Paul Lindner

Regarding cuts, yes. We had to do with less year-over-year. From Hasselmo's 1991 State of the U address:

> """We lost at least 5 million to inflation, and 6 million through a base cut this year. In addition to a potential 5 million loss to inflation next year again, the Governor's vetoes of IT and systemwide special appropriations cut another 3 million in funding -- for which we are aggressively seeking full restoration."""

The mainframe teams had a harder time of things. For Microcomputers we were lucky - our hardware costs decreased and we had a deal with the University Bookstore to support their computer hardware sales.

That stuff was still expensive. Here's some educational pricing for a workstation with substantial education discount in 1994.

                                        list          discount   
  IBM model 25T                         495         400.00
         80Mhz upgrade                  500         $ 953.50
         64MB upgrade                   $             912.00
         2GB disk upgrade               $             463.00
                                                       -------
                                                      10728.50

We liked Hyper-G because it had a bi-directional link model and the Harmony browser was able to render VRML.

Maybe 2016 will be the year VR takes off (again)

This is so true. You have to remember that finances were really tight at this time. The University budget was getting cut left and right throughout the history of Gopher's evolution. At one point there were plans to outsource everyone to the Minnesota Supercomputer Institute.

Of course in hindsight obtaining grants or forming a partnership with a non-profit org or an academic department might have been a better choice, especially for all the professional services requests.

edit: Also you have to remember that computing was a LOT more expensive then. I have old quotes for SparcStations and RS/6000s that were in the 0-40k range, even with an educational discount.. The Mac IIci's were not cheap either ~k when loaded up with RAM.

Twenty-five years ago, a small band of programmers from the University of Minnesota ruled the internet. And then they didn’t.

Read more at The rise and fall of the Gopher protocol via MinnPost

Tagged: #gopher

On: Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn

Hmm, I wonder what s/Node_Modules/blaze-bin/ would reveal..

PB for evil respect to anyone that can implement Hot Pockets example...

https://medium.com/friendship-dot-js/i-peeked-into-my-node-modules-directory-and-you-wont-believe-wh...

#googplus

#googplus

Given all the #firstsevenjobs posts going on I decided to see if I could find my first published source code. And lo and behold the Internet Archive FTW.

https://archive.org/details/1987-06-compute-magazine

As for 1st 7 jobs: Fish House Cleaner, Dock Boy, Rock Picker, Upholsterer Assistant, Commodore 64 hacker, Injection Plastic Press Operator, Library Book Shelver.

Cleaning up stinky crap and rote mechanical tasks? -- I'm your guy.

#googplus

#googplus

WebTorrent one-off file sharing in the browser.

This link will die when the last person closes their browser tab..

https://instant.io/#120d24519a9789b9a0890ba3944e55ab2831b53b

mmm spaghetti

https://instant.io/

#googplus

#googplus

Orkut.com is back. Promoting hello.com

Of course Orkut could probably retire just by serving ads on 404 responses.

http://orkut.com

#googplus

#googplus

I found my first email to Google. From the year 2000. Since then I've worked through five companies, but Joan Braddi is still here.

And since I'm on the inside now I was able to find the that cl #8802 referenced the work I was doing at the time, which was adding search to www.redhat.com. (Or Red hat, as you can see here)

https://critique.corp.google.com/#review/8802/depot/eng/clientwork/CompletedSites.html

I do have to wonder if Red Hat's slow payment of their 5k+ contract fees hurt the early Google, or what might have happened had Google gotten into the RPM search field as I suggested to them way back when...

And for a real blast from the past see the search stats that were emailed out monthly(!)

https://groups.google.com/a/google.com/d/msg/partner-reports/XiVcELeVONc/AtcwCeBS7uYJ

#googplus

#googplus

I asked an SRE intern if they ran their own server. Said no; but at least they had their own VPS. Made me realize how much I've learned by maintaining a home server for the past 16 years.

While I don't run my own email anymore I still have secondary DNS, NFS, Plex, Docker, IPv6 tunnel and local LAMP stack for projects.

I can highly recommend the Supermicro you see here. 20-30w at idle, super quiet, 8 cores, up to 128GB of RAM, 10GbE, NVMe and much more. I've been running this for 7 months now and it was a big improvement over the Rackable I used to run.

http://www.servethehome.com/supermicro-sys-5028d-tn4t-review-small-box-big-power/

#googplus

#googplus

Ello ships their version of Wanderland focused on their artist/creator content.

