skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Basically you just ask for a varying amount of Bitcoin based on the current value and immediately turn the Bitcoin received into US Dollars. Coinbase is a good example of a service that makes this easy.

As an example, you want $10 for a widget. At 10AM that might be .001 Bitcoin, at 1PM that might be .0015 Bitcoin. You still get your $10. If there is a Very Bad Event, then that $10 widget might cost 7000 Bitcoin, you are still getting your $10.Or close to it.

Generally your big risk is the value of Bitcoin falling through the floor in a matter of minutes and your system (or third party provider) failing to keep up with such a change.

To answer your questions.

1. No. Bitcoin's value fluctuates pretty wildly and there's dozens of things that could cause the currency's value to implode. I think the challenges and risks for Bitcoin are different from government-backed currencies, but it is by no means immune to a crisis (has already had a few).

2. No. I'm sure some organizations and individuals would prop up Bitcoin. But there's no central authority with policy-making power acting on behalf of Bitcoin.

Generally I think Bitcoin is going to make it. There's a lot of interest in the currency from the financial sector, and a lot of money flowing into companies that deal as service providers for the currency. Basically, enough people have a vested interest in it that it is worth taking seriously. But that's just my guess at the moment.
The Gates are quite correct that we shouldn't ordinarily worry too much if some of the aid is siphoned off into government corruption. But while if 2% of the money goes into the creation of some official's new manor that isn't too bad, there are much worse things that money can go to.

In the Great Lakes Crisis[1] the perpetrators of the genocide in Rwanda were charging aid organizations for access to the the refugees they controlled. They were using the money to try to buy enough weapons to re-conquer Rwanda and finish what they had started. Most private aid organizations wisely decided they weren't willing to pay the genocidaires off, but the UN was willing to and the army of the new Rwandan government ended up invading to stop them, touching off the Congolese civil war.

Paying for access to refugees can also turn refugees into a de-facto lootable resource that can help sustain conflicts the same way that diamonds can.

Corruption in stable states isn't a huge problem for aid (development is another story), but it's interactions with aid are much worse in unstable areas.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Lakes_refugee_crisis
I'll just leave this here: http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/430318/Foreign-aid-spent-on...
The New Orthography
Where did he say that there was no poverty? "Look at the progress we've made" is a far cry from "Ok folks, we're done here".
"For now we will only consider transactions that conserve wealth, so our transaction rules will decide how to split up the pot of X+Y total wealth."

Economics is not about redistribution of wealth, it is about human actions that generate -- or destroy -- wealth.

Wealth, in economics, is not a quantity of money, it is some set of valuable goods usable in producing other goods or to be consumed.

In fact, every voluntary transaction by definition creates wealth, because it brings the goods (being transacted) from an individual who values them less to an individual who values them more -- and vice-verse.
State of conference and meeting rooms
> That's one of the biggest flaws of current economics, their models are not accurate.

Some are more accurate than others. This isn't a flaw BTW, rather an indicator of how complex the problem really is.
I've had several of them in my home server for many years. It gets heavy use from 1 or 2 users (which as far as the server and drives are concerned is not "heavy use"), and has never had any issues streaming any content, from MP3s all the way up to raw Blu-ray files.
Many consider WfWG 3.11 a massive beta test for some of the improvements (in the networking mainly, but in I/O handling chunks too) planned for Win95.

IIRC Windows ME, or Windows Yuppy Flu as is got unofficially renamed[!] was never supposed to happen: the cunsumer transition from lagacy Windows to the NT line was originally supposed to happen with Win2K but for various reasons (MS were not ready for it, and neither were the app/game vendors) this didn't happen, so they botched together an upgrade to Win98SE so they had something new to sell to that market until XP happened (by which time everyone (MS, the users, and the 3rd parties) was more ready to transition).

[!] after the nick name for the debilitating-when-real illness misunderstood by many and that had a reputation for being faked by certain classes of people who thought they worked too hard (most of the yuppie types who were genuinely ill probably had hypertension/stresss related disorders due to lifestyle, but those did't sound as "cool" to have) which has bouts of chronic fatigue as its main identifying symptom
What are you basing the "double to triple" speeds comment on? I haven't found anything relevant to that point.

Notably, in the United States, speeds do have the chance to climb that much (if not more) due to shifting monopolies and pressure from incumbents.

