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SoylentNews
from the we've-been-here-for-you;-will-you-be-here-for-us? dept.
[20200629_140251 UTC: Update 1: Encourage taking care of personal/local needs, first.]
[20200629_191024 UTC: Update 2: Added stretch goal of $1000.00 ]
[20200630_023201 UTC: Update 3: Increased stretch goal from $1000.00 to $2000.00]
[20200630_023201 UTC] What is possibly one of the worst things to hear from an editor? "I'm at a loss for words." Well, it's happened. The SoylentNews community has done it, again! We started today needing $800 to cover projected operating expenses of $3500 for the first half of the year. And you did it! So, I added a stretch goal of an additional $1000. Now you have gone and reached that goal, too! We'd run at a significant loss ($6000 so far), so that is very much appreciated! THANK-YOU!!!. Stretch goal has now been increased to $2000 [so we can continue to track your subscriptions in the Site News block]. Dare I hope? --martyb
[20200629_191024 UTC] The SoylentNews community is AMAZING! In these especially difficult circumstances, we've reached our original goal for ongoing expenses... and then some!
Thank You!!!!
We started today (Monday June 29) needing over $700.00 to cover projected operating expenses for the first half of the year.
We not only reached our original goal of $3500.00, but I added a stretch goal of $1000.00 and we are already 66% of the way to reaching *that*!
Why a stretch goal? Because we have been running at a deficit for a few years. We are are still about $6,000.00 short of having sufficient funds to pay back our benefactor's original $10,000.00 outlay. Any additional funds raised will go towards that purpose whilst giving us a larger safety cushion. --martyb
The original story (after performing Update #1) appears below:
SoylentNews could use your help.
tl;dr The first half of our fiscal year runs Wed. January 1 through Tue. June 30, inclusive. We are at 80% of the funds needed to cover our expenses for the period. If money is tight for you, take care of yourself first. But, if you can help, it would mean a lot to help us to continue to be here for you.
Please subscribe. The subscription amount provided (e.g. $20.00 for 1 year) is the minimum amount for that period; you can change that default to any larger value.
To all who started a new subscription or renewed an existing subscription: Thank You!
Times are tough. First, please take care of yourself and those close to you. But, if you do have funds to spare, we would very much appreciate your support!
Where We Stand:
So far, we have had 106 subscriptions this year which have netted us an estimated $2,794.92 (after processing fees from Stripe/Paypal) towards our goal of $3,500.00.
We run a very lean operation; $20/day keeps everything going. Staffing is all-volunteer; nobody has ever been paid anything for their work on SoylentNews. That includes the editors who get the stories out on the main page. The sysadmins who keep everything running: the servers and all the services like the MySQL databases, Apache HTTP Server, IRC (Internet Relay Chat), email... it's a long list. That we so rarely have issues is a testament to how fortunate we are to have professionals who donate their free time to keep things running. We had to incorporate to be able to accept subscriptions to pay expenses. And with that there are fees for maintaining the incorporation, calculating taxes, and paying them.
Subscriptions Breakdown:
Number of subscriptions for each subscription amount, and the totals at that level, so far in 2020:
Qty Sub Amt Total 7 $4.00 $28.00 12 $5.00 $60.00 2 $12.00 $24.00 63 $20.00 $1260.00 2 $25.00 $50.00 3 $30.00 $90.00 1 $36.60 $36.60 1 $39.39 $39.39 3 $40.00 $120.00 4 $50.00 $200.00 1 $60.00 $60.00 2 $100.00 $200.00 1 $113.00 $113.00 2 $120.00 $240.00
The Pandemic Sucks:
The world has changed in the past six months.
A lot.
The pandemic hit and with it came lock-downs, work-from-home, and social distancing. Closures of movie theaters, restaurants, and bars. Video conferencing became a norm as in-person gatherings were prohibited. And for good reason: worldwide, over 10 million are known to have been infected and over a half million have died. Untold struggles and suffering as we attempt to understand and adapt to a new reality.
