It's amusing that Eric Schmidt is the challenger on http://www.longbets.org/4 in light of Google's autonomous cars.
Netflix wins a longbet from 8 years ago.
11–20 of 57 posts
Re: Netflix wins a longbet from 8 years ago.
#12now this is an interesting site!
Re: Netflix wins a longbet from 8 years ago.
#13David Peterson nailed it in the comments in 2003:
NetFlix claims to have more than 13,500 titles and more
than one million members. You order the movie on the
Internet, you just can't watch it until all of the bits
of the movie arrive. They just happen to be delivered
to your mailbox and you have to put the bits into your
computer or dvd player.
-- Posted by David B. Peterson on May 16, 02003 at 12:32AM PDTRe: Netflix wins a longbet from 8 years ago.
#14Is it just me or did this seem completely inevitable and kind of on the cusp by 2002? We were building fileserver-based VOD services just to save our Internet connection from the torrenting masses in shared housing situations around this time. This seems like a risky one to bet against, at least from a technical perspective. I suppose it is true that it was still a pretty open question whether anyone would manage to…
Technically do-able, but:
It could have easily been derailed the studios wanting to try and run the business themselves, ISPs who are also cable companies throttling it, national broadcasters lobbying to block it legally.
It also said profitable - I thought even Amazon wasn't profitable yet?
Re: Netflix wins a longbet from 8 years ago.
#15I like the RESTful urls, check out bet #1: http://www.longbets.org/1 We've got a while, but it feels like an appropriate bet.
Those urls have nothing whatsoever to do with REST.
Re: Netflix wins a longbet from 8 years ago.
#16I like the RESTful urls, check out bet #1: http://www.longbets.org/1 We've got a while, but it feels like an appropriate bet.
Those urls have nothing whatsoever to do with REST.
Yes, I'm aware, but the feature is often called "RESTful" urls in frameworks. I actually thought the url was '/bets/1' until I went back and re-read it... my brain inserted it in there, since it's so common.
Like 'HTML5' or 'hacker,' 'REST' is a totally destroyed, meaningless term. I'm attempting to be pragmatic about it. Better to effectively communicate than hold onto intellectual purity.
Re: Netflix wins a longbet from 8 years ago.
#17For a foundation thinking ultra longterm, they have a flaky server. "Service Temporarily Unavailable The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later. Apache/2.2.11 (Ubuntu) Server at www.longbets.org Port 80"
Flakey server > deny links from HN
Re: Netflix wins a longbet from 8 years ago.
#18It's amusing that Eric Schmidt is the challenger on http://www.longbets.org/4 in light of Google's autonomous cars.
Amusing - but a car with 2 passengers going at a conservative 30MPH is very different to a plane flying 9KM over the ground at 567MPH.
I'm just hoping that in 80 years I won't be alive to see my comment becoming horribly wrong, with people laughing at it while a processor flies them across the world.
Re: Netflix wins a longbet from 8 years ago.
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those urls have nothing whatsoever to do with REST.
Yes, I'm aware, but the feature is often called "RESTful" urls in frameworks. I actually thought the url was '/bets/1' until I went back and re-read it... my brain inserted it in there, since it's so common. Like 'HTML5' or 'hacker,' 'REST' is a totally destroyed, meaningless term. I'm attempting to be pragmatic about it. Better to effectively communicate than hold onto intellectual purity.
If the term is totally destroyed and meaningless, with different people having different ideas, you'd be better off avoiding it altogether. Don't beat a dead buzzword!
Re: Netflix wins a longbet from 8 years ago.
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, I'm aware, but the feature is often called "RESTful" urls in frameworks. I actually thought the url was '/bets/1' until I went back and re-read it... my brain inserted it in there, since it's so common. Like 'HTML5' or 'hacker,' 'REST' is a totally destroyed, meaningless term. I'm attempting to be pragmatic about it. Better to effectively communicate than hold onto intellectual purity.
If the term is totally destroyed and meaningless, with different people having different ideas, you'd be better off avoiding it altogether. Don't beat a dead buzzword!
In the general case, I agree with you. However, everyone knows what 'RESTful urls' and 'RESTful apis' mean, it's just that it's not the original recipe REST. For better or worse, the definition has changed.
It's still effective communication, because you know I'm contrasting '/bets/1' with 'index.aspx?action=displayBet&bet_id=1&' (which still could be quite RESTful, actually...), and a form that POSTs to '/bets' vs. a form with method=GET request to 'index.aspx?action=addAnotherBet&=SomeValue=1&something_else=2'. And yes, there's more to it than that, but you get the idea.
Just because it makes puritains die inside doesn't make it wrong.