In my opinion, the biggest risk for Facebook is the paradigm shift in how we share photos. A big component of their growth in 2009 - 2011 was their dominance in the photo sharing space. They're the number one photo sharing site in the world. Now photo sharing and picture taking are a mobile experience (e.g., Snapchat, Instragram), being the number one photo sharing site isn't as big of a deal. The purchase of Instagram was smart.

Re:Strategy games, pricing, and the enjoyment curve on Monday November 25, 2013 @11:13AM (#6794887)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the average user buying $1 apps on a whim is a different audience than the user willing to spend >$5 on an app.

I've purchased $5+ apps that I've binned after not being impressed (even after being swayed by reviews). But I'm regularly buying strategy games that are priced that way.

Re:Ask HN: Who is hiring? (October 2013) on Tuesday October 01, 2013 @11:01AM (#6476611)
CRAFT | Media / Digital - Washington, DC

We are looking for:

* Front End Website Developer

* Drupal Developer

* Web Development Intern

Local only, please. More details can be found here: http://craftdc.com/craft-careers/

Re:Apple's Narrative Problem on Monday August 05, 2013 @04:24PM (#6162693)
It's very hard to imagine how an iWatch or Apple TV would be perceived as "revolutionary" like the iPhone, iPad or iPod were. They're not new ideas. Even if the iWatch and Apple TV are the best choices in their field, I don't think that will change the narrative surrounding their brand currently.
Re:Google Chromecast review on Monday July 29, 2013 @09:42AM (#6121019)
Seeing as how the HDTV in my bedroom is about 7 years old and only has two HDMI ports right next to each other, I'm willing to bet I'm going to need that when my Chromecast arrives Saturday.
Re:Google Cancels Netflix Deal for Chromecast on Friday July 26, 2013 @02:56PM (#6109842)
I ordered mine on the play store on 7/24, but haven't received a promo code yet -- anyone know if I'm still owed one? I know Amazon is giving out codes to people who ordered before 5:31 pm PST on 7/25. Honestly I'm going to be a bit upset if folks who ordered after I did are getting codes and I'm not...
Re:Forgotten Employee (2002) on Thursday July 25, 2013 @12:54PM (#6103401)
I was buying it until the part about him catching a VP in the act.