Lemmy, an open-source federated Reddit alternative, gets funding for development - <AUTHOR> https://dev.lemmy.ml/post/35293 <comment><USER2> How is lemmy going to avoid the fate of the last reddit alternative (voat)? Voat attracted the communities banned from reddit, e.g the worst of the worst: jailbait, creepshots, beatingwomen, etc. The users most interested in an alternative to reddit are on average, the exact wrong type of user to help with the growth of a healthy community. I don't see any information on how being "federated" solves the hard problem of toxic communities, especially given that is the userbase it will attract.

<comment><USER3> Nothing can prevent terrible people from using an open source project. Meanwhile, Reddit doesn't do much of anything about this problem either. For, example /r/metacanada exists, and white supremacists from there are also moderating /r/canada subbreddit, Reddit hasn't taken any action on that. At least the developers of Lemmy are very clear [1] about their stance regarding nazis, that's more than I can say for Reddit. It's also worth noting that Mastodon has millions of users now, and it clearly isn't attracting the worst people. In fact, I find it's a far healthier and friendlier community than Twitter.

[1] [https://dev.lemmy.ml/post/34286](https://dev.lemmy.ml/post/34286)

<comment><USER4> The situation on /r/canada is heartbreaking. Over recent weeks, almost every attempt to post a news article involving civil rights or anything overtly related to Black, LGBTQ+ or Indigenous issues has been immediately zeroed down, and in many cases then removed by a mod (their favourite method is to just hit the "dupe" button on all posts about a given news item or opinion piece, claiming they're all dupes, and not leaving one up).

If you make the mistake of discussing this on any other Canadian related sub where the /r/canada mods frequent, they'll ban you for life and say that _you_ were "brigading."

<comment><USER5> in case you didn't know, come to /r/onguardforthee, the sane and inclusive Canadian subreddit

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have to say, at the very least, the UI is a breath of fresh air compared to new Reddit. New Reddit is just...I can't quite put my finger on it, but it just feels awful to look at.

<comment><USER7> While I agree that new reddit is awful, I still much prefer old reddit to this. Also what's up with this new trend of having the main content width- restricted, but not the header [0]? The new GitHub UI that went live this week has the exact same problem on wide screens. What kind of UX designer ever approved such a mess and why do so many sites do this?

The main UI itself, again very width restricted, but also has strange paddings [1] which limit severely the area for the title (which is the most important UI element). Doesn't really make sense to me. The vertical centering is a bit of a mess, and the size of icons is also either way too big or way too small [2].

[0] [https://i.imgur.com/gZEWEdJ.png](https://i.imgur.com/gZEWEdJ.png)

[1] [https://i.imgur.com/nayP548.png](https://i.imgur.com/nayP548.png)

[2] [https://i.imgur.com/XZPToxy.png](https://i.imgur.com/XZPToxy.png)

EDIT: Huh, I hadn't used new reddit in a long time, I actually took a look now and it seems like it has improved significantly. I actually don't hate it as much, it looks much closer to old reddit now, with full width content and much less padding [3]

[3] [https://i.imgur.com/c1QBucR.png](https://i.imgur.com/c1QBucR.png)

<comment><USER8> > Huh, I hadn't used new reddit in a long time, I actually took a look now and > it seems like it has improved significantly.

The UI itself isn't horrible, it's the UX. It's incredibly bulky and slow, and some user links have been hidden while others completely removed.

<comment><USER9> New reddit must be the slowest website out there, on mobile where I'm not logged in it takes ages to load. Then ages to kill all sort of pop ups that force me to use their app. I believe they don't care about UX and speed of the site, it's all about the app. They measure app downloads, not the experience on the site.

<comment><USER10> I still am in awe regularly at how damn sluggish the site is. Even with an ad blocker it is at least an order of magnitude slower than every other website I've seen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> One thing that stands out to me is lemmy has public modlogs[1], this is a great feature in my opinion. Something that should be more common.

Quite a few people on reddit are frustrated by how opaque moderation is, but looking at the meta community of power users that seems to mod the bigger subs, I doubt the devs will ever copy this feature.

[1]: [https://dev.lemmy.ml/modlog](https://dev.lemmy.ml/modlog)

<comment><USER6> I moderate a couple of subreddits and agree moderation is a disaster. For popular subs, moderators are basically swamped in a never-ending avalanche of shit. Even if you want to be a good mod, doing so for the long haul is an insane time commitment.

The fact that being banned from one sub doesn't usually get you banned from another sub is totally understandable, but combined with how easy it is to make a new account, in practice it's just never-ending whack-a-mole with shithead posters.

<comment><USER12> The mods only have themselves to blame. They create insanely broad rules allowing them to ban anything and then limit mod positions to concentrate their power.

The role of mods is to delete off topic submissions and remove illegal content. Nothing more.

<comment><USER13> The role of mods is to establish and maintain the community they wish to have in the space. That takes a lot more than deleting off-topic submissions and removing illegal content.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> We have something similar to this, Aether. [https://getaether.net](https://getaether.net). (code at github.com/nehbit/aether)

Always glad to see more eyeballs on the space, so I wish then the best. Here are a few differences I can see at the first glance:

\- Aether is decentralised (as in torrent) this appears to be federated. That means Aether truly has no servers and every user is a peer, while federated means there are smaller 'Reddits' as servers that talk to each other.

\- By proxy that means we can't really have a web app unfortunately (working on it by the way of running a daemon on a raspberry pi) and they can - we need a native app running on your machine and seeding context to the network.

\- By another proxy, this means Aether avoids the issue of having a 'middle management' in the form of the ownership of your home server that federated networks have. You are the home server, so no one can control what you see. We call this user sovereignty

\- In Aether we have elections which elect mods based on popular vote and you control who is a mod, precisely because the 'social compiler' runs on your machine and allows you to compile it however you want. Two people with two different mod lists for the same community can see drastically different communities

\- We have a mod audit log and have had it for a while - everyone's mod actions are visible to everyone (this I think they also have)

\- Lastly, we have made the decision to not monetise Aether itself and create a team communication app called Aether Pro, and monetise that. This creates a 'Chinese wall' between where we make our money and the P2P network, which means it's a shield against drifting towards trying to make money from a social network. The code bases are separate but similar, so that also means work done on the Pro helps Aether as well. We have gotten some funding for the Pro, and we consider the P2P version a 'marketing / goodwill expense' in the context of that funding. That aligns us towards making sure Aether is long- term viable, well maintained and monetisation-free.

In contrast I think they've gotten money to work directly on this, which has both good and more hazardous sides. In summary, we opted for a long term structure that has less moral hazard (in my opinion, of course), in favour of a more stable app without a need for monetisation that has fewer, more stable releases.

For context, here's how a recent thread looks on my Aether client: [https://i.imgur.com/45tXQEO.png](https://i.imgur.com/45tXQEO.png)

<comment><USER15> > By another proxy, this means Aether avoids the issue of having a 'middle > management' (...) so no one can control what you see.

This _right here_ is the main thing that will never let any fully- decentralized system become mainstream. Two problems:

\- Most people _do_ want "middle-management". They don't want to deal with security risks, technical issues, understanding how the protocol works just to be able to share memes and score points with their social peers. All they want is to open their browser, see what their friends/peers are posting and be done with it.

\- This trade-off between federated systems/giving up control _does not exist_. A federated system can degenerate into a fully-distributed graph. Those that want to keep full control over their system can easily do with a federated system: _they just run their own instances_.

