This is why we need open standards for data formats. Combine that with safe serverless storage and the current tech titans game gets turned on its head. Suddenly competition is truly only merit based and every geek in their basement apartment can have a go at creating the next big thing in whatever genre theyâ(TM)re inclined to tackle. P
To that end: where are the open protocols and ubiquitous easy to use third party client apps for sharing pictures, building and maintaining a social network, etc?
THe proprietary implementations of those (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, AIM) outpaced and outmarketed and our innovated the open implementations (if any exist or were attempted). Diaspora comes to mind.
That thereâ(TM)s mania, seeming idiocy, and certainlyFUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) around blockchsin tech doesnâ(TM)t mean that it doesnâ(TM)t have huge potential.
The problem isnâ(TM)t with the technology. Itâ(TM)s with there being no easy profit or power to be accumulated from making the best and most truly beneficial and democratic use of it. Thereâ(TM)s no budget for working with it, for marketing it.
There is money to be made, market share to be kept, and power to be maintained in keeping it from reaching its potential.
No? Facebook and Twitter didn't take HTTP and build huge services with it? Clearly they did, and that is goodâ" standing on the shoulders of giants and all that.
Whether we're talking REST interfaces to web apps or SDKs for an OS, they often have public APIsâ" but they're in charge of who can use them and how. Where ostensible platform providers begin to subsume the functionality of their third party developers is where coopertition (a portmanteau of cooperation and competition) comes in to play.
> While decentralization matters, Blockchain seems to have utility in a rather narrow set of circumstances
Think bigger. Suppose all your apps' data was stored in a blockchain, or STORJ or Maidsafe or some other encrypted distributed digital storage mechanism. Suppose the data formats were as open as SMTP/POP/IMAP/RADIUS/FTP. Suppose you could switch apps just by downloading a new one and popping in the necessary credentials?
This is what I'm thinking about these days. It's going to be a game changer.
we used to call this a "sudden outbreak of common sense"
It's not new that overwhelming centralization is bad for everyone except those who share the profits of the resulting behemoth. It's not even new in technology - google "bell system breakup".
It's only news that people are starting to talk about it in the context of the current tech giants. The underlying theme is old hat.
It's funny (sad, really) that Intel is so diligent about trying to bamboozle everyone into thinking that Spectre (which effects many manufacturers' processors) and Meltdown (which is intel-specific) are the same.
This is all just trite "tech is great and important" cheerleader noiseâ" unless and until Apple bundles a modern version of Hypercard with OSX and IOS.
Someday I'll learn not to tangle with paid shills. Sadly, that day is not today.
You asserted that Microsoft can't do their embrace, extend, extinguish thing to Linux because Mr Torvalds wouldn't allow it, would bitch about it, whatever.
That's a straw man argument because it's deliberately conflating Linux with Linus.
SystemD is specifically relevant in pointing out the your argument's lack of merit because based on his comments he's clearly not a fan and yet it's now built into every major distribution.
Open Source software is not invulnerable to MS' E,E,E strategy. It's the "extend" part that is particularly insidious and leads to the "extinguish" bit.
All I see is a relative noob who's either shilling for Microsoft or is arguing without having done any basic research.
Some examples, courtesy of Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace%2C_extend_and_extinguish ):
Browser incompatibilities:
The plaintiffs in the antitrust case claimed that Microsoft had added support for ActiveX controls in the Internet Explorer web browser to break compatibility with Netscape Navigator, which used components based on Java and Netscape's own plugin system.
On CSS, data:, etc.: A decade after the original Netscape-related antitrust suit, the web browser company Opera Software has filed an antitrust complaint against Microsoft with the European Union saying it "calls on Microsoft to adhere to its own public pronouncements to support these standards, instead of stifling them with its notorious 'Embrace, Extend and Extinguish' strategy".[13]
On Office documents: In a memo to the Office product group in 1998, Bill Gates stated: "One thing we have got to change in our strategyâ"allowing Office documents to be rendered very well by other peoples [sic] browsers is one of the most destructive things we could do to the company. We have to stop putting any effort into this and make sure that Office documents very well depends [sic] on PROPRIETARY IE capabilities. Anything else is suicide for our platform. This is a case where Office has to avoid doing something to destory [sic] Windows." [emphasis in original][14]
Breaking Java's portability: The antitrust case's plaintiffs also accused Microsoft of using an "embrace and extend" strategy with regard to the Java platform, which was designed explicitly with the goal of developing programs that could run on any operating system, be it Windows, Mac, or Linux. They claimed that, by omitting the Java Native Interface (JNI) from its implementation and providing J/Direct for a similar purpose, Microsoft deliberately tied Windows Java programs to its platform, making them unusable on Linux and Mac systems. According to an internal communication, Microsoft sought to downplay Java's cross-platform capability and make it "just the latest, best way to write Windows applications".[15] Microsoft paid Sun US$20 million in January 2001 (equivalent to $27.05 million in 2016) to settle the resulting legal implications of their breach of contract.[16]
More Java issues: Sun sued Microsoft over Java again in 2002 and Microsoft agreed to settle out of court for US$2 billion[17][18] (equivalent to US$2.66 billion in 2016).
