How do the karma points on Hacker News work?

 

Recently, I paid attention to my karma points on HN. I submitted an article that got around 100 upvotes. But then I realized that my karma points rose only about 40 points...

This made me pose this question to Kagi's FastGPT: Can you explain to me how the karma points on Hacker News work?

The answers that Kagi's FastGPT gives are generally very high quality because they come with source references included:

Karma points on Hacker News are a measure of how popular a user's submissions and comments are based on upvotes from other users. Each upvote a user receives adds to their total karma points.

It is currently unknown exactly how many karma points equal 1 upvote, with some context mentioning it may not be a 1:1 ratio ^[1]. Having more karma points allows users to downvote other submissions and comments once they reach a certain threshold, which is not explicitly stated. ^[2]

Karma points do not directly correspond to a user's ability to submit links or comments, which is determined by account age and whether the account has been flagged before. But generally, users with high karma points have established themselves as regularly contributing positively to the site. ^[3]

1. Open secrets about Hacker News | Hacker News
2. Hacker News Parody Thread | Hacker News
3. The Evolution Of Hacker News | TechCrunch

Podcast episodes, sorted by location: MapsFM

I'm planning a trip for next summer. I hope to visit the convention in Philadelphia in August '24 and then to visit the Adirondack Mountains in the upper New York State area 😃 

So currently I'm compiling a list of all the places that seem to be worth a visit. This is hard work. If only I could find a podcast that takes place or talks about this area 😅 

By chance I happened upon a Hacker News link that points to just such a website. Maps.fm literally shows you a map and on top of it, a bunch of podcast episodes that mention the place on the map. I will give this a try soon™️ 

After 1 month: is the iPhone 15 pro worth it?

I've now been using my iPhone 15 pro for about one month. Before this I used an iPhone 12 mini. 

In short: I'm happy with the upgrade, but is so big.

The size

If you are a small guy with small hands like me the iPhone 15 pro (I'm not even talking about the "Max" or "Ultra" models here) is quite big. 

Not so big that it looks like an iPad mini, but big nonetheless. Is it too big? Well, no. It still fits in my pants and jackets pockets so it's doable. 

Also the weight is quite noticeable. My 12 mini was basically invisible and I would regularly lose the phone when it slid out of my pockets. The 15 pro is so noticeably present that when it isn't there, I notice it. 

The camera

When I described the M1 SOC I called it alien technology. I would say that the camera on the iPhone 15 pro is similarly so very good that it looks like a thing out of a sci-fi movie. 

The zoom lens is only 2x (or 77mm in full frame jargon)  but then it zooms further and allows me to get something 15x closer in my view by using the new 48 megapixel CCD. 

This combination makes the camera useful for filming and photographing birds up close from a non disturbing distance. I love it.  

The stabilizer is also very good so when I do zoom in the videos and photos are not blurry. 

On a recent trip up the Ardenne mountains, a friend and I both made photos of some friends who stayed behind in the valley below. Of course his 200mm lens on a Panasonic APS-C body made a better quality photo. But not much better. 

The best camera is the one you have with you. And your iPhone is usually in reach. 

The battery 

The only real reason my iPhone 12 mini was no longer good enough for me was the fact that from day one the battery life wasn't good enough. 

So what changed after 3 years? Well, the 12 mini's lightning port stopped working, which means I can't use a power bank to charge it on the go anymore. 

Since I was in the market for a replacement (getting the lightning port fixed would not solve the too small battery) I looked for a pro model. 

My mum was unhappy about empty batteries too and has been a happy 11 pro user for a while now. I wanted the pro model for the battery life. 

So, how good is it? Well, I've not charged my phone since this morning 06:15 am. It's now 23:03 pm and my battery is at 24%. 

In other words: it was a long day and after reading, navigating and downloading and listening to podcasts, my battery is still full enough. I'm happy with the iPhone 15 pro's battery as it is. 

Conclusion 

I've not even talked about the new A17 chip. It's fast. But, really, my iPhone 12 mini was still fast too, so really I don't notice it being faster at all.

