"Library Networks: Should They Deal With Containers or Contents of Knowledge?"

Searching around, it doesn't seem like the outside world (e.g. Google Scholar, bibliographers) are aware that this piece Licklider wrote even exists, despite it being digitized and sitting here in the open.

This piece presages the Internet Archive and, given the juxtaposition of its lofty goals with the piece's own obscurity, there's a perverse irony here.

Licklider writes in section 2:

It is high time that librarians reach out into computer networks to create order and functionality out of what is now chaos. (The author would- estimate that 90 per cent of the computerized information in EDUCOM universities "trickles down" to back-up or dead storage tapes within two years and that less than one per cent ever "perks up" again.)

"Perking up" is more than what I'm talking about here—again, I can't find evidence that this piece is even catalogued anywhere.

Pretty sure it's because the ZIP files were expected to be written to multiple disks (floppies), and as alluded to earlier, if you wanted to delete a file, you could just insert the last disk containing the directory and "delete" it, therefore not requiring you to insert the disk(s) containing the actual file record to null it out (or overwrite with some other file record, potentially requiring 3 disk swaps). Thus, the ZIP format constitutes something like a filesystem implemented in userspace. 30 years ago, this was "obvious" and that's why you were expected to know this. There was no assumption that tradition and path dependencies would lead to ZIP still being widespread for cross-platform data interchange among machines capable of fast writes to local disks that have terabytes (although sometimes "merely" gigabytes) available.

Lots of weird reactions to this post.

In How to Stop Endless Discussion https://candost.blog/how-to-stop-endless-discussions/, the author explains the NABC model—"The model starts with defining the Need, followed by Approach, Benefits, and lastly, Competitors. Separating the Need from the Approach is very smart."

Commenting in support, Simon Willison writes:

We implemented a RFC-style process at a previous employer. [...] One thing that was particularly valuable was ensuring every proposal came with a "alternatives" section (called "competitors" in the NABC model). We also made sure that every proposal included "do nothing" as one of the alternatives

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25623388

I scarcely think that the majority of people who are behaving as if React and/or the NPM-heavy workflow are things that simply must be dealt with have ever done on honest NABC and evaluated the foregone conclusions biased towards their preferred workflow against the do-nothing alternative of just not bringing all the heavyweight NodeJS-centric tooling into the picture.

The build tools are irrelevant (or rather, a red herring).

JS has import statements. The build tools are (or at least should be) approximating what you get without the build tools interposing themselves into the development process, but doing it in a way that reinforces The Iron Law of Bureaucracy.

See also: Knuth on Dijkstra in "Coders at Work".

Still a problem.

Still a problem.

Missing:

• Hard and Fast Thoughts for a Softcopy World `https://archive.org/details/hftorl01tedn/page/n19/mode/2up`

More annotations (to the HTML version): https://hyp.is/IEwiCEjEEeyw_H-lrHY4-Q/www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-may-think/303881/

More annotations (to the PDF): https://hyp.is/IVIKog0bEeinX_so5P4fLA/csclassics.com/papers/Bush%20-%20As%20We%20May%20Think.pdf

Also available at https://monoskop.org/images/7/73/Nelson_Ted_1965_A_File_Structure_for_the_Complex_the_Changing_and_the_Indeterminate.pdf

Also available at http://csis.pace.edu/~marchese/CS835/Lec3/nelson.pdf (apparently with Ted's blessing; see `https://archive.org/details/HardAndFastThoughts1966`).

Missing:

• Annotation Engine (1999) https://web.archive.org/web/19990831231813/http://cyber.harvard.edu/projects/annotate.html
• JotBot (1998) https://web.archive.org/web/20000916234251/http://www.icc3.com/ec/architecture/webannotations.html
• ComMentor (1994) https://web.archive.org/web/19981202225348/http://www-pcd.stanford.edu/commentor/
• CoNote (1994) https://web.archive.org/web/19990422160552/http://dri.cornell.edu/pub/davis/annotation.html

That's just how the software works.

You're looking for https://doi.org/10.18352/lq.8036 (https://liberquarterly.eu/article/view/10623 as of this writing).

You're looking for https://doi.org/10.18352/lq.8036 (https://liberquarterly.eu/article/view/10623 as of this writing).

Missing:

• "An On-Line Information Network" (1965) [from the Project Intrex report]

Missing:

• "We Are In Danger Of Building A Tower Of Babel" (1953)

Missing:

• Science Is Not Enough (1967)

See also:

https://web.archive.org/web/20100224081424id_/http://coscripter.researchlabs.ibm.com/download/history/history-complete.xpi

https://web.archive.org/web/20120419033715id_/http://coscripter.researchlabs.ibm.com/download/history/history-complete.xpi

(These are ZIP files.)

