umlautsuser123's recent activity
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Comment on The man who killed Google Search in ~tech
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Comment on For those involved / interested in Web3, what do you make of the near and long term future for it? in ~tech
umlautsuser123 Link ParentI appreciate it! Especially hearing from someone else who worked in it. (I saw your other post about "I felt like I was working on nothing" and many of the engineers I worked with felt the same--...Apologies ahead for the wall of text ahead — brevity is not my strong trait.
I appreciate it! Especially hearing from someone else who worked in it. (I saw your other post about "I felt like I was working on nothing" and many of the engineers I worked with felt the same-- though it was more a consequence of the leadership.)
(now that I say it, maybe that’s what killed the whole thing: simultaneously trying to both change the fundamental blocks, and desperately find a business model to sell ahead of time)
This is kind of what inspired the whole thread for me. At the same time, I would like to be convinced otherwise.
Setting aside the argument on whether web3 actually could deliver on its promises if it were "properly" adopted, it's simply that implementing web3 demands unreasonable upfront investment for too vague or too little a potential value.
I agree with this.
Web3 as an alternative simply cannot propose a good value+risk+cost formula at bigger scales, or in places that are outside the technobubble of the rich first-world countries (where they can at least afford to spend resources to play around with the concept without redirecting too much from more pressing problems)
I think it actually makes sense for people in developing countries in cases where centralization fails them (bad instability in government, high inflation). Sometimes I wonder what it would look like if every person who owned BTC (27M addresses, so let's say 10M people) could vote on collective actions, and what the national makeup of that group would be. But I agree that a lot of the use cases I saw working in web3 seemed to be about helping companies sell "collectibles" (and when I brought up localization for people in developing countries where crypto adoption is growing, my coworkers seemed to not care).
I think I understand the more philosophical undertone of the "sometimes people have to be nudged towards what's better for them long-term, but the capitalist market is not optimized for that".
To be clear, it's not my POV (although I kind of get it). I'm not totally sure what it is beyond "blockchain is just a technology, and the simple pursuit of technology is 99% of the time good." (I reserve 1% for like, clearly violent tech) And I'm sympathetic to centralization because our larger world is simply centralized. We went from tribes, to major religions, to the modern state, to superpowers, to the UN as it exists today. Any software we build that seeks to impact the larger world is inevitably colored by the centralization of the world itself.
In Web2, there's no reason everything isn't built on Bluesky or ActivityPub. There's no reason we don't require setting up your own server to be a prerequisite to adulthood akin to driving. There's no reason companies can't offer a lifetime-valid physical object when you purchase a movie online. There's no reason companies can't stop collecting data and selling data and bucketing people into profiles. So I think blockchain as realistically implemented will shift some of the paradigm but will probably be implemented to fit in our existing system. What that looks like, I don't truly know. (I think that contributes to my excitement about it.)
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Comment on For those involved / interested in Web3, what do you make of the near and long term future for it? in ~tech
umlautsuser123 Link ParentCan you give me something good to search for ENS and the shift to centralization? I don't think I'm getting the right links. I'm pretty interested in this as I thought ENS and asymmetric...Can you give me something good to search for ENS and the shift to centralization? I don't think I'm getting the right links. I'm pretty interested in this as I thought ENS and asymmetric cryptography + self-issued certs could invalidate the need for centralized certificate authorities (at least when doing TLS). My impression of ENS is that it doesn't want to really augment DNS, though.
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Comment on For those involved / interested in Web3, what do you make of the near and long term future for it? in ~tech
umlautsuser123 Link ParentPublic beta is no joke! Just wanted to say congrats: it's great that you're making something in the space and doing it outside of the VC / typical investor paradigm. I think it's the only way to...I’m building a project that is simply NOT VC-fundable. It’s a public good (non-profit). I could have decided to walk away, but instead I harnessed the energy in the blockchain community to make it work. Now we are in public beta. Many other creators in blockchain are like me - non-VC backable. I find energy in being around people with similar struggles.
Public beta is no joke! Just wanted to say congrats: it's great that you're making something in the space and doing it outside of the VC / typical investor paradigm. I think it's the only way to move the needle for an early technology and indie hacker types really inspire me.
