Yes, and that was addressed when I said, directly before the part that you quoted, "The thing you think it best may not always be the thing that wins out..."

But whatever your idea of progress is, you're not going to get any progress without change.

Well you really have to think of it like evolution. People experiment and make changes. Some changes are really useful. Some are innocuous. Some create problems. Mostly the changes aren't all good or all bad, but there are trade-offs. The thing you think it best may not always be the thing that wins out, but you're not going to get progress without change.

I totally agree that video conferencing is disappointingly pushed toward half-assed centralized services, and I'm glad to see that Mozilla is supporting a project to make it more open and decentralized. But I'd like to know, what other projects are they working on? Because personally, I don't think that video conferencing is the big glaring problem.

To me, the big glaring problem is text messaging. And no, I don't mean "text messaging" like mobile text messaging, like SMS. I mean the broader category of SMS, IM, text-base group collaboration (e.g. Slack), email, notifications/alerting, and anything else that includes sending a message consisting of text from point A to point B. SMTP is long overdue for replacement. SMS is old, antiquated, and insecure. RCS seems to be better, but not great. IM has increasingly been pushed toward being a bunch of incompatible proprietary standards e.g. Google Hangouts, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Signal, and Apple iMessage. And then there's the group collaboration, which is a different set of incompatible proprietary standards, e.g. Slack, Teams, Hangouts, and some other things.

And then, when you get a message in one of these apps, if you don't keep them open all the time, you have to set up email notifications to alert you that you have new messages. Or something. And you have automated notifications. Working in IT, there's a whole discipline around funneling alerts, errors, and other notifications into email or APIs and then using something like PagerDuty to sort through them all. The whole system is a mess.

There should be some attempt to create a new standards framework around all of this messaging and alerting. I know, some idiot is going to quote xkcd at me, but we need standards. The internet was built on standards, and it's worked wonderfully. HTTPS, SSL, TLS, HTML, CSS, SMTP, POP3, IMAP, XML, and JSON are all standards. There's no reason to dump on the idea of standards.

And there should at least be a good basic messaging standard with toolsets built around it, so we can have all of our messaging apps talk to each other.

Sorry, this might seem off-topic at first, but...

I've been arguing for years that we need new kind of service, along the lines of an identity provider. What I'm imagining is a single service that wraps together all of your account management in one service (SSO, email address management, account management), while not including in it any other service (e.g. storage, mailbox hosting). The main service that they would provide is to be a universal authenticator and account management system, so that I can prove to any website or service that I am representing a specific identity, whether it's linked to a real-life identity or not.

So, for example, it would allow me to authenticate to Slashdot as nine-times, and Slashdot would know indeed that I am nine-times, in much the way SSO authentication works. I could then post on twitter or reddit in such a way that verifies that I am the same person as whoever's posting as nine-times on Slashdot. It could all link back to an email address that's nine-times@imaginaryidentityprovider.com, and if you emailed that address, the email would be routed to whatever email storage I wanted, or bounced or blackholed. Whatever.

And if I wanted, I could have that identity be a randomly-generated throw-away with no connection to my real identity. Or, there could be an optional level of extended authentication to verify that the account belongs to my real-life identity. If I needed to prove which real person owned and controlled the nine-times identity, I could do that, and then use that verified identity to make payments, enter into legal agreements, etc.

Where I'm going with all of this is, this is a nice little feature, but it's really just a bandaid over a systemic problem, and we need a systemic solution. We need it to be easier to manage online identities such that, I can easily sign up for something, verify my identity for as much as I want to, control that identity for as long as I need to, but otherwise prohibit people from knowing who I am, tracking my activity, or harassing me with spam. This is nice, but it's not a solution.

I agree for different reasons: I don't cook. I eat out a lot. I guess I'm in that 1% elite bubble. But I can cook, and I find it condescending when people assume the issue is that I can't figure out how to cook.

There's this stupid condescending narrative that goes around the internet that's like, "Oh, I learned to cook, and I save so much money and it's so satisfying, and you can learn to cook too." Yeah, of course, but I don't care. I'm not a moron who can't figure out how to read a recipe. I spent half my life cooking all my own meals and I don't like doing it.

