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scottrogowskion Satellite imagery shows Northern California kelp forests have collapsed

Disagree. In a democracy, the only way to make the important policy changes is for the majority of people to be on board with it. Tiny actions by individuals move the needle of public opinion. Additionally, different individuals reducing their consumption in different ways provides a diversity of ideas which can later inspire the so-called "scientific solutions".

scottrogowskion Ask HN: A company wants to pay me to write open-source code

Thanks! I did look into Github sponsors earlier and I believe I would need the one-time payments for something like this. I'll take another look tomorrow and might be reaching out.

scottrogowskion Ask HN: A company wants to pay me to write open-source code

Do you know whether and.co has standard contracts / clauses for open source work? My concern is that open source would be legally tricky because of consideration (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consideration). Essentially, they are getting nothing of value in exchange for giving me something.

scottrogowskion Ask HN: A company wants to pay me to write open-source code

Interesting. I do like the idea of putting this out in the open for a bunch of different reasons.

You say that you can form a contract with the payer. I can't find anything mentioning that on your docs. Do you have the ability to make a contract which provides specific payments for different milestones?

scottrogowskion Ask HN: A company wants to pay me to write open-source code

I personally wouldn't have any issue listing the names of open source supporters. If anything, it adds a bit more legitimacy to my project so I would prefer it.

scottrogowskion Ask HN: A company wants to pay me to write open-source code

A sponsorship / bounty program is an interesting train-of-thought. It certainly 'fits' into an open source ethos and might give the company the added benefit of positive marketing.

I just looked at the Github sponsors program and AFAICT, they only offer a recurring monthly plan which is probably not what either myself or the company are looking for. I'd be curious about more options though.

scottrogowskion Ask HN: A company wants to pay me to write open-source code

I did. They suggested I first try to find an existing template rather than paying to draft something new. Contracts can be subtly complicated and open source can make them more-so.

scottrogowskion Rome in 3D

Came to the comments to say this. The details are beautiful but it looks more pristine than even the cleanest modern cities. Rome as it really was should include some weathering stains at the very bare minimum

scottrogowskion Tell HN: My entire company's Gsuite access has been banned

While unscientific, I've noticed an increasing frequency of "[FAANG company] banned me from [service I literally need to live] and I don't know why" posts over the past few months. My personal google account is permanently suspended from Adwords over my, no joke, chess-over-videochat website that I tried to advertise last year. Just like you, Google refused to let me know what exactly I had done wrong even after multiple emails, appeals, etc.

At some point, we need to recognize this for what it is - unregulated monopolies having no accountability.

I'm wondering whether there are legal actions that people can take. Many years ago, I was having a problem with Anthem "losing" my insurance claims. Eventually, I got sufficiently frustrated and filed a complaint with the California Attorney General. Shortly after that, I got a long letter of apology, a promise to open an internal investigation, and most importantly, finally got my insurance claims processed.

scottrogowskion Ask HN: Show me your half baked project

Two to share:

https://fastmap.io: A drop in replacement for map that makes your Python instantly scalable in the cloud

https://ffer.io: A comprehensive stock valuation ratio powered by machine learning (and just happens to use fastmap)

scottrogowskion After spending $57M on Facebook ads, I was kicked off

I visited "shared.com" and the content looks pretty innocuous. The first story is about office chairs, the second is about celebrity engagements. Sure, it's clickbait, but we're talking about facebook - not nature magazine.

Maybe facebook changed their ad policies to prohibit this kind of content. That's within their right but they owe an explanation to their advertisers and perhaps some wind-down time.

This sort of arbitrary ban-by-T&C, with no judicial oversight, is further evidence that Facebook, and likely all large tech companies, are abusing their monopoly power and need significantly more regulation.

scottrogowskion I built a picture frame with a greyscale e-paper that runs on battery for years

I had this idea years ago! I'm glad someone finally did it. One thought. From a philosophical point of view, I would want this to be something that "lasts forever". So it would be nice if it were solar powered and ran off of an SD card rather than being web-based. Just an opinion from an HN extremist - take it in context. Still, it's scratching an itch for me. Your website is down so I didn't see how much it costs but I'll check back in a bit.