Networking: In 2000, an extension to the Kerberos networking protocol (an Internet standard) was included in Windows 2000, effectively denying all products except those made by Microsoft access to a Windows 2000 Server using Kerberos.[19] The extension was published through an executable, whose running required agreeing to an NDA, disallowing third party implementation (especially open source). To allow developers to implement the new features, without having to agree to the license, users on Slashdot posted the document (disregarding the NDA), effectively allowing third party developers to access the documentation without having agreed to the NDA. Microsoft responded by asking Slashdot to remove the content.[20] The Microsoft extensions to Kerberos, as introduced in binary form in Windows 2000, have since been described in RFC 3244 and RFC 4757, and these extensions have since been listed in Microsoft Open Specification Promise. This document relates to "Microsoft-owned or Microsoft-controlled patents that are necessary to implement" the technologies listed. Microsoft's legal statement concerning unrestricted use of Microsoft intellectual property also includes the Kerberos Network Authentication Service v5 (RFC 1510 and RFC
"The Deliverator used to make software. Still does, sometimes. But if life were a mellow elementary school run by well-meaning education Ph.D.s, the Deliverator's report card would say: "Hiro is so bright and creative but needs to work harder on his cooperation skills."
So now he has this other job. No brightness or creativity involvedâ"but no cooperation either. Just a single principle: the Deliverator stands tall, your pie in thirty minutes or you can have it free, shoot the driver, take his car, file a class-action suit. The Deliverator has been working this job for six months, a rich and lengthy tenure by his standards, and has never delivered a pizza in more than twenty-one minutes. " â" Neal Stephenson
Read the specs on the protocol and write a small daemon to listen for requests and take appropriate action based on them. For good measure, add sanity-checking of request parameters (don't allow it be set to cool below, say, 65, or heat above 72).
Use netcat or telnet to talk to the port it listens on.
It's really not difficult at all.
These days it'd make sense to build yourself a simple gui for your phone/tablet.
All of your questions, to the best of my knowledge, have unfavorable-to-kindle answers.
Recreational reading, though, is one place where I've traded in being a sensible, vigilant, responsible consumer for the pleasure of instant gratification and convenience of having everything I'm currently reading in one convenient device.
I do despise the new kindle software interface, thoughâ" especially the fact that I don't remember being asked for permission for it to be installed.
Yeah, you may have just talked me into going back to paper books.
So I say "Sure, no problem" and start to get up to get a spare shirt out of my carry on to change into.
"Sir, the fasten seatbelt is lit!"
Um, you just asked me to change my shirt.
"You'll have to wait until we're in the air"
Really? We hadn't even left the departure terminal.
Time passes. Noise-cancelling headphones on, asleep, a tap on the shoulder. We're in the air and the seatbelt light is off.
"You can change your shirt now"
Having had time to think about it prior to dozing off, I'd decided this whole thing was ridiculous. "To whom on this plane do you report?"
Had to repeat that a few times, and it was all downhill from there. I was nothing but polite and civil, whereas this raving stewardess was just about foaming at the mouth. On her side, it got pretty heated. Passengers around me were seemingly all incredulous; comments ranged from "this is ridiculous" to "it's not worth getting arrested over".
With a heavy heart, I relented and said I was willing to change my shirt. I remained seated, though- she was blocking me from getting up as she continued to berate me for my fashion sense.
Finally I pointed out that I couldn't get up as long as she was standing where she was. She moved, I got up to grab my bag from the overhead bin and, spare shirt in hand, headed toward the back of the plane to change in the bathroom. Whoa, nutcase was back there. Went to the restroom in the front of the plane instead.
And who should I see up there? A new stewardess- one that doesn't look angry or insane!
"Excuse me, may I trouble you for your opinion on something?"
She readily agreed, so I described the situation. As I recounted the insane hassling about the shirt, the threats, etc, her jaw dropped. Her face went pale. People seated within earshot said things like "People need a sense of humor" and "This is completely absurd". She said "Sir, this is completely not a problem. You can just go back and have a seat, there's no problem at all." And then the maniac sprinted up to us and freaked out again. Sane stewardess roared her down.