PDF: https://www.projectoberon.net/jmlc/paulreed2003.pdf

PDF: https://www.projectoberon.net/jmlc/paulreed2000.pdf

DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) < TRY (Try Repeating Yourself)

Second panel syndrome.

This is a porn site today...

missing: BURKE, COLIN B. 1994. Information and Secrecy: Vannevar Bush, Ultra, and the Other Memex. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press; 1994. 466p. ISBN: 0-8108-2783-2.

Should be "serve".

Should be "their".

Should be "websites".

I think the early 2000s transition to actor-based indexing from topic-based indexing should be examined in depth. I think stronger identitarianism is at the root of polarization, and actor-based indexing laid the foundation for it. Likes were the fuel.

Foundation for Individual Rights in Education http://www.thefire.org/

No idea what point Troy thinks he's making here, but he certainly sounds very satisfied with it.

Except, notably, for GitHub Flavored Markdown's terrible handling of ASCII CR and LF.

Most Markdown that gets published to GitHub is clearly written by people who have no problem grinding their muddy shoes all over this design principle.

(Vanilla Markdown's syntax for inline links doesn't do a particularly good job upholding this principle itself.)

I've long contended that this is one of the main reasons that the NodeJS ecosystem has evolved in the direction that it has and snubbed the original strengths of JS.

This query doesn't behave as expected. Consider by way of comparison to a Google search for anything -site:pinterest.com.

Alternatively: wikis. (The document editor is trivially reachable from the document viewer.)

Unused. Caller can/should be passing this in so we can handle the quota check internally.

Should the content of an HTTP "transcript" itself be addressable?

Consider https://hypothes.is/a/WCrtIjv9EeyPLa-hEwFgRg.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runbook:

In a computer system or network, a runbook is a compilation of routine procedures and operations that the system administrator or operator carries out. System administrators in IT departments and NOCs use runbooks as a reference.

(Great sounding word, by the way.)

I've noticed that Python programmers are particularly bad about this, believing their language to be some sort of lingua franca, unable to see the dark corners, and unaware that the times that the program meanders into those corners can't be understood on first sight.

Excellent turn of phrase.

@30:25:

In most institutions there are too many layers of "no"

Specifically, answering the queston "Chesterton's fence or Rhesus ladder?". See https://hypothes.is/a/viXUiPZOEeu5Ty9zljmwFg

Excellent turn of phrase that I'm only just now hearing.

We have a word for this: "sophomoric".

Sounds like literate programming.

One of several recurring claims that make me feel like an alien. Do so many people really think this? It sure does end up getting said a lot.

I'm comfortable using text to communicate, but I hardly ever write in the sense people mean when they speak of it.

broken links

broken link

This passage and blurbs earlier in the letter goes against the common narrative that Engelbart's happening upon the article was life-altering as a result of being made into an instant convert to Bush's vision.

I don't know if Howard is trying to give us a nudge and wink here, but if so then the subsequent retelling that Doug was "by his own story very influenced by Vannevar Bush's As We May Think article" is certainly relevant to what Howard is suggesting, given that in Doug's own letter to Bush in 1962, he claims not to have even had Bush's ideas on his radar (no pun intended) until having rediscovered the Atlantic article after already having his own serious pursuits underway at SRI (and getting on at SRI was no small feat according to Howard's telling in Tools For Thought).

See https://web.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/sloanconference/papers/lenoir/STIMPresentations/Presentation/LetterToVBush.html

Taylorism gets a bum rap. Taylor's fans know it and seem to be at work on Wikipedia. See scientific management.

Fuck off.

Full version: https://www.dougengelbart.org/content/view/266/177/

It's here: https://www.dougengelbart.org/content/view/266/177/.

See also Ted Nelson's opening line from Xanalogical Structures, Needed Now More Than Ever:

Project Xanadu, the original hypertext project, is often misunderstood as an attempt to create the World Wide Web.

Bristly pop cultural misuse of the term "algorithm" notwithstanding, a better solution that I haven't come across anyone else mention: make them explicit, not hidden.

When it look like Dat might've had enough steam to take off (ca. 2017–2018), I wrote a draft straw proposal for how to solve the "discovery problem" with e.g. Fritter—i.e. the problem that because you only "receive" replies and other messages by checking the feeds of the people you're following, you'll be unable to reply engage with strangers who appear (or have a stranger engage with you in their thread) unless something happens like a mutual acquaintance alerting you out of band ("hey, did you see @foo's reply dat://foo.example.net/posts/ukifxdgbh.json?").

