halfbrite

> The public have been sold a lie. Just like the “Patriot Act” was just to keep everybody free and protect people from terrorists.

The public have largely been sold nothing and are completely, blissfully, ignorant of this legislation. The legislation is being pushed through by politicians who have been sold two lies:

1. The legislation, and 2. the idea that the public care.

> Do the developers and current users actually want to grow?

From casual observation, yes, Mastodon users generally want the platform to grow.

Bluesky users? Some incumbents can be extremely hostile towards the idea of new users, though are equally welcoming when they do arrive.

Lemmy? Oof.

Some things I don't understand about Mastodon:

1. Why the obsession with 'move' instead of 'use'? Since when did people become forced to use only one website or one platform or one product?

2. Why the constant arguments over the pros and cons of federation? The ends users stance: 'Who cares!' All the want is a platform that works for them and gives them the content they seek, and doesn't break every 5 minutes. They care little for the technical merits.

3. Federation sounds great, but ultimately the majority of users, if say a migration from Twitter was to occur, will likely flock to one instance, and that's likely to be mastodon.social as it's the most obvious and prominent instance shown to new users. So uhh, then who cares about federation?

A technical solution looking for a problem ... and it may have found a problem - which is kind of refreshing.

> I wish him well.

We all do, but does anyone really believe spez won’t seem to kill it off a year from now?

Love HACK. Would you be willing to add a Six Colors icon like Apollo has?

Looking forward to LimeReader!

> They want to charge for what they believe the data is worth.

Counter argument: it’s not their data to charge for. And if they want to claim it is their data then they should be held accountable for the content therein.

I’m not saying they shouldn’t recoup costs for access to said data. You do after all pay taxes and get access to local libraries and archives. But they shouldn’t be extorting third-party developers.

This should have been posted as a Show HN.

> Kickstart your Content Strategy in Minutes

While correct capitalisation, generally. For this instance, all words should be capitalised. (I look forward to the debate on this.)

> Simply input a topic, and Search Alkemy will deliver organized keyword research to guide your content strategy. Start writing blog posts that rank today.

Try:

"You search for a topic, Search Alkemy will deliver organized keyword research guiding your content strategy. You can start writing blog posts that rank."

Avoid, today, since you cannot guarantee instant SEO results. Make it personal.

If you have a spare, I would most appreciate it.

> Huffman has calculated that, in the event of a disaster, he would seek out some form of community: “Being around other people is a good thing. I also have this somewhat egotistical view that I’m a pretty good leader. I will probably be in charge, or at least not a slave, when push comes to shove.”

Tried to register, got hit with a Cloudflare error.

Error 1015 You are being rate limited

The owner of this website (realm.flingup.com) has banned you temporarily from accessing this website.

Refreshing took me to an error page, which then tried to send me to:

http://localhost:3000/

Thing is, the platform looks like a great start, so I hope this can be fixed quickly!

I wish there was a Usenet client for iOS that matched the beauty and usability (and accessibility) of Apollo.

I wish there was Usenet servers to back that up - which didn't carry the binaries or unsavory newsgroups.

> I am a remote worker, and the only solution I've found to stay focused is to close the door of my room. What about you?

Years of practice. Closing the door is a good strategy. I can't do the 'earphones in, work mode on' strategy, music is a distraction - so simply put, years of practice.

I've heard good things about the book Indistractable by Nir Eyal. I'll get around to reading it when I'm not busy / distracted.

Scale comes with time and engagement - right now, nothing is at the same scale. If the API costs, accessibility issues, and lackluster mod tools issues are not resolved in a timely and amicable manner, the scales will change as they have done time after time.

The current VC investors should also consider if the existing CEO is fit for the role, given their apparant personal attacks and defamation against a third-party developer, and the public proof that these were unwarranted.

A lot of the existing alternatives skew to the left or right of the political spectrum. The ideal platform would welcome all, and not witch hunt one or the other. Tildes seems to fit that but is invite only. Squabbles also, but it's not /quite/ the same as Reddit.

Forums are the way to go for now.

What I would love to see is a hand-picked curated list of forums, a la dmoz but for social, with reviews.

Just the facts eh. I'm surprised no AI has realised; you can buy a house for $1 if you shop around[1]. This is supported by bardian facts without any bias. Therefore house prices globally must be on a downward trend, right? So say we bard.

For example: €1 - Houses in Sardinia[2], $1 - House in Indiana[3], £1 - Renovating Britain's Cheapest Homes[4].

