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Where do you discuss computer related stuff now?

lobste.rs

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Re: Where do you discuss computer related stuff now?

#61

Post by itisit »

vouaobrasil wrote: post #42

> So where do you go when you want to geek out? This may be a pessimistic take, but computer stuff I believe has lost the allure that it once had, and here is why I think so: At one point, computer stuff meant being a hacker, having the hacker ethic, which personally to me translated into figuring out how stuff worked and putting it together to do something useful. And, "something useful" to me meant creating somethi…

That’s just it: computing is ordinary and in most cases a commodity. Same as petroleum, wheat, and gold. When business normalizes around a commodity, all the excitement, novelty, and wonder is lost. Consumers demand it, suppliers crank it out. Who cares? Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful the staples are always there on the proverbial shelf. But am I enthusiastically interested and passionate about that?

Re: Where do you discuss computer related stuff now?

#62

Post by cpach »

phs318u wrote: post #58
jrflowers wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a good point. The original goal of federation was to make sure everybody has to read everyone else on the internet’s posts. It’s the same leftist trash thinking that led to the internet having several websites instead of one big one.

> The original goal of federation was to make sure everybody has to read everyone else on the internet’s posts This could not be further from the truth. The goal of federation is to _allow_ everyone to read other's posts, NOT to force them to. You don't get to invite yourself and all your mates to my party. Your freedom ends where my nose begins. My freedom is in choosing who I associate with and who I don't.

I’m quite sure they were being sarcastic.

Re: Where do you discuss computer related stuff now?

#63

Post by npn »

elliotec wrote: post #10
anonzzzies wrote: post #7

It needs a relatively small community with a strong moderator who will warn people once. Not much of they around as it’s a painful job. I would like just an old fashioned, strict (no endless bickering over politics and wars, just hard tech and show offs what you have been hacking this weekend) forum with most people from r/programminglanguages and some of Hn. That’s enough to keep me entertained anyway. I very much d…

What part of this is different from HN as it is?

HN is a laughing joke now, compare to the old days. For every popular thread there are at least 50% of comments are outright wrong, or unimportant bike-shedding.

To the point some people created a satire website called n-gate some years before just to laugh at HN. And for sure for every top place popular HN thread right now there will be a lot of people posting the link just to laugh at the comments.

Re: Where do you discuss computer related stuff now?

#64

Post by Karrot_Kream »

I just join the Matrix rooms and Discords associated with projects I enjoy. People there usually discuss adjacent projects as well and the nature of people coming to discuss the project keeps the chatter deep and focused. One topic I enjoy is networking and distributed systems and for that, the #yggdrasil:matrix.org room is great. It's centered around the Yggdrasil mesh overlay network. The Nix Matrix room is also a great way to learn about systems coding and all sorts of gotchas when it comes to reproducible builds.

Re: Where do you discuss computer related stuff now?

#65

Post by a_bonobo »

rkagerer wrote: post #57
vouaobrasil wrote: post #42

> So where do you go when you want to geek out? This may be a pessimistic take, but computer stuff I believe has lost the allure that it once had, and here is why I think so: At one point, computer stuff meant being a hacker, having the hacker ethic, which personally to me translated into figuring out how stuff worked and putting it together to do something useful. And, "something useful" to me meant creating somethi…

I view their failure to put users first as a giant opportunity for someone else to come along and do a better job.

I think that's a direct result of the 'weird' way our economy works: we've moved away from customer satisfaction to investor satisfaction.

Nowadays, companies exist to increase their stock value so their managers get bigger bonuses. You don't get more stock by being better to your customers: ruthlessly firing people also increases your stock value. Putting users first might make your company look not worthy of investment: the market selects for stockholder-first companies.

Re: Where do you discuss computer related stuff now?

#66

Post by lagniappe »

rkagerer wrote: post #57
vouaobrasil wrote: post #42

> So where do you go when you want to geek out? This may be a pessimistic take, but computer stuff I believe has lost the allure that it once had, and here is why I think so: At one point, computer stuff meant being a hacker, having the hacker ethic, which personally to me translated into figuring out how stuff worked and putting it together to do something useful. And, "something useful" to me meant creating somethi…

I view their failure to put users first as a giant opportunity for someone else to come along and do a better job.

I'm working on this right now. I miss when the user determined how the data was presented. I'm making a minimal, markdown-based document network similar to gemini or gopher.

Re: Where do you discuss computer related stuff now?

#67

Post by npn »

lmm wrote: post #26
elliotec wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What part of this is different from HN as it is?

Too many HN comments nowadays are a) dumb jokes b) disinformation that it would take too much effort to correct kindly. In the old days those comments were corrected harshly and that kept the community quality high (both because it kept the discussion more accurate at first order, and because it drove away users who couldn't take their lumps). Nowadays they are not corrected at all.

Nice observation. I also noticed that the quality went downhill when HN applied strict moderation.

Sure this place looks friendlier now, but it feels empty as most competent people had already left.

Re: Where do you discuss computer related stuff now?

#68

Post by renewiltord »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #59
renewiltord wrote: post #33

Ironically, lobsters is great so long as you ignore every `culture` tag using the filters https://lobste.rs/filters I have the following filtered: - culture - rant - privacy I think those ones are usually full of people saying the same stuff over and over again.

Lobsters is too focused around PLs, systems coding, and FOSS politics for my tastes. The content in other computing niches is just too cursory to be interesting.

That is true. I think it's because of the small community. I am working on something with a friend so I can apply similar filtering to HN. HN has a good mass of people and some smart people but it's got a lot of repetitive LLM-style content. Once it is done, I think I shall be happy.

Re: Where do you discuss computer related stuff now?

#69

Post by Zoo3y »

deadalus wrote: post #34
tptacek wrote: post #11

Mastodon has been pretty great for this stuff for me. Get Ivory and it's basically identical to Twitter.

[flagged]

Dissent from who, Mastodon? Brother, Mastodon the entity cannot intervene by design. Different admins run each instance and they decide who is excluded. This doesn't go against federated system; it's the system at work.
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