有的时候我一只在想，为什么Word, WPS, WordPefect这样的东西，居然是面向 文字 这样反生产力的东西。

Hyper-text processor才是文字处理类的未来。以后所谓的纸质写作，只是把信息二次元线性化的处理过程。

Word里的macro和“域”可以做到近似的效果，但是永远没法做到多级联动，和社会化协作。

又看到个 Kill Math Project，里面 Scrubbing Calculator 真是个好东西。

方格纸和草稿纸都过时了。

via

btw：才发现这两个东西都是出自 worrydream.com 。被震惊得彻底SB了。

btw2：作者的首页真卡。HTML5迟早被Flash阴魂附体。

Here's a random list of why:

• Lack of variety input. Patterned routine lifestyle kills any motivation of curiosity.
• Surrounded by losers who think you interest is lame.
• You have an alternative identity to keep which happens don't require any curiosity.
• You get used to a low demanding which is mindless grind
• You got way too focus on certain target that you missed the greater scene.
• Life happens too fast, it's better to enjoy the moment than curios about the rest.
• You satisfaction feedback relies more on material stimulation.
• Dynamic curiosity is a huge waste of time. You have no purpose and accomplish nothing.
• Shit's too trivial for your taste of mind. You have better things to do. This happens when your hierarchical curiosity has upgraded to a better level. It's painful to look back.
• You care yourself too much.
• You are an oldfag.

The curiosity boat sailed into the sunset. So long and thanks for the joys.

不明白啊，ifttt这软件不是第一个，也不是做得最好的，这个邀请泡沫就那么迷人嘛？

几个月前参加beta看了下，ifttt的功能简直弱暴了：

• 中心化抓取服务，肯定是延迟超高的瓶颈
• 既然是中心化的，被abuse了，然后被各大hosting和ICP封IP也是意料中的。
• 轮询机制
• 伪同步。其实算上延迟基本就没法用。还不如用pubsubhubblob这种直接支持事件的实时服务好。
• 逻辑太弱，不支持多事件和复合条件判断
• 管道太直，不支持数据微加工。比如我想抓取的RSS的某一个xml的属性值转换为时间，用这个时间发送SMS怎么做？

和ifttt类似的，我第一个想起来的就是xfruits。以前我用这个来合并过RSS。为啥xfruits就没这么火？

如果考虑我上面说的后两点，那么直接用Yahoo Pipes好了。Yahoo Pipes其实限制也多，那么把Yahoo Pipes编译到Google App Engine是个最好的办法。

我只能说，最终用户永远只会用类似 ifttt 直观得不能再直观的服务，而且加上的邀请的神秘感，真的很能炒。高级货只适合技术宅。

The storms that hit the US this weekend killed more American civilians in a single day than terrorists have in the last 9 years. Yet NOAA funding is set to be cut. Good job America.

吃饭的时候突然想到，这句话其实可以从另外一个角度理解：美国的反恐行动如此成功，以至于一场自然灾害死的人都比恐怖袭击死的人多。

又想起来一句经典的场景，一个学生拿着书睡着了。

舆论导向A：这学生真懒惰啊，一碰到书就想睡觉；

舆论导向B：这学生真勤奋啊，睡觉时都还拿着书！

reddit上看到消息，共和党准备向全民征集意见，砍掉“滑稽”的NSF项目，而政客们认为，NSF应该主攻“困难”的项目。reddit上的rage comments我懒得评价了，但是一个很关键的问题，“困难”的标准由谁来定？很明显，这个标准的制定者就是smart ass的政客，和体重不超标非常聪明智慧的美国普通纳税人。

在这个叫 YOUCUT http://republicanwhip.house.gov/YouCut/Review.htm 的页面上，提到了两个“questionable”的NSF项目：

1. $750,000 to develop computer models to analyze the on-field contributions of soccer players
2. $1.2 million to model the sound of objects breaking for use by the video game industry.

