isanengineer

Yes, I noticed this shortly after the update. I forget the specifics, but Apple first party apps definitely have this issue.

As a mechanical engineer, I want to offer some perspective on how specific this is for people working exclusively in software. I would never ever even consider working fully remotely, mainly because my job involves designing physical things. The prototypes and models for them are not and cannot be in my home. A big part of my job involves making sure the technician can actually assemble the things I design, which requires going to the place where they assemble it. My company employs many software engineers, and they work from home more frequently than the mechanical or electrical engineers, but they are much more hesitant to allowing full remote just because the work is so centered on the physical product. Every time I see an article posted here arguing one way or the other this rarely comes up. Regardless of the pros, cons, or preferences this just is not an option for a lot of technical people.

This exactly. And this is the reason that Venmo or Paypal need to charge fees for commercial transactions, because they're providing a service. What bugs me is that Zelle seems to be marketed as equivalent to those other digital payment platforms, but in reality it's very different.

Thanks, but I don't think I know enough about this to speak about it on the pubic record. My experience is based on remembering what random customer service reps said a few years ago and a bunch of reddit and forum posts. For example, I don't know if Zelle is literally just direct deposit--if it was how did they freeze my transaction for 3 weeks?

But I do get the sense that of all the payment platforms, Zelle is uniquely risky because of the way it's set up. I do with a journalist would look at it from that angle rather just from the "wow there's a lot of fraud here". It seems to be that the banks are incentivized just to get have this product out here to undercut the competition from digital payment platforms, but have absolutely no incentive to make it a functional or safe platform.

Agreed. I'm being hyperbolic when I say "do not ever use Zelle". I'm sure it's fine for passing money between friends. It's just that my version of the $40 lesson had a few more zeros on the end, and so stings a bit more.

For me I only use Venmo because that's what most people in social circles use. If they used Cash App or Apple Pay, I'd use those instead.

It's not just fraud you need to worry about. Here's a horror story for you. A few years back I was moving to a city for graduate school and needed to rent an apartment. A friend of mine toured the place and when we decided to rent the landlord asked if we could send him the security deposit using Zelle. I sent the deposit using his contact information, but he never received it.

I spent three weeks being passed back and forth by one bank being told I needed to speak with they other bank. They confirmed the money had been debited from my account, and confirmed it was not deposited in his, but nobody could tell me where the money went. I called Zelle multiple times, but all they would tell me is I needed to talk to the banks. Eventually after three weeks the money was quietly returned to my account with no explanation. After a bit more digging it appears my transaction triggered some fraud alert, but neither myself, the depositor, or either bank was notified of this.

To add insult to injury, during this process the people in charge of Zelle at my bank (which rhymes with Space) told me I was out of luck, because using the Zelle for any type of commercial transaction, including sending rent or security deposits, is against the terms of service. Looking back over the terms of service I found they were 100% correct.

I also found that Zelle is basically just a front-end for the existing ACH Direct Deposit system. It was created by a consortium of banks to compete with services like Venmo, but it at it's core a very different service. Venmo actually provides value by acting as a middle man: Venmo pays the recipient and collects the money from me. Zelle is just a way to send money directly to someone's checking account, but by using their email address or phone number instead of the account and routing number. This is why there is absolutely no recourse if anything goes wrong.

tl;dr do not ever use Zelle.

> find more ways to use electricity

I’m not sure if you were serious with this comment, but for the sake of other readers I wanted to point out this is a legitimate strategy. Many people tend to pair solar with installing mini splits, EV chargers, or some other home upgrade that will offer value at the expense or a higher electric bill. This can make the solar investment make sense where it previously didn’t.

I worked in the solar industry for years and this is a very good summary of the residential install process from the customer side.

I’ll also second one of the main points of the author: do NOT get a solar lease. Either finance it through a solar loan or pay cash. A good solar company will not push you into a lease. If they try, talk to someone else.

I agree overall, but there are a lot of misconceptions about cast iron that can give it a learning curve.

The post glossed over this, but it is certainly possible to damage your seasoning, especially if something you're cooking sticks to the pan. However, this doesn't mean you need to do some day-long "reseasoning" process that involves stripping the whole thing and baking it in the oven. Just clean the pan, put some oil in it, put it on the burner, and rub the oil in with a balled up paper towel until it gets hot. Do this after you cook until you build up a good seasoning and then stop. If your seasoning gets damaged for any reason, just rub some oil into it after you cook until it's good again.

The key for me was learning to care for carbon steel woks. It's basically the same as cast iron, but there's a lot less misinformation and internet superstition out there.

Those AMD presentations are publicly available though. It looks like hot chips is a tech conference, and those AMD presentations were published as part of HC 28. I’ll follow up with a link if I can find one, but I think it’s pretty clear they are not in any way trade secrets.

Does anyone have any insight into how much benefit MSFT actually gets from these decisions? I understand that the intent is to 'make line go up', but as a simpler user I can't really imagine how telemetry and shilling OneDrive actually leads to meaningful revenue growth. On the other hand, people have been loudly complaining about this since the Windows 7 days, and I imagine that there must be some reason they're doubling down on such an unpopular strategy.