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John Carmack pushes out unlocked OS for defunct Oculus Go headset

arstechnica.com

131–140 of 316 posts

Re: John Carmack pushes out unlocked OS for defunct Oculus Go headset

#131

The thought of Facebook having telemetry on real time eye tracking data for a future popular Oculus VR headset in a few years is horrifying. I’ll never get over the sale of Oculus to Facebook.

Me neither.

Haven't touched their hardware since and won't; would pass on jobs if that becomes an aspect.

Re: John Carmack pushes out unlocked OS for defunct Oculus Go headset

#132
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same is true of some of the best work being done on the web, such as the NYTimes interactive infographics. Because they are so JS-heavy, and reliant on CI/CD pipelines for deployment, on custom CMSes, there is no way to archive them in the way that static pages containing just text and images can be archived on the Wayback Machine. Heck, even Flash projects from 15 years ago still run fine when compiled on Ruffle…

Huh? JS can be cached and preserved just like anything else. Even the (presumably JSON or CSV) data could be cached, though I don't know if the Wayback Machine follows API endpoints by default

My guess is that it only requests data that it can statically parse (e.g. HTML attributes and tags) and archives that. Anything more complex would require using an actual browser (either via Webdriver, a custom build, or a pile of hacks that implement something identical to one); and would have problems with adversarial content and so on.

I say this because I know that Wayback Machine didn't archive multi-load Flash files. That would require parsing SWFs and executing their embedded Action/ABC tags, which requires writing something equivalent to Flash Player. SPAs aren't much different in terms of archivability as all-Flash websites were.

Re: John Carmack pushes out unlocked OS for defunct Oculus Go headset

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? JS can be cached and preserved just like anything else. Even the (presumably JSON or CSV) data could be cached, though I don't know if the Wayback Machine follows API endpoints by default

Browsers evolve and break older pages. JS that requires requests as you interact with it will need an implementation of the server it uses (the subset and data of it's endpoints) How do you preserve that?

How is that any different than wanting to archive a CGI website from the 90s with a URL structure like http://example.com/?query=foo? Unless there's an index page with links to all possible query values, or you can work out how to manually iterate all possible query values, there's not much you can do. This doesn't seem to have anything to do with JavaScript data visualizations specifically.

Re: John Carmack pushes out unlocked OS for defunct Oculus Go headset

#134
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? JS can be cached and preserved just like anything else. Even the (presumably JSON or CSV) data could be cached, though I don't know if the Wayback Machine follows API endpoints by default

If it's dynamically updating based on a database of information that's not shipped to the app in it's entirety, you either have to hope you've somehow seen and preserved all the date from exploring the app, or accept that some data may be lost. > presumably JSON or CSV That's presuming a lot. Even if it's accurate for most/all NYTimes infographics today, it doesn't mean it's accurate tomorrow, and it isn't accurate t…

> If it's dynamically updating based on a database of information that's not shipped to the app in it's entirety, you either have to hope you've somehow seen and preserved all the date from exploring the app, or accept that some data may be lost.

Well, yeah, that's true of all normal websites too. That's precisely what web crawlers are for. If there's no index page that links to all pages, or some way of iterating through all the pages, you wouldn't be able to exhaustively archive any web site.

Re: John Carmack pushes out unlocked OS for defunct Oculus Go headset

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could not agree more. At the bare minimum a vendor should not be allowed to sell a device that has digital locks if the user is not also given a copy of the keys. You can lock the device, but if I don't get a key at time of purchase, then I don't own the damn thing.

I'm trying to think of a situation where this is objectively bad, and I having trouble thinking of areas where this is objectively bad. The best I came up with is purchasing an elevator, which has a key for firemen. I wouldn't really want to just give everybody a copy of that key. But on the other hand, you can buy that key on Amazon for $5. It would maybe help people think about security a bit more if they bought a…

Thinking about situations [...] > where this is objectively bad

Thinking here about a smartphone. Note that I'm explaining the current state of things, I am *not* excusing the state of things.

Directly for end-users, generally no real scenario where it's bad as long as they can enroll their own keys in a safe fashion preventing evil-maid type attacks.

Tangentially for end-users, locked devices are easier to make worthless for thieves. FRP on Android, or whatever Apple does, when it's locked to a user account even when reset. This is one thing that would become harder to implement when the root of trust can be manipulated on the device.

Then there's supply chain integrity for OEMs. This is the reason some android vendors only allow unlocking when attached to an online account after a delay (e.g. xiaomi). Some unscrupulous vendors would open the box, replace the system image with a malware-ridden system image, and sell those to end-users.

Finally, there's somewhat a case for DRM and similar uses. The current implementations are built on the current "security" model, where it's security for the businesses first, then security for end-users last.

Still, I agree wholeheartedly that users should be in control of the root of trust, in a way that does not reduce their abilities to use their owned devices. Add to that that standards-based boot should be used. All the time. All devices.

