Rambling mini anecdote which may or may not be of useful relevance, but which resonates on a similar frequency:
In my 40s now, I've had recent reflections about the small, golden friendship group of my university years. What they were then, vs the kind of life they pursued, and where they ended up. This little group of harmlessly rebellious nerds, playing computer games, smoking the odd joint and listening to heavy metal full of lyrics against The Establishment[1], etc. Playing our guitars and inwardly sneering (or more likely, laughing - we weren't really the sneering types) at the corporate world. [1]term used tongue-in-cheek, but I'm sure you know what I mean!
20 years later, and of the half dozen, I'm probably the only one left outside The Establishment.
Among the others, we notably (and disappointingly) have the aloof senior professional fully integrated into the Old Boy's Club of his industry, think Mason-y power conglomerates which run their local region for the profit of a few; and the commerce professional who regularly and gleefully spams LinkedIn with info about his latest Salesforce certifications, alongside Likes for Boris Johnson content.
Do they think they're "the bad guys"? (and in fact, if we're going to be really honest - ARE THEY the bad guys?). The answer to both may well be Probably Not. They have their own justifications and reasoning just as we all do.
I can't help being somewhat disappointed, but as the odd-one-out, who am I to say what's normal and good?
On the flip side, here. That is, those (company complaint incidents) are some of the few occasions I regret having never cultivated a social media world. When I'm on the hard end of some business/corporate injustice, and realise exactly how expendable and voluntary most of my so-called consumer's or citizen's rights are.
As a lone voice desperately holding his bowl out to a corporate giant, like a modern day Oliver Twist - and no army of social media friends behind me...
The person is simply falling into that all-too-human trap.
Where they see something they don't understand, and assign an "alien" status to it. They might as well be saying that BOTW is for Klingons, for all the rationality there is behind it.
In that poster's vein, we might as well refer to all GTA players as criminals and thugs (of course they're not!). When in reality, the player base of both GTA and BOTW has a massive overlap - both games are largely played by the same people. "Computer gamers".
What troubles me about this is the potential for a class divide. Better, easier and faster access for the privileged, regarding a great swathe of generic services to which access should be globally equal.
I don't mean to sound like sour grapes (it's natural, since I don't envisage my own family ever being able to use the Title product), but I just wish the aspirations were a little more universal and inclusive than "consortium of cellphone makers -surprisingly- see cellphones as the answer to all of humanity's password issues!".
You have a point. However I don't believe anyone here's advocating that Google ignore or break laws. But rather, to (as done with China) voluntarily withdraw certain services in response to arguably-unacceptable duress.
[note: that is not my position here - I'm merely clarifying part of the discussion]
I must add, being relatively familiar with Australia's tech sector and it's people, that there is not a great deal of respect in the sector for the tech choices made by Australia's incumbent government of recent years. Whether or not that sentiment is ethically trumped by the fact of that government's democratic election by the general populace, is up to the reader...
Thank you - likewise appreciated, and points acknowledged. The gulfs between Technically Correct and Socially Correct are ever grounds for debate, but mutual understanding wins the day.
Context is subjective, precision is universal. I (perhaps wrongly) don't think of HN as a USA-centric site based upon USA-centric discussion - I think of it as a global community - so my context expectations are set accordingly. But obviously, others may think differently.
I think yes. If we assume reliable conversion of traceroute results to implied distances, and can generate selected data (routes) of our choice. That is, we can see results of remote hops that aren't directly connected to us. Then, ultimately, the resulting matrix of results would (mathematically, ++) conform to a spheroidal shape and no other.
++ think Map Projections, and the associated math.
It's not right that ebay can have their smooth executive fixers organise special meetings to lobby government prosecutors. Then come away having successfully shifted all corporate blame to individual employees "working on their own".
For context: the "Street Fighter Two Cabinet" in the title is actually a modern "Street Fighter II CE Micro Player" miniature toy containing an embedded ARM board. Still interesting, but if the title lead you to expect original hardware then you may be surprised.
Housekeeping note for the author: a few instances of the misspell "Analyzying". Not that it greatly matters! Just noting.
Illustrates one of the big underlying principles of good cooking: moisture management. In this case, removing excess moisture from the outside of something, so that the roasting process can most effectively make it crispy.
The same technique could be applied during the preparation of roast potatoes (after par-boiling), or pork crackling ('rind', as it's known in some countries), for other examples.
The world's already full of businesses that've found ways to turn Status Symbolism into elite, exclusive markets. A significant slice of the world's wealth (certainly dwarfing NFTs!) is routinely used in such manners.
Most give the purchaser a physical bauble to go along with their status symbol, but at heart, the excess of trillions being slung around daily for the purpose of symbolic elitism is certainly nothing new created by NFTs.
They merely embody the concept in a new, ever-so-slightly more useless (than much of the world's spending) manner. But let's not pretend they're some grand new evil the likes of which we've never seen. Oh no. They are certainly not that.
And that is my answer. What happened to them? Nothing. Merely the inevitable, slow collective realisation that the status symbolism embodied by NFTs is actually a pedestrian, everyday concept, and thus perhaps not so special or innovative after all...
Thanks a lot.