On iOS9, iPhone6:
The comment box and comments overflow which require horizontal scrolling or zooming out. It worked better before simply because zooming in (double tap) is easier than zooming out (pinch).
Hyperledger's home page talks about a protocol, pools, consensus, security, and decentralization, however, none of those features exist in the codebase. Proof of work and distributed networks are why bitcoin and others are more complex than a list of node URLs and a simple database model.
After looking through code, a number of concerns are also raised:
- key pairs use RSA
- identities are based on MD5 of RSA public key
- no p2p protocol for nodes
- lack of proof of work (more on that below)
As-is, the project is a rails application which references accounts by MD5 of the public key, a postgresql database, and a REST client. In other words -- basic rails ledger app plus some PKI.
I see a significant issue with hyperledger, in that the pools are, by nature, private. The only verification a client can perform is the SSL certificate. A pool owner, if they wish, could change the account balance on all of their private nodes and there would be no public record of the change or the previous history. Yes this would require collusion of some kind, but even for 10k nodes, such data can be changed in seconds. Without a blockchain, how could anyone prove otherwise?
I see the potential for companies like quickbooks, paypal, or even banks, to create public REST interfaces for their account ledgers. This seems inexpensive for a bank to do (compared to a p2p network), and, we'd have the trust of the bank. This is money after all, so, I'd trust the bank over a psuedo-private network.
Looking forward to see how hyperledger will approach the problems described above. I would be surprised if the end-result isn't similar to bitcoin.
Perhaps this could be good to introduce a little at a time. Like musical instruments (drum kits) or building blocks (legos). As a parent, I agree, that surrounding children with technology all the time can distract them from learning more important social skills. At the same time, I know my son is going to be asking me all the time "How does this work? How does that work? etc." And, unlike a software program, this provides a tactile experience which I think he'll be able to relate to when I say "Self driving cars work like your little robot".
LiveJournal doesn't route messages. It performs database queries which renders to HTML. As a result twitter will broadcast what you say to all of your followers, immediately, to their cell phones. This isn't something LiveJournal's architecture supported.
IRC has no such long-established functionality. You can MSG a #channel or a user and that's it. User's can't follow each other and there are no lists. These followers and lists are how twitter routes messages, not a channel.
Such a simple difference makes all the difference. In this case, enough to file a patent.
If they didn't file a patent someone else would have.
The patents involves routing messages with emphasis on followers. Everything previous I'm aware of has been multicast based or address based, like email or mailing lists. Most internet and application-layer protocols are destination based. Where is a protocol that says "Route this message based on who is interested in the source."? All I find is "send this message there, based on X, or, send that message here, based on Y"; both destination based. Would be interesting to know or hear of past protocols which are more similar to twitter's patent.