[HN Gopher] Home Loss File System
___________________________________________________________________
Home Loss File System
Author : borski
Score : 373 points
Date : 2025-01-14 17:54 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (docs.google.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (docs.google.com)
| ahazred8ta wrote:
| A spreadsheet tool with guidance on what to do before and after
| the catastrophic loss of your house, and what information to
| collect.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| > _This tool was created by former California wildfire survivors
| committed to supporting you through the challenging process of
| disaster recovery. We hope to provide essential resources,
| checklists, and organizational tools to help you manage insurance
| claims, document losses, and track expenses efficiently. By
| staying organized, you hope you can regain a sense of control
| during this difficult time. We are truly sorry for your loss and
| hope this tool offers clarity, support, and empowerment as you
| move forward on your path to recovery._
| Titan2189 wrote:
| You have to remove "/htmlview" from the URL, otherwise the "File
| > Make a copy" interface is not available
| dang wrote:
| Fixed now... I think. If not please let us know!
| TheCapeGreek wrote:
| Still opened in HTML view for me
| dang wrote:
| Does anyone know what the URL should be to get the right
| effect?
| ars wrote:
| The current URL works for me.
| culi wrote:
| https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TPeJzW5pa-
| BiJZjuEa1y...
| dang wrote:
| Current URL is that plus ?usp=sharing. Not sure whether
| it's better to cut that query string or keep it.
| culi wrote:
| Thank you, I was wondering about this. For anyone else that's
| curious, the original URL looked like
|
| https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TPeJzW5pa-BiJZjuEa1y...
|
| I didn't know /htmlview was a feature of Google Sheets. neat
| DrRossNelson wrote:
| Thanks Borski for sharing the link for the Home Loss File System
| - Digital Resource that my family has been working on.
|
| Were continuing to work to get the word out about this and the
| physical file boxes were creating for folks who are not tech
| savvy (homelossfilesystem.com).
|
| We've disseminated 2700 of the physical file boxes to fire
| survivors over the last 15 years and excited about what the
| digital resource can become.
|
| We welcome contributors/volunteers/suggestions/feedback - feel
| free to add them here or email us homelossfilesystem@gmail.com
|
| The GoFundMe is 65% the way to its goal. If you wish you
| contribute you can here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-us-
| deliver-mor-1500-home-los...
|
| Thanks again all! Please continue to share with any fire
| survivors!
| DrRossNelson wrote:
| Also here is the link again for the Digital Resource:
|
| https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TPeJzW5pa-BiJZjuEa1y...
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| What an awesome awesome way to make light of what you've gone
| through. This is gonna help so many people in LA!
|
| (Also hi from just a little bit up the 15 if you're still in
| scripps ranch :))
| DrRossNelson wrote:
| We are no longer in Scripps Ranch - my parents sold their
| land and moved to Solana Beach. :D I'm up in the SF Bay Area
| myself.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| Solana Beach isn't too bad either :)
| pimlottc wrote:
| This is perhaps only a problem with the niche HN user base, but
| "Filing System" would be more accurate. Thought this had to do
| with damaged hard disk recovery or redundant file systems or
| something technical like that.
| ziml77 wrote:
| It really sounded to me like some grim project where you store
| your data by destroying houses!
| xp84 wrote:
| In version two, instead of storing a 1 as a destroyed house,
| we'll destroy them to varying degrees and then read that
| single house as multiple bits. Like TLC SSDs
| desdenova wrote:
| What if we just destroy it enough so that nobody would want
| to live there, but there may or may not be a homeless
| person living there now?
|
| Now we have quantum storage.
| ginko wrote:
| Relatively quick to write but expensive to reset the blocks.
| Hackbraten wrote:
| Version 2 works around that limitation using the divorce
| and re-marry technique.
| lazide wrote:
| It requires super sensitive sensors through. The prior
| rev could be read from orbit. (/s)
| aurizon wrote:
| Yes, first take a detailed slow panned video of each room, wall
| by wall, ceiling and carpets. Basement and all tools (open all
| and spread). Every appliance and fixtures get the medicine
| cabinet and under all sinks. Same with garage and all in there,
| same with shed and all vehicles/tools/bikes etc. You can then
| slowly advance the video, list the books etc, all the kitchen
| cabinet/freezer/clothes/bedding/frozen foods as well as dry foods
| etc and amass a fully exhaustive home inventory. An amazing
| amount of stuff = $$ builds up over the years and few people have
| such a detailed loss record. You can do the video in 15 minutes
| and as long as you save in the cloud - in a few places even - you
| can tabulate that aspect of your loss in detail later - even
| after the fact if well saved.
