m Quec.li

Thu, 17 May 2012 04:28:00 -0400

Yogurt gives mice bigger balls

Mon, 07 May 2012 15:14:00 -0400

LA Times on American Airlines' attempt to revoke its all-you-can-fly passes

Mon, 07 May 2012 14:58:00 -0400

m: American has been, after frustration with US Air and United, my favourite choice for domestic carriers. However this article is an interesting read about their vindictiveness:

In one instance, an American security agent called Sam Mulroy, a Dallas personal trainer who had been set to fly with Vroom to Europe, and told him his trip had been canceled. The agent promised a first-class ticket if he admitted to paying Vroom, according to company emails and correspondence.

When Mulroy refused, American froze his frequent flier account, offering to release it in exchange for details of payments, the documents show. Mulroy complained to American and the Transportation Department that he was being "extorted [in] an effort to punish another customer." He did not respond to requests for comment.

Andy Baio : LA Times on American Airlines' attempt to revoke its all-you-can-fly passes - the company regretted its short-sighted decision to offer lifetime first-class travel

Economist.com

Sun, 06 May 2012 14:31:00 -0400

The Economist is a long-running weekly periodical based in London, England but with various localized editions.

Starting no later than May 2012, eMail addresses which subscribers had provided them began receiving eMail scams without an explanation from the company.

jayayres: Avengers was unexpectedly good...they should skip the sequel and just make Marvel vs Capcom into a movie

Sun, 06 May 2012 09:57:00 -0400

jayayres: Avengers was unexpectedly good...they should skip the sequel and just make Marvel vs Capcom into a movie

RIM wakes up woozy in Australia

Thu, 03 May 2012 02:44:00 -0400

m: There's a moral to be had for companies that obsess over Web bugs in this article. Just hope they don't ask an engineer with a clue.

"deciphered some of the DoubleClick code from the Wake Up Australia site that fingered RIM as the site's source"

Apple store stunt snares blogger, criticism

Research In Motion's attempts to remind Australians that its phones can be quite useful for business have rebounded on the embattled company.?

Irakli Gozalishvili: Write logic, not mechanics

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 03:00:00 -0400

It strikes me that developers in JS community tend to choose patterns for solving recurring problems over abstractions.

If we are not busy with semicolon debates, we argue about widely used ?callback pattern? for dealing with asynchronous API. Many have learned / invented ways to avoid ?pyramids of doom?, but I believe they miss the point: pyramids are not the issue, it?s an indication that we have one.

In order to describe what I consider to be a real issues, I have to move back a little first:

Function

In mathematics, a function is a relation between a set of inputs and a set of potential outputs with the property that each input is related to exactly one output.

Black box

In science and engineering, a ?black box? abstraction is used to model systems as set of components which can be viewed solely in terms of its input, output and transfer characteristics, without any knowledge of its internal workings. This components are opaque (black) boxes.

Bigger boxes can be created out of smaller ones just by describing a data flow with in them (connecting inputs and outputs):

This allows one to reduce details as necessary and change internal implementation of any box without affecting other parts of the system as long as transfer characteristics remain same.

Functions in JS

In programing functions are modeled around the same concepts, even though we messed up an input sets by adding implicit parts that may change over time. In JS function input set consists of:

Given arguments.
Pseudo-variable this.
Scope bindings.

Problems

1. No output

Since functions in JS are first class, they can be part of both input and output sets. Most of the asynchronous APIs take advantage of this fact and require special callback function argument for continuation passing:

#!/bin/javascript
require('fs').open(path, 'r+', function(error, fd) {
  // ...
})

As you can see such functions no longer have have any useful output, which means that they can?t be used for building systems as black boxes. Such functions don?t return values that can be passed over to other boxes.

2. Error handling on each step

I have heard many times people criticizing how in Java exceptions are caught, wrapped and re-thrown again. This reminds me of following:

#!/bin/javascript
function readJSON(path, callback) {
  fs.readFile(path, function(error, content) {
    if (error) callback(error);
    else callback(null, JSON.parse(content));
  })
}

Basically error propagation in ?callback? style APIs is done manually. Note, that in some cases you may want to try catch actual function body as well.

3. Polygamy

It easy to end up with two types of functions: synchronous and asynchronous. While it?s possible to make sync function async it?s not the case other way round. This usually means that if one the functions had being converted to be asynchronous all of it?s users will have to be converted as well:

#!/bin/javascript
function readJSON(path) {
  var data = fs.readFileSync(path)
  return JSON.parse(String(data))
}

You can?t simply switch to readFile if becomes necessary.

