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Fri, 13 Dec 2024 23:58:47 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
via
pasta la vida
cwebber@social.coop
As said, I think "credible exit" is a worthwhile goal. But it isn't participatory decentralization, on its own. The ability to *move away* is good, but what if your options are to choose between McDonalds and Burger King? Is that *sufficient*?
1
dynamic_hubzilla
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232 comments
Sat, 14 Dec 2024 00:00:16 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
In particular, Mark is especially fair to highlight that email and XMPP are great examples of decentralized systems that either ended up centralizing in the case of email or failing to stay alive after the exit of a major player in terms of XMPP.
Mark's RFC has a lot of useful analysis. It does!
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 00:02:07 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
So I've given a lot of context for Mark's RFC: it's an RFC by a respected standards author who has a long history of participating in standards from major internet-based corporations. It worries a bit about centralization but overall downplays decentralization more than it plays it up IMO.
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 00:03:43 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
And this is important of course, because this is the RFC where the definition of "decentralization" being provided comes from!
Or wait, or is it? Oh right, the RFC cites another source for its definition!
It's time to examine Paul Baran's 1964 paper. The story is about to become more intense.
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 00:04:44 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
Except, like a 1990s sitcom, we're gonna cut to a break!
We'll be back... after
=== TEA BREAK 2: MY NOSE IS COLD ===
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 00:12:32 +0100
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jonny (good kind)
jonny@neuromatch.social
@cwebber
I keep refreshing this thread like a mystery novel and the cliffhanger is making me ghasp
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 00:16:26 +0100
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Mina
mina@berlin.social
@cwebber
I love, how you're telling your story.
Especially, the little strides to the sides make it very entertaining to read, despite the length and the non-trivial content.
(I might have left enough stars in the process of reading to create you some annoyance - sorry).
It is truly fascinating (and worrying) how much power over real things arises from controlling the semantics of terms.
Needless to say, I align pretty much with your idea of "(de)centralisation".
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 00:18:46 +0100
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Elf-elyn
Gorfram@beige.party
@cwebber
[ANNOUNCER VOICE]
Do you suffer from Nose Is Cold? Millions of people endure this condition every day.
Fortunately, Tea Break Industries has just released its breakthrough remedy: Cup Of Tea.
Cup Of Tea is hot, fresh, & available in caffeinated or non-caffeinated; with optional milk & sugar. It’s guaranteed to hydrate, invigorate, & warm your nose.
Look for Cup Of Tea in finer kitchens & break rooms everywhere.
[We now return you to our regularly scheduled Christine.]
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 00:19:16 +0100
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Jan Penfrat
ilumium@eupolicy.social
@cwebber
This thread is so long it's like LOST or The 100 I want to so much know how it continues but its past midnight here in Europe and I gotta sleep I'll binge the rest tomorrow. Thanks Christine for writing this!
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 00:22:52 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
Alright I'm back from my tea break. But I have a confession for you.
I made hot chocolate instead.
But we are going to get into the second part of the unnecessarily thorough "decentralization" terminology deep dive I'm doing here in just a moment
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 00:24:49 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
Before we get into that it's also getting pretty late here and I have another confession to make to you, I was pretty hungry, so you know what I did? I stood in the kitchen and I ate hummus in the kitchen with a spoon over the sink
You have found Secret Goblin #2, judging me for my hummus shame 👿
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 00:26:19 +0100
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Lien Rag
lienrag@mastodon.tedomum.net
@cwebber
You ate hummus without bread ????
You heathen !
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 00:26:39 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
When we last left off I was peeling back layers of the terminology onion and we have gotten to the inner layer (maybe it goes deeper, I guess terminology usually does but this is as far as we go)
It is time to examine "decentralization" in Baran 1964
Because I am being UNNECESSARILY thorough
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 00:29:11 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
So here is Paul Baran's "literally the most influential paper to affect networking systems ever" 1964 paper:
"On Distributed Communications: I. Introduction to Distributed Communication Networks"
https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_memoranda/RM3420.html
It's good, it's amazing, it's INCREDIBLY visionary
1
damon
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 00:31:06 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
So okay yeah it's very military-oriented but... but! The context for this paper is that Paul Baran is arguing for what eventually *becomes* networking as we know it. Baran says: let's use *cheap* equipment with *way less centralization that we've ever seen* and it'll be *better actually!*
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 00:31:46 +0100
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lampsofgold
lampsofgold@veoh.social
@cwebber
hello secret goblin #2 (codename jim)
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 00:34:11 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
And just imagine the *gall* of it: telling the *military* let alone the world oh you know how you love hierarchy? Well guess what, you know what's WAY better, something that's closer to cooperative anarchy, where there's a lot of cooperation lots of error-prone little guys
AND HE WAS RIGHT
1
dynamic_hubzilla
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 00:35:46 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
Baran comes in with the math to back up his claims, a vision of how basically wifi and satellite and land lines and cable internet would all work together before we even *had* any internet stuff, shows how a packet would look, and says if you want to REALLY be tough, be... "distributed"
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 00:37:24 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
Hm, did you notice I said "distributed" and not "decentralized"?
Actually wait... does this sound familiar, have you heard of this paper before?
Could it be? No... it couldn't be...
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 00:42:17 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
And yes of course it is literally the paper that gives us this incredible FIGURE 1, which you have CERTAINLY seen if you have ever heard ANYONE talk about ANY "decentralized" or "distributed" system ever
CENTRALIZED DECENTRALIZED DISTRIBUTED
You know this image. You could never forget this image
Paul Baran's incredible FIG. 1 with a star topology, a hierarchical star topology, and a mesh topology for CENTRALIZED, DECENTRALIZED, DISTRIBUTED respectively
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 00:45:52 +0100
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viq
viq@social.hackerspace.pl
@cwebber
Second Secret Goblin doesn't judge, only nudges you to share hummus
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 00:48:21 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
One of the reasons you know this image is that everyone worth their salt who works on decentralized networks thinks about this image and puts it in their talks
But also so does this bro who has literally no idea about how tech works but thinks he does
So one way or another you're gonna see it
(tech bro courtesy
https://www.threepanelsoul.com/comic/job-interviews
)
Tech Bro from Three Panel Soul explaining confidently we need to interview people with questions irrelevant to their job
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 00:50:41 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
That comic is from Three Panel Soul btw, and here's the link
https://www.threepanelsoul.com/comic/job-interviews
All of Three Panel Soul is good, but the Tech Bro ones are my favorites
https://www.threepanelsoul.com/comic/search/Tech%20Bro
I love Three Panel Soul so much
(Gonna weird out
@3psboyd
by fangirling over here)
*COUGH* where was I
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 00:54:49 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
"Christine if you love this paper so much why don't you like the definition of 'decentralized' from it?!"
The definition is great actually if you know the context
Because the context is CRITICIZING THE DESIGN UNDER THE DEFINITION AS A FORM OF CENTRALIZATION
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 00:56:24 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
"What Christine you can't mean that, why would 'decentralized' be 'centralized' that can't be true"
Because because BECAUSE my good friend, Baran was describing "decentralization", a term that ALREADY EXISTED in networking, as being a kind of centralized system
NO REALLY I AM SERIOUS
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 00:57:24 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
The term "decentralized" was *already* in active use! So Baran was providing "distributed" as the new term! Oh my god THAT'S WHY THE DEFINITION BARAN PROVIDED FOR DECENTRALIZATION WAS SO WEAK
You don't believe me? Let me show you. LET ME SHOW YOU
1
dynamic_hubzilla
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 00:59:27 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
Here is where Baran defines "decentralization!" We have to read the whole definition!