But world-wide? Doubtful. Additionally, are you considering the fact that much of this shift is not likely to take place in the mobile space, where usage is exploding and likely to dwarf any hard-line Internet usage in the coming years?
There are only $1 trillion cash/coins in circulation. Everything else is debt. http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h41/current/h41.htm
That's more or less exactly how my wife (then girlfriend) got this MacBook. Except replace "aging MacBook Pro" with "2004-era eMachines tower from Walmart". I gave it to her in 2008, when it was still a fairly decent machine, but that junky eMachine was already junk. I had actually forgotten about that old computer until I actually spotted it in some of the photos I was recovering over the weekend.

And for what it's worth, last Thursday, before all of this happened, I had brought up off-site backups, with Backblaze in mind.
Hard drives work great for multi-megabyte files on non-portable devices. Why pay a premium?
I assure you it's greater than 0.49%. It's not like programming is devoid of conversative Christians [0], for example.

[0] not that you're necessarily in that demographic, but it's probably the one most likely to oppose contraceptives.
Surge pricing means a less risky consumer product
I'm not the OP, but:

Securely-encrypted data is supposed to be indistinguishable from truly-random data --- this is the widely-used definition of security for encryption. If laws are in place requiring that a user reveal any decryption keys upon a court order, then a truly-random file will "look" encrypted and so you may be ordered to provide your key to decrypt the file. Of course, it is truly random, and there is no key, so you would be in contempt of court. Indeed, assuming secure encryption, there is no way to prove that a truly random file is not actually encrypted.

In an extreme case, where the state outlaws secrets entirely, possession of truly-random data will look like you are attempting to hide secrets.
True, but the alternative vision is that we cut out the USD<->BTC exchange process entirely. For instance, I could get paid in BTC, then I go to Target and pay for their goods in BTC, whereafter they keep the BTC. But Andreessen Horowitz wouldn't like that, of course.
Female Founders Conference
Nope. From Northwestern University, and I've often ended a quarter with no idea whether I'll get an A or a C.
Agreed, boring is definitely a value judgement and as such kind of inappropriate.
'Sex with Glass' Uses Google Glass to See Everything ... And Record It
Everything You Need to Know on TOR & the Deep Web
Depends on your current situation.

If you are a young professional, I think its a great step, because now you are really forced into doing/finding something you are passionate about. Or going to solve a problem you will develop a passion for.

I am currently in this situation. Didn't get a job after college. Because I prefer to be jack of all trades. This perspective helped me dive into something I really want to work on, the Enterprise space.

Now I am in a job with a big company. I am unfit because I think too entrepreneurial. But I am absorbing all the information here, and taking advantage of the position to learn about the enterprise.

I think its a calling for me to work harder, double up on developing my product on the weekend, after work.
Is this life real or a simulation?
Ok, after converting to MTBF the numbers make more sense: An AFR of 0.9% means a MTBF of 968947 hours (111 years). An AFR of 3.2% means a MTBF of 269346 hours (31 years).

I guess an MTBF of 31 years is plenty for your needs. Thanks again for sharing the data.
Super fast porn. And kittens. The internet loves kittens.
Nothing is more fun that listening to economists argue about economics. Programmers have nothing on them.
I have just released http://selfstream.io - a platform for event organizers to host and live stream their events. Right now making a negative $25 for hosting, without counting a small ad campaign on Google Adwords.
reverse sexism is still sexism.
No, there are other things about Bitcoin that are highly desirable from a merchant's perspective even ignoring fees.

1. There are no unilateral charge backs with Bitcoin and

2. You don't have to worry about keeping sensitive customer information safe. It is impossible for you as a merchant to be responsible for fraud against your customers due to stolen credit card numbers if they are using Bitcoin. It has the same properties of a Cash transaction minus the in person requirement and the potential for easy theft. In fact if you do it right it would be nearly impossible for dishonest employees to steal money from your business.

Taken in isolation it's easy to say well that isn't such a great advantage but when you look at Bitcoin vs anything else on the whole the advantages are clear.
My own impression (having extensively used mind maps, outlines, and whatnot) is that it depends a lot on the subject at hand and the user. Some people are better wired to use mind maps effectively (I'm not one of these, but I find them handy on occasion) and others fare better with lists (org mode or a notebook for me.)
Except there really is 'growth'. We have computers and cars instead of papyri and horses.

Technological advancement, quality of life, etc..., IS growth...
Is it possible to hyperfocus the way Feynman did when you have ADD though? From my limited understanding, the 'hyperfocus' is really just a focus on smaller things, not sustained obsession with specific, difficult problems.

I recognize many symptoms of ADD in myself, but most of these have to do with boredom. I just cannot sit through a lecture if it doesn't capture my interest, and I get distracted. I find it difficult to converse sometimes, because an argument is one I've heard once too often, or it's with one of those people where I can finish most of their sentences.