We recognized that many of the community were struggling. On April 19th, we extended all subscriptions that were due to expire in April or May to the end of May. If money was tight and it was a choice of renewing your subscription or paying your bills, we'd rather you spend your money locally and so thereby help keep the money in your local community.
Folding@Home (F@H):
SoylentNews is helping in the fight against SARS-CoV-2. You might not be aware, but SoylentNews has a Folding@Home team. We are currently ranked in the top 300 teama in the world (#297 out of 254150 teams)!
F@H is a distributed computing project designed to help understand how proteins fold and thereby search for cures to various diseases. It was originally focused on Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases as well as cancer. With the appearance of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, F@H has pivoted to trying to unravel the behavior of that virus. To this end, many large infrastructure companies (like AWS, Microsoft, Oracle, and Google) have joined the effort.
How it works: Install the client on your computer, instruct it what amount of resources to use, and you are ready to go. The client will periodically download work units and, when completed, upload the results to the F@H servers. The faster the results are computed, the more points are earned. We are team #230319. If you have computes to spare, we'd love to have you join us!
Stories and Discussions:
Through all this, we here at SoylentNews have persevered. People from all over joined us in discussions on the pandemic and so many other topics. We aim for news with a technological focus but will occasionally offer something a little offbeat.
So far in 2020, SoylentNews has posted over 2,100 stories. Separately, the community has posted 700 journal entries. To these 2,800 items, the community has posted 76,000 comments — over 400 comments per day! In addition, there have been over 55,000 comment moderations — that's nearly 300 per day.
Server Upgrades:
We are continuing our efforts to move services from beryllium (our only Centos server) to aluminum (Gentoo). Deucalion (on IRC; aka Juggs on SoylentNews) has been trudging along trying to get things brought over for IRC (Internet Relate Chat). He reports he had a 100-hour long week at work last week, but still managed to make some progress on this over the weekend. There are significant differences between the two, so it has been quite the challenge. Getting userids added to the correct groups; setting up ACLs; chron syntax incompatibilities; the list goes on and on.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Tuesday June 30 2020, @05:33AM (2 children)
This gets close to a proper rebuttal to the counter-point to my original suggestion. "Don't judge somebody until you've walked a mile in their shoes" is not an absolute. The person who suggested that the statement is flawed because it should include serial killers is suggesting that it *is* an absolute. In general, assuming that a proverb like that is absolute tends to lead to just these kinds of fallacies.
For example, "do unto others as you would have done unto yourself". If you take it too literally, you end doing something totally wrong like buying your wife a bunch of fights on pay-per-view.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday June 30 2020, @05:53AM
Well, in the context, I reckon is not that bad, as it will balance out; for example, your wife may buy you some high heels and sexy fishnet stocking.
Oh... wait... that's bad! You'll need some leg hair removal sessions!
Ummm... I think you may be right.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 30 2020, @12:16PM
Ignoring that the proverb actually was absolute, we still have no guidance from you on when it applies. Why does the proverb apply to welfare deadbeats and not to corporate welfare deadbeats? Why aren't you demanding that we walk a mile in the shoes of the stadium owner before decrying the public funds he's using to build his stadium?
Another reason why proverbs like this tend to lead to these sorts of "fallacies" is because they are false even in the non-absolute sense. We need to make split-second judgments all the time, for an important class of judgments that can't afford to walk a mile in anyone's shoes. It could be deciding whether that car ahead of you is a risk to you, whether to follow that YouTube link provided by the poster who just blathered about SJWs and libtards, or whether you really want to read that pamphlet that the strange guy just gave you in the parking lot while you're rushing to finish some errands. Judgment happens all the time and it is healthy.
Further, I think people are ignoring how effective these soft discouragements are at keeping societies running. For example, I think a big part of the reason that the Scandinavian countries can survive their levels of social programs is because they have social factors like embarrassment driving down the demand for the programs. IMHO, that's also one of the big tools in primitive tribes for getting rid of leeches in the tribe.
Overconsumption of social safety nets is a bigger problem than embarrassment and shame. That's why so many societies which have widespread cooperative behavior, also have embarrassment and shame in the tool box.