Four short links: 2 June 2017
Bitcoin Miners, Facebook Not Open, Pinboard Wins, and Data Sketching
- Bitcoin Mining Companies Shut Down in China — Local Bitcoin miners say they were not forced to relocate, but they are reluctant to talk more about the shutdown. The Bajiaoxi Mining Factory located in Bajiaoxi Hydropower Station is one of them. Gibsonian futures come at you fast. (via David ten Have)
- Facebook as Threat to Open Web — not indexed, not archived. Stephen Fry called for social media to be regulated as a publisher, which is the corollary of “they’re not the free and open web.”
- Pinboard Acquires Delicious — This is the fifth time Delicious has been sold. Founded in 2003, the site received funding from Union Square Ventures in 2005, and sold to Yahoo later that year for somewhere between $15-$30M. In December of 2010, Yahoo announced it was ‘sunsetting’ Delicious, an adventure I wrote about at length. The site was sold to the YouTube founders in 2011. They subsequently sold it to Science, Inc., in 2014. Science sold it to Delicious Media in 2016, and last month Delicious Media sold it to me. Do not attempt to compete with Pinboard.
- Data Sketching — sketching is dealing with Too Much Data by using it as it streams by rather than storing it and massively computing the backlog. This article introduces the ideas behind sketching, with a focus on algorithmic innovations. It describes some algorithmic developments in the abstract, followed by the steps needed to put them into practice, with examples. The article also looks at four novel algorithmic ideas and discusses some emerging areas.
