shawnee_

> They failed the test and without this key innovation performing to spec I no longer have faith that Mastadon is any more than a technically complicated open source Twitter.

Maybe instead the question you should be asking is: who has the incentive to undertake such a resource-intensive attack? This seemed more a response targeted at Wil for promoting his logic regarding leaving Twitter, targeted at him directly after he reasoned why the good people of the world need to Quit Twitter.

Making new users feel unwelcome on Mastadon is, unfortunately, the easiest path for them to fend off the competitor. It would not surprise me in the least to discover this attack was, in fact, coordinated by some entity with strong ties to Twitter. Of course the attackers want it to look like what instead happened was a "famous person verification" problem within the Fediverse; bad and negative press about Mastadon are _exactly_ what the attackers wanted here. And, unfortunately, it worked. There is always financial motive.

> The next crash will be student loans.

Yes, and it will be ugly. It was already getting bad before the tax code overhaul, but now that the payment of interest on student loans is not deductible (by anyone, namely diligent debt-paying low-income grads for whom the tax deduction was originally intended, those making < $80K), it is kind of inevitable.

The best thing about Google News (the old Google news) was that it was like being able to search microfiche of all the old-school news publications (but digitally): articles written by journalists for publications that happened to also be digitized. You could scroll back and back to as many results as the engine could find on any given topic. As a research tool, it was unparalleled in its ability to help journalists link facts to unbiased sources and to multiple sources.

When they redid the design (yes, I know exactly what you are talking about) it was like ... murdering democracy: limiting results.

I had to stop using it all together.

Sure you can go search google.com, but items that would show up on news ( == important things) are somehow lost from google, and it's just not the same.

Sad day when we lost the old news.google.com. If what they're saying here is true, the first thing to do is to bring back the old news search. That will help journalists more than anything.

Thanks for the reply.

What I meant, is that one cannot start a discussion of such things without being willing to lose lots of points and karma. Observations that AirBnB might be doing more harm than good to cities having "housing crisis" issues, and the fact that Uber and Lyft are actually harming public transportation rider numbers and putting more automobiles on the roads (creating congestion).

Two issues I've seen brought up here that get downvoted into oblivion. Why risk that? It's far easier for people to jump on the "attack the poster" bandwagon... as they have done to me in this thread.

Granted, I've been reading HN for over 11 years now, and the site is not the same as it used to be. A lot of interesting posters have left. Probably I need to lower my expectations for what to see when I come here.

The obvious thing you are missing is that it is developers who want to build rent-producing "income HOAs" ... they are the driver creating the problem. Who else would be lobbying for the kinds of restrictive zoning that creates these problems?

Well HOA fees go to things like maintenance of roads, maintenance of community-owned spaces (landscaping, parks, etc). When HOA fees are high covering all these things the city's taxes would normally cover, the cities have less money all around. Fractured spaces glued together.

It's basically siphoning money that would be going to public infrastructure to make private infrastructure. There's also statistical evidence that people running the boards of these HOAs don't actually select the most value-oriented bidders, they reward their family and friends.

Edit sorry, old bookmark nevermind the link.

> it seems clear that either a dense arrangement or the countryside (if working remotely) are preferable to the burbs, where you get high costs and poor access.

HOAs are primarily to blame for the high cost and poor access of suburbia. Multiple gated communities all each attempting to create their own "privately-owned by the community" parks and recreation. Aside from HOA fees (which are basically taxes), the gluing together of all these private developments makes "freedom" and walkable / public access an illusion. Homeowners end up double paying and cities' infrastructure suffers from lack of funds.

Density is best if it is done right, but the HOA problem incentives fracture and disconnect. Thus: all public spaces in all densely-planned areas must be publicly-owned. The HOA cannot create walled gardens.

> if you share the "correct" viewpoint, but unpopular views have to be exceptionally polite to avoid biased moderation

Where HN has been falling short (lately, in my observation) is where discussions about the ethics of certain business models get lost via the "buried" option or killed off completely.

You cannot come to HN to discuss the potentially-negative ecological or economical impact of a YC company. The voting rings will literally send your comment or post to the void: buried or killed off completely. HN does still post lots of interesting links, but for truly interesting discussion that isn't (for lack of a better word), tainted by bias, I prefer Reddit these days.