Sparkpost.com from sendgrid [very bad experience] - <AUTHOR> We left Mandrill for the same reasons everyone else did.  We migrated to sendgrid but then their formatting of our emails was quite odd.  We pushed through but after a few months, decided it was too much overhead (emails going as plain text and html when only wanting text)
We signed up with sparkpost yesterday around 9am.  Purchased the 100k account and our own IP.  Email sent was only about 11k emails which are just notification emails to the same 10-15 people.  4am I wake up to an email that says account was downgraded per our request.  I wake up and go look at my terminal and our account was suspended.  Suspended for sending emails using an email service?  I immediately wrote them but as of yet, have not heard a peep.  No warning, just poof.. account suspended.  When I goto my billing tab in the account it says the account was terminated.  I am posting this as a message for people to be aware.
I already have a mailgun account and will start using that unless I hear back from sparkpost.  If I do, I will update this post, actually, I will update it either way in the next 24 hours. <comment><USER2> I had the exact same experience with Sparkpost. They were used to send receipts for purchases and not any sort of email marketing.

We started out on their free plan. While it wasn't as great as Mandrill (couldn't view outgoing content, for example) they didn't mess up the email format or inject any weird links.

We expanded to their paid plan as a result of our volume about a month later. Roughly 2-3 weeks after that, we received an automated notice at 1 AM on a Friday that our account had been suspended and that we should contact the abuse group and that they would reply within "2 days".

Not only did they stop our outgoing emails, but they didn't even bother queueing the ones our app was sending them. In fact, the worst part was that their API was returning 200 OK for emails that weren't sent, so our system didn't bother putting them in our failed jobs DB.

I emailed just about everyone in that company that I could find to no avail. The "abuse team" replied at around 4pm that day that our account was suspended for "multiple complaints" and that they were willing to give us "another chance" and subsequently reinstated us.

We started a migration back to Mandrill.

<comment><USER3> I'm surprised so many people only send to 1 Email Service. These services sometimes go down, sometimes slow down, having 2 active account and having an easy way to switch in between (read even automatic) should be an applied best practice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Assuming I'm understanding you correctly you sent 11,000 emails in under 24 hours to 10-15 people? For a newly created account I could understand that raising a few red flags. Though that doesn't justify their support staff failing to respond to queries nor the immediate account termination.

I get the feeling they're having trouble with their sender reputation; one of our larger clients was recently switched to SparkPost from Mandrill ("it's too expensive!") and it's now a continual battle with delayed deliveries and mail being marked as spam. The issue never arose with Mandrill. (and yes, SPF and DKIM are correct)

<comment><USER3> I must say I agree,

I'm surprised OP is not aware that's the kind of sending that can raise a lot of red flags, before doing something like this on a new account I would have contacted support to make them aware of this situation.

Specially on smaller senders, reputation is everything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I moved away from mandrill but had to come back to them. Sendgrid sucked big time. Email delays all the time. Go check their status page and u will know what I mean. Also, they don't show email content like mandrill which is a big issue for troubleshooting. So even though mandrill screwed with pricing and last min change, they have been most stable for us. I don't even want to bother with sparkpost or mailgun at this time. My 2 cents.

<comment><USER6> with mandrill you are never sure if your email was delivered. mandrill does mark all emails by default as delivered until they decide otherwise later. so you can very well see 100% deliverability and later check the same stats and realize that it is actually 70%. the worse is, that you have to do it manually, one per email bases. and mandrill as a company is aware of this for couple of years and cosider this "normal" totally useless.

<comment><USER5> It may have happened to you but we never had issues with Mandrill in terms of deliverability for 2+ years. With Sendgrid, we have issues almost every week. Just yesterday, sendgrid had an issue and the CTO himself had to jump in with a post mortem. We had no choice but to go back to Mandrill because we cannot play with the critical transactional emails. Damn, email delivery is such a hard problem.

<comment><USER6> you might just not noticed but i would almost bet that it did happened to you as well. we noticed it after 1.5years of using mandrill. and only because one our user contacted us directly and was patient to cooperate with tracking the problem. after that we discovered plenty other cases. and communicating with mandrill revealed that it is how their system in fact works. anyways if you are happy with Mandrill good for you, but remember my warning: you are living in a dream that all the emails marked by mandrill as delivered are in fact delivered.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> UPDATE [2 hours after initial post] I heard from compliance who asked a ton of questions and said our email was flagged as spam by their system. Keep in mind, we send to the same 10-15 people and not a single spam or bounce. I wrote back immediately with the info they wanted. As I mentioned, I will update as this progresses.

UPDATE [3 hours after initial post] Thank you for that information. I have re- activated your account.

So it looks like a response time of about 5 hours. I find that response time more than effective. The issue I still have is the automated block on a paid account + static IP at 4am. It was inconvenient considering we had been sending for almost a full day. I am still looking at staying with mailgun as you all seem to really like them and from what I can see after my tests with them, are quite nice.

So 1 day of usage of a service you are paying for on Sparkpost could get your account suspended. My feeling is if they are going to be THAT overly sensitive, they should do some initial questions prior to signing someone up to a paid account. Not that a paid account should be exempt but it should certainly grant some warning with a few hours before they just block your account. They could easily throttle the paid account for 12 hours with an email that the client needs to email them with info. Atleast email would still be going out even if its slower...

Since YC has slowed my comment down, I wanted to check on speed. I am really really surprised at how slow sparknews is. We are using smtp but here are some stats: # in outgoing queue Time checked 2848 (starting point) @ 8:45 am 2849 @ 9:01 am 2830 @ 9:19 am 2823 @ 9:25 am 2816 @ 9:30 am

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm going to throw in my recommendation for Postmark (postmarkapp.com) for transactional mail. Solid, reliable service for us.

<comment><USER8> +1 Been using them for 8 years without any trouble

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you're sending high volume, consider AWS SES. It doesn't have the fancy tempting of Mandrill/Sendgrid/etc, but it's a fraction of the cost and the deliverability has been excellent. We migrated 98% of our emails off Mandrill when they decided to screw all their customers and saved a ton of money.

<comment><USER5> Except that SES does not offer dedicated IPs. So you are at the mercy of shared IPs which can be a disaster in case one of those IPs get blocked due to someone else's spam.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> You could wait a couple days before making this public.

This post seems like you are seeking social justice and gives sparkpost the chance to escape a bad review relatively unscathed.

Now even if they fix your issue, we will never know if it is due to good service or fear of the pitchforks.

<comment><USER11> Not sending mail for a couple of days is probably not an option - which would be the case if SparkPost was your mail delivery agent. SparkPost should be the one taking it's time.

We also had a funny experience with SparkPost. Sent millions of mails with them. Suddenly one day 1(!) mail go through, which actually is a notification mail to one of our site admins, asking if he want to allow a comment on a page - a spam comment in this case, and SparkPost suspends our account.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Like Mandrill, most (all?) of these companies have some warmup period. Start sending low volumes, then once you have enough reputation go to higher volumes.

I don't belong to any of these companies but as a client, use their services heavily. Imagine a spammer signing up with them and sending several thousands mails in a day. They deal with such notorious people on a daily basis.

I am not saying you may have done anything wrong but probably their system flagged you when you sent 11k emails to 10-15 people.