Decentralized systems for social networks fail the Zawinski test and do not provide one single use-case that can not be done with a federated alternative. I fail to see any benefit of pushing it except for buzzword investors.

<comment><USER16> The trade-off is that when you run your own instance you have to then attract users to it for it to be useful, which burdens others.

In a fully decentralized network you can meet new people and moderate your own view of the world without putting any burden on others to adapt to what you want. Moderation can be done with a system like this: [https://adecentralizedworld.com/2020/06/a-trust-and- moderati...](https://adecentralizedworld.com/2020/06/a-trust-and-moderation- system-for-the-decentralized-web/)

<comment><USER15> Sorry, either you don't understand the concept of federation, or you are bullshitting me.

I can run a single-user Mastodon instance and follow people from any other instance. They can follow me as well. I can send emails from my personal server to anyone on gmail, and vice-versa.

Where do I need to "attract other users" to my instance? It's quite the opposite!

<comment><USER16> I thought you meant similar to hosting a forum or Lemmy like site.

With Mastadon if say I'm on another instance and the host of that instance blocks yours (because they don't agree with your politics or whatever) then won't I be unable to see your feed? I'd have to setup my own Mastadon instance to get around this? What if I'm not technically inclined enough to do this? Then I'm subject to the whims of the moderators of the instance.

What if I live in China and they block access to the biggest instances so I'm cut off from all the big communities and can't participate?

What if an instance of Mastadon crashes and the admins can't be bothered restoring it. As a user on that instance haven't you lost everything?

These are the problems decentralized networks are solving, being subject to the whims of other people.

<comment><USER15> > With Mastadon (sic) if say I'm on another instance and the host of that > instance blocks yours...

First: Mastodon, with an "O".

Second: I already had this discussion before. This "blocking" of instances is something that is going on only on Mastodon, AFAIK, because most of the current members are conflating the idea of _federation_ with _tribes_. They _want_ to be insular at this point. This will change as soon as there are more people using ActivityPub like email or Matrix and stop associating the instances with the identities/ideologies of its members.

So, no. You won't _have_ to "setup your Mastodon" instance to get around this. You _can_ do it, but you also _can_ just find a more professional hosting provider that is not managed by a fourteen year old or tweenagers that love to spout their love for diversity and yet can only tolerate any conversation that is exactly aligned with their existing preconceptions of their uniform peer group.

> What if I live in China and they block access to the biggest instances so > I'm cut off from all the big communities and can't participate?

What if you live in China and they block the decentralized service altogether? What if they use the decentralized nature of the service and set up honeypots to find dissidents? "Decentralized" != "Private" != "Secure"

> What if an instance crashes (...) the admins can't be bothered restoring it.

If it is important to you, _then_ (a) you run your own service or (b) you pay someone that actually cares about this. With a decentralized service, the only alternative you have is (a). Then not only _you_ have to make this choice, but also _everyone_ that you would like to join the network.

My point all along is that federated systems are already enough for those that do not "want to be subject to the whims of other people", while decentralized systems shut out those that don't care about it or would rather trust/delegate these concerns to someone else.

"Decentralized systems" bring no benefit that can't be had by federated systems and remove all sorts of free options from the potential users. It is limiting instead of liberating.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Sorry, don't like the name. Also, when you say a reddit alternative, to me it gives the impression that the redditor culture will remain so why would I sacrifice the content rich reddit for a new platform? Federation doesn't mean much to me as a user that justs wants [social]entertainment and news (and commentary on them).

There's only one thing that can change my mind a little: if you guarantee email is not and will never be required to sign up or use a feature. Edit: if you think this is irrelevant, consider how both reddit (until recently) and HN didn't require email for signup, also the majority lurker population and importance of lurker-> user conversion. If email is your hill to die on, it will also be mine and I hope a majority of lurkers' hill to die on against you.

As a techie I support federated and decentralized systems but as a user, how the platorm is architected is irrelevant, my experience is all I care about. Also,how will it monetize? Ads? If so I will stay with reddit. Non-crypto payment? Yeah, crappy reddit is better.

<comment><USER18> >There's only one thing that can change my mind a little: if you guarantee email is not and will never be required to sign up or use a feature.

I'm not trying to play the devils advocate here, just genuinely curious: Why do you (or anyone else) have such a strong opinion on not using emails for signing up? Usually, when a service requires me to enter an email, I have no issue with using a service like 10minutemail and never checking that email account again.

<comment><USER17> I have spoken about this many times on HN. It comes down to this: email is being used in many nefarious ways and it is an ancient protocol with many insecurities. Anonymous email works for a bit but then every service worth using starts banning the providers. Both reddit and HN prospered as a result of not requiring email, that should tell you a lot about how horrible it is. It's on the same level as social security numbers being used as a secure secret that identifies a person. Email was not meant to be abusef this way, and I have seen first hand how it can be used against people so I have chosen it as my figurative "hill to die on".

Now, if I can give a limited use address that cant be tied to me as an individual,expires after a period of time and messages are E2EE encrypted with no metadata leakage I don't mind that.

I have spent almost an entire day trying to sign up to one service withour having to give up my phone number,real IP,creditcard or real email address to anyone as a challenge. I have tried countless anonymous email providers and sms code receiving services. I failed. Email abd phone number collection is a modern tech evil for me.

<comment><USER19> The problem is always 'how do i allow this user to reset their password', or more 'how do i verifiably contact the user'/'how do i verify someone emailing support is who they say they are' \- without email, it's completely on the user to know and remember their password, something a lot of people can't do (and most don't use a p/w manager). HN does fine here since it's a 'tech' community where the majority likely does use a password manager, and Reddit gets away with it since their UI is so quiet about the email being optional - almost everyone thinks it's a required field since other websites require it and it looks just like the u/p field.

<comment><USER17> If you choose to opt out of email then you also choose to opt out of email support and being able to reset passwords via email. Two factor auth solutions let you store a one time recovery code for example that you write down or store somewhere safe, that's one option if you care to support it but I wouldn't mind losing the email only features you mentioned either.

<comment><USER6> > If you choose to opt out of email then you also choose to opt out of email > support and being able to reset passwords via email.

And the users will get mad and blame the service provider. That said users are dumb/wrong or whatever is irrelevant, what matters to the business is that they're pissing off users and getting a bad reputation. Thus, requiring emails from the user is entirely rational and in fact is a good business practice.

<comment><USER17> No, making it a default makes sense. Users will not get mad if they get a warning telling them email support will no longer be possible. Alternatively you can opt with giving them a recovery code by which they can contact support or with which email will be enabled for an account when the user forgets their password. The only time you can't turn on email on your account is if you lose the password. Email is not secure, a user that has their login compromised is very likely to also have their email compromised. Moreover, if their email is compromised this completely silly dependence on email will get their account on your site compromised as well so you should be using a non-email means of authenticating users for support or account recovery!!

Email must die. No buts or ifs. It must die. You are a poor or ignorant engineer and architect if you build new things that depend on email in 2020.

If you give the most mediocre hacker 100 emails of users of your service that depends on email for account security, I am confident he/she will compromise at least a 3rd of accounts.

<comment><USER6> > Users will not get mad if they get a warning telling them email support will > no longer be possible.

Yes, they will. Most will not have even noticed the warning you put up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Neat, but the big test for a discussion platform like this is what happens when they get big enough to matter, to get the attention of journalists looking for a scoop.

It's easy to slide by with haphazard (or no) moderation when you're small. Discussion extremists (trolls, bigots, and the like) are less attracted to smaller platforms; they'd prefer bigger ones, if any would take them.

