Self-redacting your messages on Hangouts Chat? think again....
A message was edited in Hangouts Chat, view the updated message on (https://chat.google.com).
Patchwork 2.0 - 2010
While not strictly social, this did use the underlying Shindig code based used for social gadgets. It also allowed for Cooperating Gadgets in the browser via gadgets.pubsub and distributed Prefs system using gadgets.prefs
In fact one of the use cases was 'add the Google Gadget to your container' so your other gadgets could have enhanced functionality. The only thing missing is a user-owned, portable data store. We're seeing a return to this model in ARCS and Fuchsia.
When Pong played Humans
It was a blistering July day in Las Vegas, with temps hitting 109. Inside the SIGGRAPH 91 convention hall Yello's Rubberbandman looped on the speakers. On each chair: a red/green paddle.
I was a student volunteer, stamping the finest hands in Computer Graphics. Those hands (and my own) each controlled those paddles. Then 5000 people looked up and saw a Pong Game appear on the screen.
And then.. the machine started playing us.
In response to visual stimuli we changed the color of our paddle. The ball moved left, then right. The crowd shouting "red red red", "green!" and cheering as the game played on.
The rules of the game and the feedback loops directed our actions. It was a complex adaptive system with emergent behavior.
And luckily there is some footage of this moment. Watch this excerpt from "Machines of Loving Grace" that talks about this moment in history:
Loren Carpenter Experiment at SIGGRAPH '91 from Zachary Murray on Vimeo.
Loren Carpenter cofounded Pixar. Check out the TurboGopher appearance at the 5:00 minute mark.
Today the simple pong game is now the multilayered technological environment we interact with on a daily basis. Instead of red/green paddles with 1 bit of data we carry phones that generate a wealth more. These devices also provide the aural/visual and haptic stimuli. With that our collective actions power all kinds of "games" today:
- Aggregated location data and movement speed generates traffic data in maps.
- Aggregated search queries and click data deliver better search results.
- Aggregated likes, views and interactions with content power trending data and even news and politics.
As technologists we need to remember that by controlling the game, we are indirectly controlling the players. The choices we allow (and forbid) define the behavior. The game "plays" the player. And often the only way to be free is to not play at all.
Except that is if maybe, just maybe, the people start playing a different game than the one we designed. In the giddy demonstration it was assumed that people wanted to win at Pong. But we didn't play long enough for abuse or scheming. It would have only taken a few people to cross over to sabotage the other side, or for trolls to have changed the outcome.
Finally this level of power and control demands great responsibility. The only thing worse than control used for malicious purposes is control wielded without thought, without thinking of the consequences. So the next time you're designing a product think about the whole system and all the inputs and ask "who's really in control?".
h/t to the General Intellect Unit podcast and their Machines of Loving Grace episode for reminding me of this unsung moment in history.
Dynamicland
This.. this is good stuff.
One guest, after spending time at Dynamicland, held up his smartphone and shouted, “This thing is a prison!”
alt rfc
Nice roundup of alternative networks. In RFC form.
_This content is best viewed with lynx_
Programming is Forgetting
This is good. Read and/or watch it.
http://opentranscripts.org/transcript/programming-forgetting-new-hacker-ethic/
Build systems that forget less. Use that as a metric...
Of course the cybernetician in me wants to say:
- Forgetting is really Variety Attenuation[1]
- The Good Regulator theorem applies [2]. To effectively regulate a system your model needs to be as complex as the system itself.
[[Oh and http://opentranscripts.org is such a great project. It's something that Google could do at scale, especially for educational materials, lectures etc. It also... *increases variety* by making video content more accessible]]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variety_(cybernetics)
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_regulator
New comment by lindner in "Spotify Form F-1"
Still early days -- only 2300 artists on 296 labels so far; but growing. It fits somewhere between Soundcloud, Bandcamp and Spotify.
New comment by lindner in "Spotify Form F-1"
Bandcamp is good if you know what you want and they do pay out really, really well.
If you want a streaming service more like Spotify you might also check out Resonate Cooperative https://resonate.is/ which has a stream-to-own model.
Discovering new music is low cost, repeated listens double until the ninth, upon which you own the track outright. You can then download or stream that track for free.
Still ramping up but I'm excited about their prospects.
Parallel
Removing 120k directories on CNS for a xoogler should be easy, right? Well, it is if you're using GNU parallel
parallel --bar -n 1 fileutil --gfs_user=distiller-yt-pii rm -f -R < /tmp/top-dirs.txt .... 35% 5974:10984=4225s /cns/pc-d/home/mlei/rockers_squared_nm/Models/Experiment-model0_no_crosses/Version-00119720-Created-20140613-21s5936
Vero
Everything old is new again....
"real life sharing"
... though 1st million members are free is a new one..
