skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> That seems like legitimately monopolistic behavior and something that is illegal and should be stopped

The type of contract you are describing is common in many industries. They’re known as “full content agreements” in the airline industry for example, and they’re a continual source of tension between the distribution networks and travel agencies (who want these rules) and the airlines (who would like to be able to sell cheaper on their own direct channels). The same thing exists for hotels etc

I guess the question boils down to whether Amazon can be considered to have a monopoly position in the indirect distribution of the specific type of goods being considered. I imagine that might be possible for books, not sure about other goods
Tether, which is the most used so-called "stablecoin" (As its value is pegged to the USD) is extremely seedy at best and has had brushes with the law already [0] or is outright a Ponzi scheme [1] and plenty of people arguing for/against crypto know and have said so already.

Personally, even though I'm a proponent of cryptocurrency in general, I wish it'd disappear in spite of any short and middle-term calamitous consequences on perceived value if that means one less "dumbed-down club" (Using dang's words) when it comes to discussing crypto.

[0] https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2021/attorney-general-james-...

[1] https://www.singlelunch.com/2021/05/19/the-tether-ponzi-sche...
There was a similarly nasty thread on the llvm-dev list recently. I wonder if it was this Stefan Kanthak who started that thread.

EDIT: it was! https://groups.google.com/g/llvm-dev/c/rHqbxHuHxVY/m/J8Qommz...

EDIT2: the lesson to be learned here is that Stefan might be sharp enough to know great stuff about compiler codegen but if he wanted to make an improvement he is going about it all wrong. It's hard to understand his motivation here.
I want to make a snarky comment relating this to other more controversial actions of the CCP, but it would be against the rules.
Cryptocurrencies love discussing their decentralization plans in their Telegram and Discord chats, deploying on AWS/GCE.
I was ready to go all-in on manual grinders. But their supply chain completely evaporated in the pandemic, and I could not find one I wanted anywhere. For months. That ended that.
It’s not artificial scarcity, it’s outright fake scarcity.

The total supply of Bitcoin is 21,000,000 coins. However, every single coin is 100,000,000 individual assets.

21,000,000 sounds pretty finite. But 21,000,000,000,000,000 sounds a tad less finite. The price of Bitcoin relies on the fundamental false premise that it’s scarce.
How does that affect the whole ransomware, regulation etc side of things?
>> What I don't understand about the crypto remittances argument is how the people sending and receiving them are supposed to convert them into spendable currency.

For all the harsh words you posted without evidence, thankfully you've at least admitted you don't understand much.

Your premise is that cryptocurrency is not "spendable currency" which is simply false. I pay people in hyperinflationary environments in cryptocurrency variants with low transaction costs and fast speed, and they in turn directly spend it on physical goods like food.
we enjoy being nurtured by marketing moguls who will tell us what will Solve All Our Problems

I don't think we do enjoy that, at least not once we're experienced enough to understand that it's all lies designed to sell us stuff rather than actually help at all.
He can't blame other that himself for commiting suicide.

We should stop worshiping this kind of people. He has the option to join another team. One of the thousands of scientific teams not directed by a psycho and working on millions of interesting problems waiting to be solved. To leave and do other things was also an option. You can have a really fulfilling and happy live without being a scientist (Is more probable in fact).

People with suicidal tendences had deep inner problems that didn't started necessarily in the university. Some are attention suckers, manipulative professionals that need to assume the protagonic role, idiots that decide to jump by a window to avoid facing their first real conflict in their lives.

They dream about to punish papa, mama, the evil teacher and the cruel world that apparently owed them a career in science. They smile with the idea of everybody attending their funeral in a rainy day with sad faces in dread. The main motivation behind most (true) suicidal people is collective punishment.

Some people can choose to feel miserable for the rest of their lives when this happens. Other will be wiser, break the endless stream of bullshit and refuse the role of punished. Both groups will eventually keep with their lives instead to feel guilty and miserable for an unexpected act that was beyond their acts or wishes.
I think it also depends on what you count as "use". The #1 function of Bitcoin is as a speculative asset.
> I know that nobody would ever actually do this

What gives you this certainty, especially given Poe’s law [1]?

[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law
What are the fundamental flaws you're talking about? (I assume throughput but I'll wait for your reply).

What do you mean by saying people fell for "this"? I assume you mean it's a scam but I will wait for your reply.
> The point is that every update of a scientific theory shifts old "why" questions to new ones. Science will not ever and does not aim to provide an answer to the ultimate question of why anything exists at all

I don't see how any of that is relevant.

The examples I gave are so definitively answered that we can derive the relevant laws mathematically, and prove that they must apply in all universes with the necessary properties. I've provided such a derivation in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27336901

There are many other examples along these lines in science.

Even if scientists tomorrow decided that some variant of string theory is a more accurate model of the world than quantum field theory, it wouldn't affect these answers.