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Comment on For those involved / interested in Web3, what do you make of the near and long term future for it? in ~tech
umlautsuser123 Link ParentIf I had to guess… I think Tildes probably optimises for skeptical, utility-oriented people. The bar to justify a new technology is high. (I’ve also noticed similar, though not as passionate...If I had to guess… I think Tildes probably optimises for skeptical, utility-oriented people. The bar to justify a new technology is high. (I’ve also noticed similar, though not as passionate dismissals on like, pet projects people share on Hackernews— a lot of people just asking "why bother?") Plus, I think crypto probably does attract the kind of people I don’t like to interact with in tech (hype-chasers and scammy types). I assume it’s the same for everyone else.
As far as the general polarization (not Tildes specifically), I am thinking it’s such a broad category that people champion what they’ve gathered from others but like, but don’t necessarily learn much afterwards (not unreasonably if they’re wary of the scam potential). For me, I remember having to rethink how I thought about trust and had to look past NFT monkeys before I could appreciate the vision of what people try to craft when they design a blockchain protocol or L2. And although I’m interested in it today, it’s such a big space that I still struggle to fully engage in all topics around it— so I think it’s hard to passively develop an opinion. You really have to sit down, read about it, and contextualize it in the way assets and identity work and function today. Then you have to ground yourself and ask whether centralization is desirable / inherent or not for the use case in mind. It’s hard!
What are your thoughts on it?
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Comment on Is Tildes failing to thrive? in ~tildes
umlautsuser123 LinkI thought it was by design tbh. A slow website for people who aren't terminally online and who aren't looking to get upset. It would be nice to be a little busier. But I'm also a bit afraid of...I thought it was by design tbh. A slow website for people who aren't terminally online and who aren't looking to get upset.
It would be nice to be a little busier. But I'm also a bit afraid of what that looks like, lol.
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Comment on For those involved / interested in Web3, what do you make of the near and long term future for it? in ~tech
umlautsuser123 Link ParentI have to admit this thread was a little tougher than I expected lol. I agree with this. A lot of crypto stuff makes me cringe (the users / sexism and some of the applications). It's also really...I don’t usually talk about web3 online because I get a lot of hate when I do.
I have to admit this thread was a little tougher than I expected lol.
95% of stuff IS a scam or illegal or gambling. So I don’t recommend it to others. But the 5% that is legit is extremely interesting.
I agree with this. A lot of crypto stuff makes me cringe (the users / sexism and some of the applications). It's also really interesting to think about the potential even when I don't always know how to get there. To work in blockchain feels like being early to a change that has yet to happen. And for better and for worse, there are no true rules or norms.
This is different from your direct relationship interest. However, I've noticed a lot of people are (reasonably) skeptical of how the valuation capabilities make it easy to turn it into another finance clusterfudge. I feel like it's kind of inevitable, and that everything already has a value we don't see or pay. It'd be interesting to me if most of our interactions could be modeled as transactions with publicly verifiable code. (Of course, it also sounds a bit dystopian that everything can be ascribed a value. And we'd all need to learn how to manage different identities, unless we want to get social engineered to hell and back.)
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Comment on For those involved / interested in Web3, what do you make of the near and long term future for it? in ~tech
umlautsuser123 Link ParentYeah, this was exactly my experience too. I'm bullish on it eventually finding a solid niche because it's an interesting technology, I'm bearish on it getting the mainstream adoption people...To summarize it without going into details, web3 tech fails to address the web2 problems to an adequate level, while adding a whole new set of unique problems that we simply don't have good ways to mitigate due to their nature. In a way, you're forced to combine the worst of both worlds if you want to make it adoptable in the real use-cases, and for most of those use-cases this is simply way above the tolerable risk threshold.
Yeah, this was exactly my experience too. I'm bullish on it eventually finding a solid niche because it's an interesting technology, I'm bearish on it getting the mainstream adoption people imagine due to the paradigm shift expected of both the general public (who is used to the comforts of centralization) and the degens (who tend to be more focused on philosophical purity, even if it might compromise comprehensibility or adoption). But without mainstream adoption, many startups will fail, especially in this market.
