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"Technologist perspective" - BS, you can only afford to entertain your philosophical takes because of strong reliability of the services around you, from your g

"Technologist perspective" - BS, you can only afford to entertain your philosophical takes because of strong reliability of the services around you, from your grocery store being full of goods to electricity at your place, to HN being online.

KronisLV 5y ago
To me, that sounds like perhaps choosing a lifestyle which has significant reliance on those services, while at the same time not accounting for any possible downtime and expecting everything to work - that's akin to running your application on a single VPS with no backups. If there are any issues with the grocery store or the technologies in it, then perhaps it's possible to pay in cash. If there are larger problems with the grocery store's supply chain, i can just go outside to my greenhouse and get some fresh veggies. If i don't have a greenhouse, i have a bunch of beans and other canned goods in my cellar, as well as crackers and so on. If i don't have my cellar, i have a bunch of frozen meat in the fridge. If i don't have said meat, i have a rifle and a forest with animals for that. And if i don't have any of that, i can always just go to my neighbours and ask whether they have anything to share (or offer the same sort of help, should they be dealing with the same hypothetical situation, instead of me; things would only break down when everyone would be starving). If there are electricity interruptions, i have a few UPSes in place. If the UPSes run out of power, then i have a diesel generator in the cellar (with the appropriate ventilation system in place). If i don't have any diesel, my house has a stove that burns wood and has central heating with radiators, as well as candles or a petroleum lamp, or even a flashlight with a generator for lights. And if HN isn't online, i'll just read a book, since there is a shelf with some lovely literature to be enjoyed, or will simply write something in my diary, as people do. I'm saying this not to discredit the fact that many people choose to live in the larger cities, since there are definitely different advantages to that choice, however at the same time you have to consider the overall trends in society, when you take things as electricity or a stable food supply for granted, which may not always be the case. That said, there are relatively few things that are truly time sensitive, such as having a supply of important life sustaining medication. I wouldn't expect my grocery store to have a 99.99% uptime, nor would i expect that even out of my electricity supply, hence the UPSes and generator, and HN going down wouldn't be the end of the world either. And when we are talking about the greater supply chains that we don't see in our daily lives, honestly there always should be a business continuity plan in place - if your computer system goes down because of Y2K, a solar flare or the data center burning down, then you should be able to keep on trucking with calculators and some paper. Anything less is not all that responsible, if we're really talking about important domains.

KronisLV 5y ago

To me, that sounds like perhaps choosing a lifestyle which has significant reliance on those services, while at the same time not accounting for any possible downtime and expecting everything to work - that's akin to running your application on a single VPS with no backups. If there are any issues with the grocery store or the technologies in it, then perhaps it's possible to pay in cash. If there are larger problems with the grocery store's supply chain, i can just go outside to my greenhouse and get some fresh veggies. If i don't have a greenhouse, i have a bunch of beans and other canned goods in my cellar, as well as crackers and so on. If i don't have my cellar, i have a bunch of frozen meat in the fridge. If i don't have said meat, i have a rifle and a forest with animals for that. And if i don't have any of that, i can always just go to my neighbours and ask whether they have anything to share (or offer the same sort of help, should they be dealing with the same hypothetical situation, instead of me; things would only break down when everyone would be starving). If there are electricity interruptions, i have a few UPSes in place. If the UPSes run out of power, then i have a diesel generator in the cellar (with the appropriate ventilation system in place). If i don't have any diesel, my house has a stove that burns wood and has central heating with radiators, as well as candles or a petroleum lamp, or even a flashlight with a generator for lights. And if HN isn't online, i'll just read a book, since there is a shelf with some lovely literature to be enjoyed, or will simply write something in my diary, as people do. I'm saying this not to discredit the fact that many people choose to live in the larger cities, since there are definitely different advantages to that choice, however at the same time you have to consider the overall trends in society, when you take things as electricity or a stable food supply for granted, which may not always be the case. That said, there are relatively few things that are truly time sensitive, such as having a supply of important life sustaining medication. I wouldn't expect my grocery store to have a 99.99% uptime, nor would i expect that even out of my electricity supply, hence the UPSes and generator, and HN going down wouldn't be the end of the world either. And when we are talking about the greater supply chains that we don't see in our daily lives, honestly there always should be a business continuity plan in place - if your computer system goes down because of Y2K, a solar flare or the data center burning down, then you should be able to keep on trucking with calculators and some paper. Anything less is not all that responsible, if we're really talking about important domains.