You're not allowed to stop until we finish EVERY (cotd) let's GOOOO
> The centralized network is obviously vulnerable as destruction of a single central node destroys communication between the end station.
(cotd)
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 01:00:23 +0100
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Joshua Barretto
jsbarretto@social.coop
@cwebber
It is the middle of the night and I am worried that reading this post in my head is going to wake my dog
1
dynamic_hubzilla
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 01:00:28 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
Baran "decentralization" cotd:
> In practice, a mixture of star and mesh components is used to form communication networks.
IN PRACTICE FOR CENTRALIZED SYSTEMS YOU GUYS
(cotd)
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 01:00:49 +0100
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Marsh Ray
marshray@infosec.exchange
@cwebber
What’s the next logical progression?
Zero trust?
Ephemeral mesh?
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 01:01:20 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
Baran "decentralization" cotd:
> For example, type (b) in Fig. 1 shows the hierarchical structure of a set of stars connected in the form of a larger star with an additional link forming a loop.
OH SHIT HE'S STILL TALKING ABOUT CENTRALIZATION FIGURE B IS THE MIDDLE ONE
(cotd)
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 01:02:49 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
Baran "decentralization" cotd:
> Such a network is sometimes called a "decentralized" network, because complete reliance upon a single point is not always required.
OKAY WE'RE DONE
But look at it all together! He's talking about how "decentralization" is a term of art but it's still CENTRALIZED
1
dynamic_hubzilla
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 01:04:12 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
Baran didn't make up the term "decentralized" it already was being used in practice to talk about top-down hierarchical systems! Baran calls this version centralized even if there's a "loop" (a small number of top-level providers)!
YOU GUYS THIS IS NOT HOW WE ARE USING "DECENTRALIZED"
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 01:06:53 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
WE are not describing the future of routing small packets in 1964, that is NOT the world we are existing in, where "decentralized" meant a top-down hierarchical structure
When WE talk about "decentralized", we mean roughly a spectrum, with "centralized" on one side and "decentralized" on the other
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 01:07:10 +0100
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Jens Finkhäuser
jens@social.finkhaeuser.de
@cwebber
depends on the "we", I guess.
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 01:08:40 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
Now I don't think Bryan Newbold realized that when he pulled his definition from Mark Nottingham who pulled his definition from Paul Baran, that this was the case. I think this is a game of telephone.
(I don't know how Mark Nottingham didn't realize it but that's an aside)
1
dynamic_hubzilla
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 01:09:21 +0100
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Travis F W
travisfw@fosstodon.org
@cwebber
so is all-the-way decentralized (not just a little bit) … distributed?
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 01:10:37 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
What I DO know is that it means that the entire structure of analyzing decentralization in Mark's paper and Bryan's blogpost thus, in practice, surround a term that is weak because it was FUNDAMENTALLY describing a centralized system, so it could criticize it
The loss of context here is BRUTAL
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 01:12:26 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
To conflate the two *automatically* introduces decentralization-washing. I don't think this is intentional, but it explains a lot.
It explains how a "weak" definition of decentralization could come from one of the boldest visions of what that very *idea* could be
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 01:14:02 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
Now okay let's point out the irony here because I feel like if I don't I'm being mean. Bryan does say:
> To some degree, I don't really want to spend time in a terminology debate.
And I just did! At length!
But the whole debate this whole time is "is Bluesky decentralized" so we kinda HAVE to
1
dynamic_hubzilla
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 01:17:18 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
But also what happened was:
- I lay out a strong definition of decentralization; Bluesky doesn't match
- Bryan suggests an alternate definition, pulls
from
- An RFC which despite the title is extremely lukewarm AT BEST about decentralization which pulls from
- A definition describing centralization
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 01:18:22 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
And I don't think this was malicious on Bryan's part in the least because I know Bryan well enough to know he's not like that!
I am pretty annoyed at Mark though for quoting this out of context in such a way that it can completely confuse a narrative like this. I'll assume that was a mistake but
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 01:21:10 +0100
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Efi (nap pet) 🦊💤
efi@chitter.xyz
@cwebber
I have now seen this image
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 01:21:22 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
The reality is that Bluesky didn't match my definition of decentralization, and I hope it's pretty clear now that the alternate definition supplied was literally one about centralization
And so that cannot possibly be a lower bar that we say "okay maybe Bluesky can pass this one" I am sorry
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 01:23:28 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
Let's PLEASE not move the goalposts on "decentralization". Let's certainly not move them back to something that was literally "here's what centralization looks like in practice".
That's what I'm asking for here. That's why I went so goddamned HARD on terminology here.
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 01:25:55 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
Let's check the time.
It's 7:30pm where I am. I woke up at 4:30am and resumed work on my blogpost at 5am.
I have been, for the most part, between the blogpost, my job, and this thread, sitting at my computer fighting for decentralization for about 14 hours. It's been like that a lot lately.
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 01:27:45 +0100
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Robert W. Gehl
rwg@aoir.social
@cwebber
we're right here with you!
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 01:28:13 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
I have a reputation at work of being good at pushing others to take off time and they HAVE to take off time OR ELSE and I try to be that way in general. But I am really truly bad at doing so for myself and I know I have crossed my limits for today.
So let's wrap up for *tonight* in a sec
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 01:29:35 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
We're about halfway through this blogpost. There's a lot going on in my life. I am trying so hard to keep the organization I work for alive and moving forward. I am tired. I need rest. And I still need to drive two hours across the state tonight.
We're going to resume tomorrow. But first...
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 01:31:16 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
There's a reason I'm going really hard on this. I really care a lot about the shape of the internet. And tomorrow we're going to get into some more analysis and a talk about *values*, and one thing I like is that Bryan talked at length about Bluesky's values. And I think that part was really good.
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 01:31:49 +0100
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Franky 🐘
Slufferbeiste@mastodon-belgium.be
@cwebber
Don't forget to move
#hiking
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 01:33:04 +0100
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damon
damon@social.wedistribute.org
@cwebber
Agreed as long as people stop conflating federated and decentralised
1
m@thias.hellqui.st :verified-skull:
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 01:33:11 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
For tonight, I need to unwind, I need to put a label on a mailbox, I need to eat dinner, I need to drive across the state, I need to sleep.
Maybe I appear ridiculous. I get it. I go pretty hardcore on this stuff. If you know me you know I tend to go all in.
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 01:33:59 +0100
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bignose
bignose@fosstodon.org
Thank you
@cwebber
for caring so much about the shape of the internet, that you not only engage in this discussion but also pick your own writing apart to help us follow it and comprehend the substance.
This has been a gripping few hours of reading, rest well and I look forward to the continuation.
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 01:34:18 +0100
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ꓤ uɐᗡ :verified_hellion:
dannotdaniel@hellions.cloud
@cwebber
I for one appreciate your threads and look forward to the rest tomorrow
I don't have any goblins but I can humbly offer you this flaming party parrot
keep it up!
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 01:35:16 +0100
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Darius Kazemi
darius@friend.camp
@cwebber
thank you for contextualizing the Baran 1964 citations btw.
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 01:35:18 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
I am signing off for the night. Tomorrow we will analyze whether or not my assertion that "ATProto has explosive behavior as it approaches decentralization" problems.