The idea is that there is a special kind of feed operated by some service provider that specializes in doing exactly that. If you find Facebook valuable, for example, then you are free to opt in and subscribe to the Facebook analog that pays attention to all feeds and works to surface interesting content for you. Under this model, unlike the Facebook regime, "leaving" is as simple as unsubscribing to that feed (and going with a different provider if you want).

Dear reader: you want https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1630.html.

Around @0:25:52

Krouse: Another subset of "shit just works" would be—

Leung:"No installation required"?

Krouse: Yeah. "No installation required". [...] as I was just telling you, I spent the last, like... I spent 5 hours over the last two days installing... trying to install software to get something to run. And it's just ridiculous to have to spend hours and hours. If you want to get Xcode to run, it takes— first of all you need a Mac, which is crazy, and then second of all it takes, depending on your internet connection, it could take you a whole day just to get up and running. Why isn't it xcode.com/create?

Is "overly-educated" the right thing here? As a substitute for the traditional euphemism "well-heeled", I think something like "highly credentialed" fits better.

When logged in, the page in question requests (using XHR) the URL https://www.pbs.org/watchlist/page/1/, which returns something with a shape that looks like this:

{"currentPage": 1, "videos": [{"slug": "american-experience-abolitionists-promo", "title": "The Abolitionists", "title_sortable": "The Abolitionists", "url": "/video/american-experience-abolitionists-promo/", "duration": "30s", "description_short": "Premiering January 8 2013. Turning a fringe movement into a force that changed the nation.", "description_long": "The story of how abolitionist allies William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe, John Brown and Angelina Grimke turned a despised fringe movement against chattel slavery into a force that literally changed the nation.", "video_type": "Preview", "encore_date": "2013-01-08T00:00:00-05:00", "expire_date": "", "availability": "available", "images": {"asset-mezzanine-16x9": "https://image.pbs.org/video-assets/pbs/american-experience/42958/images/Mezzanine_222.jpg"}, "flags": {"is_new": false, "is_mvod": false, "has_captions": false, "is_expiring_soon": false, "is_fully_watched": false}, "item_type": "video", "parent_type": "episode", "show": {"slug": "american-experience", "title": "American Experience", "season": 25, "episode": 12, "seasons_count": 31, "display_episode_number": true, "url": "/show/american-experience/"}, "summary": "Preview: S25 Ep12 | 30s", "ancestor_title": "American Experience", "ancestor_slug": "american-experience", "ancestor_type": "show", "image": "https://image.pbs.org/video-assets/pbs/american-experience/42958/images/Mezzanine_222.jpg", "legacy_tp_media_id": 2274405136, "cid": "2af4a426-df86-4e2e-ae84-858b737fbd5c", "air_date": "2013-01-08T00:00:00-05:00", "percent_complete": 0, "description": "Premiering January 8 2013. Turning a fringe movement into a force that changed the nation.", "timecode": ""}, {"slug": "american-experience-rise-and-fall-penn-station-preview", "title": "The Rise and Fall of Penn Station Preview", "title_sortable": "Rise and Fall of Penn Station Preview", "url": "/video/american-experience-rise-and-fall-penn-station-preview/", "duration": "30s", "description_short": "The engineering feat would last, the architectural masterpiece did not. Premiering Feb 18.", "description_long": "The Pennsylvania Railroad built tunnels under New York City's Hudson and East Rivers, connecting New York with New England, and terminating in one of the greatest architectural achievements of its time, Pennsylvania Station. It covered nearly eight acres, extended two city blocks, and housed one of the largest public spaces in the world. But 53 years later, the monumental building was destroyed.", "video_type": "Preview", "encore_date": "2014-02-18T00:00:00-05:00", "expire_date": "", "availability": "available", "images": {"asset-mezzanine-16x9": "https://image.pbs.org/video-assets/pbs/american-experience/113257/images/mezzanine_388.jpeg"}, "flags": {"is_new": false, "is_mvod": false, "has_captions": false, "is_expiring_soon": false, "is_fully_watched": false}, "item_type": "video", "parent_type": "episode", "show": {"slug": "american-experience", "title": "American Experience", "season": 26, "episode": 5, "seasons_count": 31, "display_episode_number": true, "url": "/show/american-experience/"}, "summary": "Preview: S26 Ep5 | 30s", "ancestor_title": "American Experience", "ancestor_slug": "american-experience", "ancestor_type": "show", "image": "https://image.pbs.org/video-assets/pbs/american-experience/113257/images/mezzanine_388.jpeg", "legacy_tp_media_id": 2365164811, "cid": "5052e26b-2fbd-4b63-af12-711a1b8d28ea", "air_date": "2014-02-18T00:00:00-05:00", "percent_complete": 0, "description": "The engineering feat would last, the architectural masterpiece did not. Premiering Feb 18.", "timecode": ""}, {"slug": "american-experience-forgotten-plague-preview", "title": "The