mspencer712

N=16 developers

There’s a kernel of something positive in decentralization, though. Me pointing this out feels a little bit like someone saying how good COVID lockdown was for the environment, but I still feel like it’s an important point.

An internet made of lots of small sites is better at resisting censorship and centralized control. People should remain accustomed to using a bunch of individual sites, not JUST the biggest sites on the internet, and amateur sysadmins should maintain their “host a public web server from an at-home business internet connection” chops.

There being lots of small porn sites makes it harder for anyone to apply pressure and make certain kinds of affirming content disappear.

That’s … just about everything positive I could say about this idea. Not a fan.

I know right? “Number used Once” is what I was taught.

Omaha resident. I don’t drive through Nebraska from end to end. I just live here.

Dungeons of Daggorath. I had a Color Computer 2 growing up, while we lived in a trailer park. I was still a little afraid of the dark, and the hallways and first person view with jump-scare monsters were a bit intense for me. I’d have to run from one end of the hallway to the other, to get to the bathroom and back.

The impressive event queue system in that game felt like magic to me, like I wondered what happened to the monsters when you turn the computer off.

I was a “smart kid” but I don’t think I was a smart kid.

(Something something original author, something something signed copy of the original source code on my github)

As a BBS era kid, I know you’re not trying to simulate the whole thing right now in the comments section. I’d say: you would have done fine, in any era. People talk, they share methods, and you would’ve picked up whatever you needed.

I think it’s just a common sort of nightmare, worrying about being unprepared, dealing with the consequences of lack of preparation.

I recommend the first few minutes of Jason Scott’s The BBS Documentary, for an overview of how people communicated in the pre-internet days. Especially if you imagine yourself a telegraph operator chatting with neighboring stations in the 19th century or something.

Are people dying right now? That’s an immediate need, if so.

Are they in power right now? Campaigning for reelection right now? That’s an immediate need if so.

Please don’t demonize “let’s focus on immediate needs” as I feel that’s a reasonable thing to want.

Wait how did Isaacman hurt us? I’m confused.

I feel like there should be a third box with Wall Street raider types, for scrapers that use Selenium browser automation.

I don’t think it’s entirely unblockable - adsense seems to know to only serve unmonetized PSA ads - but I think it’s very difficult to discriminate between “this is a real browser controlled by an end user” and “this is a real browser being controlled by automated test software”.

Marco! Polo!

CW (continuous wave / Morse code) over RF in the 1900s.

Walkie talkies and car phones in the 1940s.

AMPS cell phones in the 1980s.

Mostly though they’re right. When you used telecommunications systems you were largely communicating with a location or a known station, not a personal identity. Fascinating to think about.