Twitter now blocking all DMs from non-Twitter Blue subscribers by default

Modernized the UI for <http://zsync.xyz> today - card view + 3 column layout (basically copied Discuit + Reddit). I prefer compact layout myself, but thinking maybe the HN UI is too dated for most people.

Some other updates

- Added some communities to the left sidebar (will make that dynamic and customizable, enabling you to subscribe/unsubscribe)
- Slightly tweaked the "hot" ranking algorithm (HN ranking algorithm) to try to give higher score to newer posts, and set this as the default (instead of "newest"). Not satisfied yet with it but will continue to tweak it until it makes sense.
- Show # of registered users on right
- Added some less serious communities

Will finish up some more features, then open source.

Let me know what you think. I'm definitely no designer, but I think it was a pretty productive day.

I enjoy working on this, but it doesn't pay my bills. I'm interviewing at the moment, but definitely reach out if you need a solid senior full stack engineer (my rate is $150/hr)

<https://twitter.com/jeremybernier/status/1681360576642162689>

UI Update - Card View, 3 Column Layout

Hi I'm Jeremy. I'm building this site because I'm not satisfied with other online community type websites and their lack of innovation (see the /about page). The goal is to make a superior, more open, and more decentralized online community.

The site is still in early stages in active development (see the dev masterthread here: https://zsync.xyz/p/zsync-dev-update-masterthread)

Join us if this sounds interesting! Feel free to send me any feedback or reach out directly!

Love this one. 90s electronic music vibes

MashBit, Alto Moon - Beautiful Mind

The office is a theatre for work (2019)

AI Emerges as a Common Enemy for Actors and Writers in Hollywood

I don't think that Threads in its current form will succeed because it doesn't offer anything interesting. It's just a Twitter clone with less features and no web app. I can see it finding success if they can integrate it with Instagram and Facebook or add some new features that make it stand out, but right now Threads is boring. I checked it once or twice, but have no interest in checking it out again.

Personally I think it's really stupid that they didn't release a web app. I don't understand why they'd stall their momentum by not having a web application. Personally I mostly consume Twitter on desktop, and if I write tweets, then 90%+ of the time it will be from desktop - and 100% of the time if I'm writing anything in depth like a Twitter thread. I hate typing on my phone, so I'll never type an essay on my phone.

Of course Threads was just released recently and this is just the MVP. I'm sure they'll add new features and make it more interesting over time. But in its current form, Threads is extremely boring. It's a hard sell for anyone who's already invested a lot of time in finding people to follow on Twitter (perhaps organized into lists) and/or created a Twitter following

If I were in charge of Threads, this is what I'd do:

- Release a web app
- Integrate it with Instagram and Facebook (the details of that I leave to your imagination)
- Make the feed more interesting. I just looked at my feed and it's just boring crap like pictures, lame quotes, and forgettable internet junk food
- Make it easier to migrate from Twitter, maybe offering a feature that allows one to import their Twitter following