In any case here is my rec for you in order- 1\. PostMark - They do strictly transactional email. 2\. Mailgun 3\. SparkPost 4\. SES

</comment><comment><USER13> We moved to Sparkpost and hit a few bumps at first. However, after working through those and paying for a dedicated IP address, the service has been reliable and suits our use case. I do have the sense, however, that they need to hire more support personnel.

I'm not sure if you found it, but I believe that Sparkpost has a "public" support group on Slack. That's where I finally was able to get messages through when we ran into problems. They were fixed promptly.

</comment><comment><USER14> I used to love Sendgrid but they seem to be slowing down development these days. Their interface hasn't changed much in the past few years and their Python libs/docs are ok but not great.

If I were sending lots of email like I used to I would consider SES but for the small volumes I'm doing now it seems like Sendgrid and Mailgun are good enough. Postmark.app gets some positive reviews in the comments so maybe people should give them a shot.

</comment><comment><USER15> We've been very happy with Mailgun. Just last week I sent out ~10k emails/day within a week of setting up a new account (though to 10k different people).

</comment><comment><USER16> Wow that sucks!

I moved to mailgun yesterday. I run an alert system for Google Analytics, so I can't afford delays of more than a minute, and even then...

So far so good with mailgun!

Thanks for the info on Sparkpost, definitely not tempted to move there ;)

<comment><USER17> Regardless of which sender you use, you must remember that email often appears "instant", but it really really isn't.

If you absolutely need to send notifications to users with "zero delay" then email is not for you, and SMS is probably not sufficient either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Mailgun has proved reliable for us. Sparkpost came across a bit desperate and opportunistic on Twitter in the immediate Mandrill aftermath so I avoided them.

</comment><comment><USER19> Thanks for the info on sparkpost.

I shut off my Mandrill account, but I still need to migrate to something that works.

Are there any things you do not like about mailgun?

<comment><AUTHOR> I really like the fact their reporting is more granular. I am waiting to get a static IP which hopefully won't take to long as I need to have it whitelisted at one of our clients mail servers. Set up was very easy as I did it at 430AM lol

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> What's your email about? That could be your problem! Share a screenshot.

<comment><AUTHOR> No its not my email. They are system updates to the same people. None of them complain as they need these updates.

<comment><USER21> It sounds like a reasonable call on sparkpost's part. 99.9% of the time, sending 10,000 e-mails to 10 recipients is a sign some of your code has gone wrong, like an e-mail sending loop getting stuck.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> mailgun has worked pretty well for us</comment>


Podcast – News from 0302 and Starting Up in Afrika Discussion - tefo-mohapi http://www.iafrikan.com/the-iafrikan-daily-03-february-2017/ <comment><AUTHOR> I like a good podkast!</comment>


Floyd Zaiger, prolific fruit breeder brought new flavors to life, dies at 94 - <AUTHOR> https://www.latimes.com/obituaries/story/2020-06-12/floyd-zaiger-fruit-breeder-dies <comment><AUTHOR> I was just trying to find out what the "apriplum" I bought from the grocery store was, so I searched its produce code, 3278, and got a mottled pluot, so now I've got a plum and apricot with weird skin. Who's up to all this great stuff I've been only noticing recently?

This guy.

Really amazing read and check out his Wikipedia page: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floyd_Zaiger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floyd_Zaiger)</comment>


OLPC XO v3: Like an iPad but bendier - <AUTHOR> http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2010/10/07/olpc-part-2-nicholas-negroponte-on-the-mideast-and-the-xo-3-tablet-and-why-he-may-not-ever-have-to-build-it/?single_page=true

<comment><AUTHOR> While reading about Pyjamas I came across a sidebar note that mentioned part of the OLPC team, and wondered "What has happened to the OLPC" - and so had a look.

It seems like they've passed the initial press honeymoon and are settling down into the business stage - "while the days of ubiquitous praise and head- spinning press about the OLPC project are long past, the organization is actually settling into a pace and place where it could make by far its biggest impact in the next few years ahead."

Now it seems like their direction has become a little more political rather than technical due to the effects of new technology on their market. An interesting case study as it is a humanitarian organisation, so does not need to keep its history / direction as shielded as a typical business - "The interesting thing about now versus five years ago—five years ago, we had to build a laptop, because there wasn't a laptop" geared for the developing world, he says. Now, Negroponte says, it's possible that "we don't have to build a tablet. All we [might] have to do is threaten to build a tablet. And what's interesting is that the key features of our tablet are ideas we want people to copy. So our IP will be as open as humanly possible."</comment>


Movie recommendation service based on artificial intelligence and Deep Learning - <AUTHOR> http://movix.ai <comment><USER3> The server went down - good time to write a review. Good thing: works without registration and login. Movie list reshuffling after each input - <USER2> distracting. Might be better to show a full page of movies ant ask user to mark like/hate. Reload list and recommendations only when user marks at least 10 movies. I cannot find some of older movies from early seventies - is there some limit on movie age?

<comment><USER4> Thanks for feedback. No limit on movie age. The way I search for movies is the following: choose several movies, then use years (for example 2010s) to find some movie that is similar to the ones I liked, but the new one. You can try the opposite - to click on 1970s.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> My 3 year old daughter isn't impressed that her favourite movie, Trolls, isn't in your list.

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1679335/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1679335/)

<comment><USER6> Thank you for your feedback. Currently we are working on updating the database of movies. At the moment we have movies until the middle of 2016.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> _Deep Learning Inside_

Hype, hype, and more hype. And not even original hype.

<comment><USER4> We choose to use deep learning not because of hype but because it's convenient to model user interaction with a single LSTM like network. We will soon publish technical aspects

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> i think i just broke it.. :'(

<comment><USER9> we are restarting our servers. Sorry. Give us 5 mins :)</comment></comment>


Amazon Introduces Amazon Rapids - <AUTHOR> https://rapids.amazon.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Just grabbed the app on iOS and checked out the sample story between an alien and a human. I actually lol'd pretty good! I could see this catching on. It's a fun, simple storytelling method using a texting like apparatus where characters text back and forth.</comment>


What makes a good Bootstrap host? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.creative-tim.com/web-design/best-hosts-bootstrap-projects-2 <comment><USER2> bootstrap is a CSS framework. The web host you use shouldn't matter. There are conceptual issues with this article, but I'm guessing the real reason for it was to get those referral signups on bluehost (btw, bluehost isn't very good).</comment>


Ask HN: Resources to learn c# .net - <AUTHOR> I'm quite familiar with building basic rest services with Java EE / spring but may need to pick up a similar kind of thing using the modern .Net equivalent. I believe the team is using web api and I've created a couple of basic services through tutorials and the scaffolding / wizards. Although I can see what's going on I don't have a knowledge of the c# language although it certainly looks familiar. I'd be interested in a primer on both. It looks like they are using angular for the front end so it looks like I'll have a few things to cover. I know html/css/js and have worked in Web dev for years but it sounds like it may have a big learning curve. Any suggestions for books/online tutorials would be much appreciated. <comment><USER2> Sign up for a trial at Pluralsite. Any c# lesson or knowledge is contained there. Highly recommended.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you are interested in building REST APIs on .NET in C#, you should look at the tutorials on [http://www.asp.net/web-api](http://www.asp.net/web-api) or for MVC style web development try [http://www.asp.net/mvc](http://www.asp.net/mvc).

With a free Azure account you can be up and running in no time with a working API.

If you are interested in C# development for REST APIs that will run on Mono under Linux, then take a look at Nancy [http://nancyfx.org/](http://nancyfx.org/) and ServiceStack [https://servicestack.net/](https://servicestack.net/).