其中第二个项目我恰好150天前看到过，是来自ACM SIGGRAPH 2010一个非常有意思的演示：

我不是美国人，这些事情都管我p事。只不过呢，或许，有可能，世界上就缺少那些有趣新鲜事物和新发现了。不过呢，有因必有报。有什么样的愚蠢，就有什么样的代价。

更新1：

via

更新2：moar discussion and CMU news

先扯远一点，说说下载软件的故事：

国外为什么一般都没人专门用多线程下载软件？因为别人网速好，如果网速不好QoS做得好，不会出现天朝垃圾ISP这种下载无故中断的情况。所以断点续传没有必要。IE，Firefox和Chrome那种默认自带的下载框就足够普通使用了。

什么是多线程下载？多线程下载，用一种早期的说法，叫 leech。比Netants还早的一个下载软件就叫“网络吸血鬼”。

而国内最牛逼的迅雷又做了其他几件事情，之一就是“抢占式下载”。什么叫抢占式？一个机器的带宽和网速是有限的，TCP包本来大家都按照秩序一个一个排队，排不动了就阻塞。直到轮到你收发包为止。

而迅雷不会理你这么多，直接插队。强制用完带宽

所以早期迅雷一般一启动整个LAN的网络就挂了。

回到前面，为什么我看了那则新闻会笑呢？搜狗的这个“网速保护”，是不是又重新发明了一套TCP包排队的秩序呢？

废了这么一大堆劲儿，为什么不从一开始每一个程序都按照TCP默认队列收发包，不去故意抢占网速呢？

就好比一个体育馆的出口，大家都按秩序挨个儿出去，比起了火灾大家都慌忙挤门逃生的速度快得多。最后大家都在挤，以至于还得在门口弄一个交通疏导员的位置出来指挥人流。。。囧。。。。

搜狗的这个所谓的“网速保护”解决方案，彻底放弃了系统原生网络栈的民主分配了，而是搜狗的专制（ 国内最大的垄断独裁是什么东西我就不用说了吧？），搜狗有权利控制各个流量先后顺序的垄断权。短时间内可能解决了局部问题，但是既然有限制，必然有反制，说不定哪一天有更流氓更无耻的软件宣称可以突破“网速保护”进行高速下载呢？这个时候又该从LSP到ring3到ring0的驱动大战了吧？

要问独裁怎么来的？首先就是规则博弈。规则博弈之后必定会有问题投机，问题投机之后肯定有“good guy”解决问题，然后good guy趁用解决问题的机会滥用权利。和后面引爆更多更大的多米诺牌问题相比，这个good guy的作恶甚至微不足道。

又想起来了很久以前看到的一个wikipedia词条：Societal collapse，里面一句话太有趣了

societies that develop great expertise in problem solving become incapable of solving new problems by overdeveloping their structures for solving old ones.

大汉，罗马帝国，玛雅帝国和苏联是怎么崩溃的？一个文明为了解决一个自身问题，会超规模发展一个解决问题的机制，然后这个“解决问题”本身也成为一个问题，最后无法解决，最后自我坍塌。

又想起来了编程里个一句非常经典的话：

Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it.
　　　　　　　　　　　　Brian W. Kernighan

PS: 什么是支那精神？支那精神的核心就一个字——贱

最近有两个事情从一些很微妙的地方和政治还真有可类比之处：

1. iPhone OS 4.0 SDK ToS Sec. 3.3.1章节霸王条款问题。
2. reddit新的spam过滤机制

第一个问题，各大社区都吵翻天了。4.0新版SDK的ToS这样说的：

3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).

