Hacker News Reader

network2592on Spotify looked to ban white noise podcasts to become more profitable

Definitely. It has been my goto for white|brown|pink noise for a year now. Even the animation on the terminal looks a bit like "waves". [1]

Could you please share any other examples of commands?

[1] https://ibb.co/GVG0Rdf

network2592on Don't Take VC Funding – It Will Destroy Your Company

The mission of Cloudflare is to build a better internet. In what ways does blocking nameserver changes help build a better internet?

It actually builds a worse internet. One that is closed to the exchange of information and services. One in which Cloudflare, an entity that allegedly helps build a better internet, would not even exist.

You know full well, that if all domain registrars had prevented nameserver changes to Cloudflare, that Cloudflare would not exist. In this context, you could forgive a skeptic for suggesting that "building a better internet" is just empty corporate speak.

Let's now consider the business case for domain registration. You mention that it is at cost as far as ICANN fees and registry fees are concerned. But you incur payment processing fees and customer support fees that would place an undue business burden that would generate a loss.

For payment processing fees, let's assume one to two percent. Cloudflare domain registration for the dot com registry including ICANN fee currently stands at $9.15.

One percent is $0.0915 or let's just say a dime. Two percent is $0.183 or let's just say a quarter. Registrants would surely not mind paying an extra dime or quarter to cover payment processing costs. Heck, you could just round it up to an even $10.

If your intention is indeed lead generation for your other services, it would actually make even more business sense to have this slightly higher price as a lead qualifier. Do you think a potential customer that is price sensitive for a few cents on domain registration is likely to purchase your other services?

As for customer support, if the user changes the nameservers to another provider, by definition, that user will have to get support for dns records and all other issues from that provider. In other words, there would not be much custom to support.

So, if payment processing and customer support are your key arguments against blocking nameserver changes, respectfully, they are tangential and inconsequential. If there are some more relevant and consequential arguments for blocking nameserver changes, out of curiosity, please share those with us. Thanks.

network2592on Don't Take VC Funding – It Will Destroy Your Company

A sincere thanks for sharing your experience and insights. Curiosity and a flexible mindset with a fast learning rate and a willingness to challenge even closely held assumptions can result in innovative knowledge under any context, including a vc investment one.

But curiosity is not limitless. It is a function of time. And it would be disingenuous to completely refute the fact that a vc frame of reference will affect curiosity - perhaps even in an adverse manner that can reduce innovation.

Let's get practical and technical with a Cloudflare example. Arguably, there would be no Cloudflare without the ability to change nameservers from domain registrars. You spotted some network slack with the ability of people to easily move to Cloudflare with a relatively simple nameserver change.

That was innovative and surely a result of your curiosity. That allowed you to then build upon that traction and offer a wider range of cloud services.

However, Cloudflare itself eventually became a domain registrar. In the terms of service, Cloudflare blocks all nameserver changes for domains registered with Cloudflare - the very option that allowed Cloudflare to emerge in the first place.

There is no justifiable technical reason for this. It is essentially a political decision borne out of a vc frame of reference. Perhaps the political justification is : Let's lock in people that registered domains with us on Cloudflare. So, they will will be forced to use Cloudflare services.

Arguably, this is a violation of ICANN guidelines that allowed you to obtain your domain registrar license. The block is essentially pointless. Most people interested in nameserver changes for Cloudflare registered domains just want to coordinate across multiple Cloudflare accounts. Multiple questions have been posted in Cloudflare community forums for years. Yet, nothing gets done about it.[1]

The fundamental point is that curiosity led you to use nameserver changes to get some traction. As the vc frame of reference gained more importance over the years, it blocked your curiosity by nudging you to block nameserver changes.

You are undoubtedly still curious. But that curiosity time is spent on board meeting formats and and how to optimise slide presentations - instead of realizing that some curiosity doors that allowed the existence of Cloudflare in the first place are getting closed. Ramifications of that attitude and mindset going forward are overlooked.

So yes, curiosity is good. But, there is no inherent primacy of curiosity under vc versus outside vc. Highly curious people tend to be self directed in any context. If anything, the direction provided by vc can limit curiosity and be ultimately self defeating.