Oh, good for you that you find it satisfying. Great. I'm sure it'd be satisfying to grow all my own food and slaughter my own animals. I bet it'd be satisfying to make my own clothes. I bet it'd be really satisfying if I were to build my own flat-screen TV from scratch. I don't care. I like the division of labor, where I don't have to do everything for myself.

So get off your high horse. Go cook if you want to. But don't act like you've discovered some crazy amazing great thing that we'd all be doing, if only we could figure out how. I don't enjoy cooking, and will continue to not do it if I don't have to.

I don't know if I'd go as far as saying there "will not have a single new robot in place that wasn't already planned to be." There could easily be some companies who buy a robot because of the pandemic, who otherwise wasn't planning to. However, in a general sense, you're right. It's just not as easy as buying a robot.

You have to plan it out, figure out which tasks you can automate, shop for an appropriate robot or maybe even have someone build you a custom robot, perform a bunch of testing, etc. You may even need to plan out the purchase and do a financial analysis of whether it makes sense, which is why there are still so many jobs that could be done by robots, but are not yet being done by robots. As you pointed out, automation can be a complex and time-consuming process.

However, I expect one of the things that will happen in the aftermath of the pandemic is that a lot of businesses will be investigating increased automation and work-from-home capabilities. There's been a big disconnect between the companies that have been able to continue to operate through automation and telecommuting without missing a beat, and those that have struggled or needed to shut down completely. Some of that is unavoidable, but if you have the option of being in the group that can continue to operate even if your workforce is quarantined, you want to be on that side right now.

Well it seems like the standard is related to how to format the OTP message. It seems like it could be used regardless of the technology used to deliver it. So it seems like it could be used to send the OTP in SMS, RCS, iMessage, Signal, or whatever other app/protocol you want.

It seems like part of the intention is to allow the OTP to be send directly to the device via a side-channel, so that it can be parsed and the used directly by the browser. So one possible application of this could be that you have a Signal plugin in your browser that connects to the Signal app on your device, that will automatically capture the OTP and make sure it gets entered into the correct website in your browser.

This could add another level of security and help prevent phishing by specifically not entering the OTP into a malicious website with a misleading URL.

But, you know... by all means, let's just ignore it because it *can be used* over an insecure protocol.

That's easy to say, especially after the fact, but a lot of online services default to using SMS for MFA, and some may not give another option. You can't really blame people for using the authentication methods provided to them.

I think the real issue here is that we need better identity management and authentication. Passwords aren't really working. Password + SMS isn't working. Passwords + MFA token is kind-of almost sort-of working for now, but not really.

The explanation suggests it's just a budget/resource problem, as though if you spent more money on better developers and gave them more time, the voting app would be great. I doubt it's *just* that.

More generally, NASA had a bunch of people where their motivations were aligned to "do it right the right way". I'd guess some of them were motivated to solve the puzzle out of curiosity. Some were probably motivated by pride in accomplishing something great. One of the motivations for everyone involved, I'm sure, was to make sure that all the people being shot into space made it home safely.

People making voting software, though? Hopefully they're largely motivated to make a quick buck, or to sell out for billions of dollars as part of the "startup" culture. However, it's hard to discount the possibility that some of the people making voting software have ulterior political motivations. Wasn't there something several years back where the CEO of a voting machine company promised to deliver the election to Republicans? Regardless, there are very different security concerns. As far as I know, Russian Intelligence hasn't made a priority out of hacking the space shuttle to try to change the outcome of the launch.

That might have been a reason why people didn't go to see it, but I don't think it was *the* reason. The big reason I didn't go to see it is that it just looked bad. The DC comics cinematic universe has been awful, and this looked like another Suicide Squad.

I'm not all woke and I'm not looking for a woke movie to indoctrinate me, but I'm also not afraid of being exposed to some woke crap if it's in an otherwise good movie. I'm just not going to rush out and buy a ticket to a poorly-made crapfest, woke or not.

Honestly, the thing that bothered me most about the ad was the idea that the guy needed his digital assistant to "remember" all of these things about his wife for him, and it's such a poor medium for it. It's just some text on a cell phone, and you need Google to access it.

