The legal terms seem pretty evil for what this is. I'll allow that evil may not be the intent. Perhaps you just asked a lawyer for the most bulletproof terms possible, but what you've end up with is a very one sided set of terms. Honestly the more I read, the weirder they get. If I tell a lie to another user, them I'm liable to be banned? I see what you are going for in that section, but as written, any normal, day to day, social lubricant style lie/falsehood could get you banned? On a social network?

Edit: reading further, I suspect these were just taken from somewhere unless in 2025 they've got some Flash code to protect:

>Copy or adapt the Services' software, including but not limited to Flash, PHP, HTML, JavaScript, or other code.

Yeah, that is a good point. I might need to tone it down a bit. Not trying to be evil, the intent was to protect myself and the users. I worried about what could go wrong like chatrooms turning into toxic places or the service being used for nefarious purposes. I wanted set some rules. I am a student though and I don't have money for lawyers so I just copied a boilerplate legal contract from a service and didn't change much.

I'm trying to keep in mind this isn't something you approached as a product to release or anything, and you're a student. I feel like I'm coming off pretty harshly here, but... you should be more worried about the "nefarious purposes" part than anything else, right now. I feel like offering this sort of service publicly - particularly in 2025 - requires some legal counsel.

One other concern about the implementation: it sounds like Hub administrators - who is just the first person to create a Hub in a particular area - are given a lot of power. No more Hubs are able to be created in an area? So if a Hub admin abuses their power that area is screwed, unless of course you (or whoever would be handling such cases, if indeed that would happen) agreed that they've overstepped, which may or may not be the case, particularly with a vague TOS

Anyway I think the idea is intriguing, and like new ways of exploring social media/communities.

It is evil to not allow lies?

That does not seem to be so evil .. but I did not found the legal terms on a first glance, so maybe there is more?

One of these statements is a lie:

I live in America

I have red hair

I like bluebirds

Do you think it is good and just and fair to ban someone for one of these falsehoods?

Depends what your intentions are. If I want a authentic community, I would not want people to participate who lie where they live.

Otherwise there is the concept of making a prank which is fine by me.

But intentionally spreading lies for political propaganda or scam is very much a reason to ban someone like this for me.

What is your credit card info? Don't lie.

I don't want to tell you

is a truth and a perfectly safe answer

It did answer your question. One can also refuse a answer - that is not lying, neither by omission or anything else.

Ok so it was tongue-in-cheek if not obvious but thanks whoever for the downvote. Then a bit more serious... There might be even better examples but let's consider that someone is part of a community that can use what is considered a slur, depending on context, or a term of endearment, depending on context and who uses it etc... If someone else uses it but fails to disclose their appartenance to said group. When asked, they can refuse to disclose it.

Is it fair to get them banned from the community? Can we consider that they might be lying by omission? After all they didn't answer and they might pass themselves as part of a community.

There are also colloquial considerations in online interactions that might be taken into account.

This is not really what I was veering toward initially but simply as a way to bring some more nuance since humor doesn't work here apparently.

This is the sort of things we see on twitter/X etc. You can't force people to speak differently, you can't force people to disclose information they would not want to disclose, but you may want to have some sort of policy to rule these kind of issues.

"When asked, they can refuse to disclose it."

Yes and that is still not a lie. Your comment above seems to imply otherwise and it was not humor to me, but arguing in bad faith.

"Is it fair to get them banned from the community?"

If the rules say no lying, then yes.

"You can't force people to speak differently"

Of course you can. Why do you think I am around here and not on reddit or alike? There are clear rules around discourse and they are enforced.

It is a lie if they use it as if they were a full-fledged member of a community while not actually being a true member of said community.

If I disguise myself as a man, that does not mean that I can go the male restrooms. If I am asked for proof that I am actually female for some reason, can I decline showing such proof?

And regarding arguing in bad faith, I was not arguing. Maybe you are not aware of the expression 'lying by omission'? But the smileys I used were supposed to make obvious that it was a joke/tongue-in-cheek. Even the initial question was tongue-in-cheek. Do you sincerely believe that I expect to receive some credit card info?!!!

Ack that this example might not be best since the lie in the first place is the disguise. But, not everything is ruled by law, especially online. Which is also the point of the question.

"It is a lie if they use it as if they were a full-fledged member of a community while not actually being a true member of said community."

That would be a lie, yes. (I found your example above not clearly written and still am not quite sure what you meant exactly)

"And regarding arguing in bad faith, I was not arguing. Maybe you are not aware of the expression 'lying by omission'? But the smileys I used were supposed to make obvious that it was a joke/tongue-in-cheek. Even the initial question was tongue-in-cheek. Do you sincerely believe that I expect to receive some credit card info?!!!"

Asking for information and someone declining that information has nothing to do with lying by ommision. That you try to make a connection here is what makes me believe you are not debating (or talking about or whatever) in good faith.

