I also read the comments on youtube and one of them describes the series as a "terribly poor example of architectural information - so many unqualified statements, generalizations and assumptions that are simply incorrect"
From the same user:
"Architects often concentrate more on the look of a building than its eventual use or function" That is a very bold statement..... To say that architects downplay the function of building is a ridiculous thing to say.
"The central problem is that architects don't want change in their buildings, so they make it as difficult as possible." False. Architects are legally responsible to act for the betterment of their client and the general public. Being deliberately 'difficult' would result in an eventual loss of their license.
"Changes and remodeling is bound to be ugly." Give me a break, have you seen the Louvre? Or any other updated building, ever?
I remember back in Columbia GSAPP during Tschumi's reign I (unfortunately) had a studio with Stan Allen. The theme was "Brownian Motion" I kid you not, and he started us off with "consider a career in minor architecture" and how we really should be focusing on the "skin condition". Right around the corner, a young hot wunderkind from Princeton's studio was doing 'organic' forms that basically amounted to 'turd' forms.
I came to architecture from Electrical Engineering. It was shocking to discover that, from a theoretical basis, there was no there there in Architecture. As far as I can tell, it is still a field caught in an identity crisis. CAD and advances in materials and structural engineering has definitely helped carry it along but fundamentally, Architecture is struggling to establish a sound theoretical foundation (beyond sound bites) to guide the design of buildings. At least Alexander, et al. put forth an actionable bottom-up program for design.
You can ignore that user's comments. It's kind of like the venom that Christopher Alexander has gotten over the years. This book is a classic for a reason.
Also, everyone focuses on his sendup of architectural failings, which is the beginning of the book, setting up the context for the rest. The rest is a really useful model for how to think about vernacular architecture over time, as well as an excellent read.
This is an informative article, it's a shame about the straw-man that repeats throughout it. Nobody is saying this is "about the app". Obviously, the usefulness of the app is tied into the licence. It's about the licence. Everybody knows that.
I never heard before that recipes were used for trade, so TIL. It's fascinating what things in the history of mankind made money. The Dutch trade in Tulip Bulbs for example and many other things that we deem unusual today.
Looks like you need to make a DNS request to a malicious server to be vulnerable. This means you are safe if you are using 8.8.8.8? Or another trusted network? (Or your ISP if you trust they haven't been compromised).
The real danger is a script kiddie on your LAN with a sniffer or some advanced attacker in the position to MITM you on the wide Internet, depending on whether you are a small fish or a big fish.
US corporations control the root name servers and seem to have no problem cooperating with government requests to fuck^H^H^H^Hkeep a close eye on everyone else.
Use DNSSEC, it's pretty tamper proof, keys are in HSM and "geo distributed" ( https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/07/dnssec_root_k... ), the weak points are probably the facilities themselves in the US (one on the East Coast and one on the West Coast), but the trust anchor is pretty much fixed in the root servers, and it'd be quickly discovered if someone rolled a new one out of schedule.
DNSSEC does absolutely nothing to resolve the problem the parent commenter is referring to. In fact, DNSSEC cryptographically ratifies the status quo of the most important TLDs being de-facto controlled by Five Eyes governments.
In years of watching for mentions of DNSSEC on HN, I can't remember off the top of my head a single case in which DNSSEC was introduced into a conversation as having some benefit where that benefit was real. It's weird what people believe about DNSSEC.
But how many people were required to build the automation and also to keep it running? If they're anything like automated check-out stations in grocery stores, they employee more people than the low-tech solution did previously.
From the same user:
"Architects often concentrate more on the look of a building than its eventual use or function" That is a very bold statement..... To say that architects downplay the function of building is a ridiculous thing to say.
"The central problem is that architects don't want change in their buildings, so they make it as difficult as possible." False. Architects are legally responsible to act for the betterment of their client and the general public. Being deliberately 'difficult' would result in an eventual loss of their license.
"Changes and remodeling is bound to be ugly." Give me a break, have you seen the Louvre? Or any other updated building, ever?