Also, get behind a CDN ASAP!!

scottrogowskion Alien Signals

I love the very slowly changing hue of your site. It's very artistic. When I started, it was a golden brown, by the time I reached the bottom, it was a lime green. I thought I might be crazy until I spotted in in dev tools.

scottrogowskion Oysters That Knew What Time It Was

Thank you for the well-informed comment. This is exactly what I was looking for. I'm probably incorrect to think that ossification in science has somehow gotten worse. People are people, after-all.

scottrogowskion Oysters That Knew What Time It Was

While progress is difficult to quantify (and is therefore often subjective), I certainly don't think the argument about whether or not there is a slowdown is "irrational"

Here is a list of scientific discoveries / innovations made during the 1800-1950 period off the top of my head:

- Steam engine - Indoor plumbing - Penicillin - Electricity - Internal combustion engine - Transistor - Theory of evolution - Heavier-than-air flight - Electromagnetism - Splitting the atom - Skyscrapers (The Strasbourg cathedral was the previous record holder for world's tallest building. That cathedral was started in the late middle ages) - Metro systems - Vaccinations - Jet engine - Typewriter - Dishwasher - Telegraph - Open heart surgery - Plastics - And so many more...

Since 1950, the consequential innovations I can think of are - Artificial satellites - Computers - The internet - Smart phones

Certainly all four are meaningful but are they, combined, as consequential as what happened over the previous decades?

I think that one measure you could use is whether life would be more unrecognizable between 2020 and 1950 or between 1950 and 1880. I would argue that 1880, when life expectancy was still under 50 years at birth, when manure pollution was a major problem in NYC, and right before that city was electrified, was far more different for the average person than 1950 when we lacked our modern electronic niceties.

scottrogowskion Oysters That Knew What Time It Was

There is a popular argument being made recently that science and innovation are slowing down. If true, the next question is what factors are causing this slow down. The way that Brown was dismissed for (apparently) good research in the 50s feels a lot like the struggles that heterodox academics seem to face today. My question is whether that sort of dismissal and ostracization was common during the "more innovative" eras of, say, 1800-1950. I legitimately don't know. To use some big hitters as examples, I'm unaware of Einstein or Millikan ever dealing with serious questioning of their work. Darwin faced questions but more from non-academics. Freud should have faced more questioning than he actually received.

Is it fair to characterize modern research as having a problem with group-think and if so, how important is that problem in the supposed slow-down of science?

scottrogowskion Show HN: Mys – an attempt to create a statically typed Python-like language

I love this.

I have nothing else to say except that I want this to happen. Python is an amazing language which is missing two things - static types and speed. I starred your repo and am looking forward to seeing it progress.

scottrogowskion The software industry is going through the “disposable plastic” crisis

How closely can we can link the rise of SaaS (and corresponding disposable frameworks) to an effort to find a stable revenue model in a world which had problematic levels of software piracy? I remember when I was a teenager, you might be looked down upon if you obtained your copy of Windows XP legally.

There are a lot of posts like this that bemoan the current state of [insert social ill] but don't care to explore what structural forces contributed to this state.

scottrogowskion Why are currently no ads on Techdirt? apparently Google thinks we're dangerous

I forget now whether I did it server-side or client-side but I do generate a random hex string, yes.

It's reassuring to hear that a former Google engineer shares my same suspicions as to why this happened. Thank you.

scottrogowskion Why are currently no ads on Techdirt? apparently Google thinks we're dangerous

This is something I've been acutely concerned about. I'm working on several side projects right now and I think I will want to try running ads for another one soon. Given that I don't have any power to my name and my emails to their support team seem to go nowhere, I wonder whether I'm completely shut out of their ads ecosystem now.

scottrogowskion Why are currently no ads on Techdirt? apparently Google thinks we're dangerous

I am not connecting random people via video chat (the site generates a unique url that is meant to be shared among friends). However, even if I was connecting random people, I think it would have been appropriate for them to specify why they suspended my account.

I doubt it had anything to do with the video chat aspect though.

This is the link they pointed me to in their suspension email https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/2375414 Given that I received no warning, they must have suspended me for an "egregious violation" of which they define five:

- Circumventing systems

- Counterfeit

- Promotion of unauthorized pharmacies

- Unacceptable business practices

- Trade Sanctions violation

I am really curious what their algorithm saw in my little chess website that suggests that I'm peddling pharmaceuticals, counterfeiting money, or selling banned technology to unsavory regimes. Heck, I don't even accept payments!

