skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
You've actually got it wrong.

Debt-based "ripple" bitcoin (or any other similar system) is not fully interchangeable; you can use BTC IOUs within ripple and pass them around, but you cannot send an IOU across the bitcoin network. This is different than with fractional reserve; where 'created' money can be withdrawn, spent, and intermingled without any differentiation.. I can spend a fractionally-reserve created dollar at walgreens as easily as a bona-fide fed printed dollar bill.

You cannot send a Ripple BTC to my bitcoin-qt wallet, nor will bitpay/coinbase/blockchain or any other blockchain-audited wallet accept a btc-iou.

edit: i basically agree with your other point that the the stated reasons in OP are not the reasons bitcoin will likely undergo s-curve adoption
JS, as with all languages, has its flaws, but I found JS the most accessible language for me. It solved the problems I was interested in, and so putting up with its issues was fine for me.
Great article on the subject: http://www.sfweekly.com/2009-12-16/news/the-worst-run-big-ci...
This is awesome! Must have taken a fair bit of hacking to get working, given WhatsApp's policies.

Does anyone know if there are mobile apps based on Pidgin? Pidgin/Purple solved the multi-chat-client problem so well for the desktop, I'd love it to do the same on mobile.
Silicon Valley Holiday Parties Are What Wall Street Holiday Parties Used to Be
Try it on a VM like VirtualBox (free, OS X supported). Among the advantages, you get vastly superior hardware support, particularly with the trackpad.

Source: Running Debian Wheezy on a 2011 Air.

edit to add: Here's a quick list what running Debian on a VM gives you:

* Seamless full-screen linux with full hardware access (e.g. GPU)

* Advantage of native OS X drivers (particularly the amazing trackpad -- linux drivers crippled it in my experience)

* Instant, lag-free transition between linux/OS X -- e.g. four-finger "swipe" gesture between desktops.

* Shared linux/OS X filesystem ("shared folders")

* Zero hassle with linux wifi, custom bootloader hacks (rEFIt), etc. VirtualBox has first-class support in Debian -- everything's just an apt-get away: https://wiki.debian.org/VirtualBox
Couldn't help but notice:

>Makes fortune in "shareware"

>Uses Sublime Text, unregistered version
You're dead wrong but even if you werent the fact that it worked for thousands of years completely invalidates the author's point.
The von Mises Institute interpretation of economics, which is actually a Rothbardian interpretation, dislikes inflation. A lot. They miss gold.

The problem is that gold is not like bitcoin, and bitcoin not like gold.

Suppose we all switch immediately to a gold standard. When the value of the currency rises too high, more people will go and mine it. When the value of the currency falls, fewer people will mine it. So in actual fact a gold standard resembles the behaviour of an Australian-style (yes, Australian) monetary policy, which is having money supply governed by a central bank who have an explicit inflation target.

Meanwhile, the supply of bitcoins is fixed. For all time. And they are destructible in a way that gold is not.

Bitcoins will always be irreversibly leaking from global supply. People throw their harddrives away. Delete the files accidentally. A high energy particle strikes some cheap RAM and flips a bit, rendering a bitcoin worthless, and so on.

While in theory the supply of bitcoin is meant to reach a fixed limit, over the long run it will peak and thereafter always be shrinking.

Not expanding. Not even holding constant. Shrinking.

Nobody's economics says that a shrinking monetary base is a good idea.
I remember when I was messing around a few years ago I had to use a bootloader called refit, which is now forked to refind at http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/

It's been too long since I used a Mac, but if someone wants to donate a recent Macbook to me I'm happy to get Debian set up and blog about it ;)
Bitcoin mining is wasteful compared to some of the alternatives, solving useful hard problems as proof of work (Primecoin) or using a proof of stake system to remove the need for relying so heavily on energy wasting mining (Peercoin).
Greetings fellow nomad! :)

I try to schedule the best fun at the end so that I depart the location when it rocks - it serves for both having fantastic memories of the place and filling me with a lot of energy. If I can, I try to take a few days off just before moving and I always book flights on Friday evening/Saturday so that I have enough time to sleep through jet lag (with the support of melatonin supplements etc.) Sometimes this is challenging if I am for example in Japan, then the next day I need to be in France and three days later in the US.