There's no aspect of the explanations of inverse square laws or conservation laws that have had their answer undermined by updates to a theory, or are less explanatory because we e.g. don't know the origin of all existence.

Science has definitively answered "why" questions in those cases, and many others.
And if you want an overkill coffee grinder, get a Kafatek Monolith, or a Weber Workshops model.
The thing people also overlook on point 2 is that if cryptocurrencies and blockchain tech take over the traditional financial system, that doesn't mean bitcoin, or even etherium, did. In no way is bitcoin a bet on blockchain tech; people just tell themselves that story because it feels better than gambling on crypto trading cards. Nothing wrong with gambling on them, either; just don't say you're "investing."
This all falls apart if bitcoin isn't a scam. The burden of proof lies with those accusing it.

Additionally, there is no "silent majority" in tech that think it is a scam; the author has invented this.
Right. The hilarious volatility and scams are imo much less interesting than this.
a) Where is there a requirement for "multiple peer reviews" on git?

b) What is the longest chain? How do I determine if the longest chain is in Gitlab, on my computer or my coworker's computer? Where does the pull request go?

c) How do I indicate that I have approved a pull request in git?
2012 model MBP is the most repairable macbook I owned.
If the questions have no effect on crypto's adoption, why should the claim that "crypto is worldwide" have any relevance?

If it does have relevance, then the questions do in fact matter.
You can extend the lifetime of your espresso machine quite a lot by using calibrated water.
what features from bc do you need? Have you seen calc (the calc package in debian/ubuntu)?
This, this is a scam: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1SL Notice the 5x supply increase without a corresponding 5x in economic efficiency. Bitcoin is what it is. It's worth what people think it's worth. Just like gold. Gold has minimal practical use in real life but it was used as a type of money off and on for 5000 years.
this = blockchain + proof of work / proof of stake , in my comment. The crypto currencies are a requirement to fulfill the Byzantine tolerance. They need to have value in order for the incentives to make sense
I've been asking for similar clarification on other comments. I think this whole thread has become useless.
Given how the lab-leak hypothesis was treated initially and subsequently, a reasonable person must at least consider the possibility that this was not a naturally occurring virus.
Naomi Osaka faces default from Grand Slam for refusing to speak to media
Where is the "indisputable evidence" to dispute the claims of the article?
Well-presented in the OP.

Dumb question: It was not clearly instruction-set specific; could Terra compile to webassembly? Would one want to?
> These are 3D virtual world environments and people are using (VIRTUAL CURRENCY) to build an online economy. They are trading property, buying virtual artwork and creating galleries, setting up clubs and meeting spaces, etc.

What you're describing here is Roblox (2006), which was launched 2 years before Bitcoin was conceived, and has attained a market cap of >$50 billion without any cryptocurrency nonsense. Or Second Life (2003). Or RuneScape (2001).

Cryptocurrency doesn't enable online trading with virtual currency -- if anything, it's dramatically _more_ difficult to use than either real plastic, or virtual currency sitting in a SQL table.

What it enables is theoretical trust in a shared ledger (handwaving that a Sybil attack isn't attempted by any of the massive mining pools); but this trust is assuming you're a computer scientist capable of auditing the clients and contracts. Yet, even professional programmers have lost hundreds of millions of dollars worth of crypto with programming mistakes and security flaws in their smart contracts and clients! If even professional crypto software developers can't take advantage of cryptocurrency's supposed benefits, how are the players of an online game supposed to?

The answer is of course that they have to relegate trust, in the same way that online shoppers relegate trust to Visa/Mastercard. The important difference being that only Visa/Mastercard guarantee your funds are returned if you're defrauded.
Where does one draw the line here? Isn't it possible some day traders are just quicker at noticing trends that are typically the domain for long term trading?

I don't trade very much at all, no disrespect intended.
That US household net worth is falling despite the fact that real estate prices and stock prices are near all time highs.
An NFT is ... a digital receipt that “money” flowed at one moment in time. The referenced digital artwork or something is only referenced by an URI. That is ownership? Seems a very transformed concept to me.

My supermarket gives me an NFT in paper form every-time I buy something.
are you seriously advocating for a complete lack of ethical awareness on the part of engineers? Pretty sure Volkswagen engineers went to prison for interfering with emissions software so precedent is kind of not with you here.
The nice thing about Bitcoin is that it doesn't have a jurisdiction or location[1]; you can solve some problems in some places via a functioning government, but Bitcoin solves some problems in all places simultaneously.

[1]: this is not to claim, as some do, that it is unregulatable, although it may be.
> The point of my comment was that OP's claim that all crypto profits come from someone else's pocket is false.

Yes, but your comment didn't contradict the OP's claim. The fact that an investor in cryptocurrency may not make a profit doesn't contradict the claim that all profits made by crypto investors come from later crypto investors.

