But the fact that we can conceive of it, and that God can create it, does not mean that he did, does it?

I could conceive of another God that is able to destroy God. And since I can conceive of this, then God can create it - but it does not mean that he did.

I could conceive of God just doing nothing, and never creating anything in history eternal. But surely he has created something.

I guess I wonder about can vs did

>But the fact that we can conceive of it, and that God can create it, does not mean that he did, does it?

There was an implicit belief in pre-modern thought that this is the case. That reality is a permutation of all possible forms. It's arguable that evolutionary models are a temporalized version of these beliefs.[1]

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_plenitude

Thanks for the link, it looks like interesting reading.

But, how are evolutionary models a version of enumerating all possible forms. The forms accessible to evolution, are not all possible forms but only evolutionary peaks that can be climbed in the fitness landscape.

The worldview gave explanation for why there is gradation between nature's forms. The search for "missing links" predates evolutionary theory. There was an understanding that there are intermediate forms between any two species. Evolution adds a temporal dimension to this worldview where intermediate forms unfold from one another.

It says they believed in the possibility, so it's 'can'.

ah yes, not that they do exist. makes sense thanks

you could maybe embed the original ascii, or a meta representation of it in the generated image?

Does AWS (or I guess maybe Azure) offer a Firebase alternative?

For an IRC style public chat app (the popular Firebase use case), is there a simple-to-use AWS solution that doesn't involve setting up the software/configuring it?

If not, then is setting up DeepStream on an AWS the best answer?

Serious question. Is there something available that can scale as easily?

Hmmm. Just checking and it looks like the EC2 data rates are $0.09GB up to 10TB and even less thereafter..

So.. if I understand correctly, Firebase is 10x more expensive??

It seems like it might be worthwhile to roll my own then..

did you go to self hosted or is there a firebase style real time db provider that is already at scale? basically it would have to be AWS or Azure for me to feel comfortable. Does AWS have something now?

I don't think this should have ever been offered.

Curious - how could FastMail ever properly close/sunset these accounts? Were they going to regularly check on all of their customers to see if they had passed away? Was there some 'we close the email if you don't log in for 5 years straight'?

Serious question - how should these type of lifetime promises ever be properly managed? (especially when the customer is an individual)

From a business point of view, they are generally regarded to be a bad idea. See various comments on what is now the main FastMail thread:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14357859

My point is simply this:

FastMail unwisely offered lifetime email service for one-time $15 payment. I accepted that offer on behalf of my father.

FastMail should now honour that agreement.

Curious to know if this site applied to YC. Anyone know?

This is interesting. Could modern scientists today create a piece of jewellery using ancient material? Surely they can.

I'd be interested in knowing what techniques modern scientists would use to 'fool' other scientists, and then knowing when these techniques generally became available.

Point 2 - Yes, the original article actually confirms that they did A/B testing

"Impact on people using Twitter is typically measured by running one or more A/B tests and comparing the results between experiment buckets. The set of metrics we use here usually relate more directly to usage and enjoyment of Twitter."