jaltekruse

One thing that the article gets wrong is accusing mathjax of being abandoned. Development has moved to a new repo for the next version.

https://github.com/mathjax/MathJax-src/graphs/contributors

Social media has it's drawbacks, but large hosted services exist for good reasons and have spawned entire new industries. An independent artist couldn't host a server to share their work (especially if they want to share content like video widely), or run a store capable of handling a spike of traffic if they became popular. Also the network effects of the platforms give huge benefits allowing at least a portion of promising diamonds in the rough to be found and shared (even if they are mixed in with a bunch of dumb clickbait and cheap knockoffs of products as discussed in the recent Etsy boycott thread).

It's definitely not all roses, but I don't really see a clear path out of this. Because for whatever feelings people have about big tech, YouTube, Facebook, Etsy, Instagram have all driven billions in business for non-tech companies. And they've done it by creating experiences that are engaging to end consumers. Sure we might see traffic exchange hands among the big players, and there will be other successful new networks like we have seen with TikTok. But I think people don't want to self host for good reasons.

I think we're seeing pretty clear evidence of it right now. Americans in sprawling cities that get used to low gas prices buy giant gas guzzling cars and then freak out like none other when prices go up. The subsidies are almost certainly helping to line some investor and executive pockets, but they probably also have some effect driving down prices.

I think it is important to remember that anti-renewables messaging has been around for a very long time. The panels might have needed to come off for repairs but definitely could have been put back up. Casually discarding even a public relations action like this likely had negative impacts on the discussion and many people taking the issue seriously for years to come. I don't know specifically how anti-renewables Regan was personally, but he definitely was the leader of a party that most strongly fought climate change messaging and actions in recent years.

Here is Carl Sagan testifying before congress in 1985 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp-WiNXH6hI

Admittedly this hasn't necessarily been as strongly polarizing as it was during the 2010s, there was a time that it was a bipartisan issue that unified both parties in the interest of reducing foreign energy dependence. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzDjjUAt3zc

I've been trying to build a consumer side rationing movement for these exact reasons. It won't solve all of the problems but every bit helps, the grid and natural gas system operators can only do so much prep, the increasing purchases of Russian gas products in the last couple of years obviously misjudged the likelihood of Putin doing something like this invasion. As this article points out in painstaking detail, the West as a whole has a real weak spot in our leverage against Russia and we do have the power to try to help.

https://www.boycott-russian-gas.com/

It got 30 upvotes and many comments in the first 30 minutes, briefly was on the front page but now it isn't listed at all, I can only find it with search or a direct link.

Hello @dang this appears to be shadow banned and I don't understand why, it got a lot of interest and I think this discussion is useful for more people to see.

Did I violate any HN rule by posting this?

This impacts me too, the US does export liquid natural gas that could help some. I'm also trying to encourage everyone to reduce consumption, even in the US, because it could enable some resource re-balancing if it comes to that.

Russia coming out of this stronger helps none of us. The way I see it is that without starting this discussion we are steaming towards an inevitable outcome where Putin puts pressure on this issue and the whole world just gives up and lets him do whatever he wants.

For the record, while its clear you think I'm not with you, I totally agree with this statement.

Increasing demand for electricity is absolutely essential to convince politicians to back the scale up of the grid that will be needed as more people have electric cars and home heating systems.

Buying electric everything today creates demand that forces the hand of people debating installing new natural gas infrastructure that will be used for 80 years, or finally saying that it isn't worth it because a high percentage of people switched to electric and we can't justify the cost anymore for a few holdouts on gas, we just force the last few to switch to electric at that point.

All that being said, today people are dying, and Europe is afraid to do much about it because everyone has been increasing natural gas use to offset coal, it was a cheap solution to part of the problem.

We might not agree that resisting Russian expansionism is an important short term objective, but I believe we need to start acting like Russia rewrote the world order a few days ago and we can either fight that or roll over.

In the short term the two are interchangeable, we cannot build enough solar panels and batteries to help the people being killed in Ukraine today.

But obviously people aren't doing this on a massive scale. Despite appliances getting more efficient, energy consumption continues to rise faster than population increases.