  [1] https://www.thetravel.com/travel-destinations-homes-for-one-dollar/
  [2] https://www.insardinia.ch/en/1-e-house-sardinia/
  [3] https://www.housebeautiful.com/design-inspiration/real-estate/a25892358/buy-house-for-one-dollar-house-program-gary-indiana/
  [4] https://www.loveproperty.com/galleries/71493/1-pound-houses-renovating-britains-cheapest-homes

> She has a copy of it I got on google play for her which she can play on her tablet.

> So I pirate the movie (please don't arrest me, it's google's fault).

Is it pirated if you already own a legally valid license?

How about rips of blu-rays you own, which you solely use and do not intend to share? Is that pirating or using your legally owned product on a different medium?

The Foires de Lyon are likely being referenced, but that specific year is more than likely a reference to the Grand Parti de Lyon -- which was neither a party or a faire.

I wanted to learn the basics of OOP (classes and objects) back when C++ first appeared, but the topic was too heavy and too dry - and I was young.

A magazine article (remember those things?) described it using post office analogies, including a postal train. It just clicked.

I have no idea what magazine or writer, or why that set of analogies worked when there are far simpler explanations for classes and objects, but I owe my career to that article (and my lack of friends in high school .. but it's all good!)

Microsoft.Data.Sqlite makes it easier to use encrypted databases compared to System.Data.Sqlite out of the box.

I am yet to find a modern up-to-date tutorial and implementation of System.Data.Sqlite that offers encrypted database support without making my brain melt.

Anyone looking to create a new social network should certainly take cues from Usenet - of course, it was eventually over taken by forums on the web.

Visiting Usenet today though will only lead to sadness, unless you're looking for something you shouldn't be or enjoy endless spam.

There's some subtle technical differences that would need to be overcome, and I cannot see the existing encumbents agreeing to those differences.

First, take private messaging - on Mastodon, if @alice and @dave talk about @mallory, @mallory will be pulled into the conversation. With Fidonet, in it's simplest terms, private messaging was private.

Second, if there is a forum / discussion board for / called Java on ProgrammerWoes.fiction and a forum / discussion board for / called Java on ProgrammerSuccess.fiction then with the existing solutions a person comes along and they are unsure which is better, and one eventually dies, or a third springs up, etc.

With Fidonet, there was one forum per topic - the contents of which was federated, so you didn't end up with two Java forums.

Yes, we have hundreds of programming forums - but there's a reason people flock to Twitter or more specifically Reddit to discuss a topic that goes beyond simply signal to noise - it's that they aren't flooded with a confusing choice.

What I'm looking for is effectively a fidonet style federation. I understand Lemmy is bordering on that, but it's not quite there from my observation, and I'm yet to see a suitable implementation that would entice an old fart like me.

You are right. Case and point; Discord - bringing basic markdown to the masses.

This wikipedia page includes reference to WhatsApp... Should it?

I understand that you can use bold, italic, underline, but that is where the comparison ends - the answer to Features is "No" in the comparison table versus others. Not all other comparisons include it.

It's almost as if someone shoe-horned it in for greater visibility. "Hey look at our app, it's better than competitors because it's listed here!" Yet it's competitors offer the same or more.

We are having a combined issue very similar to this, and other comments in this thread.

We have been using Azure for 5+ years, we are quite heavily invested. Our payment card expired and so we decided (as good customers) to update our card, only Microsoft's billing will not accept it because it will not go over to the embedded payment gateway page.

We provided screen share sessions to their "manager", we provided HAR files from Edge to support "engineering" diagnose the problem, and we provided proof that it is their own servers responding with 500 Internal Server Error messages and 403 Forbidden errors.

The Microsoft support agent admitted that there is a fault with their system. They admitted that they need to fix it.

We keep asking for the issue to be escalated - it never is. We keep asking for the issue to be treated as a complaint - it never is. The agent simply will not do the things we ask.

Communication is like getting blood out of a stone. Once a week if we push out two or three reminders, always out of hours even though they repeatedly ask us what ours suit us. They even schedule calls and don't call.

2 months later, they tell us that 35% of Microsoft customers with our bank have this issue and they're not going to do anything about it, so uh, I guess we're up the creek with this? Thanks Microsoft, you're letting down our 70,000ish customers and we're not going to take the blame for it - we'll be honest with them.

And so we became AWS customers. Zero problems with payment. Zero problems with our Linux services migrating across. The only issue for us is a technical debt issue - migrating old .NET web apps.

The whole affair has really soured my personal and our customers opinion of Microsoft.