| vlark wrote:
| This is a useful tool for any homeowner, not just those
| threatened by wildfire. Good luck and godspeed to those currently
| in harm's way in California.
| sedatk wrote:
| There is no "File" menu in the current link because it's been
| shared in HTML view mode. To make a local copy, use this link to
| open it in edit mode instead (only the last path of the URL
| should be different):
| https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TPeJzW5pa-BiJZjuEa1y...
| rawgabbit wrote:
| Thanks for the link. I learned that CA bans insurers from
| deducting the value of land when purchasing a new home instead of
| rebuilding.
|
| _Land Value Deduction - In the event of a total loss to your
| property, the amount owed to you by the insurer is the cost to
| rebuild your home at its original location, including building
| code upgrade coverage and extended replacement cost coverage.
| Your insurer is not allowed to take a deduction for the value of
| land under the replacement home you purchase. [Cal Ins. Code
| 2051.5 (c)(2)]_
| Over2Chars wrote:
| This is a very clever idea. Cudos.
|
| I'm not 100% a fan of the google doc format, but whatever.
| DrRossNelson wrote:
| I welcome your suggestions and volunteer efforts if want to
| help us make it better!
| Over2Chars wrote:
| It is obviously well intentioned and well timed.
|
| Nit-picking it now wouldn't add any value.
| DrRossNelson wrote:
| Is there a format you'd like to see this in. Keep in mind
| the original link in this thread was not formatted
| properly. Ensure you use this:
|
| https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TPeJzW5pa-
| BiJZjuEa1y...
| Over2Chars wrote:
| I don't think you want to start a format discussion on
| Hacker News. Seriously.
| dbtc wrote:
| Technically, you started it.
| Over2Chars wrote:
| I mentioned it, true. I declined to participate.
|
| Shall we have a meta discussion?
| dxdm wrote:
| Go for it. I'd be interested to read along your meta
| discussion, but I would not want to participate in one.
| :]
| irunmyownemail wrote:
| If we click that link, who besides Google can instantly identify
| us?
| nomilk wrote:
| Great advice, especially in the second tab (how to deal with
| insurers).
|
| I've always considered insurance false-economy and avoided it
| wherever possible, especially for events with losses <$20k. This
| is because the value of the three time-costs of insurance (time
| to find, time to monitor, and time to claim) generally exceed the
| expected value the claim.
|
| For example, if my flight were cancelled, I might lose $1000. But
| all the hassle signing up for, monitoring (to ensure conditions
| don't change significantly in the insurer's favour; often
| conveyed by an email to a spam folder), and going through a
| stereotypically labyrinthine claims process is significantly
| worse than being out of pocket $1000. Or another way to put it,
| I'd pay $1000 just to _avoid_ having to do all that. Or a third
| way to put it, if someone offered me $1000 to find them a
| suitable insurance policy, monitor it to make sure the company
| didn 't spontaneously alter it, and make a claim on their behalf,
| I wouldn't do it, it's just not worth it.
|
| I get why insurers are like this. If they can sneak you a
| letter/email(/fax) and on in a foot note on page 43 'notify' you
| of a reduction in your coverage (for unchanged premiums), they
| make money. And if they make lodging a claim as onerous as
| possible, some % of claimants will abandon the claim, making them
| even more money. So insurance companies are just doing what
| they're legally allowed to do to make as much money as possible.
|
| Where possible (e.g. for events without enormous payouts
| [obviously not so helpful in the case of LA fires]) it can be
| better to DIY insurance, i.e. put a little savings aside for
| those events (just as one may pay insurance premiums), that way,
| you actually have it when you need it, unlike insurance payouts
| from insurers who generally try to make it as difficult as
| possible to obtain.
| Narkov wrote:
| > I've always considered insurance false-economy and avoided it
| wherever possible, especially for events with losses <$20k.
|
| Everything is relative, right? Self insurance is fine if you
| can afford it. Most people can't wear a $20k hit without
| potentially ending up homeless or in significant financial
| distress.
