I understood that criticism but don't think it's correct, as many others have pointed out. This is MIT licensed software running on a server. Substack is not redistributing software to end users, by any common definition.
28,228 karma · joined February 20, 2007
Substack is positioning themselves to their customers, which are journalists/authors, as a comprehensive alternative to having a normal job working at a newspaper or magazine. That seems to include high-touch customer support, an integrated business model with payments, a mailing list system, a distribution method, etc. It's more of a service than a piece of software.
Ghost actually seems to have jumped on Substack's bandwagon by trying to skew their blog software toward being a direct Substack alternative.
So Ghost seems to have adopted Substack's business model and Substack seems to have adopted some of their blog technology.
On the other hand, this seems like what success looks like for an MIT licensed project. A big company using the code to power their product without even having to contact, let alone ask permission of, anyone.
It seems to feel different for end-user applications like Ghost. But it's not actually any different than if they had powered Substack with SQLite or Postgres.
One logical explanation is that this is a prelude to him committing suicide. His public interviews and statements may be his way of leaving behind some sort of explanation and justification.
And if you're right, why aren't mobs of Americans attacking suspected hijackers already? Why didn't passengers attack the guy speaking Arabic or doing math? The evidence, based on millions of successful flights, seems conclusive: people are just not this stupid.
Tens of millions of people have flown without incident and you can point to two people panicking over stupid things? That seems like strong evidence against what you're claiming. People are simply not as stupid as you seem to think.
In order words, its not safe to assume a team of intelligent and motivated hijackers couldn't break into a cockpit given sufficient time. But it is safe to assume that the reinforced cockpit door will slow hijackers enough that passengers have time to stop them.
Why are people going to attack each other for no reason? Hijackers typically do very obvious things, like try to break into the cockpit and make announcements/threats to the passengers.
The training video could tell passengers to attack anyone trying to break into the cockpit or to wait to attack until the pilot instructs them to, etc. It would take a bit of thought for sure.
> Fact is: plane hijackings isn't really a problem anywhere. Low-tech solutions like locking the cockpit goes very far.
They're not a problem since 9/11 when passengers attacked the hijackers and then cockpit doors were reinforced. I believe the deterrent is the combination of these two changes.
Air marshals are almost certainly trained not to intervene in minor disturbances. Otherwise a team of hijackers could locate the air marshal by having one person act as an unruly passenger.
Anyone attempting to hijack a flight full of Americans is going to be attacked every single time, and terrorists surely know this, and that's the real deterrent. Hijackers might think they can overpower a single armed officer but they know they can't overpower dozens of passengers that feel forced to fight or die.
It might even be a good idea for pre-flight training videos to explicitly tell passengers to immediately attack anyone attempting to hijack the plane. Though this is probably unnecessary, it could act as a strong additional deterrent and help coordinate people in the event.
Sure, there are plenty of valid and harsh criticisms to make about Musk. I'm sure he'd even agree with a lot of them. But the level of obsession people have with hating him is clearly irrational. There's more anti-Musk sentiment than anti-Putin sentiment!
It's as if people were left feeling empty by Trump's disappearance and then latched onto Musk as the new target for their manic vitriol.
It may be that once these people have become accustomed to hating a public figure in this way that they have trouble letting go of the addiction.
It seems a lot like what happened in ancient Athens when one public figure after another would become the target of a citizen mob and then be banished[2] or executed[3]. It also seemed like an addiction in their case.
Usually the mob would quickly come to regret their decision, which is likely what would happen if Musk went away. Many of these same people would come to realize the value of having Musk around, despite his flaws, to advance space exploration, pro-environment technology, brain injury technology, etc.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Minutes_Hate
JAX, on the other hand, is designed specifically for high-performance machine learning research. It is built on top of the popular NumPy library and provides a set of tools for creating, optimizing, and executing machine learning algorithms with high performance. JAX also integrates with the popular Autograd library, which allows users to automatically differentiate functions for training machine learning models.
Overall, the choice between PyTorch and JAX will depend on the specific requirements and goals of the project. PyTorch is a good choice for general-purpose machine learning development and is widely used in industry, while JAX is a better choice for high-performance research and experimentation.
But what matters beyond the network is how well it can be utilized by users. That layer of tools and functionality on top of the network is where Twitter could charge users. Particularly power users and businesses that can justify spending some money on it because they get so much value or even generate revenue from it.
If Nix is CVS or even Subversion, I'm hoping for Git.
But there weren't any real EV companies or private space companies before Elon Musk threw his hat in the ring. Whatever you think of him, he's clearly capable of doing things people previously believed to be impractical.
Taking a first principles approach, there's no reason to believe that a social network used by the most influential companies, people, and governments in the world cannot charge its users directly for the value it provides.
It does seem likely to be less profitable in the short-term but possibly more profitable (and stable) in the long-term.
Some back-of-the-envelope math:
1 million business paying an average of $100/mo is $1.2 billion/yr. That should more than pay the bills.
In addition, 10 million consumers paying an average of $10/mo = $1.2 billion/yr. That's a decent profit.
That is probably achievable in the next couple years, with potential for much more over time if they can expand the product and tools.
The advertising model is Twitter's fatal flaw. It puts the fate of the platform in the hands of a tiny corporate mob that are themselves subject to larger mobs.
If "the mission" was truly driving Twitter, they'd drop all advertising and build enough value that some decent percentage of users would pay for it. In a few years, with a lot of work, I believe they could build a $10+ billion/yr business using paid accounts and features. With zero advertising. Twitter is an incredible "channel" for information, marketing, customer support, etc.
But unless they kick their addiction to ads, it doesn't matter if they do or don't believe in free speech, because their advertisers (customers) most definitely don't and they're in ultimate control.
My simple policy is: I will never stop talking trash, never work for, and avoid entirely any company that lays people off without the basic ethics of providing reasonable financial support. The companies providing two weeks should be shamed for eternity.
As long as enough people adopt this attitude it will effectively force companies to behave well, even if they don't want to. Tech workers on HN have particularly powerful influence in this regard and should utilize it.
(It'd be great if layoffs.fyi provided severance data to shame and reward the right companies.)
Not too much more on Wikipedia except that it occurs naturally worldwide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pele%27s_hair
Elon Musk's trajectory is a lot like Alexander the Great's. He started off as the somewhat scrappy upstart and has become the somewhat corrupted corporate despot.
His enormous success, which has been truly amazing and largely good for humanity, has led him astray. He's bought into the image of himself as a genius that can do no wrong. He's become arrogant, temperamental, and prone to impulsive behavior.
Alexander became quick to kill his managers that pissed him off. Elon Musk just fires people, thankfully.
Probably a lot of his problems are due to the same kind of "men [that] have always corrupted the character of kings and will never cease to ruin the interests of those who happen to be reigning" as Arrian wrote of Alexander's yes-men courtiers.
My impression is that Musk is going through a severe case of burn out and this is how he's responding. And since he's got so much pressure on him there's no practical way for him to take the break he needs without risking everything.
Do you offer even a single shred of evidence whatsoever? No.