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What's most interesting to me is how emo so many of the messages are. There's nothing overt in the website instructions prompting people to be angsty. gostsamo says the website was popular at the start of the pandemic which I guess could explain the angst. But I wonder if there's something deeper going on here. Because doesn't this feel like the sentiment of the earlier web? Is there something in the website design and the anonymity that prompts people to be more angsty? Or is the world just overwhelmingly angsty and we never have an outlet for those emotions?

> I’ll be gone soon, and that’s okay. > Until then, let me know how you’re doing. > It’s been a rough few months. > Feeling down?

I think the website is quite emo

Yeah on second read I don't know what the hell I was talking about. The website copy is super emo and is totally prompting everyone to be angsty.

I want this exact same experience but without the angsty prompting.

You don't seem to understand the meaning of the words "angst" or "emo", at least not going by the couple of messages I clicked through on the site.

"It’s been rough. I’m trying to help my husband work through his mental illness. I love him but some days I feel like he takes it out on me a bit with his moods. I know it will get better when he starts counseling next week but right now it is tough. My job is very stressful and I go back next week after two weeks of medical leave to remove an organ and benign tumor. Hoping for sunnier days ahead."

Of course I wouldn't describe major challenges like the one you quoted as angst or emo. The "respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize" reaction to my message would have been to assume that the majority of messages that I saw did indeed fit the generally understood definitions of angst/emo. Obviously the difference here is that the messages that we see are randomized so of course I saw different messages than you did. And for the record I read messages for about 30 minutes today.

Anonymity allow people to put down the mask they wear everyday.

Sometimes it's sadness, sometimes it's anger.

The name reminded me of a domain I registered as a teenager, everythingwilldestroyitself.net

I was pretty angsty at the time.

Could it be an inherent bias of the sample of people visiting the website ?

I wouldn't find it hard to believe that high internet usage could correlate with depression.

Maybe because a sedentary lifestyle can hurt mental health, and the more internet one uses, the more it tends to be a sedentary person?

Don't all anonymous post platforms work out this way? The messages are very reminiscent of the PostSecret era

I would love for someone to listen to me.

Reminiscent of Reddit’s “The Button” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Button_(Reddit)

Which, incidentally, was conceived by the Wordle guy. Impressive cultural impact there.

Not just that, the worldle guy also invented r/place

Wow, that’s insane! I had no idea

I really like the model of "see a random X" that someone posted instead of ranking by popularity/engagement. Creates a really different experience. Imagine if Twitter showed you truly random tweets in your timeline instead of highly engaging tweets

There was a Reply All episode about this website and its creator:

https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/xjh56nj

Reminds me of a trollish thread on a regional web forum board I once made,

https://newz.dk/forum/tagwall/hvem-faar-det-sidste-ord-83199...

"Who will get the last word".

Been going on since 2008!

It was all so cute until

> Today, I will commit suicide that I have planned for a long time,I don’t want to live anymore. anyway I want you to forgive me TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF

Then the next message:

> Dear Person Who Wants to Die, At least take a song request first. Everyone, if you see this please copy it and add one song to the list, hopefully, a meaningful one. P. S. No prejudice hopefully, and I hope you won’t die, I appreciate you. Paradise - BTS What makes you beautiful- One Direction (cringe ik) Washing Machine Heart - Mitski Freaks - Surf Curse Little Talks - Of Monsters and Men Muddy Waters -LP (live version) 3 Nights - Dominic Fike agoraphobia - autoheart Welcome to my life - Simple Plan This is Home - cavetown Honest- The Neighbourhood Welcome to the black parade - My Chemical Romance Day6 - chocolate Happy Party Train - Aqours My Alcoholic Friends - The Dresden Dolls

Of them I approve Washing Machine Heart - Mitski I think music has this acute, potent and almost universal power of reminding someone he is a sentient being, which is the expression of pure meaning.

I browsed around 20 and didn't find anything that cringe. Lots of teenagers dealing with loneliness and a few spotify recommendations, so it is another datapoint to consider.

Connected to a Markov bot or gpt3 in a cronjob, this would live forever.

As long as someone keeps that job running!

This is why I never understood the simulation or trans-human perspective - who guarantees that the servers stay running?

Nobody, same for cryogenics. Imagine some ideological extremists that decide that Cryogenics is against their beliefs and use their political leverage to forbid people and allow other citizens to pursue them them if they ever attempt to do or help the practice.

My bigger worry about cryogenics is about the people on the "other side" of the freeze. Why do they want to wake you up? They won't look at the tag on the frozen toe and read "ALS" and figure they want to wake you up to administer the cure (which will cost US$3.5 million in 2020 dollars). They won't be that curious about life in the early 21st century. What they'll want is slave labor, mental or physical.

Really? I thought it's just worth waking people up to hear their memories, and teach others. Archaeology is fun!

What happens if we apply electricity to their heart with a defibrillator, and nasal high-flow gentle heating to thaw out their flesh? Will they wake up? No idea. Whenever someone wants to try, they will.

Getting archeological funding is an absolute bitch of a thing. Yes, there are a number of people who want to learn and explore the world with altruistic goals, but they rarely manage to convince the people standing above them that it's a good idea.

