Git manages pretty much everything by using the `.git` folder created by `git init` and there is (as far as I am aware) nothing stopping you from going into that .git folder and running init again there to start using git to manage the internal state of your repository. At least... that is what I assumed the joke was.
Well, it is all local until you push so you can do whatever you want.
With that said, it obviously is not meaningless at a technical level because without the commit there is nothing to push or merge. On top of that, at a non-technical level it can be extremely helpful to record some plain-english prose to describe why you are changing something. If you find yourself doing that too often you need to narrow your definition of what constitutes a "change" and/or be more discerning about what you work on simultaneously.
Out of curiosity, if you do not use git, what do you use for version control and change-management?
> I have some sort of medium, copper, fiber whatever and I would like to send 10 bytes to the other side of it. What is the right foundations that would lead to an implementation which isn't overly complex.
The bane of every project is understanding what you actually need to do
For example, it is entirely possible that the "right foundation" for your proposed scenario is: Hook one end up to a lightswitch, the other to a light bulb, hire two operators trained in morse code. Then once the 10 bytes are sent write them their cheques and shut it down.
It's not about the OEM charging "too much". It's about the OEM sandbagging the market.
If that 10 year old car was designed with a non-standard shape battery, it would get a lower repairablity score. If additionally the OEM sued anyone who made batteries in that shape it would get an even lower repairability score. If on top of that the car was designed to turn on the check engine light if its battery was made by anyone other than the OEM then it would get an even lower score.
>> If that 10 year old car was designed with a non-standard shape battery, it would get a lower repairablity score.
Almost every battery in a phone is a 'non-standard' shape, even including when you could pull the back cover off and swap batteries. Companies have been making custom batteries since the dawn of the cell phone, pretty much.
>> If additionally the OEM sued anyone who made batteries in that shape it would get an even lower repairability score.
I'm not aware of this. Source? Making knockoff components using Apple's logo and such is not the same thing.
>> If on top of that the car was designed to turn on the check engine light if its battery was made by anyone other than the OEM then it would get an even lower score.
Where, exactly, is this message on an iPhone? You mean the single pop-up window, and the notice in the settings menu (that you can easily ignore)? Yeah, not the same thing. It's unobstrusive, yet visible enough so a person who buys one knows if they have 3rd party parts in their phone.
> Almost every battery in a phone is a 'non-standard' shape
The metaphor is not literal.
> Making knockoff components using Apple's logo and such is not the same thing
I think I was misremembering the lawsuit you are probably thinking of.
> Where, exactly, is this message on an iPhone
Again, the metaphor comparing iphones to cars is not literal.
Whoops! I guess you got me!
After all it really is actually super easy to buy new parts for Apple products either from Apple themselves or the thriving third-party market!
And on top of that, once your local repair shop has the parts, they are super easy to install.
Surely my damaged iphone mini 12 will be easily repaired at a reasonable price by the skilled technicians at the Genius Bar who have parts in stock and tools ready to go. It would be absolutely wild if their price for that service was based on the price of the latest iphone rather than the cost of parts and labor for the actual service. But certainly they wouldn't be able to get away with that due to, as we agreed earlier, the thriving market for third party parts and repair.
> Surely my damaged iphone mini 12 will be easily repaired at a reasonable price by the skilled technicians at the Genius Bar who have parts in stock and tool ready to go. It would be absolutely wild if their price for that service was based on the price of the latest iphone rather than the cost of parts and labor for the actual service. But certainly they wouldn;t be able to get away with that due to, as we agreed earlier, the thriving market for third party parts and repair.
Surely my damaged 4 year old car will be easily repaired at a reasonable price by a skilled mechanic at the car dealership who have parts in stock and tools ready to go. It would be absolutely wild if their price for that service was based on the price of the latest model year car. But certainly they wouldn’t be able to get away with that, thanks to the thriving third party mechanics.
Oh, except… yeah, these are the exact same thing pretty much. The only difference is cars have many more components and individually they cost less, whereas phones only have a handful of components and each cost a considerable portion of the phone cost.
Your specific complaint about the iPhone 12 mini seems extremely unfounded, as well. Their repair cost (which is totally turnkey) is $89. Seems extremely reasonable for a turnkey repair from a first party vendor. Surely, maybe you can buy a “new” 12 mini for $200… but this is just like cars. At some point it’s “mechanically totaled” and the repair cost doesn’t make sense. And that point changes for a car too, depending on if you use a dealership service department or a third party mechanic.
> Surely my damaged 4 year old car will be easily repaired at a reasonable price by a skilled mechanic at the car dealership who have parts in stock and tools ready to go. It would be absolutely wild if their price for that service was based on the price of the latest model year car. But certainly they wouldn’t be able to get away with that, thanks to the thriving third party mechanics.