But the camera with optic zoom is a big upgrade and the battery that actually lasts longer than I do is a big plus for me as well. 

But truth be told: possibly the normal iPhone 15 would get me a similar battery life? I don't know and now that I own this model, I don't want to know. 

CBF: Underrated Cause of Tech Debt – Pursuit Of Laziness – A blog by Jesse Duffield

Some gold nuggets of wisdom about how to approach work as a programmer. And really any other kind of work. 

Is it burnout? Maybe. Is it a lack of Growth Mindset? Hard to say. Is it just the reality of my personality? Who knows.

As I continue my journey as a developer I learn more about myself, and one of the things I've learnt is that my motivation ebbs and flows. I'll have a good run, inhabiting the persona of the developers I look up to, however imperfectly, until I once again find myself with the constraint that trumps all the extrinsic constraints of the project at hand: a deficiency of motivation.

Maybe you don't have the energy to write perfect code, but honesty requires less creativity than lying. It's a breath of fresh air when a contributor admits some element of their pull request is lacking because they're lazy. At least then you have the opportunity to judge for yourself whether their laziness exceeds your own standards or whether their time is indeed better spent working on the next thing. That's a much easier game to play than bandying software engineering maxims.

iPhones have been getting cheaper, if we consider the SE models.

As some of you may know, I've had an iPhone in the family since the 3G model came out in Europe. At that time, this must have been around 2008 I guess, I heard that Apple's iPhone would be sold in the Netherlands. I dragged my mother to the store and told her it was a great deal and a great phone to own. 

If memory serves me, the iPhone was originally sold only with one provider and one type of plan: the T-Mobile unlimited-data plan with 150 calls/texts. I think at that time we had 2G/3G coverage, mostly 2G where we lived, but it was fine: e-mails and whatsapp messages would come in no matter what. 

All for a sudden my mother would no longer ask me how to open an email or how to send a document. She knew how to do this on her phone and only needed my help with more difficult tasks. 

Since then I've been an Apple fan of sorts. I made my parents get an iPad instead of a new computer or laptop and only bought a bluetooth keyboard and AirPrint-supporting printer as peripherals. I can't even remember the last time they had technical difficulties 😊.

⌘

One drawback that I do remember was the price: a two year plan with the phone included would set you back about €800. This was a lot of money back then. I guess about €600 of that was the price of the phone itself, the rest being the price of the data and calls/texts plan. So €600 for a piece of plastic that you just keep in your pockets 🤔 ?

I had owned several PDA's, some of which would run Windows CE, and a Nokia E63, so I was more accustomed to paying half a months salary for a gadget, but still, it is a lot of money. Looking back the price wasn't that bad. If we could get a new iPhone today for that amount, wouldn't we jump on the opportunity?

Well, maybe we can, sort of? The iPhone SE isn't the flagship by any account. In fact, it only features tested-and-true tech that has been in the various more flashy models for years. But it just works. It's a phone. It takes photos. It allows you to run almost all of the latest apps. The storage options 64GB/128GB/256GB are more than enough for most use cases. You'll receive 5 years of iOS updates (and security updates even longer, sort of). And it only costs €599 for the 128GB model. So in 15 years time the price of an iPhone has stayed constant. Or has it? 

⌘

The iPhone has in fact been getting cheaper. 🤔 Yes indeed. If we take into account the inflation in the eurozone of the last few years, we see that 2008 €600 would be €835 in today's money. Or put another way, the new iPhone SE price of €599 would have been €430 in 2008. 

To compare prices honestly is difficult over time. This is one of the reasons why economists must perform a "hedonic adjustment" (not as nasty as it sounds) on the selection of products they use to compare prices between past and present prices.  

Instead of getting into an academic debate, let me ask you this: what do you use your phone for? If it's not mainly photography, then why would you need an iPhone pro, or even the "middle" model? Isn't it wonderful that we can own a very powerful and useful device for the low price of €599?

