coyoteseattle

coyoteseattle, 7 months ago

@foone Clearly, the correct approach is to do two barrel plugs, one positive and one negative.

coyoteseattle, 8 months ago

@TechConnectify This is only marginally related, but it seems like a good excuse to complain about it some more. :p I recently replaced some of the outlets in my house because their contacts were worn out and not gripping firmly, and found out in the process that every non-GFCI outlet which was installed during construction is backstab-only. No screw terminals at all, regardless of entire multi-room circuits being daisy chained off of them. My inner-former-electrician now kinda wants to rewire the entire house, because I no longer trust the people who installed those like that. Also because they did it wrong in other ways, so we have several multi-switch light sockets where the switches have to all be on for the light to work, rather than the typical XOR gate configuration which allows full control from either switch. :/
My inner-former-electrician would also like to add that the best orientation for a NEMA socket is whatever is most convenient for the installation or expected use in that location. If the receptacle is in good condition, the orientation of the plugs doesn't really matter for stability, and if it's not in good condition, it's a hazard and needs replaced. If there's reasonable concern about objects getting dropped into a partially-seated connection, the solution is a recessed or covered outlet, not, "install the receptacle with the ground pin up and hope for the best."

coyoteseattle, 10 months ago

@trochee If I were being charitable, I'd go, "They were making a rather weak joke." But I prefer cynicism about companies like that, so I'm gonna go with, "They're weeding out the potential customers smart enough to realize how stupid that is, so their sales team doesn't waste time on people who wouldn't sign a contract."

coyoteseattle, 10 months ago

@evan To me, it comes across as a sign of an immature developer. One who's really passionate about what they made, but hasn't yet learned that the only even arguably bug-free software is /bin/true, so a security issue isn't an insult, it just means that someone cared enough about your software to try something weird with it, and then tell you what happened. We can but hope they learn it without major consequences, because it's rarely a lesson to be taught gently.

coyoteseattle, 10 months ago

@evan Sorta? I ain't very good at metaphor; my point is that when a lot of us tech types learn that we can make a computer do whatever we want, we go all hubristic. I'm sure I don't need to tell you how much of a high it can be, how you feel like a cyber-god, at first. But we're not gods, and if we're lucky, we eventually learn that from something like, "Chris Null just broke our auth database by signing up," and not, "We're suing you over this dump of your user database we found on pastebin."

coyoteseattle, 10 months ago

@drcaberry Since, as we all know, the last 10% of a project takes 90% of the time, and he's only slightly reached into that, he still has ~88.5% of the total time spent on it left. :p

coyoteseattle, 10 months ago

@evan X has never caused me problems moving 3D models between software, so I'm highly in favor of it. It also shares its name with one of my favorite windowing systems, so that's an additional bonus. ~..^

coyoteseattle, 10 months ago

@Graham_LRR I could see it enabling competition. With Microsoft publicly trying to deal with discrimination and harassment, and ActiBliz just insisting their toxic culture doesn't exist, there are probably going to be a bunch of people who get fired or resign as a result of this, and go open new studios.