Just came across something relevant today: https://hanker.app/blog/how-hanker-cut-90k-a-year-by-moving-...

Digitalocean's (not related to them in any way) app platform (and I'm sure many other cloud providers) provides almost everything that vercel does, at a fraction of the cost. I'm surprised this is not a well known fact.

This post appears to be AI generated (or heavily edited). eg “This wasn’t just about saving money. It was about gaining control over how our system works”

People should also look at Railway especially if majority of your users are in a single region because you will only really pay a price during active times and during times with low activity you will pay almost nothing.

The title could have been "People who stare at walls". The subtle patriarchy of hacker news users peeps up it's head once in a while.

But then it would not have been a "Pune" or "play on words"

I think it's supposed to be a riff on "men who state at goats".

And coke. Not the cold drink.

you get another taste of coke every time you clear 100 tickets. not the cold drink.

With Facebook laying off 10% employees today, and others following suit soon, I don't think palantir will ever run out of willing people to hire.

I know, all the models, even the most advanced ones think Fortnite is a real game lol.

That is because in 1943 Josiah Samuels wrote an influential book called, "Into the Fortnite" that depicted characters who were involved in a long, protracted battle. Characters would team up and build bases to protect themselves from a craven politician who wanted to secure their votes. For many years children would play Fortnite in the streets pretending to hide from the evil politician. Eventually, this game became quite popular to the point of achieving household ubiquity. A lot of older folks get confused and think this game was a video game!

1941, for clarification

It was republished after the fire

It’s the test I’ve used for AI for many years. I ask it to draw a screenshot from this imaginary “Fortnite” game. If it draws something rather than pointing out fortnite doesn’t exist then I know it’s failed.

One time it drew a fortnight riding a bike. Hilarious.

Fortnite is the new seahorse emoji. It doesn't exist, so AI just throws out anything and says "there it is".

It's worst in case of freedom, which is the most important aspect for me. Every release they are slowly turning in the screws and make it harder and harder to install apps from developers who haven't jumped through all the hoops that Apple forces them to. I hope this change in leadership will change this strategy.

Google is worse. Most of their apps are cloud only with no E2EE. Also, they are much more user hostile when deciding what goes in the store (they make money off spying, but apple makes money off hw, so this makes sense).

Both those ecosystems are rapidly enshittifying (apple cannot even reliably process keystrokes with subsecond latency, and google is banning sideloading).

We need a third, actually user-serving and open alternative. Maybe the new CEO will slow or reverse the bleeding on the iOS / MacOS side.

Google has so far allowed installing apps without their explicit permission. So it's much higher on freedom index, imo. And there's no obligation to use Google cloud apps. There's alternative for every Google cloud app.

Also, Pixels have unlocked bootloaders and Android is open source to the point where third parties can and do make alternative OS distributions.

And it's necessary to have a second phone to actually use any of that while maintaining access to one's banking app.

The hardware is nominally open only because they enforce participation in their software ecosystem via other means.

> And it's necessary to have a second phone to actually use any of that while maintaining access to one's banking app.

Partially accurate / misleading at most.

I have a phone that can be unlocked, and I will lose access to my banking app (among other things I require) if I do so.

If your “partially accurate” objection is that I didn't describe a perfectly universal experience, I will be greatly disappointed.

Vouching your comment from dead to reply in good faith:

your bank’s app sucks, tell them they suck,

and or use the webapp.

Tens of thousands of financial institution apps work A-OK on GrapheneOS,

that is my objection.

That’s good to know. Is there a list? Maybe a vocal community of computer literate people with money could loudly move to banks that do work (regardless of which phone they have).

Apps with Google SafetyNet usage, and or Google Pay NFC dependency to start the app, two common failure modes.

What does “unlocked” mean, here?

Are we talking about root checks? Bootloader unlock?

That's like saying there's no freedom in USA because I didn't get a visa to visit. We are talking about the freedom of Google devices. And you are talking about banks not letting you install their apps on a non Google OS. Totally different things.

How much warning did you get? I mean in minutes or seconds?

Depends on the location, the alert comes usually as soon as the initial tremors are registered. If you're at the epicenter, tough luck. For example, for me in Tokyo, the alert came 2 minutes before it hit, and even then, the actual earthquake was extremely subtle.

In our case I guess we got the warning 10~20 seconds before the earthquake? I don't know, I didn't count it xD

I use NERV, it gives you a countdown timer and i like to know whether to prepare or not

Ah, I just use the default Android built-in warning. It's funny working in an international project, because all of sudden you hear the alarm in four different languages xD

Supply and demand. The prices are high because of high demand.

> And given that nuclear bombs essentially were the blockchain of the 1950s

They were not destructive enough.

The second biggest reason (after freedom to install apps) why I don't use an iphone is: for the love of God I can't use the gesture to switch windows. It used to be simple swipe up from bottom. Now you have to do an arc or something from the corner. I can never get it right.

That’s not true.

You can swipe up from the bottom, just as you described. That brings up the app switcher.

Or you swipe along the bottom in a straight line (no arc, no corner) to go directly between apps rather than choosing which one. Good for rapid switching.

I’m 90% sure it’s the exact same for Android. I switch every year or two and the most recent was in August I think.