I'm curious what will happen with the central listing of communities if a particularly vile community gains popularity. If there's a community unapologetically dedicated to, say, neo-nazism, and they like to do things like praise Hitler or discuss ways they can kill racial minorities, do they still get listed? How will others feel about that?

<comment><USER20> why are there so many comments assuming that the point of this project is to facilitate lighter moderation than Reddit has? the code of conduct on the site is pretty clear, actually.

now, can you start a federated instance with that kind of content? sure. but just like how none of the normal mastodon servers federate with Gab, no one would have to federate with the cesspool.

<comment><USER6> I think that sort of technical distinction might be lost in many when there's a news report on how [platform] 'allows' bigots to spread hatred.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> So sad, nobody remembers Imzy, the "nice reddit" founded by Dan McComas. It really was nice, had highly varied, friendly communities and a pleasant UI. Couldn't get traction, apparently.

[https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/05/imzy-the-nice- reddit...](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/05/imzy-the-nice-reddit- alternative-is-shutting-down.html)

<comment><USER22> I was unaware of imzy, but reading between the lines of that article the cause of demise seems to be "not enough traction to be successfully run as a business". sounds like there were communities there who were using it and enjoying it, so the real failure was the expectation that it would get as large as reddit and sustain a business model, not in the lack of usefulness to its users.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Not a good sign when the website doesn't load: [https://i.imgur.com/Us1mwrD.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/Us1mwrD.jpg)

<comment><USER24> I had several problems trying to get the page to load. After allowing it to use lots of javascript-related resources, it eventually loaded but took a while to display the actual text, on a fast internet connection. Unfortunate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'm hopeful something good will come of this. I wrote this about LinkedIn but most of it could easily apply to a Reddit alternative, I love HN but would love to see a broader platform that didnt become cancerous. [https://blog.eutopian.io/building-a-better- linkedin/](https://blog.eutopian.io/building-a-better-linkedin/)

<comment><USER26> > didnt become cancerous

Ultimately any platform big enough becomes cancerous unless it has sponsors who are willing to fund the platform without turning a profit, like HN is funded by ycombinator (though notice how over time there are more and more hiring advertisements for ycombinator companies).

The bigger a platform becomes, the more expensive it becomes to maintain; the people who were volunteers at first have to either monetize to be able to continue supporting the platform, or they have to sell the company to someone who can support it.

Once money is brought into the equation, a community starts to slowly deteriorate, as money slowly starts taking over all aspects of the platform, which is nothing more than human nature.

<comment><USER27> The hiring ads here seem completely relevant and appropriate for this forum. Very few other websites can say the same for their ads. YC saves money on recruiter fees and job listing fees, you reach your target audience, and you don't need tons of analytics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I think simply having a Reddit clone run by a non profit (or owned by the members themselves) would go a long way in promoting freedom and fixing the issues.

I guess use a people solution instead of a technical one.

<comment><USER29> There is one made by previous Reddit admin/dev who understands how reddit works. It is nonprofit, developed in open and all policy discussions go through community.

[https://tildes.net/](https://tildes.net/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I'd like a "reddit" that wasn't a confusing mess to navigate on a browser on my phone and wasn't always trying to get me to use the app. It could do worse than take lessons from the design of HN. A separate HN clone for each subreddit.

<comment><USER31> check out the site in my profile, brand new and under active development, but it's a responsive web app with goal of simplicity/low-friction

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> > JavaScript is required for this page.

Yeah, I'm out. That was a problem with the federated reddit-alike notabug.io too. It was just one giant javascript application, not html. And doing "pre- rendering" of the javascript on the host machine made the VPS costs too much to be tenable for people to federate.

<comment><USER33> Prerendering of the JavaScript? What do mean by that? Don't you mean prerendering HTML?

<comment><USER32> I do. I just worded it badly. I meant "pre-rendering of the javascript" to mean executing JS on the server and then sending the resulting actual html/css.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> How is this going to avoid becoming like Voat?

Reddit already has competitors. It is just that they are cesspools as the only people who have a strong reason to leave reddit are those reddit has banned.

<comment><USER35> Can we try to figure out sociologically, why by default unmoderated social forums become far-right oriented?

Is it because:

\- People on the far-right are magnitudes more vocal and active online than those on the left? That they spend a magnitude more time posting and voting on the internet?

\- Or when people are anonymous, they reveal their "true selves" more which exhibits more far-right (selfish, tribal, conservative) values.

\- Or we are underestimating how many people are on the far right, because they are constantly censored so in our minds we think they are the minority but maybe they're about half of the online population?

I'm just trying to figure out why it takes herculean effort to shift things enough to the left to be publicly palatable. And if so, then then it seems like any social forum is going to require heavy censorship/moderation to even be tolerable to the general public.

<comment><USER36> I think it is because far-right is far less palatable than far-left.

Consider two possible statements:

1\. Hitler wasn't that bad.

2\. Stalin wasn't that bad.

I think, for most people, the first provokes a much more extreme reaction. Both were objectively terrible human beings, but defending Hitler is seen as far more extreme than defending Stalin.

This has two effects:

Firstly, far-right people are continually kicked out of communities. Far-left people are not. So any new unmoderated community is going to attract these "refugees"

Secondly, nobody notices or cares when a community goes far-left. But its far more noticeable when a community goes far-right.

<comment><USER37> I think both of those examples would provoke a pretty extreme response in most people, but sincere Stalinists just aren't very common, at all. You see a _bit_ of "Stalinism was actually good" stuff on the internet (weirdly, occasionally from the right; some more confused Russian nationalists have a bit of a Stalin fetish), but you'll see a lot more holocaust denial.

<comment><USER38> >but sincere Stalinists just aren't very common

Maybe the figure-head isn't en vogue anymore. The methods are always popular.

Leftists(Socialists, Communists, Anarchists) often publically revel in the idea of when "the revolution comes" to put anyone dissenting up against the wall or sending them to a Gulag camp of some sort. I don't find that exactly reassuring. Seeing how "protesters" in the US and Europe act like chinese Red Guards during the cultural revolution, this day doesn't seem far off.

I'm reading the "Three-Body Problem" right now and the first chapter eerily reminded me of the current situation where not being enough of an "ally" to the racial BLM movement is a thought-crime punishable by having your life destroyed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I'm extremely disappointed your icon isn't a picture of Lemmy from Motorhead.

</comment><comment><USER40> Is it possible to make fonts smaller to resemble old.reddit.com? My perception field is vastly larger than the amount of text displayed (i.e. my brain can search for keywords without actually consciously focusing on them).

<comment> t-writescode command / ctrl + scroll-wheel?

<comment><USER40> Did you even try it? Give it a go and enjoy unexpected UX, then come back...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I hate when reddit insist us to install mobile version from play store. Why you guys follow the mainstream ?. Browser version just enough.

</comment><comment><USER42> "Reddit alternative" "open source federated"

What is the difference between this and usenet

<comment><USER43> I agree with you that Reddit basically overlaps this area, but I don't think access to Usenet is easy these days (ignoring paid services that are optimized for downloading files).

Although if anyone knows good servers (ISPs no longer seem to offer them) or even better a way to connect own server to Usenet, I'm interested.

<comment><USER44> There are still a few servers that allow one to access usenet to access text based groups without a monthly fee. Barring that, you can access usenet newsgroups via Google Groups (groups.google.com), but only via HTTP.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> There is huge need for such an application.

