News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

octopusRex

Re:Hacker News brought down Atlas Obscura site on Tuesday June 10, 2025 @07:59AM (#44235707)
They haven't said anything. But I realized that quite a few submissions in a short amount of time were posted. AI bot scraping sounds like a good explanation.

Funny, we take it for granted that sites will stay up - I'm old enough to remember pre commercial web when there was a courtesy rule about overloading. Especially with universities where we'd wait until after hours to connect.

Re:Hacker News brought down Atlas Obscura site on Tuesday June 10, 2025 @06:27AM (#44234964)
So many posts today referring to articles on the site brought it down. I suppose we should keep this in mind when posting. I assume it wasn't intentional. :-)
The US chooses not to end homelessness. We have the highest GDP in the world. We could end it if we wanted to.

I was in Japan recently. A choice was made there as well.

Re:Colour in the Middle Ages on Wednesday December 11, 2024 @08:06AM (#42387333)
wlonkly on Oct 24, 2023 | root | parent | next [–]

The article talks about the specification and it's more... specific than that: > “In 1973, the government mandated through a cabinet order that traffic lights use the bluest shade of green possible—still technically green, but noticeably blue enough to justifiably continue using the ao nomenclature,” Allan Richarz writes for Atlas Obscura

https://www.rd.com/article/heres-japan-blue-traffic-lights/

I was thinking of the patriarchy and oppression.
It's a place where there's no good guys to root for. I fear for its citizens, and especially for women.
Re:My second year without a job on Sunday December 08, 2024 @08:50AM (#42357134)
Reading through comments on living paycheck to paycheck was brutal as it sounds like many people here have no clue what really living paycheck to paycheck is like.

No, it doesn't mean you can still go out to eat and have a club membership. If you save nothing after you use up your entire paycheck going out to eat and paying for a gym membership , that means you aren't handling money well.

Sorry folks, but many of us here sound entitled. Having been poor and scrambled my way up, it was depressing reading.

Re:My second year without a job on Sunday December 08, 2024 @08:35AM (#42357042)
It definitely does not mean lotto tickets and restaurants. People living paycheck to paycheck do not go to restaurants. If you are going to restaurants it means you have funds AFTER bare expenses. Paycheck to paycheck means just enough to survive.
Re:My second year without a job on Sunday December 08, 2024 @08:32AM (#42357019)
You were absolutely experiencing privilege. I know you recognize it now, but hearing this is scary. This is why folks often vote Republican - they have no idea what life is like for very hard working actual poor people who would need services after breaking an ankle.

Your comment really brought it home for me.

Re:Lessons I learned working at an art gallery on Wednesday December 04, 2024 @07:19AM (#42316720)
Does anyone else cringe at the grifter vibes?
So much for people who voted for Trump because he would let RFK clean up the environment. Such naivete.
Grifters who get to have their names on a lot of papers in order to fool an Oprah audience.
Editable Tibetan Language Dictionary which will retrieve definition on search and on copy . created 2011

https://github.com/nekogaijin/DagYigTibetanDictionary

Re:Show HN: Mermaid ASCII Diagrams on Tuesday October 15, 2024 @10:31AM (#41849029)
I'm disappointed. I was actually expecting lovely ascii art pictures of mermaids.
Re:Life, Death, and Retirement on Wednesday October 02, 2024 @08:16PM (#41726145)
Sorry for your loss. Not that saying it makes it better, but I am.

Financially, you can retire. one less thing to add to the destruction.

Re:What the internet looked like in 1994 on Monday July 08, 2024 @02:27AM (#40903036)
Lynx browser. Text only. Them as images were added, you'd see the word image in brackets.
Re:What the internet looked like in 1994 on Monday July 08, 2024 @02:25AM (#40903021)
I think I created the first digital shop and download site. Ez-legal software ( be your own lawyer, do your own divorce!) did not want to spend money mailing out disks.

