thomas-st

That's just the JSON equivalent of "we have data, and it's null" vs "data is missing", and consistency could be enforced using a constraint or by making it non-NULL in the first place.

It's more common in string fields, which in many cases just get rendered on a web form that doesn't differentiate blank (empty string) from null state, therefore in the database we should in most cases set it up as follows:

- Value required: field should be non-NULL + at least length 1 (via check constraint)

- Value optional: either field is non-NULL, or field is nullable + at least length 1

I'm curious if you prefer to store optional strings as non-NULL and rely on the length, or as nullable and have a length constraint.

I have a power bank that is PD capable, but I cannot charge it from my MacBook even if the MacBook is plugged in to power. I get around it by using a USB-C/A dongle and corresponding USB-C/A cable. Presumably this "downgrades" the connection and since the MacBook doesn't support traditional USB charging it has to charge the power bank. Does USB-C not have a way to indicate that a potential power source is a battery so that the MacBook can charge it if it's plugged in to power, and reverse roles otherwise? Is this a fault how the power bank or macOS implements power negotiation, or is this scenario simply unaddressed in USB-C?

Funny enough, if I plug the USB-C/A dongle on the end of the power bank and the cable into the MacBook, it also won't charge.

I also have a Philips One toothbrush with a USB-C charging input. Similarly, I can't charge it with a USB-C cable directly from my MacBook but have to use A in between (I unsuccessfully tried using either a thinner "lower speed" or a thicker "higher speed" USB-C cable). I'm assuming the toothbrush doesn't support PD, so then why can't it fall back to traditional charging with a C-to-C cable?

It looks a bit like a handwritten Polish ą

> (by the way, by the time you have checked in and your boarding pass has been issued, a lot of companies just don't allow you to cancel anymore, so it's really a non-issue?)

Which companies have a cancellation policy that is contingent upon getting a boarding pass? I've cancelled checked-in tickets before. If the flight is operated by a different airline than the ticket issuer, you just have to call the operating airline first to undo the check-in (a few airline can even do this online). After that it should be possible to cancel the ticket by the ticket issuer without any problems.

A while ago I was helping a friend pick a cell phone plan with T-Mobile USA. If you study their plans, the "Essentials" plan does not include "taxes and fees", but their "Magenta" plan does. When contacting T-Mobile, they could not tell me what the fees were even after providing the specific ZIP code. They said I would have to sign up for the plan first, and could then see the fees on the bill. Even when I told them that the choice of plan would depend on the amount of taxes and fees, they were not able to tell me and said that I could look at the current cell phone bill with the current carrier, and that the taxes and fees should be similar.

It is crazy they can't tell you how much you'll be paying before signing up.

I wish cookie settings were part of the browser (e.g. I want to reject all marketing cookies but not essential ones), have a way in JS/HTTP to indicate the type of the cookie, and never see those cookie popups again.

Careful. My friend used Revolut virtual cards and forgot to deactivate the card after the purchase. Months (or a year) later he got a fraudulent charge and Revolut refused to waive it because they claim he should have deactivated the virtual card. If it were on a regular credit card he may have just been able to dispute it.

To be clear, it's completely unacceptable they are charging for this repair. My intent was to give some perspective on how the repair process went overall, I needed the device back for work.

While apart from the cracked screen issue the hardware is amazing in my opinion, the overall software issues make using macOS painful sometimes (processes running at high CPU -- now mostly offloaded to the efficiency cores, WebKit views having issues loading, anything syncing to iCloud sometimes not working, sometimes working on the 2nd try, Messages/Apple Mail search only finding some of the messages, audio crackling issues with wired headphones/AirPods/built-in speaker, etc.)