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Comment by titzer | Hacker News Reader

+1000 to this.

Imagine a world populated entirely by IOT devices. Imagine, for a moment, starting with a blank slate and trying to make sense of these devices using the methods of Science. They are so complex and their behavior governed by so much software that it'd be impossible to make a local model of how the device actually worked. You simply would not be able to predict when the damn thing would even blink its lights. When the world gets to this point...One would have to understand how software worked, in many different programming languages; kernels, scripts, databases, IO, compilers, instruction sets, microarchitecture, circuits, transistors, then firmware, storage...it'd be impossible to reverse engineer.

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I guess this is where future generations can get magic from. Someone figures out some small part of the protocol and they basically become a mage by sheer virtue of their limited understanding.

I mean how many times has someone called you a Wizard when you've fixed some random piece of tech or gotten something working for them?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denn%C5%8D_Coil

It would still be simpler than figuring out how biological machines work but biologist are trying with some success.

My point is that it is completely stupid to think of the stack of knowledge necessary to understand how an IOT device really, fundamentally works.

A toaster is not a complex thing. It has a few springs, a tray, a body, some heating elements. Some wires. There is absolutely no need to put the internet in there.

/rant

The best example of how uncomplicated things should be is the design of an ordinary kettle. I remember an article here on HN where a guy disassembled a kettle to find out how they make it so cheaply.

It was some simple bi-metal wire that would bend when it reached a certain temperature and shut off the power to the heating coil.

I guess the whole aspect of these IoT is that it violates the simplicity of these devices. Kind of like the weapons in Judge Dredd vs a simple modern mechanical handgun.

You think a toaster is simple? Try building one from scratch! This guy did: http://www.thetoasterproject.org and it was HARD!

Well, smelting your own iron and making plastic are the hard part. There is nothing particularly challenging if you have a few pieces of metal laying around.

Sure, it all depends on how you define a "blank slate". The whole world of engineering is a huge stack, and near the bottom are things like smelting iron and making plastic, up a few layers you have things like standardized screws, near the top you have things like kernels, databases, etc.

If all these things can be taken as a given, why would you not want to use them? I mean, yes, you can avoid some complexity by making a simple toaster, but the second the consumer wants things like "never burn my toast" or "personalized toast levels" you need to go up the stack.

That said, some IOT things are clearly lame ideas that should never have been made in the first place, but that doesn't mean you should avoid using existing technology.

> If all these things can be taken as a given, why would you not want to use them?

When the device breaks, what do we do with it? If it is mostly software, it is not user serviceable, whereas something with a spring and clips and wires is something that a curious person armed with a screwdriver could disassemble and fix.

I fear that software is ushering in an age where users are absolutely helpless when something breaks. Then we get big stupid bricks with chips in them.

The complexity can be worth it. Take electronic fuel injection. Uses less fuel, has a better power band, has a wider range of self correction.

Cars are actually a great example of where things have become highly complex, which means that they are now essentially impossible to fix yourself. On the other hand, for regular day-to-day use they are a lot better.

What an interesting guy...

Right now he's investigating what it is like to be a goat: http://www.thomasthwaites.com/a-holiday-from-being-human-goa...

Don't knock it until you try it I guess?

I disagree. Biological machines at least are all coded in the same language with the same basic runtime and intended output. They're all similar machines doing similar things via similar means.

I encourage you to pick up a biochemistry textbook.

That level of success is on par with figuring out that IoT devices run on electricity and use some kind of radio waves to communicate. Maybe that they store binary data somehow.

Neurologists with EE backgrounds apply neurology techniques to understanding the 6502 CPU: https://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/217149...

It goes poorly.

The economist article links to the original paper, which is quite readable too.

Someone said that being surrounded by bad or malicious IoT devices would be indistinguishable from being haunted.

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