Classic Slopdot, I got modded down for my comment while he's using Claude to "write" the code.

I know there is an XKCD about standards (and adding yet one more to create yet more confusion).
"Standards"
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fxkcd.com%2F927%2F

But that said, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript are all terrible standards in many ways because of their complexity (and major design flaws like JavaScript having vastly too many global variables). Asa an alternative, what if, say, we all just used something like Scheme (or Common Lisp) to encode web documents and web code as S-expressions in some semantically standardized formats? Scheme can be very compact in its implementation.

Or as the XKCD mentioned here says:
"Lessons learned from implementing minimal Scheme six times"
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwolodzko.github.io%2Fpo...
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fxkcd.com%2F297%2F
"Lisp cycles XKCD #297: âoeThose are your fatherâ(TM)s parentheses. Elegant weapons for a more⦠civilized age.â"

Now, it doesn't have to be Lisp-like.I get the paren hate:
"What makes Lisp difficult to read?"
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2Fr%2Flisp%2F...

And there is a lot to be said for significant-indentation languages like Occam or Python. Smalltalk is another great language. Or even some variant of a safe C.

Even a Forth-derivative perhaps that could be literally less than ~2K in size at the core. Although I get that there is a fine line between flexible and flabby in readability in a language that can change its own fundamental syntax or that makes naming intermediate variables unlikely as a form of documentation. Same with any language that supports arbitrary macros like C or Scheme which can change the fundamental nature of the language. Although at least in, say, Racket Scheme you see the language level set at the start of some code to know what you are getting into.

The main point is just that yet another adhoc problematical language like JavaScript was not needed (even as TypeScript papers over the worst warts). And CSS conceptually is broken for big projects ("Atomic" CSS is one style to help with that). And adding end tags with names in HTML (like XML) is another broken concept as are other aspects of HTML. Yes, programmers can work around and manage the issue in these web fundamentals, but why should we have to?

While a simpler browser for HTML etc is a good thing if it really is well written, better standards for encoding and sharing information will ultimately get us further and be more energy efficient and be more reliable and be more programmer-friendly.

I've long been a fan of triples for doing some of that data encoding, but that is even further out.

Tangentially, here is a Libre Plane 2021 talk I put together on free standards for social media being more important than free implementations:
"Free/Libre Standards for Social Media and other Communications"
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpdfernhout.net%2Flibrepl...

I know this all may sound pie in the sky (and it is, given current social dynamics), but consider if we used the usual buggy lot-of-library junky (and now AI slop) code only with an intent to translate web content encoded in problematical standards into content encoded in better simpler standards for other code to consume. Sort of like Amazon did at one point with a server-side engine to process HTML pages and transform them for low-end Kindle browsers -- but in this case converting HTML plus CSS plus JavaScript into something like, say, S-expressions for web content that was not yet written directly n the simpler standards. Maybe the junky translator code might not be perfect, but it might be good enough and runnable in distant containers so that the local code that processed the simpler standards could be more secure and reliable.

Also related: "Simple Made Easy"
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.infoq.com%2Fpresenta...
"Rich Hickey emphasizes simplicityâ(TM)s virtues over easinessâ(TM), showing that while many choose easiness they may end up with complexity, and the better way is to choose easiness along the simplicity path. ... We should aim for simplicity because simplicity is a prerequisite for reliability. Simple is often erroneously mistaken for easy. "Easy" means "to be at hand", "to be approachable". "Simple" is the opposite of "complex" which means "being intertwined", "being tied together". Simple != easy. ..."

Ideally a group like the US National Institute of Standards and Technology or the US Library of Congress should fund this sort of work. And a group like Archive.org should have a lot of input to those standards on how to make the content simply versionable and simply archivable.

Anyway, just something I have been musing on and off again for many years...

Is this what Claude told you to put in your comment?

He said, while failing to understand that it's for controlling our use of our computers. Eyeroll all day.

If the user has no control over it, then it's for the control of the user.

The idea as presented as being in the user's benefit is that the user can control it, but applications cannot.

Is it holding it between the index and middle fingers? "Got your gene! I got your gene!"

This version has a dumber headline, so it's like a whole new story! Three people didn't like it!

Yeah that's some old shit. Anyone look at the case enough to know what the evidence was? Was it just quantity or was it packaged?

Oh look, it's the hipster maggot come along to tell us all how great slavery was.

No, it's reasonable. It's not safe.

The other part of that is that you're not necessarily doing the same equation, they may be solving for something something different.

The US has been oligarchic and authoritarian all along, and has behaved towards some other nations much like a fascist nation would do, but in general has not subjected the general citizenry to full blown fascism. It's been horrible to everyone other than landed white males all along, though.

What? Presumably are what? No one can hear you over your cowardice.

If you can recognize that, then you should be able to do the math and figure out why it won't work. A quick napkin-based computation is sufficient. If I can do it, you can do it.

If we had reasonable regulations then a data center could go anywhere and not be a problem, but since we don't, they can only go into unpopulated places with lots of water and power without causing harm. Normal DCs can just go into ordinary commercial zones because they use, while elevated, not completely obscene amounts of power and therefore water. And to return to the topic, this illustrates why AI DCs don't make sense in space, because cooling is harder in space than it is here.

This seems essentially sane if they have money to burn...

They read too much sci-fi, not enough science fact, or both.