| NitpickLawyer wrote:
| > For example, if my flight were cancelled
|
| There has been a flurry of services in the EU that handle these
| things for you, if you are impacted. It's usually as simple as
| 1 form + a pic of a boarding pass, wait ~3 months and get ~70%
| of the money into your account. Exactly as low effort as needed
| to make it both useful and (one would hope) incentivise the
| airlines to sort it out in a better way for the client (i.e.
| rebooking, vouchers, etc).
| madaxe_again wrote:
| Yeah, I no longer bother with insurance but that which is
| legally mandated. I honestly wish I didn't have to insure my
| vehicles either, as the policies are just hopeless.
|
| For instance, our home flooded to the roofline and our car was
| washed away to god knows where five years back. Home insurance
| covers floods - but not floods caused by rivers. Car insurance
| covers floods - but only if parked on public land, and again
| excludes rivers.
|
| Two years ago we had a wildfire. Luckily, the houses did not
| burn, but all of our infrastructure - tanks, solar panels,
| electrical wiring, etc. - and our truck, did.
|
| Again, our home insurer informed us that they could only
| provide coverage in the event of total loss. Damage or partial
| loss, not our problem. The truck insurer informed us that the
| policy only covers fires which originate within the vehicle.
|
| It's a grift. Every probable event is excluded in one way or
| another, and only highly unlikely sets of circumstances remain,
| like your vehicle spontaneously combusting on a rainy day, or
| your stone home burning down to the foundations.
| xelxebar wrote:
| Insurance can actually be a win-win if you keep your money
| sitting anywhere else other than a literal piggy bank.
|
| Basically, it takes just as much time for your investments to
| go from 10,000 USD to 50,000 USD as it does for 50,000 USD to
| go to 250,000 USD. So a setback of 5,000 USD has a
| disproportionate impact on your future financials the less
| money you start off with.
|
| In other words, if your total wealth is low enough, the
| premiums can set you back much less than the expected loss from
| the insured event, and _at the same time_ make insurance
| companies a profit.
|
| I'm still learning about this stuff, but here's an article that
| breaks it down in more detail and more clearly than I have:
| https://entropicthoughts.com/when-is-insurance-worth-it
|
| Said article has apparently popped up on HN a few times:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26834333
| rcxdude wrote:
| In general it's worth it if a) you can't afford to replace
| the item in question (and the Kelly criterion gives you a
| precise definition of 'afford' if you really want to model it
| out), or b) you think the risk of losing the item is higher
| than the insurance company does (which is rare outside of
| cases of outright fraud, but might happen)
| rlpb wrote:
| Another advantage of insurance is that if your insurer is
| responsible for the rectification then you benefit from
| collective bargaining at a time when you may be unable to do
| so yourself.
|
| For example, if my car breaks down in the middle of nowhere
| at 3am, I expect I'll end up paying far more for recovery
| were I self-insured than a breakdown insurer will.
|
| I think the article you linked is flawed because it presents
| a mathematical solution without taking this into account.
| DrRossNelson wrote:
| We just had our Home Loss File System volunteer meeting. We are
| now exploring the idea of building this as an app. If you are
| interested in contributing to this, please reach out to me here
| or via email: homelossfilesystem@gmail.com
| lelandfe wrote:
| Emailed.
| humanfromearth9 wrote:
| Please take into account that this list is not final and may
| vary : some people may need to enter additional info. With a
| spreadsheet, this remains easy to do (you are in full control
| of the document and can add sheets, columns, rows as you wish),
| but with a webapp, it's possible only if the webapp has the
| feature to allow adding custom info.
|
| Then, also essential (if not already there) , is adding or
| mentioning a way to retrieve /store /note down all credentials
| for websites, bank apps, ID card, ID/auth/esign apps... For
| example encouraging the use of a Keepass file, even if new,
| just to note down all remembered credentials.
| greggsy wrote:
| Would love to see an Australian equivalent of this.
| soulmerge wrote:
| What? "Home Loss File System"? There is a new file sytem? And
| it's lossy? How isthat supposed to work!? _click_ ... Ooooooh
| jijikuya wrote:
| I'm on the other side of the planet so it's not my place to
| comment on the content of any of this. It seems to look like a
| good resource clearly made with the best of intentions.
|
| I understand the people/person behind this wants to quickly and
| easily impart information, so the best format for the job is
| whichever one they can distribute info in as quickly as possible
| -- but I also see this as a sort of indictment of the World Wide
| Web as we know it.
