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Preparing for 25 Years

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Re: Preparing for 25 Years

#21

Post by hhas01 »

ivanhoe wrote: post #18
pknerd wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can still get on track provided we do not get fascinated with Data Silos in the name of Social Media.

Unfortunately "data silos" are very convenient to end users, and also allow them to easily discover new content - which solves the main problem of the distributed content, the bad discoverability.

HTTP hyperlinks FTF. Vannevar Bush hypothesized much a higher-level “mesh of associative trails”, with relationships formed directly and largely automatically. The closest today’s WWW has gotten to this is search engines, but again these are centralized, controlled, and first and foremost in service to vendor, not users.

However, I would argue a far greater problem was the early lack of editability; Berners-Lee originally conceived of his WWW as a network of editable documents, where every user could read and write with equal ease. His prototype web browser was, to use a desktop analogy, a “Word for the Web”; a true web editor, Opening and Saving documents stored online, just as Microsoft Word directly opens and saves documents stored locally.

But Tim got lazy and impatient, and shipped his first public browser as a cut-down web viewer. Which Mosaic then copied; and, before anyone knew any different, the web was recast as a read-only medium of the masses, with web editing the exclusive domain of technical and corporate elites only.

A single thoughtless corner-cutting mistake, creating an artificial bottleneck upon which trillion-dollar global empires have now been built. You can still see the remnants of the original direct interaction model in HTTP’s PUT and DELETE verbs, like the hindlimbs in a blue whale, rendered just as powerless from the ignorance and avarice of this new web’s Intelligent Design.

Tony Hoare named NULL his billion-dollar mistake, but that’s a rounding error on the scale of TBL’s fuckup. As for Dave Winer? Best and worst, maybe a couple of Benjamins.

Re: Preparing for 25 Years

#22

Post by skybrian »

fouc wrote: post #15
ghaff wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that kinda what we have? You can write web apps rather than mobile apps, publish on open source publishing platforms, use IRC, use RSS, etc. Yes, there may be discoverability and other downsides but nothing is actually preventing you from avoiding walled gardens for the most part.

The problem is there's an arms race on web browsers and constant upgrading of OSes and software and hidden centralizing effects. So even if some group of people are using IRC and RSS, probably many of them are getting caught up in google, chrome, and the current centralizing trend of the current "Web"

IRC is not in the same situation as websites. Plain HTML pages work fine in mainstream browsers. The web server does need to be upgraded to do encryption, but there is good open source software available for that.

Re: Preparing for 25 Years

#23

Post by davewiner »

latchkey wrote: post #3

Here is a Dave story... I once wrote an early web server using his Frontier Scripting platform which ended up serving up a large corporate website that my company built. Crazy early days of the web. So, I got to 'know' Dave a bit online. One time I was at a bar (that no longer exists) in San Francisco at some MacWorld event in the 90's and Dave showed up. He and I had previously had some emails back and forth that we…

I like this in your profile --

"Important: If you are looking at this profile because you thought something I posted was wrong, dismissive, disrespectful, douchebaggish, what have you, I would really like to hear from you so that I could understand how you got that impression. I won't get mad, I won't "retaliate" I just want to hear what you have to say. It is important to me to communicate clearly and if something I said struck you that way then I failed and I would like to correct it. (Borrowed from another profile)"

Yes I feel you are being all that in this post. At the end you apologize, that's nice, but before that you said some insulting personal things about me, that I'm sure aren't true. Take responsibility for what you did and said and leave it at that. Apologizing for nasty behavior and then saying yeah but the guy was a dick, that isn't apologizing.

Anyway this is par for the course of Hacker News. The troll post always is highest ranked.

Re: Preparing for 25 Years

#24

Post by kick »

davewiner wrote: post #23
latchkey wrote: post #3

Here is a Dave story... I once wrote an early web server using his Frontier Scripting platform which ended up serving up a large corporate website that my company built. Crazy early days of the web. So, I got to 'know' Dave a bit online. One time I was at a bar (that no longer exists) in San Francisco at some MacWorld event in the 90's and Dave showed up. He and I had previously had some emails back and forth that we…

I like this in your profile -- "Important: If you are looking at this profile because you thought something I posted was wrong, dismissive, disrespectful, douchebaggish, what have you, I would really like to hear from you so that I could understand how you got that impression. I won't get mad, I won't "retaliate" I just want to hear what you have to say. It is important to me to communicate clearly and if something I…

The person isn't trolling, though. It's a fun anecdote that makes you both seem more human, and you didn't come across as a dick in it.

EDIT: For the record, most of us probably revere your blog.

Re: Preparing for 25 Years

#25

Post by plussed_reader »

krick wrote: post #7
bb101 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use RSS multiple times a day through Feedly and Reeder. It is anything but dead.

Uh, sorta, kinda, I guess... It is a lot less alive than it should and could have been. Sure, you can set up your own web-server, install RSS reader on your phone and use RSS as a protocol to get updates of your cat coming in and out or whatever. But essentially all the major services heavily discourage its usage for the majority of users.

Here's your idea in a different metaphor: How many die hard fans does it take for a musical band to exist; for the business machine to be self sustaining by die hard fans that will consume your material when released?

There are lots of bands that have exited the mainstage of public notoriety that are still thriving in various ends.