CPAC
oh no, not this again....
https://sites.google.com/a/google.com/moma-news/home/201202/whathappenedwithcpac?pli=1
5000 memberships
5000 memberships? I thought this was Google?
com.google.apps.framework.request.StatusException: <eye3 title='FAILED_PRECONDITION'/> generic::FAILED_PRECONDITION: User 91363953886 has 5309 total memberships, can not mutate to reach 5310 as that is over the limit of 5000 ;AppErrorCode=9;StartTimeMs=1519173416402;tcp;Deadline(sec)=9.664;ResFormat=UNCOMPRESSED;Originator=corp-loas-proxy;Tag=cidc3;ServerTimeSec=0.365905408;LogBytes=256;Non-FailFast;EndUserCredsRequested;EffSecLevel=none;ReqFormat=UNCOMPRESSED;ReqID=feead50e0dd47f81;GlobalID=d58444c9b3c68ad4;Server=10.2.37.199:4113
Quanta
I may or may not have overused the Pareto distribution.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/scant-evidence-of-power-laws-found-in-real-world-networks-20180215/
Also: Quanta is good.
Dogfoods past
googlegroups.com == dogfood history
I counted 44 dogfood google groups (!) including these classics:
butterandcream-prod (wha?)
friendsofallen
openbonfire
snickersmocha
Enjoy it while you can, GDPR will probably force the cleanup of all these...
21st Century Carnegie Libraries
I wouldn't be here today without the excellent Carnegie funded library in Alexandria, MN. And yes, I realize that today you have access to all this knowledge. What you do not have is an outpost in each community, supported by people within the community.
EBT
Googlers, don't be smug, doesn't look like Google Express supports Food Stamps either..
[And at least Amazon offers discounted Prime membership to people with EBT cards.]
That said if you don't have the learned experience of being poor you might want to check out today's talk "Growing Up Poor In America" - Lisa 'Tiny' Garcia at 11am PT
Livestream at http://go/tiny-kim
[original image sourced from https://imgur.com/MUuZ9sr]
6p
So one more Nexus 6p / Android post.
A teammate offered me a 6p test device as a loaner. Has the asset tag and everything. *Yay!*
Turns out it was factory reset with a test account on it. *Uhoh!*
But no worries there's an internal unlock tool. (http://go/androidunlock) *Yay*
Ugh it's broken for some odd reason:
https://buganizer.corp.google.com/issues/68021469
Techstop basically gives up at this point and say try out http://go/skylab -- basically saying that the device is a paperweight.
If we can't manage a shared pool of devices I fear what hell our enterprise customers go through. Also imagine if a fired employee Factory Resets their phone before they leave. Instant brick...
Anyway, enough ranting for today. I need to save my energy to deal with my wife's repeated question: "let's just go buy iPhones -- Are you some kind of masochist or what?"...
Google Store
Google Store, please take my money :(
- FWIW this is the chrome bug where time goes backwards
- And to add insult to injury I now have 4 pending charges for the failed orders.... At least having my card declined let me know that this was the case
- Filed http://b/72589737
SIDLP
*And you may ask yourself, well*
*How did I get here?*
_The Stanford Integrated Digital Library Project (SIDLP) - is to develop the enabling technologies for a single, integrated and "universal" library, proving uniform access to the large number of emerging networked information sources and collections. These include both on-line versions of pre-existing works and new works and media of all kinds that will be available on the globally interlinked computer networks of the future. The Integrated Digital Library is broadly defined to include everything from personal information collections, to the collections that one finds today in conventional libraries, to the large data collections shared by scientists. The technology developed in this project will provide the "glue" that will make this worldwide collection usable as a unified entity, in a scalable and economically viable fashion._
Investing in a better Internet: Resonate, a music coop
Do you want a better internet? One that balances the needs of creators and consumers? A more democratic internet? I do. That's why I'm investing in a music coop: Resonate.
Stream to Own
I've been a member-owner of Resonate for a while, and listen every day. It provides an eclectic mix similar to a high quality college radio station. At first glance Resonate is a streaming service like Soundcloud or Spotify. But dig deeper and the you'll find major differences:
- You only pay for what you listen to.
- Each listen debits your balance a small amount.
- On the 9th listen you own the track.
This tiered pricing model incentivizes discovery. Owning actual tracks helps fans develop deeper ties to the music they love.
And I own more than just tracks. My member share means that I own a portion of Resonate, I can vote on how the business is operated and at the end of the year I can share in the profits.
Over the past year Resonate has added more content, more features, and most importably a sustainable organization where fans, musicians, employees and labels can work together towards common goals. This is the kind of “cooperative internet” that I always imagined would emerge back in the pre-web era.
“Purpose above Profits”
"Purpose above Profits" was the slogan at REI as I shopped for the holidays. It’s a reminder that the REI is a Member Cooperative. With my $20 lifetime membership I get dividends based on my purchases while supporting outdoor and environmental causes. In 2016 REI gave back 70% of profits.
