They had an invite only one in the bard days before it was rebranded to gemini. You didn't just need to get the invite link but actually link your discord to your google so I didn't bother.
Just goes to show that google's attempts at chat have been a big flop and even though google chat exists they don't use it.
> otel is at odds with the observability business because these actors have little interest to contribute back to telemetry agents since anyone can reap the rewards of that.
To reinforce this: pandoc has been the go-to for a long, long time and they have encountered and addressed tons of issues, which is especially important for two underspecified and over-provisioned formats like HTML and pdf.
Go through the revision and bug history to see a sample of issues you're avoiding by using a highly-trafficked, well-supported solution.
The only reason not to use it is when they say they don't support a given feature that you need; and the nice thing there is that they'll usually say it, and have a good reason why.
The other reason to use pandoc is that while you might currently want PDF as your outbound format, you might end up preferring some other format (structured logically instead of by layout); with pandoc that change would be easy.
Finally, pandoc is extensible. If you do find that you want different output in some respect, you can easily write an plugin (in python or haskel or ...) to make exactly the tweak you need.
I mean everything has dependencies (some of the solutions elsewhere require Chrome and other common solutions require the JVM). At least Pandoc is GPL.
There are multiple ways to "depend", so if pandoc executes some external tool all of the work then might as well use that external tool directly. You will get more control over how the conversion happens, know for what search for when in trouble etc.
Sure, I don't mean that anyone would look at the Latex in between. I'm just saying that if tool x directly calls tool y to do the job then might as well use tool y directly.
Since hammers and nails are a common tool-workpiece example…consider the nail gun.
Theoretically you can drive nails with a 22 caliber blank cartridge without making the “call” through a nail gun. But you won’t finish laying shingles as quickly and easily…
Or to put it another way, there’s a reason assemblers are almost always better than machine code and compilers are almost always better than assemblers for the ends people care about.
I mean why use Latex at all when you could write your own typesetting language? Maybe because you are not a knuth.
You're confusing wrappers with alternatives. The comparison is more like if somebody published a script called html-to-pdf.sh which directly calls, e.g, chrome, would you want to use this script or use chrome directly? I would prefer the latter because (1) I would know what actually does the conversion, (2) I would know what to search for on the web should I need to tweak the output. This knowledge gives me more power as I know the actual converter. The wrapper script perhaps only helps with what the command line should be.
> I’ve yet to use an LLM that can consistently provide sources that back up what it’s telling me.
Mmmh, that would have been my take as well up to around end of Q1 2025.
Theses days, the flagship LLM's have reduced hallucination by quite a bit, and are also way better at citing sources (you sometimes have to nudge them).
ChatGPT 5 has been very decent on that particular axis.
In my chats with 2.5 Flash it gives me the direct sources lol. Also not going to lie, I've found 2.5 Flash generally gets straight to the point with sources a lot quicker than Pro. To the point I don't really use Pro.
Edit - just used Pro, gave me a direct source. Who knows...
1. There is very little actually wanted SMS comms between users and businesses. 90%+ of it is probably 2FA codes anyway, and the rest is tied to some potential transaction.
For the latter, SMS costing even 100x more as normal is irrelevant - we're talking about spending extra $0.1 on confirmation and reminders on a $50+ service (hairdresser, tire change, vet appointment, doc appointment, whatever) - so it shouldn't be disturbing to actual voluntary business between two consenting parties.
2. There's a fuck ton of small businesses out there. I'm not going to call 15 local restaurants, 5 clinics, 12 PV solar peddlers, 20 MLM representatives and a sex shop, to tell them all to "knock it off".
Fortunately, I live in Europe; thanks to GDPR, they don't dare. Except for PV solar peddlers and Bitcoin scams, which have a special place in hell ready for them - and MLM people, which are already in hell, but don't realize it.
Nah. SMS in its terminal stage after losing battle with advertising cancer[0]. There's no point in even trying to save or resurrect it without first getting rid of the sickness - marketing communications.
> 2. There's a frak ton of small businesses out there. I'm not going to call 15 local restaurants, 5 clinics, 12 PV solar peddlers, 20 MLM representatives and a sex shop, to tell them all to "knock it off".
Good because none of them are bulk sending sms spam. Or likely sending any biz SMS thanks to TCR.
Meanwhile the actual bulk senders of SMS are happily firehosing it to millions of phones, thanks to the protections they purchase - also thanks to TCR.
> There is very little actually wanted SMS comms between users and businesses.
In total SMS sure. And those corps that send the 90% pay TCR so they can keep sending that unwanted SMS. TCR is a good fit for the biggest spammers.
Conversely, 100% of the SMS I send to my customers are wanted; they pay to support them and SMS is how they want that to happen.
My customers have their own customers - who also want to comm using SMS.
For us, TCR has mostly killed off our SMS access to ur customers. None of my MNVO lines carry SMS any longer, because of the onerous TCR compliance burdens.
Likewise my clients can no longer SMS their customers - even though it has long been an expected part of their relationship.
To recap:
1) TCR harms small biz who send wanted, necessary and consensual SMS.
2) TCR also protect bulk senders of unwanted SMS senders, because they have paid for that protection.
Vigorously throwing shade at 1 while voicing no meaningful objection to 2 seems like an unfortunate position.
Just because an SMS originates from a computer does not make it spam. I like to be notified that my drive up order is ready or for a link to check in at the doctor.
That's why making each message costly is the way to go - it's not discriminating on what or how sent the message, it just forces sending to scale no faster than actual service of the business. A text or two per delivery or a doctors' visit is still a rounding error compared to costs of the transaction itself, but casually spamming hundreds of thousands of people becomes a noticeable cost.
You're right. Just the other day I got this annoying spam message from my local pharmacy - "your prescription is ready for pick up". Why would I want that? And my hairdresser too? "Reminder: you have an appointment tomorrow at 10AM" wow they'll send anything to try to get my business.
If these were legit businesses, they would send it to my email so it can be listed with all the GeekSquad invoices I receive from Gmail addresses. Of course, because everyone is just like the average HN user, they know how to set up intricate filters to prioritize the GeekSquad invoices.
> You're right. Just the other day I got this annoying spam message from my local pharmacy
Right. That's who TCR doesn't stop.
But lets say you buy a DIY home upgrade from a local biz and the two of you are in a support session and are sending pics and messages back and forth over SMS.
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