Hope that it becomes moderately successful. If it becomes too successful, it will become victim of it's success like Reddit.

<comment><USER46> It will absolutely need popular support to attain some sort of critical mass, and not just among the cast-offs from other platforms, such as Gab, Parler etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> The fact that Reddit is an echo-chamber is one reason I never joined, & never will, but there are some communities that would be useful like the android & kustom subreddits, the former of which already exists on Lemmy. I'm only holding off with Lemmy because they don't (yet at least) have a privacy policy, which to me is essential especially considering the nature of the site. The fact that they didn't at least put up some sort of template of a privacy policy before the site was ever available to the public when that's a common part of any site that provides accounts, as a way of informing you how they will handle the data you give them, is very troubling to me.

</comment><comment><USER48> Looks nice. Really fast webapp too.

Congrats team! Looking forward to tracking this project's development.

<comment><USER49> You're not kidding. This webapp is so fast (after the initial load) that I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if the Reddit mobile website intentionally adds sleeps/delays as some have jokingly suspected in the past. On this site, I can actually scroll through posts or collapse comment threads without wondering if my touch input and/or browser are frozen.

<comment><USER50> New Reddit doesn't need sleep/delays, it's already slow as molasses heh.

If not for old.reddit.com, my time on Reddit would've gone way down :/

<comment><USER43> My understanding was that s/he was referring to the new UI. Actually Reddit makes it hard to be on the old interface, I have to use browser extension to completely avoid the new UI.

<comment><USER50> There's a setting in preferences - as long as you're logged in, www.reddit.com links will still load the old design.

Logged out though, yeah, I manually replace "www" with "old" whenever I open a link...

Reddit is unavoidable these days since everyone's moved there and there's a lot of good content :/

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Congratulations! Just discovering Lemmy! Federated software is excellent - I'll have to write a home-hosting tutorial for this!

</comment><comment><USER44> I'm surprised not a single comment discussing Reddit alternatives mentioned Usenet (especially in terms of federation).

<comment><USER52> Well, now yours does, and thinking of federation, that is what I thought of, too. And, I think also, to be based on NNTP. I think at at least what should be done includes: Use NNTP, and avoid namespace collisions if you are defining your own newsgroups. I don't know how to request adding newsgroups to Big 8, or to the alt hierarchy, or others, but I invented the "Unusenet" convention for avoiding namespace collisions, which I use on my own NNTP server. Make the web pages contain the message ID, newsgroup name, and information to connect to the NNTP server, even if JavaScripts are disabled. Users who want NNTP can use it even if they do not have a compatible browser. If you want to use Markdown, add a "Content-type: text/markdown" header to articles that use Markdown (and do not try to render articles without such a header as Markdown), and preferably using a subset of Markdown without HTML.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> I tried few Reddit alternatives, most of them had the same problem: They attract many people who got banned from Reddit.

A good solution will be to not allow (at least at the first few years) to open a sub around politics.

</comment><comment><USER54> So many noob mistakes in the UI and I haven't even started using the site proper.

I see a link "Create Community", this takes me to a form where I get to create a community. I spend time naming and describing this community, and then click the Submit button. At this point it decides to tell me that I need to use lowercase for the community name.

So I fix that and hit Submit again. At this point I'm told I have to create an account first. WTF, why didn't you tell me earlier? If I leave this page to create an account, will you preserve what I've filled into this form for when I get back? Why didn't you just add the necessary username/password fields to this form at the same time you showed me the error?

Anyway, so I click on the link that says Login/Signup and get a popup that says "Are you sure you want to leave?" Now I have to click again to remove this popup. Another wasted click and +1 to the "annoyed" meter. See above for how this could have been avoided by just adding the login/signup forms to the form I just filled out to reduce friction.

Anyway, so I create an account. And it turns out the site forgot everything I'd done before that. Why ask me questions (make me fill out a "Create community" form) if you're going to immediately forget all my answers?

Absolutely no respect for the users time. Why would you do that when your very existence depends on attracting more users?

<comment><USER55> The problems in UX/UI in what I've tried span from fundamental interaction design down to code.

I guess it's a young project, so lots can be improved. I think the problems you mention are bad but they sound fixable.

I'd think about contributing or at least start by running my own instance and tweaking the interface to my liking. I'll also need to check if Inferno is worth learning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> member.cash is an interesting Reddit alternative. Not federated, but all the content is on a blockchain, so comments/users can't be censored, but users can filter them.

<comment><USER57> What happens when illegal content is posted? Is it stuck on the blockchain forever?

<comment><USER58> Sure is!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> This has ActivityPub (AP) support on its roadmap. I wrote a well-received[0] argument that AP could be the future: [https://kyefox.com/2020/04/09/activitypub-could-be-the- futur...](https://kyefox.com/2020/04/09/activitypub-could-be-the-future/)

I softened on it a little over the years since, but I think that was just the dearth of new things coming out that ran on it. Now I'm starting to think that was just a reflection of the fact that the obvious, low-hanging fruit was handled (write.as/Pixelfed/PeerTube/Mastodon) and the next round will take a while as people who got on later get ideas and develop them into something like, for example, Lemmy.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22864029](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22864029)

</comment><comment><USER60> The Reddit redesign made Reddit ridiculously unusable. Also like the web in general the more users it got the horrible it became. The stardard of content fell through the floor. The stanard of comments did the same. It went from be a pretty free market liberal types to angry left wing reactionaries over the course of a few years. It felt like the users got younger and younger until one day I saw a pic bunch of high school students egged on by their teachers holding a "socialism now" banner, this was front page.

<comment><USER61> I think the lesson might just to move on from sites whenever they get too big and cancerous.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> "Open source federated Reddit"

Maybe I'm old, but isn't this what Usenet was / is?

<comment><USER63> I'm not sure that usenet could scale to the degree that reddit has. Part of what reddit does that makes it good(though it's both a blessing and a curse) is that a lot of the curation and moderation is handled by the community via the upvote downvote system. That means that you don't need as much dedicated moderation handling things which at the scale that some of the subreddits operate at is huge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> "This is an Antifa instance" stickied on the front page by an admin no less. If I wanted a politicized cesspool reddit-clone I would just use Voat. Fail to see the point.

</comment><comment><USER65> There is also [https://notabug.io/](https://notabug.io/) for anyone looking into decentralized reddit alternatives.

</comment><comment><USER66> Nginx bad gateway when I visit. Reassuring I guess that I'll face the same down issues I do now with or without funding.

</comment><comment><USER67> I'm convinced that implementing so-called "free speech" sites in public doesn't work. Real free speech happens in closed networks, invite only. The only downside is those take more time to grow.

</comment><comment><USER68> Another poorly crafted SPA app. Click on a post then go back and it jumps to the top on its own. Sometimes there is just a blank screen. Please make it a simple MVC app without JavaScript BS.

</comment><comment><USER69> Their 500 Exception homepage does not exactly inspire confidence.

<comment><USER34> I don't think it is reasonable to judge whether a product in development currently scales well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> Once upon a time, open source federated reddit was called Usenet.

</comment><comment><USER71> I currently use this to host [https://emulator.news/](https://emulator.news/) the docker support is on point :D

</comment><comment><USER72> For anyone looking at this type of web application, I believe dev.to has similar functionality and licensing, but also has a mobile app on both iOS and android.

</comment><comment><USER73> Please, allow non-ws connection or fall back when it fails and stick to that alternative. When behind proxy/in VPN, I'm not able to use your website.