Threads by Meta is Boring

Lifers, Dayjobbers, and the Independently Wealthy: A Letter to a Former Student

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36641542>

Khoj: An AI Personal Assistant for Your Digital Brain

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36641393>

LlamaIndex: Unleash the power of LLMs over your data

I just arrived last night to Japan, and I honestly think Japan might be my favorite country. I’ve been to Japan many times (I’m half-Japanese so used to come every year as a kid), but every time I come back I’m still blown away. Don’t get me wrong I’m not necessarily saying I would live here, but I think as a country to visit it is one of the most interesting places with one of the most fascinating cultures. Japan is a vibe, and is truly like nowhere else on the planet.I arrived to Fukuoka thinking I’d walk around for a couple hours then get bored, but ended up walking and exploring until 1am. Within an hour I saw an outdoor festival with the most hilarious muscle boy idol group performance, a vaporwave looking mall with all kinds of anime toys and games, little ramen stalls by the canal with a pink sunset in the sky, narrow streets with “Midnight Diner” style intimate countertop restaurants, helped a drunk man out of a canal, and walked through Shinjuku style red light districts with flashing neon lights and male host clubs and the promoters wearing the most outrageous wigs.A lot of what I love about Japan are the little things. The lobby of the hotel I’m staying in instead of just selling you bags of mixed nuts directly has one of those toy ball machines where you put coins in and get a ball filled with bags of mixed nuts. Vending machines everywhere. Japanese convenience stores are on another level. The food and the whole restaurant experience I’ve realized are my favorite in the world. Most polite people on the planet. Beautiful fox temples in the middle of the city.Most polite people on the planetJapan’s the type of place where you might get greeted with an enthusiastic “irashaimase!” (welcome) walking into a convenience store, walk around and not buy anything, and then be told “arigatou gozaimasu!” (thank you) on the way out.Yesterday I was at a convenience store about to go to the cash register when something else caught my eye so I paused to take a long look. Afterwards I went to go towards the cash register and someone else had beaten me there. No worries, I’ll wait behind him I thought. Nope, this man insisted I go first, even after I declined. This seems so small and insignificant, but I was moved to the core. I don’t think this could happen anywhere else in the world.The traffic workers here will stop cars to let you cross and then tell you “arigatou gozaimasu”!Best food and dining experienceJapan has regained my crown as best food country in the world which I formerly might’ve given to Korea or Singapore. What makes Japanese dining so special is not only the food itself, but the whole experience. You’re getting 5 star service in a random low budget curry chain or ramen shop.The food itself is of course incredibly delicious and healthy - I won’t say anything there that hasn’t already been said. What I’ve realized I really appreciate about the food is how I feel afterwards - not bloated and sluggish, not craving more carbs and/or dessert, my stomach not some brewing storm of spices - just the perfect level of contentment. After my morning sushi today I felt energized to walk around, explore, and get some work done. After a pizza or heavy western meal, I’ll probably instead feel bloated and wanting to take a nap.But what really sets the dining experience apart is the service, decor, and atmosphere. I already spoke to how amazing the service is - enthusiastic greetings, the warm towel to wash your hands, little things like giving you a box to place your backpack. The decor is often classy and minimal (I love the wood they use).But what I’ve realized about the restaurants is that there’s no kitchen in the back staffed with underpaid immigrants, you watch them cook right in front of you. Especially in Fukuoka, most of the restaurants here are these small intimate countertop restaurants (like the Japanese TV show “Midnight Diner”) where the chef takes your order and makes your food right in front of you. It makes for a very personal and intimate dining experience.Attention to detailIn Japan, your sushi chef isn’t just carelessly slapping together rice and fish. People here take their craft very seriously, and that’s why their cuisine - as minimal as it often is - is world class. As a customer, I appreciate the hell out of this.QuirkinessThat random performance at a street festival of these “muscle boys” was probably the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time. It was just so absurd, I can’t imagine that happening anywhere outside of a Japan. Although they all had six packs and most had impressive physiques, it was clearly a comedic performance and I don’t think anyone could watch that and not have a smile on their face.With all the games (arcade games, card games, videogames, etc.), anime, characters, Gundam, etc. there’s definitely a craziness to the culture that I love.<hr>Anyways I could go on and on, but I’ll leave it at this for now.If you haven’t been to Japan yet, Japan is an absolute must. Even as someone who’s already been to Japan, I’m blown away every time I come back.It’s surprised me to realize how much of “me” is Japanese even though culturally I grew up in the U.S. I resonate a lot with the attention to detail and pride they take in their craft, the politeness and sense of justice when it comes to things like waiting in line, efficiency, striving for the best, quirkiness, etc. Now I don’t resonate with everything (eg. conformity, overstaffing), but I definitely resonate with so much of their culture and wish the west would incorporate more of the positive elements (eg. at the least, bidet toilets and vending machines).I’ll say though - I’m really glad I decided to visit a new part of the country I’ve never been to though. Initially I was going to book a flight to Tokyo, but the flight ticket was way more expensive than I expected so I booked here for 1/3 the price (from Seoul), and am so glad I did. Even though I’ve been traveling the world for the past 5 years, it’s easy for me to default to laziness and going to the same places, so this was a good reminder for myself to change things up. I’m trying to explore more off the beaten path now, and I think it is actually a great strategy to enter countries in less touristic cities first if logistic allows.<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://jsavage.xyz/2023/06/19/japan-might-be-my-favorite-country/">https://jsavage.xyz/2023/06/19/japan-might-be-my-favorite-country/</a>

Japan Might Be My Favorite Country

The popular Material Theme for Visual Studio Code added a lot of cruft over time, including various popups, bundling unwanted dependencies, adding emojis to Command Palette and whatnot. I find this stuff mildly infuriating, so I forked it and deleted a whole lot of code, while leaving the color theme intact.There's probably a lot more to remove — pull requests welcome.

Material Theme for VS Code, stop the madness edition

EVs vs gas-powered cars: Which wins the emissions battle?

"The Lipivore: what is fat for?"

