Hacker News Reader

ralston3on Proton is trying to become Google without your data

Longtime Proton fan and happy customer. Would love to see data-conscious products "go mainstream".

ralston3on The Collison Brothers Built Stripe into a $95B Unicorn

IMO...value. I personally feel like it's always easier for founders to stay on when their product provides actual, tangible, objective value. It clearly shows that they (the founders) sort've know their market, and know what they're doing (to some degree). When that's the case, I feel investors are happy to get out of the way and watch their equity rise. Whereas when a service isn't providing any real differential value, it's a lot easier to try to swap out the founders for the MBA/finance/corporate type that doesn't really know the market/audience.

ralston3on Heroku: We’ve Heard Your Feedback

When I got an email from Salesforce talking about Heroku I assumed phishing. Huge +1 on that 2nd point :)

ralston3on Ask HN: Software That Insults You?

Instagram. I fee like such a dweeb using a platform that will tell me "Whoops, suspicious activity" when I use the correct username/password. Like how dare you think I want to use this dumb shit so bad I'm willing to tolerate a spit in my face.

ralston3on Ask HN: Would you like for HN to have a collapse thread feature?

> ... be able to set collapsible threads as the default

HN has collapsible threads...they are not collapsed by default...

ralston3on Ask HN: Would you like for HN to have a collapse thread feature?

Yes. Yes. Yes. To the point where I've almost tried to copy some HackerNews source code and complete a POC myself.

Others have commented that this feature already exists. And yes "technically" it may exist, but I'm guessing that you mean "by default". I absolutely agree that I should be able to set collapsible threads as the default.

It never fails on HN, that on some topic, the first/top comment and its replies span the _entire_ page! That's terrible UX! We want to see what other people have to say.

As a user/reader, let me dig into conversations/threads that I find interesting without having to scroll through pages and pages. Who's to say there aren't more interesting discussions buried underneath the top comment thread? Dang always has to post reminders saying to "not forget these pages of comments". If we had a collapsible thread, I believe he wouldn't have to do that as much.

This could be implemented with little-to-no fancy JS/whatever -- so that HackerNews remains as barebones as it is. Even better - if you let users choose whether or not they want the collapsible comments feature by using a setting on the user profile view. Everyone wins :)

ralston3on App store bill sails out of Senate Judiciary Committee

How I read this:

You're in luck! Another way to [solve problem] is to [introduce another problem]. XD

ralston3on Tell HN: Dear Google support” ad in SJ Mercury News today

It really does read that way. How are you (the customer) spending so much money with them (Google) but you're using these words? Wild times indeed

ralston3on Ask HN: What is the best way to learn Python fast?

My next question would be "What type of Python are you trying to learn". I personally feel there are multiple types:

- Enterprise web dev? You'll probably want Django https://dev.to/vladyslavnua/how-to-build-a-django-web-app-fr... (but ignore all the CSS, frontend stuff)

- Just want to learn idiomatic Python in general. Go through this article/exercise, write all the code, and research the topics that seem confusing, I think you'll be in good shape (ignore all the maths, just talking about the literal code) https://karpathy.github.io/2021/06/21/blockchain/

- Want to learn modern, idiomatic Python via a popular open source package? Look at this httpx code, and obviously playing around with a simple web client can be fun https://github.com/encode/httpx/blob/master/httpx.

ralston3on Ask HN: What's Your Opinion on Web3?

I feel like a lot of people use the term "web3" which in and of itself, doesn't convey too much information. I feel like this question should be asked within the context of web3's components:

- The ability to login to many platforms without needing to create an account on that specific platform (universal login as mentioned by others)

- Being able to use the decentralized ledger as a database -- this is currently only done with art NFTs - but could literally be done with SO much else

- Being able to create dApps that run on their own and are maintained by a community -- i.e., apps that don't pit the user incentives against the incentives for the company owning the apps (dating apps are a good example of this)

- Decentralized storage. Not keeping everything in S3 -- not saying this is better for in-production, but just mentioning with web3 - people are finally open to this type of thing as opposed to just saying "let's just host it on S3".

- Community. As corny and overused as this word is, I know. But specifically finding a project, hopping on their Discord, contributing, asking questions, etc.

Web3 is as much an ethos as it is a "specific thing". It's a rejection of the walled-garden, data hoarding techniques of past platforms (Instagram, Facebook, Google, etc) and a recognition that there is enough pie for a lot of smaller, more niche teams to have a piece.

ralston3on 100 years of whatever this will be

To me, this reads as "If we, as a society become better people, we don't need other solutions to address how not great of people we are". In other news, water is wet.

I feel as if the author seems to somewhat misunderstand the relationship between those who have less and those who have more. There's a fundamental lack of trust (which really erupted in 2008) that kicked off this whole crypto/web3 thing.

We tried the "trusting people" route and it didn't work. The incentives are just too misaligned for "trust" to ever work (in my opinion). So, techies basically said "Fu$k it, I'll build my own system to do what you (those who have more) _should_ be doing".