I'm trying to mobilize a wartime effort of massive reductions to increase western soft power. If just 2-5% of the buildings currently being heated in the world could have their thermostats effectively off that would change the calculus that pretty much all of Europe is struggling with. It is the exact reason we were slow to cut off SWIFT, and we are still holding back on anything like a proactive oil or gas embargo from our side.

Those options are totally off the table if we cannot rally widespread support for righting Russian aggression, maybe even going further than lighting up buildings with colors and sending money to a out-manned nation that is under siege.

Yo! I encourage you to read down to the "what NOT to do" section.

This type of bickering is exactly what I'm trying to convince people to avoid.

I think we should take this moment to acknowledge what lots of people agree on, energy independence is good for security.

I'm trying to make the website neutral, but its hard in the current political climate. I think liberals need to accept that energy independence is good even if it doesn't come 100% renewable. And also trying to rally conservatives to accept that renewables are a longer term play, but are kind of the only option for nations that have no domestic oil reserves.

But that is kind of all irrelevant right now, Russia could cut off gas from Europe today! I'm trying to prevent us from being caught with our pants down and having to cave an otherwise pretty united international response.

Yup, my exact point is that tons of people will riot if the government tells them "we need to cut back to fight the Russians".

I'm trying to get people to accept ahead of a sudden need to change our behavior or fold to Russian pressures, we can start getting ready for the worst that may come.

I can assure you I am not pro-Russia.

I'm happy to take suggestions on edits for the website.

I do support green energy targets, but I believe this situation proves the world did some math wrong. Russia is much more aggressive than we were willing to accept even a few weeks ago. The west has been increasing its purchasing of Russian gas and oil despite the fact they had annexed Crimea and supported the separatists.

I think we need to talk about what needs to happen in the short term right now. Most of the discussion I am seeing everywhere is people on the right taking shots at Biden and Germany for shutting down domestic production and caring about green energy targets.

Part of what I'm trying to get everyone to realize is that the left and right are on the same side. Conservatives that are taking a second to stop mocking the green energy movement are also shouting "this is why energy independence is national security".

I'm trying to bridge 2 sides of the debate, I think us lefties need to accept that energy independence in any means possible might be more strategically important in the short run.

Absolutely, but this is more possible if we can start a giant rationing movement. Biden already had to talk about how he was going to keep prices low at the pump while we impose sanctions. This is what we can do as individuals to help with that effort.

Unfortunately there isn't a ton of capacity to transport natural gas across the Atlantic, it is possible and we are doing it, but we don't have enough infrastructure and specialized ships for this to replace more than a small fraction of what comes in from Russia through existing pipelines.

Nordstream 2 stalling is not a bad step, but that is future harm to Russia, we need to be hurting Russia today as well as preparing for a potential shutoff of all exports.

Unfortunately this is about the level of discourse I'm seeing everywhere. Mocking green energy targets.

Right now I think this is profoundly unproductive. Ukraine should not have been invaded, Russia violated international law and is committing war crimes.

A relatively small nation is holding the line against a world power and all I'm trying to say is maybe enough people in the world care, or should care, about resisting the actions of a dictator. I think if our grandfathers and great grandfathers could fight and die to prevent expansionist nations aggression, maybe the muted 21st century version of what we can do is be organize ourselves a little and tolerate some discomfort.

I don't expect this to be a complete solution, but I am also very fearful that things will get shut off.

People are talking about this threat, but mostly to express despair. I'm trying to rally support and action ahead of the chaos that will ensue when things get shut off if there isn't a plan.

Starting grassroots I'm hoping will increase the chances people are willing to accept rationing. Governments won't be able to convince their people to hold firm against Russia and tolerate mass shortages suddenly given what I'm perceiving as a deficit of real support and widespread action right now.

For those that read the note the blog is gone but I searched HN for the author and found the discussion the day this was posted.

He did end up making it because people called the police.