</comment><comment><USER74> I wonder why the developers of Lemmy decided to perform all the content requests via WebSocket instead of HTTP.

Is there anyone out there who can answer this?

<comment><USER31> Obfuscation? I've seen this in other sites (discord comes to mind). Maybe there's a hypothetical efficiency from reusing the websocket connection for all requests? for the site sqowk.im Im working on I use http for content requests and websocket for realtime stuff

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> I think Lemmy needs to address this before it will get any wide acceptance: [https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/pull/816](https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/pull/816)

<comment><USER76> A profanity filter? Seems at best make it an optional preference, but why would you _want_ to see offensive slurs by default?

<comment><USER75> > why would you want to see offensive slurs by default?

If I don't want to see offensive slurs, I won't associate with people who use them. Let me decide what is a slur or not, and let me decide who to associate with.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> The "forgot password" link does not work. (On mobile so I did not dig in and see if there were any errors in the console.)

</comment><comment><USER78> NLNet, the source of funding, is a truly superb institution that should be better known in the US.

</comment><comment><USER79> Um. CSS isn't loading on safari mobile. I hope this isn't the actual experience ?

</comment><comment><USER80> The problem with Reddit isn't the technology. I mean, yes open source is good, and I want more of that. Even Android is a good thing even if only one company actively contributes to it. At least when you hit a bug or don't understand how something works, you can go read the code. But the problem with Reddit is community management, and re-writing it won't solve that.

Reddit has been a mostly free for all in terms of moderation, and it is explicitly set up to allow thought bubbles, which gives rise to communities that dox activists, that incite violence, that promote conspiracy theories, etc. I love Reddit's good parts and really detest its bad parts. Problem is that you can only solve that with strong application of content guidelines, or by not even pretending to be a good place a la 4chan. There is no model as far as I've seen, not even an academic one, that allows for mostly moderation free or self-moderated content while also not prominently featuring at least one neo-Nazi group using it to communicate and coordinate.

</comment><comment><USER81> How does Lemmy compare to Mastodon, Zero Talk, and ZeroMe?

</comment><comment><USER82> Love the name, love Motorhead. Here's a Lemmy quote: "Apparently people don't like the truth, but I do like it; I like it because it upsets a lot of people. "

</comment><comment><USER83> I think it tries to solve a problem reddit doesn't have. Reddit has a content parity problem, by making content distributed just makes the community stops growing.

A new reddit alternative should think what makes Reddit useful in the first place. A community drive social bookmarking. Today's Internet have large volume of info hidden behind paywalls and walled gardens, something like Thread Reader App could replace Reddit from ground zero.

</comment><comment><USER84> Seems to be crashing on my end.

<comment><USER85> Same here. Must be getting the HN hug of death.

<comment><USER86> > dessalines (mod, admin, creator) 23 minutes ago

> We have > 2200 connections to the server right now, its a DDOS. Rust seems > to be handling it fine, but the nginx is having issues.

[https://dev.lemmy.ml/post/35712](https://dev.lemmy.ml/post/35712)

Sounds about right - I'm amused that whoever saw this thought it was a ddos though.

dessalines - if you're reading this - I expect looking at referrers would be a good way to (manually) diagnose real attacks vs people becoming interested in your site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER87> There is also [https://tildes.net/](https://tildes.net/) that is also open- source.

<comment><USER33> Is it federated though?

</comment></comment><comment><USER88> I still miss nntp

</comment><comment><USER89> Ah, Diaspora 2.0.

</comment><comment><USER90> All this trouble instead of just ressurecting usenet.

</comment><comment><USER91> I'm a fan of [https://tildes.net/](https://tildes.net/) \- created by an ex- reddit employee (creator of AutoModerator)

</comment><comment><USER92> As an non-American, Reddit is in general, awful.

It's all "Trump, Trump, Trump" and tolerates anti-white sentiment. Actual conversations are rare, it seems to mostly be impressionable young people trying to out-do each other in taking offence to things and being angry.

It seems you can't block subreddits like r/politics without making an account.

/r/cpp has some good stuff sometimes.

What would a reddit alternative bring? More of the same? No thanks.

</comment><comment><USER93> The website is down only for me

</comment><comment><USER94> A federated reddit system needs ways to lock down user accounts. That it's basically 4chan in terms of anonymity gives too much of an open door to extremists and trolls. I don't see any difference between this and voat except the assumption of goodwill rather than being centered around right wing extremism.

<comment><USER95> The fediverse has proven quite resilient to trolls, bots and numerous other challenges as users and instance operators can block other users and instances, (or mute/content warn media) among numerous other moderation tools to prevent bad actors from destroying the signal to noise ratio of each instance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER96> I hope that this will democratise political discourse. At the moment, people having opposing view to the main stream opinion are having exceedingly difficult time sharing their content.

Reddit's main fault is their willingness to participate in politically motivated banning. I'm talking about the fate of The_Donald. (There are also other examples.) Reddit first persecuted and then effectively banned The_Donald because, in my opinion, Reddit is run by people who hate president Trump.

It's important to understand that the hate is not something that will go away after Trump but it will be replaced by hate for the next guy. It's driven by political tribalism, not Trump.

As basically all social media platforms are doing the exactly same thing as Reddit, we are not in a good place. We really can't allow our political discourse and views to be dictated by a handful of group thinking denizens of Silicon Valley blinded by political tribalism.

<comment><USER97> > _It 's important to understand that the hate is not something that will go > away after Trump but it will be replaced by hate for the next guy._

This seems to presuppose that all presidents are equal in terms of the acts they perform that generate hate or upset in the supporters of their political opponents.

I don't think that is true. Not all presidents have been, or need to be, culture warriors.

Indeed, it would appear that Americans are way more united on a number of _huge_ issues now more than ever: COVID response, racial equality, economic recovery.

Just based on circumstance, I think whoever next holds the office of POTUS, regardless of party, stands to polarize people less than they have been in the past due to the fact that many, many people are in agreement about federal government priorities right now.

That seems, to me, relatively unprecedented in recent times.

</comment></comment><comment><USER98> So, on my first and last visit to "Lemmy" I observed the admin "nutomic" providing the world with his political philosophy:

 _Any platform that emphasises "free speech" will be full of fascists sooner or later_

No, I don't want to have anything to do with a website controlled by an unusually foolish five year old.</comment>


Tilt-Shift Using CSS - <AUTHOR> http://lab.simurai.com/css/tilt-shift/

<comment><USER2> A bit misleading - I figured that it was going to somehow achieve the tilt- shift effect on images using CSS.

I understand that that may have been a stupid thing to think, but I still feel a bit disappointed.

Still cool though.

<comment><USER3> The tilt-shift effect is only applied to the text. So yeah, I cheated a little by adding a background image that is already tilt-shifted. ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I really like this guy.

He has all sort of great CSS related hacks on his site <http://simurai.com/tagged/lab>

</comment><comment><USER3> For those interested in adding blur effects.. CSS filters are coming so that you can blur any DOM element, also images: [https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/FXTF/raw- file/tip/filters/publish/Fil...](https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/FXTF/raw- file/tip/filters/publish/Filters.html#feGaussianBlurElement)

<comment><USER5> Also worth mentioning: the latest proposal from Adobe, Apple and Opera, a complement to CSS filters - CSS shaders <https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/FXTF/raw- file/tip/custom/index.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'd recommend using something like <http://css3please.com> to generate the CSS for all browsers. Currently it's not really Tilt-Shift Using CSS, but rather Tilt-Shift in WebKit, due to the prefixes used, even though most or all of the properties you use are supported in other browsers as well.