I've previously owned an iPhone SE myself (the model that looked like an iPhone 4), but I found the battery and camera lacking. I'm currently using the iPhone 15 Pro which has a more-then-all-day battery life and a wonderful set of camera lenses. But if I ever had to live on a thighter budget, I wouldn't mind going back to an iPhone SE (with a power bank on-hand, maybe). 

Many scientists don’t want to tell the truth about climate change. Here’s why.

If meeting the climate goals is not going to happen anyways, then why try?

Well, for one thing, we need to be able to look ourselves just the eye. And also we need to give the next generations hope. The only way to do that is to keep lying. 

https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2023/10/03/1-5-degrees-celcius-un-climate-change-report-barbara-moran

But I think that 1.5 C has moved from "ambitious goal" to "magical thinking." And the scientists are telling themselves a story to stave off despair.

There's something else going on, too: Scientists are shielding the public. They say: "We don't want people to give up," or "We don't want the island nations to feel abandoned," or "We don't want people to lose hope."

This is paternalism. (Or maybe maternalism?) Scientists are telling us a story to protect us from despair.

A review of Beeper, a unified chats app.

“All your chats in one app. Yes, really” (but with some side notes). A short review of @onBeeper, a unified chats' app. 
 
 
On 02-08-2023[1] I received my invitation to give Beeper a try. Now, to understand why I am so well-stocked to try this app, you must understand that since forever, I've been on the lookout for ✨The Unified Inbox App That Will Solve All My Problems✨
 
I have to tell you now, Beeper is close, but not “it.”

The Good

To use Beeper, you are required to set up an account with them and download the desktop app. From the desktop app you can select messaging services that you want to connect to, like Instagram Direct Message, Twitter DM, WhatsApp, Signal, LinkedIn, SMS, iMessage, Telegram, and so on. Lastly, you log in to each of these services and use the connect-to-desktop-app or some-such feature that they have all built-in.

This is where the magic happens: some of these services do not give third-party apps access to your data. The thing is: most of these services are very user hostile. In their eyes (and in the fine print we all ignore forgot to read) they will have some wording to the extent that your data really isn’t your data but theirs, and they can lock it up as much as they see fit. 

The one thing that is saving us now is that they all see the benefit in having a desktop version of their platform in one way or the other. Beeper high jacks that system to link all these chat streams to itself, instead of the intended native app. 

So, after setting up all the links with your chat platforms of choice, you can log into the iOS app, and you will see all your chats in one unified list. 

And person or group chat that you mark in Beeper as favourite will always be shown on top.

The Bad

As I mentioned before, you are required to download and set up a desktop app. For many today, this is a big hurdle for the simple reason that owning a laptop or desktop isn't standard any more. Many people simply live by using their smartphone alone. 
Another drawback is a missing feature: unified chats. 
 
Say whaaaat? Let's say René sends me an SMS and later a message over Signal. Then Beeper will show two separate messages in the list, both labelled by sender “René.” I would really have loved for Beeper to unify the chats into one chat stream so that I simply see two messages under the chat of “René.” 

To prevent confusion on the receiving end, I would propose that whenever I reply to a message in Beeper, the message goes to whichever platform was last used by the recipient. 

Unfortunately, Beeper doesn’t support unified chats and there are no plans to support this in the future. 😢

Lastly, a big pain point at this time is the fact that all links to the platforms are randomly getting dropped. I then have to use the desktop Beeper app to set up the link again. I guess this due partly to bugs in Beeper and partly to do with bugs (or purposefully bugging) by all the platforms that Beeper is connecting to.

The Ugly

To connect Beeper to my iMessages (I barely use it because most of my friends do not live in the United States) I had to give Beeper full access to my Apple ID. 

That is some scary stuff. Not only do I now “trust” a company with FULL access to EVERYTHING, but also, I put the burden of keeping my data out of the wrong hands in their laps. 😱

This is a bad situation for me and Beeper both. To be clear: it’s not their fault. Apple simply hasn’t opened up iMessage to competitors yet. Soon they will have to either open up or stop the iMessage service in all the European Union countries under the new Digital Markets Act. But for now, we are stuck with this lose-lose franken-monster solution. 🙄

And now?