P.S. ServiceStack v3 is open source and free. ServiceStack v4 is open source and requires a license.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! It's the asp.net web api stuff I've already looked at. Very good. Nice to know the open alternative I'll check that out too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I saw that MSFT has added a few courses to EdX. Their Programming in C#[1] course looks extensive and can be taken for free.

[1] [https://www.edx.org/course/programming-c-microsoft- dev204x-1](https://www.edx.org/course/programming-c-microsoft-dev204x-1)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I'm looking at this now.</comment></comment>


Aggressively De-Supporting Features - GCC Inserting Invalid Instructions on Purpose - <AUTHOR> http://unix.derkeiler.com/Mailing-Lists/FreeBSD/current/2007-05/msg00650.html

<comment><USER2> I'm calling bollocks on this. It doesn't make any sense that they'd intentionally generate bad instructions rather than erroring out at compile time, and one unsubstantiated claim on a third-party mailing list doesn't make it true.

<comment><USER3> The rationale is discussed here: <http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2006-07/msg00037.html></comment></comment>


Startup Quote: Arianna Huffington, co-founder, The Huffington Post - <AUTHOR> http://startupquote.com/post/5594363469

<comment><AUTHOR> Fearlessness is like a muscle. I know from my own life that the more I exercise it the more natural it becomes to not let my fears run me.

\- Arianna Huffington (@ariannahuff)

<http://startupquote.com/post/5594363469></comment>


Brain function can start declining 'as early as age 45' - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-16425522

<comment><USER2> I often wonder about these findings. To what extent are we seeing a neurologically-driven phenomenon vis-a-vis one generated by a host of factors causing relatively common skill atroph? By 45, many people might be working largely on autopilot, causing flexible skills to decline in favor of scripted response.

</comment><comment><USER3> As someone who just turned 43, this article makes me very sad.

Wait, what was the article about again?</comment>


Change your business model and kill your business? (2005) - <AUTHOR> http://www.intuitive.com/blog/change_your_business_model_and_kill_your_business_meetupcom.html

<comment><USER2> So, I have a vague feeling that "sweetening the deal" when making a change like this can seem like apologizing, and apologizing means you've done something wrong. Charging money for a service isn't wrong, so why apologize? Even if not, I don't think you can win with the folks who get really indignant about paying for a product.

That said, I think it's wise if you think you're going to eventually need to raise your prices (and going from free to not free is a price increase) to have your initial pricing labeled as an "introductory offer". Our prices were discounted 50% for the first two years of our operation...partly because we weren't "finished" with the product yet, and partly because we wanted to learn more about the market and what people wanted to pay. We're doing the same with our new product just launched a couple of weeks ago.

When you then increase prices later, nobody can feel misled or like they're paying too much now; they just feel like they got a good deal while it was available. This probably does have some impact on sales with folks who think ahead to whether they'd want to pay the higher price later...but I don't think it would introduce much skew.

<comment><USER3> _Charging money for a service isn't wrong, so why apologize?_

Amen! Charging money, from day one, is a great way to clarify your relationship with your customers. You're not buddies, you're not a charitable institution, you're not the welfare office: you do X really really well in exchange for money. That doesn't exclude people from having warm fuzzies for you, indeed, doing X superlatively well is a great way to give people warm fuzzies just for paying you money. (See: Apple, Starbucks, etc.)

Same with raising prices. Prices. Increase. This is a fact of life. Rather than groveling about "economic necessity" or coming up with a list of 15 reasons you're worth the additional money, just increase your prices, put a slash through the new price, and say it is on sale (at the old price) for two weeks so get while the getting is good. After two weeks, "the new price" is just "the price".

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> ... and meetup is still alive and kicking.

</comment><comment><USER5> You don't have access to the e-mail addresses for your meetup group members so it's difficult to move to a new service. I think this analysis ignored the switching costs issues and the fact that it's still free for attendees. The second point means that there is a large group that is notified when you launch a new group and they have no incentive to switch to a new system.</comment>


Elon Musk Claims on Tesla Chips Don't Match the Reality - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-23/musk-s-chipmaking-boasts-clash-with-autonomous-car-reality <comment><USER2> Bloomberg is spinning nvidia's own blog post.

Read the source: [https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2019/04/23/tesla-self- driving/](https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2019/04/23/tesla-self-driving/)

Then read the Bloomberg article again, and tell me how that isn't complete spin towards a narrative that doesn't exist in the source.

Bloomberg is completely shameless in their anti-anything-Tesla narrative.

<comment><USER3> The blog post literally calls out Musk for inaccuracies:

> _But while we agree with him on the big picture—that this is a challenge > that can only be tackled with supercomputer-class systems—there are a few > inaccuracies in Tesla's Autonomy Day presentation that we need to correct._

Ask yourself why nVidia would feel the need to put out anything given that they and Tesla are no longer collaborators. Do you believe they'd put out a "Cool claims by Tesla" press release if they didn't feel the need to point out corrections?

<comment><USER4> >Ask yourself why nVidia would feel the need to put out anything given that they and Tesla are no longer collaborators.

nVidia must be short-selling Tesla stock. If Hacker News has taught me anything, it's that we can rest assured about our TSLA investments because the only reason anyone ever says something negative about - or disagrees with - Musk or Tesla is that they're short sellers and we've just gotta ride it out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't see much substance in the article. E.g. Nvidia argues that they have chips to meet Tesla's specs, I don't know what constraints Tesla had, but they did mention one - power consumption:

Drive PX Xavier - 30 TOPS - 30 Watts - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_Drive#Drive_PX_Xavier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_Drive#Drive_PX_Xavier) DRIVE AGX Pegasus - 320 TOPS - 500 Watts - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_Drive#Drive_PX_Pegasus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_Drive#Drive_PX_Pegasus)

Both chips if scaled to 144 TOPS consume double the power of Tesla's solution.

<comment><USER6> They said during the presentation they had a 100W limit. The previous Nvidia hardware is ~50W and this new hardware is ~72W (36W per chip).

So, 500W is going to be well beyond that and wouldn't fit their requirements.

<comment><USER7> I'm watching the video. Highly interesting.

That level of power use would take *noticeable" dents into the range of the car, especially in inner city driving.

Furthermore that's a lot of thermals to get rid of. 500w, crikey, speaking as someone who water cools his PCs, forget about retrofitting older cars! (That was one of the criteria!)

The existing units sit behind the glove box in front of the firewall, and are rather compact. The thermal budget was a hard one.

Nvidia are full of crap on this one.

<comment><USER8> Practically speaking there is no power limit. The traction motors on Tesla's cars themselves will pull two orders of magnitude more power than these chips will. Thermals are nothing compared to the heat generated by the battery, especially when supercharging.

<comment><USER7> All power usage adds up. More important, the unit sits behind the glove box in front of the firewall. You'd need to redesign the car to fit a cooler worthy of 500w in there, thus making retrofitting a much harder task. My 280mm Corsair AIO water cooler struggles with a 140W TDP Intel CPU at full load.

All typical car manufacturers' message when rolling out something new: Buy the new car. Here, existing owners get access to a paradigm shifting feature, by just swapping out what will be an inexpensive module.