And this is only similar to stocks superficially. Yes, some stocks don't generate an income, but a stock is claim on the company's equity and non-distributed profits are automatically integrated into equity. In a well-functioning market, the market price of the stock will adjust accordingly. Therefore it makes no difference whether the profits are distributed or not. What makes a difference is whether the underlying business is profitable. This is not to say that the stock market isn't susceptible to bubbles and speculation. Of course it is, but what sustains a stock's value is not speculation but an underlying business activity.
Where did the data for this table come from? Checking Pb-208 (a memorable double-magic nucleus), it should really not be shown as undergoing alpha decay when none of the major ENDF tables show that. There is an unsourced remark on Wikipedia that this might happen, but given the half-life, I do not think scientists have ever measured a single such decay... so probably not best to include it. And if one spot check shows a mistake, how many more are there? It's a big table and ENDF data files are not pretty things....
Asking questions is stifling conversation?

And making blind assertions and veiled insults is not?

The claim was made. Its relevance should be determinable.

That aside:

- Gravity model of trade.

- "Research: How Far Will Consumers Travel to Make Routine Purchases?" https://blog.accessdevelopment.com/research-how-far-will-con...
> It's a revealing bit of contemporary criticism, but it comes across as a bit naive, as if the author somehow expected something different from an author of popular spy fiction and was disappointed.

Well, John le Carré had already published at least 4 popular spy novels by the time (1968) this critique of Fleming was published.

I, for one, think it's fair to expect something different when other contemporaneous authors were doing something different.
1 = x

1/100,000,000 = x/100,000,000

"stacking sats" is a common phrase so it's not really a secret that a bitcoin can be subdivided. In fact, a lot of bitcoin supports would support people learning this fact.
> they serve the ad that advertisers are willing to spend the most on.

I guess my point is - why spend any money on me with these specific ads? They're not going to have any positive outcome. How many leftists get shown a Trump ad and are like, "Hell yeah I'm gonna donate/vote for Trump!" - it can't be any amount that makes it worth it...
The best consumer goods are generally the ones where the design has persisted unmodified for decades. It works, everyone uses it, nobody's improved on it, serviceability is reasonable relative to the essential complexity, and it hasn't been cost-reduced into garbage. "New model" always comes with the worry: What did they fuck up this time?

Anything "professional", "military", etc. comes with the potential downside of it being someone's job to maintain and service it. Qualitative differences usually come with trade-offs - and if it's not your job, it might not be better to try.
This was posted here previously [1]. I'm just going to repost what I said about it last time [2], since my take on it hasn't changed. The lab leak hypothesis seems plausible, but this is a bad analysis.

-----

Disclaimer: I didn't read much of the analysis you linked. I'm not a virologist, but I do have a PhD in Bayesian Statistics.
As a general rule, I don't take this kind of analysis via repeated repeated repeated repeated repeated repeated repeated application of Bayes' Rule with somewhat-to-completely arbitrary probabilities at each step very seriously. At all.

It's a kind of gish gallop [3] with additional window dressing purporting to wrap it all up into one easy number. From a probabilistic point of view it ignores any dependency between observed facts, which is a serious issue but not necessarily the most damning one.

This particular case is even worse than usual. According to a quick Ctrl-F-aided skim of the document, the author doesn't identify a single fact that increases the probability of zoonotic origin, which is extremely suspicious. If every single available fact in a complicated issue points to the same conclusion that's probably because you are messing with your facts, not because that's how things actually are.

After noticing the one-sided-ness of the Bayesian updates I rolled my eyes and closed the tab.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25965751

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26129558

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop
I use a CSS [0] to style the rendered output from markdown-it [1]. It works pretty well for me.

[0] https://github.com/sindresorhus/github-markdown-css

[1] https://github.com/markdown-it/markdown-it
Did Pfizer Fail to Perform Standard Animal Testing Prior to Clinical Trials?
His claims are false.

Bitcoin has more social benefit than any other technology. Money is technology that runs our society by allowing us to trade our time between each other. Sound money that can't be diluted or stolen away by a few benefits everyone. It's not only more fair money, but it also allows perfectly efficient markets and saves the environment by not incentivizing overconsuming.

Bitcoin is not used for money laundering, gambling, vaporware etc. and is not particularly well suited for those. His claims are not based on actual data.

Bitcoin is decentralized. Bitcoin nodes which protect the monetary policy are run by users. It's not possible for anyone to weaken the currency by forcing users to run a weaker version of the software.

Bitcoin actually solves the problem of central bank monopolies. It is money, it is a currency, it is a store of value. His claims are simply false.