Forgotten Plague Preview ", "title_sortable": "The Forgotten Plague Preview ", "url": "/video/american-experience-forgotten-plague-preview/", "duration": "30s", "description_short": "The battle against TB had a lasting impact on America. Premieres February 10 on PBS. ", "description_long": "By the dawn of the 19th century tuberculosis had killed one in seven of all the people who had ever lived. The battle against the deadly bacteria had a profound and lasting impact on the US, shaping medical and scientific pursuits, social habits, economic development, western expansion, and government policy. Premieres February 10 on PBS American Experience.", "video_type": "Preview", "encore_date": "2015-02-10T00:00:00-05:00", "expire_date": "", "availability": "available", "images": {"asset-mezzanine-16x9": "https://image.pbs.org/video-assets/pbs/american-experience/158684/images/mezzanine_700.jpg"}, "flags": {"is_new": false, "is_mvod": false, "has_captions": false, "is_expiring_soon": false, "is_fully_watched": false}, "item_type": "video", "parent_type": "episode", "show": {"slug": "american-experience", "title": "American Experience", "season": 27, "episode": 5, "seasons_count": 31, "display_episode_number": true, "url": "/show/american-experience/"}, "summary": "Preview: S27 Ep5 | 30s", "ancestor_title": "American Experience", "ancestor_slug": "american-experience", "ancestor_type": "show", "image": "https://image.pbs.org/video-assets/pbs/american-experience/158684/images/mezzanine_700.jpg", "legacy_tp_media_id": 2365409222, "cid": "452b093e-8d4e-48be-8a6e-211f837e2160", "air_date": "2015-02-10T00:00:00-05:00", "percent_complete": 0, "description": "The battle against TB had a lasting impact on America. Premieres February 10 on PBS. ", "timecode": ""}, {"slug": "american-experience-blackout-preview", "title": "Blackout Preview", "title_sortable": "Blackout Preview", "url": "/video/american-experience-blackout-preview/", "duration": "30s", "description_short": "What happened when the lights went out in New York in 1977? Premieres 7/14 at 9/8c on PBS.", "description_long": "On the night of July 13, 1977, lightning strikes took out several critical power lines, causing a catastrophic power failure and plunging some 8 million people into darkness in the New York City area. First responders, journalists, shop owners, Con Edison employees, and other New Yorkers tell about what happened when the lights went out. Premieres 7/14 at 9/8c on PBS American Experience.", "video_type": "Preview", "encore_date": "2015-07-14T00:00:00-04:00", "expire_date": "", "availability": "available", "images": {"asset-mezzanine-16x9": "https://image.pbs.org/video-assets/pbs/american-experience/177488/images/mezzanine_254.jpg"}, "flags": {"is_new": false, "is_mvod": false, "has_captions": false, "is_expiring_soon": false, "is_fully_watched": false}, "item_type": "video", "parent_type": "episode", "show": {"slug": "american-experience", "title": "American Experience", "season": 27, "episode": 7, "seasons_count": 31, "display_episode_number": true, "url": "/show/american-experience/"}, "summary": "Preview: S27 Ep7 | 30s", "ancestor_title": "American Experience", "ancestor_slug": "american-experience", "ancestor_type": "show", "image": "https://image.pbs.org/video-assets/pbs/american-experience/177488/images/mezzanine_254.jpg", "legacy_tp_media_id": 2365511610, "cid": "669efdf1-55bf-47b2-96f8-c21b05627a9a", "air_date": "2015-07-14T00:00:00-04:00", "percent_complete": 0, "description": "What happened when the lights went out in New York in 1977? Premieres 7/14 at 9/8c on PBS.", "timecode": ""}, {"slug": "american-experience-edison-preview", "title": "Edison Preview", "title_sortable": "Edison Preview", "url": "/video/american-experience-edison-preview/", "duration": "30s", "description_short": "The story of the Father of Invention. Premieres January 27, 2015 on PBS. ", "description_long": "Premiering January 27, 2015 on PBS American Experience. Thomas Edison achieved glory as the genius behind such revolutionary inventions as sound recording, motion pictures, and electric light. The holder of more patents than any other inventor in history, \"The Wizard of Menlo Park\" was also intensely competitive and was often neglectful in his private life.", "video_type": "Preview", "encore_date": "2015-01-27T00:00:00-05:00", "expire_date": "", "availability": "available", "images": {"asset-mezzanine-16x9": "https://image.pbs.org/video-assets/pbs/american-experience/149280/images/mezzanine_664.jpg"}, "flags": {"is_new": false, "is_mvod": false, "has_captions": false, "is_expiring_soon": false, "is_fully_watched": false}, "item_type": "video", "parent_type": "episode", "show": {"slug": "american-experience", "title": "American Experience", "season": 27, "episode": 3, "seasons_count": 31, "display_episode_number": true, "url": "/show/american-experience/"}, "summary": "Preview: S27 Ep3 | 30s", "ancestor_title": "American Experience", "ancestor_slug": "american-experience", "ancestor_type": "show", "image": "https://image.pbs.org/video-assets/pbs/american-experience/149280/images/mezzanine_664.jpg", "legacy_tp_media_id": 