Tesla has nailed this upgrade, in my eyes. I don't own any of their cars (although I wish I did), nor do I have any shares.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Sensationalist headline, the entire article based on the statements from Nvidia on this blog post: \- [https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2019/04/23/tesla- self-driving/](https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2019/04/23/tesla-self-driving/)

I'm not defending Tesla's statements on the comparison between Tesla's hardware and Nvidia's hardware, but it feels that the author of the article took an advantage of Nvidia's post to dismiss Tesla's progress on this area.

</comment><comment><USER10> "The new 14nm based self-developed chip is fabbed by Samsung and is capable of 144 tera operations per second (TOPS) (two chips each 72 TOPS) compared with Nvidia's Drive Xavier's theoretical performance of 21 TOPS. It features two fully independent packages, each with their own with DRAM memory, flash storage chips, and power supplies. If one fails, the failsafe is the second one." [1]

So the correct way to look at this is that Tesla has a redundant 72 TOPS chip compared to nVidia Xavier 21 or 30 TOPS.

It's nonsensical to compare a stack of chips versus another. NVidia claiming the fair comparison is a 320 TOPS system with 2 Xavier's and 2 TensorCores pulling 500 watts total. A single Xavier provides 30 TOPS of Int8 at 30 watts.

The redundant Tesla setup by comparison pulls 100 watts total. [2]

A fact check that just parrots Nvidia's blog with no actual research or fair presentation of the numbers may be par for the course but not terribly useful.

[1] - [https://www.guru3d.com/news-story/tesla-develops-own-self- dr...](https://www.guru3d.com/news-story/tesla-develops-own-self-driving-ai- chip-removes-nvidia.html)

[2] - [https://electrek.co/2019/04/23/nvidia-disputes-tesla-fsd- com...](https://electrek.co/2019/04/23/nvidia-disputes-tesla-fsd-computer/)

<comment><USER11> > The redundant Tesla setup by comparison pulls 100 watts total. [2]

Hmm... I recalled him saying 72w in the presentation compared to 54w in the previous hardware. Then he said this was within the allotted power envelope and wouldn't impact range.

<comment><USER10> I didn't watch the whole livestream, but it could be one talking about just the specific chips versus the other the whole system?

<comment><USER11> Yes, and they said the whole system was spec'd at under 200w in the Model 3.

I went back and it was around the 1hr 30min mark when they had the chip designer on stage answering questions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's a chip for doing exactly the convolutions they want to do a whole lot of ... Nvidia gpus present a very different and more flexible programming model — why is it not the expected case that Tesla's hardware would have the price and wattage advantage for the problem they intend to throw at it ...?

<comment><USER13> Do they have the scale to achieve any sort of price advantage? 14nm NRE costs are huge.

<comment><USER10> Samsung fabs it. Do you mean chip design and tape out NRE?

Tesla spent several years designing their current chip, finishing about 1.5 years ago. They hired a industry guru to help them do it, I'm sure the financial investment was massive. Elon stated somewhat wryly "their entire expense sheet is FSD" which is to say their R&D spending in FSD dwarfs their other R&D spending.

They are also already working on a Gen2 of their just released chip for the last year plus.

For Tesla the hardware design is essential to achieving their goal. If they get FSD in the real world before everyone else, they can print money with the Tesla Network. And they simply can't get there first using general purpose off the shelf hardware.

It's a core part of the competitive advantage of the Tesla fleet. The fact that you can slot this new hardware into any AP2.5+ car shipped in the last couple years is an amazing perk of owning a Tesla. No other carmaker comes close to offering this kind of long-term support with software and _hardware_ updates to a late-model-year car.

<comment><USER14> I assume it will be a free upgrade to those who paid for the self-driving hardware?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This piece is pretty ludicrous, right off the bat:

> [Video] How can a company that has never designed a chip, design the best > chip in the world?

They hire one of the best chip design teams in the world. Musk said this no fewer than two times during the presentation.

<comment><USER16> Right, much of the actual hard work in chip design would be outsourced. They pull in enormous amounts of templated chip design ("IP"), and clearly hired top talent to keep the whole thing going. They'd need simulators and labs for testing, but maybe outsource PCB layout. And I believe Elon even stated out loud that the fab itself is in Texas. Nobody makes chips on their own except perhaps Intel or Samsung. Even with all that industry support it's still a remarkable piece of work in a tight time line, but given the funding and the people, entirely reasonable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Apples to oranges comparison. Of course nVidia are going to claim their GPU processes stuff faster, and ignore the part where you have to get the results of the calculations off the GPU.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'd love to see a real comparison of the two technologies under the Tesla workload, both for what it would say about the chips and what it would say about the workload.

Having said that, an investor call isn't going to be that and Elon isn't the person to give it, so I'm not sure what Bloomberg (or Nvidia) wanted here. "CEO likes own technology" isn't exactly news.

</comment><comment><USER19> Where is that committee of independent directors that the SEC required to control Elon Musk's communications? Is Tesla just ignoring the settlement?</comment>


Effectiveness of Respiratory Protective Devices in Reducing Influenza Outbreak - barry-cotter https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30229968/ <comment> barry-cotter The more people who wear masks the slower respiratory infections spread. The faster we get to universal mask wearing the fewer people will die.

> In this article, a risk assessment model previously developed in general > form was used to estimate the effectiveness of different types of protective > equipment in reducing the rate of infection in an influenza outbreak. It was > found that a 50% compliance in donning the device resulted in a significant > (at least 50% prevalence and 20% cumulative incidence) reduction in risk for > fitted and unfitted N95 respirators, high-filtration surgical masks, and > both low-filtration and high-filtration pediatric masks. An 80% compliance > rate essentially eliminated the influenza outbreak. The results of the > present study, as well as the application of the model to related influenza > scenarios, are potentially useful to public health officials in decisions > involving resource allocation or education strategies.

[https://twitter.com/peterkolchinsky/status/12395606382398382...](https://twitter.com/peterkolchinsky/status/1239560638239838215?s=21)

> I'm a virologist. Public should know covid exposure dose matters. We have to > conserve masks for healthcare workers, but masks can help anyone, reducing > amount of virus released (even by breathing) or taken in. Immune system is > more effective if infection starts w/ low dose.

> Keeping the exposure dose to a minimum means that virus has to divide many > more times before getting to high levels... but immune system starts > responding and therefore can flatten the curve, keeping the peak viral load > lower, so it does less damage (fewer symptoms).

> That won't help everyone. For various reasons, whether genetics, > immunosuppressive medications, or underlying conditions, even low exposure > levels will climb to high, dangerous levels. But on the whole, keeping > everyone's exposure dose down (if exposed) could save lives.</comment>


Bloom Energy, fuel cells or fool's cells? - <AUTHOR> http://www.edn.com/blog/1700000170/post/1890052989.html?nid=2433&rid=207438

<comment><USER2> Households around the US burn lots of natural gas for heat.

If this project results in a device that can use that same natural gas and generate heat and electricity at the same time and displace polluting coal currently burned for most electric generation, what isn't to like?

There is no way for anyone to know if this will happen or not, but if someone wants to make the investment/gamble on it I'm 100% in favor.

<comment><USER3> Right, that's how real working things get done, and how failures get flushed out: by people risking their own time and capital. The key word there is "own."</comment></comment>


Copyright assignment and license enforcement for Debian - <AUTHOR> http://lwn.net/Articles/655009/ <comment><USER2> This write-up misses a small but important fact: Bradley initially only wanted to offer license enforcement agreements, and did not think that anyone would be interested in copyright assignments. The only reason that they now offer both is that he was persuaded to do so.

