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How complex systems fail, or the curious Brexit paralysis
After losing the Brexit vote, prime minister Cameron resigned. That sounds reasonable: he lost and so he resigned. But did you notice that nobody, absolutely nobody, wants to become the next prime minister? Not even senior politicians like Boris Johnson that campaigned in favor of Leave and wanted to be PM for a long time? […]
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The Ethereum/DAO attack — what’s the message being sent here?
So some guys say “code is law, this time it’s for real, and it sits on the Ethereum block chain”. Then, oops, the code does not do what it was intended to do, and … well, the only thing that comes to mind is Douglas’ Adams “so God said: ‘Oops, I didn’t think of that’ […]
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Responding to Ben Werdmuller: Open issues: lessons learned building an open source business
Ben Werdmuller posted a great, detailed essay on his experiences building the Known open-source, personal publishing application and turning it into a profitable business, and then asks some tough questions about the viability of open-source as a business. What a read for a Saturday! The entire essay is excellent; I’m sure he rewrote it many […]
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Response from Spotify
I sent a note to the Spotify e-mail address that they published for questions re their new privacy policy. This is what I got back: Hello Johannes, Thanks for getting in touch. If you have not already read our blog posts: Please see here for an overview of some of the updates in the Terms […]
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Confusing the Robot Takeover and the robots’ masters’ takeover
Even Steve Wozniak makes this mistake: The artificial intelligence that will control the world used to worry Wozniak, he told a technology conference. But he has realised that it will be good for us because robots will opt to keep us as part of nature. So far, there is NO INDICATION that any kind of […]