2365357999, "cid": "4a4ebbfd-ca64-4217-97c9-3c7f33b8f075", "air_date": "2015-01-27T00:00:00-05:00", "percent_complete": 0, "description": "The story of the Father of Invention. Premieres January 27, 2015 on PBS. ", "timecode": ""}, {"slug": "american-experience-mine-wars-20jkwo", "title": "American Experience: The Mine Wars", "title_sortable": "American Experience: The Mine Wars", "url": "/video/american-experience-mine-wars-20jkwo/", "duration": "30s", "description_short": "Monday, September 9 at 8PM", "description_long": "This show tells the overlooked story of the miners in the mountains of southern West Virginia \u2013 native mountaineers, African American migrants, and European immigrants \u2013 who came together in a protracted struggle for their rights.", "video_type": "Preview", "encore_date": "2019-09-09T00:00:00-04:00", "expire_date": "", "availability": "available", "images": {"asset-mezzanine-16x9": "https://image.pbs.org/video-assets/DY9f0vQ-asset-mezzanine-16x9-2fR2YaZ.png"}, "flags": {"is_new": false, "is_mvod": false, "has_captions": false, "is_expiring_soon": false, "is_fully_watched": false}, "item_type": "video", "parent_type": "special", "show": {"slug": "wxel-presents", "title": "WXEL Presents", "season": null, "episode": "", "seasons_count": 0, "display_episode_number": true, "url": "/show/wxel-presents/"}, "summary": "Preview: Special | 30s", "ancestor_title": "WXEL Presents", "ancestor_slug": "wxel-presents", "ancestor_type": "show", "image": "https://image.pbs.org/video-assets/DY9f0vQ-asset-mezzanine-16x9-2fR2YaZ.png", "legacy_tp_media_id": 3032488536, "cid": "588ffe4d-b626-43c1-8cae-61555fa89b4a", "air_date": "2019-09-09T00:00:00-04:00", "percent_complete": 0, "description": "Monday, September 9 at 8PM", "timecode": ""}, {"slug": "part-1-our-game-c6e5nn", "title": "Our Game", "title_sortable": "Our Game", "url": "/video/part-1-our-game-c6e5nn/", "duration": "1h 54m 53s", "description_short": "Inning One: Our Game looks at the origins of baseball in the 1840s and up to 1900.", "description_long": "In New York City, in the 1840s, people need a diversion from the \"railroad pace\" at which they work and live. They find it in a game of questionable origins. Inning One, Our Game, looks at the origins of baseball in the 1840s and takes the story up to 1900. Burns refutes the myth that Abner Doubleday invented baseball in Cooperstown and traces its roots instead to the earliest days of the nation.", "video_type": "Episode", "encore_date": "2020-03-13T00:00:00-04:00", "expire_date": "12/31/23", "availability": "available", "images": {"asset-mezzanine-16x9": "https://image.pbs.org/video-assets/ymkNEJ4-asset-mezzanine-16x9-IgUM0b6.jpg"}, "flags": {"is_new": false, "is_mvod": true, "has_captions": true, "is_expiring_soon": false, "is_fully_watched": false}, "item_type": "video", "parent_type": "episode", "show": {"slug": "baseball", "title": "Baseball", "season": 1, "episode": 1, "seasons_count": 1, "display_episode_number": true, "url": "/show/baseball/"}, "summary": "Ep1 | 1h 54m 53s", "franchise": {"title": "Ken Burns", "slug": "ken-burns", "logo": null, "logo_cropped": null, "logo_cropped_white": null, "image": null}, "ancestor_title": "Baseball", "ancestor_slug": "baseball", "ancestor_type": "show", "image": "https://image.pbs.org/video-assets/ymkNEJ4-asset-mezzanine-16x9-IgUM0b6.jpg", "legacy_tp_media_id": 3040088774, "cid": "0f1a8715-8b7f-4f07-9093-6eca06a57cfd", "air_date": "2020-03-13T00:00:00-04:00", "percent_complete": 0, "description": "Inning One: Our Game looks at the origins of baseball in the 1840s and up to 1900.", "timecode": ""}, {"slug": "growing-up-poor-in-america-z4g8k5", "title": "Growing Up Poor in America", "title_sortable": "Growing Up Poor in America", "url": "/video/growing-up-poor-in-america-z4g8k5/", "duration": "54m 22s", "description_short": "The experience of childhood poverty against the backdrop of the pandemic.", "description_long": "The experience of childhood poverty against the backdrop of a pandemic and a national reckoning with racism. Set in Ohio, the film follows children and their families navigating issues of poverty, homelessness, race and new challenges due to COVID-19.", "video_type": "Episode", "encore_date": "2020-09-08T00:00:00-04:00", "expire_date": "", "availability": "available", "images": {"asset-mezzanine-16x9": "https://image.pbs.org/video-assets/CvLWNfw-asset-mezzanine-16x9-nxEEDak.jpg"}, "flags": {"is_new": false, "is_mvod": false, "has_captions": true, "is_expiring_soon": false, "is_fully_watched": false}, "item_type": "video", "parent_type": "episode", "show": {"slug": "frontline", "title": "FRONTLINE", "season": 2020, "episode": 18, "seasons_count": 29, "display_episode_number": true, "url": "/show/frontline/"}, "summary": "S2020 Ep18 | 54m 22s", "ancestor_title": "FRONTLINE", "ancestor_slug": "frontline", "ancestor_type": "show", "image": "https://image.pbs.org/video-assets/CvLWNfw-asset-mezzanine-16x9-nxEEDak.jpg", "legacy_tp_media_id": 3046413469, "cid": "b8a389ef-97bb-412a-879c-0b4efbfd5380", "air_date": "2020-09-08T00:00:00-04:00", "percent_complete": 0, "description": "The experience of childhood poverty against the backdrop of the pandemic.", "timecode": ""}]}

