Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit | more unicornporn's commentslogin

> It runs some things like podcasts 'under the hood' but where does a new user get introduced to it?

Nowhere now that even Mozilla has eliminated it from Firefox.


True dat!

For me, RSS is by far (still) the best way to access web content.

I've tried some self hosted RSS readers over the years but I've stayed with FreshRSS[1] for the last year. It has been a marvelous experience. Zero trouble, zero administrative burden. Self-hosted bliss. Best of all is the fact that it uses a flat file DB so it can easily be backed up, moved around and migrated. Can not recommend it enough. Also, it's PHP, so works on any cheap shared hosting. That's how I use it.

One of the best things about it is escaping the algorithmically curated feeds.

Every site and service that I wish to follow has an RSS feed, except for Twitter. I use RSS-Bridge[2] (self hosted too) to follow users. RSS-Bridge[2] will give you feeds for just about every service you can think of.

If you don't find a feed for a site, sometimes you just have to dig a little. You learn at which URIs the most commons CMSes presents their Atom/RSS feeds (hello /feed/).

[1] https://freshrss.org/

[2] https://github.com/RSS-Bridge/rss-bridge


> For me, RSS is by far (still) the best way to access web content.

Same for me. I'm using Feedly atm. But the majority of users don't use RSS and they never did. Perhaps that is never going change.


I use a native application (QuiteRSS) as my reader but for twitter I use a modified version of the twitter_search_to_rss.pl and twitter_user_to_rss.pl + TwitRSS.pm from TwitRSS.me (https://github.com/ciderpunx/twitrssme/tree/master/fcgi). The resulting xml files are saved out into my ~/www/RSS/ directory and that URL path is used in my various readers.


+1 for everything you wrote. I'm still using quiterss and heavily relying on the filter actions on a daily basis. My only experience with an online self hosted client was tiny tiny, which I didn't like. Thanks for sharing the freshrss alternative, I guess I'll give it a try!



Have a look at CSS grids and get prepared to drop your jaw.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/CSS_Grid_La...


In practice, almost everything that you ever want to achieve with Grid can be achieved with Flexbox. Time and time again, I’ve encountered examples of “what Grid enables”, and been able to replicate it precisely with Flexbox.

Not always—there are definitely practical things you can achieve with Grid that you can’t with previous layout options, I’ve made a couple myself—but almost always.


Interesting, having used them both a lot I feel exactly the opposite way – I think grid's capabilities apply to more situations and suspect it will be the go-to layout/alignment tool once it catches on more. Grid is the more powerful tool, I think the only feature it can't do that flexbox does is making wrapped items not line up (since grid, of course, wants to make them line up into a grid). Wanting items not to line up seems less common, doesn't it?


Flex is about single-dimensional layout, grid is about two-dimensional layout.

Most layout scenarios that are in two dimensions can actually be solved with nested single-dimensional layout. Sometimes it’ll be easier to solve them with a proper two-dimensional layout, and I tend to prefer the markup that Grid lets me have, but I find two-dimensional layout that can’t be solved with nested single-dimensional layout to be uncommon.

Also, most interface problems are actually single-dimensional.

I think Grid will become more popular than it is, but never overtake Flexbox as most people’s go-to for layout, because Flexbox is normally enough, and Grid is too complex. I use it from time to time, and I have taken the trouble to know exactly what it’s capable of, so that I know when I should reach for it rather than Flexbox or something else or giving up, but I normally need to look up various properties when I go to use it. Meanwhile, most of what people want to achieve with Flexbox is just `display: flex;` plus `flex-direction`, `flex`, `align-items` and `justify-content`, and there are few enough knobs that you can essentially brute-force it without trouble—and the Flexbox Inspector makes it even easier, in a way that the Grid Inspector can’t really because Grid is just too powerful.


grid-gap is annoying to replicate/hack in flexbox. Although the column-reverse/row-reverse feature in flexbox is awesome.

Two big things in grid come to mind that make me use it much more than flexbox: grid-template-areas, and being able to overlap cells using lines.

In general, having a flexible first-class 2d layout is much easier to work with and change later than having nested 1d layouts.


From time to time I try these fancy journaling apps. A few weeks later I have to go through the hassle of converting the data to my good old plain text file journaling format.


There are some journaling apps that target this mindset. This one[1] was posted a few days ago (in comments) and stores your notes as markdown in plain text. There are others (I am working on one as well, but its not ready). If the app forced a particular naming convention (e.g. 2018-05-10.md) would that be too restrictive?

[1]: (https://github.com/fabiospampinato/notable).


No. Not really. http://jrnl.sh/ looks good too if you're starting from scratch.


If you're looking for something simple like jrnl but as a desktop app with a GUI, you might be interested in Mini Diary which I just launched: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18934610. It also allows you to import your jrnl data and export your entries in a variety of formats.


vscode-journal and vscode-journal-view (gives you a calendar view in the side bar) do what I need and are offline.

I have vscode open anyway so path of least resistance applies.


Thanks for the recommendation, been looking for something like this.


