Four short links: 28 February 2017
Fake Markets, Evil Growth, Robo Doom, and Secure Remote Passwords
- Tech and the Fake Market Tactic (Anil Dash) — a very useful razor with which to cut the nonsense around worker automation companies. It seems this “market” has some awfully weird traits. Consumers can’t trust the information they’re being provided to make a purchasing decision. A single opaque algorithm defines which buyers are matched with which sellers. Sellers have no control over their own pricing or profit margins. Regulators see the genuine short-term consumer benefit but don’t realize the long-term harms that can arise. This is, by any reasonable definition, no market at all.
- Exponential Growth Devours and Corrupts — David Heinemeier Hansson’s fantastic essay about the poison of venture capital and the vicious circles of self-destruction that result from chasing exponential growth at all costs. It was originally intended to be a talk at Webstock, which is where Anil gave his Fake Market talk above. The two would have worked very well together.
- Deep Learning to Play Doom (PDF) — is nothing sacred?
- Secure Remote Password Protocol (Wikipedia) — an augmented password-authenticated key agreement (PAKE) protocol, specifically designed to work around existing patents.