This is but one example of how Coops can offer sustainable services for the communities they serve. Growing up I had electric power from an Coop. When I lived in Switzerland there’s a huge retail chain literally named “Coop”. I currently use and support my Credit Union.
Overall Coop businesses are more sustainable, and are oriented to the long term interests of their member-owners.
But the growth of the Internet and the Web bypassed the cooperative model. This despite the fact that open source and much of the shared internet infrastructure are structured like coops. It wasn't until 2014 that the concept of Platform Cooperative was coined. The rise of pseudo-"sharing" platforms like Uber and AirBnB and the rise of decentralized technologies like blockchains were two key reasons that many now embrace the concept.
Early Stage Capital
But a problem emerges, how do you bootstrap a Cooperative where there are significant barriers to entry? That’s where Supporter Shares come in. Anyone can invest in these shares. Each year the co-op sets aside 10% of profits and issues dividends to Supporter Share owners.
But remember that Supporter Shares don't get you extra voting power. A cooperative is still one-person, one-vote. The upside is that there are no leveraged buyouts, no dual share structures or non-voting shares.
The Future Internet
The Internet I want is a democratic one where creators, consumers, supporters and employees can work together towards common, sustainable goals. By using and investing in Resonate I hope to advance those goals. Liz Pelly captured the sentiment in "Protest Platforms" that "Resonate is particularly interesting for the way it advocates for broad decentralization of data, power, and money in music".
The Resonate Project Map details where the project is going and the plan to achieve it. I’ll admit that the content catalog is small, (but growing!) and the technology is very beta (but improving!). I still use and enjoy it every day.
I hope that you'll consider joining the coop as a member owner and see for yourself. If you want to accelerate this type of work consider purchasing Supporter Shares.
And finally, I hope that you'll consider supporting a new generation of online platforms that include the same kind of values that Resonate promotes. All while listening to and supporting the artists we love.
Phones?
So what phone should I buy now that Nexus Support has basically told me to pound sand and I'm off the Nexus/Pixel train? Had every phone since the G1.
I think of the amount of money spent on wall-to-wall Pixel TV ads and wonder how a small amount of that would have helped placate our most loyal customers...
6p Bootloop
Nexus 6p Bootloop :(
And we're not making it right for users and sending people to Huawei, who are now closed. And all my spare phones are micro-sim.
The playbook for the people on the phone is a depressing read:
https://support.google.com/playops/hardware/answer/7519413
We have a huge hoard of cash, surely we could do right by our users?
Oh and this is my 4th 6p...
New comment by lindner in "The Californian Ideology (1995)"
If you want some more depth to the Californian Ideology critique consider watching the Adam Curtis documentary "All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Watched_Over_by_Machines_o...
Hypernormalisation also covers some of the same ideas and is more recent.
Story of your life
Well worth watching. The blog->book is an interesting thing I didn't know about and I found the email -> blog solution for communicating with her future grown-up children clever.
Slides are here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/14fAzIdLrfKt6K313UraEJATFsjFsqTEumNun4ufhtiU/edit?usp=sharing
Seeing Whole Systems
Nicky did a great talk at Long Now called Seeing Whole Systems. Would anyone be interested in screening it here?
http://longnow.org/seminars/02017/aug/07/seeing-whole-systems/
But for now revel in visualizing the prisoner's dilemma. Also check out loopy http://ncase.me/loopy/
Wildfires...
Reminder that SoCal wildfire donations are being matched.
https://g-give.googleplex.com/campaign/2017-Southern-California-Fires
There's a tile memorial at Rockridge Bart for the Oakland Firestorm. Gets me every time.
New comment by lindner in "Patreon’s new service fee spurs concern that creators will lose patrons"
No one has mentioned https://liberapay.com/ ?
They seem to deal with this problem by letting you fund a donation account and then disburse funds on a periodic basis. This is also similar to donor advised funds so I'm not sure why Patreon is doing this when other alternatives are available.
gThanksPlus?
Looks like G+ sharing was added to gThanks in
https://b.corp.google.com/issues/9972517
But the shares it creates now are pretty bare-bones and you have to really hunt down that G+ share button...
Oh and big congrats to all the people getting Kudos and PBs lately. Y'all are awesome!
Twenty Eight Bucks
It took a bit of searching to figure out why I received a check for 8. But if you get one here's why:
This is a wage and hour PAGA action arising from Defendant's failure to pay wages in a timely manner at the end of each pay period. Labor Code § 204( d) requires employees to be paid out by the seventh (ih) day following the closing of the pay period if employees are paid on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. Defendant, who paid its employees on a bi-weekly basis, had a consistent policy of paying the wages of its employees on the eighth (8t11) day or later following the close of the respective pay period, and thus, beyond the time periods as allowed pursum1t to Labor Code § 204. This PAGA action is being sought on behalf of Defendant's other aggrieved employees.