I spend the beginning of a visit by strongly focusing and adapting to the new environment until my performance is steady; then I can have some fun.

For example while in the New Zealand I did all the crazy stuff in Queenstown in the last week - skydiving, nevis bungy, cliff jump, rafting, mtb downhill, milford sound kayaking etc.

I am sure you can find some things you are looking forward to at any place that would in turn energize you ;-)
There is something to this apparent lack of reflection around technology. See the 3AM Magazine interview with Peter Ludlow:

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/what-the-hell-are-we-doing-he...

I wouldn't mind having the job title of “thinking about what the hell we are doing here.” Perhaps Hired is holding an auction for this very position.
All of this makes me wonder how long currencies themselves will last. Effectively a monetised market is using currency exchange to compute a function where the currency serves as a variable to store the current state of the computation.

From this perspective, money is one of the first distributed computation networks, however given the mass of networked computation available there may be other ways of solving the distribution problem that have even less friction than a currency.
"There are three eras of currency: Commodity-based, politically-based, and now, math-based." - Chris Dixon,
History shows pretty clearly that actively managed currencies with a central bank are far more stable than for example gold or bitcoin. I don't see how you can argue otherwise.
I don't want to divulge any details though the notice about the project's release was already posted on hacker news as well as on reddit ;-)
> We're supposed to the LSD experimenting, sandal wearing, authority deriding rebels.

> We're threatening our own existence.

Erm...no. You are choosing to define tech as either " LSD experimenting, sandal wearing, authority deriding rebels." or in another post as "autistic male industry.". This is a definition that works for you. I choose not to be associated with any of these definitions. I have no interest in either craft beer or comicon or any of those typical American nerd past times. Hell, I studied high school in a sub culture where girls were automatically supposed to be good at Math or CS.

My point is that it ultimately is just a job. Go do the job. There will be people who will stereotype you and make you part of some club whether you choose to be part of that club or not. Ignore them, help the world if you choose to.
> everything the NSA collects is by default shared with your government

So... does that mean that even though the NSA supposedly doesn't analyze American communications, their colleagues in other countries can?

Also, while it may be reassuring for Americans to know that US IP addresses are not allowed in searches, how reassuring is it for Canadians, Mexicans, Germans, Australians, etc? Does this not harm both our reputation and business interests?

In general, this article assumes agents of the government are, and will continue to be, law abiding and respecting of citizens rights. Is that likely to remain the case in 20, 50, 100 years? How about after a major terrorist attack?
I've been working remotely with flexible hours for several years now, and I've come up with a couple things that help maximize productivity:

- Work in blocks, and don't let email/browsing/meetings interrupt that

- If you can at all help it, don't check email or have meetings until your first block of work is done. Getting up and right into work is very productive and minimizes impulses to procrastinate. If you check email, you get in a different mind space and can easily start following rabbit trails until you suddenly realize most of the morning is gone and you haven't done any real work.

- I work best early in the morning or late at night

- Having a specific item in mind is key when starting a block of work. Either one item that will take the entire period, or a list of smaller things to knock out.

- Figuring out what to do should be done at a separate time from actually doing the work. If you start to work, and then have to figure out tasks, you tend to procrastinate. If you know what you need to do, you can get in the zone and just do it. Spending a block on planning also allows you to get in the zone with that. If you try and context switch back and forth between planning and doing, you end up being far less productive.

- A mid-day nap gives my brain time to rejuvenate and get ready for more work. It also lets me get up early and stay up late (to hit my most productive times) while still getting enough sleep.