Obviously the dealerships are typically more expensive but that is from marking up parts and labor not from trying to pressure you into buying a new car. If Ford had it the way Apple does brakes would be built in to the transmission, last for 60,000 miles, and be priced at $25,000 to repair.
My specific complaint about my 12 mini is that it needs a new frame, back glass, camera, and battery. $89 dollars is obviously unrealistic for those parts. And, like you say, phones have fewer parts that make up a larger portion of the total cost for the product. Unlike with a car, you can actually swap everything into a new frame pretty easily.
You need a new frame, a new back, a new camera, and a new battery, and you're confused why it would be outrageously priced to replace it? Basically the only things you aren't replacing are the mainboard, the speakers, and the display.
To continue stretching the car analogy, that's like saying you bring in a car to the dealership that only needs a new gas tank, new infotainment system, new bodywork and frame, and then you're outraged that they want to charge you $25k! Most of the car is damaged, you scrap it and some third party can salvage what's valuable and repair some other car.
The labor cost for replacing parts on a car isn't just another ballpark. It's another planet.
Obviously if you want to replace every part of the phone it is going to cost more altogether than a new phone. No reasonable person would argue that. And of course there are limits. The screen and mainboard are by far the most complex parts. The frame is trivial by comparison.
The problem is that there is effectively no real aftermarket for parts and repairs. Apple all but refuses to sell parts and makes using third party parts as onerous as possible.
They have been able to get away with it so far by riding the wave of quickly advancing mobile technology. But as next year's phone starts to look less and less different from last years phone, people are going to start to get serious about repairability and Apple is going to be forced to make some changes.
> The labor cost for replacing parts on a car isn't just another ballpark. It's another planet.
Then what’s your point? Labor costs on phones aren’t insignificant, and unless you want this done by people that make minimum wage (with minimum wage results, likely), it’s going to add substantially to the cost of a repair. Proportionally it will add a lot, too, since phones cost so little compared to cars.
> The problem is that there is effectively no real aftermarket for parts and repairs. Apple all but refuses to sell parts and makes using third party parts as onerous as possible.
Three points here:
1. Apple sells pretty much all of their own parts for phones up to 5 years old at this point. I don’t know how this is “refusing to sell parts”.
2. Many vendors (Samsung being notorious for this) don’t sell parts at all. Or if they do, it’s not many generations, and only specific models.
3. Third party parts for reasonable valuable (to the company making them) components do exist for most Apple devices. It might take a bit (a couple years) … but they definitely exist. Just check aliexpress some time. This is pretty much the same as cars; third party parts take awhile to come. Quality is variable, but that’s the case with any 3rd party part.
Authentication should not need to be re-implemented by every single organization. We should have official auth servers so that FlyCASS doesn't need to worry about identity management and can instead just hand that off to id.texas.gov (or whatever state they operate from) the same way most single-use tool websites use Google's login.
Authentication and authorization, and especially on the web, is one of those things that has never been implemented well. I hate every single piece of software, every standard, every library, every approach I have come into contact with from this domain. I am so glad I have nothing to do with this field anymore. It makes me angry even thinking about it.
I agree with that sentiment, and I have tried to contribute in the past, but then again, you have to choose your battles. Making the kind of impact on auth that means I, or anyone else, will not have to deal with rubbish systems in the future is a big task.
It is one thing to write the needed software, it is a much bigger task to convince enough companies that they need a different approach to this problem.
However, what I can offer is that if someone has the backing to actually make a difference in this market, I'll volunteer 50 hours to act as a reviewer and test developer. But that is if your project is backed by someone I believe can make a difference.
This exists in some European countries, in Hungary for example you have an identity service (KAU) which authenticates you and operates as an SSO provider across a number of different government properties.
This exists in some European countries, in Hungary for example you have an identity service (KAU) which authenticates you and operates as an SSO provider across a number of different government properties.
FWIW, as a regular user of login.gov, from the outside, it looks like a well-designed system. I am able to add strong forms of 2FA (e.g., security keys or biometric authenticators), it requires strong passwords, etc. It also has decent developer documentation, has a support process, and comes with a vulnerability disclosure form baked into the main website. However, I have not used their API, nor have I seen any of the code (although I wonder if a FOIA request would actually compel them to give it to you).
The first bullet point on the /partners page of login.gov (regarding who should use it) says:
> You are part of a federal agency or a state, local, or territory government
I'm talking about a more generic service that any random industry system or individual can use. The way many websites use Google's OAuth without using really using Google's APIs. Things that just want someone else (Google) to handle asking for and authenticating a name/password.
Not 100% sure how I feel about random companies being able to definitively identify me. I’m sure we’re drifting in that direction anyway, but it feels like it would negatively impact privacy online.
It also is not necessarily your actual ID. As far as the individual website needs to know, it could just be a random string of numbers and letters. As long as it's the same string each time they ask the authentication authority to confirm you.