The interesting part is they let you flip between:

Discover, Followed and Starred

Worth a look.

https://ello.co/discover/all

#googplus

#googplus

*Uninvited Guests* - Human Agency[1] vs Machine Agency.

I found this gem via a CHI paper. I think it covers a number of pitfalls that can be avoided by insuring that we're designing products that emphasize Human Agency. It also underscores how privacy (especially between the device owner and the device user) is critical.

Also consider if instead of grandchildren the devices were provided by the NHS or Medicare.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agency_(philosophy)

Ultimately it is our intention that this, at times comedic story, plays on and gives form to some of the growing tensions between human and machine agency. And in doing so, provoke questions about how we want to live and grow old in an increasingly technologically mediated word.

http://www.superflux.in/work/uninvited-guests

#googplus

Interesting ideas that protocols can be monetized thus leading to more diversity.

I'm not sure I agree with the premise. Large players have many more levers to get their protocols adopted and defend their turf.

There's also the risk that all new protocols will _require_ monetization so governments and internet infrastructure orgs can extract rents/taxes from the activity on the network.

On the other hand if the Gopher Protocol was monetized I might be sipping drinks on the beach instead of toiling in the protobuf mines...

http://continuations.com/post/148098927445/crypto-tokens-and-the-coming-age-of-protocol

#googplus

#googplus

Metastatic isn't something you beat, it's something you live with.

#gplus

Also there's this: _Diverse teams that design for themselves are able to address the needs of diverse audiences, as opposed to teams that design for ‘the other’_

https://ind.ie/ethical-design/

#googplus

#googplus

Current status: detangling legacy code that uses fava extensions, modules and services wrapped in factories.

https://archive.org/details/p3telephonymanua00abbouoft

#googplus

Lots to think about today:
- Everyday uses for the Optimal Stopping problem.
- Application of Ad Algorithms for Exploit vs Explore. [1]
- Sorting algorithms for unreliable comparators
- AI Ethics: Paperclip Maximization[1] and the Repugnant Conclusion[3]

All after watching this:

http://longnow.org/seminars/02016/jun/20/algorithms-live/

And I now have yet another book to put on my reading list....

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-armed_bandit
[1] https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Paperclip_maximizer
[2] http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/repugnant-conclusion/

http://algorithmstoliveby.com/

#googplus

#googplus

Saw this generated byline recently and it really rubbed me the wrong way. It devalues Laurie as an artist in her own right and is certainly not how people present oneself to one another.

The byline is also unnecessary, the information is listed below in a more neutral way.

Reported at http://go/bad Need to also file a bug on the inability to report feedback on this text.

#googplus

*Mightybell*: It's Ning for Mobile

About the only thing Recruiters are useful for is notifying me of the latest VC funded startups...

fyi to Steve Hardt

https://mightybell.com/

#googplus

#googplus

_...in this place it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place._

If a Google project doesn't have enough headcount to keep up with the constant churn you can bet that it will eventually go extinct.

[Also of note, suboptimization[1]; given our recent strategy with messaging clients...]

[1] http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/SUBOPTIM.html

http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/REDQUEEN.html

#googplus

#googplus

*Updates* - Indieweb

And since Ade mentioned IndieWeb, here's a good writeup of what's going on in that community.

I did get to chat with Tantek a bit at the Decentralized Web conference. We bemoaned the lack of UX voices.

Fun fact: My first project at Google was supposed to be a SWAT0 implementation.

http://tantek.com/2016/190/b1/state-of-indieweb-summit

#googplus

#googplus

This is a good primer on technologies used to turn centralized into decentralized.

https://blog.mousereeve.com/technologies-of-the-decentralized-web-summit/

#googplus

#googplus

An insightful read. Interesting commentary too.

_Stripping out the “smart” aspects of a Smart Contract, it is still a contract, albeit wrapped in a new-and-improved packaging of object-orientated programming and cheap, distributed computing power. Contracts are not new. And neither are their limitations._

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/06/ethereum-and-smart-contract-unicorn-woo-woo-there-should-be-a...

#googplus

#googplus

One of my favorite terms. Assumes knowlege of ISO Networking Layers. Also for a future googledictionary.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Layer_8

#googplus

#googplus

http://www.laputan.org/mud/

A classic worth revisiting occasionally...

