PaybackTony

There is a reason I had to lock my better version of this (https://quickish.site) behind Google OAuth to start. Like it or not, this type of stuff is going to be more popular than it was when Netlify / Heroku was doing it a decade ago.

I built this by testing a workflow for a service I started (hobby project) called quickish (https://quickish.site). You can just remix this (basically forks it and hosts it on your own space on quickish) for free. Can be public too. Can use the "Remix" button on the bottom right (just need a google account to login) or on CLI run: `npm i -g quickish && quickish remix create quickish/hn-flipboard`, there is also a quickish/flipboard that the HN one was remixed from (just a git fork behind the scenes).

You can work on it locally however you like, there is also a `quickish dev` command you can run in the site folder that starts up a local dev server with live reload. When you're happy with the changes just run `quickish . /flipboard` and it will publish it.

With all of that said, I am working on a version that is exactly what you are asking for. An editable board that lets you change the grid size, give it a unique url and password protect on top of a POST endpoint that let's you change the content via API (also all hosted on quickish) for that exact use case. I have a few more optimizations I am going through and will get that out.

I appreciate the kind words!

For those finding it now: Added more realistic flap sound effects. Mobile improvements. UI tweaks with flap animations. You can remix this and make your own, change it, etc. Download the source and have some fun. Thank you all!

I don't disagree at all on the AI design. I can do a bit more (I have worked as a senior UI engineer at Nike and AWS), the reality is many of the parts I wanted to focus on outside the UI of the flaps got that "Claude Designed This" feel to it.

The original drop flap board I remixed this from (also one I did as a demo) I added a couple more rows and cols. I played with a few things but felt like this was more in-line with what I wanted the result to be but it still feels like it could be better.

Stand by.... I agree.

Sound could be better.

I tried to use a more digital sound at first, then went a step more realistic (ElevenLabs actually) but would have preferred to just record a real one.

If you were to "Remix" it and have it on your own quickish page that settings dialog appears however it is simply an oversight on my part that it doesn't say that explicitly.

Was CloudFlare limiting after a large burst of interest. All better. Only took a leg

Was not expecting 30k visits in an hour. Patched up the mobile view and got everything running again. Oof. Thank you for checking it out!

Yes, got rate limited. Didn't expect the traffic but it's back

A pretty common one is jsPlumb - https://jsplumbtoolkit.com/ - might be what you're looking for. I'm sure there are others as well.

My point on this isn't that you should write ugly, unmaintainable code because who cares. It's that, if you're an experienced and intelligent engineer, you're going to do just fine. There's no need to complicate it, get lost in analysis paralysis and so forth. I have seen top engineering teams make software that's hard to maintain with questionable performance as a _result_ of some of the things this article brings up. Often times too much engineering is just as bad as not enough.

Here is how I personally define good software engineering:

- Does it do the job? - Is there low cognitive load in regards to following the code? (Can you jump back in the code in 6 months and get your feet quickly... AKA: Don't over-abstract). - Is it performant? - Can you easily make changes?

If those 4 things are true, the rest doesn't matter from my experience.

This is something I preach often, even at FAANG. Often engineers feel comfortable and in-the-zone when solving for a process. One saying I often delivery is: Engineers often think their job is to build things. That's not the whole story, they build things for _people_.

Nobody cares what your code looks like. Nobody cares what your architecture looks like. As engineers we should worry about creating forgettable experiences (at least in enterprise). They care that it does the job well, with low load times and an easy to use UX. That's it. If you did your job right they'll forget that software helped them do their job or complete their task faster / better because the experience was so seamless they spent the entire time focused on their own goal, and not how to navigate your software to get there. How you get there is irrelevant. Now it's your job as an experienced and intelligent engineer to make quick, thoughtful decisions on how to get your product to where it needs to be so that your _customers_ can create more impact on their own business / lives faster.

Have to touch on this as it's a common theme to my response. There absolutely are regulations. However, regulations being in place, and the enforcement of these regulations are different. STIR/SHAKEN is a requirement, however it's an easy requirement for scammers to meet. (Numbers are super cheap to buy in bulk, pennies per month typically). Sooner or later they'll run out.

The second side of the regulation miss is that carriers have to self-report much of the time. These centers pay into the 6 figures monthly to their carriers. The carriers know exactly what kind of traffic is being sent through and many times aide these scammers in shaping the traffic to look more legit. Auto-warranty scams in the past? Huge amounts of that traffic were routed through the likes of Y-Tel and a couple others. Regulators knew this but enforcement took years to happen. It's the same right now.