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Comment on For those involved / interested in Web3, what do you make of the near and long term future for it? in ~tech
umlautsuser123 Link ParentMaybe I'm wrong, but everything you can do in C++, you could do in Assembly, right? Same with cars and horses. Yes, they get you there faster, but we also already had a means to do it, and were...Maybe I'm wrong, but everything you can do in C++, you could do in Assembly, right? Same with cars and horses. Yes, they get you there faster, but we also already had a means to do it, and were already solved. It wasn't like cars were just in the wild either, people had to put in the time and research to figure out how to make them, mass produce them, and make them accessible to refuel after mass production.
My point was just that a lot of problems were "already solved" but people still work on them and sometimes have breakthroughs (or the conditions that made them solved were changed, and now we have new problems). Maybe the number of relational database implementations would be a better example.
The only "advantage" that web3 solutions have over already-existing solutions is that they make it easier to financialize just about anything, turning it into a vehicle for speculation.
I just viewed this as an inevitability with or without a blockchain, to be honest. I guess in my head, while it's not "better," it's no worse.
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Comment on For those involved / interested in Web3, what do you make of the near and long term future for it? in ~tech
umlautsuser123 Link ParentI think I'm too far outside of my element tbh to address these claims well without more detail. I did want to say though that I appreciated your answers throughout the thread despite you saying...I think I'm too far outside of my element tbh to address these claims well without more detail. I did want to say though that I appreciated your answers throughout the thread despite you saying you weren't a fan (and it's really what I was hoping for out of Tildes).
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Comment on For those involved / interested in Web3, what do you make of the near and long term future for it? in ~tech
umlautsuser123 Link ParentHaha. I agree and tbh I should have used a different term. To me blockchain is technology and concrete, web3 is marketing. For me, the biggest issue with the term is the vagueness of what it...Haha. I agree and tbh I should have used a different term. To me blockchain is technology and concrete, web3 is marketing. For me, the biggest issue with the term is the vagueness of what it means. Will the internet be more private? Will it be more pseudonymous? Will everything be on-chain? (I mean it won't, because it wouldn't be the best solution to every engineering problem. Architectures will mix.) I suppose the vagueness of the term helps people fill in the gaps as fits in with their biases.
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Comment on For those involved / interested in Web3, what do you make of the near and long term future for it? in ~tech
umlautsuser123 Link ParentSo, these are totally valid criticisms! But it's also the top comment, so I figured I'd try responding. The environmental cost is known and allegedly being improved upon in the space (for example,...So, these are totally valid criticisms! But it's also the top comment, so I figured I'd try responding.
The environmental cost is known and allegedly being improved upon in the space (for example, proof of stake versus proof of work, whatever Solana's proof of history is, L2s). So it's valid, but I hope we also keep the same attitude towards our modes of travel (particularly planes), the foods we eat, or how much computing resources we use in general (whether doomscrolling or bloated Javascript or even just playing a video game).
solving already-solved problems
Valid also, but this is also the nature of trying to make something new, imo. I think this criticism applies to cars over horses or C++ over Assembly.
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Comment on For those involved / interested in Web3, what do you make of the near and long term future for it? in ~tech
umlautsuser123 Link ParentI'd actually like to hear about your thoughts! I wanted to get different perspectives, but the only people who tend to talk in detail about web3 also tend to be in bubbles that don't seem to lend...I'd actually like to hear about your thoughts! I wanted to get different perspectives, but the only people who tend to talk in detail about web3 also tend to be in bubbles that don't seem to lend themselves to nuanced discussion (Twitter or Warpcast).
Not everyone who works in the space is an expert either, so I think it's easy to end up with bubble-hype built on misunderstanding. For example, in the decentralized social space (so similar family of tooling such as ActivityPub and BlueSky / ATProto) exists Farcaster, whose Bluesky / Twitter equivalent is called Warpcast. It has made a large impact in the past year. It accomplishes cool things like a clearer way to charge people for storage, as well as a way to embed code in someone's Warpcast feed via a Frame. To people who don't read the documentation / who aren't technical, I think there's a misunderstanding that it's a performant, decentralized network with all messages on chain. In reality, a big part of their architecture is that only select things (like identity) are on chain. Most of your data is can still be stuck on someone's privately run server, because web2 has more reliable performance.
I thought it was dead.