I'm not going to read notifications until I finish this. Maybe someone will prove me wrong before I get it done.
I'll be oblivious.
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 01:36:20 +0100
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✿ Floby 💉😷💨
floby@mastodon.social
@cwebber
looking forwards to the next part tomorrow, and the third Easter egg
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 01:36:23 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
We will also analyze values, which maybe I care about more than anything. And there will be more secret goblins, hidden among the posts.
For tonight, it's rest time. It's time for a
=== NO MORE LOOKING AT MY COMPUTER BREAK ===
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 01:38:11 +0100
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Andromeda Yelton
thatandromeda@ohai.social
@cwebber
but seriously that’s such a good paper and it’s always a good day to reread it
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 01:52:48 +0100
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Stefan
stefan@gardenstate.social
@cwebber
you're killing it!
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 01:58:23 +0100
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Travis F W
travisfw@fosstodon.org
@cwebber
I am really grateful for the attention to this word that we all care so much about. I value your constructive discourse tremendously, and your energy and passion about the topic is refreshing. This stuff is important for the future of humanity.
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 02:07:50 +0100
zuletzt bearbeitet: Sat, 14 Dec 2024 02:08:22 +0100
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Just Bob 🇺🇲♒🐧🪖
bob@beamship.mpaq.org
@cwebber
So, the Fediverse is B? I've always thought it more as C.
And we all know the corporate controled networks is A
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 02:13:54 +0100
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Andrew 🏳️🌈 💻 🧦
amca@aus.social
@cwebber
Is there a mathematical algorithm, probably from graph theory, that measures how de/centralised a network is?
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 02:51:22 +0100
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In #Flancia we'll meet
flancian@social.coop
@cwebber
this is literally in [[decentralized]] in the Agora (the social knowledge graph I'm developing) but I didn't know where it was from, thanks for finding the source!
It should of course also be linked at [[distributed]] for completeness :)
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 03:49:24 +0100
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jonny (good kind)
jonny@neuromatch.social
@cwebber
loved this, thanks to u for being u and thanks for your thoughts here <3
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 03:58:24 +0100
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Xavier Góngora
xg@social.toplap.org
@cwebber
I couldn't help but finish this thread start to bottom. I'm behind schedule on my own work, but this procrastination drift was worth the ride.
To build a common understanding of terminology is pretty hard, specially when people involved have (personal) stakes on the sources and consequences of the discussion. I think it makes sense that this somewhat boils down to a statement of values, as that's were the crossroads of discourse lies.
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 04:33:59 +0100
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Baral'heia Stormdancer ΘΔ🐲
baralheia@dragonchat.org
@cwebber
the Hummus Goblin knows what you did
Found Secret Goblin #2!
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 04:50:54 +0100
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infinite love ⴳ
trwnh@mastodon.social
@cwebber
was it at least good hummus
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 04:58:33 +0100
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John Panzer
jpanzer@mastodon.social
@cwebber
1. Thanks for the 👿
2. This is reminding me about this historical research into what “airborne” transmission of disease meant (Telephone)
3. Values > words
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 08:33:43 +0100
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Jens Finkhäuser
jens@social.finkhaeuser.de
@cwebber
I appreciate this view, and can mostly, let's say, agree with it. But I also think it has flaws.
Mostly, I think the loss of context goes the other way around, but I also admit that it's a matter of perspective: if you use a term, it's best to use it as it was defined, not redefine it. So the use of "decentralized" kind of *should* be as described in Baran.
But independently, using the term as a counter to centralization is intuitive, so I know that's a fight against windmills.
1/n
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 09:33:58 +0100
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Rocketman
slothrop@chaos.social
@cwebber
Hummus, sustenance for humans and goblins alike
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 09:48:44 +0100
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Sebastian Krzyszkowiak
dos@social.librem.one
@cwebber
It's like when people make proprietary source code releases, call that "open source" and then argue that nobody has a monopoly on the meaning of the term while clearly benefiting from its preexisting connotations.
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 09:53:54 +0100
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Rocketman
slothrop@chaos.social
@cwebber
This has been a splendid read to start my morning. Thank you!
Get some rest. Be well.
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 10:36:38 +0100
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Fluchtkapsel
fluchtkapsel@nerdculture.de
https://nerdculture.de/system/media_attachments/files/113/650/494/106/868/938/original/433eea6784112f94.mp4
@cwebber
Goblin #2 found.
An animated drawing of a goblin girl standing next to a slice of bread, the slice of bread toppling over her
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 13:51:21 +0100
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Gert V 🇵🇸
gert@social.coop
@cwebber
Also on how it could have ended up in implementation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X.25
VC may be established using X.121 addresses. The X.121 address consists of a three-digit data country code (DCC) plus a network digit, together forming the four-digit data network identification code (DNIC), followed by the national terminal number (NTN) of at most ten digits.
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 18:28:00 +0100
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tom jennings
tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org
@cwebber
It's extremely important stuff, thank you for bringing clarity.
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 20:34:16 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
Hello! I am back at my computer. Today we are going to talk about how ATProto does in terms of scaling. Yes, we know it scales up, and has done an impressive job of doing so!
But what about scaling towards decentralization? Does it scale down? And does it scale wide? Let's look.
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 20:36:36 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
Before we get deep into that, when we left last night I was extremely tired and had been working at my computer for over 14 hours. I then said I was going to drive two hours across the state that evening.
Thankfully thanks to the support of people who love me, I did not do that foolish thing!
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 20:42:16 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
So anyway, I am better rested, and also I woke up to the surprise that our fundraiser is doing a lot better, like by a lot, than it was yesterday, which is nice because I was extremely stressed out
https://spritely.institute/donate/
So I am feeling much better and alive and today I remembered to eat lunch
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 20:43:42 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
But you probably aren't here to hear about my lunch choices or how much sleep I got or whether or not I forgot to bring my ADHD medication with me (I did so now I am drinking a bunch of caffeine instead), you are probably here to hear the rest of the analysis about decentralization and Bluesky etc
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
So let us get to it, let's talk about whether or not Bluesky can scale *down* in a meaningful way.
In my last essay I made assertions that this was important for decentralization and said ATProto wasn't great for this, and this was one thing people challenged me on
So let's take a look!
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 20:50:40 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
When I say "scale down", what I generally mean is "small instances can generally participate on the network". (We'll talk about "scale wide" later.) But another useful possibility which has come up is "can you make a smaller, more isolated use-case and use the same protocol for it"
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
This latter version of scale down does come up in Bryan's article:
> A specific form of scale-down which is an important design goal is that folks building new applications (new Lexicons) can "start small", with server needs proportional to the size of their sub-network.
(cotd)
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 20:56:06 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
Strictly speaking, I agree, ATProto can scale down in this use case! For example, if you wanted to make a small specialized forum for collaborative storytelling, you could use ATProto for it, and that's true, you could do it
But is it the right choice?
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 20:57:14 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
In some ways we are talking about two different things here: extension of functionality (which you might want the same scale for) and having a smaller and more isolated community
But regardless
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 21:00:07 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
ATproto positions itself *specifically* as designed for not wanting to miss messages, and I talked previously about how ATProto's design requires a god's-eye view.