4. Progress tracking

Finally if your function depends on multiple asynchronous inputs than will have to manually track each.

#!/bin/javascript
function makeView(templateURI, dataURI, callback) {
  var template, data, pending = 2
  readURI(templateURI, function(error, content) {
    if (error) return callback(error)
    template = content
    if (!--pendind) Mustache.render(template, data)
  })
  readURI(templateURI, function(error, content) {
    if (error) return callback(error)
    data = content
    if (!--pendind) Mustache.render(template, data)
  })
}

Also note that this code assumes that readURI will call a callback only once, which is not guaranteed.

Describe logic not mechanics

Now consider our last example. Most of the code there is for handling mechanics rather than describing a logic, which feels absolutely very wrong. As a matter of fact actual logic can be expressed as:

#!/bin/javascript
function makeView(templateURI, dataURI) {
  var template = readURI(templateURI)
  var data = readURI(dataURI)
  return Mustache.render(template, data)
}

So, would not it be better to abstract timing out of logic when it?s not necessary rather then keep solving all this issues in each and every function ? As a mater of fact solution has being there for ages in a form of promises, but for some reason people and web standards tend to use callbacks instead. Maybe because they feel complicated, but that does not necessary has to be the case:

#!/bin/javascript
// Everyone knows how to write a function:
function sum(a, b) { return a + b }
console.log(sum(1, 2))  // => 3

// Working with promises should not require nothing more
// then marker telling that function can accept input in
// form of promises
sum = promised(sum)
console.log = promised(console.log)

// Will continue to work with plain old values
console.log(sum(1, 2))  // => 3

// Will also accept promises as arguments
var a = defer()         // make promise
var b = sum(a, 1)
var b = sum(b, 5)
console.log(b)          // eventually prints => 17
a.resolve(11)           // fulfill promise

We should not be handling and propagating exceptions manually in each function, we should only handle them when we plan to recover:

#!/bin/javascript
// Utility funciton that throws exceptions
var raise = promised(function(_) { throw Error(_) })

var a = raise('Boom !')   // Now we got an exception
var b = sum(a, 2)         // Now it has propagated to b
var c = sum(b, 12)        // Now it has propagaed to c

// Finally if when ready we handle exception in computation
c.then(null, console.error) // => Error: Boom !

If we just want to group multiple values into on there is an Array for that no need to track progress of each eventual value if we just care about a group!

#!/bin/javascript
Array = promised(Array)
var results = Array(readAsync(a), readAsync(b))
console.log(sum.apply(sum, rusults))

Noticed a pattern ? We just write a logic, and if it needs to handle asynchronous input we wrap it into promised(logic).

Whats really important here is that such functions can be used to systems as black boxes as they do have input and output. Demonstration of that is an example from above:

#!/bin/javascript
function makeView(templateURI, dataURI) {
  var template = readURI(templateURI)
  var data = readURI(dataURI)
  // Assuming Mustache.render = promised(Mustache.render)
  return Mustache.render(template, data)
}

Implementing such a solution takes about 100 lines of code (ignoring comments), and that?s more or less what any other control flow library costs anyway. I wish all of you to have more time to concentrate on logic of your program instead of mechanics & small promise library may be a good first step!

Smartphones finally outsell featurephones ... in Japan

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 10:03:00 -0400

m: Finally the Japanese have decided to catch-up with the rest of the industrialized world with respect to telephone technologies. With NFC payment schemes being all the rage in the latest Android phones and rumoured in the upcoming iOS products, the future is wide open for the 80's leader in technology.

You took your time, lads

Forget China ? Japan proved that its domestic mobile market is one of the most mature on the planet with new stats showing smartphone sales passed feature phone sales for the first time ever in February.?

Comic for April 22, 2012

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 01:00:00 -0400

Mayor Boris' Chinese vote master stroke backfires on twit clone

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 08:42:00 -0400

m: The article about the London Mayor's base attempt at utilizing popular microblogs can either be interpretted as the folly of the out-of-touch, non-technically minded; or as an indication that the microblog systems themselves are sub-ideal. Of course, there's an argument to be made that both are the case: you need but ask for that one.

