Recent submissions

Comment · 8 months ago
I still have both the screensaver and the moment that I realized that disabling the screensaver allowed processing to happen meaningfully quicker burned into my mind.
Comment · 8 months ago
I agree with your first point (and I wasn't trying to defend Kavanaugh, just pointing out that the dissent calls something out), but I disagree with your second. Kavanaugh isn't lying - this ruling causes some chaos and uncertainty and I think that one of the reasons Kavanaugh doesn't like it is because it causes some chaos and uncertainty - but, to your first point, he doesn't appear to be acting in good faith.

The Supreme Court absolutely could have handled this much better, and is part of the reason there's so much to undo.

Comment · 8 months ago
No, but it is a weakness that they have neglected to provide the clarity that would be required to clean it up.
Comment · 8 months ago
If you read the opinions, it's even less clear. The majority does not make it at all clear whether or not refunds are due, and Kavanaugh's dissent specifically calls out this weakness in the majority opinion.

Even if the executive branch's actions stop here, there's still a lot of arguing in court to do over refunds.

Comment · 8 months ago
Also worth noting that who owns the risk is a regulatory question, not a technical or product one - and, like all regulatory questions, is different for different countries/regions.

Chip and pin and NFC transitions took off much quicker outside the US because merchants generally owned more of the chargeback risk than in the US, and therefore were willing to update their POS equipment accordingly.

Risk (like debt) is another place where a US-centric view will likely lead you to misunderstand the purpose of Visa/MC.

Comment · 9 months ago
As best as I can tell, there was less than 10 minutes from the last successful request I made and when the downtime was added to their status page - and I'm not particularly crazy with my usage or anything, the gap could have been less than that.

Honestly, that seems okay to me. Certainly better than what AWS usually does.

Comment · 9 months ago
To be fair, that is true. Texas is around the 5th most difficult state to vote in per the Cost of Voting Index.
Comment · 9 months ago
This was common in Texas, but becomes challenging when one polling place serves voters that might have different elections to vote for - say, at a polling place on the line between two school districts or something like that. You can't just print one sheet of paper, and it to everyone, and call it a day. Toss in a few different jurisdictions that don't directly overlay each other, and the number of combinations become nontrivial.

(the machines used in Texas vary by county, in my county we use Hart InterCivic machines that are touchscreen but produce a paper trail - honestly I think it works well)

Comment · 9 months ago
Pretty similar here. Another thing I keep thinking is a phrase pilots use when flying airplanes using FMSes and autopilot: "never fly your airplane to a place you haven't already been to in your mind" - that is, don't ever just sit back and let the automation work, stay a step ahead of the automation and drop down to less automation when you aren't certain that it is doing the right thing.

When you send Claude Code something and already have an idea for what an acceptable solution looks like, you're a massive step ahead when it's time to read the diff and decide what you think of it. This does mean that every so often my productivity drops to basically zero as I try to understand what is actually happening before I just put the AI on the job, but so far it seems to be a good rule to keep in mind that allows me to use AI effectively while generating a code base that I still understand.

Comment · 9 months ago
Comment · 1 year ago
That's the debt ceiling, which is a different weird quirk of how the USG is funded. The relevant page for shutdowns is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_shutdowns_in_the_Un...

"Funding gaps have led to shutdowns since 1980, when Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti issued a legal opinion requiring it. This opinion was not consistently adhered to through the 1980s, but since 1990 all funding gaps lasting longer than a few hours have led to a shutdown. As of October 2025, 11 funding gaps have led to federal employees being furloughed."

Comment · 1 year ago
just FYI you can watch on your Android device now. It took them a long time (seriously, I think more than four years after AppleTV+ launched), but they did finally release an Android app.
Comment · 1 year ago
Comment · 1 year ago
FWIW, at least as of today, American Airlines' website attempts to show you round trip prices.

When choosing your outbound leg(s), they show a price inclusive of the cheapest return journey on the day you selected to return using the class of service on your outbound leg. So, there's all sorts of ways for it to be incorrect - maybe you want a different class of service, maybe the cheapest return has a stop but you'd like the direct, etc. - but it's still really useful for figuring out the best options for your flights.

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