This isn't to undercut the message of this comment, it is clear from the blog that Dennis was very close to dying because of the financial situation he was in and how hopeless it made him feel. I just had to know what happened after reading the note.

https://archive.fo/U4X6S

I'm working on solving the problem of allowing non-technical people communicate about math without needing to learn Latex. There is also an element of classroom organization/grading optimization along the lines of gradescope. All code for the project is GPL.

https://freemathapp.org

HN might bean outrage machine some days, but like every Voip thing ever says you can't call emergency services with them. I always believed it to be a SLA deficiency in consumer internet? I'm guessing a strong preference for the real cell network to handle the calls would be necessary until this changes. Unless you can actually swap out the "phone" app on Android to have a 3rd party app make a real phone call?

Looks like there is a similar one that has more things on it too. https://github.com/aviaryan/awesome-no-login-web-apps

Fine, your decisions will impact the value of the stock. Prevent insider trading by requiring them to commit to a long term trading strategy. Make them commit a long period in advance if they want to make any trades. I understand there are regulations that require this of many executives, but as the article seems to make pretty clear there is still plenty of wiggle room make extra money off of secret knowledge and get away with it.

Yeah there definitely feels like having a "maximum compensation" for any individual involved with a non-profit should be considered. Lots of horror stories around about people abusing the system. That being said I'm pretty sure things are ironclad that you cannot sell stock in a non-profit.

Seriously, the whole article is about Signal being run by a non-profit. I don't think the rest of it was horrible but a mistake like this makes it feel like it was written time of the market reporting bots that write all of the useless articles on stock news.

The Free Math Foundation | Remote | https://freemathapp.org

Free Math is a flexible open source website that allows students to record step-by-step math work digitally and for teachers to grade their entire class full of assignments quickly with similar work on each question shown in groups.

We are still early stage and looking for potential co-founders. We are pre-funding but starting to work with us has the potential to turn into a paid position as we have been ramping up our fundraising efforts.

We are getting decent traction, and we're just named a finalist in the Edtech Awards 2021. https://www.edtechdigest.com/2021-finalists-winners/

Looking for engineers, product managers and teachers for curriculum development. You can email developers@freemathapp.org if you are interested in learning more.

This was reported back in August and unless the people commenting yesterday just haven't updated Windows in a while it still isn't fixed.

If all we can ever do is submit to our most basic instincts we will never make progress.

Thinking collectively is what created civilized society and enabled the modern world.

I agree that consumption has created a lot of good in the world, I absolutely believe in capitalism, successful ideas need to triumph over bad ones.

I also understand that many innovations start out as extremely expensive luxury goods that are eventually commoditized. This is an important part of why I don't believe we should make excessive consumption illegal.

I know there will always be people who submit to these urges and buy fancy crap, and sometimes them doing that will help society at large more than it hurts. Some things are just objectively not helpful and are just gratuitous displays of wealth. I am happy to hear otherwise, but I just don't think that Yacht building has trickled down to a bunch of consumer goods that help the world.

High end fashion and beauty products I think reasonably belong in the same category. I think there are plenty of opportunities for more decentralized markets, local designers, that would be possible if rich people weren't buying so much mindshare and influence. And that's not to say I think the government should regulate everything, some if it just has to be individuals talking about things and changing consumption behavior.

I think the leftys, who I generally hang around and aggree with get a lot wrong about schools. We spend a lot on schools, other countries that spend a lot less get better outcomes. I mean FFS the richest country in the world with a 85% graduation rate, it's completely insane. Fixing the schools isn't a one-dimensional problem, and I think there are some charters that have good ideas. While they do generally under-serve students with differing abilities, I think that is talked about too much and is used to try to discredit everything they do. There are problems in the schools, absolutely, everyone agrees, and unfortunately aversion to change comes from every level, but unfortunately it's often on different issues/changes. Teachers, parents, students, admins and politicians all have things they balk at that prevents fixing the schools, we need to change a lot of minds or have a huge top down reworking of schools, but unfortunately that runs right into one of the issues people get all worked up about, local control.

On taxes this will forever be an evolving discussion. Hopefully with good policies over the next few decades we can even out some of the income and wealth disparities and need a smaller welfare state. When that happens I'm all for tax cuts.

But at this point the capital gains rate is absolutely in need of change. Taxing the rich is really politically popular, across the political spectrum. If someone has to pay %39 on a million dollars of earned income, the "job creators" making billions can pay something closer to that on their income too.