One reason you should not use web applications to do your computing is that you lose control. It’s just as bad as using a proprietary program. Do your own computing on your own computer with your copy of a freedom-respecting program. If you use a proprietary program or somebody else’s web server, you’re defenceless [sic]. You’re putty in the hands of whoever developed that software.

— Richard M. Stallman

I’m trying to make sense of what he’s trying to say, while sweeping aside the gross generalization part. But first, a basic question: Didn’t “cloud” computing go live the moment networks came on? And aren’t web applications a result of manifestations, and implementations of some of those TCP/IP protocols that we started using as elements of the network, the internet, and later the web? And if you consider network a vital part of today’s computing, can you really do without it anymore?

For what it is worth, there may be a number of web applications that do not provide data-freedom, have no APIs, provide no support or connectivity via third party applications, and, provide no peek inside the code. But putting Gmail in the same bracket, in my humble opinion, is particularly a poor example. In fact Gmail’s induction into the web was remarkable, as it was understated.

Look at the way it tackled the email problem head-on. With its invite-only system during its initial year, Gmail developed a circle of trust—the good apples. When it had enough number of good apples, and had gained enough intelligence about Spam, it opened the system to everyone. This unique and participative ecosystem of good apples combined with Google’s collective intelligence is what gives Gmail an edge, and makes it a satisfying email service for the end-user, while silently killing Spam, and quietly stifling phishing.

Could you have such an ecosystem developed openly to tackle unique problems that dog the internet today? In theory, yes. The answer may just lie in distributed transient networks. But earning trust is hard, because trust needs a recognizable face. That’s how we humans are wired. So until we begin accepting decentralized nodes into our circles of social trust, we need a credible entity to take this mantle. Today Google offers that credible face. There are others too. Take for example, Automattic, which provides comment spam protection via its amazing closed source service, Akismet. These services do more good than they’re often credited with—when you weigh in benefits of a community filter versus code open to scrutiny.

In the end, it is about preservation of your data, not necessarily software—no matter which way it was created, modified, transmitted, or received. I would be really wary to use a web application service that does not offer me a way to back my stuff up without data loss.

If our data retains its fidelity on those closed web applications, be available to us whenever we want them be exported to another application or a service, then I reckon most of us probably wouldn’t have a problem with cloud computing.

And we haven’t even discussed the mobile angle yet. Any takers?

A box of washing machine soap will become part of a service as Internet-enabled washing machines are managed by Web-based services that can configure and activate your washing machine.

— Vint Cerf

Sometimes goofy, but nevertheless, interesting insights from the father of the internet. It’s easy to see his unbound enthusiasm in all this, and his child-like wonder. He reminds me of Dr Emmett Brown in some way.¹

And I hope I’ll still have the choice to decide if I want my washing machine to run automatically for me. I may not want a pool full of soap bubbles when I get home. Unless of course, it would also prompt me to rush home. :). God, I love the future.

1. Take for instance the opening scene of Back to the Future in which, one of the robots opens a can of dog food, and drops it in Einstein’s already overflowing bowl—full of untouched food. =). This washing machine thing sounds just like that.

The cynic might say that there’s no practical use for any of this, that there might be other uses for all the money and brainpower going into these particle guns [of the LHC]. But we live in a civilization shaped by physics. We know that the forces within an atom are so powerful that, unleashed and directed against humanity, they can obliterate cities in an instant. The laptop computer on which I’m writing uses microprocessors that would not exist had we not discovered quantum physics and the quirky behavior of electrons. This story will be posted on the World Wide Web—invented, in case you hadn’t heard, at CERN, by computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee. Maybe you’re reading it while listening to your iPod, which wouldn’t exist but for something called “giant magnetoresistance.” Two physicists discovered it independently in the late 1980s, with not much thought of how it might eventually be used. It became crucial to making tiny consumer electronics that used magnetized hard disks. The physicists won a Nobel Prize in 2007, and you got a nifty sound system that’s smaller than a Hershey bar.

— Joel Achenbach

An actor’s blog tends to receive only the good stuff and the adulation of the fans. This unfortunately isn’t true of those in active politics. Omar Abdullah—whose passionate speech in the Indian Parliament recently on the vote of confidence, awoke us all—is quitting his blog after just a handful of posts. He says:

We truly are a bunch of intolerant people. We want to be heard but do not have the strength to hear, we want to have an opinion but do not believe anyone else is entitled to one.

I am going back to being an old school politician and you can read what I think in the newspapers. The handful of you who are my Facebook friends as well - we will continue to spar there and I look forward to it.

Please do not give in to the trolls, Mr Abdullah. We direly need voices like yours, which need to be heard.