"But, not everything is ruled by law, especially online. Which is also the point of the question."

But this is about a concrete community, where my point is, they can very much rule certain things by their law.

And to me by default, lying is evil. And not banning those who lie (which was the starting point here).

I think it's evil - by a small stretch of the word - to think that it's appropriate to forbid lying in general on a social chat platform, particularly as a bannable offence. It's also foolish to think that such terms could be reasonably enforced.

How did you even find a TOS? The link to both that and the privacy policy on the Sign Up modal don't work.

The poster appears to be Indian from their HN profile. How about we extend some grace for a slight misunderstanding of the nuances of a term that isn't particularly common in day to day discussions?

I see your point, but I think the anger comes from the fact that

1. the title was unneccessarily editorialized, 2. the word gamified is used wrong here, and 3. There was never any good reason to add the word gamified to the title, other than adding a buzzword.

The feedback people give is probably a bit harsh, but I find it understandable. If you don’t know what a term means, don’t use it - especially not if it’s completely unnecessary as in this case.

Agreed. Shouldn't have used the term without proper understanding as it gives a totally different meaning in hindsight. Sorry for that

Your and GP's two statements are not mutually exclusive. This paradigm can have significant benefits, and at the same time be too cumbersome for people to want to use consistently.

All things that were compromised with physical attacks? What are mod chips if not physical attack as a service?

I'm not aware of working jailbreaks for either Xbox Series or PS5. Its possible that's just a matter of time, but they've both been out for quite a while now it seems like the console manufacturers have finally worked out how to secure them.

Older firmware versions of PS5 are in fact jailbroken (google ps5 jailbreak and you’ll find a bunch of info). I’m not aware of any for Xbox Series but I think that’s more due to lack of interest and the fact that you can run homebrew in development mode already.

>Bit banging is a term of art that describes a method of digital data transmission as using general-purpose input/output (GPIO) instead of computer hardware that is intended specifically for data communication. [1]

I guess it depends on whether you count the PIO as "general purpose IO" or specific chip for data communication. The ability to run custom programs on them sort of pushes it away from general purpose IO and towards something like a network card that has its own firmware and compute. I think in this case it is fair to say it is debatable.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit_banging

Bit banging is software emulation of a communication protocol or digital waveform (PWM, etc). Using the 'bit-bang' label applies when software was written to implement the waveform. If its using a cpu, or co-processor, is irrelevant IMO because in either case instruction are still being executed to generate the waveform.

A network card with its own firmware and compute generally uses a network processor[1], right? A widget that is optimized at the silicon level to put fairly specific pegs into fairly a specific holes?

The RP PIO is not a network processor, and doesn't have that kind of optimization. It is a blank slate that is devoid of intended purpose. It can be used to accomplish lots of different and very arbitrary things.

They seem like very different things to me.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_processor

This was last month:

>The Philippine coastguard, in a statement, said a Chinese coastguard ship “fired its water cannon” at the BRP Datu Pagbuaya, a vessel belonging to Manila’s fisheries bureau, at 9:15am (01:15 GMT) on Sunday.

>Minutes later, the same vessel “deliberately rammed” the stern of the Philippine fisheries bureau vessel, causing “minor” damage to the boat.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10/12/philippines-accuse...

Coastguard firing a water cannon and ramming a ship causing minor damage. This is the same as a military drone causing total destruction of multiple ships?

No merely addressing the "all done through proxies" claim. And to counter the argument you are making, is an official government owned vessel the same as small random fishing boat and/or smuggler? At least in terms of reaction? To GPs point, multiple large countries have been moving the overton window here for a long time.

> This is the same as a military drone causing total destruction of multiple ships?

It's in a similar calibre of official disregard for international law.

>If Amazon ever gets rid of the without ad version they will lose me as a customer overnight.

Didn't they already remove the option for a completely ad free prime video experience or am I hallucinating that? They have such a ridiculous hold on the e reader market I feel like it is just matter of the next down quarter.

They seem to own 75% of the market, and I think you can get pretty much every book on every device, right? Of course your existing library is locked-in; ideally, that'd be illegal.

Worse - they actually can remove books that you've purchased. Not only revoke license for future downloads - but actually remove them from your device.

Ironically they did that to 1984 book.

The “good news” is you can get a refund for titles that are removed. But you have to ask for it.

Will they adjust it for "inflation" before refunding?

Neat, but not really new. People have been monitoring military activity with FIRMS for years.

Makes sense, it was launched in 2021

especially in the Ukraine war

Not for long, after TFA.

>make changes in two places to keep both versions in sync.

That's not how Python imports work. You can import in the notebook just like any other Python script.

I've found that notebooks are great for ad hoc reporting and analysis scripts. Once you have your quick and dirty script, it is trivial to convert to a notebook and you get a lot for little. Being able to change one cell and rerun just that is a godsend for getting reports "just right", and the "show your work" and visual aspect make them much more consumable and trusted by other people.