OldFartPhil

@OldFartPhil@lemm.ee

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why Norway — the poster child for electric cars — is having second thoughts⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  For the record, the problem in Norway was that government programs to encourage electric vehicle ownership were too successful and incentivized people to drive instead of use transit. Also, the financial incentives for purchasing electric cars mostly went to people who were already wealthy.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft to kill off VBScript in Windows to block malware delivery⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s not that bad, the macros are just front end apps. Our data is housed in a real, enterprise class database.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft to kill off VBScript in Windows to block malware delivery⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  We do have developers on our team. They write Excel macros :). I work in data integration, so it isn’t as simple as building a more robust tool. We still need infrastructure support or our tool doesn’t do anything.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft to kill off VBScript in Windows to block malware delivery⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Another confirmation here. At my previous job, I was they guy who built Access databases and wrote VBA code… While not ideal, it was a very small business (less than 10 employees) and it was fit for purpose.

  When I got a new job at a company with almost 3,000 employees, I was like, “Finally, I’ll be working somewhere that has proper IT resources.” Ha! I soon find out that my department runs critical business infrastructure with Excel macros. And we have a proper IT department.

  As everyone has already said, if IT resources are in short supply (or the wait is too long, or building projects with IT support is a PITA), then people will build systems with the tools they have at hand. And that’s often MS Office.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Will the Fediverse reach Mainstream in 2024?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I would say Mastodon already has. I’ve been spending a lot of time there over last few weeks and there’s more content than I can consume. Breaking news stories are covered well, including live blogging, although a lot of that content is cross-posed from Xitter. Plenty of people to follow, including authors, photographers, journalists and scientists. An increasing number of media outlets have a presence there, as well.

  Xitter still has an order of magnitude more users, but Mastodon is mostly Nazi-free (which is nice).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨X sues Calif. to avoid revealing how it makes “controversial” content decisions⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  It will always be Xitter to me, with the X pronounced like an “sh”.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Hexbear federation megathread⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t think an apology is necessary. You were completely comprehensible and there wasn’t anything wrong with the way you expressed yourself. Conversations on Lemmy are informal and a lot of people write the way they speak. We’re not composing academic papers here.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Hexbear federation megathread⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I use the All feed to discover communities I’d like to subscribe to. I know there are other resources for that, but they all require you to know what content you’re looking for. Sometimes i just like free-range exploring.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Hexbear federation megathread⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  MHO… I would not miss Hexbear at all if they were defederated. Most of the content I see from them is pretty obnoxious, and even the “nice, polite” posts have a strong sealion scent to them. I block most of their communities when I encounter them in my All feed, and will probably block the instance once Lemmy has that capability.

  That being said, I support the decisions that @sunaurus is making in regard to Hexbear. His decisions about site administration and moderation have always been sensible and competent.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨iPhone SE 4 Rumored to Feature Action Button, USB-C, Face ID, and More⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I thought the appeal of SE was the traditional (pre iPhone X) layout.

  The SE v3 was reportedly a poor seller (as was the mini). Not enough fans of Touch ID and a 4 1/2 inch display to satisfy Apple.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨iPhone SE 4 Rumored to Feature Action Button, USB-C, Face ID, and More⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  How do people know at a glance which apps have unread notifications?

  Basically, you don’t. At least, not in the same way as an Android phone. Notifications are visible on your lock screen or by swiping down from the top to the left of the notch. I’m an Android to iPhone switcher and app notifications in the top bar is the thing that I miss the most.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨ASUS is apparently killing the ability to root present and future Zenfones⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I’d like to see right to repair laws expanded to right to unlock. I think you could make a reasonable argument that a working device that’s not receiving security updates is just as broken as a device that’s experienced a hardware failure.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m not sure that actually works. You can search for a Mastodon user, but when you try to subscribe the sidebar buttons are missing on Lemmy. Image

  My understanding is that you can subscribe to a Lemmy community in Mastodon, but not the other way around. Maybe there’s a trick I’m missing?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨has lemmy.world been going down these past few days or is it the app I use?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  In addition to a large instance being less likely to shut down and (presumably) having more resources, there’s an additional advantage to being on a larger instance: you have a more comprehensive “All” feed. Since federation with a remote feed isn’t established until (IIRC) someone subscribes to it, an instance with a larger user base should contain more subscriptions to a wider variety of content. Of course, not everyone will like that and you lose out on Beehaw content if you’re on the two largest Lemmy instances, but I think it applies in general.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why you might not want to use whatsapp anymore⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Yes, although I’d argue that it’s a pick your poison thing. You can use a system where the content of your texts aren’t secure, or you can let Meta add even more personal information to the dossier it has on you, your friends and the family dog.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why you might not want to use whatsapp anymore⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve seen a lot of discussion about why most of the rest of the world uses messaging apps instead of texting, so I understand. And messaging applications are objectively better in almost every way. But the threat of enshittification is always present when people choose a corporate walled garden. Hopefully some of the new EU regulations on account portability will make lock-in less of a concern.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why you might not want to use whatsapp anymore⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  This is one of those times when I’m glad we Luddites in the US still use mostly SMS/MMS. I have managed to avoid anything Facebook/Meta and I would have been pissed if the messaging app that all my friends and family were already using was sold to Zuck.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I can't code.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Mine was powered by hamster wheels. The damn wheels squealed all day long - drove me crazy. Not to mention the feed bill.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I can't code.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I am a Boomer when it comes to coding

  Hey, OP, I think it’s cool that you’d like to learn to code. I made my living as a coder for many years and it’s a good career path. But I would not say it’s an essential life skill and the vast majority of people of all ages get by fine without coding skills.

  With that out of the way, I’m going to defend the honor of Boomers here. Boomers (and the Silent Gen before them) built the technology industry as we know it today. For example, here’s a list of popular programming languages and their inventors:

  • Java: James Gosling (1955) - Boomer
  • C: Dennis Ritchie (1941) - Almost a Boomer
  • C++: Bjarne Stroustrup (1950) - Boomer
  • C#: Anders Hejlsberg (1960) - Boomer
  • Python: Guido van Rossum (1956) - Boomer
  • PHP: Rasmus Lerdorf (1968) - X Gen
  • Perl: Larry Wall (1954) - Boomer
  • JavaScript: Brendan Eich (1961) - Boomer
  • Ruby: Yukihiro Matsumoto (1965) - Cusp of Boomer/X Gen
  • SQL: Raymond Boyce (1946) and Donald Chamberlin (1944) - Boomers
  • Go: Robert Griesemer (1964), Rob Pike (1956) and Ken Thompson (1943) - 2 Boomers and an almost-Boomer

  <Adjusts onion>. Thank you for your indulgence.