[1] https://community.cloudflare.com/t/unable-to-change-cloudfla... https://community.cloudflare.com/t/still-no-way-to-transfer-... https://community.cloudflare.com/t/how-can-i-change-nameserv...

network2592on Don't Take VC Funding – It Will Destroy Your Company

The cog can be an outcome that is almost as bad the slog. You are overestimating the amount and range of learning that is possible under the vc path outside of the slog (eg the cog).

Indeed, you may feel like you are learning quite a bit. But that will generally be lessons that the vc investors want you to learn.

Your statements imply that there are lessons to be learned that can only be facilitated by the kind of money that vc investors offer. But your own company (Cloudflare) makes cloud technology more affordable and partially weakens the rationale for getting vc investments.

When you have a soft money bed to land on, you will be less incentivized to search for a broad range of knowledge. Arguably, you will be learning less as a result of this money safety net.

You will be operating under the vc cog thinking that you are learning significantly both quantitatively and qualitatively. As the vc cog wheel continues to churn, you have the illusion of epistemic progress.

network2592on Pingora, the proxy that connects Cloudflare to the Internet

It might be a couple of months. The open sourcing of Cloudflare workers was announced in May and still has not been released. [1]

[1] https://blog.cloudflare.com/workers-open-source-announcement...

network2592on Myths and exaggerations about technology addiction (2020)

Have you viewed the alumni of the B.J. Fogg Behavior Boot Camp? [1] Have you considered why people fork over a hefty sum to attend those bootcamps? What do you think their behavior design goals were?

Simply echoing the OP comment for B.J. Fogg as well. Nothing more.

His book Tiny Habits is a decent read actually. That does not however lend support to your initial unrepresentative statement about his work in persuasive technology.

His sense of research ethics is beyond the scope of this thread. But since you brought up that dimension in your reply, you might want to consider the fact that he worked as an assistant [2] for Philip Zimbardo [3] who conducted the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment [4].

[1] https://www.linkedin.com/school/behaviordesign-bootcamp/peop... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._J._Fogg#Education [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Zimbardo [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment

network2592on Myths and exaggerations about technology addiction (2020)

Depends. Is the burglar still being primarily financed by fences when giving you advice on home security? Is the burglar still teaching at a school for aspiring burglars? Why is the burglar giving you advice about home security now? Is it to secure a reduced sentence plea deal?

network2592on Myths and exaggerations about technology addiction (2020)

B.J. Fogg is not necessarily someone to look up to in this area either. He followed a very similar flip flop trajectory and is frequently quoted in the post author's first book on how to get users addicted.

Many of the students that were part of his lab went on to apply his behavior manipulation teachings [1] in leadership positions to engineer us into today's situation. Now, he is decrying the state of affairs he helped bring about. Pinches of salt recommended.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Mobile-Persuasion-Perspectives-Future... https://www.sciencedirect.com/book/9781558606432/persuasive-...

network2592on Teenager invented a low-cost tool to spot elephant poachers

A better solution could be hacking the supply side by flooding the market with fake ivory indistinguishable from real ivory. The price of ivory should go down. There will be less financial incentive for the poaching and bribing. Some biologists are working on this angle [1].

[1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/faking-elephan...

network2592on A 14kb page can load much faster than a 15kb page

It has a pleasing teletext aesthetic. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletext

network2592on The Danger of Journaling Is Introspection

I am definitely not being sarcastic. Sorry to hear that was even a consideration.

The article you posted has a lot more epistemic value. In contrast, the article in this thread is a very basic frustrated rant. It is just unfortunate that the seemingly more discussion worthy article did not receive more discussion.

I am intrigued by Voice Dialogue. Would you care to expand a bit on that? Pointing to any resources would be much appreciated.

network2592on The Danger of Journaling Is Introspection

Thank you for that insightful find which deserves more discussion comments.

network2592on The Danger of Journaling Is Introspection

Have you considered a more simple setup such as a local text file that is encrypted? Of course, there is always a risk but reducing the attack surface can help.

network2592on The Danger of Journaling Is Introspection

> Life is a combinatorially explosive decision tree (borrowed from John Vervaeke), journaling helps you to better guess the best future path and keep you on it

Beautiful turn of phrase.

network2592on Some Thoughts on Zig

Thanks for pointing this out. At the very least, there are conflicting attitudes. Comment will be edited to reflect that. Initial reply made a valid point.

network2592on Some Thoughts on Zig

Neither do I. The word seems was used as a tentative qualifier rather than an assertion. Feel free to provide context that would indicate otherwise if you deem it salient.

network2592on Some Thoughts on Zig

There is also Vlang [0] which the Zig core maintainer seems to both look up to [1] as well as look down upon [2].

