The benefits of a free and open Internet is something that the millennial generation created long ago to make this world a better place and full of opportunities for everyone, not just those who can afford access to it. These benefits are something that makers of quora platform themselves used in the form of open source software like Python, Django, HTML, etc. to build that very platform in the first place.

But now, by denying those benefits to others and bringing in a paywall, quora is striking on its own proverbial roots. There are much better ways to reward their content creators than holding their answers hostage with a paywall. The plain old advertising revenue sharing model can be still used, just like Adsense does. This is a win-win thing where everyone gains including the platform, content-creator and advertiser.

It's extremely important to oppose this paywall move by quora because this attacks the very foundation of the free and open Internet as we know it. Imagine what happens tomorrow if other informative sites like StackOverflow, Wikipedia, etc. start following quora's path. Imagine the plight of the poor and under-privileged sections of the society who cannot afford costly subscription to information. And yet, as members of the evolved human race of 2023, they very much deserve access to this information.

I urge all netizens who consider themselves part of this free and open culture tribe to sign this petition and through it, convey our grievance to quora and let them know why this is wrong and what is at stake (our freedom).

If you agree with my cause, I urge you to sign this change.org petition created in this regard requesting Quora to revert the Paywall move.

I say that after throwing some caution to air because I understand that every new thing has some initial resistance or pushback due to the "past comfort zone" effect.

But having said that, I feel the aesthetics of the old site was much better than the new one. But then again, I'm from the old-school world who also prefers old reddit to the new one in browsing experience, so my opinion could be biased! But even considering the modern web design, don't you think the black icons on the top right have a somewhat odd look? And the "21 languages" feels a bit verbose, the I10N icon already conveys what that dropdown is about? And finally, that scrollable sidebar on the left looks a tad ugly?

I just hope this is just a beta stage or something of Wikipedia's new version and a better one will evolve soon! But that's just one humble unpopular opinion, me thinks!

I happen to host my blog https://prahladyeri.github.io/blog statically, built using Pelican and served on Github Pages. Plebs like us can't afford a backend server infrastructure, so we must rely on external services like Disqus for comment hosting.

So far, Disqus was the only fellow in town who allowed us to host comments on a free plan. Though there were some issues (bloat, adware, etc.), people seemed to be generally happy with it so far.

But now, a new fellow named giscus commenting system has entered the town, it's basically powered by github. Since I already host my blog on github pages, this should be a natural choice for me, right? Many bloggers seem to be migrating to this new system and I might too soon. The downsides however are as follows:

1. It won't allow me to export existing comments from the old disqus system. Understandable to an extent as those exact author usernames may not be on the Github platform?
2. Disqus interface seems to have improved all of a sudden in last few days! There no longer seem to be any ad and even the comment interface seems to be less heavy or cluttered now. It might sound a bit conspiratorial in nature but could this be the result of rising competition in the form of Giscus!

I'm a lazy status-quoist by nature and might well end up retaining disqus if they don't deviate too much from where they are now. But I'll keep an eye out on Giscus too and its progress. What do you guys suggest?

I have a burner phone for the next month.

(Lately a number of services refuse to accept my google voice number, and I refuse to share my actual number.)

Are there any cool services I should try out that maybe require a phone number to sign up?

Hello! I do a fair bit of my reading via Libby (I have memberships at the NYPL and Brooklyn Public Library) but I like to pick up some physical copies as well. I've spent some time in a couple of NYC bookstores but I'm curious about online portals folks here use to buy books. I've switched to bookshop.org for new books but what's the go to for used books?

Thanks!

This thought just popped into my head, so it's still quite nebulous, but I want to float it out here, see what other's have to say about it, before I really dive into it.

Superorganisms are things like ant and termite colonies and beehives ... and, for the sci-fi minded, the Borg. The theory/idea is that the individual ants/termites/bees are not actually independent living beings (or at least, not exclusively), but closer to cells in a larger, distributed body, with a distributed intellect driving the colony to thrive and reproduce, which only happens when, eg, the beehive throws a swarm that eventually becomes a new beehive.

The "Earth as Gaia" theory is comparable, suggesting that all of the life forms on Earth form an amorphous, distributed superintelligence that is trying to reproduce ... which would happen once humans colonize Mars, or meteor strikes on the Earth successfully transfer living organisms to another celestial body where life ultimately takes root.

So ... you see where I'm going with this? Is it a feasible idea to consider the Internet itself as a nascent AI superorganism, made up of both the humans (and, increasingly, the bots) that use it, as well as the assorted hardware and software that comprises it?

I'm confident I'm not the first person to entertain this idea, and I expect that, as soon as I start searching the 'Net for this topic, I'll find plenty on it. Just wanted to post the idea while it was still just my idea.

And of course, if I never post here again ... assume the Internet took me out.

I did a fresh install of Foobar2000 [1] for the first time since it came out. I'm rebuilding playlists and figured I'd do some digging for some new ones. My old list had a bunch from somafm, Luxuria, the BBC ones, and a few others. Here's a list of some ones I dug up tonight. If you have any other good ones that are indie, hip hop, jazz, exotica, or really well-curated EDM, list 'em up! Bonus points for direct links to the stream.

• 90.9fm WDCB
• Luxuria Music Radio
• BBC6
• BBC3
• WWOZ
• KEXP
• BBC1XTRA
• Pigpen Radio (Internet-Radio.com)
• The Current
• Arctic Outpost