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wernston Offline-First Landscape – 2025

Triplit has migrated its data format away from triples since this post was authored, so the memory concerns mentioned are no longer relevant since 1.0 https://www.triplit.dev/blog/triplit-1.0 (source: i'm Triplit author). I don't think triples as a format are inherently bad but for us it did entail more data on disk, more difficult and slower querying, and more objects in the JS heap ballooning RAM.

wernston Show HN: Triplit – Open-source syncing database that runs on server and client

We definitely think its the future! I've always found this article captures the ethos well: https://tonsky.me/blog/the-web-after-tomorrow/

wernston Meta Open-Sources Computer Vision Foundation Model DINOv2

Commoditize your complement https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/

wernston ChatGPT Plugins

Sites like IMDB feel like they might be in a pickle. What happens to their ad revenue if they expose their API and no one navigates to their site anymore?

wernston Norm Macdonald has died

Trevor Moore?

wernston Jaguar Land Rover to suspend output due to chip shortage

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Tech/Semiconductors/TSMC-he...

From TSMC's Mark Lui:

- Supply chain disruptions from Covid

- US / China trade disputes

- Digital transformation from Covid (increasing demand for chips)

- "Double booking" feedback loop (companies preorder more than needed, fearing fab capacity limits --> makes it seem like there's less fab capacity --> companies book more capacity, fearing capacity limits)...this is not specific to Covid, but heats up in this kind of situation

wernston Ask HN: Is it a bad idea to join Facebook as engineer?

How would you feel if you knew your work started being used by authoritarian regimes to oppress their citizens speech and ability to organize?

I may be speaking out of ignorance, but do you have an example of this occurring or are you speaking purely hypothetically?

wernston What happens when the NYT and New Yorker make mistakes

I dont think this exactly applies to the NYT and the New Yorker which are subscriptions based.

I do think subscription based journalism can be just as pernicious. The most profitable route now is to find a niche group and produce content that they want. In general people "want" the objective truth, but its so much more tantalizing when it's spun to confirm your biases. There's likely a point where people will pay to get 90% of the truth and 10% confirmation bias, and if that's the most profitable route pubishers are going to report in that way (hence the left lean of NYT in particular, and right lean of other publications).

wernston A 25-Year-Old Bet Comes Due: Has Tech Destroyed Society?

I agree, but I'm reminded of this quote from Ernest Hemingway: “How did you go bankrupt?” “Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”

Massive change due to tech is always just waiting to happen. Here's to hoping it just changes society without destroying it.

wernston Solid Project: All of your data, under your control

This project might be worth a look: https://www.etebase.com/

wernston Robinhood, in Need of Cash, Raises $1B from Its Investors

"The first rule of having a liquidity problem is dont talk about your liquidity problem"

wernston Net Neutrality and Big Tech’s Speech Hypocrisy

Curious article - I dont think these are necessarily comparable components to claim full on hypocrisy by app level tech companies.

Also it seems odd to promote the bundling of distribution and content as a win for consumers...ATT blocking youtube to promote HBO Max sounds like a loss for me and a loss for the internet. And what happens when every carrier has their own HBO Max?

wernston State of JavaScript 2020

I’m sure they’re well aware and had to draw the classification line somewhere. Next definitely fits in both but IMO really differentiates itself on the backend with SSR.

wernston The Tech Stack of a One-Man SaaS

I'm working on a product to help developers quickly get started and manage their SaaS projects. If you have a moment I'd like to hear more about your experience. To quote the other commenter: "If you want to talk more my email is in my profile." :)

wernston Disney and Integrators versus Aggregators

I'm not sure I totally agree with this. Disney is incredibly talented at telling stories with a long shelf life (both singular stories and franchises). This is a core competency that isn't exactly disrupted by a change in the content distribution model. Not to say it can't happen, but they have been able to execute well on that competency since the 1920s.

This streaming shift also is beneficial to Disney, with more touch points to access their audience and extract value - unconstrained by TV/theater time constraints and middlemen.

I don't know how you support that they suffered over the last years. The Marvel Cinematic Universe has crushed it, Disney Plus has more subscribers than expected (thanks in part to COVID), and many DTC purchases on Disney Plus have been successful. Not to mention this content success begets success in other parts of the business.

wernston Ask HN: What are you reading to make sense of the economy?

Many are plugging books here, so I will plug: The Money Problem by Morgan Ricks

It provides a solid overview of different views of what is money, what is banking, and in what ways does the financial system impact the real economy? - These are all contested points in economics.

He goes on to lay out a different design to a monetary system, that he believes resolves the main fragility in our current system - panics on short term debt. It's a good read for someone who enjoys system design as much as they do financial/monetary economics.

wernston Young people are funneled into fields that don’t reward risk-taking

This seems like a good framing to get non-progressives behind social safety net programs - lowering the cost of risk taking/innovation and allowing for more ideas for the market to sort out.