I'm guessing that because of the aforementioned DMA, numerous platforms will give some kind of access to their platforms, either via a free to use API or by switching over to an open standard like the Matrix protocol or RCS. Beeper is basically a fancy Matrix client, by the way. 

For now, I’m using Beeper just for the convenience of not having to have installed the LinkedIn and Instagram apps and still be able to respond to the (very few) messages that I get on those platforms. 
If Beeper started charging money, and they hadn’t implemented unified-chats by that time yet, then I would simply stop using the service altogether.
We will see.

I would love to read your thoughts on my article, and the future of unified chats' apps in general on Hacker News.

[1] Yes, I start with the day, then the month and then the year, I go from small to big, like God intended dates to be written. 

Mossad gotta budget

As in introduction into "threat modeling" this articles comes highly regarded by me. 

Not because it's a deep analyses, but because it isn't. 

Also, it's highly funny.

Basically, you and I should worry about fishing links and ex girlfriends who are going mad with our email, and not about the Mossad. 

Not that the Mossad (or another group with an abbreviated name and bland office building) isn't dangerous, but they have a higher budget than you and I so we can't defend against them anyways. Why worry about Russia invading if we can't defend against it anyways. But a good fence may keep the foxes 🦊 away from our chickens. 🐓

Link: https://buttondown.email/hillelwayne/archive/formal-methods-cant-fix-everything-and-thats-okay/

 

buttondown.email

Title: Formal Methods can't fix everything and that's okay

Threat modeling is fundamentally about cost-benefit analysis, on both sides of the threat.

Attacking a weak password is really easy, so it pays to attack even low-value targets. Adopting a strong password is also easy. If you're a low-value target, this will protect you from a lot. But if you're a high-value target, attackers will be willing to spend more resources attacking you. So you'll need to invest more in your defenses, which makes fewer people able to attack you. As this escalates, both the attacks and defenses get more and more expensive, as ever smaller groups of people can afford them

Leave Elon's walled-garden and take your goodies with you.

One reason for not having deleted my twitter/x account yet is that I can't easily export all my stuff and import it on Mastodon or Nostr. 

That changes now that I have found Exit.pub. 

exit.pub

This tool helps you step by step to export all tweets, and import them into your Nostr account (no Mastodon support, yet). 

Organic Maps: An Open-Source Maps App That Doesn't Suck



The chicken and egg problem of Open Street Map data coming from volunteers is as old as, well, as old as chickens, I guess?

Organic Maps: An Open-Source Maps App That Doesn't Suck hardfault.life

Organic Maps uses an open map database called OpenStreetMap. Although OpenStreetMap has very accurate data about streets, addresses, and highways, its knowledge of what's actually located at any given address is spotty at best. Thankfully, Organic Maps has a half-solution to this problem: contribute OpenStreetMap data yourself! Organic Maps lets you contribute data to OpenStreetMap. Simply press and hold where the business should be, tap "add a place to the map," and fill out the form. I ended up spending an hour of downtime adding information about various restaurants, libraries, museums, and stores around town. It would take far longer to add every business in the area, but it's a good start. I love being able to contribute to OpenStreetMap, and Organic Maps makes it easy to do that.

To usual solution to a problem like this is gamification. And that is exactly what Every Door solves for.

Every Door every-door.app

This app makes it fun and interesting to check the freely accessible OSM data, and chance it when necessary. Have fun 🤩 

Organic Maps: An Open-Source Maps App That Doesn't Suck

The chicken and egg problem of Open Street Map data coming from volunteers is as old as, well, as old as chickens, I guess?