Original: http://www.dailydot.com/politics/boris-johnson-sina-weibo/

Making as much sense on Weibo as he does in Blighty

Bouffant-capped Boris Johnson hopes to ingratiate himself with the capital's Chinese community by climbing aboard Twitter-clone Sina Weibo - although putting the same yattering on both is just silly.?

Judge Grudgingly Awards $3.6 Million In DRM Circumvention Case

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 08:09:00 -0400

m: I understand that at this level, the Judge has little choice but to award a default judgment, but that this could even find its way into a courtroom is ridiculous. These sorts of things should be covered by the compatibility clause of the DMCA, but instead it's getting trumped by a loose and very broad interpretation of the circumvention clause. Hopefully, eventually, this will be clarified and thrown out.

Fluffeh writes "The case involves an online game, MapleStory, and some people who set up an alternate server, UMaple, allowing users to play the game with the official game client, but without logging into the official MapleStory servers. In this case, the people behind UMaple apparently ignored the lawsuit, leading to a default judgment. Although annoyed with MapleStory (The Judge knocked down a request for $68,764.23 — in profits made by UMaple — down to just $398.98), the law states a minimum of $200 per infringement. Multiply that by 17,938 users of UMaple... and you get $3.6 million. In fact, it sounds like the court would very much like to decrease the amount, but notes that 'nevertheless, the court is powerless to deviate from the DMCA's statutory minimum.' Eric Goldman also has some further op-ed and information regarding the case and judgement."

Techie stages 'strip down' protest at TSA 'harassment'

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 14:21:00 -0400

Naked but unstressed man does 'something with internet'

An Oregon man who "does something with the internet" stripped stark naked at Portland airport on Tuesday in a protest at TSA screening policies.?

Modest Proposals for Academic Authors

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 05:00:00 -0400

In the scuffles over copyright policies on scholarly articles, what is the academic author to do? First, inform yourself. Find and read the copyright policy of the journals (or refereed conferences) to which you submit the articles describing research results. Find out the subscription price (dead-tree-edition or online) that the publisher charges individuals and institutions, and compare with the norms in your fields and others. Decide for yourself whether your publisher is unduly limiting the spread of ideas, or charging such prices that the effect is the same.

Remember what Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1813:

That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.

Since our fair century has apparently decided that everything should be treated like property, we can apply an economic analysis to the transaction. You did the research and you wrote the scholarly article (um, excuse me, the “content”). Someone paid your salary or your graduate-student stipend, but that someone was not your scholarly journal! In this economic analysis, consider your own economic interests and also consider that you act as the agent of your university or grant-funder who helped pay for the work, presumably for the moral and mutual instruction of man.

The consulting-contract model

The typical journal article may represent 1 person-year of work (by a professor and some graduate students) valued in the range of $100,000 or more. Similarly, when a professor is asked to referee a paper, which takes hours of work, that refereeing work has substantial value. This value is not necessarily realizable in cash in the open market. The scholar submits to the journal not to receive a big check (none of these journals, whether nonprofit or for profit, pay anything at all). Instead, the scholar engaged in the work in order to benefit humanity (see Jefferson 1813) and (also) to gain peer recognition.

Therefore, if the journal intends to lock away the work behind a high pay wall–thus depriving you and humanity of the respective benefits described above–then don’t give them the “content,” sell your “content” to the publisher. Next time an Elsevier journal solicits a paper from you, just tell ‘em the price is $10,000, or $100,000, or whatever.

When Elsevier sends you a paper to referee, send them your standard consulting contract at however many dollars per hour. (Make sure to get a retainer up front!)

Thus, we do not exactly boycott Elsevier, we just do business with them.

The charitable donations model

Suppose your publisher is a nonprofit organization (such as ACM, IEEE, Usenix) that benefits your field–by organizing the editing and dissemination of knowledge, by running conferences that bring scholars together. Suppose you notice that its subscription prices are reasonable, the author contract does not take overly exclusive rights, and so on.

You could decide that you will make a charitable donation of several thousand dollars in kind by submitting your paper for publication. That is, sign their standard author contract! You lose (and they gain) some of the economic benefit, but not all: most of it will “leak away” to humanity (see Jefferson 1813) and to you (eternal fame, promotion, salary increase).

This is the model I use with ACM and IEEE, and I think it is a reasonable compromise.

But I know people who believe that ACM and IEEE have fallen behind the curve, that their copyright contracts are too grabby. Those scholars may prefer one of the solutions that I’ll describe in my next article.

If the food?s in plastic, what?s in the food?

