None of the editors have ever been "hired"... Hard to fire someone if you haven't been paying them to begin with...

I was the principal engineer on Wikipedia Zero, and one of the top code contributors to the MediaWiki itself, first as a volunteer, and later as an employee. I think Wikipedia Zero was a great attempt at promoting open knowledge in the less developed locations. I suspect that by now it is not as critical as it once was, and it would be good for the Wikimedia foundation to focus on better allocation of funds.

That said, I do have serious concern with how WMF does its allocation and chooses its priorities. Foundation collects over $80 million a year, and employs nearly 300 people, yet the **only** team that is directly driven by the community is a tiny 10 person Community Tech team. Community tech runs community surveys, and picks just the top 10 items to work on. Think about this - foundation that was created and prospers financially due to the community's efforts only lets 3% of its work, and even less of its funds be directly driven by that same community. Instead of allocating funds based on comunity's preferences, and in the same order, WMF has choosen the order and fund allocation according to the internal goals and inside politics. The recent priority setting efforts (which took nearly a year) may change that, but the process so far has seem to be far too complex, whereas the community tech team's voting was much more straightforward and simple to follow and participate.

There is fundamentally only one reason WMF gets the $80 millions in donations -- content. People value Wikipedia's content, and wish to support that content as much as possible. Despite this, almost none of these money goes towards improvements in the content -- Wikipedia is still a wall of text with a few static images, just like it was in 2001. I am still hopeful that a more interactive content would make its way to Wikipedia pages, avoiding stagnation and keeping the whole project relevant for the future.

And my microwave oven goes to 99:99

Well, who's an idiot if a law like that actually gets passed?

I think he got it just right.

I'm probably one of the few people here who prefers open floor layout. When I'm working on something not totally exciting presence of people next to me keeps me a bit more concentrated on my work. If I'm alone in my corner my mind tends to wander off or just turn off. Being in the cubicle after lunch with somewhat boring coding task will get me dozing off. But separate office is the worst: I need increasing amounts of coffee to stay awake.

You could probably diagnose me with ADD though. So how rare am I?..

Can I stay ignorant and just get umbrella deposit -to- USD conversion ratio? Bonus points if you google what is jiao for me.

This is actually great, but it still requires manufacturer+provider to be in the loop. I'd consider it "solved" when I myself can update Android while the low-level device drivers stay the same.

And TBH I don't see a simple solution for this, considering for example TFA phone needs custom notification icons ordering to leave a gap for front facing camera up on top of the screen.

I watched the whole thing.

At least have an exhaustive list of what they collect and publish where they store the intermediate results locally, so public can keep that in check. Without this FUD starts about keyloggers and web tracking that may or may not be happening in reality.

Instead they choose to dumb stuff down.

My company requires a pin and I find it annoying having to enter it each time I need to use my phone. I installed Touchdown and it eats up pin and encryption policies, and only applies them to protected work content. I.e. I open phone with a swipe, but enter pin only to open work stuff.

I dunno, I watched the webcast and that leeward fin will definitely need a new paint job. So, like I said, I dunno about 24hr turn around so far.

But to me it's not just making the sound louder, it's also about distinguishing voices from background sounds enough to comprehend them. Thankfully I'm not yet deaf enough for this to be a serious problem in a theater. But I'm on my way there: at home I either have to wake my neighbors or use headphones. Hence, subtitles.

You realize everyone doesn't have to take your family to a theater to go there themselves?

Of course you can. There were plenty of science fields banned throughout history.