Organic Maps: An Open-Source Maps App That Doesn't Suck hardfault.life

Organic Maps uses an open map database called OpenStreetMap. Although OpenStreetMap has very accurate data about streets, addresses, and highways, its knowledge of what's actually located at any given address is spotty at best. Thankfully, Organic Maps has a half-solution to this problem: contribute OpenStreetMap data yourself! Organic Maps lets you contribute data to OpenStreetMap. Simply press and hold where the business should be, tap "add a place to the map," and fill out the form. I ended up spending an hour of downtime adding information about various restaurants, libraries, museums, and stores around town. It would take far longer to add every business in the area, but it's a good start. I love being able to contribute to OpenStreetMap, and Organic Maps makes it easy to do that.

To usual solution to a problem like this is gamification. And that is exactly what Every Door solves for.

Every Door every-door.app

This app makes it fun and interesting to check the freely accessible OSM data, and chance it when necessary. Have fun 🤩 

Why not upgrade to Podcasting 2.0? A solution to the chicken&egg problem.

How does podcasting work?

 

The idea of podcasting, as invented by the "podfather" Adam Curry was a simple one: 

1.     Anyone can record a song, interview, medley of music or whatever he pleases.

2.     You put this audio file on your own server or hosting space. Back then, many internet providers would give customers 10 to 250MB of storage and an e-mail address with an internet plan. 

3.     Add your RSS feed to Adam's database of all known podcasts, with its URL and a brief description. This database or list quickly became known as the "podcast index."

4.     Let your subscribers know about your latest episode by adding a record on your personal RSS feed. 

5.     Usually, your podcasting app is set up to check periodically all the RSS feeds of all the podcasts that you are subscribed to. The app will then download the audio file with its description and shows you a new episode. 

 

Who hosts the RSS feed and audio file?

 

RSS is a brilliantly simple and still very vibrant technology today. Chances are, you are reading this blogpost on your favourite RSS reader.  

 

As mentioned before, the technology of RSS feeds and hosting audio files is trivially simple, but the costs are non-zero. Also, those hip-and-happening kids that all want their own podcast show might not know how to rent a VPS, set up a web server and register their RSS-URL-feed at Apple's podcasting index. 

 

To fill up this gap, companies like Anchor.fm stepped in and made simple to use apps available that let you record audio, do some editing, and upload the audio file with the press of a button. The business case for these companies?  Stick some advertisements in these audio files and rake in some advert €€€. 

 

Spotify recently bought Anchor.fm, and other small podcast-hosting-supported-by-ads-companies are merging or being bought as well. More and more of these companies now follow the Spotify and Amazon model of only letting paying subscribers listen to the shows they host. 

 

This means that, slowly, the wonderful world of free-for-all podcasting is disappearing. The open web is dying by a thousand cuts, and this particular movement cuts deep.

 

Who hosts the Index?

 

Steve Jobs was very much taken in by the idea of podcasting. I guess the independent guys and gals that do artsy stuff in their garages with vintage guitars and new MacBooks spoke to him on a personal level. Steve proposed in 2005 to Adam that Apple take on the heavy burden of hosting the podcast index. To the best of my knowledge, the usage of Apple's podcast index is free until now. Having a company with 'deep pockets' take care of your hosting needs is a fine solution indeed. Until it needs changing in a way said company doesn't appreciate. [imagine ominous music here].

 

What if Apple pulls 'a Google' on the world and pulls the plug on this free and open index? Various podcasting apps and content providers saw wisdom in making periodical copies of Apple's podcast index and hosting their own copy that is only known and accessible from inside their own products. 

 

This is the reason why after adding a new podcast to Apple's index, it will show up in different podcasting apps at different times: these apps might be querying a self-hosted and slightly out-of-sync copy of the index instead of the prime one. 

 

The next step for some of those podcast app makers was a predictable one: "exclusive podcasts." If you have your own version of the index, you could add stuff that nobody else knows about! Spotify and Amazon now have a bunch of "podcasts" that are only accessible to paying customers and only via their apps and API's (for smart speakers, for example). I put the word between quotes because a true podcast is supposed to be accessible to all. Calling these shows, great as they might be, "podcasts," is misleading. They aren't freely accessible any more. 