It's the sort of thing that would be so much better for him to be talking to a family member, having that interpersonal interaction and having a person who could remind him of these things. If he wanted to record it instead of just talking about, he could have gotten similar results by jotting these things down in a notebook, or recording a video, and then his family could possibly hold onto it as a keepsake.

But no, ask some AI to remember it. It can do a basic speech-to-text conversion and store that information somewhere "in the cloud" in a database, where it'll be lost in a couple of years when the guy dies and they lose access to that app.

Why? Just... why? Because it's cool that Google can do speech-to-text and store the results in a database? FFS do something useful with that technology. Stop focusing on stupid little gimmicky mobile apps and *make something*. Fix something. Solve a real problem.

Why are these the apps that Google is combining? They should start with combining all of their messaging apps, e.g. Talk, Hangouts, the SMS portion of Google Voice, Duo, and whatever other IM/SMS apps they have. That should be easy. They don't even do meaningfully different things.

Then integrate Google Voice and Google Meet into a single real-time audio/video platform.

Start with that. Consolidate all of their communications into 3 platforms: Gmail, IM/SMS, VoIP/Voice/Video conferencing. I don't see how they think they can integrate video chat, email, IM, and storage into 1 UI if they can't even consolidate their 5 different IM applications.

I'm not sure they have *nothing* to do with Android. I think they were partnering with someone... Samsung...? to create a new Microsoft phone. They've been porting their apps to Android so they can provide a Microsoft phone experience in spite of not having a phone OS anymore.

I actually have a theory that they may open source Windows in the next 10 years. If they want to open source it, they may want to comb through it looking for anything embarrassing or legally dubious, and then replace those things before release. Or they may just wait for the right time to open source it for marketing reasons. However, I think they will eventually, but they'll probably hold back some features somehow so that they can continue charging people for Windows Enterprise and Window Server.

But really, if they're smart, the people running Microsoft know that their future isn't in Windows desktop licensing anyway. Meanwhile they've moved their browser to Chrome. They've started turning all of their apps into web apps and Electron apps. They've open sourced PowerShell.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Microsoft is run by a bunch of saints and open-source advocates. However, Microsoft has been pushing more into open source, and have shown decreased interest in railroading everyone into using Windows.

Well I get the feeling this is what happened:

TFA - "Cool, we're making a new Star Wars. Let's do a sort of soft-reboot, where this new movie is a sequel, but it's also sort of a partial remake of the original Star Wars. You know, like maybe we can recapture some of the magic from the original trilogy, but make something new for this generation. That could be fun! We don't really have a plan for the next two yet, but we'll lay the groundwork for them to have some surprise twists and interesting reveals. I don't know... we'll figure something out!"

TLJ - "I don't want to make the same old boring predictable Star Wars movie. Let's do something creative and interesting. I remember seeing a train heist movie where they couldn't stop the train because the robbers would catch up, but they also couldn't keep the train moving forever, so let's do a sci-fi spin on that. Meanwhile, we can have a side-plot where some people go to a casino planet. We get to see more of the Star Wars universe, which could be cool. Maybe it could have some feeling of Casablanca, or the vibe of a WW2 French resistance story. It won't really connect very deeply with any of the other movies, but if we do this right, it could be a kind of fun interesting stand-alone movie."

TRoS - "Crap. What did we do? We had 3 movies to make an epic story, but instead we just sort of faffed about with a bunch of random side-plots that don't really make sense. We have no overarching plot and no idea where any of this is going. Over the course of two movies, we brought the New Republic from the government of the galaxy to being a handful of resistance fighters crammed together in the Millennium Falcon. How are they going to even come back from that?! Wait...! I have an idea. Let's find a 12 year-old who's a giant Star Wars fan, and just have him tell us what to write!"

SPOILERS AHEAD

The plot just makes no sense. The Emperor is back somehow. They don't explain how. Created the First Order in secret for some reason. I don't remember there being any explanation of why he didn't want to take control of the First Order already. Meanwhile, he has an enormous fleet of super-powerful ships that he was keeping secret-- again, no real explanation as to why. The First Order has taken over the Galaxy. The rebels are pretty much defeated. He could have shown up and say, "Hey, I'm still the Emperor and have been in control of all of this. This is my new super-powerful fleet, in case anyone wants to fight back, but I'm in charge again." No, he has to build a huge fleet *under the ocean* (for some reason) on some secret planet that nobody can get to (for some reason) where navigation systems don't work and the ships' shields don't work.