I went back to my seat and had the most uncomfortable flight of my life with the lunatic stewardess looming and glaring. Haven't flied JetBlue since and have in fact gone to great lengths to avoid flying at all.
I'm so delighted with this, in fact that the first thing I did (after buying in at kickstarter) is dust off my slashdot login so I could post saying that. ^
I wonder if they can get any insight into other energy trading companies' plans and strategy based on the search activities of their employees and executive teams...
My advice - go to a country with a real healthcare somewhere in EU or Canada or Asia and get some hearing aids there. It will come out cheaper even with a plane ticket.
This is good advice.
My mother has had hearing aids for most of her life. Last time she replaced them she found it was substantially cheaper to drive 15 minutes into Canada and buy them there (despite having good health insurance through her employer). She's still pretty happy with this latest set afaik, and she saved a ton.
First, let's not talk about my iPhone. It is not insured and never has been.
Second, the point of my post is that moral hazard is part of the game.
Third, which insurance company do you work for to get so fired up?
Oh, I see what you did there. You didn't read the article so you don't know that it states that the company in question rejects approximately 25% of claims.
Slashdot Mirror
This is why we need open standards for data formats. Combine that with safe serverless storage and the current tech titans game gets turned on its head. Suddenly competition is truly only merit based and every geek in their basement apartment can have a go at creating the next big thing in whatever genre theyâ(TM)re inclined to tackle. P
Itâ(TM)s worth hashing out the semantics of it.
To that end: where are the open protocols and ubiquitous easy to use third party client apps for sharing pictures, building and maintaining a social network, etc?
THe proprietary implementations of those (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, AIM) outpaced and outmarketed and our innovated the open implementations (if any exist or were attempted). Diaspora comes to mind.
That thereâ(TM)s mania, seeming idiocy, and certainlyFUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) around blockchsin tech doesnâ(TM)t mean that it doesnâ(TM)t have huge potential.
The problem isnâ(TM)t with the technology. Itâ(TM)s with there being no easy profit or power to be accumulated from making the best and most truly beneficial and democratic use of it. Thereâ(TM)s no budget for working with it, for marketing it.
There is money to be made, market share to be kept, and power to be maintained in keeping it from reaching its potential.
Talk like that is how you get flagged for a free prostate exam when you go through the airport security.
> they did no such thing
No? Facebook and Twitter didn't take HTTP and build huge services with it? Clearly they did, and that is goodâ" standing on the shoulders of giants and all that.
Whether we're talking REST interfaces to web apps or SDKs for an OS, they often have public APIsâ" but they're in charge of who can use them and how. Where ostensible platform providers begin to subsume the functionality of their third party developers is where coopertition (a portmanteau of cooperation and competition) comes in to play.
> While decentralization matters, Blockchain seems to have utility in a rather narrow set of circumstances
Think bigger. Suppose all your apps' data was stored in a blockchain, or STORJ or Maidsafe or some other encrypted distributed digital storage mechanism. Suppose the data formats were as open as SMTP/POP/IMAP/RADIUS/FTP. Suppose you could switch apps just by downloading a new one and popping in the necessary credentials?
This is what I'm thinking about these days. It's going to be a game changer.
we used to call this a "sudden outbreak of common sense"
It's not new that overwhelming centralization is bad for everyone except those who share the profits of the resulting behemoth. It's not even new in technology - google "bell system breakup".
It's only news that people are starting to talk about it in the context of the current tech giants. The underlying theme is old hat.
It's funny (sad, really) that Intel is so diligent about trying to bamboozle everyone into thinking that Spectre (which effects many manufacturers' processors) and Meltdown (which is intel-specific) are the same.
Such bullshit.
It appears that it's written in Pascal... I haven't played with that since high school.
Will be neat to see what comes of it.
This is all just trite "tech is great and important" cheerleader noiseâ" unless and until Apple bundles a modern version of Hypercard with OSX and IOS.
How about it, Tim?
Why not hop over to: https://supporters.eff.org/don...
and sing up to donate a couple bucks a month to the EFF?
I did a short while ago to give them my support in light of https://tech.slashdot.org/stor... and am very happy that I did.
They're fighting the good fight.
Someday I'll learn not to tangle with paid shills. Sadly, that day is not today.
You asserted that Microsoft can't do their embrace, extend, extinguish thing to Linux because Mr Torvalds wouldn't allow it, would bitch about it, whatever.
That's a straw man argument because it's deliberately conflating Linux with Linus.