But when I find the right topic, I can easily spend days obsessed with specific things. In fact, it seems that it's all or nothing for me. Is that a characteristic of ADD?
I remember raising money for a UN programme that provides neonatal care to African mothers. The programme has an excellent track record of reducing infant mortality in newborns' first thirty days, when they are most vulnerable.

A common form of pushback I received was along the lines of "why save them now if it just leads to them starving later." I even had one Pacific Northwest environmentalist openly challenge the programme's net benefit on environmental grounds, though most dressed it as a chicken-or-egg dilemma between neonatal support and general poverty reduction. Still, a spade is a spade - the concern that saving people now will put undue strain on finite resources tomorrow is real.
I think percentage points is the right metric here. Spending a lot of money to cut down the frequency of a rare occurrence doesn't make sense, even if you can cut it down by 100x.
This is awesome, congrats to all the hosts! It is more common now to see female founders of non-tech companies but hopefully this conference will inspire more women to get into starting tech companies and furthermore, will inspire younger women to pursue more technical degrees, namely CS.
You can already get paid in BTC too [1] so you don't even have to convert USD -> BTC in the first place. Why wouldn't a16z like that? Wouldn't they love that? If BTC becomes that commonplace then all of these companies they're invested in will skyrocket.

[1]: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20140113006504/en/BitP...
A mind map is a database for tracking things when you don't know what is going to be tracked and/or how they are going to be related. You start with some central interest and then add pieces that relate. Good mapping software allows you to link relationships between distant relationships, associate minor bits of data, and easily change relationships between nodes.

I once started a job supporting several pieces of software on several servers in a new environment. I took disparate notes on this and that, but it would have been easy to lose specific pieces. So, I created a mind map of (Company Name), created nodes for server names and softwares. Then, I started filling in things for access information, credentials, installed software, useful scripts, etc. Eventually, I got a map of the whole system of a dozen servers, installed software, how they worked (and didn't), etc. I became the go-to guy for those systems because I knew them so well.
bitballoon.com is your best bet! Deploys are via Git and every commit is there, so you can revert to a previous state if u mess up. Plus if u dnt like git, deploy via uploading a zip of the site.
List of Math Paradoxes
I'm with Philip K. Dick on this one...

“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."
No, you are making your opinion seem far worse by not even bothering to explain your reasoning.

You make it sound like you would be a victim. HN may be biased in it's views by and large but if you don't even try to explain yourself, you give the impression that you are even more ignorant of others views than the ~100% are of yours.
Elm 0.11 - easily embed in HTML and talk to JS
Argentina adding controls for overseas (online) purchases
Khan Academy does something like this with their ACE editor as well. Theirs goes a bit further by allowing you to pause and edit the code (for the tutorials in their CS area) and then when you replay, the code reverts back to what it was before you paused. Would be nice to see something akin to that implemented here as well. At the very least, being able to edit once the "movie" is over would make it far more functional.
Use a single-dino Heroku to receive the latest push and have the dino deploy the appropriate folders to S3 for you?

I don't know of an existing way to do that but it would be a negligible amount of code + amazon sdk in most languages.
Or a tool can suck up more time than it saves.

http://xkcd.com/1319/
There is no chance for fair debate if you avoid it because you assume there won't be a fair debate.
2014 - India Startup Landscape
How To Host An Awesome Conference Panel
I think pretty much the entirety of AWS would qualify. - https://plus.google.com/+RipRowan/posts/eVeouesvaVX
Really? A scrape from a story on Yahoo.com?
Postfix those URLs with ?share=1 so us without Quora accounts see something useful.

[0] http://www.quora.com/Human-Behavior/What-are-some-stupid-thi...

[1] http://www.quora.com/Human-Behavior/What-are-some-stupid-thi...
On any payment network the fees are a result of the risks of credit card fraud. Card processors can't cut fees without losing money. It's an efficient market as it is.
> benefactors

This is not really a charity. The BSD team is providing great value by keeping the project alive to 'benefactors' and non-benefactors alike.

