transreal

Joined 9 years ago

Karma
238
Submissions
41
Member since
Feb 3
Director of Tools & Software, Powwow Mobile. Email me - transreal at gmail dot com
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Recent submissions

Comment · 3 months ago
This looks very similar to Docker Sandboxes.
Comment · 1 year ago
The person who sent the author the design document is at fault here. If you're hired to do a job, use whatever tools you want as long as your output meets minimum standards of quality. If the tools aren't there yet, it's up to you to bridge the gap.
Comment · 2 years ago
Comment · 3 years ago
I’m Indian and I’ve got a name that’s super common in both Arabic & Hindi, almost everyone I meet from the Arab world comments on it, but it didn’t show when I chose those 2 languages.
Comment · 3 years ago
I'm laughing because I know that intersection well from taking my kids to basketball practice. I might have had the opposite reaction to you had my car not gone when it could. Also, you have greater visibility as a driver in the front than a passenger in the back, so it's likely that an experienced SF driver might have also done the same thing (speaking as someone who's driven in the city for over 20 years)
Comment · 3 years ago
I know what you’re going through. I am part of a community of men who have the tools to help you live a good life. I’m in my 40s too and you got here by lots of small beliefs and decisions and we help each other change these so we can live in joy and gratitude instead of bitterness and disappointment. It’s not a magic bullet, and it might take time, but all it takes is a desire to change and willingness to participate. If you are interested email me at the address in my profile. It is never too late to live a fulfilling life.
Comment · 5 years ago
The website is still down for me, I'm in San Francisco.
Comment · 5 years ago
My favorite analogy about being a parent is that children are like a tightly furled lotus buds, and our job as parents is to give them the room to unfurl into the unique flowers they are, rather than clay to be molded into whatever form we see fit.

Molding them to follow your passions may seem to work initially - kids naturally want to please their parents - and it certainly could happen to align with their personal excellence, but it can also ultimately rob them from developing their own unique talents.

Comment · 5 years ago
Fujis are the best IMO. They are perfectly crispy and sweet. Everytime I try another variety I usually regret it.
Comment · 6 years ago
As a technologist and parent myself, I find the biggest problem to be the lack of fine grained parental controls. Yes, technology in of itself is not the issue, it is the highly addictive nature of certain software, but on different devices, limiting what they can/can't do is very difficult.

When school started online, my 8 year old was initially really engaged, but then started getting a bit bored once she got into it, and would watch Youtube videos. I was fine with an hour after she finished her school work, but the time she spent watching slowly increased until she wasn't even doing her homework. She'd erase the history on her browser so I couldn't tell how long she was watching for (but fortunately I know the tricks, and was able to figure it out). This led me to blocking Youtube (and all other video sites) on the router. I looked into Youtube kids, but I can't limit it in the ways I want (certain times of day, certain videos), and so I just outright ban it. I also found Youtube too addictive with its short videos, and so now only allow Netflix Kids at certain times.

The best solution IMO would be that I could say something like "these apps/sites need my permission", and then every time she tried watching a video or opening that app, etc, I'd get a notification on my phone asking if I should allow it. That would really put the control in the parent's hands. Could apply to tik tok too - I may be OK with it if my kid has to get permission to post a video, and get permission after every 20 mins of use/watching 20 videos.

Until such controls are available, I just saying a blanket 'no' to some of these apps/sites. She can use them how she sees fit once she's emancipated.

Comment · 6 years ago
Searching "men without pants" versus "men with pants" gives much better results.

This is a case where, while it makes sense to say the sentence, it's not a common use of language, and at the end of the day, the search engine will find what's written down, it's not a natural language processor yet (despite any marketing).

Shirt stores don't advertise "Shirts without stripes - 20% off", they describe them as "Solid shirts" or "Plain shirts". Men's fashion blogs talk about picking "solid shirts" or "plain shirts" for a particular look. If I walked into a clothing store and asked for "shirts without stripes", the sales person would most likely laugh and say "er, you mean you want plain shirts?".

Plain shirts/solid shorts are the most common way to refer to these, and people seem to be searching this way:

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=solid%20...

Regarding moving towards natural language processing - the "without" part is not as important as knowing the context.

My kids will ask me to get from the bakery things like "the round bread with a hole and seeds", which I know means "sesame bagel", or "the sticky bread", which means "cinnamon twists" - which I understand because I know the context. Sometimes they say "I want the red thingy", and I need to ask a bunch of questions to eventually get at what they want (sometimes it's a red sweater, sometimes it's cranberry juice).

Unless Google starts asking questions back, I don't think there is any way it can give you what you want right away.

Comment · 6 years ago
Unfortunately, I'm one of those people. My last refill ran out last week, and my pharmacist doesn't think I can get a refill anytime soon :-(

Fortunately my condition is not life threatening or severe, but it's something I've been living with for many years, and the HCQ was just finally getting it under control, so it's a bummer that there is so much hoarding going on before we even know if it really works for Covid-19.

Also, it is not a risk free medication. While it's generally safe, my doctor makes me get frequent lab work & a vision test because the side effects can be pretty bad for a small minority of people.

Comment · 6 years ago
One person's "shit job", is another persons fun job. We are all brainwashed that "low skill" is bad. I know people who enjoy cleaning. I love cooking, but want to maintain the lifestyle that working in software gives me. If UBI was there in the background, people could pursue their passions. Today, the situation is "what should I pursue so I can make money", not "what should I pursue so I can be happy".
Comment · 6 years ago
This is pretty interesting. I've been taking Plaquenil (hydroxochloroquine) regularly for 6 months now to control an auto-immune disease, and I came down with potential symptoms of covid-19 2 weeks ago, but it was very mild - just a sore throat and cough that lasted 4 days, and I had a slight fever the first night. I self quarantined just in case, but after recovering thought I must have just caught a cold, since my symptoms were so mild. But I wonder now if I got it and if taking Plaquenil helped me recover quickly.

Too bad I can't get tested to know for sure :-(

When I started Plaquenil, the doctor told me it takes about a month or two to really build up in the blood stream to help control my condition. I wonder if the need to take it for a while also applies for Covid-19.

Comment · 6 years ago
Good post - these features are quite undiscoverable, and I only figured them out because I did them accidentally one day or someone showed me.

Someone at Apple made the determination that "looking simpler" was more important that UX discoverability, and so hid some features under Ctrl/Command clicks.

A worse offender is "Command+Shift+." for showing hidden files - they don't even have a menu item anywhere for it, it's either you know that hidden files is a thing or you don't, and there's no way to discover it by clicking around and paying attention.

While I still prefer macOS to Windows, I agree that Apple could do a bit more to make these hidden features more exposable. E.g. why not let a click on the folder name show you the folder path, why require a "Command"?

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