Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47595852

Points: 5

# Comments: 0

I use Zim wiki for everything just now and I don't like it. I'm in the market for a replacement, and would even pay like with how Immich does it.

Unless the source code is available or you put it into legal escrow for when you go bust/abandon the software†, I will not invest my time and data into a system where I am entirely dependent on another organisation or service.

† And you will go bust or abandon the software before I die!

It's true that you can (and always could) use avr-gcc and libc, but the core sale was what makes it not this.

The "locked in"/captured API and IDE were directly extensions of a language and IDE called Processing.

Processing overlaid an art-focussed layer on top of Java, providing a simpler API, and an IDE with just two buttons.

Arduino was based on this - the same IDE format, similar API conventions (just on top of C++), precisely to allow these same artists to move into physical installations and art.

Arduino was not designed initially to be so general, it was tool written by and for this specific group of people, so has opinions and handrails that limit the space to provide the same affordances as Processing specifically.

This is a reminder - never sell out your baby unless you're willing to see it squeezed for every penny, community be damned.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45473911

Points: 4

# Comments: 1

ArchiveTeam generally is an interesting project I highly recommend people read about.

Their YouTube project can be seen here: https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/YouTube

And you can learn how to get involved (by running a virtual machine appliance) here: https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/ArchiveTeam_Warrior

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44949059

Points: 36

# Comments: 13

I'm not German and won't presume to say who is or isn't (or should be) "German", but this is absolutely something that needs to be grappled with by governments. A shift in population being "supplied" by birth vs. migration is recognised in many Western/more economically developed countries, and that also includes naturalised immigrants (and their descendants).

My personal belief is that the modern school of business thought is a form of tragedy of the commons: with every business optimising their extraction of wealth from people in isolation, individuals in the whole find the cost of living unsustainable and are increasingly living hand to mouth and feel they cannot afford or have the time to raise children. In this way, falling birthrates are an externality of modern economic doctrine. This is also true for immigrants, who are exploited for cheaper work, and as they naturalise fall into the same trap as being exploited for extracted wealth.

In my eyes, the resolution to falling birthrates is that governments need to reach for social and economic levers to reduce the predation of companies on individuals, as well as to increase the amount of flexible wealth that individuals have so they can choose to raise kids if they want.

I think that the idea that this is actually some kind of coordinated "great replacement" is deeply untrue and instead is a fulcrum to further distract, divide, and exploit people. If my belief on the root causes is true, however, governments must have the guts to reign in business, which does not prove to be popular in political circles. Instead, it is easy for governments to allow the political fringes to continue this narrative to "immigrant wash" discontent with life - rather than address the root of the problem (optimising for growth), they can announce "tough on immigration" measures that demonise marginalised groups who are politically inert themselves (immigrants, legal or otherwise, being much more restricted in their ability to vote and influence politics than established capital).

Where it becomes a right wing talking point (or a discussion about the socio-economic future of a country) broadly comes down to how you present the causes, implications, and necessary actions.

The fact that many more-developed countries having shrinking native populations is a fact that governments must reckon with in some way, and salting the earth on discussing because one faction is trying to exploit it cedes the ultimate policy decisions to them.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42939637

Points: 18

# Comments: 5

No open source, not selling me as a customer.

If you make your entire product about customisation, you're doing me a disservice to not let me adjust the code as suits my needs, asides from the ethical position on free software.

At the cost of distorting elements with a vertical dimension, it means that all the wireframe layouts don't end up overlaying each other.

While specialists in his field know his work and his name (but not even everyone in software does), the public do not.

While your parents and friends see the dramatised exploits of Turing in films like The Imitation Game, or his face on the currency, the same is not said for Church.

Every field has it's public heroes, usually related to the stature of their work - Fleming and Jenner, Marconi, Ford, Bell. Turing.

Anyone will at least recognise these names, but not so for Church.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41970238

Points: 7

# Comments: 0