It's a bit strange of a choice when you say "let's run a smaller community"
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
Given that message passing systems handle small scale systems *beautifully*, and *still* allow for interactions with larger scale systems, it's a bit confusing to me *why* you'd choose ATProto for such use cases. What is the specific benefit you'd gain? Especially because it's actually lossier here
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 21:03:30 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
At any rate, there's a bit of conflation here. "It scales down" by saying "you can have an isolated community/use case that's oblivious to the rest of the system" is categorically distinct from "it scales down" in terms of "a small node can meaningfully participate with the larger system"
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 21:04:54 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
At any rate, the problem with "scaling down" is much clearer when it comes to the problem of "scaling wide".
Or let me put it a different way: ATProto *explodes in complexity* when you try to scale it towards meaningful decentralization
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 21:06:58 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
Yes that's right we're getting to the spicy part of this conversation. We did the warm-up, now it's time to talk about the real thing, whether or not decentralization in the way I believe people *think* that term means is reasonably possible with ATProto as it's currently designed
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
But before we do that, I need to stretch and run to the bathroom
So for those of you following along, if you found this, Secret Goblin #3, let me know: "👺"
Oops wait actually we gotta talk about that one for a sec there's a reason I left it in scare quotes
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 21:11:59 +0100
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Mark Kraft
KraftTea@mastodon.social
@cwebber
ATProto:
Pick one.
f4aac15bc03dfe86.png
1d30441b587d18ce.png
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 21:13:47 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
Why on earth is the textual descriptor for Unicode U+1F47A "JAPANESE GOBLIN", does anyone know?
It's a Tengu, right?
Despite being the only actually named "goblin" emoji, I feel awkward about this one because is it correct to call it a "JAPANESE GOBLIN" instead of just "TENGU"?!?!
I don't know!
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 21:16:40 +0100
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Brad Ganley 🚩🏴
brad@m.toad.host
@cwebber
It does feel weirdly targeted. Feels like calling sushi "Japanese fish"
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 21:17:04 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
If you have knowledge or OPINIONS about "👺", its name choice in unicode, or, for that matter, a white person just dropping it in the middle of a group chat WITHOUT putting it in quotes (I did tho), feel free to derail the comment thread
Otherwise it's time for a
=== STRETCH BREAK ===
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. stdh .
stdh@hostux.social
@cwebber
C-x 8 C-m 1f47a
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 21:25:44 +0100
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Jens Finkhäuser
jens@social.finkhaeuser.de
@cwebber
I don't know about an opinion, but
@camelliakyoto
does post a lot about Japanese traditions and myths, and of course, tea. I suspect they might have insights?
(They always have beautiful pictures of Japan)
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 21:34:20 +0100
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Nicholas R
nicholasr@mastos.online
@cwebber
Isn't this part of the reason why the Internet became SO successful?
There is a lot of technology that is less centralization
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 21:37:15 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
I'm back. It's time to talk about it: does Bluesky/ATProto suffer a "quadratic explosion" as we move from centralization towards *meaningful* decentralization?
I claimed it did, but I was challenged on this. What did I mean? Am I right or wrong?
It's time to find out!
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 21:39:27 +0100
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:jan::abreath:🌬:dandelion:
Crazypedia@pagan.plus
@cwebber
oh! This might explain it's adoption as part of introducing emoji to unicode and compatability with Japanese emoji usage, but more info is needed as to what it was doing as an emoji in the first place.
> Unicode Version 6.0
> Released in October 2010, Unicode 6.0 was the first version of the Unicode Standard to support emoji.
> Some characters in prior versions of Unicode were retroactively updated to provide an emoji presentation. This release was the first to introduce new characters for the sole purpose of compatability with emojis being used in Japan.
https://emojipedia.org/unicode-6.0
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 21:39:34 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
In the previous blogpost I said the following:
> If this sounds infeasible to do in our metaphorical domestic environment, that's because it is. A world of full self-hosting is not possible with Bluesky.
(cotd)
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 21:41:15 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
Decentralized ATProto is quadratic quote, cotd:
> In fact, it is worse than the storage requirements, because the message delivery requirements become quadratic at the scale of full decentralization: to send a message to one user is to send a message to all. Rather than writing one letter, a copy of that letter must be made and delivered to every person on earth.
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 21:47:12 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
This was probably the thing I got the hardest pushback on from a team member of Bluesky, that it is not quadratic as we scale towards decentralization.
Truth be told, I don't have a degree in CS. Most of what I know I learned from studying independently and community resources. Was I wrong?
Debate between myself and why.bsky.team about whether or not ATProto is quadratic as we decentralize it. We both agree that agency is the most important thing anyway, more on that later.
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 21:48:55 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
Just as a quick aside, regarding that comment about "agency", maximizing the agency of everyone (and more importantly, minimizing subjection!) sits at the heart of my ethical framework
https://fossandcrafts.org/episodes/11-an-ethics-of-agency.html
So I don't disagree on that part, but that's an aside!
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 21:50:45 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
Now, I said I won't read replies until I am done summarizing things, and that's true, so maybe someone has gone out of their way and proven that I am wrong, that the claims in my article are factually incorrect and so on and so forth. I wouldn't know yet.
But... I don't think I'm wrong.
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 21:53:05 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
As said I'm very self-conscious about these things because I *don't* have formal CS training. But I do a lot of research and so I've tried to become knowledgeable about these things and this *seemed* like the correct analysis to me
Because of that, I turned to people who actually knew more than me
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 21:56:24 +0100
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lampsofgold
lampsofgold@veoh.social
@cwebber
👺
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 21:56:28 +0100
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Αλαιν Εμιλια :nonbinary_flag:
fogti@chaos.social
@cwebber
ok, so `n` nodes connect to `n-1` nodes each, O(n(n-1)) = O(n²), so quadratic is correct.
I think the thing about "gossip trees" is related to the tree structure which can be used to implement non-local multicasting.
stuff like
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mbone
is also interesting.
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
For one thing I derailed the entire Spritely morning standup by walking everyone through the scenario. I gave the story example, which I'll detail later.
But
@dthompson
didn't find the story helpful, too much narrative detail. "I need to work through this example independently." So he did.
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 21:58:31 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
@dthompson
came back and laid it out in more formal terms and said I was right.
But I was still nervous, so I called up one of my old MIT AI Lab type friends and rambled about it to them on a call. What did they think?
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 22:00:22 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
"I think it's pretty clear immediately that it's quadratic. This is basic engineering considerations, the first thing you do when you start designing a system," they said.
Well that's a relief, why isn't it clear to everyone else, I asked?
So they suggested I lay it out to you as I did to them.
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 22:03:29 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
Let's start with the following:
- ATProto has positioned itself as "no compromises on centralized use cases". Well, in that case, let's say it can't do *worse* than eg ActivityPub. This includes with replies. You can't do *worse* than ActivityPub on replies and mentioning someone, etc.
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 22:06:31 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
- We will interpret the most centralized system as one where there's only one provider for storage and distribution of all messages: the least amount of user participation
- The flip side of the spectrum of maximum decentralization is the *most* amount of participation: every user self-hosts.
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
- Just as blogging is decentralized but Google (and Google Reader) are not, it is not enough to have just PDS'es in Bluesky be self-hosted. When we say self-hosted, we really mean self-hosted: users are participating in the distribution of their content.
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 22:08:43 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
- We will consider this a gradient. We can analyze the system from the greatest extreme of centralization which can "scale towards" the greatest degree of decentralization.
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
- Finally, we will analyze both in terms of the load of a single participant on the network but also in terms of the amount of network traffic as a whole.
Okay. That is the structure we will use for our analysis. Let's compare "message passing" vs ATProto-style "global public shared heap".