Re: John Carmack pushes out unlocked OS for defunct Oculus Go headset

#136
post #5

> allowing for a randomly discovered shrink wrapped headset twenty years from now to be able to update to the final software version, long after over-the-air update servers have been shut down. This resonates so much with me. Each time I setup a new device that requires an Internet connection, I think about how we can enjoy booting 30 years old retro computers and how the next generation will not be able to do the sa…

The same is true of some of the best work being done on the web, such as the NYTimes interactive infographics. Because they are so JS-heavy, and reliant on CI/CD pipelines for deployment, on custom CMSes, there is no way to archive them in the way that static pages containing just text and images can be archived on the Wayback Machine. Heck, even Flash projects from 15 years ago still run fine when compiled on Ruffle…

I just got out of jail after 8 years. Went through my del.ici.ous bookmarks. 99% of the sites either dead or can no longer be viewed properly.

Re: John Carmack pushes out unlocked OS for defunct Oculus Go headset

#137
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Declare abandonment and open source all documentation and code. This should get you out of the human lifetime burden.

Yea I've been thinking about this. Open up specs, schematics, docs, and code, or actually support it "forever" (not literally, but a decently long time). It might be a bit extreme though. To provide some incentive, I'd consider the responsibility for recycling if you're unwilling to support usage. There is far too much throwaway crap.

> To provide some incentive, I'd consider the responsibility for recycling if you're unwilling to support usage.

Germany put the onus on the sellers here. Since 2016 sellers of electronic appliances with a store space of >400m^2 and online sellers with a warehouse space of >400m^2 are required by law to take small electronic appliances (up to 25cm max side length) and dispose of them properly, which usually means recycling, no matter if you actually bought the thing from them or not, and no matter if you buy a new thing or not.

These sellers are furthermore required to take larger appliances if you buy a new replacement appliance from them.

This service has to provided free of charge (except for reasonable shipping costs).

In practice, almost every commercial seller of new appliances, even those who do not fall under the law, will take your old appliances at least when you buy a new similar one voluntarily. Because if not, a lot of customers would just go to a competitor who does.

This spread to other areas too, where e.g. a lot of sellers will voluntary take and dispose of your old mattress when you buy a new one from them.

The sellers do have to dispose of the appliances properly, which is usually also the least expensive option for them. Recycling companies will come and take that stuff for free from the sellers, because they make their money by stripping anything precious out of the stuff.

The area where this is problematic is non-commercial sellers and/or sellers of used stuff. But by law, municipalities have to take all electronic appliances free of charge, the drawback being that they do not have to provide collection/shipping. Getting your old washing machine to the recycling center can be a burden. In my city at least you can call them up and make an appointment for I believe 10 bucks. And they encourage you to tell your neighbors about the pick up time so they can put out their electro trash as well. My city also has about 40 collection containers all around the city for small appliances (up to desktop computer size). The one closest to me is about 7 mins by foot.

Of course, trashing perfectly fine electronic appliances may be a waste sometimes (but sometimes not, because these old things may be extremely power hungry compared to newer models), and a right to repair would be better, but at least it's a step in the right direction.

Re: John Carmack pushes out unlocked OS for defunct Oculus Go headset

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? JS can be cached and preserved just like anything else. Even the (presumably JSON or CSV) data could be cached, though I don't know if the Wayback Machine follows API endpoints by default

It's going to be like java is now. You have to find the exact right date for the right runtime environment to get your JS to execute properly. And that is quite a task. Complex toolkit JS is generally not forwards compatible for more than a couple years.

Uh... name one toolkit or platform or library that became incompatible with the JS engines after a couple of years? JS inherits the Web property of extreme backwards-compatibility. Breakages do happen, but they're extraordinarily rare.

Unless you mean something different by compatibility? Sure, you won't be able to mix wildly different versions of libraries because their APIs change. But I wouldn't call that a "runtime environment".

Re: John Carmack pushes out unlocked OS for defunct Oculus Go headset

#139

Massive props to John Carmack! We also need laws to protect consumers when they don’t have an enlightened champion on their side. Part of the reason I buy Apple devices is because Apple is unlikely to get acquired or go out of business for the foreseeable future. I wish there were viable alternatives. Android devices are not an option for me, as they are more likely to be abandoned and/or contain Google/manufacturer/…

Apple is one of the only companies I dare buy content from because they are too big to be acquired. I (begrudgingly) wrote DRM code to encrypt all the music for one of Apple's competitors and then they got acquired and all the music and video was just dead bytes on the users' hard drives and there were no refunds.

Still, Apple is known to lock people's accounts for a variety of bogus reasons and then all your purchased content is lost.

Re: John Carmack pushes out unlocked OS for defunct Oculus Go headset

#140
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same is true of some of the best work being done on the web, such as the NYTimes interactive infographics. Because they are so JS-heavy, and reliant on CI/CD pipelines for deployment, on custom CMSes, there is no way to archive them in the way that static pages containing just text and images can be archived on the Wayback Machine. Heck, even Flash projects from 15 years ago still run fine when compiled on Ruffle…

I just got out of jail after 8 years. Went through my del.ici.ous bookmarks. 99% of the sites either dead or can no longer be viewed properly.

I would definitely read a blog (or just follow up comments) about a technology orientated person jumping forward almost a decade in time and what they find really different.

Are you a professional developer? Has framework churn been an issue?

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