|
| This should be a website. This should be at the top of search
| results. This should be viewable on mobile devices and desktops.
| And yet, it's being shared through a proprietary office suite
| service in the form of a spreadsheet that can't be quickly
| referenced or copied without loading an entire webapp.
|
| If you're one of the many people who wonder why Google stopped
| being useful, if you're one of the many people who think it's
| getting harder to find stuff online, here's your answer as to
| why. All the good, salient, pertinent, well-formed information
| that you want to find, is being shared like this.
|
| This is what's easiest for people, and that's at odds with how we
| find content these days. This comment came out kind of half-
| baked, but I think it's interesting to think about, and it's not
| a viewpoint I see here often.
| kzalesak wrote:
| I think that the biggest advantage of the spreadsheet is that
| it can be modified easily, even democratically and also on the
| go. No website offers that kind of ease of use for _adding_
| information
| acidburnNSA wrote:
| You may be right, but it's still an indictment of the web.
| After all, the first browser was an HTML editor as well as
| viewer.
| teddyh wrote:
| Have you heard of Wikis?
| egberts1 wrote:
| Have you tried to edit just a tiny section of a Wiki while
| being updated by thousands of Wiki editors?
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| Wikipedia is literally a website that does this and has
| existed for >2 decades at this point.
| dewey wrote:
| Most wikis are not very user friendly (UI, not about the
| rules and moderation), most people have used Word / Google
| Docs before so it's much more natural.
| wruza wrote:
| ### Regular _users_ cannot edit [Wikipedia](<url>)
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| Refusal to learn != can't
| wruza wrote:
| Learning is the last thing they want to do in a situation
| like "I want to update a document about losing homes",
| and among the end of the to do list in general. One can
| argue as much as they want how it's people's fault, but
| the next catastrophe will create more google sheets and
| whatsapp groups and zero wikis and forum threads.
|
| I believe that developers could bridge this gap easily,
| if they weren't in the denial about their own UI/UX
| issues themselves.
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| I'm speaking more broadly, not this specific instance.
|
| In either case, justifying unwillingness to learn is a
| race to the bottom. I don't want every app to be made
| targeted at the lowest common denominator -- nor do I
| think it is healthy for society -- in terms of digital
| literacy. That's a race to the bottom to every app being
| like Tiktok.
|
| Remember, that Gen Z doesn't understand what a directory
| or a file is because they grew up on spoon-feeding mobile
| apps, and this is causing problems for them when they
| enter the workplace.
|
| This type of thought process of making everything as
| streamlined as possible is why that happens.
| wruza wrote:
| This is a slippery slope style argument with immediate
| overstretching into tiktok.
|
| There's a difference between learning google sheets and
| learning markdown.
|
| And you are misinterpreting the desire to not deal with
| irrelevant complexity as some race to the bottom, as if
| it wasn't constrained by the task itself.
|
| The task of both wiki and google suite (in this case) is
| to create web documents with formatting and links. We
| clearly see what wins when there's no additional
| constraints that wikipedia as a project imposes. Tiktok
| is completely incomparable to these and is not the
| "minimum state" of the same task.
|
| _This type of thought process of making everything as
| streamlined as possible is why that happens._
|
| This is just an incomplete thought. Multiple factors at
| play here and only one of these is a type of thought
| process. This is as unreasonable as saying "attention to
| details is bad cause it's a type of thought process that
| allows burglars to enter homes".
| IanCal wrote:
| Yes, let me just go pop my personal contents and insurance
| details on wikipedia as myself and my family track, update
| and modify the structure of the page.
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| Not sure why you feel justified in this level of
| snarkiness, given that i responded to a very specific
| claim:
|
| >No website offers that kind of ease of use for _adding_
| information
|
| Obviously Wikipedia isn't great to upload your social
| security number to, but it does allow democratic adding
| of information which I cited it as an example of.
|
| Please read the HN guidelines. You seem to require a
| refresher:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| >Don't be snarky.
| IanCal wrote:
| Perhaps it was a little snarky - it was intended with
| good humour to point out how drastically far away the
| suggestion was.
|
| Wikipedia is nothing like what this is for adding
| information in the way the comment says. Particularly
| because one of the very key points about this sheet is
| that you can _copy_ it and _add information_. It 's
| explicitly _for_ that and Wikipedia absolutely does not
| offer the ease of use of filling in forms and adding your
| information on the go.
