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Freeing the Web from the Browser

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Re: Freeing the Web from the Browser

#111

Post by tomc1985 »

I had to stop reading after a few paragraphs. His assertion that linking belongs to "content producers" is ludicrous. Those content producers have given users the tools to do linking themselves, and they express themselves in a variety of ways over a variety of mediums.

You need to learn how to write to express yourself with written word, yet how many people do we here harping on how difficult it is to learn language?

At some point we can draw a line and say, "if you want these abilities you need to learn these things". We did so with literacy, with driving, and with so many professional trades. We can do so with basic internet literacy.

Re: Freeing the Web from the Browser

#112

Post by joesavage »

dcuthbertson wrote: post #100

This looked interesting, so I started reading the author's dissertation, but I've been sidetracked/put-off by its overbearing copyright statement. This copy of the dissertation has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with its author and that no quotation from the dissertation and no information derived from it may be published without the prior wr…

Sorry about this! It was a stock copyright clause provided by my university. I’ll look into getting it removed, and in the mean time am perfectly happy for you to use the work (with proper attribution) as you see fit.

EDIT: The problematic clause in question has now been removed.

Re: Freeing the Web from the Browser

#113

Post by ergothus »

tomc1985 wrote: post #111

I had to stop reading after a few paragraphs. His assertion that linking belongs to "content producers" is ludicrous. Those content producers have given users the tools to do linking themselves, and they express themselves in a variety of ways over a variety of mediums. You need to learn how to write to express yourself with written word, yet how many people do we here harping on how difficult it is to learn language…

> Those content producers have given users the tools to do linking themselves, and they express themselves in a variety of ways over a variety of mediums.

? How can I link to, say, a quote in that article that offends you? I can't. How can I link to a youtube video and add my own commentary links? I can't (I think) without creating my own video that explicitly copies the original (rather than consuming it).

> You need to learn how to write to express yourself with written word, yet how many people do we here harping on how difficult it is to learn language?

I definitely wish people took the time to work on that skill instead of assuming it's both automatic and that their level is adequate. Nonetheless, this doesn't seem related to the point of the article - not that linking is HARD, but that, outside of whatever the creator enabled, all we get are top level URLs.

Re: Freeing the Web from the Browser

#114

Post by tim333 »

skadamat wrote: post #108
nradov wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WebAssembly may eventually get us closer to that vision.

WebAssembly will no doubt give us more freedom, but still has a lot of constraints. Also, it's fundamentally a hack built on top of the browser ecosystem, not replacing browsers entirely!

I hadn't heard of Hypecard so I watched the video on it here http://www.openculture.com/2017/08/apples-hypercard-software...

I seemed kind of cool but doesn't do much you can't do with webpages and javascript. Its scripting language seemed much easier to do some things with than javascript though. I kind of imagine WebAssembly will go the other way and make things more complicated.

Re: Freeing the Web from the Browser

#115

Post by humblebee »

tomc1985 wrote: post #111

I had to stop reading after a few paragraphs. His assertion that linking belongs to "content producers" is ludicrous. Those content producers have given users the tools to do linking themselves, and they express themselves in a variety of ways over a variety of mediums. You need to learn how to write to express yourself with written word, yet how many people do we here harping on how difficult it is to learn language…

I believe what is meant by the statement is only content producers can add external links to content they produce.

I am unable to take any content and add additional annotation for others to utilize. There appear to be other projects that try to introduce this functionality though such as hypothes.is [0].

It looks like the author is proposing an overlay system that can be applied to a variety of content types. Users can then apply different overlays that are geared towards different topics / audiences. Basically a swappable reference section.

[0] https://web.hypothes.is

Re: Freeing the Web from the Browser

#116

Post by ianbicking »

ergothus wrote: post #113
tomc1985 wrote: post #111

I had to stop reading after a few paragraphs. His assertion that linking belongs to "content producers" is ludicrous. Those content producers have given users the tools to do linking themselves, and they express themselves in a variety of ways over a variety of mediums. You need to learn how to write to express yourself with written word, yet how many people do we here harping on how difficult it is to learn language…

> Those content producers have given users the tools to do linking themselves, and they express themselves in a variety of ways over a variety of mediums. ? How can I link to, say, a quote in that article that offends you? I can't. How can I link to a youtube video and add my own commentary links? I can't (I think) without creating my own video that explicitly copies the original (rather than consuming it). > You nee…

> How can I link to a youtube video and add my own commentary links? I can't (I think) without creating my own video that explicitly copies the original (rather than consuming it).

You can write a blog post and embed the video with timing information.

Of course embedding is largely the same as transclusion, among the features touched upon by open hypermedia.

While you don't get full expressivity without a blog or something that allows full HTML, you can get most of this in other mediums (e.g., Twitter) where the video is embedded automatically given a link. In theory OEmbed (https://oembed.com/) is a standard for something like transclusion, though it's not very widely supported.

Constructing a link to a point in time in a video is a non-standard operation (you just have to know the YouTube interface). Similarly there aren't great patterns for finding a link to a position in a web page. But the pieces are all kind of there, though missing the controls and patterns to bring them together. Which is a failing of browsers, though that points in the opposite direction of the claim in the title of this piece (i.e., it implies to me that we need browsers to go deeper, not increase the breadth of linked applications).

Re: Freeing the Web from the Browser

#117

Post by [deleted] »

oblio wrote: post #10

While this is somewhat cool, I have a few comments: > The Web is, without a doubt, the most powerful research tool currently available to man. No longer must researchers comb through endless indices and catalogues to find what they are looking for. True, but most people aren't researchers. Heck, I think most people don't even know what indices are :) > The vast majority of those interested in a piece of work are mere…

[deleted]

Re: Freeing the Web from the Browser

#118

Post by TuringTest »

superflyguy wrote: post #83
TuringTest wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're reading the comments section of a website right now. Places like Ars Technica or Stack Exchange have a healthy environment in the comments section, so it can be done.

This site works because of the small numbers of people who are educated and there's sensible moderation.

Yes, precisely.

So, it can be done.

Re: Freeing the Web from the Browser

#119

Post by tim333 »

mbowcutt wrote: post #88
fiatjaf wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://hypothes.is/

Seems to be something the author would like. Then again, hypothesis is a browser extension..

It doesn't seem to have much critical mass. Looking at the HN home page there were two comments

>well, news is news after all.

made in 2013 and

>മലയാളം!! കൊള്ളാം!!

in 2015 which is "English !! Wow !!" in Malayalam, a language spoken in Kerala.

Re: Freeing the Web from the Browser

#120

Post by dcuthbertson »

joesavage wrote: post #112
dcuthbertson wrote: post #100

This looked interesting, so I started reading the author's dissertation, but I've been sidetracked/put-off by its overbearing copyright statement. This copy of the dissertation has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with its author and that no quotation from the dissertation and no information derived from it may be published without the prior wr…

Sorry about this! It was a stock copyright clause provided by my university. I’ll look into getting it removed, and in the mean time am perfectly happy for you to use the work (with proper attribution) as you see fit. EDIT: The problematic clause in question has now been removed.

Nicely done! Thanks for being so responsive!
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