The story isn't true, but that does not make the situation "ironic".
Appropriate adjectives may be "interestingly", or "unexpectedly", even "prosaically".
As a Slashdot pedant, I object to every disappointment-of-expectation used as an excuse to invoke irony! I grew up with parents that knew not what reading material to keep from a young boy - so it was 1973 National Lampoon and the comics of Gahan Wilson. I know from irony!
When I cited "worse is better", I was invoking the whole old Richard Gabriel proposition, without having to explain it in depth. I think that what you said pretty much "dovetails" this.
I and just about every designer of Common Lisp and CLOS has had extreme exposure to the MIT/Stanford style of design. The essence of this style can be captured by the phrase ``the right thing.'' To such a designer it is important to get all of the following characteristics right:
Simplicity-the design must be simple, both in implementation and interface. It is more important for the interface to be simple than the implementation.
Correctness-the design must be correct in all observable aspects. Incorrectness is simply not allowed.
Consistency-the design must not be inconsistent. A design is allowed to be slightly less simple and less complete to avoid inconsistency. Consistency is as important as correctness.
Completeness-the design must cover as many important situations as is practical. All reasonably expected cases must be covered. Simplicity is not allowed to overly reduce completeness.
I believe most people would agree that these are good characteristics. I will call the use of this philosophy of design the ``MIT approach.'' Common Lisp (with CLOS) and Scheme represent the MIT approach to design and implementation.
The worse-is-better philosophy is only slightly different:
Simplicity-the design must be simple, both in implementation and interface. It is more important for the implementation to be simple than the interface. Simplicity is the most important consideration in a design.
Correctness-the design must be correct in all observable aspects. It is slightly better to be simple than correct.
Consistency-the design must not be overly inconsistent. Consistency can be sacrificed for simplicity in some cases, but it is better to drop those parts of the design that deal with less common circumstances than to introduce either implementational complexity or inconsistency.
Completeness-the design must cover as many important situations as is practical. All reasonably expected cases should be covered. Completeness can be sacrificed in favor of any other quality. In fact, completeness must sacrificed whenever implementation simplicity is jeopardized. Consistency can be sacrificed to achieve completeness if simplicity is retained; especially worthless is consistency of interface.
Nelson invented teh term HyperText, but almost every implication of a networked world eluded him. He is still around - Odd duck.
Years back, I knew folks who worked on Xanadu when Autodesk had picked it up. By '92 this was over, but Nelsonism still reigned. The wind really went out of their sails when Mosaic and Trumpet WinSock started showing up on Intern's desks...
If I wanted a secret communication, I'd embed it as a comment in slashdrivel, or better yet livejournal's vanity blogs. It could be tiny-url'd, and forwarded between throwaway web-mail accounts, perhaps distributed broadcast - like spam.
If someone wants to do this kind of thing, it takes about 5 minutes time to figure out - and most traffic analysis/ message interception is pretty useless.
There is little to no safety afforded by the massive intrusion into private business this kind of surveillance represents, but then again, the primary goal is SUPRESSION of domestic population, under the cover of security.
Who do Yvgeny Primakov and Markus Wolf work for now? Nine months ago, it was for Pointdexter. Who did they "secure" before that?
Before anybody claims that the "innocent" need not worry, I ask you to review the plot of Gilliam's Brazil.
What're you damn' kids doing in the games again! You know that's for adults... Ferchrissake, what's the world coming to when kids are takin' over all this game stuff?
Slashdot Mirror
Appropriate adjectives may be "interestingly", or "unexpectedly", even "prosaically".
As a Slashdot pedant, I object to every disappointment-of-expectation used as an excuse to invoke irony! I grew up with parents that knew not what reading material to keep from a young boy - so it was 1973 National Lampoon and the comics of Gahan Wilson. I know from irony!
I ldve kearniny ti typo wuth Dvosak!
You mean those crispy, brown things...
"DUPE-DUPE-DUPEDUPE DUPE-DUPE-DUPEDUPE
DUPE-Dupey-Dupey Dupey-DUPE..."
Appologies to Mr. Mancini, Man! Areal gone Cat, like, Wow!
Dupe De-Dupe, De-Dupe-de-dupe-de Duuuuuuupe,
Dupe-eh de-Dupe!
Is that you?
I wonder if they can run to Canada, too?
I guess that means there no hope for most ither folks, either...
Proud of your planet -
Oh Mommy!
Proud of your Son!
Are counted on a Dell.
Fax Bush a heart!
...First, we assume a spherical cow...
Or,
filled with studio executives and sycophantic DRM vendors.
When I cited "worse is better", I was invoking the whole old Richard Gabriel proposition, without having to explain it in depth. I think that what you said pretty much "dovetails" this.
The Rise of Worse is Better
Years back, I knew folks who worked on Xanadu when Autodesk had picked it up. By '92 this was over, but Nelsonism still reigned. The wind really went out of their sails when Mosaic and Trumpet WinSock started showing up on Intern's desks...
I really think we need another Gnomintosh, with library incompatibilies!
If someone wants to do this kind of thing, it takes about 5 minutes time to figure out - and most traffic analysis/ message interception is pretty useless.
There is little to no safety afforded by the massive intrusion into private business this kind of surveillance represents, but then again, the primary goal is SUPRESSION of domestic population, under the cover of security.
Who do Yvgeny Primakov and Markus Wolf work for now? Nine months ago, it was for Pointdexter. Who did they "secure" before that?
Before anybody claims that the "innocent" need not worry, I ask you to review the plot of Gilliam's Brazil.
More "worse is better" thinking brought us, first gopher and next the WWW.
Someday, we'll be semantic, and the same as Xanadu - a project named for Colridge's opium hallucination.
Picasa? Pick a ya own Assha!
Amazing that the principles for interacting with these have changed so little! :-)
Actually there are a lot more words, but "Hit" is not one of them.
"Mass Culture" is something done with bacteria, not people.
What're you damn' kids doing in the games again! You know that's for adults... Ferchrissake, what's the world coming to when kids are takin' over all this game stuff?
Harvey Corman directs!
Do you mean "|" ?
They are in favor of lay-offs and Unemployment - "Good for business".