4 karma · joined May 11, 2023
To really read what you want, there is only one way: to create your own parsers for each source, on top of which there will be various filters, both based on simple words/phrases and contextual. For example, I do this either in the form of plugins or scripts for ViolentMonkey, including here on HN, where the design has been completely changed to tabular. Many topics, domains, and authors are not even displayed. Comments that contain 1-2-3 mentions of a certain word/phrase are also hidden.
For example, I have completely blocked everything related to “AI”: famous people, companies, programs, products. As well as various hot topics: the US military, ICE, age verification (because there are two stupid camps for and against, without an objective approach and assessment). And many other topics (discussions/comments): political, military, or mentions of specific countries or peoples whose bots are numerous here: israel, russia, china, iran, india. And the corresponding users are blocked.
Why do I block so much? Because on these topics, either stupid people or bots write the same thing year after year. Why should I see this spam? For politics and economics, I go to other resources, and there are other filters there.
I digress a little. Overall, RSS won't help here. Someone will mention tagging, and we've all been through that too, when whole paragraphs of tags start to form, where blocking one tag that could have been left out hides a good article. Then someone will say that such filters could be configured in RSS... well, yes, if you take it again and make your own client/wrapper, because all clients are limited in their own way, just like website designs.
The introduction of age verification is something that was to be expected with the growth in the use of the web, rather than individual programs. But there are a bunch of ways to get around it, which you do, but no one will punish you. This way, you will have parental control and transfer it to the website, while facilitating control over minors' access to unwanted content. And this way, websites do not need to implement their own terrible age verification methods. And when people complain that this is a problem for parents, this is exactly what will help parents: once they set the age in parental controls, programs and websites will have to monitor access (following the law, not goodwill).
This way, access can be controlled at the first level, i.e., at the OS level. There is a law, and there will be others to help improve it. In the same way, you can avoid the use of identifiers and, in general, face verification and a bunch of nonsense.
Ultimately, the responsibility lies with parents who did not specify the user's age on the device. But there may be “products” that ignore information from the OS.
Current parental controls do not solve the problem well, because you have to pay for a bunch of questionable products, sacrificing privacy. And it still does not protect against outdated black/white lists. Therefore, the requirement at the OS level to have such control and place responsibility on “products” is an excellent solution in my opinion.
And quite an elegant one at that. Without involving any government identifiers or anything else.
Combined with the widespread implementation of TPM, this will become even more feasible.
> - it's done by a human fat fingering spreadsheet cells No one is entering anything into the cells, please reread the message.
> - it's not reproducible. Like if you need to redo the cleaning of all the dates, in a Python script you could just fix the data parsing part and rerun the script to parse source again. And you can easily control changes with git And that's what I said above. That it takes longer. Why use git/python when I can do it in a few clicks and quickly see a visual representation at every step?
> In practice I think the speed tradeoff could be worth the ocasional mistake. But it would depend on the field I guess. Another sentence that shows once again that you haven't read what was written.
I deal with hundreds of API integrations involving various JSON, CSV, TSV, and XML files with mixed validity. My workflow: Notepad++ for a visual check -> Prototype everything in Excel. I give users a "visual", connect it to real data, and only then migrate the final logic to BI dashboards or databases.
Nothing else delivers results this fast. SQL, BI tools, and Python are too slow because they generally need "clean" data. Cleaning and validation take too much time there. In Excel, it's mostly just a few clicks.
PS: I spent 2 years (2022-2023) using LibreOffice Calc. I didn't touch Excel once, thinking I needed to break the habit. In the end, I did break the habit, but it was replaced by a pile of scripts and utilities because Calc couldn't do what I needed (or do it fast enough). The experience reminds me of testing Krita for 2 years (2018-2020) — I eventually returned to Adobe Photoshop (but that's another story).
PS2: About (Query + Pivot + BI). This allows you to process millions of rows (bypassing grid limitations). It also allows you to compress everything into an OLAP cube, taking up little space and working quickly with data.
I mean, I'm already generating some content, but it's drowning somewhere in the comments. And then I can't find what I wrote myself.
I prefer to use it as my own library, but share some research with others.
Most (though maybe not all) tech sites will publish a post about the release of the next motherboard and so on 20 times a day, but there will be no news about, for example, PCIe 7.0 and Molex, and if there is such a post, it will be just dry, here is the release and that's it. All the additional information is about it and why it will be useful to incite the audience to expectations, and possibly wishes for potential use. Even on the relevant branches or subreddits where it would be useful, no one even mentions it.