Based on that, my typical schedule has become:

- Get up early (say 6am) and work until noon in a solid block. That 6 hours is more productive than an 8 or 10 hour day when you have to go in the office, since its uninterrupted undistracted work.

- At noon, take a break, hit the gym, grab lunch, and take a nap

- After the nap, spend the afternoon catching up on email, integrating with the team, and polishing off any loose ends from the morning block

- If I feel I didn't get enough done in the morning block, I've got another uninterrupted stretch from 8 or 9 until midnight I can spend on work, research, or hobby coding. At that point, its easy to keep coding -- in fact, I'll usually have to make an effort to stop myself at 11 or 1130 so I can have time to relax and read a book, so my brain can calm down and stop coming up with ideas while I'm trying to sleep.
Oh man that sucks. Good thing nobody cares about your close minded egotistical arrogant thoughts anyway.
The full reserve nature of Bitcoin is often overlooked (or misunderstood - more below):

"The [Bitcoin network] enforces the strictest deposit regulations in the world by requiring full reserves for all accounts. This is the digital equivalent of the Chicago Plan or the Austrian 100% reserve gold standard. Under this regulatory regime, money is not destroyed when bank debts are repaid, so increased money hoarding does not cause liquidity traps, instead it increases real interest rates and lowers consumer prices. This is a self-stabilizing cycle as higher interest rates incentivize hoarders to invest, while deflation increases consumption due to the wealth-effect on hoarders. The BCB prevents lending out of deposits so that it can properly target money supply and avoid the destabilizing effects of commingling the credit and payment systems."

Others have argued[1] that fractional reserve Bitcoin banks can exist, but the point is that the Bitcoin protocol itself is full reserve. Yes, intermediaries may try to convince consumers to entrust their Bitcoin wallets with them, but that hasn't gone so well[2]; Bitcoin "banks" that fool around with fractional reserves are playing with fire.

UPDATE: Coinkite, which describes itself as a "Cryptobank", addresses[3] the need to have verifiable, full reserves: "You should also be wary of bitcoin startups which claim some percentage of your coins will be in cold storage. If you do not know the details of the public keys used, it will be impossible to know if this is true, or if they are using those amounts as play money. With Coinkite, you can audit where all your funds are at any time."

[1] Of course you can have fractional reserve Bitcoin banks http://www.cnbc.com/id/101048897

[2] List of Bitcoin Heists https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=83794.0

[3] Coinkite FAQ https://coinkite.com/faq/money
"Only Google is investing in truly groundbreaking research." guess author hasn't seen http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/
The lightbulb moment for Voevodsky was apparently realizing that CoC (used in Coq) is almost entirely equivalent to HoTT. So in a sense, Coq actually is kind of based on HoTT, just using different words. (One could maybe say there is a homotopy between CoC and HoTT?? IANAM.) The library they are developing is basically a restatement of HoTT in Coq using more familiar terms/concepts.
Show HN: jquery.pixelate.js - convert your images to cooler pixelated images
Novice question : Can in say 10-15 years, Bitcoin's crypto standards be bypassed using raw computing power? How about 20 years?
Right on! The established theories are all 100% right.
I think that Bitcoin is ultimately less secure because it has two single points of failure: the design and the implementation.
@gahahaha

All historic gold currencies I know of were actively managed: Debasement, re-pegging, temporary abandonment to pay off debts via inflation - all were common practice under gold standard.

None are (should be) possible with Bitcoin.
That is just you having an unreasonable expectation of others. Techies do not have to conform to your notion of what they should be.

I should add that your attitude towards what financial workers are or should be is pretty close minded as well...
Simply the people who aren't taking the shuttles. People like all my friends in SF who aren't in tech.
If we use it as a means of exchange, whatever it is, we're going to call it currency.
Unless blockchain transaction fees become so high that BTC-denominated IOUs become the standard.
> we just have a large car pool

I think there are people who would complain about a car pool too. Really, they just want the tech people to stay out, and anything that enables them to move in (like carpools or buses) is going to get complaints. The buses are a visible symbol, but not the root cause.
Dart Canvas Demo
Most of the "techies" aren't sandal wearing hippy programmers.