Ok, so they need to find the planet, so they need a magic mcguffin that can take them to this secret planet that's impossible to reach otherwise. Fine. How do they find the mcguffin? Well, there's an ancient Sith dagger that's somehow also a map to a shipwreck from just a few years ago. The dagger points to a chamber in the wrecked Death Star. The whole thing is destroyed, but there's still one door in one room that still works, and behind it there's a pristine room where an important relic is hidden. I guess someone went scavenging in the Death Star, found this very important relic in this one pristine room, but rather than taking it they manufactured an ancient Sith dagger to be a map to that location.

Then there's the whole ending. They take out a Star Destroyer by just landing on it with horses. None of the other Star Destroyer can do anything because that one Star Destroyer was in charge. Ok, whatever. Also, in spite of being brought down the resistence to literally such a small number of people that they can fit on the Millennium Falcon, Lando can somehow muster thousands of ships to come and make an attack on the Emperor's super-fleet.

Let's just pause there. In the first movie, they were basically the new government, but with one attack the First Order turned them into a rebellion again. In the second movie, the rebellion's whole fleet was destroyed and almost everyone involved was killed. In the third one, they couldn't get new people to stand up to the First Order. Even if there were people sympathizing with the rebellion, almost nobody had the guts to stand up to the First Order. But then Lando Calrissian flies around the galaxy saying, "Oh no, you're afraid now, but it's even worse than that. Not only are we getting crushed by the First Order, but the Emperor is back from the dead. He's that powerful, that he came back from the dead and has a new fleet of super-powerful Star Destroyers!" He flies around for 20 minutes spreading this terrifying news, and...

Everyone in the galaxy is like, "You son of a bitch! I'm in!"

Ok, now the Emperor wants to steal Rey's body so he can be young again. But then the Emperor can suddenly steal life energy, and he can steal super-powerful life energy from Ben and Rey because... they're a dyad or something. It's a totally new concept mentioned once, just a few minutes earlier, and now suddenly it's some huge deal. There's no explanation, but just accept that they're a dyad and that's the biggest deal in the world, enough that the Emperor can steal their life force and get superer super-powers. Great. He sucks the life out of them and they're dead.

But then Ben comes back to life, and then killed again. And then Rey back to life, summons all the power of all Jedi ever, and dies. Then Ben comes back to life again, and then magically brings Rey back to life again, and then he dies for no reason.

Does this sound like bad fan-fiction yet?

Because then Charlie from Lost shows up, and he almost makes out with a slug. And then Lando meets a young woman who was a storm trooper once, and he offers to fly her around the galaxy. It's supposed to be a big touching moment, I think?. And then Rey goes to Tatooine and decides she's a Skywalker. The end.

This is still a bit of a disagreement and/or misunderstanding about what "net neutrality" means. It doesn't necessarily mean that there can't be any kind of traffic shaping or prioritization, but that such shaping/prioritization can't be based on the endpoint or vendor. For example, you could potentially have QoS that prioritizes VoIP, but then that QoS shouldn't favor particular VoIP products or services. They could throttle web traffic, but they shouldn't be allowed to throttle all web traffic except for news sites owned by the ISP.

To use your car analogy, imagine GM owned the roads in your city, and were allowed to set any rules they like under the argument that they needed to be able to optimize the traffic system. However, they started making rules like, "People driving GM cars are permitted to go 45 MPH on this stretch of road, but non-GM cars have a speed limit of 5 MPH," or "GM cars can drive in the carpool lane even if there's only one person in the car," or even "No cars are allowed on this road except GM cars." That'd be a problem, right? Because that's not about optimizing traffic to benefit everyone. It's just anti-competitive rules designed to push people to buy more GM cars.

That's largely what net neutrality rules are about. Can Verizon, as an ISP, block Google services and force all of their customers to use AOL and Yahoo? Can Comcast throttle Netflix to the point where it's unusable to force people to sign up for XFINITY?