News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:How to build a low-tech website? (2018) by WJW on Tuesday November 02, 2021 @05:55AM (#29079059)
Sure, but by taking your website down at certain times (or allowing the system to take itself down), you force your ideas about slowing down onto others who may or may not have time for that right now. It is actively hindering other people from trying to live the way they want (by reading about solar powered websites, in this case).

It does not really matter for the Low Technology website of course, but if you get into a serious car accident and the surgeon is like "sorry but our solar powered operating theater is down right now, that's just life sometimes" that would be a very unwelcome thing to hear.

Re:How to build a low-tech website? (2018) by asoneth on Tuesday November 02, 2021 @10:59AM (#29082246)
There exists a middle ground between everyone gets five nines of reliability (expensive) and everyone only gets three nines of reliability (people die in hospitals).

If we focus the same resources on providing reliability where it is needed most, we could actually improve reliability of outcomes. That is, for the same cost of providing a few hours of battery backup for the entire grid we could provide weeks of battery backup for hospitals and data centers.

Re:How to build a low-tech website? (2018) by snakeboy on Tuesday November 02, 2021 @06:44AM (#29079353)
Your example which is why everyone in this thread has been bending over backwards to emphasize that certain services (like medical ones) should aim for full reliability.

Suppose twitter/reddit/HN shut down for 10 hours a day.

Re:How to build a low-tech website? (2018) by WJW on Tuesday November 02, 2021 @07:02AM (#29079475)
Which 10 hours? Timezone differences alone would shut out large portions of the world. A service which is only up when I'm asleep or at work is not very useful to me.
Re:How to build a low-tech website? (2018) by snakeboy on Tuesday November 02, 2021 @08:36AM (#29080293)
And 90% of Twitter's problems would be solved if they weren't trying to be maximally "useful" to every single person on earth all the time.

10 hours was just an arbitrary number, but there are plenty of more creative solutions. Shut down every March, or Weekday mornings, or every other hour.