There are four JS resources referenced:

• https://www.pbs.org/static/js/common.a79269827af4.js
• https://www.pbs.org/static/js/react-and-react-dom.0fb4eff62b83.js
• https://www.pbs.org/static/js/sentry.c5ac7c13c2e0.js
• https://www.pbs.org/static/js/watchlist.a57a89863ba2.js

The watchlist script is minified, but production has a sourceMappingURL pointing to the watchlist.js.map. I have taken extra steps to make sure that the Wayback Machine has archived this as well. The Firefox devtools are able to use the map to reproduce the original (pre-bundled, unminified) sources for inspection.

Lots of stuff to dig through here. (35 items that the Wayback Machine is describing with class iconochive-First.)

This news item was submitted only 17 days ago, and yet it's already returning a 404. This is a casualty of the "our code host's presentation of our repo is our website".

As of this writing (i.e. commit fb662ab0), the working link is https://github.com/gitpod-io/openvscode-server/blob/docs/sourcedive.snb.md.

Lots of good examples about why not: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28867878

Good example why it's a good idea in technical discussions to disallow responses trying to refine a proposed analogy. See https://www.colbyrussell.com/2020/12/07/new-rule-for-technical-discussions.html

Ungar, around @1:00:00:

I try to explain to people that the notion of compiler is broken. Of course I learned this from Smalltalk, but what we want to build is experiences--artificial realities that convince you that your source code is real. It's directly executed. There's no lag between editing and running[...] The environment stresses things in your program, not tools--which is another rant I have. It's this whole idea that we want to put you in an artificial reality--I got that from Randy [Smith]--in which it's easy and natural and low-cognitive-burden to get the computer to do what you want it to do, rather than running language translators that turn weird strings of text into bits the machine can run

Ibid https://hypothes.is/a/r8XZiiwbEey_zC_aktOwLg

Ibid https://hypothes.is/a/r8XZiiwbEey_zC_aktOwLg

Should be "lens".