In addition to the PAGA action, Plaintiff also asserts individual claims for wrongful termination in violation of public policy. Specifically, Plaintiff engaged in protected activity by removing alcohol from the workplace (due to fear for her personal safety and the safety of co-workers), and to prevent sexual harassment. However, by exercising such rights, Plaintiff was terminated from her employment.
Defendant's Position
Plaintiff was employed by Defendant from approximately January 27, 2015 to April 12, 2016 as a Program Manager. In late March 2016, a Google employee reported that several personal items had gone missing. Google's asset investigations team confirmed through video evidence that Plaintiff had taken the reported items. During its investigation, Plaintiff provided inconsistent accounts of her actions, which Google deemed to lack credibility. As a result, Google terminated Plaintiffs employment for violation of company policy and the dishonest conduct she exhibited.
Google denies that its payroll schedule was inconsistent with section 204 of the Labor Code. Moreover, Plaintiff cannot show that she or any of the members of the group she seeks to represent were aggrieved. An award of civil penalties under PAGA would result in an award that is unjust, arbitrary, and oppressive
California Fires
Two new local charities available for gift match for California Wildfires so it's not just the Red Cross now:
Still *0k* to match.
Also I learned that Google Docs has a 'mobilebasic' suffix which generates a simple lightweight doc. Many of the emergency resource docs are using this:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/14ZhXDNaL260p5OempaFbCrsYBe_5pvNvDqV7xcwn95s/mobilebasic
https://docs.google.com/document/d/14ZhXDNaL260p5OempaFbCrsYBe_5pvNvDqV7xcwn95s/mobilebasic
The Ethical Regulator
[Part of a new Collection for Cybernetics as I explore this fascinating discipline..]
Hey there, it's the trolly problem again...
_Ethics modules can be treated like *ethical device drivers*, so that to be fully operational, a hypothetical gun-carrying, tax-advising robot that can drive on roads requires valid ethics modules for gun-law, tax-code, and traffic-rules. Without all necessary modules for the appropriate legal jurisdiction, the robot’s gun, tax advising, or driving capabilities are automatically disabled._
Google Now Everywhere - 2012
Not strictly "social" per-se, but there were a number of cross overs from iGoogle. Also relevant as Now is undergoing some historical changes of it's own..
- Pixie Labs ended up moving their games to Google+ Games (remember Farmville?)
- The gadget infrastructure from iGoogle (GGS) was used heavily for the +1 button, OpenSocial, PeopleSense and others. +103390686048441232976 might even still carry a pager for this old infrastructure...
New comment by lindner in "How the Catalan government uses IPFS to sidestep Spain's legal block"
First install ipfs
then run:
ipfs pin add QmZxWEBJBVkGDGaKdYPQUXX4KC5TCWbvuR4iYZrTML8XCR
and wait for a large amount of data to be pulled in....
Blockchain...
s/Blockchain/Beyoncé/g
Better than replacing Cloud with Butt.
https://gizmodo.com/the-best-of-cloud-to-butt-the-only-extension-youll-eve-1685863609
7 Years at Google today
*
Hired to work on web protocols. Immediately detoured to the needful work of building a social network. Learned a lot along the way.
I don't have a lot of sage wisdom to offer other than be humble, humane, and empathic. That goes a long way.
That and banjo. Always have banjo.
Looking forward to 7 more years of causing trouble with you.
Mario Kart - Bay Area
Maps and GBUS work pretty well split-screen, especially useful to know if you're going to get to the stop on time.
Google Assistant (circa 1973)
Google Assistant as envisioned from 1973's "Designing Freedom"
https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=8pOruwSkOisC
Much of what we implement today was predicted then. We also forget that people once derided and feared "The Computer".
This work is quite accessible and reading it gave me a better understanding of complex dynamic systems, relaxation time, variety, Ashby's Law and the nature of bureaucracy. Also originally broadcast on the CBC as a lecture series:
http://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/the-1973-cbc-massey-lectures-designing-freedom-1.2946819
Only Variety can absorb Variety
It's such a simple concept that makes sense.
_...for every factor outside of your own control that can have a positive or negative influence on your ability to meet your goals, you need to put a compensatory control in place to allow you to respond._
Gaia service bits, D3 policies, gSuite vs Identity only -- the number of states for an account is dizzying. But by Ashby's law if we don't have mechanisms to absorb that variety bad things will befall the control software and we'll be unable to achieve homeostatis or even viability.
http://talesoftheenterprise.com/2013/06/mr-ashbys-bright-idea/
ess see ohhh
World's worst SEO choice for a band name. Second only to the musician named dash-M-dash -M- which g+ cannot even render.
I guess I'm supposed to use Archie to find this...