4 ms·

The Internet Could Be So Good

3 points by robg 3y ago

meristohm 3y ago
I didn't read beyond the paywall, but in case this wasn't mentioned: We already fund wonderful places that lower the barriers to accessing books and other media. In what ways could we fund the internet as we do public libraries?
1970-01-01 3y ago
Why does the news continue to conflate the network of networks with client-server applications? The Internet has never been better. Today the Internet will instantly connect you to people on a flying a plane in the middle of the ocean, or people that live in the middle of a desert, or in a war zone, or are on a moving train in Australia, or scientists living in Antarctica, etc. Is it just sloppy journalists and editors?
- jauntywundrkind 3y ago
  Why do commenters not see that what is visible & accessible & searchable on the internet is a reflection of what the internet is? That it is technically the transit and not the hosts or endpoints feels like a distinction that refuses to see the forest through the trees? Is it just sloppy posting? Why do some commenters use such divisive & questionable divisions? What purpose is there to strict interpretation?
  - 1970-01-01 3y ago
    >What purpose is there to strict interpretation? Intellectual rigor
    - jauntywundrkind 3y ago
      I mean, I side with you somewhat. I think most of what the internet is used for has fallen to rot & sucks, but the possibility is still there. The internet is still ready to do whatever. The web is still up for doing whatever. We aren't stuck in the current ruts of usage. There's some legalistic adversarialism thats spreading but so far the governments by & large have almost no technical say or technical voice, & ietf rfc8890 excellently describes the network operator disposition, thankfully. So yes, the series of tubes are doing fairly great. But it still comes off to me like frustrating pedantry to try to distinguish the active uses of the internet from the network itself. The hosts & services, the clients: they are part of the network too, & the most defining part to me, given that all the amazing fantastic superb other work building transports exists merely as a utility to support use cases. What we can do here abstractly is anything, but concretely it's shaped by who else is on the network and what's available and happening; this has been a well known idea since at least the dawn of Metcalfe's Law. I've spent a while trying to think of how to accept your rejection of users, systems, cloud providers, sites, and every thing at the end of the network, but I can't even begin to think of what we'd call the everything else that's not transport? What do we refer to everyone connected as? If you want to reserve an extremely narrow definition for a word, and reject any other usage, I think you have to have some viable usabke terms for the greater amalgamation that you are trying to "no actually" your way out of. And I don't see alternative terms for what we have.
deleted 3y ago
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3 points by robg 3y ago

I didn't read beyond the paywall, but in case this wasn't mentioned: We already fund wonderful places that lower the barriers to accessing books and other media. In what ways could we fund the internet as we do public libraries?

1970-01-01 3y ago

Why does the news continue to conflate the network of networks with client-server applications? The Internet has never been better. Today the Internet will instantly connect you to people on a flying a plane in the middle of the ocean, or people that live in the middle of a desert, or in a war zone, or are on a moving train in Australia, or scientists living in Antarctica, etc. Is it just sloppy journalists and editors?

jauntywundrkind 3y ago
Why do commenters not see that what is visible & accessible & searchable on the internet is a reflection of what the internet is? That it is technically the transit and not the hosts or endpoints feels like a distinction that refuses to see the forest through the trees? Is it just sloppy posting? Why do some commenters use such divisive & questionable divisions? What purpose is there to strict interpretation?
- 1970-01-01 3y ago
  >What purpose is there to strict interpretation? Intellectual rigor
  - jauntywundrkind 3y ago
    I mean, I side with you somewhat. I think most of what the internet is used for has fallen to rot & sucks, but the possibility is still there. The internet is still ready to do whatever. The web is still up for doing whatever. We aren't stuck in the current ruts of usage. There's some legalistic adversarialism thats spreading but so far the governments by & large have almost no technical say or technical voice, & ietf rfc8890 excellently describes the network operator disposition, thankfully. So yes, the series of tubes are doing fairly great. But it still comes off to me like frustrating pedantry to try to distinguish the active uses of the internet from the network itself. The hosts & services, the clients: they are part of the network too, & the most defining part to me, given that all the amazing fantastic superb other work building transports exists merely as a utility to support use cases. What we can do here abstractly is anything, but concretely it's shaped by who else is on the network and what's available and happening; this has been a well known idea since at least the dawn of Metcalfe's Law. I've spent a while trying to think of how to accept your rejection of users, systems, cloud providers, sites, and every thing at the end of the network, but I can't even begin to think of what we'd call the everything else that's not transport? What do we refer to everyone connected as? If you want to reserve an extremely narrow definition for a word, and reject any other usage, I think you have to have some viable usabke terms for the greater amalgamation that you are trying to "no actually" your way out of. And I don't see alternative terms for what we have.

deleted 3y ago

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