I looked around and could not find any other site that had pulled this off. I used Cybercash for the credit card piece and modified the Hazel Shopping Cart (CGI)to use FTP rather than snail mail.

People would purchase and we would send a temporary FTP link to their email. Problems arose when customers newly on the web from AOL would give us just their screen names. Same with Lotus users.

Ugh, of course we had to create tests for proper email text entry. Sounds so obvious now.

We had to be careful about advertising in newsgroups or we'd receive retaliation from the users of the then non commercial internet.

It was much easier to manipulate search engines to get to the top of the list - infoseek, ask Jeeves, etc. - infoseek was the easiest. Meta words and invisible text that copied whatever other company was currently on top onto our page. Back and forth we and our competitors went. Quicken was a big competitor at the time.

Yahoo actually had a person answering the phone whenever we called about their lists.

I nor the company did not think to patent the process.

It was a great ride.

Re:The Time I Lied to the CTO and Saved the Day on Thursday May 09, 2024 @05:30PM (#40313155)
I remember an awards occasion where the employees who received the recognition for actually heroically fixing a mess could not make it to the stage because they had been laid off.

Awkward silence ensued. ...

Re:The man who killed Google Search on Wednesday April 24, 2024 @08:33AM (#40143600)
I'm waiting for folks to implement a Reverse Google Search.
Re:The man who killed Google Search on Wednesday April 24, 2024 @08:28AM (#40143563)
We need a Reverse Google search that will weed out the garbage.
Re:My mother declared my bedroom a disaster area on Saturday April 20, 2024 @09:35AM (#40097277)
Would like to see responses from the Alzheimer's years. He got pretty bad towards the end. Biden sounds like a 20 year old in comparison. Trump is still off in cofeve land.
Re:My mother declared my bedroom a disaster area on Saturday April 20, 2024 @09:27AM (#40097209)
Kudos to you. But I don't think it was open mindedness. I think he wanted you on his show so he could use you as a foil.

Took a lot of bravery for you to do that.

Re:Wayback Machine Homepage is missing from Google results on Wednesday April 10, 2024 @09:01AM (#39990219)
Top for me as well. It may have to do with what Google has learned from observing your search history?
Re:The Collapse of Small Press Distribution on Wednesday April 10, 2024 @08:12AM (#39989820)
But there was more to it than simply printing. There was the marketing to get it into bookstores, the hobnobbing, the ads, the shipping and returns. I suppose they could form a co-op and hire the talent.

"When bookstores, libraries, and schools order books for their brick-and-mortar locations, they use online catalogs populated by distributors. Even further, most distributors (including SPD, before it vanished) employ sales teams that work to get copies in Barnes & Noble, independent bookstores, and other retail outlets like gift shops."

I remember when they taught mcLuhan in highschool - 1970s - in order to make us more aware of media manipulation.

I wonder if they still do. Ironically, this was in Florida - probably be considered too woke by Desantis.

Re:Show HN: Truncate, a word-based strategy game on Sunday March 31, 2024 @09:00AM (#39883869)
Kudos for creating the game. Reading upside down is difficult. In Scrabble you could turn the board around to face you when it was your turn.

Why did my opponent place qxa to begin with?

I tried to get through the tutorial , but could not. Maybe simplify the rules or simplify the game before I'd play, but others may enjoy.

I do play wordle and other NYTimes word games , and scrabble, so I'm not averse to those types of games.

Maybe I should have had a cup of coffee first. I will try again later.

But still hats off for creating it. Congratulations.

Re:Are we all trapped in The Matrix 25 years later? on Sunday March 24, 2024 @04:27PM (#39810182)
It is bizarre.
Re:Are we all trapped in The Matrix 25 years later? on Sunday March 24, 2024 @12:40PM (#39808282)
OMG. Never read the comments - MAGA everywhere.

https://archive.is/QZzA9

They've latched on to this red pill blue pill metaphor while worshipping a grifter.

(Except for Ycombinator. Read these comments . Lol. )

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