5 ms·
Netflix wins a longbet from 8 years ago.
- icegreentea 16y agoReading the comments (I love that the years are written as 02002) this one particularly strikes me.. "...The net works differently than that... and Content owners have missed (and will continue to miss) it for 3 reasons: 1) Technophobia coupled with crippling ego (too cool to look dumb they fear the pipe) 2) Misguided content protectionism (go back and watch 'The Power of Myth'... again! It's the 'story' damnit!) ..." This is 8 years old (and proven somewhat wrong), and we're still saying it, in some form today.
- steveklabnik 16y agoCheck out the comments on bet 2: Will Google be around? POSTED BY [redacted] ON AUG 28, 02002 AT 07:03PM PDT I think it will be more interesting to see if Google will be around in five years? Or better yet will we still be searching for information using search engines and keywords? Very interesting.
- random42 16y agoWell, they are still here and thriving, and we still search for information, Mainly on search engines (Wikipedia is one, right?) and keywords.
- steveklabnik 16y agoI like the RESTful urls, check out bet #1: http://www.longbets.org/1 http://www.longbets.org/1 We've got a while, but it feels like an appropriate bet.
- wvl 16y agoThose urls have nothing whatsoever to do with REST.
- steveklabnik 16y agoYes, I'm aware, but the feature is often called "RESTful" urls in frameworks. I actually thought the url was '/bets/1' until I went back and re-read it... my brain inserted it in there, since it's so common. Like 'HTML5' or 'hacker,' 'REST' is a totally destroyed, meaningless term. I'm attempting to be pragmatic about it. Better to effectively communicate than hold onto intellectual purity.
- seabee 16y agoIf the term is totally destroyed and meaningless, with different people having different ideas, you'd be better off avoiding it altogether. Don't beat a dead buzzword!
- steveklabnik 16y agoIn the general case, I agree with you. However, everyone knows what 'RESTful urls' and 'RESTful apis' mean, it's just that it's not the original recipe REST. For better or worse, the definition has changed. It's still effective communication, because you know I'm contrasting '/bets/1' with 'index.aspx?action=displayBet&bet_id=1&' (which still could be quite RESTful, actually...), and a form that POSTs to '/bets' vs. a form with method=GET request to 'index.aspx?action=addAnotherBet&=SomeValue=1&something_else=2'. And yes, there's more to it than that, but you get the idea. Just because it makes puritains die inside doesn't make it wrong.
- rlivsey 16y agoIn this case I'd opt for "clean" as a better word for what you're trying to describe. I'd have thought everyone understands what a clean URL is without bringing across all the extra baggage/meaning of calling it RESTful.
- steveklabnik 16y agoIn this case, you're probably right. I'm usually discussing this more fully, as in "RESTful API vs. SOAP" or the actual nitty-gritty of POST vs PUT requests and such. "clean" works much better in this context, though, thanks. I'll file that one away... I'm one of those puritans who cries a bit inside myself.
- BCM43 16y agoWhat happens if the organization the money is going to be donated is not still around then?
- gwern 16y agoIIRC, the Long Bets terms include language like 'or similar charitable organization chosen by bettor or the Long Now Foundation if bettor is unavailable'.
- herrherr 16y agoAnother proof that you may look like a fool when trying to predict the future (Bell's argument). Also interesting in this context: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1887215 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1887215
- antidaily 16y agoService Temporarily Unavailable Cached version: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:cyGf1TnWdtEJ:www.longbets.org/3+http://www.longbets.org/3&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:cyGf1Tn...
- iwr 16y agoFor a foundation thinking ultra longterm, they have a flaky server. "Service Temporarily Unavailable The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later. Apache/2.2.11 (Ubuntu) Server at www.longbets.org Port 80"
- bgutierrez 16y agoThinking long term isn't the same as scaling a site up for occasional increased traffic. The vast majority of the time, the traffic is extremely light on this site and the server (and its network) is more than adequate.
- brudgers 16y agoFlakey server > deny links from HN
- stellar678 16y agoIs it just me or did this seem completely inevitable and kind of on the cusp by 2002? We were building fileserver-based VOD services just to save our Internet connection from the torrenting masses in shared housing situations around this time. This seems like a risky one to bet against, at least from a technical perspective. I suppose it is true that it was still a pretty open question whether anyone would manage to negotiate licenses with the media producers to do VOD, but Bell doesn't even touch on that issue.
- iuyhgttg 16y agoTechnically do-able, but: It could have easily been derailed the studios wanting to try and run the business themselves, ISPs who are also cable companies throttling it, national broadcasters lobbying to block it legally. It also said profitable - I thought even Amazon wasn't profitable yet?
- JustinSeriously 16y agoEven most of the original commentators, back in 02002, thought it was easily doable.
- alextgordon 16y agoIt's amusing that Eric Schmidt is the challenger on http://www.longbets.org/4 http://www.longbets.org/4 in light of Google's autonomous cars.
- stuartloxton 16y agoAmusing - but a car with 2 passengers going at a conservative 30MPH is very different to a plane flying 9KM over the ground at 567MPH. I'm just hoping that in 80 years I won't be alive to see my comment becoming horribly wrong, with people laughing at it while a processor flies them across the world.
- eru 16y agoI guess the biggest problems will be the legal framework and the power of unions. Technically flying a plane should be easier for a computer than driving a car.