Americans as a whole are so allergic to government doing anything that we can't even get a national ID system
nor a centralized database of gun sales or ownership.
The bogeyman of evil Big Government, privacy, and censorship gets invoked.
It's fine if the Free Market does it, so Google, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, Microsoft, et al get a free pass.
Topic drift, but no tools should use google login. Doing that means handing over to google the authority to decide who can and can't use your tool. And we all know google support is nonexistent and unreachable, so once it fails it's forever.
If you market a tool, you'd really want to own the decision on who you can sell it to.
For a government organization though, I'd agree it makes sense to use a government-run login service. (government run, not outsourced so some for-profit third party!)
Trusting Google's OAuth not to vanish overnight is less stressful than managing your own username/password database.
And that's pretty much my point. 2FA? Password Resets? Account Activation? Updating Email Address? No thanks. I would rather not have to deal with any of that. I literally just need a unique identifier to associate with your data and preferences.
Sorry if I wasn't clear. It is not that google will remove the service overnight (although they are infamous for canceling things, but not that bad). The problem is google will lock out users randomly for no reason and no recourse.
If that user was using google login to access your service/tool, you lost that user and there is nothing you can do. You really don't want to gate the access to your product via an unreachable unresponsive third party like google.
Many well-established web frameworks have plugins or components to handle user management out of the box, with sane defaults. Nobody should have to roll them by themselves with each hobby project. You're probably using a similar plugin to integrate with Google anyway.
Ah, but there are third-party services that provide identity verification, such as id.me. And now that there are for-profit entities involved in a government service, you will never be able to convince the government to implement their own solution. It's telling that id.me is headquartered in McLean, Virginia; gotta be in the DC metro area so your lobbyists have easy access to Congress.
It's also not a government web site. It's a private company who, for some reason, my own government outsources identity verification to. Meanwhile, the authorization system the US government has built (login.gov) is deemed "insecure" by the IRS and Social Security for some inexplicable reason. (But it's fine for Trusted Traveler Programs.)
It's the company providing the service that the government could provide on its own, but that service is being provided by a private company through a lucrative contract agreement.
You're aware that there's a registry per country, no? And that that each country can choose to set aside a subdomain for all government services?
Yes, it's unfair that the US gets naked .gov - but that doesn't preclude the rest of the world from doing the right thing, and it certainly doesn't excuse the US government doing the stupid thing.
This depends almost entirely on the type of comedy. Things like reference, satire, or shock are obviously dependent on the specific context of time in which they were made and of course become less meaningful as times change.
But comedy is not inherently less "timeless" than any other art. Who's on First is genuinely still funny almost a century later.
The little bits of surviving ancient comedy may seem trite but being simple does not make the jokes less "timeless".
Indeed. In the same vein, Jerome K. Jerome's "Three Men in a Boat" has made me laugh out loud more than a century after it was originally written.
That said, Shakespeare's humor, as an example, lands more flat with me. English idioms and grammar have changed quite a bit since the 16th century, and though I can intellectually approach his plays and recognize the humor, I rarely laugh out loud to it because there's additional mental load required just to understand what's been said. I suspect that may be true of "Who's on First" in another couple of hundred years, too. I'll report back in 2224 and let you know!
I tend to agree that Who's On First is a exactly the sort comedy that will lose its pithiness in time, moored as it is to the cultural context of baseball and contemporary English wordplay.
One of my favourite lines is from Three men in a Boat: "George has a cousin, who is usually described in the charge-sheet as a medical student, so that he naturally has a somewhat family-physician way of putting things".
Google is an ad company first. It stands to reason than their results optimize for ad profitability, not to have the best index.
If the goal was to have the best index, they would actively punish sites that use SEO to push sites that are nothing more than auto-generated affiliate links to Amazon products. I quit using Google a while ago, because that’s all I was getting. I use Kagi now, which had no ads. Without this conflict of interest, I find things go better.
I think it's reasonable to assume that google would favor the Ad Sense customer given two results that are otherwise of equal or near equal quality but the notion that google would exclude good results from domains that do not serve Ad Sense ads is absurd.
Why is it absurd? If it's still considered the go-to option by most users, they could afford the slightly worse quality for the extra revenue, no? That's the end result of monopolies, the provider starts to compromise on the service to capitalize on the user's lack of viable options.
The product is more than just the index! The UI has become cluttered with ads that are barely distinguishable from genuine results. The functionality around using quotation marks for exact-match results has now become broken and confusing.
It depends instead on the overall health of the Internet.
We are moving away from open commerce and into walled gardens. Once Google makes deals similar to their Reddit deal with Meta and Bytedance, it's going to become basically impossible for an upstart search engine to index anything competitively.
On the flip side once you leave the dark forest you stop needing search engines as much since you're contributing to a community you exist on the inside of.
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