Thanks! I made options to change the year and leave balance, but not to change the first day of the year. Let me know if it still works if you enter the right number of days
It is really difficult to do, a few thoughts from previous places I've worked at...
I don't know anything about your technical stack, but I'm going to assume they're all solved for. The easiest is if your codebase is all in a monorepo and all uses the same stack.
It gets a lot harder if you have lots of projects, and you have to build a library that all the other teams have to import.
One way to make this easier, is to make your component library code public, so that a whole class of permissions based issues are avoided.
The rest of the problems, I think are cutural, not technical.
Find an "anchor tenant", that is a fairly big team that own an important product, get that team on board and build something for them. Having a big, high profile team use your library will give smaller teams the confidence to use your library. This is basically using conway's law to your advantage.
Geography plays an interesting role, a place I worked at had 2 major engineering offices in different cities. Each office had developed its own framework, and teams used the framework in the city that they were based in.
Graduates played a valuable role, our grads rotated teams every 6 months for 2 years. They played a huge role in encouraging adoption of libraries, as they'd take learned knowledge from one team to another.
My experience of driving in the US is that stop signs are used a lot, so people get numb and treat them as Give Way/Yield signs (where you don't need to come to a dead stop, but must give way to any oncoming traffic).
In the UK, Stop signs are only used when there is limited visibility/blind corners, so if you see one, you know that you definitely need to stop. Once you step and creep forward, you'll realise why a stop sign was needed.
> I think most teachers would agree that, for pupils without a significant attendance problem, a week away (particularly if it's towards the end of a term) is not going to make a realistic difference when it comes to attainment for most students.
I generally agree with this, but discretion doesn't scale. If you allow teachers to use discretion to approve absences, it will create the opportunity unfair system, where people who the teacher likes more may get preferential treatment. And even if the system isn't actually unfair, it'll create the perception of unfairness (Joe was allowed to go early, why can't my son?).
It's also way easier for a school to say "no early absences, that's the national policy", and not have to get into constant arguments with parents.
> It's also way easier for a school to say "no early absences, that's the national policy", and not have to get into constant arguments with parents.
Also, if the teachers/school approved the holiday for someone who then underperformed in some exam or other assessment, and it could be seen that missing something in that week off, you can bet your last penny that many parents will blame the school for approving the request instead of telling them there might be a problem, and if the school deny a request because there might be a problem many parents will blame the school for there being a problem in the first place.
In some cases the problem would be with the school, but it wouldn't be just those cases that get the full-on compo-face-in-the-national-press treatment. Teachers jobs are hard enough as it is, especially given the level of remuneration and other conditions, without asking them to take on this responsibility.
Skipping school can have a significantly detrimental effect on a child, it doesn't always, maybe it doesn't most of the time, but it does often enough that it is a significant concern. If people don't like how the school system works, perhaps they should try homeschooling?
To be blunt: I don't pay my taxes to fund an education system¹ so someone's offspring can wag off…
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[1] I don't begrudge funding the education system generally, despite not having (and not planning to have) kids myself² because I'm well aware that good education for all is a huge benefit for society as a whole
[2] Before anyone says “you don't have kids, you don't know how hard it can be”: I know full well how hard it can be and that is one of the reasons for my intention to never breed, I can't speak for anyone else's but my decision on the matter is not the one taken from a position of inadequate awareness
Maps is table stakes for a smartphone, and having such a key feature provided by your main competitor is a huge risk. So purely on that basis, it could be worth it.
Then, on top of that, there is value in the data you're able to collect. Traffic data is really valuable. Tracking the movement of vehicles and pedestrians lets you create very accurate maps based on "real world" data, you could use it to figure out really specific things like traffic light timings, diversions, pedestrian crossings, parking space, layout of private roads...
At one point, Apple was working on a car, if you were making a self driving car, all that data would be useful for you, and beacuse of the value of it, competitors may not even sell it to you. So your only option is to generate it yourself.
As for transit data, that is fairly simple, most transit agencies will publish their timetables in GTFS format, there are tools to automatically export this in scheduling software. That will probably get your 90% of the way there, so you might have a few on the groud people in major cities to tweak and make it more accurate, which is nothing for a company on the scale of Apple.
Back in the days Google notoriously launched turn-by-turn navigation on Android only. They bet on this being a big enough differentiator for people to use Android over iPhones.
Apple then launched Apple maps - which at some point became quite good. Google quickly learned that they can't afford to make Android specific features in their apps or they risk losing large percentage of iOS users if Apple makes a competing product
If Apple didn't respond with making their own maps, then maybe we would see more and more Android specific features, to the point where Android would become the dominating platform
But this is also exactly the same game Apple plays against Android users. It's the same reason why iMessage bubbles are green for Android. Google won the maps round, but such wins are vanishingly rare against Apple.
There are non-Android devices that can send texts as well; they also appear as green. It's probably more accurate to say that encrypted messages are blue and unencrypted are green. Look at the recent AT&T hack to see why the difference matters.
Even if that was more accurate (I don't think it is), it's certainly not the way users see it.
