Slightly off topic... UK road signs have a very clear and consistent color scheme based on the category of road. E.g., blue background for motorways, green background for A roads.
This scheme was (maybe still is) reflected in the color of roads on printed maps. Google Maps also used this scheme some years ago.
I understand their reasoning, but the day Google standardized on the current yellow & white scheme was a sad day for this UK Maps user.
Around 5 years ago I wrote something very similar, for the same reasons as you. It was never intended to be more than a proof of concept, but I've ended up using it most every day.
Mine is web based, but all implemented in the front-end; no data is ever sent to the server.
I was debating whether to post the URL, because I don't really want a bunch of people to start depending on it the way I do (I have zero plans to maintain/improve it). But I feel like there may be sufficient interest. So the URL is in my profile for the next 48 hours.
So if I need to change my 'amazon' password, I press 'generate different codes'. Then when I need to use my amazon password, I come back and click the 'generate different codes' to retrieve the new password?
What is the best way to use this for a service where the password frequently changes?
If you need to change your 'amazon' password, you click 'generate different codes', yes. That action will be remembered in your browser's local storage. So when you need to use your amazon password again, it will automatically advance and generate the correct password.
But if you come from a different browser, you'll need to click 'generate different codes' again to advance to the correct password.
For services where the password frequently changes, I don't think there's a very practical way to use this. At least not across several different browsers.
The "verification code" is a 6-digit hash calculated from the seed password. The idea is, you'll become used to recognizing the same verification code whenever you type your seed password - then you can quickly spot if you ever make a typo in the seed password.
Tom Scott did a video about another acoustic lens: the "sound mirror" overlooking the English Channel that was intended to be an early warning against aircraft coming from the continent.
To pick up on one point from the (fascinating) article:
> In the other direction, the U.S. hasn’t made a huge dent in China. Obviously, the Great Firewall played a huge role in keeping a lot of U.S. companies out of the Chinese market, but in the few cases where a U.S. company got a crack at the Chinese market, like Uber China, the results were mixed.
I'm genuinely curious to know which non-Chinese apps/services have managed to establish themselves in China. I feel like an argument could be made for LinkedIn... Are there obvious ones I'm missing?
I'm not sure how to interpret what's happening between the US and China at the moment - especially from a business perspective...
If I'm a US company operating (i.e., selling) in China, should I be worried? What if I don't operate in China but have outsourced manufacturing/coding/whatever there - should I seriously be looking at relocation?
The DOJ just recently brought charges against two Chinese hackers selling information to the Chinese. If I had to speculate this location somehow was involved. However, that's just a guess.
From a business perspective, be prepared for an extended period working from home, and be prepared for productivity to drop. Prioritize and set expectations accordingly.
I have colleagues in China who are facing down their fifth week working from home. At the beginning, they tried to maintain their normal (and excellent) level of output. But the stress of quarantine is starting to show.
Disruptions to normal routines, such as kids stuck at home and reduced/no access to childcare, are the non-newsworthy but most challenging issues for a large number of folks.
Can confirm. I'm in Beijing and it's wonderful indeed, I'm not with my family though.
I already worked from home for a month as a developer, and we have confirmed we'll WFH for the next 2 weeks at least.
There's no sign of productivity dropping for now according to our regular analytics. We have similar velocity as in previous months, where the estimation was done before the Chinese new year (just to clarify).
Right, and I must admit that was my initial reaction. I honestly hope that one positive from all of this will be that working from home (and remote work generally) becomes more widely acceptable.
Unfortunately, in this instance, what I'm hearing from people on the ground is that the balance has swung a bit too far into "cabin fever" territory at this point.
Note that in China it's common for people with kids to live with their extended family/in-laws (who look after their kids while they're working). Like anywhere else in the world, for many people spending time with their in-laws is not a pleasant experience.
Your thoughts echo mine very closely. Uncontained spread seems fairly well unavoidable at this point.
By all accounts, the Chinese have so far done a good job of containing the spread inside their borders (outside of Wuhan). But I feel there's a significant lesson to be learned from how the virus exited Wuhan in the first place: containment measures applied too late, after the scale of the problem became too obvious to ignore. I fully expect this response to be the norm, across all scales from community to city to nation.
I think that China and other large (in terms of area) countries like the US will come out of this "OK", modulo the economic impact. For the most part, intranational travel is funneled through long-distance rail and air routes, which are relatively easy to monitor and control. I have more concern for e.g., Western Europe, where there is not a significant geographic separation between the major population centers, and where there is a strong expectation of free & untracked movement.
The strong expectation for free untracked movement is no different between eu countries and us states - though I think our geographical distribution of population is indeed different.
I'm from Spain, and as soon as I saw people tested positive in Italy I knew we were going to fall too. Sure enough, we quickly had some cases in the canary islands and now it's already in the mainland, in my city (Madrid). The differences in intra city transportation are gonna be a big difference too, compared to an American city: everyone in the center uses the subway and buses, which are packed at rush hour. It's going to spread like wildfire.
> as soon as I saw people tested positive in Italy I knew we were going to fall too.
And transport connections between Northern Italy and Spain are worse than the ones with France, Switzerland, Austria, and Germany.
The cat is basically out of the bag. The question now is if we can keep it subdued enough to reach the warmer season, when it might stop on its own like SARS did and/or make it easier for people to develop antibodies.
This is a BIG modulo, China alone was already a disaster but now that we can see the rest of the world will be hit, the economic consequences will be disastrous.
2008 was a walk in the park compared to what may happen.
I seriously doubt it will. Once the panic subdues, things will go back to pretty much normal. Flu kills a lot of people every year without serious effects on the worldwide economy. You'll need a mortality rate significantly higher to make a dent in global supply and demand. Of course panic is the key word here. If governments impose severe movement restrictions it could disrupt the supply chain, but nothing about this virus seems to justify it. All the measures taken so far have been extreme because the goal was to stop worldwide expansion at early stages but that has already pretty much failed. Media will get bored of it eventually, vaccine will come a little later. World will keep spinning around.
I think this is going to happen to a lot of manufacturers and industries in the West who are going to lose a lot of money in the short to medium term.
Looking further out, this and the general push back of the last few years with being so dependent on China, may be what further forces the West to start ensuring supply chains are not so dependent on China and the far East.
Companies may start seriously consider the true cost of doing business in China due to unknown events like this, and even more likely ones like military and economic confrontations occur (e.g. tariffs).
This might actually help juice the Western world for a few years as more manufacturing and supply lines are repatrioted.
Viruses don't really pay much attention to economic rivalries and supply chains can be disrupted wherever they exist. As for "helping" the west, you're misunderstanding how gains from trade work.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLW3M-yio9tLtffeHaqZs-pXqK...