Should be "your data".

This should be full black.

That doesn't affect whether there is merit to the claim.

Good case study for the theory of affordances.

Kartik points out that "http://akkartik.name/post/habitability is not written by me. It's a long quote from an essay by Richard Gabriel."

http://akkartik.name/post/neighborhood

This can be totally true and still be a problem completely with you.

Working for $5 an hour with the only condition being that you demonstrate some diligence by making sure that the work you're asking for is actually meaningful? This is "entitlement"? Yeah, okay. Look into a reality check, shithead, and in the meantime, go fuck yourself.

A user on HN asks

So does this automatically fetch every feed URL at intervals in the background as long as you have the browser open?

Two things to observe: people are willing to keep tabs open (esp. for dashboards), and the unreliability of Twitter's website tells us that users will put up with a lot of brokenness.

Here's a thought: use this polling strategy combined with a dashboard combined with a "FCSCORS" (forced client-side CORS). The idea is to embed an iframe from an origin associated with the site to poll, and then use S4/postMessage to communicate with it.

From a neutral, bookmarklet-controlled page (e.g. with about:blank's origin), embed an iframe pointing to some page with the same origin. Force the iframe to open a secondary window (tab) with window.open. A window.opener link now exists between the iframe and the secondayr tab. Set the iframe's location to a page from the desired origin, and then do the same with the secondary tab. A second invocation of the bookmarklet in the secondary tab should be able to use window.opener to get unrestricted access the iframe-loaded document. Use this to install a message handler. The secondary tab can now be destroyed, and the embedding document (dashboard) can merrily communicate with desired origin, with no cooperation necessary (e.g. to enable CORS) by the site operator, and no need for the user to install an add-on.

The question now is, "How common is it for a website operator to set x-frame-options: deny?"

Discoverability/accessibility issue, as noted in https://discuss.write.as/t/how-do-i-back-up-my-site/3296/5

Dump out a ZIP with a viewer similar to the Google Takeout archive browser.

What does this mean?

There's nothing really here. We should say so.

More than a few people have made this error. Call it "JS".

Where?

Polish the UI on this to eliminate the confusion. Communicate that the JSON option is for people who know what JSON is. If you don't know what JSON is, it's not the option you want.

Something related to this would actually work as a good springboard for the convolutions involved with the New Post Emails Not Being Sent to Email Subscribers problem.

Direct manipulation via manual overrides and explicit feedback, etc.

Looks like it's AGPL, so it would not be possible to use on write.as...

Where?

Let's rev it. Let's port Bob Nystrom's Dart package.

This is an opportunity to delight the user by intercepting their "bad" behavior and steering them in the right direction.

Good user support case study.

Topics:

• premium versus gratis support
• rude, abusive, or demanding users
• Discourse as a medium for handling support requests
• asking bad questions versus how to ask good questions

Don't do that.

Don't support this.

We can/should definitely go further and not even require a NodeJS.

Fix the URLs with this snippet (you can enter this directly into the JS console):

[ ...document.querySelectorAll("link") ].forEach((x) => {
  const good = "http://jonudell.net";
  const bad = "http://weblog.infoworld.com";
  if (x.textContent.startsWith(bad)) {
    if (x.parentNode.nodeName == "item") {
      let enclosure = x.parentNode.querySelector("enclosure");
      let url = enclosure.getAttribute("url");
      let fixed = fix(url);
      enclosure.setAttribute("url", fixed);
      let details = x.parentNode.querySelector("description");
      details.textContent = details.textContent.replace(url, fixed);

      let slugEnd = x.parentNode.querySelector("title").textContent.
        toLowerCase().
        replace(/[ /]/g, "-").
        replace(/[^a-z0-9-]/g, "");
      x.textContent = fix(x.textContent).
        replace(/\.html$/, "-" + slugEnd + ".html");
    } else {
      x.textContent = fix(x.textContent);
    }

    function fix(url) {
      return url.replace(bad, good);
    }
  }
})

In Firefox you can copy the result to your clipboard by following these steps:

1. From the page context menu, Select All
2. From the selection context menu, View Selection Source
3. In the source viewer, deselect the partial selection
4. Use Select All again to select the entire output
5. Copy the new selection

You should be able to dump this into a text file, copy it to a web server somewhere, and point your podcast app at its URL.

(The snippet itself should also work in Chrome but figuring out how to get the result into a file is an exercise left up to the reader.)