They're carpet-baggers, here for the perceived easy money, because Wall Street gorged itself to bail-out destruction.
You're right that BTC IOUs on Ripple are not fully interchangeable with BTC. However, neither was gold interchangeable with USD, yet each gold note was redeemable for gold. This did in may ways restrict the level of fractional reserve banking, and certainly the direct issuance of money. (Many suspect that the US did not have nearly enough gold to redeem all its currency, and that this was a primary motivation for leaving the gold standard.)

The process of redemption of BTC IOUs for actual BTCs on the Ripple network resembles the process of redemption of gold-backed USD for gold. Similar to gold being transmitted over a different network than gold-backed USD (the former being physical,) BTC backed notes would be transmitted over a different network - something like Ripple.

Fractional reserve banking can also be practiced directly with BTC, simply by lending against deposits.

(explained here: http://www.cnbc.com/id/101048897)
I think maybe being specific makes things easier. His pay is clearly denominated in dollars and delivered in bitcoin.

I also think "paid in dollars" mostly means the pay is denominated in dollars, but I can see that being a language usage thing.
How do I disable search and browsing history in chrome?
I'm a saavy computer user, but found this shockingly difficult.

I want to completely disable browsing history and search data. No autofill searches on drop downs, or when entering URLs, blue links, etc.

I know I can clear the history, but I want a more permanent solution.
The problem is that you can move "forward" right through your optimal balance and not realize until it's too late that you've become just like everyone else, and are therefore commoditized, replaceable. You might still be making a bunch of money, but you're well on your way to burning out, replaced by someone who still has a mission.
> for every article about the tech backlash, there's a top-rated HN comment dismissing...

That's not even a little true.

> ...dismissing the whole thing as a cheap ploy for page views.

Strawman. I didn't dismiss anything. It can be both a real issue and sfgate can be milking it for pageviews. The issue with housing prices (and the gentrification that follows) is most certainly a real issue. And sfgate is most certainly milking it for page views.
Of course any society has made and will make mistakes; that is the human condition. The USA seems to have a particular myth associated with its mistakes: that we're always getting better, that our system ensures problems get solved. Yet, there are more black men incarcerated right now than had been enslaved at any moment in our history. (Drug prohibition is a pillar of that edifice of injustice.) We stage elaborate, deadly pantomimes of "war" for no other purpose than the transfer of funds to defense contractors and thence to PACs. We give foolish, short-sighted bureaucrats carte blanche to search innocent citizens, their records, and their communications. What's the reason? Young people don't vote??!? Can we be serious? "Inverted totalitarianism" may be inaccurate or even silly, but at least someone is actually trying to figure out what the problem is.

A Panglossian defender of the status quo has ample opportunity to poke fun at us nuts who complain about it, especially if our complaints don't display due deference to the way things are. I don't actually have a "concrete" proposal, other than "all this bullshit? let's have less". I guess what I'd appreciate would be if the defenders were to take a slightly more nuanced, dare I hope critical, look at these institutions and processes that apparently require so much defense.
With this I'm in complete agreement.
Yes, exactly. A lot of the folks in this scene are just unlikable people. I'm "part of the problem", and even I don't like a lot of the startup people who I encounter on a daily basis in SOMA or the Mission.

If I have to put it into words, there's been a tangible shift from "let's do something interesting together with this cool new thing" to "how can I get rich with this thing?", and that transition makes everyone else feel like a tool for your personal advancement.
No, and I had not read that article, thank you. I do not know the law, if any exists, that allows that, although it violates most readings of the 4th Amendment.
How can you say any of that with a straight face?

We program the machines that affect society in ways that go completely against the ideals of counter-culture.