It's really good, I just set the base path to point at a dir in Dropbox path and that's it, I have a autosyncing journal on all my computers.


Thanks for the heads up on this one! Looks great.


Matrix/Riot.im is federated and has E2EE. It also has brigdes for IRC, Telegram etc. Here's a native client for macOS: https://neilalexander.eu/seaglass

Web client: https://riot.im/experimental/


Matrix is also experimental. About a year ago it kept losing my key meaning I couldn't decrypt old messages. I still use matrix, but I don't have any illusions that it's more secure than tox.


We're not aware of any bugs where Matrix clients lose your e2e keys (other than one where changing your password may cause clients to log out and remove keys for safety). If you saw it keep losing keys, i'm going to guess you configured your browser to delete local storage when you close the tab... in which case, unless you export the keys, we have nowhere else to store them.

That said, we've also just implemented the optional ability to encrypt and backup your keys on the server, but obviously comes with other tradeoffs.

In terms of security, the core crypto has been audited, as per https://matrix.org/blog/2016/11/21/matrixs-olm-end-to-end-en...


It hasn't happened in a year (I still use it) so whatever the issue was I don't see it anymore :)


I tested riot.im in a private Firefox window recently, obvious with hindsight but it didn't occur to me I should export keys and I didn't spot anything in the interface to make me aware or prompt me to action.

Great to hear you've added the option for server stored keys now.


yeah, it's a tricky one because by the time you've closed the window, it's too late to export keys.

The new online key backup stuff landed a few weeks ago on the develop branch, and will be making it onto the main release over the coming weeks :)


> I don't have any illusions that it's more secure than tox.

That conclusion doesn't follow. How does the client loosing your key cause you to consider matrix itself as less secure?


Matrix has also had a proper security evaluation


> Proxies. Olive doesn't do that yet.

In the age of UHD resolutions and up this should probably be on the list of immediate priorities. I could not work without the proxy feature of Premiere.


The article, however, goes on to say "Matt says he's in the middle of designing proxy support at the moment" __right after that__.


Likewise. I immediately cringed at the idea of usability for 4K or even 1080p video without proxies.


On smaller projects (think 5 minutes of final video), Olive works pretty sensibly.


Can someone explain what a proxy is in this context and what it is used for and why it would be necessary? Can video editing software truly not be written to natively process video data itself?


From my understanding, proxying is the ability to work with lower-resolution video -- so it's faster to edit -- but still be frame-accurate to the original, so the output matches what you've been editing.


Yes, I've been using it alongside Signal and Telegram. It works very well. E2EE has been a work in progress, but it might have stabilized.


> Why do all messengers keep requiring phone numbers?

Matrix/Riot.im and Wire doesn't. I think they're both good alternatives.


Riot.im is a damn pain to set up. I've been using computers for a quarter of a decade and I still get flummoxed by the UX.

Bridging Matrix/Riot to IRC/Telegram/Whatever seems to require some black magick beyond my capabilities.

On the other hand, even my grandmother can (and has) set up Telegram and WhatsApp.


> I've been using computers for a quarter of a decade

OT but I suppose you mean century?


Have you had a look lately? Plenty has happened in the last year (not only on the UX front)!

https://media.ccc.de/v/35c3-9400-matrix_the_current_status_a...

http://riot.im/experimental


Wire only if you register first on a computer. from the phone if you create an account you have to use your number.


They seem to have changed this now, you can register with an email address from mobile. It still asks for a phone number, but you can say no.


That has probably changed recently indeed.


> it is not a signal of anything.

It is a signal that politics and policies[1] can make a difference, right?

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/jul/02/norway-electri...


That's it exactly. Unless Norway has some sort of autocratic dictatorship, the people are voting for representatives that support these measures.

Very much a signal.


That said, Norway is pretty-ethnically homogeneous country with a strong national identity and a population just below Wisconsin. I don't really think the political lessons from Norway are necessarily applicable at large.


There will be lessons. Off the top of my head:

- Relation of EV miles driven to air pollution and related health impacts

- The effect of increased EV penetration on fossil fuel infrastructure economics. For example, at what EV penetration do gas stations start to close?

- Challenges for the grid of charging large numbers of EVs

These lessons won't be universal because Norway is not like the rest of the world but they do provide useful information for later adopters. If I owned a chain of gas stations in the US, I'd be very curious about the fate of gas stations in Norway.


Might be applicable to Wisconsin and other similarly sized states.


Aren’t most democracies time-limited autocratic dictatorships?


No, thanks to separation of powers.


Obviously not because of political parties, constitutions, and judiciaries.


What difference? Norway is a key contributor to global warming by being a key producer of oil.


If the demand created by Norway contributes to making electric cars a viable alternative, the long-term contribution of that can be enormous.


Spurring demand in EVs is offsetting that though. Probably not a huge difference however.


Everyone knows they make a difference. But things like this are so complicated that it's difficult to say whether it's a good difference or not.


Consider applying for YC's Winter 2026 batch! Applications are open till Nov 10

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: