Tim Berners-Lee wins Turing Award • Hacker News Board

Re: Tim Berners-Lee wins Turing Award

#271

Post by 75dvtwin » Wed, Apr 05, 2017, 5:09 AM UTC

spinlock wrote: post #152

peter303 wrote: post #86

I remember doing internet research before there was the web. For example in the late 1980s I studied California earthquakes. The USGS had a public ftp site where they put daily epicenter map images (jpeg?) and text databases of epicenters. I wrote automated scripts to download new stuff. I remember there even internet search engines at the time. People wrote automated scipts to look for public ftp ports and compiledb…

I personally think it's important to remember how the Internet worked with TBL invented the Web. Most importantly, everyone believed and implemented net neutrality. I think it's a very interesting thought experiment to imagine if we would even have the web had the University of Minnesota decided to drop all http packets to promote their competing gopher protocol. The Web is the best example I can think of for why we…

I do not share the

> The Web is the best example I can think of for why we still need net neutrality.

I think the Web is best example of why we need privacy protection as it is a form of communication.

I personally pay for a VPN. And I hope my right to use independently implemented (independent from Google/Facebook/ISPs) privacy preservation technology and de-anonymization-resistant technology is not lost, and instead encouraged by the legal system.

In my view, the so called 'net neutrality' is simply a deceiving name for 'a subjective favoritism' given away (as political/economic favors) to some web-monetization players vs others.

Eg. ISPs cannot favor/unfavor content providers, but yet Search engine company can favor/unfavor/rank content providers.

So ISPs are labeled as 'evil' while search and social networking service providers are the 'good doers'.

Re: Tim Berners-Lee wins Turing Award

#272

Post by iiv » Wed, Apr 05, 2017, 5:26 AM UTC

Cyph0n wrote: post #259

Retra wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything will be forgotten. The only question is "when".

Well, I'd argue that (for example) Warren Buffet will be forgotten long before the invention of the transistor will.

But what about the inventor of the transistor? I already don't know that name. (But on the other hand, I don't know many names)

Re: Tim Berners-Lee wins Turing Award

#273

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Apr 05, 2017, 5:35 AM UTC

simias wrote: post #58

e12e wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not quite. You still (in my experience) need to go through obscure web-forms to avoid having gmail/hotmail black list your domain. And even then gmail is way too aggressive with its spam labeling. I've seen replies to an email thread be marked as spam by gmail when the sender is in the recipient's address book. Gmail considers anything beyond big corporate email providers as second class participants - and so does th…

Maybe I've been lucky but implementing DKIM, DMARC and SSL SMTP support seems to have been enough to make gmail happy (I even get the small "lock" icon in gmail inboxes as a bonus). I've used one of the many blacklist check websites to test my domain and only ended up with two false positives which I've rectified through their web forms. It was mostly smooth sailing from there. Note that this is using a dedicated ser…

[deleted]

Re: Tim Berners-Lee wins Turing Award

#274

Post by e12e » Wed, Apr 05, 2017, 5:36 AM UTC

inopinatus wrote: post #208

e12e wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not quite. You still (in my experience) need to go through obscure web-forms to avoid having gmail/hotmail black list your domain. And even then gmail is way too aggressive with its spam labeling. I've seen replies to an email thread be marked as spam by gmail when the sender is in the recipient's address book. Gmail considers anything beyond big corporate email providers as second class participants - and so does th…

I'll echo Simias. If you behave like a first-class citizen and follow all the current standards and protocols, then you'll be accepted as one. I've been running private mail services for decades, and by keeping pace with changing expectations I've never had a problem with deliverability.

Perhaps the key here is "for decades" and "reputable ip". I do run my email from a dedicated box - but I host with hetzner. Their ip blocks might suffer from "bad neighbour" effect.

But how is such an effect not an issue? It makes it hard to "elevate" a box at home to a proper mail server, and makes it hard for new generations to host their own mail (until an ip6-only world (and probably also then) all new users will need to recycle old ips).

As for dmarc, I'm still not entirely convinced it's a great solution to smtp/spam issues. Dkim is already annoying enough if you occasionally want to send mail through/from a different smtp - like Gmail if you don't run your own webmail.

Re: Tim Berners-Lee wins Turing Award

#275

Post by nimchimpsky » Wed, Apr 05, 2017, 5:37 AM UTC

sjclemmy wrote: post #41

jacquesm wrote: post #3

Key quote (for me) from the interview: "A social network is disempowering because you put a lot of energy into it, all your personal data out there, and tell it who your friends are. You can only use that information inside the silo of that particular social network." source: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/604052/webs-inventor-tim-...

I had a similar realisation. What's the product in a social network? It's you.

thats true, but they also provide lots of useful features to users.

Re: Tim Berners-Lee wins Turing Award

#276

Post by nimchimpsky » Wed, Apr 05, 2017, 5:40 AM UTC

hardtke wrote: post #143

madiathomas wrote: post #14

This goes to show how hard winning Turing award is. One would have expected someone who invented the most useful invention of the 20th century to have won this award long time ago. Maybe I am just overvaluing www because of the impact it had on people's lives. EDITED: 20th century, not 19th.

It's hard to top antibiotics in terms of useful inventions.

