Beyond enshittification, why does tech oftentimes suck?
  • masto masto Now 99%

    I worked at Google for over a decade. The issue isn't that the engineers are unaware or unable. Time and time and time again there would be some new product or feature released for internal testing, it would be a complete disaster, bugs would be filed with tens of thousands of votes begging not to release it, and Memegen would go nuts. And all the feedback would be ignored and it would ship anyway.

    Upper management just doesn't care. Reputational damage isn't something they understand. The company is run by professional management consultants whose main expertise is gaslighting. And the layers and layers of people in the middle who don't actually contribute any value have to constantly generate something to go into the constant cycle of performance reviews and promotion attempts, so they mess with everything, re-org, cancel projects, move teams around, duplicate work, compete with each other, and generally make life hell for everyone under them. It's surprising anything gets done at all, but what does moves at a snail's pace compared to the outside world. Not for lack of effort, the whole system is designed so you have to work 100 times harder than necessary and it feels like an accomplishment when you've spent a year adding a single checkbox to a UI.

    I may have gone on a slight tangent there.

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  • ![Teacher comments: Chris is a very slow worker. Chris can not tie his shoes yet. Reading comes easy to Chris but he needs to be pushed or he doesn't do his work.](https://lemmy.masto.community/pictrs/image/5693dfa4-d76c-41b1-af12-2d0e7c128bae.jpeg) And second grade... ![Teacher comments: Chris' work is done accurately but is often not done neatly. Also, he does not use his working time wisely and often is not done on time. Chris has continued to do well with his school work, but he tends to be disorganized.](https://lemmy.masto.community/pictrs/image/ff29d9ba-6947-486a-9f07-023c7716127c.jpeg) And third grade... ![Teacher comments: Parent-Teacher conference. Christopher has shown an improvement with his school work. I'm sure he would receive straight As if he would finish all assignments and hand them in. He tends to dawdle away his time and accomplish nothing. Christopher continues to have the same work habits. He needs to change them for the better.](https://lemmy.masto.community/pictrs/image/b45d747f-68ed-40c8-9bf2-5eaa94bbc44a.jpeg) And fourth grade... ![Comments are very long. Excerpt: Chris' ability is excellent. However, his efforts tend to be below expectations. Hopefully he will work to improve this problem. Chris is a nice boy!](https://lemmy.masto.community/pictrs/image/adabd527-a0ca-4855-9c3d-3848f3d46099.jpeg) Sometimes I wonder what the next 40 years would have been like if I'd gotten some help instead of just getting yelled at for being lazy.

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    So which is it?
  • masto masto Now 100%

    They're more than great coats.

    1
  • Life gave me some lemons. What should I do?
  • masto masto Now 100%

    I've made this cake a couple of times. It's quite good.

    https://youtu.be/Yi1W5qgtNYU?si=l6cvn5YZTbAsZZzb

    4
  • Can you live without YouTube ?
  • masto masto Now 100%

    What do you do for entertainment?

    3
  • What song do you put on when you need to 'get shit done'?
  • masto masto Now 100%

    Mostly silence, but when I was in high school (some decades ago now) I had a CD of Mozart music I would put on while doing homework. I still associate Symphony 40 in G minor with grinding through tasks.

    3
  • That gourmet luxury blend...
  • masto masto Now 100%

    I'll give you that they didn't get the numbers perfectly correct with the 95-99% thing, but I don't think the accurate numbers change the point they were making -- if anything, it's a stronger comparison. According to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey#Nutrition), honey is 82% sugar and 17% water. HFCS is 24% water (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-fructose_corn_syrup#Composition_and_varieties), which makes it 76% sugar.

    When I say facts, what I'm referring to is that honey is basically straight high-fructose sugar, in the same way that high-fructose corn syrup is. Wikipedia: "The average ratio was 56% fructose to 44% glucose". The HFCS that people freak out about in most food is 42% or 55% fructose. So these are very comparable sources of carbohydrates, which is one of the reasons it's so easy to fake honey with corn syrup.

    I'm not making a value judgement here, and I didn't see one in the GP post that was heavily downvoted. Just pointing out that honey has a very similar composition as HFCS, do with it as you will.