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 22:17:40 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
So okay. Let's get the CS notation out of the way:
"Message passing" at full decentralization:
- O(1) from a single node's perspective
- O(n) from a whole-network zoom-out perspective (inherent: add a user, it's one more user)
Okay, that's reasonable and what you'd expect
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 22:20:28 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
"Public global no-missed-messages (or not worse than AP) shared-heap" ATProto style at full decentralization:
- O(n) from a single user's perspective (!)
- O(n^2) from a whole-network perspective (!!!!!!)
Oof I'd better back this up because that ain't good!
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 22:27:48 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
In other words, as our systems get more decentralized, message passing handles things fine. Individual nodes can participate in the network no matter how big it gets. The zoom-out for the network as a whole doesn't get more complicated as we add more users OR move more users towards self hosting.
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 22:29:50 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
Things are NOT good, if I'm correct above, as we make things more decentralized in the atproto-public-shared-heap model. The more self-hosting and indeed the more "full nodes" join, the more it gets expensive for each of the nodes and the network EXPLODES!
Truly self-hosted atproto is NOT POSSIBLE!
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 22:31:38 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
And there is no solution to this without adding directed message passing. Another way to say this is: to fix a system like ATProto to allow for self-hosting, you have to ultimately fundamentally change it to be a lot more like a system like ActivityPub!
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 22:34:16 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
Now I left more of the precise analytical explanation in my blogpost. But social media isn't great for that, so go check out my blogpost if you want to go through all that (eg if you're more like
@dthompson
and less like me, I'm a narrative person)
https://dustycloud.org/blog/re-re-bluesky-decentralization/
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 22:36:53 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
Here's our story:
- We have 26 users: [Alice, Bob, Carol, ... Zack].
- Each user sends one message per day, which is intended to have one recipient. (This may sound unrealistic, but it's fine for modeling.)
- Each user sends a message in a ring: Alice => Bob, Bob => Carol, ... Zack => Alice
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 22:38:22 +0100
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rafoo
rafoo@mastodon.zaclys.com
@cwebber
I've found the second Goblin!
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 22:38:50 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
Now just before you say "wait but ATProto isn't for DMs", yes, but one way this could happen is that eg Bob follows Alice, Carol follows Bob, etc.
What I'm saying is, messages can have an "intended audience". That's what we're using here.
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 22:40:54 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
Before we get into this, remember, the main difference between "message passing" and the "shared heap" is the former has directed and delivered messages, the latter does not. See prev blogpost for explainer.
So, what happens in a day for both systems? Because that's what we really want to find out.
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 22:42:09 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
Under message passing, Alice sends her message to Bob. Only Bob need *receive* the message. So on and so forth.
- For an individual self-hosted node, messages passed per day: 1.
- Per the decentralized network, total messages passed zooming out: 26.
That's about what we'd expect.
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 22:43:16 +0100
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flaeky pancako
fleeky@prsm.space
@cwebber
luckily no one will be self hosting /snark
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 22:43:33 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
Under the public-gods-eye-view-shared-heap model, each user must know of all messages to know what may be relevant. Each user must *receive* all messages.
- Individual self-hosted server, 26 messages must be received per day.
- Zoom out on whole decentralized network: 26*26: 676!
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 22:46:12 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
Sounds survivable with 26 users though, right?
Let's try just adding 5 more users.
Message passing:
- Per node per day: no change.
- Per the network: 5 more messages.
Public gods-eye-view-shared-heap-model:
- Per node per day: 5 more per day
- Per network: ((31 * 31) - (26 * 26)): 285!
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 22:48:10 +0100
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gkrnours
gkrnours@mastodon.gamedev.place
@cwebber
wait, caffeine is an alternative to ADHD medication?
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 22:50:09 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
Now, could we handle a million self hosted users? Is it possible? No problem in message passing. EXPLOSIVE with atproto.
What if we had a million users and added just 5 more? How many more messages must the network bear?
5 new messages in message passing.
*10,000,025* new messages sent in atproto!
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 22:51:54 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
"Christine that's ridiculous, we're not expecting a million self-hosted users"
Well I think it would be nice!
But regardless, ActivityPub has 27,000 servers on it, all meaningfully participating in the network.
ATProto, in its current design, would be crushed to DEATH
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 22:53:38 +0100
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Brad Ganley 🚩🏴
brad@m.toad.host
@cwebber
I hate when they say it isn't realistic as if there aren't people like me hosting 3 separate iterations of AP clients
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 22:54:20 +0100
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rafoo
rafoo@mastodon.zaclys.com
@cwebber
I've found the Tengu.
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 22:55:23 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
"But Christine", you may say, "I heard gossip might fix this!"
No. It cannot.
In fact, I was being more generous than a gossip network, and assumed you only *received* a message once.
With gossip you might *receive* more than once.
But you need to receive a message to know it.
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 22:57:21 +0100
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Darius Kazemi
darius@friend.camp
@cwebber
I am as you know on your side in all this but there are people I disagree with who argue that having an incomplete view of all messages globally on ActivityPub is not "meaningfully participating" and I have trouble articulating my position with these people. Feels like a dead end where persuasion is highly unlikely
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 22:58:17 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
ATProto was designed for a "big world" view. That's fine! But I'm trying to show seriously what happens if it was actually, really decentralized.
*Every* fully participating node added to the network makes the network explosively more expensive.
ATProto doesn't scale towards decentralization.
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 22:59:57 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
In other words, the public god's-eye-view allows for a pantheon, but not a civilization. You can only have so many gods who see all.
An important characteristic of a decentralized system is scoping what you *don't* need to know.
This wasn't in the design goals of ATProto, and it has effects.
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 23:00:49 +0100
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Blort™ 🐀Ⓥ🥋☣️
Blort@social.tchncs.de
@cwebber
To me the *ideal* is for *everyone* who uses social media to either self host or to be hosted by someone they know and trust personally. Even a tiny fraction of this would be far, far more than a million users!
Will we get there? Who knows? Few would have predicted that we would even get to where we are now, and numbers are only growing...
#Fediverse
#SelfHosting
#SocialMedia
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 23:01:45 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
I may be coming across as some academic computer science nerd. It's actually the opposite. I'm a humanities nerd who cares about the agency of users so much I've twisted myself into a shape where I can do a computer science thing.
But architecture matters. It affects the worlds we can have.
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 23:03:27 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
This is what I say when I say that Bluesky's goals of "credible exit" may be reasonable, but it's not decentralized. There is no getting around the fact that the system, as designed, is designed for a few large players. Small players can play on the *periphery*, but they can't play the big game.
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 23:04:43 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
Now, you might think, maybe ATProto could fix this!
And it can.
And the solution, ultimately, will end up looking... a lot like ActivityPub.
1
dynamic_hubzilla
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 23:06:15 +0100
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Dan Sugalski
wordshaper@weatherishappening.network
@cwebber
it hit me, reading this, that ATProto is more or less trying to reimplement Usenet News without some of the features that made it possible to actually host a news node. I’m sure this isn’t a new observation, by any means, but remembering what it was like to try and keep even a partial feed node running… well, times have changed since the ‘90s but their design doesn’t make me think the ATProto folks remember news, or its issues.
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 23:07:11 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
The point is that nearly everyone knows at this point that "sure, Bluesky is centralized today, in practice!" But a lot of the responses I see are "but decentralization is just around the corner thanks to ATProto!"
So that's why I'm writing this out.