It's... still getting VC investment, but yes, a lot of the people seemed to be hype motivated? During last year's downturn a big joke was that a lot of the "crypto" experts at certain companies now had "AI" in their title. I do not think the technology is dead, though. Last I heard, the hot topic was L2 rollups-- I don't totally get it myself but to my understanding, people batch together different transactions into a block using a given aggregation strategy (implementation by rollup), resulting (ideally) is lower costs and greater throughput.
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For those involved / interested in Web3, what do you make of the near and long term future for it?
Added the qualifier to the title as web3 understandably earns a lot of eyerolls haha. At the same time, a lot of web3 focused places seem to have a specific mindset about what "should" be done so...
Added the qualifier to the title as web3 understandably earns a lot of eyerolls haha. At the same time, a lot of web3 focused places seem to have a specific mindset about what "should" be done so I wanted to ask here.
I worked in the space at startup (ironically making web2 services to assist in web3 so I’m still an extreme novice). But my time there was a constant push / pull between convention and money and innovation and the unknown. The company I was at would try to appeal to big companies in hopes of finding a product market fit, who looked to us for guidance on what to do in this new space where they hoped to make money. Trend after trend would pass and it would be entertained whether we’d jump on it because product market fit.
The most desirable companies were household names with non-web3 userbases because they meant unprecedented reach. But to make web3 approachable to them, you’d have to define a UX that didn’t exist and would be pulled in a tug of war between two forces. The first mindset optimises for the purest idea of giving the user power— UXs that were obvious about the concepts of transactions and transferrable assets. The other wanted to replicate web2 UXs in web3, to the degree that a user gives temporary control of their wallet to a developer so the developer performs transactions as them.
Then, there is the data and pseudonymity piece. Companies have been taught that data is valuable, and one of the values of a blockchain is an identity that exists outside of any one company. But if all of your assets are on a blockchain— either under your public key or perhaps under a few that might transfer assets only between each other— then your identity can be known (not so private) and also cannot be monopolized and sold (because your data is public).
In the background, as this all happens, is the decentralization argument. At the end of the day, my company used EVM nodes operated by another company (which themselves might be wrappers around something offered by AWS). What is meaningful decentralization alongside specialization of labor? What is decentralization in a world that has billionaires and enormous companies who has the means to buy resources and set up tons of nodes?
Being out of the space now, I do think a decentralized database with immutable scripts, user-managed transferrable assets, and transferrable identity has enormous value. But recently I’ve been wondering how much of that can be accomplished in the private sector. In my time there it felt like the startup needs (enterprise customers, increased ARR) constantly compromised the will for innovation efforts.
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
umlautsuser123 LinkI've never actually done a full e2e project (frontend, backend, AWS / Devops) so I figured I'd do a blog site to learn about it. I was interested in the AHA stack (Alpine.js, HTMX, Astro.js), but...I've never actually done a full e2e project (frontend, backend, AWS / Devops) so I figured I'd do a blog site to learn about it. I was interested in the AHA stack (Alpine.js, HTMX, Astro.js), but realistically I think I want the site to work without JS for the most part, so not sure how helpful it will be. It's rabbit-hole-y too, because it's supposed to be a really simple project but I'm also intentionally making it harder so I can learn about things.
I've also really been wanting to include PDS in it (atproto's personal data server) because I'm interested in the idea of putting a skin on top of a PDS backend and showing my activity. But it's such a big project (atproto / Bluesky), it's intimidating to figure out where to even ask the questions I have on stuff like lexicons. And the beta state of PDS means it can't 1:1 replace an ordinary database.
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Comment on As I get older, I get more and more disillusioned with "activism", and I'm fine with this in ~talk
umlautsuser123 LinkI used to be very politically engaged (at least to the degree I might read 2-3 versions of the same event and my top hobby was reading news). It dwindled between a busy life, modern yellow...I used to be very politically engaged (at least to the degree I might read 2-3 versions of the same event and my top hobby was reading news). It dwindled between a busy life, modern yellow journalism, decreased faith in modern news / increased awareness of "the establishment" and how I felt about it, and jadedness that my generation wasn't really going to create the positive, meaningful change everyone had imagined within 5 years. (Jury is still out, of course.)
I tend to think that if I want to make good change, I can focus on the people around me. But I also think that I can write software / do things in the private industry that fundamentally changes how we approach things in larger society. That used to bother me; I believe that the government should offer more guarantees for people. But I think it is empowering too, to change the rules of the game.