Reading the article, one could get the false impression that this was all about copyright assignment with the small option of mere license enforcement.</comment>


Do Something New Every Three Years - <AUTHOR> http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2008/12/do-something-ne.html <comment><USER2> I can relate about wanting to move on after mastering an activity. Sadly, in many cases it doesn't take the fabled 10,000 hours or otherwise becoming an expert. When what you do is in essence the same thing a lot of other people do, when you're not blazing the trail, staleness is reached much more quickly, and with it the need to rock the boat a little. Hm, I wonder why this has been in my mind the last few months...

</comment><comment><USER3> The comment in the blog about 10,000 hours for expert performance is well put. The research supports 10,000 hours but 10,000 hours in deliberate practice rather than mere repetition. The effort of such practice can only really be sustained for about 4 hours a day. Thus 10,000 hours takes 10 years if done 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year. Just doing the same job for 3 years (even putting in 60 hour weeks) will not reach expert levels.

See: [http://projects.ict.usc.edu/itw/gel/EricssonDeliberatePracti...](http://projects.ict.usc.edu/itw/gel/EricssonDeliberatePracticePR93.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER4> My recent layoff turned into a great opportunity to do this. My professional life is taking a strange new turn, and I like the direction it is headed. Enterprisey corporate development was getting _really_ stale after a few years.

</comment><comment><USER5> Resonates with advice from David Patterson and Richard Hamming: [http://www.cra.org/Activities/workshops/academic.careers/200...](http://www.cra.org/Activities/workshops/academic.careers/2002/patterson.pdf) (see pages 22, 33, and 34).</comment>


Buried Treasures: Researching the History of the Time Capsule - <AUTHOR> https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/december-2019/buried-treasures-researching-the-history-of-the-time-capsule <comment><USER2> When I was a kid my friends, siblings, and I buried many time capsules, but we always including a random collection of things, including pictures of other people, to hide our identity. We were more excited to imagine other people trying to make sense of these random collections than we were by the thought of actually passing information on to posterity.</comment>


Gab will become a Mastodon fork - <AUTHOR> https://gab.com/gab/posts/VnZRendFcDM1alBhNm9QeWV4d0xidz09 <comment><USER4> Gab has certainly carved out a niche for some of the worst speech on the internet, including at the very least the announcement of terrorist activity (see Tree of Life, New Zealand massacres) if not the wholesale coordination of it. I don't think we can have a serious discussion about free speech without acknowledging that members of these groups have moved along a path from speech to actions that include mass murder.

On the other hand if we're serious about free speech absolutism, this is probably the best case scenario. Federated Mastadon instances should have the option of blocking harassment from Gab users. Allow them to have their free speech, but the rest of online society should have the option to shun them - <USER2> real-world dynamic that is not well reflected on platforms like twitter _because_ of centralization. Rather than hopelessly petitioning Jack to ban the nazis, users + communities should be empowered to do it themselves.

<comment><USER5> When you found a town that is extremely vocal in its ban on witch burning, it really shouldn't be a surprise to have it filled with witches. But that doesn't mean that witch burnings aren't a bad thing, or that towns with such a ban shouldn't exist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Those focused on Gab's audience should realize this kind of attempt is the best hope for a global migration off of twitter to a decentralized service. (Which to me, would be a good thing.)

If it was ever going to happen at this point, it would probably be by venture backed company addressing an alienated audience from the platform who is incentivized enough to switch platforms, building a good UX around a decentralized alternative, and then hoping you can get enough critical mass for network effects to kick in. In the limit, the alt-right focus of Gab will eventually dilute away if the edges of the network get built up and Gab is just another (big) node in the network -- nascent services have an audience focus to get traction that self-evidently goes away as they reach global scale. You don't have to like their choice of initial audience, but this strategic execution certainly seems one worth keeping an eye on, not just to see if the migration starts to happen at a larger scale but also because if they validate the strategy other companies can target similar niche audiences.

<comment><USER7> Most of the Mastodon network will ban Gab immediately (and the founder of Gab acknowledges as much in the comments of the article), community dilution is very unlikely. But they will get to share federation with a variety of other alt-right and free speech zone Mastodon servers which have been banned by the larger fediverse community.

<comment><USER6> As it should be -- by community dilution I was referring more to mind share around Mastodon and also the likelihood that Gab's community would soften its alt-right focus if it's able to get traction with a wider audience that may lean right but is not hard right.

I think this kind of federation for under-served audiences, combined with good productization, is a necessary step towards a future where fan-out 'microblogging' has the same place in our society as email. To me, it was quite a sight to see Congress speaking to half a dozen white men about how to decide what words people can say to each other over the Internet -- the absence of a representative for regulating "email speech" made it clear the importance of decentralizing these services.

<comment><USER8> It's hard to really claim Gab is alt-right when the truth is really more that it's alt anything. Remember the good old days of usenet, where alt represented all the usenet "channels" that basically didn't give a damn and weren't sponsored by anyone in particular? Sure you had your flame wars, but back then no one got banned for it. The advantage of services like Twitter is that whatever agenda Twitter wants to control, they control. The ability to control the narrative is certainly a profitable one. What was the quote? When the service is free, you're the product. Think on that.

<comment><USER9> Is it just a coincidence, then, that every time I refreshed this article, literally every single user listed under "who to follow" was alt-right, a white supremacist or a Nazi?

Or that the company itself has repeatedly made anti-Semitic statements?

Or that there are photographs of the founder making white supremacist hand signs?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Gab solicited $5M [1] in investments just to use open source software that anyone can use for free. Wonder how those investors feel about it.

[1]: [https://thinkprogress.org/social-network-that-caters-to- whit...](https://thinkprogress.org/social-network-that-caters-to-white- nationalists-raises-5-million-in-funding-9fa19fe2aaf1/)

<comment><USER11> In spite of the fact that Gab is a known cess pool (cis pool?), I funded it because we need more alternatives to the big social networks. I would have funded Tor and 4chan had I the opportunity many years ago.

Not too long ago this was a classical liberal position. Today free speech is passé. Guess I'm just old fashioned.

I'm happy to see that Gab is switching to Mastodon. I think it will increase the survivability of the platform. They've struggled under the engineering challenges of scaling a social network. Mastodon fans should be happy that this _may_ mean an influx of hosts and developers.

<comment><USER12> Why are free speech absolutists only supporting fascists?

Where are the people advocating for the destruction of intellectual property rights, for widespread declassification of state communications, for suffrage rights for felons, and for unionization and striking rights? I don't exactly see the gab users advocating for laws permitting sympathetic striking.

<comment><USER13> Because those opinions are not being banned by existing social media platforms. Whereas so-called "fascists" (who are not really fascists) are.

No one is banning those opinions on gab, there is simply no point in them being there because they are free to post those opinions on twitter (and others) with impunity.

<comment><USER14> Are you hoping no one here has visited gab, or have you never visited gab? Because if you're claiming that site isn't full of literal fascists, it can only be one of the two.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > "Moving to the ActivityPub protocol as our base allows us to get into mobile > App Stores without even having to submit and get approval of our own apps, > whether Apple and Google like it or not."

The perils (or benefits?) of open protocols.

Existing mastodon/pleroma clients will be able to connect to Gab by adding a server setting.

Now I wonder if mastodon client app developers will start filtering the allowed servers users can put in...