My best guess is that their algorithm panicked because I have that automatic redirect to a new unique URL when you click to start a new game. Apart from that, I have no idea what it could possibly be.

scottrogowskion Why are currently no ads on Techdirt? apparently Google thinks we're dangerous

A few months ago, I tried experimenting with Google ads to drive some traffic to a side project of mine which was basically a chess-over-videochat website. A little more than 40 impressions later, it was taken down for being "in violation of our Google ad policies". There was never any indication what the violation actually was. I replied and asked several times hoping to get a human to tell me what I had actually done wrong. Instead, they kept sending me an automated email that said, "After reviewing your case and taking your feedback into consideration, we've confirmed that your account was and still is in violation of our Google Ads policies."

They also made it seem like I was some cyber criminal by suggesting that if I tried to create another account, they would automatically take that down too.

This is what a monopoly looks like.

scottrogowskion Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

Let me start by saying, [citation needed].

I'm incredulous that an article which states, "Even if you're still doubtful you can see it's the least worst [sic] solution we have to make capitalism work in the 21st century." is getting this many upvotes. HN has a reputation as an evidence-valuing rational community that appreciates articulate arguments. I guess that these principles do not apply when we are talking about UBI (or when accusing Apple of business practices they do not engage in, apparently https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23995750)

It's obvious that the author doesn't have more than an introductory macroeconomics course under his belt. The article reads like something an idealistic first-year undergraduate might try to pass off. It is full of cliches and incredibly bold statements with no citations used to prop up a flimsy argument.

For example:

"[The increasing size of markets] is why wealth inequality soared when capitalism went global in the 20th century." The increasing size of markets may be a factor in inequality, but it is certainly not the only one. Also, a graph would be nice. Inequality was higher in the late 19th century and took a dip in the early-to-mid 19th century. Without seeing this data, it is foolish to make sure a sweeping generalization.

"If we can give companies overwhelming demand so they have to scale up production instead of spending all their money on advertising, we can have both happy companies making profit hand over fist, and happy consumers who get everything they desire." First, the phrases "Happy companies", "profit hand over fist", "happy customers", "everything they desire" sound like they were written by a 12-year-old. Second, money is an abstraction used to allocate goods from production to consumption. When production does not match consumption, this causes either excess inventory or shortages - neither of which are desirable, but both of which tend to resolve themselves quickly. One of the often-stated goals of UBI is to free workers from unfulfilling labor. However, labor is an essential factor in production, and by "freeing" labor, we will reduce production. Since consumption is equal to production, workers will not be able to magically "get everything they desire." In fact, they might get less.

scottrogowskion A 1/48 scale model of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket

How high does this thing go? I read the article but as far as I can tell, it was never mentioned.

scottrogowskion Ask HN: What's your quarantine side project?

We should talk. The architecture is abstracted to make it easy to add any turn-based game onto it. Or at least that's the hope :). I'll send you an email.

scottrogowskion Ask HN: What's your quarantine side project?

https://decadent.games

Real-time board games over webRTC video chat. I have chess, checkers, and a scrabble clone.

I've passed it around to friends and to some low traffic forums. The rendering library is a bit heavy for a board game (it makes my laptop's fan spin :)) so I'm fixing that before I share it more widely

scottrogowskion The production functions of smart and successful people

Thank you! Didn't have a tablet to test with but will fix

scottrogowskion Hipmunk Says Goodbye

My experience with (2) larger companies, and confirmed from conversations with friends, is that while you tend to have more support, you are often placed on individual siloed teams where you stay for years. I think the key benefit of smaller companies is that you can work across so many different aspects of the application. Process also tends to be less burdensome so you are able to devote more of your time to the text editor writing business logic.

Still, my experience and my circle is limited so I suspect some might have had the opposite experience.

scottrogowskion Hipmunk Says Goodbye

I think the part about the budget was accurate but it might have also just been difficult to attract top talent without the name recognition.

I have my opinions which I will not share for why Hipmunk stagnated but I will say, it had nothing to do with scaling or technical obstacles.

scottrogowskion Hipmunk Says Goodbye

I worked for Hipmunk for a little over two years before they were purchased and have some fond memories of my time there. There have been a lot of articles on HN lately suggesting that it is better to work for a large company over a startup. Based on my time there, I would strongly disagree. I came in as a junior engineer (feral would be an appropriate term) and during my time, touched basically every part of the web application - backend and frontend. I made a lot of mistakes and through it all, I left significantly more experienced than I was when I started. I don't think there was a better place I could have spent my time at that stage of my career. My advice would be, do work for a startup. Even better, try to work for a startup like Hipmunk with an experienced senior engineering team who have worked on some hard problems - like how to scale Reddit in the era before AWS. You'll learn a lot.