I had a similar experience with DuckDuckGo several years ago, but the difference was that I got paid as I progressed through the various stages.
I had to submit a short written design proposal and was told to cap it at a few hours and was paid for it. It was accepted and then I spent time implementing a solution. The pay again was capped at a certain amount of hours, but I ended up going past the recommendation because I was actually having fun trying to figure it out.
I submitted the solution and after a while I got a response with basically, "it was a difficult decision, but sorry we're going to pass" and they wouldn't provide additional detail. It's been over 5 years, but I still wonder why they passed.
I can only assume they had a lot of candidates and they may have had other very strong submissions that were better than mine. However, it took a lot out of me emotionally and affected me for quite some time... more than any other interview in my ~20 year career. I feel for the OP.
I am not an Apple Music subscriber and don't stream much music besides SomaFM, so I may not be in the norm.
I always have selected on the sidebar Library -> Songs with View -> Column Browser enabled. And I search only using the "Filter" text input on this view. It's as close to how iTunes used to be in the early days of OS X (sans brushed metal).
What I see on the screen is just mostly dense text except the small thumbnail at the top for whatever is currently playing. There is no other related artwork or graphics loaded. I fear once a re-write of this app happens, this view is gone... replaced with lots of fancy graphics and loads of whitespace padding everywhere.
> Gil was a nice guy, but he had a saying. He said, 'Apple is like a ship with a hole in the bottom, leaking water, and my job is to get the ship pointed in the right direction.'
Kinesis Advantage 360 or ZSA Voyager (split ergonomic keyboards with ortholinear layout).
I ended up buying both. I had chronic wrist pain and weakness for a few years that I thought was caused by an acute injury. Turns out I think it was actually typing. I bought the Advantage 360, and after a few days, my wrist pain disappeared and never came back. When I switch back to a standard keyboard, I can't type for more than an hour before I start feeling discomfort.
I bought a Logitech K860 ergonomic keyboard for under $100 for the same reason (wrist pain). Since I use it (2 weeks), the pain alsmot disappeared too.
I wish I bought one years ago.
Also, for less than $100, I have a Kensigton track ball for years.
I'll second that Day One is a great app... I've used it nearly every day for the past 13 years. I was afraid it would stagnate after it was acquired by Automattic, but it's only gotten better.
I'm pretty sure Spectrum corporate culture is incentivized by only one thing: SELL!
I canceled my service after several years due to a negative customer service experience, which I explained was the primary reason I was cancelling. Never was I asked about the incident... only more offers and promotions.
I called Spectrum before I canceled to specifically ask if they could get me faster internet without changing my TV package. They said no -- I was on a grandfathered plan from a prior company they had bought, and they would have to recreate the account to do anything. So I got Fios + YouTube TV instead. And when I called to cancel Spectrum, the guys says he wishes I had called before getting Fios.
It's very clear that the only time they care is when your actual money is on the line. Before that, everyone is shackled by whatever chains management puts on them.
This was also shortly after they sent me a new modem and told me to install it or risk losing connectivity within like a week. And then on my next bill is a charge for updating the modem...
Generally speaking, convenience is king. I find a lot of like-minded people will easily overlook or not even consider what is happening behind the scenes. There is a tradeoff for low prices/convenience and it's not always obvious.
I cancelled Prime about 6 months ago and I thought it would be difficult, but it's actually been fine.
I shopped at Whole Foods for over a decade and there are staples I thought I couldn't find elsewhere. I discovered through a combination of Trader Joe's, my local grocery store, and Aldi, I found replacements for everything, items I like better, and I save way more money!
As for non-grocery items, I'll often try to buy from the manufacturer directly, even if that means paying a little bit more. If I can't find something directly, I'll check Walmart, Target or other established retailers and usually can find something for a comparable price.
I've also made a slow shift to buying used items. For books, on eBay I can often find them used, in like-new condition for a fraction of the cost at Amazon and with free shipping. It's a gamble and sometimes I get books with highlighted pages or cosmetic damage, but it's rare.
And when Amazon is only the cost effective way to purchase something or I can only find it on Amazon, I'll wait until I can hit $25 for free shipping and wade through Amazon's dark patterns in the checkout process. Turns out, "standard shipping" still ships in 2 days because I'm guessing logistically it's better to just keep inventory flowing with all other Prime purchases. My wife managed PTO orders for teachers at our local school through their non-Prime Amazon account... guess what, every order shipped "early" anyway and received within 2 days. Prime is kind of a scam IMO if fast shipping is the draw (although I never utilized other value-add services like Prime Video or Music).
When someone asks me about Amazon and I mention I don't have Prime, I often get shocked responses. I'm not trying to actively dissuade people from Amazon/Prime if they like it, but I'm hoping it will get people thinking.
For non Amazon books, check out bookshop.org if it's in your country yet, they're created to provide an alternative to Amazon for brick & mortar independent retailers. They basically manage inventory & shipping for them and you can direct part of your sale to a specific shop or let be shared among all members.
Busytown: Eye found it is one of my kids' favorite games. It's a lot of fun to play as an adult too. I'll have to checkout the airport one. Thanks for posting!
It probably doesn't cost them much to keep the RSS feed going, and it's a way to keep a subset of people coming back to watch videos that otherwise wouldn't.
For instance, I dislike having to open YouTube to see what's new (or get notified by email) so I end up missing a lot of new videos from a handful of channels I consistently watch. Once I discovered there the RSS feed for videos, I added them to NetNewsWire on the Mac and it's been a much nicer way to see what's new.
So for people like me that would probably never watch new content, the RSS feed offers another way for YouTube to get me back on the site. That being said, I hope they don't kill it.
It very likely costs a bit if you think of it like a bean counter, in terms of "lost ad views." Though in fairness, if you're using RSS to browse Reddit, and you're not using an ad-blocker, you sound like you've all but gone out of your way to view their ads.
I would think the opposite -- YouTube makes most of their money from advertising on videos, so the driving goal is to get users to watch as many videos as possible. The algorithm they use is a big part of that, but RSS feeds are probably a pretty good way to get people who only watch a handful of channels back the site (as the RSS feeds are just links to the video pages, without video embeds).
That's a valid take. Though, not all videos are equally ad-ridden. I suspect if I were to start using rss to subscribe to channels I'd be favoring those that don't make much use of them. But yes, it's not so cut and dry.
I had to submit a short written design proposal and was told to cap it at a few hours and was paid for it. It was accepted and then I spent time implementing a solution. The pay again was capped at a certain amount of hours, but I ended up going past the recommendation because I was actually having fun trying to figure it out.
I submitted the solution and after a while I got a response with basically, "it was a difficult decision, but sorry we're going to pass" and they wouldn't provide additional detail. It's been over 5 years, but I still wonder why they passed.
I can only assume they had a lot of candidates and they may have had other very strong submissions that were better than mine. However, it took a lot out of me emotionally and affected me for quite some time... more than any other interview in my ~20 year career. I feel for the OP.
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