Hacker News: shopkins

New comment by shopkins in "On Leaving Facebook"

shopkins — Sat, 22 Jan 2022 03:53:19 +0000

"Most corporations" don't do global surveillance on the scale Facebook does. It's that simple.

It's not about 100% purity. Just not doing this one little, tiny, fundamental-to-their-entire-business thing.

New comment by shopkins in "WriteFreely – An open source platform for building a writing space on the web"

shopkins — Mon, 12 Jul 2021 04:22:47 +0000

This is literally a way to "self-host your shit."

New comment by shopkins in "Ask HN: What are the best blogging platforms for developers in 2020?"

shopkins — Sat, 21 Mar 2020 15:15:30 +0000

I've been using https://write.as for years and enjoying it. Perfect for plain text, does Markdown and code syntax highlighting.

New comment by shopkins in "Instagram now forces people to sign in to view public profiles"

shopkins — Tue, 29 Oct 2019 11:51:58 +0000

The Write.as guys have been working on a good alternative with their Snap.as service [0]. It's tied to the blogging side, but looks like it'll be another simple tool that doesn't pull the same signup-wall crap as Instagram.

[0] https://snap.as

New comment by shopkins in "Launch HN: Relatively No-Frills Product Hunt Launch Checklist"

shopkins — Tue, 20 Aug 2019 13:12:51 +0000

Here's the actual link, so you don't have to give out a temporary email address like I did: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11Db_mfeUocbPSIN52y8h...

I would echo that this is a terribly user-hostile tactic and, to be honest, makes me want to avoid the main product you're launching.

New comment by shopkins in "Write.as 2018 Transparency Report"

shopkins — Mon, 11 Mar 2019 20:51:00 +0000

Hard to find, but it's here: https://write.as/guidelines

From what I've read it sounds like they're not free speech absolutists, but they're pretty liberal about what is allowed.

New comment by shopkins in "Show HN: Graphite Publishing – A decentralized, user owned blogging platform"

shopkins — Tue, 08 Jan 2019 15:09:46 +0000

Just a little feedback: as someone not deep in the blockchain world, I have no idea what Blockstack is, or why nothing happens when I click "sign in" or "start writing now". The page does a good job of describing the product benefits, but it doesn't cover square 1 and describe what I need in order to actually start using the product.

Otherwise I know this was a fun project, but it always helps to hone in on your audience on the landing page. Answer, Who's going to appreciate this the most?

New comment by shopkins in "Medium is a poor choice for blogging"

shopkins — Tue, 13 Nov 2018 14:58:52 +0000

There are also dedicated extensions for this [0]

[0]: https://makemediumreadable.com

New comment by shopkins in "A critique of Gmail's “smart replies”"

shopkins — Mon, 12 Nov 2018 20:27:00 +0000

Obligatory life-saving browser extension: https://makemediumreadable.com

New comment by shopkins in "Show HN: WriteFreely – minimalist, federated blogging platform"

shopkins — Mon, 12 Nov 2018 17:16:31 +0000

It means your posts are sent out to followers via ActivityPub. It explains this below, in the "publish to the fediverse" section.

New comment by shopkins in "Pro-privacy search engine DuckDuckGo hits 30M daily searches, up 50% in a year"

shopkins — Fri, 12 Oct 2018 00:52:33 +0000

1. No, services in the US like DDG largely aren't liable for what users post (or do) on their sites, mostly because of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 [0].

2. We don't know they haven't been served with a national security letter. DDG's protection scope doesn't cover you needing protection from the government, though. So we know using DDG != Google because that's the surveillance threat vector they're concerned with: literally not being Google (which they aren't).

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Decency_Act#Sec...

New comment by shopkins in "Bye bye BetterSlack"

shopkins — Wed, 29 Aug 2018 20:58:56 +0000

Much quicker to have the legal team fire off the standard email threat than get the dev team to reverse-engineer the extension and block it (if this wasn't just an automated email).

New comment by shopkins in "Ask HN: What is your blogging platform of choice in 2018?"

shopkins — Tue, 05 Jun 2018 18:00:36 +0000

Yep on their cheapest plan, for $10 / year. Also comes with SSL.

New comment by shopkins in "Ask HN: What is your blogging platform of choice in 2018?"

shopkins — Tue, 05 Jun 2018 16:18:35 +0000

I'm on Write.as and enjoying it a lot [0]. Simple, privacy-focused, and easy to create multiple blogs.

[0] https://shopkins.writeas.com

New comment by shopkins in "Statement by FTC Regarding Reported Concerns about Facebook Privacy Practices"

shopkins — Mon, 26 Mar 2018 20:46:38 +0000

This argument is disingenuous, and not really more than a projected opinion. Not everyone is this tribal, and people are allowed to be angry when they see the manifest implications of surveillance capitalism without being partisans.

New comment by shopkins in "Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings"

shopkins — Thu, 22 Mar 2018 14:06:17 +0000

The point, I think, is to send a message. Yes, the damage is done. But public pressure to #DeleteFacebook might force Facebook to be a little less cavalier with billions of people's personal data, respect previous agreements with the FTC [0], etc. in the future.

[0] https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2011/11/faceb...

New comment by shopkins in "Make Medium Readable Again"

shopkins — Mon, 05 Mar 2018 01:05:10 +0000

It does remove the fixed positioning.

New comment by shopkins in "Snap Revenue Surges 72% on User Growth, Advertising Gains"

shopkins — Wed, 07 Feb 2018 15:15:36 +0000

This is what makes me lose hope for the web. I see the same celebrity tripe and clickbait on Snapchat, and while annoying, I'm not going to spend my limited time on earth teaching an app my preferences so it can suck up more of my time with brands that want to "engage" with me in new ways. I go there to engage with my human friends, and honestly I'd pay a couple bucks a month to get Snapchat without the brands taking up my screen.

New comment by shopkins in "Why we transitioned from Medium back to our own blog"

shopkins — Wed, 24 Jan 2018 17:20:04 +0000

All great reasons to leave. We really need to consider who's getting enriched when we put crucial parts of our businesses on certain platforms, and in Medium's case, it seems like they absorb most of the value (I always cringe when people say "check out my Medium post").

I've kept a personal blog on Write.as for the past few years, and while it's still not self-hosting, I can at least get my data out, have a custom domain and syndicate to Medium when I'm really fiending for those claps (hint: I'm usually not).

New comment by shopkins in "A list of ways to “Break the Internet” for the 48 hours before the FCC vote"

shopkins — Tue, 12 Dec 2017 23:55:18 +0000

Those instances were usually resolved, but other times ISPs continued misbehaving, and in fact when the FCC has sued, the courts have actually said that they could've won and prevented the bad behavior under Title II [0]

Also, the argument that "the internet worked fine before" is misleading, because technically the FCC worked under the same wireline "neutrality" rules and norms applied to AT&T back in the 70s. A little more history here: [1]

[0] https://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/EA10373F...

[1] https://www.wired.com/story/how-the-fccs-net-neutrality-plan...