Everything is aimed at a quick release, getting paid for the publication, and that's it.
The further I go, the more I look for small blocks and re-read them once a month.
How much news did you see about another motherboard or GPU with a modified bezel and how much news was there about the development of microled (with its many applications). And in the last two years, something new and interesting has been happening in the microled field.
But where are the tech sites before this... it is better to consider another QHD OLED screen, which is not far from FHD. It's just the same old, same old every day, week, month.
Mostly users interact with the explorer in this scenario to open/save a file in ‘BrowserOS’
2. Ads. As a separate advertising network, for which google.com will be just one platform/site, like thousands of others.
3. Mail as a separate service, leave the ability to log in to other sites through this account, so you keep one login for everything (who needs it). It can also be an advertising platform for any advertising network. You can offer better services for a fee, while keeping the basic functionality free.
4. YouTube as a separate service, as well as a platform where many other advertising networks or advertisers will compete for advertising space. Introduce paid plans for creators, where there will be a certain volume limit after which you will need to pay for the service.
5. Cloud services. Separately.
6. Google Docs. As a separate online document service, you can charge a subscription fee for certain features as in 365.
7. Browser. No need for Manifest v3. Improvements to the extension store. You can also sell advertising space and make integrations with various tools, as Opera does, for example. You can even make some kind of subscription, or make paid extensions that will speed up sites, improve the look, and cut out ads.
This is the first thing that came to mind. This can be thought out better. This will create competition for other players and for these potentially divided campaigns. General improvement of products. And all of this can be kept "under one login, in one ecosystem," with the ability to make "one system and one login" in conjunction with other tools.
Personal initiatives are just romanticization and a philosophy that shifts the problem from the producer to the consumer (who has no choice).
Metal is an alternative to many things. Plastic is only for containers and things with a long cycle of use. It has its advantages. It is more resistant to impact than metal (falls, bumps) and retains its shape.
Glass is not an alternative at all, it is not comfortable, it breaks, leaves fragments that you will not find on the ground or in your body. It is not resistant to falls, shocks, frequent temperature changes (just pour hot into a cold cup, or vice versa). And it's not pleasant to the touch, with limited use where it really is the best choice.
But this is not a problem in itself, we need to localize food production more so that it doesn't have to be stored for a long time and therefore use a lot of packaging. We need it to travel quickly from the producer to the store to the consumer, without plastic packaging as much as possible.
Over the past 4 years, I have been horrified to see that the amount of plastic waste I generate has increased dramatically, without changing my consumption and habits.
What's in it for me with YouTube? Nothing! - YouTube could create several levels of subscriptions. - Create your own sponsor block. If a video has embedded ads, skip them and show your own. Or in the settings, give the author a choice: either he earns only from integrated advertising or YouTube advertising. - All the other functions provided by plugins (and this is on the client side, there are no costs on the server side). - warnings about deletion or skimming of videos in my playlist (I have 40% of videos in my music playlist for 5 years, and I don't know which videos were deleted to find the originals). - YouTube can reduce its costs by banning uploads, or by strictly moderating stupid videos of 10 hours, which are looped 10-second snippets and the like, videos for cats, dogs, snails and fantasy animals that will never buy anything from ads. - For podcasters, making it possible to download audio and previews is already a savings, because there is no need to store a meaningless "video". And also big problems with YouTube: - terrible search and filter. - It takes a lot of computer resources. - You complain about the channels not being shown to me, but they are shown anyway. - videos/channels are blocked automatically for unknown reasons and complaints from the left heel of some offended mama's son - the same thing is shown in shorts
If YouTube closes the api and pushes through a manifesto so that adblockers don't work, or work terribly. Then I will use YouTube as a regular site that I will visit once or twice a month, that is, it will definitely not be a premium subscription, and there will be a meager viewing of ads. AMD has also introduced a new streaming board, and more of them will appear, and separate blogger communities will be formed that are independent of YouTube, and YouTube will have an outflow. Among my friends and acquaintances, almost no one uses YouTube anymore because it's not convenient. More of them are on social networks, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook. That is, most of them will not even notice the death of YouTube, because it is almost dead for them, and they go there only when necessary.