<comment> phoe-krk > Now I wonder if mastodon client app developers will start filtering the > allowed servers users can put in...

This is not the duty of client applications. Banning instances is the duty of the operators of individual instances, and the instance(s) on which you have your account(s) are the instance(s) whose blocking policy affects you. This is a feature.

Most sane instances on the Fediverse already ban extremist and alt-right content, and Gab will be no different in that case - just another entry on the blacklist, next to [https://freespeechextremist.com/](https://freespeechextremist.com/) and [https://rapefeminists.network](https://rapefeminists.network) and other instances who shamelessly abuse the right to free speech.

<comment><USER16> > This is not the duty of client applications.

It might become their duty. Since Gab's apps are banned, and those apps would be used to access Gab's servers, I could see Apple/Google blocking Mastodon apps as well.

App creators might be forced to ban Gab in order to avoid getting banned from the app stores.

<comment><USER17> That would be a fairly absurd position for the app stores to take, given that the exact same argument could be made about web browsers.

I don't think we should be advocating for app stores to exert any more control over generic client software than they already have.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Oh, the Mastodon community is going to be _ticked_ about this... Purism said Librem One's server wasn't going to police speech, and they were upset about it. Gab is a whole different level.

I think ActivityPub has huge potential to be a way for communities of disparate views and perspectives to exist out there, and two distinct and very opposing groups have grasped onto it: People who want space spaces who don't think mainstream platforms moderate enough, and the alt-right and free speech crowd.

In the long run, I think you'll see a lot of ActivityPub servers, but two distinct federations, with very few links between them: One radically liberal and one radically conservative.

<comment><USER18> > People who want space spaces who don't think mainstream platforms moderate > enough, and the alt-right and free speech crowd.

I've never really understood the 'safe spaces' line of argument. I'm a 30 year old white male, and whenever I log onto YouTube I see nothing but recommendations trying to force me down the alt-right rabbit hole.

Sure, Twitter has booted off a few high profile people on the alt right but I don't think I've ever seen anyone argue that the debate on Twitter isn't pretty robust.

Where's the censorship? And how attractive is a community of people only for people who have been kicked off larger platforms?

<comment><USER19> The persecution complex among predominantly white males right now is high because there's a significant social change occurring that is causing those who've been disadvantaged the same privileges that white males have enjoyed alone for much of recent human history. It's a natural human reaction to care more about loss than to see the potential upside. We've also seen this numerous times before. The rise of Nazism was the natural response to the harsh restrictions of WW1 which is why the Marshall plans included Germany in the rebuilding opportunities.

Many of those on the right address looking for power and utilize this gut reactionary response by those who feel disenfranchised for their own purposes. It's why fighting against a populist like President Trump with facts doesn't work. If reality don't fit the narrative, make a different reality. It's a very effective propaganda technique that usually requires an outside force to break. The US did something similar with the fight against communism and really had a hard time redefining Americanism once the Soviet Union collapsed. That's why the so called war on terror will never end. In order for America to be the good guys there needs to be bad people too. So in order for the alt- right to be the victim they either find villains on the left or they make them up. AOC is a perfect example of a toothless villain. She's a junior congresswomen with no real power, but she's constantly villainized far beyond the risk she poses to anyone on the right. Physically though she embodies the fears of white guys being replaced from their positions of power.

<comment><USER20> And yet, many SJW's and Berniebros are white dudes... Self-hating, perhaps? Or maybe the whole narrative that "the right is powerful because White guys are furious about having to give up their inherent power!" just doesn't stand up to even the most cursory scrutiny. It's blatant propaganda; fake news meant to demonize and discredit conservative thought, even to make it "radioactive" in the eyes of the (largely bandwagoning) general public. And these people have the gall to say that _their political opponents_ are tantamount to Nazis? Sad and despicable!

<comment><USER19> I mean I'm not saying they're evil, it's just how history works. Those in power object to losing said power.

Edit: Nor was I trying to make the claim that this is limited to any political party. It's a tool commonly used in populism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> As much as I hate the bad parts of Gab, I am glad they are standing up to their principles of being a truly free speech social network.

The other social networks just love to censor everybody they disagree with, even a particular orange looking website.

I am also excited and glad they are utilising open source software as well. (This was bound to happen sooner or later) This can make activitypub & decentralised networks mainstream.

<comment><USER4> I don't share any such appreciation for Gab. IMO, "free speech" in this case was a thinly veiled excuse for white supremacism, which has plenty of other homes on the internet. The developers of Gab chose to devote substantial portions of their lives to creating a platform for people who promote ethnic cleansing and the suppression of minorities. I don't think it's possible to do that without your eyes wide open, and I think that makes it a profoundly evil project.

<comment><USER21> > ..."free speech" in this case is a thin wrapper over white supremacism,

Even though this is your opinion I find this statement extremely ridiculous.

I don't support or agree with their views, but free speech grants them the right to say it and I will defend that right (which includes everyone).

The great thing is that you don't have to hear it, just block them if you don't like it.

<comment><USER4> Yes, yes, we're all familiar with the Patrick Henry quote. If my statement is so ridiculous, then point out why instead of making bald assertions.

I made no argument about the value of free speech. I am arguing that, given the fairly obvious clientele, it is reasonable to assume that principled fealty to free speech was not the driving motivation in Gab's creation. I don't think it's ridiculous to point to the specific content that makes up the majority of Gab and say you would have to be extraordinarily obtuse not to realize what and for whom you were building a social network.

<comment><USER21> > I am asserting that, given the fairly obvious clientele, it is reasonable to > assume that principled fealty to free speech was not the driving motivation > in Gab's creation.

Well, I believe that free speech was the reason for Gab's creation, they were getting censored from other social platforms so they built their own. It just so as happens that over time they have attracted vile users to the platform who have way more unpopular views.

So what are you really trying to say here?

<comment><USER4> > ...they were getting censored from other social platforms so they built > their own. It just so as happens that over time they have attracted vile > users to the platform who have way more unpopular views.

My point is that there is not much daylight between the former and the latter. Gab was not created in a vacuum by neutral arbiters of free speech.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> amiga-workbench I tried to find some remotely interesting content on that site, all I found was boomer political rambling and bile.

If they do this, I'll be making sure I blacklist their instances. While there are plenty of free-speech oriented or even right wing mastodon instances, the signal to noise ratio on these is pretty good and there is actually content worth engaging with.

<comment><USER22> > there are plenty of free-speech oriented or even right wing mastodon > instances, the signal to noise ratio on these is pretty good and there is > actually content worth engaging with.

any recommendations?

<comment> amiga-workbench I see a lot of people in my feed from bsd.moe and liberdon.com, I'm on layer8.space at the moment but am considering hosting an instance just for myself.

I feel like a burden being on someone else's server, using their bandwidth.

<comment><USER22> What's the best way to use that kind of thing? Is there an app that's recommended?

<comment> amiga-workbench I use Tusky on Android and the web UI for everything else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Good. This will make an excellent test of the ability of Mastodon servers and users to ostracize malicious actors, and a solid driver for new features in this area of development.

</comment><comment><USER20> Regardless of how you feel about the Gab folks in particular, this is _great_ news that _clearly_ shows the power of the federated web in enabling, empowering and preserving diverse audiences.

<comment><USER24> Maybe now they'll stop concern-trolling about the inevitable slippery slope into an Orwellian fascist nightmare the world will descend into every time a site bans them. They have their own playground where they can be as racist and edgy as they want.