- WalterBright 16y agoWhere a computer fails is when judgment is required. For example, you have an in-air emergency, and are going to have to crash land. What do you pick to crash land on to? Consider Captain Sully's recent decisions in just such an emergency.
- winthrowe 16y agoBeing a private pilot with a lapsed license, I can't possibly see that emergency landing area selection is a problem worse than navigating a street vehicle in an urban environment. Taking all the GIS databases around, I can't imagine emergency landing site selection would be a huge roadblock.
- eru 16y agoAnd for lots of emergencies you can probably do remote flying from some call centre in India.
- rudasn 16y agonow this is an interesting site!
- klochner 16y agoDavid Peterson nailed it in the comments in 2003: NetFlix claims to have more than 13,500 titles and more than one million members. You order the movie on the Internet, you just can't watch it until all of the bits of the movie arrive. They just happen to be delivered to your mailbox and you have to put the bits into your computer or dvd player. -- Posted by David B. Peterson on May 16, 02003 at 12:32AM PDT
- drats 16y agoEsther Dyson's bet "By 2012, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times will have referred to Russia as "the world leader in software development" or words to that effect." http://www.longbets.org/5 http://www.longbets.org/5 The Computer History Museum gets $10,000 if she loses, I guess they should start planning an exhibit on old Russian computer technology. But to be less smug for a moment why anyone would think this is beyond me. While the Russians did achieve significant technological advances in the 20th century, and implemented an impressive education system with regard to mathematics and computer science there are so many other factors which play into this. Namely Russia obtaining a score of 2.7/10 for corruption in 2002 from the Corruption Perceptions Index and sliding down to 2.1/10 in the most recent ranking putting them in 158th place. Further they are ranked 143rd on the 2010 Index of Economic Freedom. India with 87th on corruption and 124th on economic freedom, not great, has plenty of English speakers and a more impressive computer science educational infrastructure, as well as being cheaper. The stories of people dying in Russian prisons after resisting corrupt government shakedowns are just horrific and I am not aware of any Indian equivalent. But I suppose if you invest there as she does, you need to talk it up.
- RK 16y agoDoes malware count?
- tjarratt 16y agoJust goes to show, even in a broken, corrupt system, it's possible to grow/create world class software.
- lmkg 16y agoIt's a stronger bet than it first sounds, although probably not in the way the author intended. Russia doesn't actually have to be the world leader in software development, they just have to be referred to as such by a news organization. Considering the linkbait trends in modern journalism, the following headline wouldn't surprise me, regardless of what the ground truth is: "Russia: The World's New Leader in Software Development?"
- cobralibre 16y agoMaciej Ceglowski had a similar, if less grandiose, site called Wrong Tomorrow, but it looks like it's down: http://wrongtomorrow.com/ http://wrongtomorrow.com/ I don't know if the site is only temporarily down, or if it's been abandoned, but it's a shame if the latter. The idea behind Wrong Tomorrow was chiefly to hold pundits accountable for their frequently bad predictions. You can read his site announcement, where he explicitly mentions sites like Long Bets and how Wrong Tomorrow differs from them: http://idlewords.com/2009/04/wrong_tomorrow.htm http://idlewords.com/2009/04/wrong_tomorrow.htm
- neilk 16y agoIt was a brilliant idea, but waiting five years just to prove pundits wrong depletes my strategic reserves of spite.
- gwern 16y agoI believe the right URL had a prefixed www. (During some downtime, but not this one apparently, http://wrongtomorrow.com http://wrongtomorrow.com didn't work but http://www.wrongtomorrow.com http://www.wrongtomorrow.com did.) Back in July, Maciej told me > It's not abandoned, but I had to take it down since a sister site on that server was getting high traffic, and needed the resources. I began copying over predictions from Wrong Tomorrow and Long Bets to http://predictionbook.com/ http://predictionbook.com/ and I found that a bunch of Wrong Tomorrow predictions were corrupted/unavailable, and told Maciej about them; no reply. So I think it's safe to say that Wrong Tomorrow has been pretty much abandoned.
- chrisaycock 16y ago"By 2010, more than 50 percent of books sold worldwide will be printed on demand at the point of sale in the form of library-quality paperbacks." Vint Cerf challenges with, "At some point, laptop or smaller devices with high quality displays and suitable access controls for intellectual property will make the sale and consumption of books, sound and movies through these devices practical." He goes on to cite the "iPOD" as an example. http://www.longbets.org/6 http://www.longbets.org/6
- blaines 16y agoWow good find. I especially like this bet, Warren Buffett v. Protege Partners, LLC. “Over a ten-year period commencing on January 1, 2008, and ending on December 31, 2017, the S & P 500 will outperform a portfolio of funds of hedge funds, when performance is measured on a basis net of fees, costs and expenses.” http://www.longbets.org/362 http://www.longbets.org/362
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- blntechie 16y agoI would love to see (or not see) how the predictor wins this bet,long bet making a decision and awards the stake. “Large Hadron Collider will destroy Earth.” http://www.longbets.org/382 http://www.longbets.org/382
- WingForward 16y agoI wonder what the contribution to the bet has been from Xbox. Connecting the Internet to the television is one of its great accomplishments.
- tjmc 16y agoCool site. My prediction is that by 2025 electric vehicle sales will overtake ICE vehicle sales. I don't want to spend 50 bucks to put it up there though!