| lazide wrote:
| How is a Google App being useful representative of how _Google
| stopped being useful_?
| ksynwa wrote:
| It should be theoretically possible for Google to display a
| public Google doc as a search result. Google doesn't show good
| search results because they do not want to at this point.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Public spreadsheets (and forms) simply aren't indexed by
| Google; I'm sure there's a reason somewhere but I haven't
| been able to find it.
| nicbou wrote:
| The same thing happened with the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
| In Berlin, the entire effort to support refugees was
| coordinated on WhatsApp and Telegram, backed by Google Docs. It
| still did a marvelous job until the authorities could catch up
| and prepare resources. Even then the unofficial resources were
| far better.
|
| I run an information website for a living. There is nothing I
| could have done that would have beat the speed and flexibility
| of that response. My own response was just to give those
| resources more visibility.
|
| My takeaway was somewhat opposite to yours: it's marvelous that
| we can do so much, so fast, for free, with minimal computer
| skills. We should aim to make the independent web this easy.
| cduzz wrote:
| These ad-hoc efforts are wonderful and extremely effective
| and are the utopia we all strive for.
|
| Ultimately, I think, the distinction between "products" and
| ad-hoc effort is that one is tolerant of abuse and bad actors
| (the "enterprise" or bureaucratic system) and the other
| simply isn't.
|
| I think I read it somewhere here, that any large project
| eventually turns into a moderation system.
|
| I'm not sure what actions to take as a result of this
| observation... except perhaps to be a little bit sad.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Spreadsheet software and in this case specifically google
| docs are great tools for getting something off the ground
| fast; often it's good enough that no replacement needs to be
| written. I'm reminded of a contract some of my colleagues had
| at some point where a company's core business was all in a
| shared excel sheet, their job was to replace it with a proper
| application; iirc it took like 2-3 years to get it finished,
| at significant cost / investment. Of course, the excel sheet
| was no longer fit for purpose and not a good long term
| strategy to have.
| WesolyKubeczek wrote:
| A potential problem with a website in a wartime scenario is
| that once you publicize it, it has a huge target painted on
| its RJ45 (or SFP) ports. Google Docs and whatsapp are huge
| and resilient.
| jijikuya wrote:
| > It's marvelous that we can do so much, so fast, for free,
| with minimal computer skills. We should aim to make the
| independent web this easy.
|
| Actually, I'd argue that our takeaway is the same. That's
| exactly the wider point I'm making, I'm just using this
| emergency as a synecdoche for it. This is good, the
| independent web would be better. Why is the barrier for entry
| to the 'normal' web so high that these people didn't consider
| it?
|
| Lots of information that should be hosted by local,
| independent groups is being hosted in these closed un-
| indexable platforms. It does the creator a disservice and the
| end-user a disservice.
|
| Had this disaster happened 10-15 years ago, I wager that this
| information would (I think) likely be displayed and posted
| here as a website (or at least turned into one).
|
| And zooming out, how much good info is tied up in Google Docs
| alone? Indulge me.
|
| - Here's TaranVH's (The editor from Linus Tech Tips, and a
| very technically skilled, impressive person) guide to colour
| grading.[This one hurts particularly because it's _such a
| good document_ and desperately wants to be anything but a
| Google Doc.](https://shorturl.at/InI89)
|
| - Here's a great resource for buying products for [Curly
| Hair.](https://shorturl.at/ZbNF9) This should be a blog.
|
| - How many times have you seen YT drama or open letters be
| Google Docs? (https://shorturl.at/fJapj) If they were here,
| it'd be <motherfuckingwebsite.com>
|
| - Here's a guide to video game stats. This should be on a
| Wiki. (https://shorturl.at/db49s)
|
| - Here's a worldbuilding calculator. This should be a tool
| website.*
| (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AML0mIQcWDrrEHj-
| InXo...)
|
| Whatever your opinion on whether or not these should or
| should not be documents vs. webpages, can we at least agree
| that they have information that people would be interested
| in? This stuff makes up the internet, this is where all the
| cool shit is. 10-15 years ago, these would be in search
| results. They're not anymore. It's all here, in
| undiscoverable Google Docs, unsearchable Discord servers,
| slow meandering Reddit threads, locked-down Facebook Groups
| and anti-discoverable TikTok feeds.