首先咱们给这玩意儿定个性：这是一个完全无视任何技术和发展，纯粹的政治决定。因为Apple大爷有这个权利在ToS里提出这个要求和法律。

在IT工业从PC升级到mobile过程中，Apple可谓处处抢占了先机。Apple作出这个决定其实跟当年微软把user和dev捆绑到 Win32 API 上是同一个性质的决定。但是别人微软至少还是一个基于Wintel松散的open体系，Vista的失败很大一部份原因就是因为微软斗不过DoJ的官司。但是微软跟Apple的垄断相比，真的是小巫见大巫了。Apple是从最上游的硬件到最下游的软件一口气垄断完了。从理论上来说，这个新ToS不仅宣判了Flash, Java, appcelerator, MonoTouch, Unity3D的死刑，甚至宣判了objective-j, GLSL 和 GWT 的死刑。这也是rms和自由软件运动一直批判的proprietary software可恶的地方。

而这一切，都把人们的注意力从技术的进步和发展，拉入了政治斗争的泥潭。

第二个问题，我们不谈reddit本身spam问题是怎么怎么样的。我只是觉得reddit博客里有一点描述很有意思：

• In the earliest days, there was no spam.
• Then, there was some spam, but users would downvote it right away.
• Then, the New queue was so flooded with spam that it became unreadable, which ultimately starved the front page of good submissions. So we (the admins) started removing it manually.
• Then we asked you guys to report spam so we at least didn't have to go looking for it.
• Then, even sorting through the reports got overwhelming, and we had to turn the job over to moderators.
• Then, the moderators were overwhelmed and an automated spam filter had to be set up for each reddit community.
• Then, traffic grew so much that the spam filter's tiny false positive rate started accumulating into a constant stream of stories about poor souls who were unfairly blocked. Most redditors are understandably sympathetic to these stories, and so there have been numerous prominent submissions that inevitably end with us being accused of censorship -- or at best, being a police state. And that makes us feel terrible.

恩。一个社区的发展，不仅有技术上scalabiilty的问题，更大更致命的问题是权利上scalability的问题。看到reddit社区admin和mod之间隐蔽的裂痕，我第一个想到的就是中国古代宫廷里，皇帝和臣子权利拉锯和政治斗争。政治和人类sociology是一门很复杂的学问，地球上最聪明的中国人，花了几千年的时间来探索，也很难找到一个平衡。我觉得这里面最有趣的一点就是，技术人员解决社会问题就像解决软件工程问题一样，如果遇到一个没法解决的事情，就通过增加一个中间层来解决。而其实mod这个中间层就像一个摔断的磁铁，N-S其实是相斥的。mod其实是背着admin向着user的。所以mod其实拉远了admin和user之间的距离。如果遇到素质和觉悟不高的mod，很有可能就造成社区的分崩离析和衰亡。

reddit前一段时间还有个闹得满城风雨的mod。id叫Saydrah。这也是一个社区兴衰史的一个小浪花和小插曲吧。一个网站，社区的死亡比技术的死亡更加致命。

没有AJAX，也就没有不需要安装任何客户端的Omegle；没有Omegle，就没有chatroulette。没有chatroulette就不会发现全球有那么多喜欢撸管子癖好的大叔；哦不对，这不是我想扯谈的。今天贴个视频

演奏者 Ben Folds。是受到这个(reddit)视频的启发。其实我很欣赏美国的一点就是，别人不仅有真正的互联网，还有SXSW这种arts的活动，欧洲有遍地的LANparty。youtube，twitter和各个社区良性互动的东西，而正是五彩缤纷的culture构成了西方自由世界。Hans Rosling在TED上说得好：

                   Means     Goal
Human Rights       +         +++
Environment        +         ++
Governance         ++        +
Economic growth    +++       0
Education          ++        ++
Health             +         ++
Culture            +         +++

TED也是 技术·娱乐·设计 的首字母缩写，这也是TED精神和魅力所在

===========================================

Web的发展现在是流行realtime web。这个视频其实有一个缺陷，那就是对方没有互动。假如一个random stranger恰好也是一位音乐家，他会马上拿出他的乐器来演奏吗？答案是不行。我试过。chatroulette至少有500ms的延迟。而且音质和画质特别的烂。