Lastly is the issue of what happens once enforcement occurs? The answer is not great: The scammers change numbers and keep going. They aren't local and it's not cut and dry when it comes to continuous enforcement against foreign entities. Their carriers still support them and the fines are typically less than a month's revenue from the larger outfits (think Uber).

Better meta-data helps aide robo / scam / spam blockers. IMO, we should just shut down these carriers who knowingly aide these scammers. We know who they are, they aren't hard to find.

At one point I worked on the very systems they used (dialers, PBX, internal CRMs), with the carriers that enabled it. This wasn't an opinion of mine, I was merely passing along real-world information from someone who worked in the industry (me). Many in this thread completely underestimate the volume these centers call at. We aren't talking hundreds of thousands of minutes per month per center. We're talking millions of minutes. Cost per minute is a massive cost even at 1/6 increments. The call center we ran, that was direct marketing / support typically had telecom bills well into the 6 figures every month at the height.

Their scams are purposefully asinine. It's not profitable to spend time and effort into tricking the wise into an unwise act. It's far more profitable searching for the unwise to act in kind. So when you throw your hands up asking "Who would fall for that!?" The answer is typically: Someone who'd be willing to buy a gift card or share bank account info. This contradicts your last point that a given locale is more or less likely to be scammed given the native language.

Language barriers are a part of the issue, yes, but these centers are capable of calling and speaking a number of languages. Cost and regulation are the big factors here. Just like any other business model. I got out of the business (telecom / direct marketing saas) right when EU started raising fees and coming down on some of the bad actors. Unfortunately for the US, that meant those bad actors focused even more in the US.

Also, the scams really aren't as profitable as you'd think most of the time. They generally can't afford more than a $50 CPA at best. Again, they have to turn heavy volume to get to their target market. They also rotate "offers". You hear about the big "wins" a lot (Grandma scammed for 50k+) but those are outliers. Typically it's $20 here, $100 there. Again, volume.

I built telecommunications systems / software for some time. The unfortunate truth here is that telecom carriers absolutely already have everything they need to largely put a stop to it but they knowingly ignore it. It's the biggest problem in the US because because of pricing. It's expensive to run outbound campaigns in almost any other country, and very cheap in the US (fractions of a penny per minute compared to 5-10c per minute in some EU locations). Scammers need volume to make money.

The reason carriers -- from the local exchange carriers and up -- ignore it is because just a single scam operation can mean 10s of thousands of dollars in volume a month, and sometimes more. Since they have to self-report for the most part they're not very incentivized to stop it. There are a few easy to implement regulatory / technical mechanisms that could nearly axe all of it, but carriers push back hard on those regulations and they never stick.

I know from experience dealing with this that it's absolutely not ignorance that's at play on the regulatory and commercial side. It's disgusting, and as fueled with greed and red tape as you'd fear.

Completely disagree here. See my comment in the main thread of this post. A startup could net anywhere from 200k/yr for a state park contract to 15m+/yr depending on the state. However, realistic cap on revenue with a healthy market share for just the park management / reservation management side is 55-75m annually.

We are actually competing but it's important to understand that companies like Booz Allen have fought (successfully much of the time) to have a number of qualifiers put in these RFP's that would prevent any start-up from being accepted. Things like "You need X years in this specific market for your proposal to be accepted". Obviously the only ones who can possibly have that are the existing vendors which virtually eliminates the possibility of fresh competition. We've successfully got a few states to change their requirements however, which is the first time that's been done in a quite some time.

I attended the NASPD conference this last year (National Association of State Parks Directors). After a couple of us ex Vacasa / Nike / Amazon engineers heard from our local state that the industry is up for disruption we started working on product in our free time. After attending that conference they couldn't be more right.

Those running the parks hate their options, I don't see them as a crook here. The industry for park management software that fits the needs of a public land is stale. Fees for fees is normal. The process to become a vendor for a state is long and drawn out, and is riddled with red tape that was created in large part by the very same stale old vendors who've been in it the last 30 years.

After speaking with multiple states and now being in the proposal process for a number of them, hopefully we can be a step further in the right direction (think things like opening up 3rd party integrations, better bot prevention, etc).