In fact that's NOT the way Apple describes it, either (see the Apple article cited above), because Apple doesn't actually want to enable E2EE -- it only wants to be able to say it offers it.
In practice, ensuring that other users are pressured into choosing iMessage on iPhone is the only thing that matters to Apple.
And, this very simple trick works extremely well: at least 87% of teenagers in the U.S. (https://mashable.com/article/apple-messages-green-doj) are pre-programmed to buy an iPhone, even though they have the lowest disposable income of all. Meanwhile, less than a third of the overall global population owns an iPhone.
Is that because iPhones are better? As an owner of both a recent Pro Max and Pixel Pro, I can unequivocally answer, "no", but I do find all of the annoyances between cross-device communication accrue to the point of just wanting to switch to my iPhone full-time, even though it's arguably a worse experience in many ways.
and services like e.g. SMS text reminders from Internet services do no run on Android. The green is not a signifier of Android, just of non-encrypted. Or non-Apple, if you want to be less precise. (Apple devices where encryption is disabled also appear as green.)
> Then, on top of that, there is value in the data you're able to collect. Traffic data is really valuable. Tracking the movement of vehicles and pedestrians [...]
...but then they decided to market themselves as "privacy-focused", so they can't really do that, right? Or are they actually doing it?
> At one point, Apple was working on a car
...but then they killed the car project, so that goes out of the window too.
Collecting dots/vectors on a map doesn't necessarily invade my privacy. The problem comes with linking that dot with a person. As long as that link is lost and unrecoverable, I have no problem with Apple (or anyone) collecting it. The second problem is actually ensuring that.
The main problem with this is that the data is naturally linked to your phone, and you have to trust the provider to anonymize it. I suspect that's at least part of the reason for Apple painting itself as privacy-friendly: building trust with its users that they won't misuse their data.
I mean most of those vectors will converge on my home dot; with time data any vector intersecting with my home can tell a lot about my life. Additionally, is it anonymized per user (ie all my vectors are still a set just not identified as me) or each vector is an individual product unliked from all other vectors and user data.
> Additionally, when you use Maps to make a navigation or directions request, details about your route are sent to Apple, including:
> [...]
> A random identifier, which is created when you ask for directions and exists for the duration of your navigation session
That’s just because your phone sends it, but your phone also has a list of “significant locations,” around which it could avoid sending data for a mile or less.
> but then they decided to market themselves as "privacy-focused", so they can't really do that, right? Or are they actually doing it?
Here's the genius behind Apple's marketing: when they say "privacy" they (mostly) don't mean from them! They are mainly talking about third parties. Apple collects a ton of first-party data, and nobody seems to be concerned about that. I also the pond Apple swims in (big tech) is so disgusting and polluted that even their minor effort at cleanliness seems pretty good.
Apple has a lot of technical solutions that mean data is collected, but is never associated with a particular user.
As an example, location data is shared with Apple, but it’s associated with a random unique identifier rather than your account. When your trip ends, your device switches to a new identifier. Traffic information is only shared if a certain threshold of users travel on a route [1].
Other examples include the entirely on-device photo scanning, the same rotating identifier system for transcripts of Siri interactions, etc. and, of course, being the only major cloud provider to offer E2EE on everything.
Not perfect, but a huge difference from their competitors.
I do appreciate their sharing that, but I hate that it requires entirely just trusting them. They've so locked the user out of the device that it's difficult or impossible to verify anything for yourself, and even if you did, they could trivially push a change at any time because they have ultimate control over the device.
On the flip side, I tend to think a company so large would have at least one whistleblower or something on the inside, and/or would be so concerned about legal fallout that they wouldn't risk it.
On the flip side of the flip side, Apple is notoriously secretive (even among insiders) and very tight-fisted around employees sharing/leaking information. They also have some of the best lawyers in the world and a near infinite ability to fund any legal action, so may feel (and in fact, be) untouchable. And should Apple go evil, there aren't really great alternatives anyway for the average person, and they're generally so invested in the walled garden that walking away would entail a major disruption to their life.
I agree though, while not perfect, they are certainly much better than their competitors (not counting small players, e.g. GrapheneOS), and I'm grateful that at least they keep privacy at the forefront of conversation. If they abandoned it, there'd be nobody to pick up the mantle.
Allegedly, Apple have built in privacy features so they can't associate individual users with routes, or know what the entire route is[1]. Apple does show traffic data in the app, so they obviously do collect the data somehow.
When Apple built maps, the car project was still alive, so it would have been a factor in deciding on the investment. They could still partner with a car manufacturer and use the data.
I do suspect that my first point was key in green lighting Apple Maps. Google could have asked for more and more money to provide maps for Apple, or they could pull out completely, and force users to use the App Store app, which would have left the product direction of Maps completely out of Apple's hands.
I haven't been an employee since 2015, but by then Google had already been doing the route trimming and splicing for live traffic data. (If you had location history enabled, some of that same data at lower granularity was stored in another service, of course)
"Is it Apple Maps bad?" --Gavin Belson, Silicon Valley
After the fiasco from their initial app launch, I'm sure they would have preferred not to be a meme in a sitcom if possible on this go round. It is possible to release too early
The most interesting thing for me was the Iconian Fonts website. One guy who is a "commercial transaction attorney for a global software and service company", that makes fonts as a hobby.