[0] https://github.com/vlang/v [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19086589 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31795445

EDIT to reflect critical attitude as indicated by [2].

network2592on Bonsai Browser is now open source

When I hear browser for programmers, I tend to think of text based browsers like w3m or lynx - not this.

network2592on VRML

It depends on the format of the text, the parser for that format, the language of the parser, and many other factors. Such a broad affirmative statement that text files are inefficient is tenuous at best.

network2592on African Agritech

Perhaps exploring solutions can yield better outcomes if exploring with the ones that will benefit from those solutions. For example, if you are trying to develop agriculture solutions for Africa, a blog post promoted on HN and Angel is unlikely to be read by a subsistence farmer in Africa.

There is a cottage industry of people claiming to do projects to help Africa. With marketing via blog posts geared towards those with access to capital, these projects can be funded. And since it is about Africa, there is less scrutiny about how effective it really is. Superficial facile accolades along with wining and dining at global events can further obfuscate this reality.

network2592on Cloudflare have made it impossible for me to unsubscribe from marketing emails

Well, at least you are relatable in ways that Cloudflare generally cannot be. Your recent post on the Minitel conversion is just one example [0].

There is one key thing to keep in mind for those advancing uncharitable critiques of JGC and Cloudflare. It is entirely plausible that JGC is well-intentioned. Yet, Cloudflare has had to hire quite a few people recently.

There may not necessarily be a culture fit. Some new marketing hires may have thought that this dark pattern was fair game. And JGC can strongly disagree without really being aware of this dark pattern. Those two things can hold at the same time.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30743891

network2592on African Agritech

It looks a bit like a vague meandering piece trying to drum up interest for their investment syndicate. The user that submitted this piece seems to be leading a syndicate based on Africa with the author [0].

Investment in Africa would be better served by listening more to underprivileged Africans that have not had access to the same opportunities and capital. Microfinance to support this demographic would be more effective and impactful than investing in an angel syndicate supported by these sort of blog posts.

[0] https://angel.co/arborem/syndicate

network2592on Leaflet was created 11yrs ago by Vladimir Agafonkin, a Ukrainian citizen in Kyiv

In what ways do you find your work on maps to be translatable to the Ukrainian defence effort?

Stay safe...

network2592on The Dubai Debt Trap

W3M is fine too.

network2592on Putting Ideas into Words

Paul does mention talking as an alternative to writing though. It is not that talking is not interesting to him. Writing is just a more efficient process.

For example, when editing video, there is a lot of friction due to the software you are using. Writing can have a lot less friction. You can literally just take a pen and paper avoiding a computer altogether.

That being said, one point Paul makes, is that finding a conversation partner that is willing to patiently listen to you as you explain ideas may be challenging. Filming a video and putting it out there can make it less challenging. And you can get some constructive feedback from many individuals. Although, I am not sure to what extent Youtube is the right medium for this exercise.

network2592on Show HN: Lurnby, a tool for better learning, is now open source

Hopefully, with relatively new equipment that allows more precise realtime brain sensing, we should have more insightful research in the years to come.[0] But the issue of defining learning itself will remain thorny.

[0] https://www.kernel.com/

network2592on Show HN: Lurnby, a tool for better learning, is now open source

What is the neuroscience research upon which the techniques are based? Do you have any paper or book references? It could be insightful for a visitor to the site to be given more context.

network2592on DIY Raspberry Pi Spectrometer Guide

What are the key hardware differences between near IR and FT-IR? Could they be overcome with some software assisted analysis?

network2592on DIY Raspberry Pi Spectrometer Guide

List of open source software to analyze data from mass spectrometers.

https://bryanhanson.github.io/FOSS4Spectroscopy

network2592on American Airlines and The Points Guy are suing each other

At the very least, data obfuscation obfuscates the shenanigans of a constantly asymmetrically redefined value store.

TPG just highlights the shenanigans which puts pressure on airlines to change the value even more frequently. This in turn makes the shenanigans more apparent which might call for regulation.

This lawsuit is attempting to nip this process in the bud before stumbling on regulation. But, fundamentally, the relationship is asymmetric regardless of any data api access.