Another thing I'd like to pass on from talking to a number of states including the national parks people: They are really trying to move in a more equitable direction when it comes to park access. They are very aware that many park experiences aren't as accessible (hard to get a reservation) to certain demographics and from my perspective they are making an effort to figure some of those things out.

The worst (best) part is that it was only caught when they did because the attacker got greedy and tried to double dip. Would be interesting to find out how they turned a phishing attack into that.

This is a very complicated topic that seems to see a lot of conflation, as it does in this article. It's really hard for a social network to maintain a balance, especially with how many try flooding them with very hard to verify, false information from misleading sources.

On our network, our plan moving forward is to allow our users to verify their identity privately with the platform to earn an "ID Verified" badge while still maintaining an anonymous public pseudonym if they choose. The idea being that others can trust the user is a real person and not some troll (paid or otherwise) while also allowing those that wish to have it to maintain anonymity publicly.

Just to give some insight into how this anonymity becomes a problem. On our platform, I watch in real-time people / actors from outside the U.S. posing as seemingly real people in the United States and posting propaganda. Not the obviously false stuff either. Carefully crafted political BS that is meant to simply move the needle ever so slightly on the desired targets -- arguably a case where anonymity is negatively affecting democracy. There is so much to this I could probably write an entire blog on it, it's ever irritating as someone running a platform but also quite interesting.

Absolutely not. I didn't want to use a comment to talk about our project and hijack the comments section, just to provide where my perspective is coming from and that even with that I like the idea and Mastodon's approach.

To be clear: No, I'm not the one who made Truth, have no part of it, and don't know anyone working on it.

Background: I've been building a growing commercial social network. There are things about what I want to do that made that the better option for what my target market is.

With that said, I really like what Mastodon has done and as far as federated and open social networks go (ActivityPub!). It's in a class of its own IMO.

Perhaps buried in these comments is this but after reading a lot of the "takeaways" many people had from this I have to say the reality is much simpler.

People (Customers, VCs, Entrepreneurs) can empathize or sympathize with stories. They can't with ideas. It's really that simple. It wasn't the outburst or the emotion. It's the story.

If your idea doesn't have a genuine story, it's not likely to end up a genuine business.

I had used M5 some years ago to host an online rent payment / property management app. Have nothing but positive things to say about that experience. We once had an outage that was our own fault on our single server and they had someone go in, in the middle of the night, to reboot it for us and we weren't even on an SLA.

Absolutely meant discourse. The irony.

A number of the users from Parler joined the social network I built. Although I don't lean conservative in my own views (center), I believe that silencing those you feel are mis-informed or wrong only makes -- and has made -- the problem worse. An open ~discord~ discourse(oops, edit) is needed. People don't get that on Parler either. They should have a place they feel comfortable speaking about their (non-violent) views. And others should have the tools to voice their opposition openly -- and anonymously -- as well. Social networks have polarized people nearly beyond repair. I don't have to agree with you to believe you still have the right to voice your opinion. You have the right to be wrong. You have the right to an opportunity for growth.

Funny note, Parler did a copy-pasta of our motto in their re-launch.

When we launched it a couple months ago, this was the biggest question. After a lot of discussion and feedback, this is the first step toward that answer. I was initially hesitant to offer any kind of paid option, but I think allowing users to support communities as well as offer other benefits while not subtracting from the overall experience, it could work.

It's kind of like a hybrid between Spotify, Twitch and YouTube Premium.

We want to be a place where most anyone can feel at home, but that is a fine line. We don't want to be another politically biased or polluted forum. We have blocking for users and will be extending that to Channels and our upcoming Groups next week.

As for API's and scheduled posts, there aren't immediate plans for that until we nail down a proper OAuth implementation to roll out with the officially supported API's. Though there are 4 of us all together, I'm the only engineer of any kind working on it, with potentially some more help on the way here shortly.

Your questions are good ones. We asked ourselves very specifically how would we avoid being another parler yet at the same time not alienate one political crowd over another? Was a difficult question. The 4 of us span the political spectrum and I think that has helped keep us centered so far.

I don't think I could argue with these points. The Privacy Policy right now is only on the Register page and is a standard Termly one. I think some better effort needs to be put into this on our side to make a simple one and have it more clear, on the homepage. DDG had a couple bumps at the beginning but they made it through and through time established trust. But like you said, Slyde is a social network and has a greater responsibility given the kinds of data people are putting on it, to keep it private. Long story short I appreciate this take and agree with you.