 

If bribing paying the makers of these shows to be exclusively on your platform is raking in more money than it costs, then it makes business sense. So how can we re-make the open podcasting ecosystem so that it becomes financially more interesting to stay open instead of becoming unfindable behind one of the various paywalls?

 

Can we break out of the ever more walled gardens?

 

We have so far found these problems with podcasting 1.0 (as we shall now call it because there is a podcasting 2.0):

1.     The podcast index is currently freely hosted by Apple, but who knows for how long? 

2.     Podcast makers, no matter how popular they become, have only limited options to monetize their growing labour of love: 

a.     Read out cheesy adverts beginning, during and at the end of every show you record.

b.     Sell out to a big publisher who sells access to your show.

c.     Beg ask nicely for donations via Patreon and the likes. I know some sell merch on their websites (like the wonderful Ologies podcast by Alie Ward) 

d.     Have the good grace to be self-funded 

3.     Hosting of the RSS feed and audio files must be done by somebody somewhere.

4.     What if I really like a certain fragment of a podcast? How can I let the makers know I really liked that point?

5.     How can a guest that is in one (part) of an episode profit from his guest-appearance, if at all?

 

Most of these limitations of the old model of podcasting are solved by Podcasting 2.0.

 

1.     There is once again an open index, independent of Apple's generous hosting provisions. This index can be downloaded as a Sqlite3 database file. The hosting of this file, and the API's that provide free access to it, are supported by donations.

2.     Podcast makers can receive per-minute micro-transactions for their content, totally omitting the need for adverts or selling merchandise. 

3.     Hosting of audio files and the RSS-feed is still not fully decentralized, but since the podcasting 2.0 metadata is in the index and hosted separately from the audio files, you can add data to your podcasts show that isn't supported by Anchor/Spotify/Transistor/Captivate or whichever hosting provider you use.

4.     After you add your podcast to the podcasting 2.0 index, you can start receiving per-minute and/or one-time donations right from the listeners' podcasting apps. I'm counting 10 podcasting apps that support this new feature. My favourite podcasting 2.0 app is Breez, but I'm hoping that the old-tech podcasting app that I also still use, called Overcast, will start supporting podcasting 2.0 soon too. 

5.     If you are a bit more technically inclined, you could alter the meta-data per episode and make it so that any donation that comes in between minute X and Y is split in Z ways, between you, the co-host, your guest and the default 5% to your audio technician (for example). This means that guests on the show can get their fair share of donations!

 

How to win over old school podcasters who haven't upgraded yet?

 

Currently, only 0.35% of all podcasts have upgraded to Podcasting 2.0, if we take the number of upgraded podcasts to be 15126 out of a total of 4224060. 

 

Why should a popular podcasting app upgrade to support value4value if only 0.35% off all podcasts supports new features? And why should any podcast upgrade to podcasting 2.0 if most podcast players (and hosting platforms) don't support micropayments out-of-the-box?  To break this chicken-and-egg problem, I propose a few solutions:

1.     Podcast players that support Podcasting 2.0 should make no (or minimal) visual distinction between podcasts with and without the value4value tag in their RSS feed.

2.     When a podcast that is playing doesn't have the value4value tag the donations that are streaming to the podcast are not lost in the void, but are reserved in a way that is keyed to the know email address in the podcasting 2.0 directory.

3.     Once a sizable sum (let's say €100) is accumulated into the account that goes with the known email address, the good people of podcasting 2.0 send out an email letting the podcast makers know that by making an account they can receive their donations. Of course, the stupid simple easy of adding a value-tag in the RSS feed van be explained in the same e-mail. 

4.     This way some new podcasts are slowly won over to upgrade to podcasting 2.0, while I as a listener to a podcast that has not yet upgraded can already start donating to my podcast of choice today 😍

 

Join in on the conversation by commenting on Stacker News (supports value4value) or Hacker News (doesn't support value4value, yet).