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 23:07:44 +0100
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Ben Ramsey
ramsey@phpc.social
@cwebber
I’ve thought about this since ATProto came on the scene, and this further reinforces my view that ATProto was going to be Twitter’s attempt to monetize corporate control of social media, while giving the appearance of user freedom and choice. Spinning off from Twitter was just an unfortunate side effect of Musk’s takeover.
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 23:08:33 +0100
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flaeky pancako
fleeky@prsm.space
@cwebber
one thing I am surprised no one has mentioned.. the very philosophy of a gods eye view is inherently a centralizing one ?
1
dynamic_hubzilla
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 23:10:48 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
Well, that's it. We've reached as far as we're going tonight.
There's still a bit left, a bit of reframing about what I am and am not concerned about with decentralized identity, and then a bigger topic about Bluesky's design goals vs community expectations. Then we'll talk talk about values.
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 23:11:56 +0100
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Luci Scissors
bri_seven@queer.party
@cwebber
it’s why i love you
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 23:12:40 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
Those last two, expectations and values, are really important to me. And I think they'll maybe be the most thoughtful part of all of this.
Of course, they're probably not what most people care about from me, about this. Probably what I've said is all many care to hear from me and that's fine.
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 23:13:50 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
For those who care about such things, tune in tomorrow, where hopefully we'll wrap this up. For those who were just hoping to hear the decentralization analysis, hope you found it useful.
Regardless, I wish you a very happy
=== REST OF TODAY BREAK ===
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 23:15:06 +0100
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Stedi :bassguitar:🎸🎼🐦🚴
stedi@mementomori.social
@cwebber
Interesting thread, thanks!
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 23:15:10 +0100
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Adriano
adriano@lile.cl
@cwebber
Look, even not being able to follow all the technical details, I am glad that you're having these thoughts and that they've sparked such a good conversation. Thanks.
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 23:16:27 +0100
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javitel
javitel@mastodon.online
@cwebber
😈
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 23:18:30 +0100
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Gert V 🇵🇸
gert@social.coop
@cwebber
We need symmetry and Big Tech will never ever give it to us even if they promise.
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 23:29:10 +0100
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javitel
javitel@mastodon.online
@cwebber
👺
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 23:41:48 +0100
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viq
viq@social.hackerspace.pl
@cwebber
👺 needs a stretch too
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Sat, 14 Dec 2024 23:47:56 +0100
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Fluchtkapsel
fluchtkapsel@nerdculture.de
https://nerdculture.de/system/media_attachments/files/113/653/609/586/054/692/original/55a478382bc84460.mp4
@cwebber
Tengu #1 found.
a cartoon character with a long red nose and a blue background
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 00:45:54 +0100
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cyplo
cyplo@peninsula.industries
@cwebber
that is a great point, basically to apply Conway's law at scale here !
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 01:42:29 +0100
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Vicente ⁂
vgarzareyna@mstdn.mx
@cwebber
im sure this will be a very interesting (if niche) book
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 03:44:32 +0100
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Semitones
semitones@tiny.tilde.website
@cwebber
I found goblin 1. 😈and goblin 2. 👿 yesterday and they are mischievously grinning and quietly celebrating now that they are a trio together with 👺.
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 03:54:45 +0100
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. stdh .
stdh@hostux.social
@cwebber
I'm curious about your expectations and values. When the US election results came in, I remember you reflecting how you could best fight the upcoming political [bleep], and your conclusion was to continue your work on Spritely. I think that's immensely powerful. How many people can say that they're working on what they believe to be truly important? (Even if it includes the dreaded raising of funds. 🙂 )
Rock on Christine, but don't forget to take care of yourself! ❤️
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Semitones
semitones@tiny.tilde.website
@darius
@cwebber
it seems like if your friends want to see every reply, then they may never agree that anything less than that is meaningful.
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Darius Kazemi
darius@friend.camp
@semitones
right. Seems intractable
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 04:23:04 +0100
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dynamic_hubzilla
dynamic@hub.netzgemeinde.eu
@
Semitones
@
Darius Kazemi
@
Christine Lemmer-Webber
If the issue were simply wanting to be able to see every *reply*, one viable approach for decentralized social media would be to give the OP ownership of replies, and then people (who are given permission by the OP to reply) decide whether or not to reply based on how they feel about the OP's moderation policies. I do not know how technically challenging that is or isn't in ActivityPub in particular, but there are certainly solutions that don't require Bluesky's centralized approach.
On the other hand, if people insist that they ought to be able to see every *message* on the network, then, yeah, that is indeed (as Darius says) intractable.
3
Darius Kazemi
Semitones
just adrienne
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 04:36:13 +0100
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Darius Kazemi
darius@friend.camp
@dynamic
@cwebber
@semitones
right. I meant all messages period, not all replies to a post you're looking at
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Semitones
semitones@tiny.tilde.website
@darius
@dynamic
@cwebber
maybe this is just Mastodon brain, but the things I've noticed "missing" are predominantly 1. Posts with hashtags 2. Replies on posts 3. Someone's post history (before I've followed them). Not a showstopper for me, but definitely not what people expect from a Twitter-clone. Sounds like the Bluesky "zero-compromise" worked as a drop-in replacement for Twitter in a way in which decentralized social media maybe can't?
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 06:27:57 +0100
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GBlishen
tinfoiling@cosocial.ca
@cwebber
Excellent points and you bring some clarity to the situation that all should be aware of.
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 08:50:00 +0100
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Jürgen Hubert
juergen_hubert@thefolklore.cafe
@cwebber
@dthompson
I was reading and reading your very interesting thread, and I was about to ask: "Can you put this into a blog post for future reference?". 😉
Thanks!
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Jens Finkhäuser
jens@social.finkhaeuser.de
@cwebber
My only significant comment on this part is that there's a third option that few people seem to consider, but that
@librecast
is built around and
@interpeer
as well, albeit at a slightly different level:
What you call message passing would be unicast in a packet switching protocol like IP. One sender, one recipient.
What you call shared heap would be more like broadcast. One sender, all recipients.
There's also multicast. One sender, interested recipients *only*.
The fun part is...
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 13:00:37 +0100
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Shoq
shoq@mastodon.social
Alternatively, there could be 3 or more available (and selectable) reply threads: 1) The OP’s organic replies, 2) The OP’s personally moderated replies, and 3) curated reply threads by 3rd parties. The latter might often be the most valuable.
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 16:29:00 +0100
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dynamic_hubzilla
dynamic@hub.netzgemeinde.eu
@
Semitones
@
Darius Kazemi
@
Christine Lemmer-Webber
"Not a showstopper for me, but definitely not what people expect from a Twitter-clone."
That makes sense to me. I don't think this bothered me in the same way because I never liked Twitter, but I get it.
There are certainly some bizarre behaviors on Mastodon that come with horizons, both due to differences in federation/defederation and due to timing of following.
I think the former issue can never be comprehensively resolved on a decentralized network as long as different parts of the network enact different sets of values. I think it can be mitigated in *subsets* of the network through technologically standardized lists of how different instances/servers and individuals should be moderated.
The second issue (timing of following) I *think* is an artifact of push-based federation, and could be resolved if content were shared on the basis of pulls instead. This certainly seems to be an issue with Mastodon, but I don't know to what degree this is intrinsic to ActivityPub, and I'd be curious to hear if Christine or Darius have more to say about that.
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 19:30:25 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
Well hello.
