5 ms·

There should be more follow-up articles like this. You could probably do a biannual roll-up for battery tech, to say nothing of more overtly political topics.

downshun 7y ago
Blockchain + version control for news?
- jjakque 7y ago
  I felt your comment off topic. But I do somewhat agree with sentiment of having immutable news archive as the present Internet is more 'what we can see' oppose to 'what we can know'.
- andrewflnr 7y ago
  Not really. The problem isn't that we don't have a record of past news, it's that we're not critically reading the records we have. IMO it's fundamentally a social issue between journalists and readers.
- jacobush 7y ago
  Yes, good candidates. Come back to "block chain" and "version control" every other year, that would be just about right.
- smt88 7y ago
  I suspect your downvotes are due to HN being tired of people proposing blockchain for problems it wouldn't solve. Assuming your comment was sincere, I'll engage with your content instead of downvoting: 1. You don't need a distributed, P2P database to archive news. Archive.org already does it, for example. So do some libraries. 2. Saving things in immutable, distributed databases does not require a blockchain. BitTorrent has been mostly successful at this for decades, for example. 3. It's common for stories like this to be covered in thousands of reputable and unreputable publications. The reputable ones already have policies against changing old stories, though none seem to do routinely change stories in practice. Either way, to update a story like this, you only need one example of the coverage.
  - downshun 7y ago
    Thanks! I was wondering. Didn't have a clear idea of what the implementation details would have to be so I just named the two closest concepts that came to mind.
    - smt88 7y ago
      There was an article (and accompanying thread) a few years ago that I sent to everyone who didn't understand why blockchain was a hype bubble[1]. It may be informative for you, too. At this point, the word blockchain itself is very stigmatized. It doesn't help that a lot of the pro-blockchain social media world (reddit, Twitter, and Instagram) is populated by nutjobs and scammers. Side note: I recommend you think of downvotes as "this isn't the most informative comment and should be lower" rather than "I hate you as a person". It's almost always the former rather than the latter. The latter is usually flagged instead of downvoted. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15994571 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15994571
    - andrewflnr 7y ago
      > so I just named the two closest concepts that came to mind. To be quite blunt, this is a recipe for downvotable comments.
      - downshun 7y ago
        https://mobile.twitter.com/dorrismccomics/status/862765335258079232 https://mobile.twitter.com/dorrismccomics/status/86276533525... I'm not very excellous at the englishingn. Woe is my karma.
aptwebapps 7y ago
I've stopped paying attention to battery tech announcements and just wait to see what shows up on the market. There are so many 'breakthroughs'.

downshun 7y ago

Blockchain + version control for news?

jjakque 7y ago
I felt your comment off topic. But I do somewhat agree with sentiment of having immutable news archive as the present Internet is more 'what we can see' oppose to 'what we can know'.
andrewflnr 7y ago
Not really. The problem isn't that we don't have a record of past news, it's that we're not critically reading the records we have. IMO it's fundamentally a social issue between journalists and readers.
jacobush 7y ago
Yes, good candidates. Come back to "block chain" and "version control" every other year, that would be just about right.
smt88 7y ago
I suspect your downvotes are due to HN being tired of people proposing blockchain for problems it wouldn't solve. Assuming your comment was sincere, I'll engage with your content instead of downvoting: 1. You don't need a distributed, P2P database to archive news. Archive.org already does it, for example. So do some libraries. 2. Saving things in immutable, distributed databases does not require a blockchain. BitTorrent has been mostly successful at this for decades, for example. 3. It's common for stories like this to be covered in thousands of reputable and unreputable publications. The reputable ones already have policies against changing old stories, though none seem to do routinely change stories in practice. Either way, to update a story like this, you only need one example of the coverage.
- downshun 7y ago
  Thanks! I was wondering. Didn't have a clear idea of what the implementation details would have to be so I just named the two closest concepts that came to mind.
  - smt88 7y ago
    There was an article (and accompanying thread) a few years ago that I sent to everyone who didn't understand why blockchain was a hype bubble[1]. It may be informative for you, too. At this point, the word blockchain itself is very stigmatized. It doesn't help that a lot of the pro-blockchain social media world (reddit, Twitter, and Instagram) is populated by nutjobs and scammers. Side note: I recommend you think of downvotes as "this isn't the most informative comment and should be lower" rather than "I hate you as a person". It's almost always the former rather than the latter. The latter is usually flagged instead of downvoted. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15994571 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15994571
  - andrewflnr 7y ago
    > so I just named the two closest concepts that came to mind. To be quite blunt, this is a recipe for downvotable comments.
    - downshun 7y ago
      https://mobile.twitter.com/dorrismccomics/status/862765335258079232 https://mobile.twitter.com/dorrismccomics/status/86276533525... I'm not very excellous at the englishingn. Woe is my karma.

aptwebapps 7y ago

I've stopped paying attention to battery tech announcements and just wait to see what shows up on the market. There are so many 'breakthroughs'.