On his commerical use page, he just asks for a $20 donation if you use a font commercially. I wonder if he realised that his fonts would be used in billion dollar movie franchises.
Would this be more than 100 seats? $2000 is still not a lot. Would you theoretically need a license for every employee involved in the movie or only those which would actually work with the font?
Fun fact: long credits at the end of the movie were invented by George Lucas for American Graffiti in 1973 [1]. He didn't have the money to pay everyone so he offered to put their names in the credits instead.
And thus started a new chapter in the exploitation of film crews, where you don't get paid enough but hey, at least your name is in the credits. All the other producers were immediately like -- that's a genius idea to pay the crew less! So now all movies (and even TV shows) are full of hundreds and often even thousands of names in the credits.
I still remember my first credit in a blockbuster production, after a first few years in TV advertising that name no names, and it was exhilarating. My name is since forever embedded into the artwork we all worked towards. I was also paid, but with that money now long gone I just wanted to highlight that there is value not just in money.
That's amazing. I always wondered about watching old (1930s-1950s) movies where they would give credits to the lead cast at the start and just end with a "The End" card with no credits. I always wondered if they just cut the credits off, but I guess they never existed!
I'm just glad they stopped putting so many opening credits in films. It's basically insufferable to watch old movies with 10+minutes of opening credits. I'm annoyed by the 3-5 minutes of production credits at the start of movies today as it is.
Wow, it never even registered to me until I read this comment that the Star Wars movies didn't have opening credits. They're usually so forgettable anyway, and after reading that article, it seems so silly and ridiculous that all the various Guilds and Associations and Hollywood Political Units got so butthurt over that decision.
Lord of the Rings also famously does not have opening credits. Just runs right into the film. With the expectation that you might have just finished the previous film and ready to start the next.
The FUN part is, if you just happen to have the same name as one of the crew, you can get a credit without being involved at all!
Funny story: I usually sit through the full end credits when I go to the movies, just in case something interesting happens afterward. So I'm doing the usual thing at the end of Sonic the Hedgehog, and suddenly, there's MY REAL NAME jumping RIGHT out at me! It wasn't even on its own line, just in with a bunch of other folks working in the same group (I presume), but there it was, and I SPOTTED it!
Maybe it's just me, or maybe we just tend to take notice when our own names pop up, even in a crowd.
I'm glad to see people recognized for their work, even in such a small way though. As they continue to scroll and you start to see titles like "2nd assistant to the HR Team Lead" I can't help but wonder how much is bloat and how much improved the games might be if the teams were leaner.
I'm also torn on the concept of "production babies" which is basically just acknowledging that some parent was forced to abandon their family and newborn child for weeks-months of crunch because of bullshit arbitrary release schedules
I assume that a large number of people in video game and movie credits just did part time work or a short project and they weren’t exclusive with this particular project
Like when you list the accountants, is it that those accountants were working ONLY on this project or was this one of a dozen things they were handling at the time?
When we list a musician in the credits, is it a musician who was ONLY working on this project or was this one of a dozen things they were handling at the time?
I'm always amazed how many games in the early years have no credits at all. And it would bum me out because I wanted to know who coded this? Who's music is it? Did the coder do the graphics too?
It was only working in the industry that I got answers to most of these from seeing hundreds of resumes and demo reels. (How else would I have found out who was behind Virtua Hamster?)
Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe these days the various film-industry unions essentially require individual credits for anybody who even tangentially had anything to do with working on the film or on the set of a film. E.g., I'm pretty sure I've seen the names of catering staff in movie credits.
It's all contracts. My father is named because the effects company he worked for had a contract for credit, the guilds similarly enforce their contracts on producers. It was common for many many people involved in production directly to not get credit, you may be underestimating the sheer number of people involved in making a major film.
Industry people joke that the caterers are very important, and to be listed above them is a privilege, but a wry hint of truth because an army moves on its stomach.
These feature phones didn't have (many) third party apps. Smartphones are all rectangular touch screens, so creating an app that works on different devices doesn't require huge amounts of work (technical and design).
If manufacturers come out with phones that stray too far from the rectangular touchscreen paradigm, the majority of app developers aren't going to customise their app for the phone, unless it's really succesful.
I used to make apps for Smart TVs, when Samsung release their "Sero" rotating TV, supporting portrait orientation AND the orientation changing whilst in the app was too much work, so we just ran it in a letterbox mode.
An aircraft is out of position, so the flight is definitely going to be cancelled, but instead of cancelling the flight, every 10 minutes, they'll announce a further 10 minute delay to the flight.
If you get frustrated and leave before its officially cancelled, there's no compensation to pay.
The moment it hits 3 hours, and compensation will have to be paid, the flight is suddenly cancelled.
My annual leave resets on April 1st, so being able to change the year would be handy.
I worked compressed hours (I have every Friday off)
I can carry over 5 unused days to the next year, and buy 5 more days. This might impact what days I take off.