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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?

#81

Post by AnthonyMouse »

a_bonobo wrote: post #65
rkagerer wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 invest…

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

A lot of this was a consequence of low interest rates. Money didn't come from selling things to customers, it came from selling a story to investors. Now that interest rates are finally above zero it's harder to raise money from investors and businesses will start to remember what it's like to make money from satisfying customers.

And the incumbents who don't realize this may be in for a surprise. What do you do when your business strategy is based on buying up the competition with cheap money and then the cheap money dries up and the competition is willing to sacrifice margins or disavow customer-hostile misfeatures in order to get your market share?

Re: Where do you discuss computer related stuff now?

#82

Post by OldGuyInTheClub »

ggm wrote: post #27
OldGuyInTheClub wrote: post #23

I have a few trusted people I can email. If there is something outside their expertise, they will forward my message to others they trust. In exchange I try not to waste their time and never contact their associates separately.

This. but slack. Morally the same space. People who understand my neologisms or malapropisms and know how to say "no, that's not an outer left join" nicely without "RTFM" getting too harsh

It is getting increasingly harder to find TFM these days.

Re: Where do you discuss computer related stuff now?

#83

Post by Roark66 »

It depends what do you want to discuss. There are lots of subject forums that are still thriving. Arch Linux forum, Debian Linux forum, for Microsoft stuff you have "Microsoft community" (not that I ever used it, but I read it sometimes in ancient past). For vintage computer stuff you have vcfed.org and vogons.org (BTW, I find it hilarious vogons will not show up in Google searches, unless you know it, it doesn't exist). Then you have the youtube comments on channels like ltt etc.

Re: Where do you discuss computer related stuff now?

#84

Post by AnthonyMouse »

Dalewyn wrote: post #72
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…

>computer stuff I believe has lost the allure that it once had, You're quite right, but your subsequent argument can be summed up much more simply: Computing became mainstream. Mainstream things aren't fun. Mainstream things are mundane. >Companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft, IBM, and others are the result of a late-stage technological development fuelled only by greed, Besides Google and contemporaries like Amazo…

> Mainstream things aren't fun. Mainstream things are mundane.

Mainstream things are mundane in the way that McDonalds is mundane and yet food as a whole is not.

The real problem is that users have been locked out of their own devices and data to such an extent that you can't easily make your own and share it with your friends, and people are disenchanted with years of eating nothing but Big Macs.

Re: Where do you discuss computer related stuff now?

#85

Post by sph »

crooked-v wrote: post #12

SomethingAwful is remarkably good, at least as long you stay out of the designated shitpost zones. The combination of monetary buy-in and legacy community does a lot.

I'm not so sure. See, you could say I'm politically on the left, but I've noticed Something Awful is way too radical for my experience of HN and Reddit-style leftism. There is this paradoxical American anti-intellectual air about the site which I didn't notice until using it for a couple years, that turns me off from talking about anything serious.

I know it's a comedy site, but often people and mods get angry because you don't agree to the same "eat the rich" mob mentality.

US politics has ruined the Internet, and I would like that as far away from my software talk. If a place is politicised, I'd rather have good old anarchism which works well with anti-censorship/cryptography discussion and hacker mentality, than anything on both sides of the political spectrum which turn people into mindless followers.

Re: Where do you discuss computer related stuff now?

#86

Post by coffeemug »

runjake wrote: post #70
jasonjmcghee wrote: post #53

I'd be interested to join Lobste.rs- those of you on the platform, how did you go about joining?

What’s your email? I’ll send you an invite. Edit: sent to hi@

I would appreciate an invite-- I've been looking for a smaller programming-oriented community. My email is in my profile.

Re: Where do you discuss computer related stuff now?

#88

Post by hhjinks »

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.

This is the problem with voting based social media. A demographic can be entirely supplanted by another really quickly. All you need is for the new demographic to upvote themselves, and the pre-existing demographic to not downvote the other demographic. Pre-existing users will start leaving when they see the content they originally came there for being outcompeted by the content the new demographic has introduced, causing a domino effect.

I've seen this happen with multiple subreddits. HN is also at risk for this, but it's a niche corner of the internet, so it would surprise me if there are ever enough non-assimilated individuals coming in at once to truly endanger the community.

Re: Where do you discuss computer related stuff now?

#89

Post by kaeruct »

runjake wrote: post #70
jasonjmcghee wrote: post #53

I'd be interested to join Lobste.rs- those of you on the platform, how did you go about joining?

What’s your email? I’ll send you an invite. Edit: sent to hi@

Would you send me an invite as well? Email in profile. Thanks in advance :)

Re: Where do you discuss computer related stuff now?

#90

Post by epups »

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…

While I understand you, I don't share your pessimism. The golden age you alluded to was elitist. Very few people around the world benefitted from technology, it was a game for privileged and/or rich kids. Now we have literally billions of people talking to each other, banking, working remotely through technology. Sure, it was commoditized, like everything else. But this commoditization helped far more people than any legendary hacker of the 1980s could ever dream of.
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