<comment><USER7> a more visual alternative to css3please: <http://www.layerstyles.org>

<comment><USER8> Anybody that works with Photoshop Layer Styles heavily is going to be pissed off at how inaccurate that is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I tried multiple browsers before realizing that you need to mouse over the text for the effect to appear. I didn't see that mentioned anywhere else.

</comment><comment><USER10> So, CSS3 is flash?</comment>


'iPhone Freelancer' Lets You Employ Your Own Developer - <AUTHOR> http://news.softpedia.com/news/039-iPhone-Freelancer-039-Lets-You-Employ-Your-Own-Developer-98504.shtml Have an idea for an app but just don't have the skills to make it happen? No problem, now you have iPhone Freelancer, a new site that puts your ideas onto the developers' working desk. The two parties negotiate the pay, get the app done, and ultimately submit it to the App Store for approval. That's all there is to it! <comment><USER2> The website: <http://www.iphonefreelancer.net/></comment>


Google Wallet - A Missed Opportunity? - <AUTHOR> http://www.droplabs.co/?page_id=24

<comment><USER2> So what would be the alternative? If you don't use NFC what would you use? Doesn't this mean that a startup or some other organization could use the ideas here as a new and exciting business?

<comment><USER3> They have rolled out a swipe to pay trial system in New Zealand for the Rugby World Cup. Its essentially the same thing, except it uses a chip off your credit card and not one in the cell phone.

Thats going to be Googles biggest competitor to this, the fact any wallet can operate the same way, and well you still need to take your wallet with you for various reasons e.g. carrying your oyster card in London for example.

Obviously win-win for the credit companies, I doubt they care which technology takes off.

Of interest the threshold is NZD$80 per transaction without authorization, which I guess is around USD$60, and I think it works even if you have PIN authorization set up e.g. it overrides the PIN at certain terminals.

<comment><USER4> If this is the case I am sure they will have someone look into the possibility of integrating this card system in their wallet.

If the card indeed does make sense, it won't be too late to do both NFC and the card. The fundamental core of the wallet is not the NFC technology but the ecosystem that it is trying to build.

<comment><USER3> The cards are a NFC system designed by Visa.

There is no if, its in public field trials ATM, at least one event had 200,000 people at it. Visa has deployed terminals at all the sporting events and to pubs around the stadiums.

What is going to be fun is near field sniffers, harvest peoples data etc... I can imagine walking through a crowd and sniffing out dozens of cards etc... the problem of course will be using the data, unless you can work out a way quickly convert small value purchases to cash...

<comment><USER4> rjd: If you are afraid of something like the Android Beam, then I would be too worried.

Any sensitive data will have at least a password level nfc security measure to prevent sniffing. It's not like you can just take your NFC enabled device and sniff devices with google wallet installed. You would require explicit permission to gain any data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wow, what I find shocking is that I'd already completely forgotten about Google Wallet.

<comment><USER6> I see the GW scanners all over the place now, but know no one with a GW compatible phone. The tough part about launching a phone-based NFC payment system in the US is the damn 2-year contract lock-in. We probably won't see noticeable device saturation till late 2012 or early 2013.</comment></comment>


The NIMO Tube: Rarest and Most Dangerous Digital Display of All Time - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmWg7CtN0Ac <comment><AUTHOR> For all of us that are delighted by nixie tubes, here's another nice thing to like. Beautiful!

Wikipedia: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nimo_tube](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nimo_tube)

This was the best video I found on youtube to show this tube off.</comment>


The Fighter - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/28/magazine/afghanistan-soldier-ptsd-the-fighter.html <comment><USER2> As an Iraq War veteran myself I'm pretty sick of these stories being what get headlines and pages of coverage about military members. People read these pieces and think it defines an entire generation of War Veterans. It doesn't. No hit on the authors, they all seem to be genuinely wanting to help/tell a compelling story - but I think it comes with some kind of fetish for war that they are trying to get in touch with. How about instead we talk about War Vets who are successful (or on their way)?

Here are a few of my personal friends:

Abraham Kamarck and Kevin Powell Army and Navy Vets. Founders True Made Foods:

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/robindschatz/2016/04/20/mission-...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/robindschatz/2016/04/20/mission- accomplished-how-two-ketchup-vetpreneurs-draw-strength-from-their- differences/#65963a00552a)

Kim Jung and Emily Miller. Army Vets. Founders, Rumi Spice:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/11/business/smallbusiness/a-s...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/11/business/smallbusiness/a-start- up-turns-to-saffron-to-help-afghanistan-regrow.html)

Mike Janke. Navy Vet (SEAL). Founder Silent Circle:

[http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2012/1...](http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2012/10/silent_circle_mike_janke_s_iphone_app_makes_encryption_easy_governments.html)

...and there are thousands starting and running their own businesses, charities, churches, schools, working at googamafacesoft etc...none of them looking for special treatment or special recognition. It's a part of our story that most of us are proud of, but it's not everything.

We take care of our own as best we can, and people fall through the cracks. The issues with the care system for vets isn't perfect, but it also takes effort on the part of those who need help, and those who aren't willing to help themselves and take advantage of those programs are the ones you hear about.

So lets stop treating our vets like they need special treatment - good or bad.

<comment><USER3> > We take care of our own as best we can, and people fall through the cracks

This statement disgusts me. I struggled immensely transitioning from combat to civilian life. Nobody helped until years later I got lucky and someone referred me to a preacher who was also a therapist. The VA threw pills at myself and my brothers. Some of them are dead now. Some took their own lives on purpose, others on accident living dangerously. Some have spent time in prison for turning violent. I count myself incredibly lucky that I didn't kill anyone and wind up in prison.

I'm so upset by your comment. It's so wrong. Killing people, getting killed, being constantly in threat of mortal danger, these things break our brains. We do not take care of our own the best we can. We do a shit job of it IMO.

<comment> dumb-saint With no lack of empathy for the veterans (of all countries) and the horrible things they go through...

Don't you guys ask yourself how come you are always at war? Why you have "generations of veterans", even though you have by far the most powerful military force to ever have existed?

There is no credible conventional threat to the US, and there is no unconventional one that can be mitigated by fighting a war.

Not participating in unnecessary wars would help the mental health of soldiers much more than therapy or whatever else.

<comment><USER4> > Don't you guys ask yourself how come you are always at war?

Actually, I'm a veteran, son of a veteran, son of a son of a veteran, and we all served in between wars, so we're not exactly "always at war".

But all bullshit aside, why would you lay that kind of blame on the people who rolled the dice (choosing between enlisting and working at DQ to pay off their double-wide) and now have to go out and do the job, versus the people who are making a profit every time we shoot off a $200K TOW round? There are, like, half a dozen people in the Army who could raise their hand and say "let's have a war" and have it actually mean anything, but you're asking veterans why they fight wars.

<comment> dumb-saint Oh, I think you misunderstood me. I don't blame the people who enlist at all. I also point my finger at the profit-makers.

When I say "you guys" I mean "Americans". All of you.

PS: What a weird thing to down vote this post -- it simply clarifies my initial message.

<comment><USER5> It is the President who declares war... one guy for better or worse.

<comment><USER6> No, in the United States, Congress declares war (a bunch of guys).