|
| I keep hearing too much about good content leaving us (AI
| Slop in search), and not nearly enough about where it's
| going. If you find out where the good, creative stuff is
| going, you'll get your good, creative internet back.
|
| *: I've said 'should' a lot, when what I mean is 'it would
| have been one when I was a kid'.
| tempworkac wrote:
| strange comment - this should be a website that would
| presumably be hosting, where exactly?
|
| the average person would not be able to make something even
| close to this sheet. where are they going to host it? do they
| have a domain? certs? do they even know how to write html? css?
| during a spiky event such as a wildfire, will their website
| even stay up?
| the_sleaze_ wrote:
| I don't think it's strange at all.
|
| Wouldn't this be a near perfect use-case for AI generated
| websites?
| jasode wrote:
| _> Wouldn't this be a near perfect use-case for AI
| generated websites?_
|
| A non-tech user prompting ChatGPT to write out
| HTML+CSS+Javascript still doesn't cover the other
| logistical challenges of _hosting it on a server
| somewhere_. E.g. Buy a domain? Then buy web hosting
| package? Or use Netlify? Amazon S3?
|
| Maybe someday OpenAI will have AI agents with authority to
| pay with customers' credit-cards and opens Cloudflare or
| DigitalOcean accounts on the users' behalf. That's a long
| time into the future where such a workflow would be trusted
| by non-technical end users. And then you still have the
| irony of using _another proprietary entity of AI_ to
| empower users to put up web pages.
|
| Whether the internet was 1990s Geocities or something like
| Github Pages today, a user sharing content on a personal
| webpage is not a trivial task. So non-techies compensate
| with _commercial services_ such as MySpace pages, Twitter
| tweets, Facebook pages, or examples like this thread 's
| Google Docs spreadsheet. A common theme of all those
| commercial services is: _they handled the complexities of
| web hosting._
|
| EDIT reply: _> I feel like this response contains within it
| a great deal of contempt for average people _
|
| No, you misinterpreted. I was trying to get _techies to
| empathize with typical end users_ and understand the
| reasons why they don 't host their own web pages. If that
| empathy was fully internalized, we'd already predict that a
| ChatGPT-CoPilot assisted HTML tool isn't the only issue.
| The gp you replied to highlighted that in his first
| paragraph.
|
| I have true _admiration_ and not contempt for the end users
| at this charity using Google Spreadsheets to _empower
| themselves to share a doc_ without waiting for a "real
| programmer or webmaster" to do it for them.
|
| _> Could you not just ask an LLM how one could host this
| website for free somewhere,_
|
| What's the current best answer for _" website for free
| somewhere"_ that doesn't have the same criticism of being a
| _proprietary entity_ that this subthread 's gp was
| lamenting?
| the_sleaze_ wrote:
| I feel like this response contains within it a great deal
| of contempt for average people and their problem solving
| ability.
|
| Could you not just ask an LLM how one could host this
| website for free somewhere, and do the same for any
| logistical challenges that arise beyond that?
| lelandbatey wrote:
| People could do that. Or they can click "new doc" in
| Docs, start typing, then copy the URL and send it to a
| friend. Look at that, they published a page, no problem
| solving necessary. Thus people, no matter their ability,
| will probably default to that approach.
|
| I don't think it's a value judgement to say one thing is
| easier than another and hence people will. Choose the
| easier thing.
|
| If we want more folks to use and build websites, it needs
| to be Google-Docs level easy, otherwise people will use
| Google Docs.
| jijikuya wrote:
| Exactly this. I do find it kinda funny that Google
| Docs/Word and their ilk have HTML export options. Kind of
| a weird funny/sad anachronism. As if there was some hope
| that people would use Google Docs to make their own
| contributions to the independent web.
| jijikuya wrote:
| I think you're the only one who understands what I was
| trying to say here, which means I didn't say it nearly
| clear enough. But thanks.
| IanCal wrote:
| In addition this includes tracking your own info in it. So
| now we're going to need auth and a backend to store the data
| on top of that.
| dataflow wrote:
| > And yet, it's being shared through a proprietary office suite
| service in the form of a spreadsheet that can't be quickly
| referenced or copied without loading an entire webapp.
|
| I wish this was made obvious to users, but FYI: you can change
| /edit to /preview at the end of the URL to get something more
| like a webpage.
