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Solid – Reshape the web as we know it

solid.inrupt.com

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Re: Solid – Reshape the web as we know it

#151

Post by SlipperySlope »

throwawaymath wrote: post #101
Moru wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that a lot of things was instantaneous just 20 years ago. I can't believe how slow even new smartphones are when I'm trying to make a phonecall... Every press of a button feels slow, there have to be animations scrolling screens left and right instead of instantly activating something. Every time I'm using something new and flashy, I feel like I'm stuck in sirup.

I don't recall anything on the internet being instantaneous 20 years ago. Surely you're misremembering? I also don't find that new smartphones have much touch-based interface latency; but even so, that kind of latency doesn't have anything to do with the internet, nor the halcyon days of late 1998. To my recollection browsing the web in the late 90s was far more exciting but also far less useful than today. The moder…

Nothing faster than poking bytes into memory mapped character video on a TRS-80 at over a million cycles per second. Rendering html text not so fast!

Re: Solid – Reshape the web as we know it

#152

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

nnq wrote: post #145
hobofan wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very much depends on the concept of ownership, doesn't it? ;) I mean, you own it, but so does everyone else. I think the traditional(?) concept of ownership you are referring to, that allows people to "delete" information is very unnatural and feels akin to trying to reverse entropy. You can't unring a bell, and you can't delete data from the world.

The human concepts of ownership implies a very important right that people tend to overlook: the right to DESTROY it , to undo it, to "take back what you said". This is important, because for physical artifacts having the right to destroy/demolish means having the right to create new things in its place (if I inherit a historical monument castle and I can't f demolish it to a pile of sand by my liking, than that's a…

> DESTROY ... and I can't f demolish it to a pile of sand by my liking, than that's a scam, I don't really own it

There are other definitions of ownership more akin to stewardship. Some circumstances recognise others interests and therefore limit rights and elevate responsibilities.

This, arguably, sensible.

Re: Solid – Reshape the web as we know it

#154

Post by danShumway »

tfha wrote: post #150
_red wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I look forward to the day where getting on the internet is like opening a bank account, complete with KYC verification. I will love standing in line at my local DMV and waiting for my WebID profile to be approved.

It'll be nice when browsing without a license is punishable the same way driving without a license is. People will finally be held accountable for the things they say and do online.

I feel the exact same way about writing. How much human suffering has been caused by people's ability to just read and write down anything whenever they want? There is zero accountability! Heck, nowadays, I can even make graphics on a computer and then walk into Staples and print them out on official-looking, high quality paper. And they even have the gall let me pay anonymously in cash!

In the good old days, only the Church could publish books, so everything that was written down was thoughtful and true.

Re: Solid – Reshape the web as we know it

#155

Post by avivo »

Paging Kenton Varda and the company/product/system he and his team created that does something very similar called Sandstorm: https://sandstorm.io/. (Kenton also led the protocol buffers team at Google which is their main format for data interchange).

I'm curious how this is different.

Re: Solid – Reshape the web as we know it

#156

Post by pulkitsh1234 »

Animats wrote: post #93

Who's "Inrupt"? The main Solid site is https://solid.mit.edu/" . Inrupt is not in Crunchbase. They don't have a business address on their site. They try to get people to sign up without giving terms and conditions first. And they want you to give them access to all your personal information. Right.

It's a company founded by Tim Berners-Lee himself, As a way to propel Solid.

From https://www.inrupt.com/blog/one-small-step-for-the-web:

    So I have taken a sabbatical from MIT, reduced my day-to-day involvement with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and founded a company called inrupt where I will be guiding the next stage of the web in a very direct way. Inrupt will be the infrastructure allowing Solid to flourish

Re: Solid – Reshape the web as we know it

#157

Post by erikpukinskis »

galfarragem wrote: post #108
gfodor wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAICT there are literally no apps to try this on. Why did they decide to announce this and publicize it before a basic, well-polished, example was ready? The pod signup process is using vanilla bootstrap, there wasn't even a visual design pass.

It seems kind of vaporware to test people's reactions and get allies. It's definitely interesting and could be game changing if well implemented. Microsoft and Apple could push it and win an important battle.

I am curious:

Is it actually worthwhile to solicit this kind of “ally” interest? I would think you’d attract mostly onlookers, people who are puttering around thinking about these topics. People who may just gum up the mailing lists.

Is it really likely to attract actual contributors? I’d think that comes more from providing something that solves a real problem for some obscure group of people.

Re: Solid – Reshape the web as we know it

#158

Post by danShumway »

nnq wrote: post #145
hobofan wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very much depends on the concept of ownership, doesn't it? ;) I mean, you own it, but so does everyone else. I think the traditional(?) concept of ownership you are referring to, that allows people to "delete" information is very unnatural and feels akin to trying to reverse entropy. You can't unring a bell, and you can't delete data from the world.

The human concepts of ownership implies a very important right that people tend to overlook: the right to DESTROY it , to undo it, to "take back what you said". This is important, because for physical artifacts having the right to destroy/demolish means having the right to create new things in its place (if I inherit a historical monument castle and I can't f demolish it to a pile of sand by my liking, than that's a…

> than that's a scam, I don't really own it

Legally speaking then, you don't own information about yourself like your address or past actions. The government won't let you erase that information. The only way to make your friends and family forget it is to kill them, which is obviously highly illegal.

Even with efforts like Right to Be Forgotten, Europe isn't positing that you actually own information about yourself in the same way that you're doing here. Right to Be Forgotten is a) balanced against public interest, and b) only applies to information access and indexing. Right to Be Forgotten doesn't mean that you can demand a newspaper burn all copies of an article it wrote about you.

The reality is that "ownership" means different things in different contexts. There's not a single definition. When we talk about "owning" data or Intellectual Property, we don't mean it in the same way that you "own" a wrench.

How can you own something that is inside my head?

Re: Solid – Reshape the web as we know it

#159

Post by erikpukinskis »

gfodor wrote: post #136
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

isn't there something about if you wait to launch until you have a basic well-polished example you launched too late?

no, the saying is that if you aren't embarrassed by your first version you've launched too late. it doesn't mean that if you launch something embarrassing you've launched on time. a new, far reaching platform for internet data exchange launching without a basic proof of concept seems like a clear and obvious gap that should have been filled before launch.

i.e.

    A->B != !A->!B
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