#googplus

#googplus

*Feedburner* on the chopping block? Surprised it lasted this long.

The code is oooold, I tried upgrading it's usage of Apache Commons v2->v3 a while ago and owners were reluctant to allow even that level of cleanup....

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mwQfraSAROtYsDIq9f-JGZeocSDkObYMj1LgE_yiO8E/edit?_escaped_fragme...

#googplus

#googplus

☠ Annoying Oz Deprecation warnings coming soon. ☠

1. Gather list of build targets used outside of Oz.
2. Write witty sayings
3. Pipe targets to buildozer shell script

#!/bin/sh
while true
do
read line || exit
buildozer "set deprecation ☠\ \ Quitting\ Oz\ Now\ Greatly\ Reduces\ Risks\ to\ Your\ Code\ Health\ ☠\ "
read line || exit
buildozer "set deprecation ☠\ \ Oz\ Causes\ Code\ Bloat and May Complicate Pregnancy\ ☠\ "
read line || exit
buildozer "set deprecation ☠\ \ Oz\ contains\ Carbon\ Monoxide ☠\ "
done

#googplus

#googplus

It's been a week, so time for a writeup of what went down at DWS. The press below covers some details, but I'm going to talk about the _feels_.

tl;dr - Electric atmosphere, technology on the cusp, very unclear future.

I found out about this too late to attend the first day, but I followed along via the live stream while reading up on the underlying technologies and chatting with attendees using federation features of Slack.

I went in person for day 2 and immediately felt the deja vu. O'Reilly FOOCamp meets early Google I/O meets the original GopherCon. You had wise sages (or as Wendy Hanamura put it _Orignal Gangstas_) working side-by-side with the new blockchain Gangstas. The only thing missing was a game of werewolf.

The breakout sessions were tech heavy but the crowd didn't need their hand held to pull down git repos and run/modify code. Many quick demos were created.

Lightning talks (available online) had thoughtful live questions and were broad enough to cover both the underlying technology and the potential results of applying it to society. I appreciated the inclusivity and diversity.

That said the ghosts of breathless tech conferences past were all there:

*Mobile* No real demos on phones. Many talks started with 'enter this on the command line'. That said most of the p2p systems on display have really good mobile properties: eventual consistency. offline sync, etc.

*UX* Little to no focus on UI/Usability problems. There was some discussion on the "Why PGP failed" talk, and passing references here and there. But very little about how this tech would be better for users.

*Economics* This new tech is competing with dirt-cheap VPS hosts out there and a generation of software designed for centralized client-server. Privacy and long-term effects on the ecosystem are low on users feature list. With the fintech bubble about to pop, who's going to fund the development; let alone the ongoing governance. Will new bitcoin funding models be the solution? Will the incumbents embrace or reject?

*Complexity* writing cryptographic serverless code is difficult and it's easy to make mistakes. libp2p is a good start, but the tooling isn't there yet.

Despite these serious issues this is the most excited I've been about our technology space in a long time. The electricity and optimism about what might emerge from this soup of technologies was palpable. I have hope that people won't want to repeat past mistakes, and that the new stack can achieve some 10x gains. Here's some initial thoughts:

- What if your phone could pull down entire sites for use offline and have deltas propagated when connected?
- How about having all of your physical devices syncing between themselves instead of up and down to the cloud.
- How about a better UI for managing your identity public/private keys?
- What about your OnHub being your persistent home on the network?
- What about being able to archive and 'play back' entire web sites like you would a git repo?
- How about having easy micropayments as a way to break free from our current ad-supported mess?
- How about Android APKs that travel from device to device with the security of knowing that you're running the exact same code as everyone else.

... more to come.

http://spectrum.ieee.org/view-from-the-valley/telecom/internet/the-fathers-of-the-internet-revolutio...

#googplus

#googplus

Go ahead and load up http://webtorrent.io/ and amaze at what WebRTC in the browser enables.

Paul Kinlan's article shows how you can roll your own serverless podcast site using WebTorrent. Of course there are serious privacy, legal, and wipeout issues involved to consider. Will talk about those in future Policy posts.

https://paul.kinlan.me/serverless-sync-in-web-apps/

#googplus

#googplus

Highly recommended watching.

Hyperbolic discounting of future costs and Ulysses pacts are apropos to many situations. For example, technical debt.

#gplus