3 ms·

I still don’t understand what Urbit is. Last time I looked at it, it was calling itself an operating system despite there being no actual bootable ISO or disk i

by cedws 2y ago

I still don’t understand what Urbit is. Last time I looked at it, it was calling itself an operating system despite there being no actual bootable ISO or disk image to be found anywhere. It seemed to just be a web server that exposed a dashboard on localhost. Assuming it’s not all a highly elaborate scam, these people need to get their heads out of their asses and work towards building something people can understand and use.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
chuckadams 2y ago
Going by its terminology, Urbit looks like the ideal operating system for a mechanical plumbus. More seriously, I see Urbit as executable performance art, a sort of web-scale TempleOS.
- ElevenLathe 2y ago
  That's the best explanation I can come up with too. Are they still trying to do some kind of crypto identity thing with it too, or was that an artifact of the NFT boom from several years ago (possibly a serious attempt to raise something like an ICO, or possibly just a form of sarcastic social criticism)?
  - chuckadams 2y ago
    The Urbit ID thing looks fully baked now, based off ETH, but apparently it’s a separate layer from the Urbit platform (“OS”) itself, so presumably optional? Been a while since I looked at Urbit. Seems you can build actual apps with it, but Hoon is still there and wacky as ever.
davidgerard 2y ago
broadly it's Yet Another My Favourite Toy FP Edifice, where you think "WHAT IF THE WHOLE COMPUTING WORLD WAS A FUNCTION", and more proximately it's a crib from the Nix paper. Yarvin claims all ideas in Urbit are 100% original work do not steal, but this is not quite true. At the moment the only bit of Urbit that works is a chat forum. This will one day develop fully into the Antiversity which will allow the righteous to network(-state) and fight back against the Cathedral, you see if it doesn't mate.

3 ms·

I still don’t understand what Urbit is. Last time I looked at it, it was calling itself an operating system despite there being no actual bootable ISO or disk i

by cedws 2y ago

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
chuckadams 2y ago
Going by its terminology, Urbit looks like the ideal operating system for a mechanical plumbus. More seriously, I see Urbit as executable performance art, a sort of web-scale TempleOS.
- ElevenLathe 2y ago
  That's the best explanation I can come up with too. Are they still trying to do some kind of crypto identity thing with it too, or was that an artifact of the NFT boom from several years ago (possibly a serious attempt to raise something like an ICO, or possibly just a form of sarcastic social criticism)?
  - chuckadams 2y ago
    The Urbit ID thing looks fully baked now, based off ETH, but apparently it’s a separate layer from the Urbit platform (“OS”) itself, so presumably optional? Been a while since I looked at Urbit. Seems you can build actual apps with it, but Hoon is still there and wacky as ever.
davidgerard 2y ago
broadly it's Yet Another My Favourite Toy FP Edifice, where you think "WHAT IF THE WHOLE COMPUTING WORLD WAS A FUNCTION", and more proximately it's a crib from the Nix paper. Yarvin claims all ideas in Urbit are 100% original work do not steal, but this is not quite true. At the moment the only bit of Urbit that works is a chat forum. This will one day develop fully into the Antiversity which will allow the righteous to network(-state) and fight back against the Cathedral, you see if it doesn't mate.