<comment><USER7> Since the War Powers Act, it's basically been the president who makes war. Congressional declarations are a formality. Many of the events that we think of as wars are "military actions"\-- Korean "War", Vietnam "War", First Iraq "war", second Iraq "war", Afghanistan "war", Kosovo, Libya, etc

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_war_by_the_Unit...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_war_by_the_United_States#Military_engagements_authorized_by_Congress)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> We just don't have many institutions left in the us to care for people after trauma, and the few we have are as impersonal as possible. It's hard to come back to ones family after seeing terrible things. Honestly I can't help but feel that the lack of community in modern life tends to exacerbate all these problems. If you don't know your neighbors there can be little to latch onto other than places and things. The image from the Hurt Locker of the guy meandering through the grocery store comes to mind. What is all this excess for, when there's such suffering happening in the world?

<comment><USER3> > We just don't have many institutions left in the us to care for people after > trauma

Did we ever? I don't recall my grandfather getting much help (with what we would now call PTSD) from the community or otherwise.

<comment><USER9> As I understand it, likelihood of trauma (PTSD) rises sharply with time spent in actual combat. During WWII, even places like Battle of the Bulge, infantry were on the front lines a few weeks. That amount has gone up steadily with Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and so forth.

<comment><USER3> He was OSS and airborne. Saw several different theaters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> A recent book that explores the loss of community when combat veterans come home, and how this may contribute to PTSD:

"Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging"

[https://www.amazon.com/Tribe-Homecoming-Belonging- Sebastian-...](https://www.amazon.com/Tribe-Homecoming-Belonging-Sebastian- Junger/dp/1455566381)

</comment><comment><USER11> We hear a lot about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from the point of view of the soldiers but I feel we're not seeing the full picture nor hearing the full story. What about soldiers, and civilians, and even the opposition? Is there any research or information for the following:

\- Do men or women suffer more from PTSD?

\- Which ages suffer from PTSD?

\- Which groups are more likely to have PTSD: the soldiers (us), the civilians (them), or the opposition (them)?

\- Do people in 3rd world countries suffer from PTSD less than those in 1st world countries or the other way around?

\- Do civilians suffer from PTSD more when they are invaded by soldiers of a different racial/ethnic/religious group than their own, or when invaded by soldiers from the same racial/ethnic/religious group as their own?

<comment><USER12> We're not hearing the full story because the data collection for such research is inherently costly and problematic. As evidenced by the OP, we don't even have a full picture of PTSD among our own troops, nor even the VA resources to take care of the diagnosed veterans. On the opposing side, we don't even have an accurate accounting for those actually _killed_ , nevermind the mental state of those who have survived.

<comment><USER3> There's a good book comprising all of the gov't data on how veterans faired after WWII. They did collect a lot of data and I found their insights surprising and relevant to me. I apologize I cannot remember the books title. I happened across it in a library I can't visit anymore.

<comment><USER13> "On killing"?

<comment><USER3> No it had a much more formal sounding title and was published by the VA or DOD. It was mostly data tables and charts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The armed forces, of many countries, really have to address their drinking culture. Whatever challenge life throws at you after your service, alcohol doesn't help. I read story after story about former soldiers coming home with problems. They are always exacerbated by alcohol. It's right there in the first sentence of the OP.

I've got family in three different armed forces, and a couple clients. Too many of their anecdotes begin with drinking. Some of it is certainly them self-medicating, but much of it is also boredom. Lots of soldiers just aren't happy with their daily routines. I remember chatting with a kid in the US navy on his way to Japan (connecting flight through seattle). What he was most excited about was the lower drinking age. He had his first weekend all planned out ... complete with pics of bars emailed by buddies. I wasn't going to lecture the kid. A new job in a new country and that's all you are happy about? (I wont say what the kid was tasked with as he likely divulged more than he should.)

</comment><comment><USER15> My wife and I have done what we can to be there for the Army National Guard member who introduced us - then went to Afghanistan and lost people under his command in an IED attack & firefight. The man who came home is different, but faring better than most.

</comment><comment><USER16> Incredible amount of respect for the author for such a huge high quality article! Cannot imagine the amount of hard work that must have been put into writing it.

</comment><comment><USER17> I wonder if the shock of going from a first world country to a third world country contributes to these problems.

Imagine for a second you're a white male growing up in rural America. Your first experience with the rest of world is a Iraq...

It must be traumatizing.

<comment><USER18> What would be traumatizing is blowing out a six year old's brains in your first firefight, which the article mentions was the case for Sam Siatta's squadron. I hardly think going to a poor country in itself is the main source of trauma for veterans. It's the violence that happens there and the later realization of the utter futility of the whole thing, the realization that you were used as a pawn for the benefit of weapons manufacturers and imperialistic geopolitical maneuvering.

<comment><USER3> Forget the politics. Just seeing that shit happen fucks with you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The after effects of the monumentally fucked-up childish decisions, over the last 15 or so years, to engage in wars and contested occupations (although thankfully that's something we seem to have grown out of) are going to run and run.

I sometimes look at the current batch of world leaders (and aspiring upcomers) and wonder which of them need pushing under a bus now to stop this happening again. It's so hard to tell. Perhaps some big-data startup could get into it and actually make the world a better place.

<comment><USER20> Are you being ironic, or are you actually calling for deposing of world leaders by force in the name of peace?

You see how this could confuse people who are reading this post, right?

<comment><USER19> _Are you being ironic, or are you actually calling for deposing of world leaders by force in the name of peace?_

Here's your irony; deposing of world leaders by force in the name of peace is exactly the practice of the US, the UK and other such nations that causes so much trouble. Although it does seem to be less fashionable than it was; I suppose even our system can't spin away the colossal failures. I remember when Iraq was going to be a western liberal democracy in a year.</comment></comment></comment>


Python/C#/R API for financial index performance data? - <AUTHOR>

Anyone know of a respectable, free API for querying financial index performance data? My company has access to Thomson Reuters and Ibbotson, but I want to compare some of the data in these reports for consistency. I have used gdata with the Google Finance API, but it is no longer available. Anyone have any good suggestions? <comment><USER2> How about [http://www.quandl.com/](http://www.quandl.com/) ? They have plenty of financial index data and a decent API.</comment>


Concurrent Pascal-S - <AUTHOR> http://pascal.hansotten.com/niklaus-wirth/pascal-s/pascal-s-copascal/ <comment><USER2> >"Moti Ben-Ari has built on Pascal-S in his Principles of Concurrent Programming, resulting in Concurrent Pascal-S.

Compared to Wirth's version of Pascal-S, case statement, records and reals are swiped from this edition of Pascal-S. M. Ben-Ari modified Wirth's original compiler/interpreter in 1980 to include some basic features that were able to simulate concurrent programming.

First, a cobegin s1; …; sn coend block structure was added, allowing concurrent execution of the statements s1 … sn, which were required to be global procedure calls. These cobegin … coend blocks could not be nested within one another."

</comment><comment><USER3> See also Per Brinch Hansen's concurrent pascals.</comment>


Skyscraper-style chip design boosts electronic performance - <AUTHOR> http://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/december/n3xt-computing-structure-120915.html <comment><USER2> > suburban-style layouts create long commutes and regular traffic jams in > electronic circuits

> millions of "vias," which play the role of tiny electronic elevators

Is it unreasonable to suggest that maybe there is such a thing as trying _too hard_ to avoid scaring people with technicalities?

I mean, I get it, they made a neat skyscraper-versus-suburban analogy. Fair enough. But why not "just as suburban layouts in cities can mean long commutes and regular traffic jams, suburban layouts in chips can mean signals take longer to get from one place to another" or something?

