gargoiler00

They certainly are. But my point is that if you're only servicing the same number of IO connections as you have cores, it's not extremely scalable.

Most networking servers should be dealing with hundreds or thousands of concurrent connections.

> The idea that threads or processes are intrinsically slow was sheer unmitigated propaganda, and probably not only failed to contain a grain of truth, but are actively false.

Threads / processes:

  * Run some code from A
  * Save state, context switch
  * Run some code from B
  * Save state, context switch

  * Deal with locking, synchronisation, etc

vs

  * Run some code.

There is absolutely no instances where [num threads] > [num cores] is as efficient as not using more threads than cores.

Yeah because I have as many cores as I have concurrent HTTP requests, and obviously it's CPU bound...

why would anyone still be using threads or processes these days? :/ hardly scalable or efficient.

It's really not a defining moment, in any sense of the word.

Same old, same old.

In actual fact though, The independent has stated that it wasn't leaked anything by the government, so the original post is moot. This is no better than gossip about celebrities.

So governments monitor the internet. Wouldn't it be really bizarre if they didn't monitor the internet?

I remember when hacker news used to be about hacking, programming, startups etc.

What the hell has this political article got to do with any of the above?

The supply of electricity however, is apparently limitless!!!

My first laptop was an Amstrad PPC512 in the mid 80s - almost 30 years ago. I'm still not convinced batteries have come that far since then.

I'm actually thinking of going back to my nokia which has a battery that lasts a week on standby. Compared to modern smartphones which last a day.

You're right though - Inefficient bloated buggy software is becoming the driving force for requiring more power from batteries - going back to my original point - I don't want software running my car.

Agree to disagree eh

> lithium-ion batteries (the latter were under active development), but they're now the primary power sources for portable devices, and lithium-ion batteries power the Tesla Model S.

What does that mean for the user. Do batteries today last twice what they lasted 30 years ago? Nope. Are rechargeable batteries any more viable today? Nope.

Even batteries in laptops only last a year or so before they are just dead and need replacing.

If you think battery technology has really massively improved in the last 30 years, please let me know what real world improvements there have been...

Take an AA battery. Now go back in time 30 years and look at an AA battery.

Identical. Why has battery technology not improved one bit in the last 30 years? Well, obviously there's a massive disincentive - the better the battery, the less people buy, but I don't think that's the main limitation.

I don't think conventional batteries can improve all that much more.

I don't believe electric cars are technologically better. Lugging a half ton battery around, then waiting for hours for it to charge doesn't seem that clever to me.

Of all the things that are banes of our lives these days, surely it's everything that runs on a battery.

Remember when phones would last a week or so on a charge? Now you're lucky if a smart phone lasts a day on standby. And people call it progress...

So no, I think the idea of having a massive battery in my car is horrible.

Firstly, I don't believe electric cars are a good idea. Secondly, I absolutely hate the idea of cars so dependent on electronics and software.

My neighbour has an old dumper truck he lets me use, probably 50 or 60 years old. It starts every time, first time. There is literally nothing to go wrong on it.

Now contrast that with a modern car, where you need special tools to access the electronics unlock diagnostics. What about when cars have auto update software over wifi? What about when the government forces car makers to embed their own tracking software into them to monitor and spy on civilians.

Tesla isn't quite as bad as the idiotic self drive cars Google is pressing for (So they can drive you to a google advertiser), but they're in the same bucket of nastiness.

HN has a raging hard-on for tesla. It's not surprising, but I agree it's ridiculously one sided here.

Personally, I hope Tesla fail, and think they will.

It would probably take at most a few hours to rewrite a JSON encoder and decoder. It's hardly a complex piece of code is it.

Even that's not correct though. Port 80 is just the default port. Not to mention the number of web servers only doing HTTPS on port 443 and not 80.

More correct would be "A scan of world wide web servers running on the default port 80"

I think he meant scanning all ports, UDP+TCP+ICMP etc etc

Also what about the sudden population explosion? What if the survivors need after care for the rest of their lives, or expensive drugs?

The problem is, if wikipedia did alter articles based on advertisers demands (Which seems pretty far fetched to me), the public would just alter them back. Or see the edits wikipedia is making and put 2 and 2 together.

>and then instruct editors to do nothing.

Yeah good luck with getting wikipedia editors to comply with that request!

A site like wikipedia would likely have thousands upon thousands of advertisers. They wouldn't be dependent on a few big advertisers. If an advertiser came to wikipedia and asked them to change a page, wikipedia would just say "no", publish the details to make the advertiser look like a douche (cue internet witch hunt, boycot naming shaming etc), and not care about the 0.000% temporary drop in revenue.

Welcome to the internet. You seem new.

Everyone goes to Google.com to search for things. You know that when you do a search, you're going to see helpful related adverts.

That level of conflict of interests and possible abuse, privacy concerns etc, means that the entire world uses google as their search engine. Oh and they make billions in profit.

Your hypothesis about an advertiser asking wikipedia to alter content surely applies to google search results.

That is one issue, indeed. But the downside is that you're hassling your users to give you money, rather than hassling advertisers to give you money.

I'd rather not be hassled as a user.

I would also click on adverts, and buy things if they're useful to me, but I don't think I'd ever donate to a website.

It wasn't really fraud. The terms of use etc weren't really clear enough or lets face it enforceable.

Was it fraud if you got a dog to play with the mouse, and never looked at the screen? The dog might have still been looking at the adverts!

For me personally, it ends up being far more annoying. I really wish wikipedia would just put small unobtrusive text adverts on each page rather than the massive intrusive banners begging for money.

Advertising on Reddit is not the same as advertising in general.

If you advertise on Reddit, you're advertising to a violently anti-corporate anti-advertising audience, who may love you, but very well may hate you. You could be subject to a witch hunt at the drop of a hat.

I very much doubt advertisers would be lining up to advertise to that crowd. They're hardly big spenders either.

It's ironic that the alternative to advertising, is to splash big "DONATE NOW" adverts over a website.

I think the mantra from the startup community is often:

1. Make money doing whatever it takes. eg come up with some crappy website, sell it to google, then shut it down. 2. The money problem is solved! 3. Spend money solving world hunger, diseases, philanthropy.

Which IMHO is pretentious BS.

That wouldn't address the lack of a sustainable business model.

Being a forum where low wage/students/anti-corporate/anti-advertising types go and share memes is the elephant in the room problem.

Look back in time. Read up on other things that had a massive userbase, but were unsustainable.

Checkup alladvantage - they paid people to surf. Had millions of users, but ultimately failed because their "business model" was idiotic.

Getting millions of users is pretty easy if you pay them to be a user. Someday though, it's only worthwhile if you can build a sustainable business which at least doesn't lose money hand over fist.

If Reddit hadn't got bought and supported by other profitable businesses, I doubt it would have survived.

Last time they shared, they were spending ridiculous amounts of money on Amazon ec2 a month. Like ridiculous amounts.

Someday, the money will run out, and they'll have to try and turn a profit.

Their business model is fundamentally bad.