This articles seems to say that we don't need all these complex solutions to problems that can fundamentally be solved by just...being better people? But that has never, and will never happen. We all wish we lived in a perfect world where everyone does the right thing - but that is just not the reality we live in. So these "decentralized/distributed systems" (e.g., Bitcoin) are our way of removing the human component from the equation.

ralston3on Zillow to stop flipping homes, loses more than $550M, lays off 25% of staff

Yea this is super interesting

ralston3on NYT journalist hacked with Pegasus after reporting on previous hacking attempts

Do these types of iMessage attachment exploits require the victim to do anything on their end? Downloading the attachment? Opening the message ? That part is unclear to me

ralston3on Google digital advertising antitrust litigation [pdf]

This is a longer way of saying “A man has to live by a code”. Sadly that’s very rare these days :(

ralston3on How to Evaluate Startup Offers

This is such good advice to filter out all the recruitment emails XD

Instead of responding “not interested”. I’m just gonna start saying “show me the cap table”. Love this idea

ralston3on Bitcoin is a Ponzi

This was my take as well. A key feature of a Ponzi scheme is the deception needed to pass the scheme off as “legitimate”

ralston3on Ask HN: Companies of one, what is your tech stack?

ReactJS on the FE, Django on the BE. Postgres for the DB. Redis cache. AWS provider - specifically for EC2 and Secrets Manager. Automating everything via bash scripts and config files per environment (dev, prod, etc)

ralston3on How to Take Crypto Payments?

https://opennode.com

Literally one of the easiest, trusted ways to send/accept BTC (for merchants and individuals)

ralston3on Ask HN: Are C-titles (CEO, CTO,) mandatory for a startup?

These titles are necessary for incorporation (specifically referring to CEO) but not necessarily for running the business. I believe incorporation (depending on the type of Corp) requires a Founder, Chairman, and CEO.

As you step out of the “we are building something in a basement” world and into the financial (funding) world, you’ll see that you can’t avoid this, and that you should go ahead and straighten these things out

ralston3on What is the best online service to use to incorporate as a Deleware C-Corp?

Clerky.

ralston3on Ask HN: Is there a dedicated programming language for business logic?

Lol yes. It’s called Node.js

ralston3on Facebook sued for ‘losing control’ of users’ data

> The Cambridge Analytica scandal has nothing to do with Facebook's business model and Facebook did not gain anything from this.

Hilarious.

The Cambridge Analytica scandal is in regards to a nefarious 3rd party using Facebook's pipes in a way that violated Facebook's policy. There are emails to show that Facebook knew about this, and did not act to remove CA's access to said pipes (no, [1] there are literally emails about this that were found during discovery).

You even mentioned it

> To the best of my knowledge CA abused a free feature (API access) designed for legitimate usage to collect user data for nefarious purposes

Yes. They abused it. They abused it and were allowed to continue abusing it because Facebook's business model is data, not user privacy. You're blaming CA for what FB quite literally (and I mean quite literally) allowed them to do, told them to stop doing, then turned a blind eye when CA _continued_ to do it.

Again. Not my opinion. It's a matter of factual record.

Links - https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-emails-show-workers... - https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/newly-released-mes...

Edit: Formatting

ralston3on Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy

The thing with me is, WSB is a group of what? A few million at least? I saw that they were up to 1.2 million maybe yesterday. And they're having a hard time on most if not all platforms. If not technically, then in terms of some form of censorship (as is the case here). There was the Discord issue, this Facebook issue. I've heard Reddit devs has been helpful with scaling r/wallstreetbets, but even still, the number of users and the (crazy yet benign) content is proving too much for a single subreddit to handle. This is a real-life use case for a possibly open-source, scalable message board. I feel like people are suddenly seeing the downsides of these backdoor-dealing, self-interested walled gardens.

The era of the walled garden will end. #RemindMe

ralston3on AOC considering hearing over RobinhoodApp decision to block purchasers of GME

Lmao I laughed so hard. "You can resign" XD

ralston3on Facebook shuts down the Socialist Workers Party in Britain

Yes but I can take my laptop to my friend's place and use their internet, seemingly as someone who lives in that house. I think OP is talking more so about an ID (like driver's license type of thing) to use the internet. So that one might be able to say person X visited site Y (again, we have something similar to that now, but not exactly)

ralston3on Facebook shuts down the Socialist Workers Party in Britain

> and anonymous use will be illegal.

Super interesting that you mention this. I was just thinking the other day about what an absolute dumpster fire "the internet" is due to anonymity (obviously that's not the _only_ reason, but it's a non-trivial reason). This idea that "Let's give people the ability to be anonymous, and somehow, that's gonna make us all bond together and be better" is pretty hilarious in hindsight. Anonymity seems to just bring the worst out of people (that's not a tech problem, that's a human/culture problem). I would personally love to see a "web" where you have to comment...as your public self. Post messages...as your public self (not just on an individual platform level). So on and so forth.

I 1000% agree that eventually people will need some type of unique identifier to operate on the internet. And I'll take it a little further and say that in the future, anonymity will be reserved for the wealthy primarily.

ralston3on Bumble S-1

> just unmatch the pair say after three days of the last message.

This is a good point. However, some women (due to men spamming them) don't have notifications turned on, so genuinely don't get around to seeing a message until they have time to sit down and scroll through the pile

Also (as I'm sure you know), anything that can be used as a "measure of cool" will be used as just that. And having a huge list of matches can be a huge self-esteem boost to some.

I agree with your point though. It can be tiresome to have to periodically clean out matches every so often

ralston3on Interview with an anonymous AWS cybersecurity engineer

The only weird thing about this take is I could believe it. And so what if it’s true? The guy has worked to become the richest man in the world (though I may be against his methods of doing so), and isn’t even from a prominent family. I don’t see how anyone could be upset by this XD

ralston3on Stanford apologizes after vaccine allocation leaves out medical residents

This is gold XD

ralston3on Tech giants will block Kazakhstan’s web surveillance efforts again

This hits so hard. All the technological advances, yet how much progress have we _actually_ made?