Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Introducing Token

blog.tokenbrowser.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 157 posts

Re: Introducing Token

#131

Post by fiatjaf »

cordite wrote: post #48

Aside from the app, and what it can facilitate, I find chat UIs to be a zone for invention. Here Token partially formalized the UI [1] for menus and the like. As it is with Telegram for example, you provide a "keyboard" of a grid of buttons to press, similar to SOFA each button has a value. However Telegram does not have menus, so general purpose bots need a lot of back and forth to refine what the user's intention i…

I don't understand what you say. You think it is something amazing that they invented a message format? The UX continues to be more-or-less the same, doesn't it?

Re: Introducing Token

#132

Post by tchaffee »

jacquesm wrote: post #12
tchaffee wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin creator(s) hold bitcoin worth a cool couple billion USD. Be very cynical.

No, they mined bitcoins that have a present day virtual value of lots of $, but that they are still holding on to them is an assumption that may prove wrong and that value is there mostly because of the relatively low number of bitcoins that is actively being traded. If those coins are still held by some individual and they decide to unload the BTC will drop like a stone.

That's a good clarification. Who knows where all that bitcoin went after it was mined.

Re: Introducing Token

#133

Post by tracker1 »

pimlottc wrote: post #116
nostrademons wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people I know never called that a file-browser in the first place. It was just "my files", as if the files were things in their own right that just appeared on screen. OS vendors have played into that, with icon labels that say "My Documents" or "All my files". It's to their advantage to not let anyone know that there's a separate program that sits on top of the filesystem to show the contents of the filesystem.…

I agree. It is always important to remember that to most "normal people" this stuff - the Internet, the web, their smartphone apps - are a huge clumpy ball of undifferentiated "magic". And that's not because they're stupid people, but because this stuff really is quite complicated and most people already have plenty of other things to worry about.

I know a lot of people that use the phrase "I'll PFM that for you." (Pure Fucking Magic)

Re: Introducing Token

#134

Post by jjuel »

nostrademons wrote: post #93
pre wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has it though? Does nobody else use a file-browser any more? I'm mostly command-line but even I use a file-browser fairly often.

Most people I know never called that a file-browser in the first place. It was just "my files", as if the files were things in their own right that just appeared on screen. OS vendors have played into that, with icon labels that say "My Documents" or "All my files". It's to their advantage to not let anyone know that there's a separate program that sits on top of the filesystem to show the contents of the filesystem.…

I actually say I am going to Google something when in reality I use DuckDuckGo...

Re: Introducing Token

#135

Post by Splines »

intrasight wrote: post #81
pimlottc wrote: post #35

I'm not sure "Browser" is a good term for this; I get that they are trying to convey that it's just a client for the existing independent Etherium network, but to 99% of people, "browser" == "web browser". It's just going to cause confusion, especially in non-technical users (which seems to be a user base they are trying to go for here). Even as a developer, when I saw "tokenbrowser.com", I was expecting to see a web…

Is unfortunate, IMHO, that "browser" as come to mean "web browser". What are we supposed to call user interfaces that browser other information representations?

Looking at the store page, "app" seems like a reasonable choice that seems like it would make sense with most people.

Re: Introducing Token

#136

Post by DKnoll »

omginternets wrote: post #130
majewsky wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all. Non-experts will always consider only the outward appearance rather than the technical structure, since the latter is basically invisible to them. (Compare for exampl how hackers are depicted on mass media. Same principle.)

>Non-experts will always consider only the outward appearance rather than the technical structure Exactly, and this thing behaves (outwardly) a lot like a web browser. It's just not browsing the web . The description is useful for hilighting the similarities between both artefacts, mostly because Token is , stricto-sensu, a browser!

Not to be patronising, but you should try tech support. You'll quickly understand why arguments like this are futile.

Re: Introducing Token

#137

Post by sanswork »

paulddraper wrote: post #126
pimlottc wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Apache Directory Studio™: The Eclipse-based LDAP browser and directory client" Sounds like that is a tool meant for technical users, e.g. IT staff, though, not general users.

Is this not HN????

If HN is the only market for this product then this would make sense as an argument but the OP was talking about the general public.

Re: Introducing Token

#138

Post by cestith »

pre wrote: post #82
intrasight wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is unfortunate, IMHO, that "browser" as come to mean "web browser". What are we supposed to call user interfaces that browser other information representations?

Has it though? Does nobody else use a file-browser any more? I'm mostly command-line but even I use a file-browser fairly often.

The term in wide use when I came into the field seemed to be "file manager" for an application that was about files. For a file selection dialog box, I've heard "file browser" from time to time.

Technically a browser isn't even a full application. It's part of the interface of a bunch of different types of applications. A "web browser" is a file renderer, a content fetch utility, an object container that's targeted by a built-in scripting language, and a whole lot more. One of its functions - just one - is to follow hyperlinks and let you browser / surf for other content. And yet "browser" means, yes, "web browser".

This is not an argument about what the word means or should mean. It's an admission that we allowed the word to become specialized. Now it's either go with the status quo or try to take the word back, like "hacker", or maybe "Kleenex", "Aspirin", or "Rollerblade".

Re: Introducing Token

#139

Post by sanswork »

pipermerriam wrote: post #111
m3ta wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The more confusing thing is what will happen when the userbase finds out Ethereum "smart contracts" aren't good for anything except online gambling which certainly will not be allowed on the TokenBrowser app. Also, I shook my head when I saw your screenshot, that is certainly not a good first impression.

Isn't the history of technology riddled with inventions that "aren't good for anything except ..." which turned out to be good for lots of things. From the top of my head the following examples come to mind. 1. Early criticism of the tablet was that nobody would use them because they didn't have a keyboard. 2. Early criticism of the internet was that nobody would ever purchase anything over the internet. 3. Early cri…

>how smart contracts can remove middlemen from financial transactions.

These sorts of things are trivially gamed and have been since they were first proposed in the bitcoin space. Besides that you don't even remove a middleman for this example since you still need the courier to act as the middleman.

Re: Introducing Token

#140

Post by kordless »

skybrian wrote: post #97
kordless wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm honestly curious about this thing I see occasionally on HackerNews. The observation of the thing are mostly negative comments, irrational in nature, which are presented by a significantly aged account with very low karma and posting history. Servicing the underbanked is an important goal. I know people working on solving underbanked issues and I know it is important to them and support them. In this case, your co…

What makes you so sure that cryptocurrency brings anything to the table that the underbanked would want? Particularly since M-Pesa is changing the world (in some countries) without it? I agree it is worth exploring, but we need to treat this as an open question. Easy conversion to/from other currencies at stable rates may be more important to most users than the theoretical benefits of decentralization. I think the m…

> What makes you so sure that cryptocurrency brings anything to the table that the underbanked would want?

What makes you ask leading questions which cast my comments into a blaming statement that I think cryptocurrencies bring anything to improving the underbanked's situation or experience? This is what is called speaking for others. I intensely dislike people speaking for me.

As a matter of my own truth on this subject, I actually have no opinion on whether the application of cryptocurrencies is a good one or not to this problem, given I'm not underbanked or in a 3rd world country dealing with the challenges of moving money around in less than trustworthy environments. Further, I have no second hand knowledge of the problem myself.

What I do know is that there are a LOT of underbanked people, there are people working on this, some of which I know, and that I support them in their efforts. Whether or not their efforts are good ones or not, I cannot speak to.

My point of commenting was primarily addressing the fact we can no longer trust random comments from accounts with little to no posting history, which insist on making blanket blaming statements that infer all new decentralized technologies are somehow linked, inexplicably, to crime.

Post reply on HN