I feel like Pokémon go style games are massively underexploited.
Not just augmented reality but using cities as playgrounds. Nokia did some interesting things with this in the late 90s.
A fps might be problematic, but what about non violent trading (certain locations have mines etc, you can use resources to construct factories visible in augmented reality etc.) essentially a parallel world economy and reality that sits atop the physical word.
That’s a good point. Relatedly, Jaron Lanier says something quite insightful on the topic that gets to the root (pun) of the problem.
If you think all information should be free, like all software, then the creators of information are not being financially rewarded for creating it. That’s how you end up with cloud data centres making huge profits whilst most OSS projects struggle for cash. It’s also where the business models of Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok arise.
Lanier makes a rather odd statement about how web links should be two way to solve this problem. I get his drift, but a better idea is that the web should be built on a more rigorous foundation (see Joe Armstrong’s talk - “the mess we’ve made” - for how it could work). But the general idea is correct - in an information economy either everyone is fairly rewarded for the valuable information they provide, or else you end up with giant companies capturing all the value instead, which leads to gross inequality.
Tbf to Stallman, he is more focused on constraining the worst commercial uses of software, but his fundamental idea that (as per this post) “knitting patterns should be free”, originally something that sounded like an exciting and inspiring idea, has turned out to be absolutely disastrous. He was maybe philosophically correct but in practice, the idea does not serve the best interests of most people.
Information shouldn’t be free (!!! I said that on HN) but rather information should be provided at a cost that is based on both (a) the cost of its provision and (b) the economic value that recipients of that information derive from it. So, for example, OSS authors writing code that underpinned Google’s empire or someone’s SaaS, should get a (small) slice of that pie.
I think once you recognise this, you end up in a really exciting place: like, how could this work in practice? What new concepts do we need to apply to information to do it? Some of the ideas of crypto should come in here: we need to be able to identify information uniquely, for example, so we can track its value. We need to know how many SaaS products are using Bootstrap or whatever. A new type of economy based on fair reward for information is possible. And for once, we do actually need a technical solution to a social problem.
I didn’t cover Yemen, because I am not as familiar with the details of the conflict, and from what I do know it seems to be a very complex situation involving many actors.
Much as I’ve defended the US in some other cases, I think that view on Iraq is somewhat naive. Yes, some wanted to get rid of an evil dictator, but it was motivated more by geopolitics than any sense of altruism.
Well, intervention in Yugoslavia wasn’t a war started by the US.
The Kuwait war was after an invasion by Iraq and at the invitation of the government there, and the US were restrained enough to halt at the Iraq border.
The Syrian war was not started by the US, and it has played a minor part there. In fact, it is Russia that has indiscriminately bombed Syrian cities and targeted civilians and hospitals there.
Afghanistan was in response to 9/11 and the refusal of the Taliban to end their protection of a terrorist organisation that had repeatedly attacked American targets internationally before their deliberate targeted murder of thousands of American civilians. This does not seem comparable to Ukraine.
The Iraq war stands out for me as the unjustified and imperialist war of modern times. It seems to me that the atmosphere post 9/11 was used as a pretence. But even Iraq does seem different: Hussein was a brutal dictator and, at least initially, Americans were welcomed as liberators. In Ukraine we are seeing widespread civilian resistance to the invasion. But Blair and Bush should answer for their war crimes.
By far the biggest difference here, I think, is that by being a European war and through the potential for further conflict and nuclear conflict, this war has far larger international ramifications and strategic risks attached to it. To see European cities bombed is to be reminded of what has happened in the past and that it can happen again. That is why it is receiving so much attention.
This is whataboutism and it is so tired. A good propaganda tactic though, and the Russians are using it as an attack vector. Westerners seem really vulnerable to this form of propaganda, possibly due to the success of previous information warfare led by Russia.
Bringing up some other terrible thing for comparison does not change in any way whatsoever the severity of what is happening in Ukraine. Whataboutism propaganda is designed to muddy the waters around that indisputable fact.
If what you said were true, western countries would not be divided on this issue. It just so happens that Germany are being cowardly over this issue, and the Germans are dependent on Russian energy.
If you think the US has been worse for the Syrians than Russia’s indiscriminate bombing of its cities, I cannot take the rest of your argument seriously.
It’s terrifying to be self aware enough to note that this problem, of assessing our own abilities and potential contributions, is so difficult.
Over time I’ve been fortunate enough to meet people sufficiently better at mathematics than me to crush any hope I had of solving significant problems in quantum theory. So at least I’m not wasting my life there.
But now I’m focused on other goals that seem more suited, but how do I know I’m not an idiot here too? Maybe I’d be better helping a genuinely smart person achieve their goals.
I’ve had encouragement from a few people who know me well, which helps. I respect them so their validation is encouraging.
Are there any other ways to assess yourself to ensure you’re not (amongst other things) out of your depth without being aware of it?
The reason IoT hasn’t completely taken off yet is simply because it’s still developing as an industry. There are lots of open questions about maintenance and architecture and how cloud IoT services should work. As it becomes more commodified it will become widespread.
[edit - noticed sibling post... “smart toasters” etc total BS nonsense, but IoT for business will be transformative]
Don't disagree with you, but sometimes video tutorials are the _only_ source for such information (Some of Google's cloud services are guilty of this).
Curious that a HN commentator never uses YouTube. If you’re a dev, don’t you come across video tutorials that you have to watch? Do you have insufficient bandwidth?
Yeah, totally, I get that for some people they'll see Android like that and for people like yourself the "mini computer" paradigm makes total sense.
Just not for the gigantic market that Android has.
I've always found Android's design to be really weird compared to iOS or Windows Phone, but seeing it as a "mini computer" explains why their design doesn't make sense to me - because I see phones as a separate form factor that fundamentally changes how it is used [by most people].
I feel like Pokémon go style games are massively underexploited.
Not just augmented reality but using cities as playgrounds. Nokia did some interesting things with this in the late 90s.
A fps might be problematic, but what about non violent trading (certain locations have mines etc, you can use resources to construct factories visible in augmented reality etc.) essentially a parallel world economy and reality that sits atop the physical word.