| elzbardico wrote:
| This should be a lot of things, but this is a spreadsheet that
| was done probably by an end users, and thus is a superior
| solution to all the potential options that were not done.
|
| There are a lot of sheets on this worksheet that are intended
| to be edited. Sometimes we forget that spreadsheets are popular
| because they are useful for the people who use them. They have
| an incredibly low barrier of adoption, are intuitive and
| pratical for editing, and frankly, for the average users, they
| do tables far better than HTML.
|
| Why the fucking web has to be the measure of all things and
| everything needs to be hypertext? Why the web has to be
| everything and absorb all other applications?
|
| There must be a reason why Visical was the killer app that
| really popularized the home computer for non-nerds, followed by
| 1-2-3 and why almost 40 years laters excel is still one of the
| most used tools.
|
| Yeah, not everybody in the world is a developer, not everybody
| has to think like us, and frankly, sometimes we are pretty
| limited in our way of thinking, and way less creative than our
| users.
| throw8923982398 wrote:
| I guess author does not have much resources. It is probably
| single person, with no government backing. There is not even
| spanish translation!
|
| In 2015 refugee crisis, website had much better organization.
| It had nice graphic and translation to 5 languages. It had upto
| date information about police locations, border weaknesses, and
| how to use free trains (avoid ticket checks). Volunteers were
| even giving away free phones with SIM data plans, bolt cutters,
| single use tents...
| IanCal wrote:
| And how do those people enter their information? Where is it
| stored?
| meshweaver wrote:
| The plot thickens.
|
| At the time of writing this, the linked-to Google Sheet
| redirects to an html-only view with this message: "Some tools
| might be unavailable due to heavy traffic in this file." In
| this html-only view, while the user can still see the entire
| list of sheets at the top, in-document links to other sheets do
| not work, and some text overflows its cell and is not visible.
|
| Most important information appears to be visible still, but
| those who wish to add to or edit the document seem to be out of
| luck.
|
| What went wrong? Perhaps each Google Sheet has access
| throttling, not ideal for users of high-traffic docs like this,
| especially if the users have critical information to share.
|
| And yet, what other tool should they have used?
|
| We need collaborative, easily-shareable, WYSIWYG document
| editors for situations just like this, except of course, their
| access should not be throttled, and their content should be
| discoverable by search engines.
|
| Do we need a new web? A web whose content is able to be
| directly manipulated? A web that is collaborative by default?
| entropicdrifter wrote:
| Perhaps some sort of Fediverse Google Docs/Sheets equivalent?
| Where each user can host their own copy (if they want) and
| the pub/sub algorithm ensures that it's all eventually
| consistent, if higher latency than something inherently
| centralized like Google?
| pragma_x wrote:
| As an article posted on HN, I expected this to be about how to
| cope with losing a self-hosted Linux filesystem. As a resource to
| deal with "home loss", this is excellent.
|
| Also, I'd like to take a moment to appreciate how close this
| comes to implementing most of a website within a google
| spreadsheet. I know that much of this is intended to be
| duplicated and filled out, but the first few tabs would be right
| at home as HTML somewhere. You can't beat the hosting cost of
| doing it this way, and now I wonder how many folks are abusing
| Google Docs like that.
| samiv wrote:
| But why does this not exist for those who already lost their
| homes years ago and are living on the streets?
|
| A bunch of rich home owners have their houses burned down it's an
| emergency.
|
| Tens of thousands of homeless people live on the streets and
| nobody bats an eye.
|
| Just saying.
| jjkaczor wrote:
| From the first (most top-voted) post in this thread from the
| person who put this together, states:
|
| "We've disseminated 2700 of the physical file boxes to fire
| survivors over the last 15 years and excited about what the
| digital resource can become."
| otterpro wrote:
| This is great, I can just fill it out, and save a copy somewhere
| in google drive. Also I'd keep a printed hard copy of it and then
| save it in (fireproof) safe or a bug-out bag for escaping from
| disaster.
| brooksbp wrote:
| Is there a resource for what to do _before_ an event like this?
| newman314 wrote:
| This is nice!
|
| One thing I was reading about was some folks cautioning about the
| scams and underhanded behavior that spring up around unfortunate
| events.
|
| A tab/page dedicated documenting things to watch out for would be
| helpful.
|
| Some items like what is described here:
| https://www.consumerfinance.gov/ask-cfpb/how-do-i-avoid-scam...
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