Recent submissions

Comment · 4 months ago
Comment · 6 months ago
Why should he have to afford heavy security? Why is this behavior normal?
Comment · 6 months ago
Looking forward to the follow up post, State of Bunker 2029.
Comment · 1 year ago
This isn't really surprising from the UK. If you go back 15-20 years, taxing a vehicle to drive on public roads used to involve displaying a "Tax Disc" in your windscreen, on the off-side of the vehicle.

They abolished this system in 2014 [1] because they'd long since reached saturation of permanent Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) readers [2] from >11000 cameras on UK roads, and scanning over 50 million vehicles per day.

It's also common to have 'Average Speed' systems on major roads and even country roads where the accident rate exceeds a threshold defined by the local councils. Those will issue you a Penalty Charge Notice (PCN) and points on your licence for a moving violation if you exceed the speed limit. Beyond the 'Average Speed' infrastructure is a giant number of fixed cameras which measure speed and capture imagery of your vehicle, number plate, and the driver and automatically issue the PCN for speeding, and mobile vans operated by the authorities and deployed anywhere they consider a "hotspot".

All of this costs you money immediately to pay the PCN, costs you money over time because insurers hike their rates, and after 2-4 violations in 36 months, can result in you losing your ability to drive and trigger an extended "retake driving test" (after your disqualification period).

This is much more draconian than the United States where in many states a moving violation (like a speeding infraction) will only be processed by a policeman pulling you over for a chat.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/vehicle-tax-changes

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number-plate_recogni...

Comment · 1 year ago
Comment · 1 year ago
Happy New Year, HN!
Comment · 1 year ago
A fair number of sites hosted and operated outside the European Union reacted to GDPR by instituting blocks of EU users, many returning HTTP 451. Regardless of whether you believe GDPR is a good idea or not (that's beyond the scope of this comment), the disparity in statutory and regulatory approaches plus widely varying (often poor) levels of 'plain language' clarity in obligations, and inconsistent enforcement, it all leads to entirely understandable decisions like this and more of a divided internet.

Thank you to those who have tirelessly run these online communities for decades, I'm sorry we can't collectively elect lawmakers who are more educated about the real challenges online, and thoughtful on real ways to solve them.

Comment · 2 years ago
https://x.com/filosottile/status/987376021589692416?s=21

I'm not sure that counts as an impeccable track record.

Comment · 2 years ago
For me, Firefox and without iCloud Private Relay engaged, Maxmind is within about 2km and doesn't get the city correct (but we're right on a border), and IPinfo is about 15km as the crow flies (and gets the city entirely wrong).
Comment · 2 years ago
Why does your website just say “ROFLMAO” — pretty hard to take seriously.
Comment · 2 years ago
There’s a middle ground:

For cloud-like provisioning experiences and paying by the hour you can use DigitalOcean, Vultr, or alternatives.

Deploying GPUs? Something like CoreWeave may be optimal.

Want inexpensive costs for dedicated hosts? Hetzner, OVH.

There are many, many advantages to using AWS but equally many alternatives that are viable and which aren’t “doing it yourself” in a hardware and network sense.

None of this is to say DIY is a terrible choice either and everyone’s got an opportunity to consider time (initial setup; ongoing maint), costs, and also expertise and ability to do a good job.

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