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Comment on What's something you've been mulling over recently? in ~talk
umlautsuser123 Link ParentI do it based off Journal changes :) But I think you just have to make sure you get up every 20 minutes, don't stay too long in one posture, and get some okay physical activity (even just walking...I do it based off Journal changes :) But I think you just have to make sure you get up every 20 minutes, don't stay too long in one posture, and get some okay physical activity (even just walking around a bit) after 4 hours if you can.
I just watched like. 6 hours of a kdrama today. And ate a lot. It's not great but I think it somehow gets a little less judgement than playing a game, despite a game being more stimulating than most shows.
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Comment on What's something you've been mulling over recently? in ~talk
umlautsuser123 (edited )LinkI consider myself a pretty patient person. But since October, I feel like I've been astronomically more likely to simply... lose it. For the most part it's been minor-- like when someone is...I consider myself a pretty patient person. But since October, I feel like I've been astronomically more likely to simply... lose it. For the most part it's been minor-- like when someone is telling me what to do (when I've already thought it through and ruled it out) I rarely, but multiple times, have been testy in turn. Often times I let things go or I control it. Ironically no one else really knows how much stuff bothers you if you hide it as you're expected to.
(I also feel like I was born a few senses short. Very few normal things excite me, and this past month of exceedingly normal things-- weddings, trips with friends, music-- has really highlighted that and weighed me down with the frustration that I'm not normal.)
A major part of my stress was work, but I was (very fortunately) laid off with severance when I was already planning to quit-- so I have all this time to recover myself. It's been a stressful slog of attending to life commitments, though, so I'm only now feeling like I have time to give to myself instead of giving time to layoff stuff, family, friend, and (to some extent) partner commitments. I don't feel resentment (well, a little towards family) but I just don't feel like I've been able to have time for myself to simply attend to myself. I always have to cut it short to make room for others. I would like to do nothing for days until I truly miss someone.
I am wondering how to attend to my different needs of keeping up with interview prep, of not overly delaying working again, and of properly timing my attempt to actually apply to roles. I know I'm kind of just living in this self-created cage of commitments. I think it's a great attribute-- much better from where I was years ago where I was filled with analysis paralysis and couldn't get shit straight. But ultimately, right now, I want to stop grinding my teeth during the day / carrying the physical stress I've had since April of the previous year. This was pretty stream of consciousness but I'd love tips on healing physical stress without becoming a complete potato.
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Comment on What's something you've been mulling over recently? in ~talk
umlautsuser123 Link ParentI read the Baby Decision, in part because dating childfree is really hard. I went in childfree, and left as "childfree, but if I change my mind, who cares? and if I don't have one, I know I'll be...I read the Baby Decision, in part because dating childfree is really hard. I went in childfree, and left as "childfree, but if I change my mind, who cares? and if I don't have one, I know I'll be happy / can be an aunt." For me, I felt like I had to justify my decision with philosophy, when really I just had to accept that 1) organisms just wanna reproduce 2) if I change my mind the only person I have to prove myself to is the kid. There's no philosophical committee judging my reasons.
It's been a few years, so my memory may be failing me, but iirc the book goes through different mindsets towards having kids / not having kids. It's works well enough as an audiobook. I have no idea if it'll give you any real clarity, but I found it helpful because it helped me identify my feelings on each mindset.
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Comment on What's something you've been mulling over recently? in ~talk
umlautsuser123 Link ParentI posted this somewhere else on Tildes, but this was ultimately what turned me into an atheist. I got the concept, I just didn't see the point of an almighty power that let bad things happen. Why...I posted this somewhere else on Tildes, but this was ultimately what turned me into an atheist. I got the concept, I just didn't see the point of an almighty power that let bad things happen. Why worship that? I'm sorry for what's happening.
Actually, if you're mentioning Angular, their tech-tech is actually really successful / at least well-known (Golang, Kubernetes, Transformers / LLMs / whatever that stuff is). So the issue is probably that they used their prominence in Search to try and be more user-facing, rather than sticking to engineering issues and letting Search be an advertisement of their quality. They probably still would have made shitty, ad-ridden search, but I also think an image based on engineering (versus being like, the face of the internet that everyone and their grandparents sees) might have changed the overall outcome.