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 00:01:00 -0400

In a study published last year in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, researchers put five San Francisco families on a three-day diet of food that hadn?t been in contact with plastic. When they compared urine samples before and after the diet, the scientists were stunned to see what a difference a few days could make: The participants? levels of bisphenol A (BPA), which is used to harden polycarbonate plastic, plunged ? by two-thirds, on average ? while those of the phthalate DEHP, which imparts flexibility to plastics, dropped by more than half.

Read full article >>

ID_AA_Carmack: Testing a LG passive 3D monitor. Brighter, less ghosting and no flicker vs active, but you do lose half the vertical resolution.

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 19:30:00 -0400

ID_AA_Carmack: Testing a LG passive 3D monitor. Brighter, less ghosting and no flicker vs active, but you do lose half the vertical resolution.

ISPs should get 'up to' full fee for 'up to' broadband

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 05:38:00 -0400

m: It's reasonable for an ISP to say "we'll give you this much bandwidth at peak times, this much at non-peak times", as congestion is usually the reason why data slows down. This could be used to mitigate high-demand times while releasing the horses elsewhere. However, ISPs for consumers especially, don't seem to be any more explicit than the absolute fastest they'll allot to you which is validly criticised.

Wispa's campaign against Ofcom turns shouty

Anyone promised broadband speeds of "up to" an amount should be free to pay a monthly fee of "up to" what's asked, according to the firebrand lobbying consultancy wispa Limited.?

Copyright in Scholarly Publishing, 2012 Edition

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 05:00:00 -0400

I’ve heard a lot recently about copyright policies of scholarly journals. Over 9000 researchers signed a pledge to boycott Elsevier, on three grounds: (1) high prices for journal subscriptions, (2) bundling practices for institutional subscriptions; (3) lobbying regarding SOPA, PIPA, and the Research Works Act.

Meanwhile, other organizations such as the ACM (scholarly/professional society for computer science and the computing industry) and IEEE (scholarly/professional society for electrical engineering and computing) once were leaders in open-access; they had relatively low journal prices and relatively liberal policies permitting authors to display preprints on the authors’ web pages. Now the ACM’s and IEEE’s policies have not changed, but they are no longer at the forefront: while ACM and IEEE require an assignment of copyright and leave the author with a few rights, organizations such as Usenix (another professional society in computing) take only a nonexclusive license to reprint a scholarly article.

Some computer scientists feel strongly that ACM should adjust its copyright policy. At recent business meeting of SIGOPS, the ACM special interest group on Operating Systems, a motion passed with approximately 99% in favor stating that “it is the desire of the SIGOPS community for authors to retain copyright of publications, and instead grant ACM a non-exclusive license for inclusion in the ACM Digital Library and other ACM venues.”

SIGOPS and the many other ACM Special Interest Groups are a significant source of the ACM’s “content” (as intellectual and creative works are so rebarbatively called in the 21st century). SIGOPS and its sisters not only provide the “content” but also of the editors and referees for that “content.” So this is something the ACM (and other scholarly publishers) must take seriously, and indeed a member of the ACM Publications Board tells me that their June 2012 meeting will spend most of its time on these issues.

In my next two articles I’ll suggest some ways in which academic scholar/authors might personally approach the copyright wars. I will treat this with all the seriousness it deserves, in light of Sayre’s law: “The politics of the university are so intense because the stakes are so low”.

I will discuss,

The consulting-contract model
The charitable donations model
The contract-hacking model
The union organizing model

Disguising Tor Traffic as Skype Video Calls

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 08:08:00 -0400

m: Finally Skype can provide a counterpoint to its fascist anti-privacy policies.

One of the problems with Tor traffic is that it can de detected and blocked. Here's SkypeMorph, a clever system that disguises Tor traffic as Skype video traffic.

To prevent the Tor traffic from being recognized by anyone analyzing the network flow, SkypeMorph uses what's known as traffic shaping to convert Tor packets into User Datagram Protocol packets, as used by Skype. The traffic shaping also mimics the sizes and timings of packets produced by normal Skype video conversations. As a result, outsiders observing the traffic between the end user and the bridge see data that looks identical to a Skype video conversation.
The SkypeMorph developers chose Skype because the software is widely used throughout the world, making it hard for governments to block it without arousing widespread criticism. The developers picked the VoIP client's video functions because its flow of packets more closely resembles Tor traffic. Voice communications, by contrast, show long pauses in transmissions, as one party speaks and the other listens.