We are right-hand enablers of the man. Until we aren't needed, that is.
It feels like saying Bletchley Park just needed more diligent and loyal crib workers and they would have solved the Enigma.

Without Turing and the Bombe where would we all be?
The root of the problem is that much of the tech industry is strangely old-fashioned about doing business face-to-face. This means that places like SF where the density of tech people is well above-average will attract more tech migrants, and the price of housing will rise until the market clears -- with long-time locals priced out by tech companies that pay high salaries.

As long as tech companies are willing to pay the salaries they're paying, unwilling to open up shop outside SF, and refuse to consider allowing long-distance remote employees, the problem will continue.

Source: Please consider all the job openings you're aware of, and try to keep a count of the fraction that would be closed to remote-only candidates.
What if the mother is feeding a pair of non-identical twins (a boy and a girl)?
Without meaningful breakthroughs in attacks on the underlying cryptographic primitives, probably not.

If it's to be broken, it will most likely be due to someone finding a flaw in the way those primitives are assembled. In the nearer term, the main risk is people finding attacks on the implementation (in practice nobody uses 3rd party implementations).
What in the Fourth Amendment speaks to electronic communications? The Fourth Amendment speaks to a person, their home, and their effects.

Even things like postal mail do not technically fall under the Fourth Amendment. Rather, they fall under separately-passed Congressional law, and USPS regulations.

For instance, did you know that the addressee of a letter may authorize the USPS to open the letter in a sorting facility without a warrant, even if the sender was not asked?

Likewise, did you know that if you send a first-class letter but forget to put a stamp on it, that it is technically "unsealed mail" and a USPS employee may open the letter to inspect it for mailability and postage determination, and also "as expressly permitted by federal statute or postal regulations"?

So certainly the Fourth Amendment was intended to keep the government out of your personal stuff and away from your person, but everything else that people attribute to it is done without much evidence. Even in the real world there's not as much Fourth Amendment protection to communications than most people realize, once they leave your house.
I've found that I am a morning person and that I (thankfully) can remain engaged and productive for long hours of programming. I usually work from 6am to 5pm four days a week. This gives me long, relaxing weekends to recharge for the next week.
I couldn't agree with you more. We need to step up and change the averages of this industry.

There will be many benefits if we do, for our society, for our industry, and for us too. In the meantime, you and I will be in the minority.

I was speaking a bit tongue in cheek about the lsd and sandals, but nevertheless believe we need to work hard to encourage a quilt of diversity: in style and scenes, approaches to the world and epistemology of learning, academic pursuit, politics, local business etc. I aimed to identify the low hanging fruit, where we're most of out to lunch. And the lack of women in our midst is certainly #1 on the list, imo.
There's a major difference. With Fiat, you're basically forced to use a bank, because that's the safest way to hold your cash. Every bank, however, is participating in fractional reserve lending, so you're also forced to take part - and the government is forced to insure everyone from potential losses.

Fractional reserve banking can happen with Bitcoin, but as a user, you do not have to participate. You can hold your coins in your own wallet and not have to worry about what your bank is doing with it. This means you can never lose your coins from a run on the bank.

Now, if you want to, you can loan your coins out with interest. Or you can give them to a bank and collect an interest rate. But when you do this, you're taking a risk, and you should assume any losses from this risk on your own, and nobody needs to be insured for it. If you don't want to lose your coins, keep them in your own wallet.
No. All modern crypto is designed to take at least hundreds of years to brute-force. Algorithmic attacks are what people worry about.
NSA speaks out on Snowden, spying [video]
> "Just another way to micromanage people."

I share the same sentiment. And I hate to be micromanaged.

In a previous job a manager actually admitted to me that agile was a means to get more control over the developers and approach software development more like factory work, instead of creative work. A few months later I decided to leave, cause I need some sort of creativity in my approach to work, and for creativity I need freedom, not constraints.
As late as possible. When you can no longer hold out. Try to be as scrappy as possible as competitive as possible and as economical as your situation allows.