He just doesn't understand that it takes time for Bitcoin to stabilize at a certain value. It takes time for people to switch to a better money.
> she wants to protect her mental health

quite reasonable
When I was a kid I had a winter tanker helmet form soviet army. It was super cool thing and my dad I used to put it on every now and then to have some fun. Now at some point I'm hoping to have enough money to buy that ejector seat- It'd be an ultimate item at home or in a office!
It's flagged because it's flame baiting. It's posting opinions and acting like it's representing the "tech world". This is just some unknown twitter account
Turbinia
I heard that systems like this were designed when there was a point in time(this may just be erroneous and such a time never actually existed) where keyloggers were more common than RATs, so government websites would often have this requirement due to the higher probability of access from public computers(library, etc), since that was also a point in time when fewer people had their own at home.
It’s both. It’s not a scam in a sense that it is a store of value(digital property) to a small degree. But a scam in a sense that it can’t power every day transactions or day to day needs etc
First, the exchanges aren't in the UK and do not follow any regulations.

Second, even the exchanges are manipulating.
"Centralisation" in the context used is synonymous with monopolisation.
Their are authors I generally enjoy that sometimes write terrible pieces. They just tend to do it less often.
If you don’t believe that there is value in a distributed self replicating Byzantine tolerant state machine, that’s fair, everybody is entitled to their opinion.
basically piracy bad, bittorrent bad, ok lets ban bittorrent.

edit: downvoters, look, you're supposed to swap 'piracy' with [insert bad thing about cryptocurrency] and 'bittorrent' with your favourite cryptocurrency of choice.

capeesh?
Is Mozilla Songbird so forgotten now?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songbird_(software)

Is the reason Firefox is called "Firefox" forgotten? It was "Phoenix", but the name was taken. So it was renamed Firebird. But _that_ name was taken too.

Always check someone else hasn't used your name first. Always.
Creators of content controlling that content without the need for big corp involvement, which can be corporations yes, but also the little people. This could be access/distribution, royalties, licensing, and more.
Being discussed here also:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27333059
That doesn't make sense for the same reason individuals should negotiate.

The market is currently incredibly hot, which drives up average wages. But a good company will make a sensible offer on the low boundary with a willingness to go up. Then if someone offers you 4k more at least that sets me a marker.
Another sad consequence: this will fuel conspiracists...
I am essentially pasting an old comment of mine: The Internet was always something where demand--and desired applications--were vastly over capacity and capability. From the moment computers were networked, more people wanted to do more things over those networks, and both infrastructure and underlying technology had to grow to barely keep up (or, in fact, could not keep up--many long desired applications only became feasible in the 2000s or so). This does not resemble the history of Blockchains.
Is there an explanation for the answer in kalk? Seems buggy

It seems like an expression like "1 * 10%" in kalk is computed as if it means "1% * 10%" => "0.01 * 0.1" => "0.001"
Wut? The plots are fairly trivial and predictable. Bond movies are schematic movies with completely average performances.
The only inflow is people sending money to exchanges, as the tokens being traded and created have zero intrinsic value.

This is not the case commodities, currencies, equities or property. Those things have value outside of the market itself, while cryptocurrencies basically do not. They are in practice only used for trading.
> My point was that more devices exist behind NAT than come bundled with a stateful firewall, hence NAT protects more devices.

The popularity of a mechanism does not necessarily correlate with the effectiveness of its security. The fact that we're using IPv4 with NAT+SPI versus IPv6 with SPI is simply an accident of history.

If IPv4 had been designed with 64-bit addresses, or even 48-bit ones (like Ethernet MACs, which we still haven't run out of), then NAT probably would not have been invented, and we'd be using 'simple' (SPI) firewalls (see Cheswick 1994).

> […] but I wouldn't trust it as much as the security of a non-routable network.

Non-routable networks are not more secure than routable ones with SPI; at best the two are equal IMHO. Non-routable networks may actually be worse because of a false sense of security: all it may take is one end-point compromise and the enemy is one the other side of the moat.
I don’t have these answers for you, it depends on the project.

How do you know that the exchange you’re using buys bitcoin on the same blockchain as the exchange I use? Because they said so?

When’s the last time you downloaded the whole blockchain for any coin and verified the whole sequence of blocks from the very first one? I certainly never have. But I regularly have the whole chain for git projects on my machine.

Point is it’s the same data structure. Bitcoin’s innovation is in how blocks get added, but it’s not as revolutionary as it looks from the hype. Read the original paper if you don’t believe me, it’s very well written and incredibly approachable
As I got older the more I appreciated static typing and expressive type systems. To each their own.
Considering that almost all legitimate users have been priced out of the market due to ever-increasing transaction fees and increasingly draconian regulations (often stricter than for non-cryptocurrency) and the resulting interoperability issues...

Yeah, I think it's safe to say that the primary use of cryptocurrency nowadays is as either casino chips or a money laundering mechanism. The economics no longer make any sense for anyone else.