Here's what a real liberal solution looks like.

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 23:11:00 -0400

m: Adam Smith would ask: what happened to the day care centers that already existed in Quebec?

Create a nation-wide network of government-run daycare. This cost $100 million. Net result, lots of competent, talented women who wished to get a job but couldn't because they couldn't afford daycare now get jobs. These women pay $147 million in taxes from their new job, which pays back the $100 million the government started with, and let it lower taxes by $47 millions. Everybody wins.

A Libertarian would never think of trying this.

But in Quebec, it's the first thing you try.

Sweden: talk, text and drive? OK

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 20:03:00 -0400

A ban wouldn?t work anyway

Sweden is bucking the international trend towards restricting the use of mobiles in cars, reasoning that drivers would just ignore a ban.?

MapBox rendering the world

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 16:59:00 -0400

nelson : MapBox rendering the world - Various clever optimizations for map making

Tags : mapping tilemill mapbox optimization gis osm

Tim Taubert: Are we small yet?

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 16:32:00 -0400

The Latest in Nationwide Internet User Identification - Part 2 (the All-New, So-Called Federal Co-Conspirator Theory)

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 15:42:00 -0400

Since Part 1 in this series a few months ago, Plaintiffs have continued to file "pure bill of discovery" suits in Florida state court. These proceedings typically involve "John Does" who are accused of copyright infringement via peer-to-peer networks. The Plaintiffs (copyright-holders or their delegates) have continued to name as defendants in those "pure discovery" proceedings not the entities from whom they seek discovery (i.e., the Internet service providers) but instead John Does, from whom no discovery is sought. After filing their suits, Plaintiffs promptly seek and obtain an ex parte order for expedited discovery of the John Does' names from the ISPs, even though the ISPs are not then represented or present in the proceeding. Because the ISPs are not technically parties, the Plaintiffs can use these orders to issue subpoenas to ISPs from across the country regardless of whether the ISPs or their subscribers would be subject to the jurisdiction of a Florida state court.

The Plaintiffs' lawyers certainly must know that this is not right. For one thing, they tend to withdraw their subpoenas whenever it appears a court is actually going to hear the reasons why their use of the proceeding is improper.

Recently, several ISPs stood firm and proceeded to a hearing on their motions for protective order in a couple of these proceedings. The Plaintiffs' lawyers, in typical fashion, tried to withdraw their subpoenas and argued that the judges should not listen to the ISPs' arguments. Not surprisingly, the Plaintiffs did not fare well in an adversarial proceeding.

Both judges not only granted the ISPs' motions, but went farther. One of the judges dismissed the case, also quashing all outstanding subpoenas. The court also noted that, if the Plaintiff should amend (to name the ISPs as defendants, subject to their personal jurisdiction and other defenses), the Plaintiff must certify that the Does as to which discovery is sought committed a tortious act in the State of Florida. In the other case, the court quashed all subpoenas and required the Plaintiff to notify all ISPs of the court's order and an opportunity to object. If a given ISP, in turn, notifies the court that the ISP objects, then the subpoena will remain quashed. (In this manner, the court compensated for the cost and inconvenience to many of the ISPs of a challenge to this improper proceeding in a Florida state court.) Hopefully, this is the beginning of the end of this flagrant abuse of an equitable state-law proceeding.

On a similar theme, the Plaintiffs have also been trying a new tactic in federal courts, transparently designed to avoid procedural details such as personal jurisdiction, venue, and joinder. In this scheme, the Plaintiffs' lawyers sue a single John Doe defendant (who is believed to reside in the forum), and then seek expedited discovery not only as to that defendant but also as to hundreds of other John Does on the theory that they could be "co-conspirators" with the named John Doe. In such a manner, the Plaintiffs seek identification of the long list of so-called "co-conspirators" without any need to show that those Internet subscribers are properly joined and are subject to the jurisdiction of the Court.

Not surprisingly, when a federal judge was able to scrutinize such a tactic (outside the context of an abbreviated, one-sided, ex parte discovery hearing), it was solidly rejected as improper. Ruling on several motions to compel, Chief Judge Holderman of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois held that the discovery sought as to the so-called "co-conspirators" in several cases was not relevant to the claims asserted against the single John Doe defendants in those cases. The Court noted that the true purpose of the discovery sought was not to litigate the Plaintiffs' claims in these lawsuits, but rather "to either sue the individuals whose identity they uncover, or, more likely, to negotiate a settlement with those individuals." The Court pronounced that "[w]hat the plaintiffs may not do" is "improperly use court processes by attempting to gain information about hundreds of IP addresses located all over the country in a single action." The Court also took note of the aggregate burden imposed by virtue of the volume of subpoenas being generated by these Plaintiffs' lawyers in their numerous lawsuits.