SystemD is specifically relevant in pointing out the your argument's lack of merit because based on his comments he's clearly not a fan and yet it's now built into every major distribution.
Open Source software is not invulnerable to MS' E,E,E strategy. It's the "extend" part that is particularly insidious and leads to the "extinguish" bit.
Straw man argument.
Look at the train wreck that is SystemD.
One doesn't need Linus' approval to corrupt the ecosystem. Just to enlist the various distributions' maintainers.
You were waiting for that because... it's your job to respond with canned talking points?
Hope you get a sweet bonus! Keep up the good work.
All I see is a relative noob who's either shilling for Microsoft or is arguing without having done any basic research.
Some examples, courtesy of Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace%2C_extend_and_extinguish ):
Browser incompatibilities:
The plaintiffs in the antitrust case claimed that Microsoft had added support for ActiveX controls in the Internet Explorer web browser to break compatibility with Netscape Navigator, which used components based on Java and Netscape's own plugin system.
On CSS, data:, etc.: A decade after the original Netscape-related antitrust suit, the web browser company Opera Software has filed an antitrust complaint against Microsoft with the European Union saying it "calls on Microsoft to adhere to its own public pronouncements to support these standards, instead of stifling them with its notorious 'Embrace, Extend and Extinguish' strategy".[13]
On Office documents: In a memo to the Office product group in 1998, Bill Gates stated: "One thing we have got to change in our strategyâ"allowing Office documents to be rendered very well by other peoples [sic] browsers is one of the most destructive things we could do to the company. We have to stop putting any effort into this and make sure that Office documents very well depends [sic] on PROPRIETARY IE capabilities. Anything else is suicide for our platform. This is a case where Office has to avoid doing something to destory [sic] Windows." [emphasis in original][14]
Breaking Java's portability: The antitrust case's plaintiffs also accused Microsoft of using an "embrace and extend" strategy with regard to the Java platform, which was designed explicitly with the goal of developing programs that could run on any operating system, be it Windows, Mac, or Linux. They claimed that, by omitting the Java Native Interface (JNI) from its implementation and providing J/Direct for a similar purpose, Microsoft deliberately tied Windows Java programs to its platform, making them unusable on Linux and Mac systems. According to an internal communication, Microsoft sought to downplay Java's cross-platform capability and make it "just the latest, best way to write Windows applications".[15] Microsoft paid Sun US$20 million in January 2001 (equivalent to $27.05 million in 2016) to settle the resulting legal implications of their breach of contract.[16]
More Java issues: Sun sued Microsoft over Java again in 2002 and Microsoft agreed to settle out of court for US$2 billion[17][18] (equivalent to US$2.66 billion in 2016).
Networking: In 2000, an extension to the Kerberos networking protocol (an Internet standard) was included in Windows 2000, effectively denying all products except those made by Microsoft access to a Windows 2000 Server using Kerberos.[19] The extension was published through an executable, whose running required agreeing to an NDA, disallowing third party implementation (especially open source). To allow developers to implement the new features, without having to agree to the license, users on Slashdot posted the document (disregarding the NDA), effectively allowing third party developers to access the documentation without having agreed to the NDA. Microsoft responded by asking Slashdot to remove the content.[20] The Microsoft extensions to Kerberos, as introduced in binary form in Windows 2000, have since been described in RFC 3244 and RFC 4757, and these extensions have since been listed in Microsoft Open Specification Promise. This document relates to "Microsoft-owned or Microsoft-controlled patents that are necessary to implement" the technologies listed. Microsoft's legal statement concerning unrestricted use of Microsoft intellectual property also includes the Kerberos Network Authentication Service v5 (RFC 1510 and RFC
As a direct result of your efforts, I just clicked over to the EFF site to sign up to do recurring monthly donations to them.
I've had a vague intention to do so for a while, but thanks much for pushing me into action.
"The Deliverator used to make software. Still does, sometimes. But if life were a mellow elementary school run by well-meaning education Ph.D.s, the Deliverator's report card would say: "Hiro is so bright and creative but needs to work harder on his cooperation skills."
So now he has this other job. No brightness or creativity involvedâ"but no cooperation either. Just a single principle: the Deliverator stands tall, your pie in thirty minutes or you can have it free, shoot the driver, take his car, file a class-action suit. The Deliverator has been working this job for six months, a rich and lengthy tenure by his standards, and has never delivered a pizza in more than twenty-one minutes. " â" Neal Stephenson
I built a smart thermostat about 12-15 years ago.
It's really not that hard.
Get an RCS TR-16 thermostat.