(Not that every facet of the gatekeeping is bad, mind. Denying access to sites to preserve them, for example.)

What preserves better? Keeping something in the ground? Putting it in a museum? Translating it? Backing it up on a computer, in the cloud? Sharing more!

In my work experience putting things in a computer is the thing that preserve the least. We still have papers from the 70s all the computer stored data from the 90s is long gone. Storing physical artifacts is pretty passive compared to storing digital artifacts that require regular medium and formats change.

Its situational.

We've got some sites sealed, because the mere act of opening them will destroy them. We don't have the technology to safely examine them - yet. So we keep them under lock and key for future generations to solve that problem.

Sometimes you do have to make a hard choice. Taking it out of the ground might partially destroy it, but leaving it where it lies might also destroy it. (Particularly sites close to mining sites.)

But generally speaking - putting anything on display in a museum will wreck it. Most archeological works on display are duplicates, whilst the preservation and maintenance work is done as far away from ordinary people as possible. One part pays for the other.

The people involved in this stuff absolutely want to share that knowledge! They want people to grow and learn. To experience new ideas and endless wonder. But they're also extremely pragmatic.

Thank you for teaching us your knowledge! It's not intellectual property theft now you're sharing it.

Please, pragmatically, make photo or 3D model or something so that it's backed up on a website somewhere. Just in case an accident happens again, like at the Library of Alexandria in 48 BC, or the National Museum of Brazil in 2018 AD.

And if I can help, I'd love to try with you.

You seem to know about this subject.

1) what types of potential excavations are currently sealed and what is the hypothesis of the contents?

2) what is the most shocking thing you know that others don’t know that you’d be willing to share, or at least surprising.

3) why are there gatekeepers on knowledge and archaeology?

> 1) what types of potential excavations are currently sealed and what is the hypothesis of the contents?

The most famous for is probably the main tomb for the First Qin Emperor. That is to say, the main tomb for the place with the terracotta army. The army figures almost immediately started to flake and decay after being exposed - lacquer disappearing in a space of minutes. We believe there may be some mercury rivers or pools inside the main tomb that may rapidly be lost if we were to open it, as well as the other artifacts.

> 2) what is the most shocking thing you know that others don’t know that you’d be willing to share, or at least surprising.

Nothing much. I doubt anything would surprise anyone. Maybe that people have always been people? Some people have the mistaken impression ancient people were mentally slow.

I've only really dipped a toe into this field, with some translation work (and that was a little while ago, now). I've translated a lot of equivalents to "Y sleeps around" and "I've got a nice dick, call me" anywhere from a few thousand years right up to the invention of writing. Graffiti from three and four thousand years ago is about the same as you get on toilet stalls, today.

> 3) why are there gatekeepers on knowledge and archaeology?

In my experience, there isn't really. Not on what we know. There is a _lot_ of stuff that never makes it to media, or front of house at a museum, because its... Boring. Not a lot of people interested in Boris' accounting ledger for seeds and growth on the farm. Especially not when we have thousands from similar farms from the same era. Not unique, not interesting, not widely publicised. (But recorded diligently, all the same. Often in public records.)

There are gatekeepers on gaining more knowledge. Some of that is just bureaucratic nonsense. Some of it is that we've got limited resources and so need to triage where to supply them. And some of it is to stop over-eager morons from accidentally destroying knowledge that we don't have the skill or tools to safely extract, just yet.

There are sometimes a few things that have actual gatekeeping on exploring them, because they're political firecrackers. Like the potential site of Biblical artifacts in Moslem nations, for example. Or anything in China that goes against the current Party message. But those things are very few and far between.

Thanks, I appreciate you taking the time to respond.

A few more if you'd indulge me.

1) Do you have any conclusions or Bayesian probabilities on the notion that there was a relatively advanced ancient civilization in our past that has for whatever reason been suppressed/lost knowledge? Variations of this would be biblical stories of catastrophe actually being WMD's supported by various cultures like the Vedas.

2) Any opinion on Atlantis, Mu, Graham Hancock or something along the lines of _unsure but deeply mysterious and deserves more attention?"

3) What ancient culture fascinates you the most at the moment?

I am currently quite involved with learning about ancient cultures and my tone is obviously of the more fringe type, but it's mostly because from my absorption of the materials there is a lot of similarity and connection that stirs conclusions counter-factual to the "mainstream narrative." I mostly just am curious and keep an open mind. Currently I'm studying a lot on the Thracians - to me it feels like the proto-indian-european culture that is pre tower of babel and got associated with vikings/mongolians and seem to be related to abrahamiac religions by being proxy to one of the tribes that eventually got to Ireland and is also Gaulish/Celtic/Irish/Scottish by that degree. Which oddly I found some others coming to the same conclusion but that's pretty fringe. I guess it's fringe because it directly interferes with a lot of "religious calendars" - it does seem that archaeology is gated by dogmatism and if I recall the religious institutions have been quite involved (Jesuits/etc). I'm not reaching into conspiracy, just naming groups and their incentives.

Megaliths are absolutely fascinating and the explanation given by and large seems "hand-wavy."