</comment><comment><USER3> I only skimmed the thing a bit, but how do they deal with heat exactly? Water cooling at every level?

<comment><USER4> FTFA:

"Just as skyscrapers have ventilation systems, N3XT high-rise chip designs incorporate thermal cooling layers. This work, led by Stanford mechanical engineers Kenneth Goodson and Mehdi Asheghi, ensures that the heat rising from the stacked layers of electronics does not degrade overall system performance."

Paper about that:

[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263004944_Phonon_sc...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263004944_Phonon_scattering_in_strained_transition_layers_for_GaN_heteroepitaxy)

<comment><USER5> Since these are stacked solid layers, heat isn't really "rising" though, is it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not was AMD doing something similar ?

<comment><USER7> Yes indeed, the HBM memory in the latest AMD GPUs is stacked.

This press release is extremely frustrating, by the way, because it's full of fluff and hype. Through-silicon vias have been in discussion for a long time (and, as you said, are even in production already). Apparently, this team uses different materials (carbon nano-tubes). This is potentially interesting, but I'm very sceptical. Certainly, any claim of "factors of thousands" is just ridiculous. Wires are a significant part of delays on chips, but having shorter interconnects isn't going to speed up the switching time of transistors, which would become a bottleneck again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The industry has been abuzz about these types of structures for years. It would be interesting to see if this is practical at scale: making millions of these types of chips per month with a high yield.

<comment><USER9> I think 3D-nand can be considered a practical use of such structures.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> System on a chip is already able to achieve much of this. Without having to completely retool. It's not impossible to combine memory with CPU and GPU on one chip. This is one way in which computers have been getting smaller and have been using less resources.

I imagine this will still be useful though.

</comment><comment><USER11> CNT (carbon nanotube transistor) is an unfortunate acronym. I can't imagine explaining that to my Mother.</comment>


Harvesting email addresses surreptitiously - <AUTHOR> http://arvindn.livejournal.com/122550.html

<comment><USER2> I got the idea for this post when I looked at this: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1036360> :-)

A further comment:

Suppose you implement this and lots of people are visiting your page, then you may have a problem determining which visitor corresponds to which email address, since each query to Google docs will return multiple addresses. One way to get around that would be to create 10 documents; for each visitor, embed a random subset of the documents. This way you can uniquely identify visitors as long as you have fewer than 1024 visitors within a minute or two.

<comment><USER3> 1023 if no documents are embedded you can't harvest their email address.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I liked that single comment to the post:

"You just convinced me to not stay logged on to Google. Ever!"

So Chrome has a "New Incognito Window" option, what about a "New Anonymous Window" option that would be like incognito but without any of your sessions/cookies/whatever, like a seperate sandbox or something.

<comment><USER5> Incognito already runs without cookies or sessions, fortunately.

They don't even allow cookies within an incognito window.

<comment><USER6> I've been logged into GMail in an incognito window, and done a Google search in another tab on the same window only to have my email address show up at the top of the search as 'logged in' (same with Google Maps).

<comment><USER7> All incognito windows share a profile, so share cookies etc. It's not the case that each tab is a clean profile.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I use a completely different browser to use things that require me to be logged into Google. Just add this to the list of reasons to do that.

</comment><comment><USER9> Has anyone tested this? If it works it seems like a very interesting security hole.

<comment><AUTHOR> I plan on messing with it later tonight to see if works. I'll be the only testing it though since no one ever visits my site =)

It seems like a pretty bad oversight on Google's part to allow this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is it really true that one can view a list of the _email addresses_ of the logged in gmail users who are visiting a document one owns? I can see a list of usernames of people actively viewing a document I own, but not email addresses.

Because if so, that's the problem right there. It's not a security "design flaw" of some kind -- it's a flat out failure of Google to protect the privacy of its users -- and I have to imagine a violation of its privacy policy.

I don't know, maybe I'm missing something though.

<comment><USER11> For google docs, usernames are email addresses.

<comment><USER10> I see.

It should be noted that this assumption is usually, but not always, true.

It's possible to create a google account with a non @gmail.com address (I have two myself). I just tested and confirmed that Google Docs shows the local part of the email address but not the domain.

So you couldn't be 100% sure that "john.doe" is firstname.lastname@example.com, though it would obviously be a pretty solid guess.

<comment><USER11> That's interesting, I would like to know what percentage of Google accounts fall into that category. I find the prospect of linking my casual browsing on sites other than ones I have explicitly allowed being able to resolve my identity for the site owner to be quite irksome. I would take steps against any site that I discovered engaging in such practices on a regular basis.

Now looking for a chrome plugin similar to NoScript.

<comment><USER12> I have no Gmail address at all, yet I use quite a few Google Account services. There's no requirement to have a Gmail account or use it as your Google Account login.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think it's a pretty clever idea though a gross violation of privacy.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'll admit to being worried about this, I stay logged into google most of the time... I think I'll get used to hitting the logout button - probably good general practice anyway

</comment><comment><USER15> I just emailed the Gmail team to tell them.

<comment><USER16> I guess spreadsheets is a different team. Even the multi-user chat is using a different gateway than gtalkgadget.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Why?..

..please don't.

</comment><comment><USER18> Run, don't walk, away from anything that involves the word "surreptitiously". What may seem slick today may become a public relations nightmare tomorrow.

There are plenty of ways for good hackers to be successful while still being open, honest, and forthright with everyone else. Don't be tempted to take a shortcut that someone else might consider dishonest or underhanded. It just ain't worth it.

<comment><USER2> I think you misunderstood the post. I wasn't suggesting anyone do this. I do privacy research and I was pointing out what should be considered a security hole in Google docs. I'm surprised it was confusing; I did use the word "malicious."

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> this would only be useful if u have bot</comment>


Show HN: Create a mobile adventure game for your next date - <AUTHOR>

This was initially a valentine's day surprise for my girlfriend. I got a lot of positive feedback, and have been testing the concept with ad traffic to see if there's broader appeal. I myself am not convinced this is worth pursuing.
The premise of the game is quite simple: your significant other completes real-life missions (e.g. go on a hike with you), earns tokens, and then redeems the tokens for prizes (e.g. dinner and a movie).
You come up with the missions, tokens rewarded, and prizes and input them into the system. You then send them a link to the game that they open on their phone. The two of you work together to complete the missions. As they go through each mission, you use your own phone to mark them off as completed.
URL: http://katiesbigadventure.com
Pros: - Fairly novel idea - Potential for viral growth (people will be sharing their adventures)
Challenges: - Hard to easily explain concept - Low potential for recurring revenue (people will likely do it once) - Competing for attention with higher margin products (jewelry, flowers, etc). Drives up ad rates.
I'd love to get the HN take. Is this worth pursuing? Do you see any potential? <comment><USER2> I think it's a cool idea. I wouldn't really use it, because my wife wouldn't really be into that sort of thing. I don't think it will make you any money, but it was a sweet thing to do for Valentine's Day.

</comment><comment><USER3> Gamifying daily activities interest me. I would not mind giving $10 for an interesting date. Yet it looks complicated at first. A simple explanation or a demo can get you some traction.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickable: [http://katiesbigadventure.com](http://katiesbigadventure.com)

</comment><comment><USER4> Nice. Can you give us some details about how this was made?</comment>


Google pays $1.4 million fine in Italy over StreetView concerns - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/03/us-italy-google-privacy-idUSBREA3226A20140403

<comment><USER2> hmm, and that was done by south korea too previous year</comment>