As long as they keep the promise of delivering the software with high quality, I don't think people should bother them with minutiae. Their time is better spent on working on the software. My two cents.
I helped my in-laws set up a new iMac last fall (an upgrade from their ancient Dell tower running XP) and made sure to install Dropbox. Sure they may never use it, but it's only a matter of time until I need to do some form of tech support, and it's going to make my life immeasurably easier.
That is truly excellent.
Goodbye, Sprockets: A Grunt-based Rails Asset Pipeline
Creating art using only circles in CSS
It should be noted that you don't need to be a current startup founder to apply:

Are you a woman interested in starting a startup? Then we'd love to have you at Y Combinator's Female Founders Conference, where female founders we've funded, along with some distinguished guests, will share practical advice from their own experience.
So you're saying it's interesting that you assume your point will be shot down? Assuming the reception of your viewpoints HN does nothing except suggest that you don't really have any reasoning at all, but want to frame yourself as a victim.
What software did you use? No offense to the creator of this, but this seemed a bit buggy. I love the idea of being able to save easily to a variety of places, like Google Drive, but I would honestly be willing to try it out for a few bucks a month if it was super-intuitive and helped me get more organized. I'd prefer web-based though.
Yeah, you described pretty much the worst case scenario where everything goes through fiat. But once Bitcoin penetration is significant and people start getting paid in Bitcoin (already happening) and accept it as payment (also already happening), all these exchange fees go away.

With fiat you're stuck with the fees forever.

Also your 0.5% assumption is wrong. You can place a buy ad on LocalBitcoins and actually buy at below the market rate. Also, coinsigner.com.
> because education in some Nigerian cities is far superior to most U.S. high schools.

Do you know that for sure though? Isn't it possible that you are drawing a conclusion on a far away place based on some events/cultural ideas that are provocative enough to make it to your screen as a topic of interest?

Isn't that the same thing you are complaining about, just in reverse?
So what's the term for something shadier than fiat currency, something not backed by collateral NOR by government dictate? It should convey all the scorn directed at "fiat currency", but moreso.
Enjoyed playing with blocksim. Have you considered aiming for a different market than matlab/simulink? One thing that simulink cannot do well is dynamic, reconfigurable networks of components (for example, UAVs or autonomous vehicles, but also game sprites). For this purpose, some smart people (not me) at UC Berkeley developed a language called SHIFT and applied it to platoons of automated cars and trucks back in the mid 1990s. I rewrote it as a ruby DSL that generates C code: https://github.com/vjoel/redshift. It would be fun to have something like that in a browser, with animations.
Alain Damasio on the NSA: "701,000 Hours in Custody"
>I suppose I'm one of the 0% (rounded) who disagree with putting contraception in this list.

That's because access to contraceptives has been shown to provide a wide range of benefits. From reducing poverty, prevention of STDs, increasing maternal health (from unsafe abortions, and increasing inter-pregnancy interval), reinforcing women's rights and allowing for proper family planning.

>When this gets thrown around, it makes me feel like an outsider in a programming community where I otherwise agree with probably everything else.

You should, because there really is no downside. The only objections to contraceptive access are religious in nature, and we can safely discard those. It's kind of like being on the Jenny McCarthy side in the vaccine 'debate' - sometimes you're just wrong.
Thanks for the tip. I'll configure it like this.
Would you mind reporting these bugs to the official GitHub issue tracker? That would help fixing them and improving the app.
My experience has been that the upload speed is slow no matter what connection you are on. They claim not to throttle, but I am skeptical that you will get more than 1.5 megabit anywhere. I couldn't.

They actually ship a bandwidth test that goes to their datacenters. If I ran multiple instances of the test at once I got 1.5 megabits for each instance. It's not a bandwidth or capacity issue...

If they documented 1.5 megabits I wouldn't complain, but claiming one thing and shipping a product that throttles, whether explicitly or implicitly, is obnoxious.

I did a restore recently and was pleasantly surprised to get 9 megabytes/sec down so that is much better and restore speed is a higher priority.

However if I had to upload the entire data set from scratch I would stop using Backblaze.
With the volume you must buy in, why not buy direct from the manufacturers? I imagine they could supply you with their OEM pricing and product packaging, which seems like it would save money? Or is it a strategic reason like not getting stuck with one manufacturer?
You are correct: nothing is secret, nothing is safe. The governments can, at will, access any computer in the world, any file, and document. The only thing that stops them is the law, and as Snowden has shown, that's an oft ignored constraint.

So, one must assume that given enough interest, the governments will be able to compromise any system, and any data on these systems.
Every HN thread on Bitcoin is 30-50% debate over what "fiat money" means. Every single time.
Similar idea (using just the initial letters of words) was used in various Hebrew works. Such kind of text was usually called megilas sesorim (i.e. a "scroll of secrets").
Were you ordering closed over ears? If not, try sticking to those, and generally ones that reviewers say offer good isolation (in-ears like Shures are great for this).
Barebones Mustache Renderer in 60 lines
New Year, New CEO for GitHub