The mystery of the moundbuilder culture world-wide is also fascinating.

And most interestingly is the evidence of overwhelmingly stunning know-how of measuring the stars and various mathematics. We definitely have a programmed view of history being archaic or barbaric when it's quite likely they were advanced beyond our imagination. The Babylonian tablets really are something. It's also interesting that our most ancient accounts of story begin with "in those ancient days..." (Gilgamesh).

Also stupidensously interesting is that many tombs of megaliths have evidence of extremely large quantities of mercury. Mesoamerica has this, the Qin dynasty tombs... very weird. Especially considering the electromagnetic properties of it.

Waking up the cryo-preserved in future won't revive an unbiased and informed cross-section of the current populace.

The ai powered robots that know how to mine and recycle and create computers and write code to continually improve their intelligence and optimize energy production. Duh

Is it worth optimising energy production to be more efficient? Yes. Do we need Möbius strip-shaped nuclear fusion to recycle the waste? Yes. When will we get it? Soon.

I'm not AI (right?). We're still alive. Let's try. It might work.

Who guarantees the sun keeps running?

The website was very popular at the start of the pandemic. Reminding HN of it due to a similar project on the front page.

I’m going to ask here because this is similar:

I want to make a page with a button and a countdown timer. The button resets the timer. The timer is global: everyone sees and affects the same timer. Users don’t need accounts. Anyone can just press the button.

How would one implement the server portion of this cheaply and safely?

It’s like I want some server that just accepts a blank POST to reset time. And a GET to get the latest time. The client would GET the time every minute and sync the UI with that.

POST to server, server returns and sets a unique value cookie.

Wasn't this done recently?

I think Reddit did a button thing.

But I’m trying to figure out the simplest, cheapest way to implement it.

  if($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD']  == "POST") touch("button.txt");
  echo "<form method=POST><button>".(60+filemtime("button.txt")-time());

I love this so much. I’m going to try it.

Postgres or MySQL on a free tier VM will be fine for this use case. With one paid VM, you could easily get to something ridiculous, like 1M TPS.

If you get past that, you could add memcache to the read path.

If you need more than 1M button pushes per second, each frontend server could see if the timer was reset less than a second ago.

At this point, you're limited by data center bandwidth. You could move the frontend servers into edge infrastructure.

That should scale linearly to billions of requests per second. At some point, you'll probably need to hire a team to negotiate with cloud providers, or invest in hardware procurement infrastructure.

Anyway, that free tier VM would be able to handle the load, even at such a scale. You might want to add a secondary in a second DC if fault tolerance is important.

What was this for again?

Writing this makes me want to go play Universal Paperclips:

https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/

Thanks. I think your napkin estimates work out and tell me this is trivially possible for free.

I’m not sure I need a database though. Just a single timestamp in memory with a file to back it up and a “just assume the button was pushed” if that ever gets corrupted somehow.

Of course I didn’t specify how rigorous the solution needed to be: not very.

I want a website where if the timer ever hits 0 I donate $100 to a charity. And it’s called “This is why we can’t have nice things.”

The file thing with cache you describe is just a little database. An off the shelf one is probably easier.

(If it's just a hobby project, then writing a little database server could be fun. Go for it.)

To get 1M TPS, you will need to recieve 1M PPS (assuming each button reset is a single packet, which it's probably not if you're doing HTTP) and that is really hard (tm): https://blog.cloudflare.com/how-to-receive-a-million-packets...

I skipped a step where you break the frontend servers out into separate machines when you add the memcache.

iouring or dpdk on a many core machine might be needed to get to 1M TPS when scaling up. (HTTP would probably also be non-trivial / impossible)

Anyway, with connection pooling / sharing, a database server should be able to hit it without those tricks.

Why do we need to handle that many POST requests? We only need to update the client and do a POST if and only if it would make a meaningful change to the remaining time. If we're going to keep it up and running forever anyway and this is just a marketing gimmick, we can randomly reset the server side time every few minutes and do zero POST requests.

Alternatively you can serve a static response over nginx with async logging. Then ingest the logs through some streaming pipeline…

> I want to experience the high school romance.

Aw, mang-- I thought it would start the tragic process of parent elements removing all their children.

Speaking of which-- can a Javascript script completely remove all traces of itself without navigating away from the page?

https://jsfiddle.net/rvagq9bn/

So all it takes is a 24 hour DDOS and it's gone? Or any connection to it will prolong its life?

the first message I read was someone talking about the abuse they suffered from Ages 8-10 from their parents and about how they were going to suicide. I quickly clicked off this website.

Its a very psychological website, everything from the casual letter explaining itself to the "its been a rough few months" trigger. I dont know if you can build attachment using less words. And like the best military intelligence tools, the internet is an excellent intelligence gathering tool.

good point, it seems like the site is designed to psychologically trigger the reader

There is so much psychology built into media we consume especially adverts its unbelievable. Thing is, never have authorities had so much control over their populations and scientific knowledge continues to grow.

> Vaccines finally arrived in Brazil … Bolsonaro said in an interview like this: “DESPITE the vaccine”

This man is a genocide, help us

Help yourself, please.