Should be "turning"

Should be "Its"

As it should be. (This should be the default. The NodeJS/NPM's Webpack addiction needs to be curbed—or confronted with a reality check.)

Vipercard as I understand it is more like a loose clone of HyperCard than a re-implementation. I think this page confuses Vipercard with HyperCard in multiple places.

The Internet Archive has done a lot of good work preserving HyperCard stacks, so you can experience them in your browser.

Need to add Newspeak and Hopscotch (Bracha, Bykov) to the catalog.

Need to add browser devtools (including sepsis and the original DOM Inspector) to the catalog.

should be "Snapshots"

Also available as PDF: http://bracha.org/jigsaw.ps

Also available as PDF: http://bracha.org/oopsla90.pdf

The implicitness that this "protocol" pushes into the implementing methods (seemingly odd return values) is undesirable. Make it explicit. The implementing methods should be able to do something like Validator.changeExpectation(this, this.onresource) (which in turn changes the target's ontokencontent handler).

No

Around 1:45:50

"Code is open source, but who cares? Nobody can understand it."

---

Yeah, and it's useful. Like: people do stuff with it, but as soon as you run into problems with a library, it's just like... looking into the code is a mess... There's just a huge number of problems with it.

"Not a valid community"

Near the end (@1:50:32):

My website is glench.com, and that's kind of my repository of everything I've ever made

Around 1:48:00

What if every library that you use had, like, some interactive documentation or interactive representation? [...] The author could maybe add annotations.

Non-shitty link: https://github.com/futureofcoding/futureofcoding.org/blob/main/episodes/052.md

The form action points to a server that is, as of this writing, not available.

Change the form action to point to http://harmonia.cs.berkeley.edu/harmonia/download/download-source.html, and the downloads are accessible.

Or, for completeness, here are the direct links:

• https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~harmonia/harmonia/download/harmonia-3.0.tar.gz
• https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~harmonia/harmonia/download/harmonia-3.0.zip
• https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~harmonia/harmonia/download/harmonia-3.0.tar.bz2

A casualty of the "consultant effect": under the guise of solving (existing) problems, generating even more complexity to justify the consultant–client relationship.

Compare this to algorithmic complexity; if a fancy algorithm is great for really large input sizes but comes at a cost of being somewhat worse for small input sizes, then it is a good idea to use the fancy algorithm when you might be dealing with large inputs. But if you are not dealing with large inputs, then using the fancy algorithm is a positively bad idea. It's a bad idea in the sense that it's not just a matter of YAGNI, but the fact that its characteristics for small inputs means that it actually makes the situation worse.

Same thing with NodeJS modules vs TC-39's native modules.

It bears repeating: NodeJS is a "vendor" for an incompatible fork of JS.

Good. Don't. The number of people who think this is a virtue is frightening. The rationale is usually not well-reasoned and whatever values they pretend to hold can almost always be shown to be hollow.

This is how I feel about most people's personal websites. Few people have homepages these days, but even for people who do, even fewer of those homes have anyone really living there. All their interesting stuff is going on on Twitter, GitHub, comments on message boards...

Really weird when this manifests as a bunch of people having really strong opinions about static site tech stacks and justifications for frontend tech that in practice they never use, because the content from any one of their profiles on the mainstream social networks outstrips their "home" page 100x to 1.

See also Lawrence Kesteloot's Java for Everything.

Here's what RG Arns, Crawford's advisor had to say about this topic wrt to Crawford's work in Arns's later article "The other transistor: early history of the metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor" for Engineering Science & Education Journal in 1998:

In 1991 Bret Crawford, in his physics MS thesis reported an experimental reconstruction of Lilienfeld's US Patent No. 1,900,018 using technology that was available in 1928, when the patent application was filed, and known to Lilienfeld. The basic idea of the device is shown in Fig. 3. Following the prescriptions in the patent, he produced working devices, but they were unstable and the results were difficult to reproduce. That was not surprising since the semiconductor, cuprous sulphide, is no match for modern single-crystal silicon. Crawford also found signs that Lilienfeld had actually built the devices he patented—and not merely thought about them—in the form of close agreement between phenomena described in the patent and his own observations.

Arns goes on to say:

In 1995 Joel Ross replicated the prescriptions of the same Lilienfeld patent. He was able to produce devices that remained stable for months. Although these devices showed the field effect, the transconductance was poor, apparently due to surface states. The power gains, however, were significant.

https://doi.org/10.1049/ESEJ%3A19980509

https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2014/1/170862-actually-turing-did-not-invent-the-computer