Hook it up to a PC (or, today, a raspberry pi).
Read the specs on the protocol and write a small daemon to listen for requests and take appropriate action based on them. For good measure, add sanity-checking of request parameters (don't allow it be set to cool below, say, 65, or heat above 72).
Use netcat or telnet to talk to the port it listens on.
It's really not difficult at all.
These days it'd make sense to build yourself a simple gui for your phone/tablet.
All of your questions, to the best of my knowledge, have unfavorable-to-kindle answers.
Recreational reading, though, is one place where I've traded in being a sensible, vigilant, responsible consumer for the pleasure of instant gratification and convenience of having everything I'm currently reading in one convenient device.
I do despise the new kindle software interface, thoughâ" especially the fact that I don't remember being asked for permission for it to be installed.
Yeah, you may have just talked me into going back to paper books.
I was in my seat on a plane, waiting to take off for NYC for a work event.
Had settled in and was reading my kindle when the Jet Blue stewardess tapped me on the shoulder. "Nice shirt," she said.
Thanks. It was a present from my brother.
"Are you coming back from a conference?"
Um... No. Flying out to one, in fact.
"Can you take it off?"
Uh... what? The shirt? Um... Of course I could. But... that'd be weird. I'm on a plane.
"That's from a movie, right?"
Yep.
"I thought so. But can you take that sticker off of it?"
No, it's not a sticker. It's silk-screened or something like that.
"Some customers feel threatened by it."
Uggggghhhhhh. Now it all makes sense.
http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/9f70/
So I say "Sure, no problem" and start to get up to get a spare shirt out of my carry on to change into.
"Sir, the fasten seatbelt is lit!"
Um, you just asked me to change my shirt.
"You'll have to wait until we're in the air"
Really? We hadn't even left the departure terminal.
Time passes. Noise-cancelling headphones on, asleep, a tap on the shoulder. We're in the air and the seatbelt light is off.
"You can change your shirt now"
Having had time to think about it prior to dozing off, I'd decided this whole thing was ridiculous. "To whom on this plane do you report?"
Had to repeat that a few times, and it was all downhill from there. I was nothing but polite and civil, whereas this raving stewardess was just about foaming at the mouth. On her side, it got pretty heated. Passengers around me were seemingly all incredulous; comments ranged from "this is ridiculous" to "it's not worth getting arrested over".
With a heavy heart, I relented and said I was willing to change my shirt. I remained seated, though- she was blocking me from getting up as she continued to berate me for my fashion sense.
Finally I pointed out that I couldn't get up as long as she was standing where she was. She moved, I got up to grab my bag from the overhead bin and, spare shirt in hand, headed toward the back of the plane to change in the bathroom. Whoa, nutcase was back there. Went to the restroom in the front of the plane instead.
And who should I see up there? A new stewardess- one that doesn't look angry or insane!
"Excuse me, may I trouble you for your opinion on something?"
She readily agreed, so I described the situation. As I recounted the insane hassling about the shirt, the threats, etc, her jaw dropped. Her face went pale. People seated within earshot said things like "People need a sense of humor" and "This is completely absurd". She said "Sir, this is completely not a problem. You can just go back and have a seat, there's no problem at all." And then the maniac sprinted up to us and freaked out again. Sane stewardess roared her down.
I went back to my seat and had the most uncomfortable flight of my life with the lunatic stewardess looming and glaring. Haven't flied JetBlue since and have in fact gone to great lengths to avoid flying at all.
The main factor in determining whether or not a language succeeds is the quality of its creator's beard:
http://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/08/04/29/181249/facial-hair-and-computer-languages
+1.
This is outstanding news.
I'm so delighted with this, in fact that the first thing I did (after buying in at kickstarter) is dust off my slashdot login so I could post saying that. ^
Lactose-intolerance and vegetarianism ftw!
I wonder if they can get any insight into other energy trading companies' plans and strategy based on the search activities of their employees and executive teams...
My advice - go to a country with a real healthcare somewhere in EU or Canada or Asia and get some hearing aids there. It will come out cheaper even with a plane ticket.
This is good advice.
My mother has had hearing aids for most of her life. Last time she replaced them she found it was substantially cheaper to drive 15 minutes into Canada and buy them there (despite having good health insurance through her employer). She's still pretty happy with this latest set afaik, and she saved a ton.
First, let's not talk about my iPhone. It is not insured and never has been.
Second, the point of my post is that moral hazard is part of the game.
Third, which insurance company do you work for to get so fired up?
Oh, I see what you did there. You didn't read the article so you don't know that it states that the company in question rejects approximately 25% of claims.