boplicity

You can't pay $.001 to $0.05 to get someone to do actual reporting.

News companies already have syndication, and revenue sharing based on it. A subscription to a newspaper often includes many articles written by other newspapers, distributed via syndication agreements.

You know who isn't arguing for micropayments for news articles?

Pretty much every damn publisher.

Nobody who wants to build a stable business would want to depend on micropayments.

Such a system would be a race to the bottom, just like garnering "Facebook likes" and similar "virality" is a failing proposition. (And look at what happened to companies like Buzzfeed, who were focused on just this.)

We have a huge problem in our society, of people not valuing journalism, and not wanting to pay for it. Here on HN you regularly see people attempt to actively subvert copyright (by linking to "archive sites"), in addition to the constant drip of criticism when publishers do things to try to build their business, such as collect email addresses, use paywalls, etc.

Publishers need reliable, stable, income, not the lottery type system that would come from micropayments. They need to be paid to do journalism, not write articles that convince people to spend "coins" on them.

Fortunately, publishers are actually figuring out how to build stable businesses. There's still a lot of work to do, especially in terms of local journalism, but it's clear that there is no future for micropayments, based on what seems to actually work.

And please, I beg you, set aside a budget to support journalists, and spend it.

Benchmark maxing could be interpreted as benchmarks actually being a design framework? I'm sure there are pitfalls to this, but it's not necessarily bad either.

Google Ads, especially Google Maps, has tons of paid ads for local restaurants. So does Uber Eats and similar ilk.

I particularly despise these ads in Maps because the ad often obscures the search result I'm looking for -- and I end up accidentally clicking on an advertisement for some other restaurant than the one I was looking up.

People almost never admit it when they respond to an ad. Even when they very clearly do.

Don't underestimate the effectiveness of advertising, or its ability to influence you.

> the products they are pumping out don't serve anyone's need or solve anyone's problem.

This isn't true though.

Yes, there are too many products being build that don't serve anyone's needs or solve anyone's problems.

However, many of the AI products do solve problems and serve needs.

You're right though, to compare this to other booms, which also had the same problem. This is very much a "hyper" version, which is pretty incredible to be in the middle of.

I can't help but think this is a reflection of the unwillingness of most people to actually pay for journalism online — and worse, the active and intentional effort to subvert copyright, making it more difficult for journlists to actually earn a living from their work.

People don't value journalism. They expect it to be free, generally. Therefore, companies like Ars are put into a position of expecting too much from their journalists.

HN is rife with people with this attitude -- frequently linking to "archive" sites for otherwise paywalled articles, complaining when companies try to build email lists, charge for their work, or have advertising on their sites. The underlying message, of course, is that journalism shouldn't be paid for.

Yes, Ars is at fault if they have a bad company culture. However, the broader culture is a real factor here as well.

Can you clarify why it is absurd to add density to an area with huge 5 acre lots?

Yeah -- I know I could probably get a better deal. I pay more for premium support ($200), as well as a North American location. Plus, probably an addition premium for not wanting to go through the effort of switching servers.

It's a server with:

- 2x Intel Xeon 5218

- 128gb Ram

- 2x960GB SSD

- 30TB monthly bandwidth

I pay around an extra $200/month for "premium" support and Acronis backups, both of which have come in handy, but are probably not necessary. (Automated backups to AWS are actually pretty cheap.) It definitely helps with peace of mind, though.

I don't know. I rent a bare metal server for $500 a month, which is way overkill. It takes almost no time to manage -- maybe a few hours a year -- and can handle almost anything I throw at it. Maybe my needs are too simple though?

The cost is a factor -- and something that I think policy makers should very much push to change.

For our family of four, two of us pay for public transport as of now. That adds up to $12 round trip; which is often more expensive than parking in the even in a high density area. Once we have to start paying for the kids too, that would add up to $24 for a round trip, which ends up being more expensive than driving. I get that public transportation is expensive to operate; maybe that alone is the root of the problem here.

Is it at all possible to have a policy that bans the submission of any AI written text, or text that was written with the assistance of AI tools? I understand that this would, by necessity, be under an "honor system" but maybe it could help weed out papers not worth the time?

> In numerous incidents, DHS’s narrative of what led up to a shooting has later been proven to be inaccurate.

Not only are they lying about what happens when they shoot people, they vindictively charge their victims with a crime, turning things exactly on their head.

If this isn't fascism, what is?

And how do we stop it?

I ask this about nearly every software company. Almost every vendor of ours has dedicated quite a lot of time and energy to useless AI features.

Not really sure what you're thinking here, but anything one can do to expose data, and make it visible could be helpful. Many decisions aren't made simply because the right information is not available.

From the top Reddit comment:

> Watching this repeatedly, you can clearly see the ICE agent in grey removes a pistol from the victim's rear waistband with his right hand [...]

> The gun is off the victim BEFORE the first shots are fired (of which I can count 16).

It wasn't just Chinese data, though. It was access to all customer data. They also built tools specifically for searching and filtering that data that they told congress were impossible to build...

If you read Reckless People, it becomes quite clear how Facebook is culpable.

Have you read the book? It would likely give you some good talking/discussion points...such as "FB intentionally let genocide happen. Do you think we should support them with our time?"

The book was absolutely horrifying.

Meta is far worse than most people realize.

We can't give up our power just because the situation is difficult. We need to assert as much power as possible. Organize; talk openly about the problem; coordinate plans for voting (yes, I know its early). Pressure politicians. There are things individuals can do, right now. No, it's not enough on our own. But if we don't act as individuals, then we really are screwed.

Trump has around 90% support from Republicans.

Honestly, this looks very much like 1930s Germany. I really wish that weren't an exaggeration.

NO. Just no.

It's not just Renee Good.

Unfortunately, this didn't get a lot of attention, but they also threw a flash-bang grenade and tear gas at a car filled with six children. A six month old baby had to get CPR from her mom. Two kids were hospitalized.

None of this is acceptable. And their overtly violent behavior has nothing to do with enforcing the law.

Affordable EVs exist and are widely available in some countries. They're effectively banned in North America, though.

Suppliers really hate working with Costco. They're slow to pay, allow for only small margins, and often need too high of a percentage of a businesses revenue, all of which is not friendly towards suppliers.

Toys for kids are absolutely a necessity in most households with kids.

Why would you need to replace the batteries? Do they fail outright at around 10 years, become unsafe, or do they just lose capacity?

Curious!

Even if they're at 50% capacity, they would still work, right? But if there are other considerations, especially safety ones, then that would definitely be a consideration. I'm not sure where to learn about this type of thing.