

My Master Plan to Destroy the Internet as we know it - DanielBMarkham
http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2010/09/my-master-plan.php

======
phr
Yes, we pay by tolerating ads and nosy engagement ploys, but we receive in
exchange, _curation_ of the raw news. On places like HN, we can participate in
that curation process, which, if the community is a good match for our
interests, can do a far better job than the mass media. How is the Magic Brick
going to replace that?

~~~
DanielBMarkham
The current curation model is client-server. Magic Brick is taking that P2P.
This wasn't mentioned in the article. Sorry about that.

One of the realizations of the brick project was that there are only 4 ways
you respond to material: I like it, I don't like it, Reply, and Save-for-
later. This is indicated by the buttons on the right.

As each button is pressed, the system categorizes the material and your
response, sharing and aggregating those responses among thousands of users.

~~~
jodrellblank
Save-for-later is a statement that what I'm reading doesn't benefit me, but I
predict it will benefit future-me more than a random article will benefit
future-me.

If the magic brick works well and I can find articles which benefit me well,
then I wont need save-for-later.

If I hit reply then suddenly I'll need a keyboard full of buttons which don't
seem present.

And what goals does Magic Brick help the user achieve? I lament on HN and
Reddit the lack of distinction between "i like/dislike it" and "it's a
good/bad contribution". The reason I care is because I want to follow
interesting debates and encourage a place where they happen instead of "you're
wrong" rebuttals. Magic Brick means there is no place and I can't go somewhere
good or avoid somewhere bad, whatever my definitions of good and bad are. If I
can't choose where to go, I can't subscribe to sites that are good either, to
give them deliberate revenue.

It's a lot like an iPad if it only had apps and no web browser.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Save-for-later is used when the material is too involved for a simple reply,
such as if your boss wants your analysis of a report he sent over. Some small
percentage of communication involves this type of work, but not much. You'd
probably go to a regular browser for this work.

To reply you just hit the reply button and speak. The system will try to do
voice-to-text recognition and then it will send out both the initial message
and your voice reply to an overseas service that would QA the voice-to-speech
conversion. This allows you to train your system without having to do all of
that stupid setup work. It also eliminates a keyboard. It's 2010 already. We
might not have voice-to-speech worked out, but it's not like we can't just
talk and have the system work it out, either. This also provides seamless
integration with cellphone devices by use of voicemail.

"Going somewhere good" and "sites" are concepts that are only about 20 years
old. You want material that interests you, wherever the source. The internet
doesn't have to be some huge virtual city, with the browser taking the place
of the tour bus, where you drive from site to site participating or observing.
The model doesn't have to work that way, and it's fundamentally broken if only
from an efficiency standpoint.

The system can keep track of all the sites you might like, your responses, and
even aggregate you in groups with other like-minded folks. You don't go to a
site, the material comes to you. Which is as it should be. The brick would
handle whatever subscriptions were required behind the scenes, allocating
traffic to and from perhaps millions of sites based on your preferences over
time.

Look at it this way. Let's say you participate in 3 aggregation sites. Each
site has article X. For each site to function correctly for you, you'd really
have to consistently upvote or downvote article X on each site. In a P2P
system all of that nonsense goes away.

------
dfhrtjhf
My friend's car is an automatic. He likes it because it takes away from him
something he doesn't care about (control) and saves him something he thinks of
as hassle (changing gears). But me, I hate automatics because they take
something I value away from me (control) and saves me something I don't think
of as a hassle (changing gears).

Please don't destroy the internet for everyone - some of us like the control
we have in choosing our sources, and are not particularly bothered by the
hassle of having to choose which bookmark to use to do so. Much as I can see
the value a magic button would have to a lot of people, it would be a torture
to me.

------
devmonk
"It's a magic box. A box where you push a simple button to get a category of
information you are interested in..."

Actually, there would be no box and what you want would just be there.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Awesome observation.

Neural interface would be the end result, of course. The project can also be
restated as "what is the minimum amount of stimulus needed in the brain for it
to do most executive functions"

Neural interfaces are still a ways off, though.

I really don't want Facebook running in my brain in 20 years time. And as much
as I love you guys, I really don't want HN running up there either.

UPDATE: Now that I think about it, no, we are both wrong. Information should
not just appear in my brain waiting to be processed. At least not in any
fashion I can conceive right now. A physical abstract, such as a tablet, is
probably a handy way of addressing technology and separating the inner from
the outer world. At least for the next few decades, I think. An external
device would be a critical part of this. Sort of training wheels for the mind.
I'm not sure our sensory-processing capabilities are up to snuff with
receiving something like a real-time news feed, at least not without massive
filtering and pre and post processing. There's just too much noise, as I point
out in the article.

The key issue here is whether technology use is a passive or active activity.
If it were a passive activity, like watching a movie, yes, things could just
"play" in my mind. Whatever I wanted would just be there. But if it an active
activity, which I think it is, then technology's role is to distill things
down and prioritize things into chunks my mind can work with.

I think sometimes we use the wrong metaphors.

We'll get there, however.

~~~
devmonk
"Now that I think about it, no, we are both wrong. Information should not just
appear in my brain waiting to be processed."

Taking it one step further, something like "Skynet" will realize that humans
have inefficient brains compared to whatever technology it is using, and
attempt to eliminate us, completely resolving the issue. However, then it will
realize it was destroying information that it should keep, so it will then
morph into something like the "Borg" to start collecting info, until it
realizes that is too "high-touch" and interferes with the processes it is
trying to study, at which point it will just watch us from a distance and only
interfere when needed or when we fail.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
You're spot on in that we're in a system that is seeking equilibrium.

Both extremes are really bad, so let's work on things that determine where the
line between being a caveman and being a Borg is. It's fine if people want to
set their own boundaries, but we shouldn't let the system itself determine
where they are. Nor should we let societal pressure. Nor should we let
commercial businesses hacking the limbic system just so they can make a buck.

One could make the case that biological entities aren't really very
interesting or significant in the universe, that until you find the balance
and evolve into some kind of symbiotic being you're really just so much
carbon-based noise. Don't know if I'd go that far, but it's a fascinating
thought.