"the Haber–Bosch process, a method used in industry to synthesize ammonia from nitrogen gas and hydrogen gas. This invention is of importance for the large-scale synthesis of fertilizers and explosives. The food production for half the world's current population depends on this method for producing nitrogen fertilizers."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Haber

Re: Tim Berners-Lee wins Turing Award

#277

Post by e12e » Wed, Apr 05, 2017, 5:49 AM UTC

sergiosgc wrote: post #144

e12e wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not quite. You still (in my experience) need to go through obscure web-forms to avoid having gmail/hotmail black list your domain. And even then gmail is way too aggressive with its spam labeling. I've seen replies to an email thread be marked as spam by gmail when the sender is in the recipient's address book. Gmail considers anything beyond big corporate email providers as second class participants - and so does th…

Sorry, but no. That is entirely false. I run a mail provider for companies, and as long as you adhere to standards and do not emit spam, you don't have to do anything like filling out obscure web forms. You may, on occasion, hit a spam trap due to a compromised account or similar, but de-listing on good RBLs is time-based and automatic. Be vigilant, take care of security faults in your network and, when solved, take…

I used to think so too. But sometimes, at seemingly random email ends up in outlook/Gmail spam boxes. My solution has been to not really care - I don't email that many outlook users from my private email. Let Ms/Google fix their end, after I've done my bit (dkim/ssl - I'm not a fan of dmarc).

But if I were running email for any new organisation I wouldn't have that luxury ofcourse - I'd have to pay for a Google/outlook or other major provider account - or spend a lot of time "reversing" the reputation of the ip/ip block my dedicated servers had - and as none of the major providers provide a simple check like rbl etc - it's a frustrating guessing game where your test-mails to your own Gmail(etc) account go through, but mail to new senders is silently dumped to the spam folder.

I don't mind greylisting, mail bouncing or blacklisting. It's the magic "intelligent" filtering which is annoying - because the only indication of error is that you don't get a reply - because your recipient haven't seen your mail.

In a way it's worse that it's rare - you never know if you've fixed the issue, or some arcane combination of your sending configuration and email content (an email not in English?! Probably spam!) will mean a new recipient will never see your mails.

Re: Tim Berners-Lee wins Turing Award

#278

Post by aryehof » Wed, Apr 05, 2017, 6:01 AM UTC

seejay wrote: post #263

losvedir wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha, yeah, I'm a man. I think if people knew you're not a native speaker they'd have cut you more slack. While "man" can be used in an informal and friendly way ("congratulations man!" wouldn't have raised any eyebrows), "woman" doesn't work that way. Instead, it comes across as sexist, since the only time you hear it is a chauvinistic man bossing a woman around ("dammit, woman, get over here!"). I admit it doesn't ma…

Haha first of all. Let me apologize to you. And I truly admire how you took it very lightly as oppose to the reactions I got from some police officers (Not the nice human beings who kindly explained things) here in HN. And I think I owe you an explanation of what happened. 1) I read your super awesome story. ( nerdgasm ). 2) Upvotes instantly but fuck this is some really good storytelling so just adding an upvote wit…

Your English comes across as over the top to me, and my children don't appreciate you using swear words. Calm down.

Re: Tim Berners-Lee wins Turing Award

#279

Post by gambler » Wed, Apr 05, 2017, 6:21 AM UTC

gambler wrote: post #240

chubot wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well said. Kay's misunderstanding is that it could have been any different. He thinks that you can just design something nice from whole cloth and people will use it. That's why his designs aren't deployed. I've been looking at projects like OOVM and going back in history to Self and SmallTalk, and there's a reason that those things aren't deployed. Don't get me wrong -- they're certainly influential and valuable. Bu…

>He thinks that you can just design something nice from whole cloth and people will use it. Because that's exactly what they did in Xerox Park, many times over. >That's why his designs aren't deployed. No comment. >But he's basically confusing research and engineering, as if engineering wasn't even a thing, and you can just come up with stuff and have people use it because it's good. Kay has many talks about the diff…

Edit 2: I meant, of course, Xerox PARC.

Re: Tim Berners-Lee wins Turing Award

#280

Post by theon144 » Wed, Apr 05, 2017, 6:34 AM UTC

chubot wrote: post #213

sanderjd wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people understand the argument, they just don't fully agree with it. Personally, while I agree that we have ended up with a fairly poor universal VM, I find it to be a fascinating example of path dependency. Maybe we would be better off with one repository of hypertext and one well designed universal VM, but what path would we have taken to get there? The hypertext repository was so compelling that everyone i…

Well said. Kay's misunderstanding is that it could have been any different. He thinks that you can just design something nice from whole cloth and people will use it. That's why his designs aren't deployed. I've been looking at projects like OOVM and going back in history to Self and SmallTalk, and there's a reason that those things aren't deployed. Don't get me wrong -- they're certainly influential and valuable. Bu…

>Another analogy I use is complaining about the human body. Like "who designed this thing there there trachea and esophagus are so close together?!? What an idiot!!!" Or "why are all these people mentally ill and otherwise non-functional members of society? Who designed this crap?"

Okay, so what's wrong with discussing the limitations of the human body and the ways to improve it then?

Yes, the web evolved instead of being designed (however much that distinction makes sense), but arrived at a shi^H^H^H suboptimal result. And it arrived there through deliberate design decisions of people - who unfortunately were designing a different system in the first place.

It's like English. I love English, but it's a bloody mess that we're all stuck with now - except that changing a computer system is comparatively easy to changing the direction of a language.