Obligatory xkcd: [https://xkcd.com/1357/](https://xkcd.com/1357/)

<comment><USER25> That won't happen because the constant alarmism about censorship is part of the appeal. "Your rights are being violated by the Hollywood/feminists/liberal elites! Send me money so I can tell you how to combat this scourge with Logic & Reason (TM)"

People like J Peterson and Sargon could deal with being deplatformed in the way they preach to their disciples, but instead they whine about it while shaking their e-collection boxes.

<comment><USER26> I suspect the type of dismisiveness you show towards large swaths of the populace's opinions contributes to the success of folks like JBP and Sargon

<comment><USER25> I suspect it does too, but probably for different reasons.

Criticism of "thought leaders" like these guys only strengthens the hold they have among the legions of young people who follow their words like gospel.

Any criticism of these figures for their platitude-heavy content and huckster- style marketing must also be a criticism of their followers as individuals, because they have bought into that mindset wholesale.

<comment><USER27> JBP, at least, generally seems to come off better than the people criticising him.

And young people have rebellious tendencies, they form countercultures. The current world culture tilts to left-progressivism, so there's a right-ish counterculture.

<comment><USER28> The problem is that many look at JBP interacting with clickbait and unethical journalists and conclude that he must be a great and honest thinker in comparison. Actual academics rarely engage with him, and not because they are afraid to or malicious but because he hasn't published much that can even be engaged with outside of psychology. The exception is Žižek, and we all saw how that went for Peterson.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I had heard about Gab but never visited the site before. I just spent 30 seconds perusing the trending feed. I saw the following:

1\. a video of a man being shot and killed during an armed robbery 2\. 3 anti islam posts 3\. the usual pro trump propaganda 4\. a meme warning about the evils of feminism urging women to get back to their "place" in the family.

Gab is a festering pile of trash. Anyone responsible for making any technical decisions on it should be ashamed of themselves.

<comment><USER30> I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.

<comment><USER12> Will you defend my right to distribute IP I don't own? Or to vote if I am a felon? Or to share state secrets? Or to defraud people or slander people?

Do you believe that if the people on gab became state leaders that they'd protect your right to dissent?

<comment><USER30> There are exceptions to freedom of speech: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptions;) some of the things on your list are on this and hence do not fall under free speech. Also, note that I don't necessarily agree with all of these exceptions (for example, my personal opinions to your questions tends to lean towards "yes, in many cases" regardless of their legality. In this case I would instead be fighting for your actions to become protected under free speech).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Most HN posts: HN users hate internet controlled and censored by governments or corporations

This post: HN users hate it when things they don't like manage to get around corporate and government censorship

<comment><USER32> lol and another big story is talking about china attacking activists and everyones freaking out. people who want to censor are the worst.

<comment><USER31> And they're such losers too. They just downvote because they can't even present a counterargument.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> >Moving to the ActivityPub protocol as our base allows us to get into mobile App Stores without even having to submit and get approval of our own apps, whether Apple and Google like it or not

They also had the option of creating an ActivityPub compatible API, no? But yes I guess it's easier this way.

Having said that I wonder if they'll allow federation to happen. Most Mastodon instances restrict and censor speech so they will probably add Gab to the blocklist immediately but it would be cool if they could federate with other free speech instances. But then, what would be the point of using Gab instead of just other Mastodon instance?

<comment><USER34> Deciding what content is allowed on your private platform is not censorship. The platform owner is exercising their own form of speech.

<comment><USER35> Incorrect.

> Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other > information, on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, > harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient".[2][3][4] Censorship can be conducted > by a government[5], private institutions, and corporations.

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

<comment><USER19> I am not required to host your speech on my platform. The only free speech protection that is guaranteed in the United States is from the government stifling a citizen's speech and even that is fairly limited with free speech overridden by safety and security concerns on a fairly regular basis. That a particular platform doesn't want your speech is their right under their ability to speak. You cannot be forced to advocate a position you do not agree with.

<comment><USER35> You're conflating the definition of the word "censorship" with the legal protections of the First Amendment. They're too separate concepts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I first heard of Gab when big social media sites were accused of censoring conservatives during the 2016 election. One of the idea of Gab is if you don't like what people say you can block them and don't visit their profile...

So for example many social networks banned Alex Jones... With Gab if you don't like what he says, you don't have to follow him... So instead of the site itself trying to censor people, the users can censor things themselves. I believe the only thing Gab censors is if the content itself is illegal in some way, but other than that they support free speech giving users more choices and freedom.

<comment><USER37> Sure you can block specific users, but if I don't want to see (for example) anti-semitism how can I block that topic completely? It's not as if users tag their posts with each brand of hate speech.

<comment><USER36> I'm not sure if you block someone if it also hides their topics created by them but I would assume so. I know they have a way to block words too. I guess they call it mute users and words instead of block.

I know some people were calling this the alt tech space.

I haven't really been following it other than I remember the developer was interviewed talking about it. Another idea instead of verification badge being reserved for large celebrities, supposed to be more to show it's truly them.

I do think we're going down a slippery slope with all this censorship though and a few large players in Silicon valley controlling everything. I know there was a lot of accusations going on, that some search engines and sites were rigged to rank Hillary higher than Trump... Even the people in the media were saying Trump had no chance and Hillary was going to win. It's like they tried to rig the whole thing. But even then the mainstream media is all controlled by a few hands anyways too.

Then there are only really two main operating systems... On Mobile iOS and Android. Desktop Mac and Windows... So seems like more choices and freedom is a great thing, so power is spread out more instead of a few having large amounts of influence. However I also feel like people will pick things based on ease of use and features over being open. I like the ideas of Linux but I find myself using MacOs when it comes to desktop operating systems.

I know people are building alternatives to Facebook and YouTube on the blockchain (such as Steemit). Then there are even projects aiming to build alternatives to Wikipedia as some people don't even trust them either, forget what it's called though off the top of my head though. I know some of these companies have a lot of control and power, and can't even provide decent technical support.

I know Elizabeth Warren recent thing is talking about breaking up big tech, Google and Facebook... I like a lot of what Google does though, as a geek they are doing awesome things technically. I'm not sure if breaking them up is a good idea or not, but I think more competition and choices would be great as lack of tech support is a concern(and many recent HN posts on that topic already) and ideally I wish they'd be neutral in ranking things but I know people debate about that anyway as a whole other topic.

<comment> 52-6F-62 > _some search engines and sites were rigged to rank Hillary higher than > Trump... Even the people in the media were saying Trump had no chance and > Hillary was going to win. It 's like they tried to rig the whole thing. But > even then the mainstream media is all controlled by a few hands anyways > too._

You don't know this, though. There's no possible way you can.

And from someone inside the media— it's more disparate than you seem to want to believe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> From [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gab_(social_network)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gab_\(social_network\)) -

"Gab is an English-language social media website, launched publicly in 2017, known for its mainly far-right user base.[9] The site has been described as "extremist friendly"[10] or a "safe haven"[11] for neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and the alt-right.[10] ... Antisemitism is a prominent part of the site's content[24] and the platform itself has engaged in antisemitic commentary.[13][25]" \- and so on.

I'm curious how the existing Mastodon users feel about this.

<comment><USER39> A nice thing about Mastodon/ActivityPub is that administrators of "instances" (which means basically each running copy of the server software; you create a user account with a specific Mastodon instance, rather than with Mastodon itself) can disable federation with individual other instances, if they want to. So if a particular instance becomes a haven for trolls or other miscreants, you can block that entire instance and your users will no longer have to deal anything posted from it.