Fictional pleading for the purpose of gathering names in order to pursue settlements should not be tolerated by the courts. The courts are likely to agree, as long as both sides of the arguments have the opportunity to be heard.

Matt Thompson: Code is all around us (especially Ryan Gosling)

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 15:14:00 -0400

Facebook and Instagram as company towns

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 09:39:00 -0400

m: Federated identity was supposed to solve this, but instead the only federated identities people are using are those for closed groups (Google, because of their googlemail user base; and Facebook).

One of the more thought-provoking pieces on Instagram's billion dollar sale to Facebook is Matt Webb's Instagram as an island economy. In it, he thinks about Instagram as a closed economy:

What is the labour encoded in Instagram? It's easy to see. Every "user" of Instagram is a worker. There are some people who produce photos -- this is valuable, it means there is something for people to look it. There are some people who only produce comments or "likes," the virtual society equivalent of apes picking lice off other apes. This is valuable, because people like recognition and are more likely to produce photos. All workers are also marketers -- some highly effective and some not at all. And there's a general intellect which has been developed, a kind of community expertise and teaching of this expertise to produce photographs which are good at producing the valuable, attractive likes and comments (i.e., photographs which are especially pretty and provocative), and a somewhat competitive culture to become a better marketer.

There are also the workers who build the factory -- the behaviour-structuring instrument/forum which is Instagram itself, both its infrastructure and it's "interface:" the production lines on the factory floor, and the factory store. However these workers are only playing a role. Really they are owners.

All of those workers (the factory workers) receive a wage. They have not organised, so the wage is low, but it's there. It's invisible.

Like all good producers, the workers are also consumers. They immediately spend their entire wage, and their wages is only good in Instagram-town. What they buy is the likes and comments of the photos they produce (what? You think it's free? Of course it's not free, it feels good so you have to pay for it. And you did, by being a producer), and access to the public spaces of Instagram-town to communicate with other consumers. It's not the first time that factory workers have been housed in factory homes and spent their money in factory stores.

Although he doesn't use the term explictly, Webb is talking about a company town. Interestingly, Paul Bausch used this term in reference to Facebook a few weeks ago in a discussion about blogging:

The whole idea of [blog] comments is based on the assumption that most people reading won't have their own platform to respond with. So you need to provide some temporary shanty town for these folks to take up residence for a day or two. And then if you're like Matt -- hanging out in dozens of shanty towns -- you need some sort of communication mechanism to tie them together. That sucks.

So what's an alternative? Facebook is sort of the alternative right now: company town.

Back to Webb, he says that making actual money with Instagram will be easy:

I will say that it's simple to make money out of Instagram. People are already producing and consuming, so it's a small step to introduce the dollar into this.

I'm not so sure about this...it's too easy for people to pick up and move out of Instagram-town for other virtual towns, thereby creating a ghost town and a massively devalued economy. After all, the same real-world economic forces that allowed a dozen people to build a billion dollar service in two years means a dozen other people can build someplace other than Instagram for people to hang out in, spending their virtual Other-town dollars.

Also worth a read on Facebook/Instagram: Paul Ford's piece for New York Magazine.

Facebook, a company with a potential market cap worth five or six moon landings, is spending one of its many billions of dollars to buy Instagram, a tiny company dedicated to helping Thai beauty queens share photos of their fingernails. Many people have critical opinions on this subject, ranging from "this will ruin Instagram" to "$1 billion is too much." And for many Instagram users it's discomfiting to see a giant company they distrust purchase a tiny company they adore - like if Coldplay acquired Dirty Projectors, or a Gang of Four reunion was sponsored by Foxconn.

So what's going on here?

First, to understand this deal it's important to understand Facebook. Unfortunately everything about Facebook defies logic. In terms of user experience (insider jargon: "UX"), Facebook is like an NYPD police van crashing into an IKEA, forever - a chaotic mess of products designed to burrow into every facet of your life.

Tags: Facebook Instagram Matt Webb Paul Bausch Paul Ford economics