Re: Preparing for 25 Years

#26

Post by davewiner »

kick wrote: post #24
davewiner wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like this in your profile -- "Important: If you are looking at this profile because you thought something I posted was wrong, dismissive, disrespectful, douchebaggish, what have you, I would really like to hear from you so that I could understand how you got that impression. I won't get mad, I won't "retaliate" I just want to hear what you have to say. It is important to me to communicate clearly and if something I…

The person isn't trolling, though. It's a fun anecdote that makes you both seem more human, and you didn't come across as a dick in it. EDIT: For the record, most of us probably revere your blog.

Here's how this works. Imagine you don't recall this event. And then he says about you what he said about me (I don't remember the words, and I don't want to, but sounded like I blew my top). Now further imagine that having lived with yourself a long time, you know that isn't how you react to things like that. How would you feel?

You're only telling me how you feel. But you're forgetting that I am not you. And I got a lot of that kind of childish BS. You wouldn't believe how people project on you.

One time at a party in Menlo Park, I had to go take a leak. So I walked to the bathroom, relieved myself and went back to talking with my friends. Sounds pretty ordinary right?

The next day this guy blogged about how I WALKED RIGHT BY HIM without even looking at him. He got all kinds of empathy. I had no idea who he was. I guessed that I mustve walked by him on the way to piss.

It got to the point where people would video me in parties, conversing with me with a camera in their pocket. Or when I went to a meeting at Blogger, and they video'd that, live. We were there talking business. And I got visitors at my house, that was fun. Knocking on the door wanting to know if I lived there, saying shit like this guy was saying.

As a result I pulled back and traded my influence for a bit more normal life.

I haven't even told you the worst of it. It was pretty fucked up.

So this little story here is a reminder of how fucked up people are. His memory of me, a guy who he says created software that he used and liked, is the time he treated me like an object. Sad for him, and also sad for me. And sad for the world that there are limits on how much you can do before they start hurting you for it.

Re: Preparing for 25 Years

#27

Post by Kye »

davewiner wrote: post #26
kick wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The person isn't trolling, though. It's a fun anecdote that makes you both seem more human, and you didn't come across as a dick in it. EDIT: For the record, most of us probably revere your blog.

Here's how this works. Imagine you don't recall this event. And then he says about you what he said about me (I don't remember the words, and I don't want to, but sounded like I blew my top). Now further imagine that having lived with yourself a long time, you know that isn't how you react to things like that. How would you feel? You're only telling me how you feel. But you're forgetting that I am not you. And I got…

I read a good post on this subject: https://medium.com/@soatok/friendship-and-the-furry-fandom-4...

People who are well-known are people a lot of people want to get to know, but they remain human with human limitations and human priorities.

I've found the best way to get in touch with well-known people is to have a genuine interest in talking to them about mutual interests.

Re: Preparing for 25 Years

#28

Post by kragen »

davewiner wrote: post #26
kick wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The person isn't trolling, though. It's a fun anecdote that makes you both seem more human, and you didn't come across as a dick in it. EDIT: For the record, most of us probably revere your blog.

Here's how this works. Imagine you don't recall this event. And then he says about you what he said about me (I don't remember the words, and I don't want to, but sounded like I blew my top). Now further imagine that having lived with yourself a long time, you know that isn't how you react to things like that. How would you feel? You're only telling me how you feel. But you're forgetting that I am not you. And I got…

> And then he says about you what he said about me (I don't remember the words, and I don't want to, but sounded like I blew my top). Now further imagine that having lived with yourself a long time, you know that isn't how you react to things like that.

Dude, that is definitely a common reaction on your part. You're famous for flipping out at people. Anyone who read your blog for any length of time saw it happen online a few times; anyone in the tech scene in the 2000s had you flip out at one or more of our friends in person. I'm sure you often don't react like that, but you do react like that enough for it to be very notable.

Moreover, your offended and condescending response makes it clear to anyone reading the thread that—unless there was some major provocation edited out of the original comment above, the way you used to do with your blog—you’re at least sometimes hypersensitive and prone to overreacting.

Re: Preparing for 25 Years

#29

Post by [deleted] »

davewiner wrote: post #26
kick wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The person isn't trolling, though. It's a fun anecdote that makes you both seem more human, and you didn't come across as a dick in it. EDIT: For the record, most of us probably revere your blog.

Here's how this works. Imagine you don't recall this event. And then he says about you what he said about me (I don't remember the words, and I don't want to, but sounded like I blew my top). Now further imagine that having lived with yourself a long time, you know that isn't how you react to things like that. How would you feel? You're only telling me how you feel. But you're forgetting that I am not you. And I got…

[deleted]

Re: Preparing for 25 Years

#30

Post by cschmidt »

I've enjoyed reading Dave's writing for most of that time. His email newsletter DaveNet used to include the email addresses of a few random subscribers to each person. It was fun to see the addresses of famous people occasionally. Dave's always had interesting ideas. Looking back in my old email, I have some DaveNet's from 2003, but I read it back to the mid '90's or so.

For many years I read everything on scripting.com. I still check in now and again. Thanks for everything Dave.

(Dave seems to be one of those people that can't be discussed rationally on HN, much like Stephen Wolfram.)

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