So I suspect that, if Gab really does become an ActivityPub instance, many other instances will just de-federate from them and that will be that.

<comment><USER38> Okay cool. I wonder does that mean Gab is able to use and benefit from any apps/tools created for Mastodon instances - or would it be possible for the owners of those apps/tools themselves to block/prevent certain instances from benefiting? I'd hope that's the case so everyone has the ability to 'vote' for who they are supporting.

<comment><USER40> Free Software can't discriminate based on use case, but this was written back before godwin's law was repealed, so, maybe no one will care that much if freedom zero gets tossed out?

 _sigh_

[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free- sw.html](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html)

A program is free software if the program's users have the four essential freedoms: [1]

The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0).

...

<comment><USER38> We prevent bad actors from developing (if possible) or having nuclear weapons. If they come to develop it on their own, okay then, however imagine we just gave that technology to everyone?

Nuclear weapons have widespread and massive devastation, the potential energy that builds up with hate is perhaps more terrifying though - as instead of immediately killing millions, you'll have situations like Nazi Germany, and so on - allowing bad actors to gain more and more power and more resources to influence the world.

I don't know and am not saying whether it should be done or not, if a developer who builds something that works with Mastodon's structure should be allowed to build a mechanism in that prevents who they consider bad actors (or bad parents) to having use of their tool; of course the bad actors could copy and develop the tools themselves, however those slight or temporary advantages do play a role in who is a victor - imagine if it was the Nazis had nuclear weapons first.

Generally not aiding people towards their goals who you see are behaving in a way that leads to hate and violence is a good thing, no? Helping them survive, understand, and quell their unrest, yes - but not helping hate and violence boil and explode.

The university Mark Zuckerberg was attending was planning to develop an online version of what they called a physical version of The Facebook. Mark couldn't understand why it was taking them so long and said he could get it launched quickly; the reason it wasn't being launched quickly was the university/committee was trying to understand the security, social, and other implications. Mark didn't care at all about the consequences - including but not limited to him fucking over the twin brothers who hired him to develop ConnectU, leading them on purposefully so he could launch Facebook first. Perhaps if everyone did care about the consequences for what they invest their time and/or money into, then standing for good - rallying good people and helping prop them up as best as we all can all in service to others - <USER3> gain a leg up against bad actors, malevolence?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The cardboard box that democratized photography - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30530268

<comment><USER2> "Digital will never compare with the warmth of film."

I love photography and chemistry both, and I admit to being a rank amateur when it comes to Serious Picture Taking, but... "warmth of film"? It's very poetic, but does the article's author live in the real world? At least for my use cases, digital cameras are so vastly superior to their film equivalents on the merits that the only way to make film sound like it might come anywhere close to the convenience and capability of digital requires nostalgic appeals like the one above, which is fine, I guess, as long as people recognize this as a purely subjective feeling. God knows that the reason I ran OpenVMS on DEC kit at home for so long was for the nostalgia of logging into the same kind of system my dad used in his career - those old boxes had no practical value, that's for sure. And I'll bet you any money that 50 years from now, our grandkids will be writing articles claiming that some far-futuristic lightfield holography do-thingy (that's so obviously superior to classic digital cameras as to have wiped them off the market over the previous 20 years) will never have the warmth of the 10-megapixel CCD cameras their parents grew up with. (Hell, there will probably be arguments on the future's photophile forums where hipsters argue about the warm, rich picture quality imparted by gold-plated SD cards.)

<comment><USER3> I do quite a lot of what could be considered artistic photography, had exhibitions, been published etc - and I find film is just more beautiful than digital. A poetic point possibly, but when I'm making a piece of visual art that's kind of what I'm after. Digital is certainly a lot more convenient and a lot quicker, but when I want to really capture a special image I'll always do it on film.

I started out on digital but now work more and more with film. There's just "something" about a film image compared to the same shot done digitally which I can't explain. Though a friend who is an optics&laser specialist and does a lot of astronomy photography going back many years suggested that your eyes can perceive the crystal/"organic" structure of a film print and prefers it to a clean ordered digital one. No idea if that's true - but I liked the idea ;-)

<comment><USER2> Artwork is as much about the process as the finished work itself. Let's say we both create a picture of a tree - same tree, same composition, same lighting, same everything - only I snap a picture using my phone's 15-MP camera and you create a realistic watercolor (a la Eric Christensen). It's pretty fair to say that your watercolor would be way more awesome a piece of artwork, and way more deserving of recognition, than my digital picture. That said, like anything digital photography can involve a _lot_ of hard, creative labor resulting in spectacular pieces of art. I have no qualms with artists and critics falling in love with a particular medium. I really loved the story behind the Brownie! Think of all the history and art and humanity and emotion those cameras have captured over the last one hundred-plus years! But the story's author looking down on digital because it's digital and thus "cold" or "unfeeling" or "mechanistic" or whatever is just snobbery at best (or worse, Monster Cables-level crackpottery). Both film and digital can be great, both can be loved, both can host great artworks without either taking anything away from the other.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> My parents still have a No.2 Brownie. It's no longer in shape to actually take photos, but it was used for years and years by the grandparents in their travels. Lots of family history all around the world were recorded with them.</comment>


How I Cracked Trivia Crack - <AUTHOR> http://randywestergren.com/how-i-cracked-trivia-crack/

<comment><USER2> Not shocked at all. I got somewhat addicted to Trivia Crack for about two days (I'm ashamed to say I actually bought the "infinite lives" package) got tired of how terrible the app was, and the quality and quantity of the questions. After a while, you just memorize all the questions anyway. Despite playing it frequently for two days, I eventually got so fed up with it, I haven't touched it in over a month.

Doesn't surprise me in the least that they have sloppy development as well.</comment>


How an Immutable Object Can Have State and Behavior? - <AUTHOR> http://www.yegor256.com/2014/12/09/immutable-object-state-and-behavior.html?2014-49 <comment><USER2> We use immutable objects to improve readability and to make code thread-safe. I'm not sure if first allowing mutable parts and then moving them into a "memory-representing class" helps a lot in this regard.</comment>


The Dirty Little Secret Of Inkjet Printers [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycD4XkUtbIw

<comment><USER2> It's not a secret that ink jets use ink to clean their print heads.

Laser prints are way cheaper to run long term, but color lasers are expensive and poor quality compared to ink jets. So take your pick.

</comment><comment><USER3> This video is missing the most important information: you can empty the tank of ink ejected and then reset the internal register which raises the alarm with a special software. In this way, you can avoid the need for servicing.

Using this technique I use an Epson printer continuously since 2006.

I have downloaded the software to reset the internal register of the printer from the Epson website itself.

I emptied the tank without dismantling the entire printer. I used a large syringe to extract the ink, with a little alcohol as a solvent if necessary.

Let me be clear that this operation will void the warranty if it is performed during the coverage period.

At this point I would like to do some personal consideration:

\- I find it unacceptable to throw a fully functional device in the trash. Do this would help to further transform our planet into a big dump! I print about a hundred sheets in a year and my printer is almost new but the rules of planned obsolescence try to force me to change it continuously ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence))

\- Why is it so difficult to build printers with a removable exhaust ink tank? Buyers should demand it to manufacturers of printers.</comment>