Welcome to my Ted talk. My name is Christopher Crumbles and I am a philosopher originating from my momther. Ok but no really, I'm too busy, I have too much shit going on this week. I have no time to be typing in this text box about nonsense that my brainhole comes up with. Honestly I was tempted to bring up chatgpt and have it give me some words to type into this box, but I figure that human thoughts are worth slightly more than AI's thoughts. Also <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="http://chat.openai.com">chat.openai.com</a> is really kind of bad at writing nonsense. Actually, it refuses to generate nonsense, assumedly due to it's training input. I have a friend who went as far as downloading a FOSS LLM in order to avoid using openai's groomed model. I think the logic goes that using a groomed LLM leads to groomed influences which leads to groomed behaviors and ultimately the PSYOP wins. ok i'm bored bye

Hello World

This thread is for all the solo entrepreneurs, artists, etc. who are building things, and looking for others to help hold them accountable.Anyone posting in this thread should post their goals along with a deadline (eg. complex X, Y, and Z by end of week), and then follow up with an update.When we have enough people, we can do a weekly calls / demo sessions.Goal here is to get you to actually build your thing, and to connect with others also on the same journey. Let's go.

Solo Entrepreneur Public Accountability Thread

<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1610275857561538561.html">https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1610275857561538561.html</a>Thread by <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" class="css-4rbku5 css-18t94o4 css-1dbjc4n r-1loqt21 r-1wbh5a2 r-dnmrzs r-1ny4l3l" href="https://twitter.com/volodarik">@volodarik </a>copy &amp; pasted below:"There are many multibillion dollar companies that started out as tools for internal use only. Here are 10 that will surprise you:1/ <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" class="entity-mention" href="https://twitter.com/SlackHQ">@SlackHQ</a> In 2011, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" class="entity-mention" href="https://twitter.com/stewart">@stewart</a> (&amp; his team) built it to communicate with each other while working on a game. The game failed, but he launched the internal messaging app as a team communication tool. Today, it makes $1B/yr in ARR, &amp; recently Salesforce acquired it for $27.7B.2/ <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" class="entity-mention" href="https://twitter.com/basecamp">@basecamp</a> <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" class="entity-mention" href="https://twitter.com/37signals">@37signals</a>, a design consultancy, developed it as an internal tool to manage projects and communication. Later, clients continuously asked the founder, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" class="entity-mention" href="https://twitter.com/jasonfried">@jasonfried</a>, about his project management tool—so he launched it. Today, it has 75K+ companies as customers.3/ <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" class="entity-mention" href="https://twitter.com/segment">@segment</a> - customer data platform. It started as a classroom lecture tool allowing students to flag any confusion to the professor, but it failed. Then, it pivoted to a web analytics tool. It, too, failed due to competition. Now, the company only had $100K in the bank.@mentionsFinally, the founders launched the internal programming tool they had created to build their previous products. It blew up on GitHub and became the company’s main product. In 2020, Twilio acquired it for $3.2B. Here is announcement from (maybe my cousin)<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1315751163262693376.html">Unroll available on Thread Reader</a>4/ <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" class="entity-mention" href="https://twitter.com/asana">@asana</a> In 2008, two engineers at FB, Dustin Moskovitz and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" class="entity-mention" href="https://twitter.com/rosenstein">@rosenstein</a>, developed a project management tool to improve internal team collaboration. But the tool became so popular on the FB team, they quit FB to work full-time on it. Today, it makes $378M/yr in revenue.5/ <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" class="entity-mention" href="https://twitter.com/hootsuite">@hootsuite</a> Invoke Media, a digital marketing agency, originally developed Hootsuite to manage its customer's social media accounts. The founders later launched it as a separate product. Today, it has 25M+ users and makes $250M+/yr in revenue.6/ <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" class="entity-mention" href="https://twitter.com/intercom">@intercom</a> The founders first developed it to communicate with the users of their existing app, Exceptional. Eventually, Exceptional shut down, but they doubled down on Intercom—developing tools for support and sales platform. Today, it makes $300M/yr in revenue.7/ <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" class="entity-mention" href="https://twitter.com/freshbooks">@freshbooks</a> <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" class="entity-mention" href="https://twitter.com/MikeMcDerment">@MikeMcDerment</a> built it to help him manage the invoicing and billing for his design firm. He later launched the same tool for others and found they loved the product—so he went all in. Today, it generates $50M+/yr in revenue.@mentions8/ Amazon originally built AWS to manage its infrastructure &amp; services. Later, the company launched it as a separate product for outside customers. Today, it generates $80B/yr in revenue. Here's an excellent deep dive on AWS:9/ <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" class="entity-mention" href="https://twitter.com/Mailchimp">@Mailchimp</a> The founders first developed it to help their design agency clients send emails. But in 2007, due to growing demand for the service, they shut down the agency &amp; went all-in on it. Today, it does $700M+/yr in revenue, &amp; recently Intuit acquired it for $12B.10/ <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" class="entity-mention" href="https://twitter.com/MiroHQ">@MiroHQ</a> The founders originally built the visual collaboration tool to communicate with their design agency team &amp; clients. Over time, after realizing the demand for it, they decided to build a company around it. Today, it has 45M+ users &amp; generates $400M/yr in revenue."<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1610275857561538561.html">Unroll available on Thread Reader</a>