So yesterday I stepped onto a crumbled piece of sidewalk, twisted and sprained my ankle, and fucked up my wrist. That, and I think I've said the most important things and this is day *three* of summarizing things from my blogpost, so I will be brief.
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 19:34:36 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
Sadly, I'm stopping where things take a positive turn in my article: talking about values, which I thought was a nice part of both
@bnewbold
and my articles.
I think the values/design goals Bryan did lay out are nice, and I talk more about ActivityPub and
@spritely
's values.
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 19:36:17 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
It was nice to be prompted about
@spritely
's values and it lead to a good conversation internally, and we did capture those in my blogpost, but I think that should be covered again from a more official organizational side, separate from this.
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 19:37:03 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
I also clarified a bit: the parts I'm concerned about with the did:plc stuff aren't as much the governance, and I think Bluesky is taking some good steps there by planning a certificate transparency log. That's good. Glad to see it.
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 19:39:41 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
I do think Bluesky is heading in a tough direction though in terms of community expectations vs the ATProto philosophy that replication and indexing of a firehose are the primary way things work.
It's a tough situation but Bluesky is speedrunning Twitter so fast it practically is Twitter.
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 19:45:59 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
People want Bluesky's devs to prevent their content from being replicated and indexed by people they don't like, well, I think it really is that: a *conflict*.
People were encouraged to join a Twitter replacement, they are expecting Twitter-like solutions. Can't blame 'em.
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 19:47:39 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
Given that "anyone can replicate and index!" is literally the *entire* design philosophy of ATProto, it's not going to be something easy to solve. I don't have an answer, but hey, I'm working on fairly fundamentally different designs, so it's not my problem to solve.
That said...
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 19:49:49 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
Like the present-day fediverse, Bluesky was majorly popularized by a bunch of queer people early on. As a trans person I watched a bunch of my friend join and felt so safe they posted things they never would have in today's environment when the community was small.
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 19:51:31 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
The decision about whether or not to boot horrible, well known transphobic people (protip: answer is yes) from the platform seems clear enough to me. I'm not sure the "speech vs reach" approach is working.
And it seems to me people are finding they don't have tools in their hands to do anything.
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 19:55:24 +0100
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Charles U. Farley
freakazoid@retro.social
@cwebber
I think we've just yet again run into why a company cannot operate a social media platform. They're always going to end up taking the road that pisses off the fewest of the most vocal people who actually make money for them.
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 19:56:30 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
For all its faults, and there are *many* and I have *railed* against the instance-oriented approach to moderation on the fediverse and have been writing about and working towards alternatives for a while, instance moderation empowers better here.
I think this will be a real test for Bluesky.
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 19:58:31 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
But more broadly I think *neither* the present-day fediverse nor Bluesky meet the needs of the future.
The "global town square" is a social media concept invented by centralized social media in the early web 2.0 era.
Social media by millenials, for millenials. What's the future?
1
dynamic_hubzilla
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 19:59:46 +0100
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Mike Hanley
lathamgreen@ravenation.club
@cwebber
we need the I Love Everything board for everyone
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 20:00:06 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
So to some degree, I don't have a lot of interest in trying to figure out what the solution to this is, because I think these are the wrong designs. I don't like the context-collapse firehose much at all, I'm interested in "contextual communication", "secure collaboration", and "healthy communities"
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 20:00:14 +0100
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Dan FitzGerald
d_j_fitzgerald@bitbang.social
@cwebber
plus "global town square" is a damned awful concept. In reality, few people want to be forced to listen to the racist looney standing on Speaker's Corner when all you want to do is chat with your friends in a cafe.
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 20:02:04 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
That's the kind of direction we're trying to build towards with
@spritely
, but as said, I'm dropping the values discussion here, that's something we'll talk about later in the week. I would like to talk about that independently, focusing there on what to build, not on a critique.
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 20:02:37 +0100
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Charles U. Farley
freakazoid@retro.social
@cwebber
In my mind this question translates to "how do we allow people to use the Internet to connect with one another in a similar way to how they do in real life?"
I'm just me. Why do I need to worry about an "instance" or a "domain" to be able to connect with other people? Or an "account" for that matter. And what is this "platform" nonsense?
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 20:02:57 +0100
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Luis Villa
luis_in_brief@social.coop
@cwebber
I agree with this as first-principles, but I do note that every contextual/healthy/secure community that I'm a part of spends a pretty solid amount of time sharing and discussing stuff from the context-collapse firehoses (for many appropriate contextual reasons - laughter, learning, safety, etc.) I am not sure how we square those facts.
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 20:04:25 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
But I do think there's a big collision course ahead, and I don't know how it'll resolve. Investors and users who want quick resolution to real concerns on one side, a vision for public, highly replicated and indexed by anyone content on the other side.
It'll be a challenge.
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 20:06:03 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
There's opportunities for collaboration maybe. I've asserted pretty strongly that Bluesky isn't decentralized and as a system, it isn't. You can't tear the power dynamics out of the analysis. Otherwise what's the point?
But Bluesky uses decentralization techniques, there may be collab space there.
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 20:07:12 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
I'm not trying to be a mean, horrible person to Bluesky's devs. I'm really not. I actually think that they've provided something much *better* than X-Twitter to a lot of people.
But Bluesky has speedrun this whole thing so fast, Bluesky is already no longer the underdog. It's Twitter TNG.
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 20:08:48 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
And that means we can't pretend that decentralization is something that's some future possibility or goal, that it's gonna happen some day we promise.
I'd love to be proven wrong on everything I laid out.
Though I think the only way to do that without being worse than AP is serious rearchitecting.
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 20:09:49 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
Who's empowered and who has agency and how we can increase the agency of everyone is indeed, all I care about. It's what "decentralization" means to me and matters to me as a goal. You can't drop the power dynamics. It *is* about the power dynamics.
I want us to build a better future. A real one.
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 20:10:35 +0100
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Ben Ramsey
ramsey@phpc.social
@cwebber
Within the next two years, I expect to see them onboarding large corporations as relays, etc.
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 20:11:21 +0100
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Charles U. Farley
freakazoid@retro.social
@cwebber
I would submit that that's more because of Musk's toxicity than due to their own competence. They were in the right place at the right time. "Decentralization" is just a magic fairy dust they sprinkled on top because it was a hot topic at the time.
1
dynamic_hubzilla
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 20:11:27 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
One thing I am confident about: it's not that Bluesky's engineering team doesn't care.
Actually I only really know two of Bluesky's main people well, Jay Graber and Bryan Newbold.
I know they do both care.
But so did Twitter's early devs. Twitter was supposed to be decentralized too.
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 20:12:51 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
It's easy to forget that Blaine Cook led a team at Twitter in early days to make Twitter decentralized and the team there was worried about the effects centralization can have.
Investors killed it anyway.
It has to be more than about caring, the work has to happen and be preserved.
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 20:14:27 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
I've said enough. I've said more than enough. I've said more than people probably thought could possibly happen on the subject on a blogpost or social media thread let alone *two*.
And that's with me dropping part of the second blogpost because I fell and hurt my hand.
It's time to wrap up.
1
dynamic_hubzilla
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 20:15:24 +0100
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Dan FitzGerald
d_j_fitzgerald@bitbang.social
@cwebber
the cynic in me says: "whatever the investors want at the expense of everyone else". That plus Jack's early involvement is why I won't touch Bluesky with a flaming harpoon. Silicon Valley is f*cked, VC is f*cked, and I am too worn out by a decade-plus of arrogant white boys stroking their own egos for me to trust anything from that sphere anymore.
