ipython

Geocities and other public sites like it filled the void for people who did not have access to a shell account or didn’t have the skills to ftp files to one.

As for html editors, frontpage, HoTMetaL, and eventually even Netscape itself (in version 3) were very popular wysiwyg html editors released in the mid to late 1990s. There is still innovation in this space as evidenced in this very thread! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33577086

No non technical user wants to think about hosting. Especially in the mid 1990s when home internet was exclusively dialup, what value does holding your one phone line hostage 24x7 to host a web server provide you? So yes hosting has been and will always be the playground of the enthusiast and commercial entities.

Self hosting made sense for academics as they had access to free high speed internet, free electricity and free high speed workstations, as well as the technical know how or easy access to those who could help.

I think we are arguing the same point, as I vehemently agree. My questions were rhetorical.

Well, to start, 10% of gold production goes to the electronics industry. Therefore, one could say that gold was used to manufacture products we use to serve and view the very site on which we are discussing this topic.

I agree, the world has changed substantially because of cryptocurrencies. The amount of breathless hype has reached critical levels. As for use case, well, I hear that ransomware is now a multi billion dollar industry. Congratulations?

Awesome! I encourage you to post your code and blog about it. I would find it fascinating, and suspect others would too.

Fourteen years after Tim Berners Lee released his www app was, let’s call it 2005ish.

I’d say the impact of http on the world was pretty damn life changing by 2005. Linux? Fourteen years after it was released it had entirely disrupted not just the commercial Unix world but was on its way to becoming the most widely deployed operating system on the planet.

Bitcoin? Eh. I suppose ransomware authors would still be using green dot to try and collect their take if it hadn’t shown up. YouTube creators would have a harder time financing their passion without the sweet cash infusion from random vc backed crypto currency exchanges. Many quadrillion hashes would have sadly been skipped in the small chance they would have resulted in the correct number of leading zeroes.

What was the point of the blockchain if I have to … trust the county clerk? Why are they involved? Heck, why is there a “clerk” at all? Isn’t the point to have a trust less, decentralized system?

Au contraire. The early web was chock full of original user content. People with shell access published all sorts of stuff in their Unix home public_html directory. Those who did not had geocities accounts.

Today, it’s easier than ever to publish. Anyone who wants to create content can do so.

A tax incentive, as in an offset on their costs.

I would agree that not performing useless computations is better than performing useless computations. If monetary incentives are all we need, then just use tax incentives to do so. That seems much easier than shipping mining rigs and the corresponding cooling to locations apparently too far from civilization to produce energy for anything useful.

Ah. A project that actually changed the world for the better. Breath of fresh air after all the coverage on FTX.

This argument always intrigued me. Once you point out cryptocurrencies don’t actually solve the unbanked problem for poor people, then the use case immediately shifts to “well have you tried to move seven figures between countries”?

By the way many African countries have a robust mobile phone based banking infrastructure. Nothing to do with cryptocurrency. See https://qz.com/africa/2161960/gsma-70-percent-of-the-worlds-... for example.

So… we will solve global warming by running a network of computers with custom ASICs at 100% utilization, cooling them as necessary, performing useless computation, so a cabal of technobros can move imaginary internet money around 10 times per second?

Oh and increasing the power usage of this fire pile will, as you say, “improve the current situation”?

Your point is that the only way we can avoid burning methane is to use that to power bitcoin mining rigs???

Also left turn yield on green lights. I’ve found that to be especially dangerous both as a driver and pedestrian at night, where it can be hard to see whether there is anyone crossing on the far parallel crosswalk when you yield left on a straight green light.

Everyone forgets about the CIA triad - security is not just about confidentiality, but also integrity and availability.

What international bank transfer costs “thousands” of dollars to complete? What ethereum transaction only costs 3% to complete? Are you saying that a retailer accepting crypto will suddenly no longer need to “eat” the transaction costs because… crypto?

My local dentist used to use this as a sort of intercom system. When the hygienist was done cleaning your teeth, she would use winpopup to broadcast a message to let the dentist know that the patient was ready in exam room 6. It made cleanings at least a bit enjoyable.

That worked until my son was hit by a car, and my wife in her shock had no idea where her phone was. I’m still to this day guilty that I didn’t pick up the phone the first time it rang.

The truth is that this problem will kill the telephone system and honestly if this is how the telcos treat it, it deserves to die.

Unless OneDrive silently corrupts your files upon upload: https://github.com/OneDrive/onedrive-api-docs/issues/1577

You should be more concerned about a “Project Mayhem” attack in that case.

You can get small free ipv6 allocations from hurricane electric’s tunnel broker (tunnelbroker.net) Of course those aren’t “portable” assignments but it’s great for experimenting and such.

I can empathize with your position, and it would be nice if there was a way to help from the “outside”. But the truth is that the only way to make meaningful change is to internalize the change and do it yourself.

I say this not as some sort of holier than thou proclamation. I struggle with this daily myself. Posting on hacker news helps reinforce what I should do to help myself :)

Not the gp, but I think the difference lies in mindset. There’s the “victim” mindset where you know the diagnosis and it becomes a convenient scapegoat for your symptoms. “I can’t do that because I’m X.” You see yourself as unable to escape the diagnosis and enter a state of learned helplessness.

The desired outcome is an enlightenment mindset. “Ah, so that’s why I act that way. Well now that I know that and have x, y and z methods for addressing it, I can overcome/adapt”. As you can imagine it’s a lot more work to achieve this mindset.

> Yes, I can still roughly tell the processed shots from portrait mode on my phone from a much better camera but the differences aren't as drastic as you'd imagine.

This. I have my Apple TV set up to cycle through my favorite shots in my photo stream and I can tell immediately the quality difference between my slr shots and ones taken on my iPhone. The colors are more accurate, the bokeh more subtle, and excellent sharpness. Even when comparing shots from 7 years ago to todays iPhone 14.

Unfortunately my slr sits collecting dust because, well, the phone is “good enough”.

Fascinating, til. Thanks!

The silver line extension (hopefully opening by thanksgiving) includes a stop at IAD (Dulles airport, the third airport in the DC area class B airspace) as well.

Have you seen any of these images? If so, then yes they were clandestine spy messages. https://vault.fbi.gov/ghost-stories-russian-foreign-intellig...

I get that hotels are safer but I have rented with booking.com (careful to book only apartments that have 9/10 ratings) with much success for my large-ish family. Traveling with more than two people is a huge pain and buying two hotel rooms is not only expensive but also never guarantees the two rooms are next to each other, making family travel inconvenient and expensive.

My experiences with booking (in Europe mostly) have been very positive and I find them way more transparent about fees, etc than Airbnb.

Easy Answer: consumers decide on one factor and one factor alone: price.

And no need for the exaggeration, in many cases you can buy an iPad for less than that crappy windows laptop with all the spyware. Even for a fully featured Air, the price difference is way less than $1000

Fabricated evidence in a trial against a supposed coup attempt in Turkey: https://balyozdavasivegercekler.com/2012/10/04/dani-rodrik-d...

Not to pick on you but that attitude infuriates me and belittles teachers.

You seem to imply that “anyone” can be an effective teacher. That’s simply not true. Plus many children react much better to people outside the house. I was definitely that way. And my wife has many amazing qualities but she would make a horrendous teacher.