    As a bonus, my favorite use for honey is to make honey mustard dipping sauce for chicken tendies. Here's my not-so-secret recipe: Gulden's spicy brown mustard, honey, and mayonnaise. (adjust the ratio to your taste) And if you haven't tried Mike's Hot Honey, I say seek some out. You can use it in the honey mustard sauce, but I like to make myself a little yogurt, granola, and fruit parfait for breakfast and drizzle hot honey on it.

    1
  • That gourmet luxury blend...
  • masto masto Now 75%

    People are downvoting a simple, literal fact.

    2
  • How did you lose weight?
  • masto masto Now 100%

    Stopped eating so damn much.

    I read the The Hacker’s Diet by John Walker (who recently died, sadly) and followed his advice.

    9
  • Is anyone else worried about the apple vision pro?
  • masto masto Now 88%

    At the risk of facts getting in the way:

    1. You can install ad blockers
    2. Apps are not able to do that
    19
  • What do they use in professional kitchen as an all surface cleaner?
  • masto masto Now 100%

    There are plenty of home gamer quats too (just look for active ingredient: yadda yadda ammonium chloride) My favorite is Formula 409. I buy the industrial refills and just top up the sprayers.

    One thing if you’re actually trying to sanitize: they have a contact time. You need to let the surface stay wet for a minute, or 10 if you’re trying to kill the andromeda strain.

    8
  • What tool do you use to save articles to read later?
  • masto masto Now 100%

    Browser bookmarks. My trick is I make a new folder every month, for example “2024-01 Bookmarks”, and put it in the bookmarks bar. Whenever I realize I’m leaving a tab open because I want to look at it later, I put it into the current folder. That way I know it’s not lost and I give myself permission to close it.

    When a new month comes around, I stick the previous folder in an “Archive” section and make a new one. It costs nothing to keep them forever, but avoids the current list getting out of control.

    1
  • Why has the world gone to shit?
  • masto masto Now 87%

    Leaded gasoline.

    6
  • Amazon pricing makes no sense.
  • masto masto Now 100%

    Not the question you asked, I know, but I have been buying my tea from uptontea.com since before they had a web site and you had to call in from a printed catalog. Loose leaf tea is economical and gives you a wide variety of choices. I’m drinking my go-to Kensington Breakfast Blend right now.

    4
  • Chrome thinks Firefox is unsafe!
  • masto masto Now 87%

    You have disabled Safe Browsing. That prevents files from being checked for malware, so all downloads are blocked by default (nothing to do with Firefox). As you noted, you can override the warning to download anyway, but it is an extra step to try to reduce the chance of someone accidentally running a malicious program.

    23
  • Today was Christmas Day. Did you leave the house? Which establishments were open today? Which were closed?
  • masto masto Now 100%

    Instacart and Uber Eats, mostly.

    Waiting out this winter's covid surge living in the hot zone.

    3
  • Home Assistant 2023.12: Welcome home!
  • masto masto Now 100%

    Sorry, I forgot about this thread, but I was reminded today when I saw the new bug. The issue that originally affected me was https://github.com/home-assistant/core/issues/103208. It broke Xbee users, so not everyone. My Zigbee integrations didn't work after the update so I had to roll back to a backup for my first time with HA. A patch was developed, but it didn't get integrated into any of the 2023.11.x releases, which I found kind of frustrating but I figured I'd wait it out and eventually there would be a version that works again.

    Fortunately I held off on 2023.12, because according to https://github.com/home-assistant/core/issues/105344 a bunch of people are having problems with this release too.

    1
  • Home Assistant 2023.12: Welcome home!
  • masto masto Now 42%

    The last update broke zigbee for a month, so forgive me if I don’t jump on this bandwagon.

    -2
  • What is the point of individually wrapping cheese slices in plastic, only to cover a bunch of them in more plastic?
  • masto masto Now 100%

    That’s how it’s made. They melt cheese with emulsifying salts, squirt it into a plastic envelope, and it cools into the shape of the wrapper.

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  • masto Now
    1 46

    Christopher Masto

    masto@ lemmy.masto.community

    He tends to dawdle away his time and accomplish nothing.