sefrost

I've been thinking about this recently. The tools we use as desk workers are only ever one step away from endless streams of addictive content. And in many cases the software we use to do our jobs are adopting dark patterns similar to those which have been successful in consumer apps.

Often the advice is to opt out of the system. I make mobile apps, I can't simply drop out and use a dumb phone (unless I get a new career). My workplace is essentially inside the addictive environment. I have to keep my knowledge up to date and be on top of app/design trends to be successful in my job. This used to feel rewarding to me, but increasingly it doesn't.

I used to be able to go to Twitter and read+learn+be inspired a lot about web development for example, but now it's almost entirely short form video content. And I fall for it every time. And I actively tried to avoid this from happening, I barely use YouTube and I've never used TikTok.

My Dad was a carpenter and it's as if his day-to-day tools were cigarettes or something. It's hard/impossible to avoid this environment when we are increasingly working in it.

I don’t know if that’s accurate for most of us, who are simply humble CRUD app developers.

The last sports radio station in Vancouver literally closed this month!

Quite bizarre, but difficult to talk about, because it plays in to the wrong side of ongoing culture wars for some people.

https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/fact-check-foreign-born-p...

Upgrading from one version to the next especially so.

Expo seems to shield you from a lot of issues, without really taking any power away from you either.

Usually the ones I provide myself are better than the ones they find themselves.

I'm not super clear how they search the web or what they do and don't have access to. It seems to be quite fast.

Main blocker is I am using apps like Conductor and have lots of plates spinning at once. But that's on, me and I should try and start completing the last part myself.

I think this is in part because I am one of the software engineers that always liked building products more than writing complex software. So, I am driven by the feeling of creating something. And I want to get the feature perfect and complete. But getting from 95%->100% done can take a long time with UI work for me.

So I work much longer hours now, unfortunately.

Obviously this is not it, but what could really work?

I am required to use Chrome at work. I enjoy using Safari personally because it’s well integrated with my Apple devices.

Why would I switch to Firefox? I don’t think there is anything they can do. The party is over.

Instead they took it from 185,000 to 950,000.

After that, they are now polling at all time lows (17%).

https://www.bbc.com/news/election-2019-50524262

I take your FPTP point, but when has the winning party under FPTP had a manifesto commitment to increase immigration?

Let’s just face facts. We might disagree personally but a majority of people have always voted against immigration and it’s regularly a top 3 issue. Often the top issue!

Like I said I’m not voicing my personal opinion.

But we can look at the polling data going back decades now on this issue. People were not happy when it was 50,000 net migration. At one point it hit 950,000.

Obviously the issues that people are concerned about on housing, on transport, on education and more aren’t resolved by reducing the flow for a couple of years.

My point is simply that these feelings have existed for a long time and the government has generally gone against what the electorate have asked for. Are you prepared to concede that point?

If so, then I think blaming it on big tech is a major stretch since this all happened before they had as much command of our attention.

B) leaving the EU did not mean that non-EU migration had to go up

C) immigration going down for one or two years doesn’t change the fact that millions of people are in the UK that most British people didn’t want to enter in the first place over a period of 15+ years

D) net immigration going down still means lots of people are entering the UK from elsewhere, while people from the same culture (ie grew up in the UK) are leaving which still changes the culture of the country

Note: I’m not saying I personally agree with any of those points but it’s clear what the issues are if you’re prepared to listen. There is opinion polling on all of this.

Had to change the title a little to make it fit the character length.

May I ask if you could estimate how you spend the other 95% of the time?

I also have a number of qualifying years in the UK when I didn’t work, and for decades you could buy a year contribution for about £150. The payout is £12,500 per year.

The Australians seem to have the best model overall though. Mandatory payments in to private investments has made them very wealthy.

The UK system takes the national insurance contributions of workers but doesn’t invest them in anything on behalf of the individual. So despite decades of payments you technically have nothing at the end and survive on the goodwill of the government and current taxpayers. That works right now because of the population pyramid.

Canada definitely has a better system than that.

Personally I got CLI fatigue and am happy with Conductor for now, but things are moving fast in this space.

I thought I was pretty familiar with available options, but no one in my circles ever mentions this product. It doesn’t seem to have much mindshare.

Has anyone used it? What’s your experience?

https://github.com/features/copilot/cli