I like that it sounds like the engineers are people that you respect and in some cases know; that's the one thing it has going for it.
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 20:15:48 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
I hope I haven't caused emotional strain on anyone. I spent a while walking back from brunch and was pretty depressed and was talking with my girlfriend: was I just *mean* about this whole thing?
She reassured me she didn't think I was, but I still feel like I was mean.
I tried not to be.
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 20:17:02 +0100
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Fifi Lamoura
fifilamoura@eldritch.cafe
@cwebber
💯 and it looks like they're leaning into centralized power without any social responsibility, so the worst of all worlds (and also the socially destructive fever dream of White supremacy/patriarchy/fascism).
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 20:17:09 +0100
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Raccoon at TechHub :mastodon:
Raccoon@techhub.social
@cwebber
Yeah you've said so much that I don't think I will ever be able to get through the entire thread. :V
I did like some of the points that I saw when I skimmed through it though. :3
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 20:20:56 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
But despite there being literally millions of people on both Bluesky and the fediverse, I haven't seen any other analysis that went comprehensively into architecture, terminology, and their implications at the level I did in terms of their *implications* and *impact*.
I think it needed to be done.
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 20:21:07 +0100
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Raccoon at TechHub :mastodon:
Raccoon@techhub.social
@cwebber
@3psboyd
Something I think is really important for people to understand about those programming problems before they post comics like this is that, even though they don't accurately mimic the day-to-day of professional programming work, they do teach a lot of skills in terms of solving the unique problems that people encounter, and tell potential employers that the person who solves them knows enough to solve a programming problem.
Keep in mind that the vast majority of applicants for programming jobs, including a large chunk of people with degrees in computer science, do not know how to do any programming in any language. Solving weird programming problems at least shows a degree of general competency.
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 20:21:15 +0100
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Fifi Lamoura
fifilamoura@eldritch.cafe
@cwebber
I think you have been very even handed and add a very necessary perspective that isn't just unconsciously grounded in the White male libertarian assumptions that underpin a lot of social media as it currently exists in the world. Of we want new and less harmful ways of using and building technology, we're best served by having new voices and perspectives at the table to talk about both harms and possibilities.
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 20:21:51 +0100
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Raccoon at TechHub :mastodon:
Raccoon@techhub.social
@cwebber
I love the figure.
The figure is love, the figure is life.
All hail FIG. 1.
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 20:23:52 +0100
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Fifi Lamoura
fifilamoura@eldritch.cafe
@cwebber
💜
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 20:24:03 +0100
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TomasHradcky
TomasHradcky@musicians.today
@cwebber
Not mean. At all.
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 20:24:06 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
So one more post after this one. Just one more post.
I have said so much, I feel like I am pumping the brakes on train of analysis and it's taking a while to come to a halt but it's time. I want to wrap it up, for everyone reading this, for myself.
So here we go.
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 20:28:14 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
We should build decentralized systems because we care about empowering people. We can't forget about power distribution.
Let's be clear about what our systems can and can't do.
And no matter where you are, if you're trying to build a healthier internet for everyone, keep it up.
Thanks. 💜
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 20:36:54 +0100
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Jan Lehnardt :couchdb:
janl@narrativ.es
@cwebber
get better soon ❤️🩹
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 20:48:55 +0100
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llewelly
llewelly@sauropods.win
@cwebber
hope you get better soon.
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 20:50:57 +0100
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Chip Unicorn
Chip_Unicorn@im-in.space
@cwebber
Thank you for doing it.
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 20:58:02 +0100
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jandi
jandi@mastodon.social
@cwebber
¿Mean? ¿mean? If anything, you've been too nice! Don't worry about that at all, concerning this subject.
Mean... 😆
Love was pouring out of the pixels, ma'am.
1
dynamic_hubzilla
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 21:02:43 +0100
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Jan Lehnardt :couchdb:
janl@narrativ.es
@cwebber
you done good kid, again.
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Sun, 15 Dec 2024 21:05:07 +0100
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Klara! ❤️
boo_@im-in.space
@cwebber
This was the least mean and most nuanced thread I have seen on the subject. It's clear that you care a lot about not repeating the mistakes of centralized networks, while on the other hand you're also not villainising people making something they believe in despite your criticism of their approach.
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Mon, 16 Dec 2024 01:08:29 +0100
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Josef Davies-Coates
josef@mastodon.uniteddiversity.coop
@cwebber
I think you meant to write "centralized today, in practice" here, right?
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Mon, 16 Dec 2024 01:17:33 +0100
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Josef Davies-Coates
josef@mastodon.uniteddiversity.coop
@cwebber
I don't think you were mean, I think you were rather lovely actually 🙂
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Mon, 16 Dec 2024 07:19:53 +0100
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LabRAIZ
LabRaiz@mastodon.social
@cwebber
long life the distributed / decentralised networks we are in here
#federate
all things
#activitypub
network protocol rocks
17fda6eb3a8c589b.jpg
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Mon, 16 Dec 2024 15:12:19 +0100
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Travis F W
travisfw@fosstodon.org
@cwebber
I hope I can help somehow
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Mon, 16 Dec 2024 15:40:43 +0100
zuletzt bearbeitet: Mon, 16 Dec 2024 15:41:08 +0100
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Travis F W
travisfw@fosstodon.org
@cwebber
if this math is right, bluesky cannot decentralize in a way that delivers the expected meaning of the word to the humans participating.
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Tue, 17 Dec 2024 04:16:39 +0100
zuletzt bearbeitet: Tue, 17 Dec 2024 04:19:29 +0100
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pavo
pavo@toot.cafe
@cwebber
whole thread unrolled into a single page, in case anyone find this easier to read
Part 1:
https://unroller.zachmanson.com/thread/https:/social.coop/@cwebber/113647306776014159
Part 2:
https://unroller.zachmanson.com/thread/https://social.coop/@cwebber/113658488050472976/
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Tue, 17 Dec 2024 14:15:40 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
@trwnh
it's the best hummus
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Tue, 17 Dec 2024 14:29:35 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
@gkrnours
it's better than nothing if you don't have your meds
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Tue, 17 Dec 2024 14:32:54 +0100
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Thanasis Kinias
tkinias@historians.social
@cwebber
I just wanted to say that I really appreciate your laying out this issue in simple terms...
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Tue, 17 Dec 2024 14:41:37 +0100
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Christine Lemmer-Webber
cwebber@social.coop
@josef
Yep oops, fixed
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Tue, 17 Dec 2024 17:21:20 +0100
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Rocketman
slothrop@chaos.social
@cwebber
👺
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Tue, 17 Dec 2024 17:47:09 +0100
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Rocketman
slothrop@chaos.social
@cwebber
Magnificent. Thank you 💜
I don’t think you were mean. You were clear and concise.
Now that this clarity is out there, some people may have to reevaluate their expectations. That’s a normal and necessary process, even if it isn’t always pleasant.
I hope your ankle and your hand heal quickly! ❤️🩹
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Thu, 19 Dec 2024 16:35:02 +0100
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Julian ♪🌻🥥🌴♫
TFFPrisoner@mastodon.social
@cwebber
That was a riveting read. And it confirmed my amateur suspicions about Bluesky's failings (if we want to use the word).
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Thu, 19 Dec 2024 22:23:24 +0100
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✿ Floby 💉😷💨
floby@mastodon.social
@cwebber
took my time but found the 3rd Easter egg
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