chrxr

I omitted that between the EC2 version and this current version, I built a really convoluted version with an ALB, Aurora, always-on ECS etc. That came to $80 a month. So then that motivated me to go the other way with the super cheap option.

Comment · 5 years ago

I recently moved my personal website (https://chrxr.com) to a static site in a rather complicated fashion.

I use Wagtail as my CMS, so I dockerized it and put it on an ECS cluster. I then use Wagtail Bakery to publish the pages to S3. I then change the task count on the ECS service to 0. For a DB I use sqlite in EFS, so it's persistent and backed up.

I was previously running on an EC2, and cut the cost from about $15 per month to ~$1-2 per month. All I'm paying for is <1mb S3 storage, a single route 53 hosted zone, and one image in an ECR repo.

If I want to add content, I spin up the ECS task again and work away. Note that part of the reason for such a low cost is my website get VERY little traffic :)

Apart from the cost, I also have the advantage that it's lightning quick most of the time, with caching provided by CloudFront.

Comment · 6 years ago

TTS is great for 40k, although moving a large amount of pieces can be a pain. There are a huge amount of model scans available, and the community has put an immense amount of effort into building battlefields. I have mixed feelings about the morality of getting this stuff for free. I say mixed because the price of actual GW models is criminal. However, I don't think this takes much profit from GW. It certainly hasn't prevented me from wanting to paint models and play in person. But with that currently being impossible, TTS and Warhammer Total War are my only outlets.

Comment · 6 years ago

But how many applications of soldiers overseas are there other than in the advancement of imperial aims? Dubious peace keeping claims? I understand this is a very subjective topic, but its at least understandable that someone should make this connection.

I read the article as arguing that the USA is an empire, and as such its soldiers are overseas furthering those imperial aims. So in that sense it is the imperial ventures that are creating the vets who need to be managed at home.

Comment · 6 years ago

If the learning experience is simplified to listening to a lecture, either live or recorded, and all grading is done algorithmically, then yes, there is no scaling limitation. This would be considered a very poor learning experience though. Even in the School of Engineering at Harvard, even for the CS classes, very few use autograding. Students expect individual feedback on their work. They expect the ability to personally interact with teaching staff. They expect group work, labs, office hours, reading groups, and some level of supervision over these activities.

I work at Harvard, and I can tell you there is a real push to create a quality experience in remote learning, and a lot of resources are being directed towards this. It is not just the same classes via Zoom. Of course these enhanced learning environments could be replicated on campus as well, there's nothing particularly special about the remote learning environment.

But as you suggest, it is the residential experience that most folks are paying for. Harvard considers the residential experience as one of their primary value propositions. That is why Harvard and other schools are working very hard to get students back to campus. It's a difficult balancing act between this and maintaining the health of the campus. A major outbreak amongst undergrads would be a serious blow to everybody involved, so health is always going to come first.

Also worth noting that 20% of Harvard students pay 0 tuition, and more than 50% get needs-based scholarships. https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid. So if you're smart enough, and/or fit into the financial aid brackets, why not go to Harvard? What's the risk there?

Comment · 6 years ago

That may be the case, but I would guess other insurance companies will buckle under similar pressure. Perhaps I'm being naive, but it seems like the worst kind of PR nightmare to financially cripple a group as big as those who will eventually be infected.

Comment · 6 years ago

Not true at least for many Blue Cross Blue Shield areas: https://home.bluecrossma.com/coronavirus

Comment · 6 years ago

That sucks if that's true for your insurance provider. Here in the US it is not always true. For example, Blue Cross Blue Shield in MA are covering expenses for testing and waiving co-payments for medically necessary treatments. https://home.bluecrossma.com/coronavirus

Comment · 6 years ago

Relevant precedent: Harvard recently settled with National Association of the Deaf, resulting in all videos made publically available after Dec 2019 requiring captions, and a required 5 day turnaround for captioning of older videos. https://dredf.org/2019/11/27/landmark-settlement-with-harvar...

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