Not a native speaker but up/down is a pretty common pair of words for these types of things? Power up/down, spin up/down, bring up/down, set up/tear down…
You’re right. But “turn down” and “turn up” mean “decrease” and “increase.” Outside of a corporate context, it is not idiomatic to use them to mean “destroy” and “create.” (“Turn off” and “turn on” do mean “destroy” and “create,” and if the OP had been titled “turning off Upspin infrastructure” then it wouldn’t have felt misleading at all.)
The normal idiom in English is that one “turns down” an offer. It’s a synonym for “decline”. That’s how I read the title: somebody was trying to give us Upspin infrastructure but it had some strings attached that we didn’t like, so we politely refused.
The standard English idiom to use here would be “turning off”. Or they could make it sound more gradual by saying “winding down”.
I’m very sad, the project was super interesting and I have a server running at the moment. The main problem I found was that there wasn’t a good way to make it work on windows computers, iphones and androids, so my relatives couldn’t join. Setting up a webdav gateway was the best solution I’ve found, but it had a lot of shortcomings.
It’s weird, it’s a semi-big project by one of the biggest honchos in CS, it was in the cool lang du jour at the time, and it’s (of course) based on ideas from Plan 9.
Just to be sure I also checked HN’s history, and the reception was as lukewarm over there as here.
“Turning down” has got to be one of my least favorite corporate euphemisms. It’s not the volume knob on a stereo! Just say you’re turning it off!
Not a native speaker but up/down is a pretty common pair of words for these types of things? Power up/down, spin up/down, bring up/down, set up/tear down…
AFAIK, turning down isn’t usually used for completely off but as lower. There’s a bit of nuance but it does sound like an unusual euphemism to me!
You’re right. But “turn down” and “turn up” mean “decrease” and “increase.” Outside of a corporate context, it is not idiomatic to use them to mean “destroy” and “create.” (“Turn off” and “turn on” do mean “destroy” and “create,” and if the OP had been titled “turning off Upspin infrastructure” then it wouldn’t have felt misleading at all.)
The normal idiom in English is that one “turns down” an offer. It’s a synonym for “decline”. That’s how I read the title: somebody was trying to give us Upspin infrastructure but it had some strings attached that we didn’t like, so we politely refused.
The standard English idiom to use here would be “turning off”. Or they could make it sound more gradual by saying “winding down”.
Context: https://upspin.io/
Where there is now mention of this shutdown…
I’m very sad, the project was super interesting and I have a server running at the moment. The main problem I found was that there wasn’t a good way to make it work on windows computers, iphones and androids, so my relatives couldn’t join. Setting up a webdav gateway was the best solution I’ve found, but it had a lot of shortcomings.
I usually try to keep tabs on this kind of stuff but I have literally never heard of Upspin before now.
Seven years ago on Lobsters:
I noticed it but didn’t think too much of it at the time, probably because I’m Google-avoidant and not much of a Go user.
I don’t remember those submissions at all.
It’s weird, it’s a semi-big project by one of the biggest honchos in CS, it was in the cool lang du jour at the time, and it’s (of course) based on ideas from Plan 9.
Just to be sure I also checked HN’s history, and the reception was as lukewarm over there as here.