这里让我想到了人类互联网发展的终极极限。我算了下：

延迟：人类大脑的反映速度大概是0.02秒，所以20ms的延迟足够个人使用了。

其次是带宽。读G Reader的同学可能有体会，那就是 over share 和信息过载。一个正常社会的成年人大概能熟练和深度交往310个人，再多就记不住。所以：

个人互联网终极带宽 = ( 视网膜分辨率 x 2 + 人耳能识别的频谱带宽 x 2 + 其他感官预留带宽 ) * 310

有了这个带宽，那么你几乎就等于生活在Matrix里了。

via HN, reddit

This is interesting because it reminds me a lot of problems in social media

• it shows the complex behavior of how people commenting on popular social media, and how differently it works from conventional plain commenting systems.
• It's getting boring if more people began to realize it consciously or unconsciously, once everyone began to follow this flowchart, the content will suffer homogenization, what makes reddit original, worthy reading and valuable will be gone
• The upvote and downvote button exist because it was designed to replace silly '+1' like comments, but soon people discover other usages, for example downvote would be abused to express disagreement while it originally means mark as spam or inappropriate, people would like to upvote more pun without thinking, there's whole category of karma abusing, like karma whoring, upvote party, a comment may get upvoted by simply saying "beacon!". Use upmod and downmod to simulate a voting system, etc. An ID's corresponding karma is more meaningless if more upvote abuse is conducted. People's behavior is out of design scope. The vote button even acts like a placebo button, people would upvote something simply think they can magically mark it as read.
• Upvote blindness. One is likely to upvote simply because many other people upvoted it, if you don't understand half of the comment and the commenter seems to like know what he is talking, you are likely to upvote it no matter you know the actual truth or not. HN once tried to show points after voting, but it wasn't quite successful.
• Eternal september. Proggit sufferes eternal september every year, because the submission quality downgrades eventually, so old users are more selective to read and reluctant to upvote. But newbies are very enthusiastic to upvote and downvote. So lots of stupid AskProggit are more likely to popup because newbies all have the similar problem, nevertheless the problem itself is rampant and answers can be easily found on other sites like stackoverflow.
• The FAQ won't work. Technology changes fast, newbies are likely to looking for the lastest, interactive and live answers from individuals, FAQ helps, but it often fails because it's not kept updated. And people are likely to select authority advices from multiple places , a question may be asked a millions times but a self-submission may be post because of one most simple motivation: let's ask proggit and see what proggit thinks.
• People hates self posts, because reddit was designed to be a 'social bookmarking tool'. They newbie's stupid question spamming my bookmark is not an good idea. But sometimes a redditor's answer to those stupid questions turned out to be extremely useful and insightful, and fresh. It's a pity to let a wittyful comment buried, it's hard choice but you had to upvote the whole thread anyway.
• Spam filter never works well. Some submission may not interest all but perhaps helpful to a lot of people. But they get downvoted before anyone spots it.
• To design a really effective and predictable system, a equilibrium or fixed point has to be found from social media participants' behavior.

via

One of the fascinating things about the Godel incompleteness results is that infinity itself is not the problem. In some systems of arithmetic you can believe you can count to infinity and still be complete and consistent. Some even include the infinite set of induction axioms

Yet the incompleteness problem is not even due to multiplication alone. A system with all of Peano's axioms apart from addition, but inclusive of multiplication was shown by Thorlaf Skolem to be complete. The completeness problem derives from the combination of addition and multiplication on variables. These operations together provide the ability to construct the Godel numbering by allowing the definition of the unique prime factorisation of every integer and the mechanism by which Godel's unprovable statement can be constructed.
So we have yet more demonstration of how easy it is to skirt Godelian incompleteness. The Godelian incompleteness results are really about carefully choosing the formal language concepts we use to describe systems we wish to use. The real problem faced by humans is not even Godelian-incompleteness, its computational complexity. Even solving relatively small problems of Presburger arithmetic takes impossibly large amounts of time.