Dissecting Ponzi schemes on Ethereum: identification, analysis, and impact - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.03779 <comment><USER4> This satiric white paper is really, really worth the read:

[https://ponzico.win](https://ponzico.win)

Written by a former cryptocurrency dev who later joined Lyft.

Some choice quotes:

"Context—and wide margins—are the bedrock of every white paper."

"We're living in a world where developers are Kickstarting Pets.com every week"

<comment><USER5> Author of PonzICO white paper here (proof: [https://keybase.io/cin](https://keybase.io/cin) )—thank you! Still optimistic about cryptocurrency but the impending ICOpocalypse does not bode well for anyone in the space...excepting satirists I suppose. ;)

<comment><USER4> Great to see your reply. I only came across your paper a few weeks ago, through fortuitous circumstances:

A very smart but non-engineering friend of mine was asking about cryptocurrencies, and - in trying to explain why i think ethereum's "improvements" over bitcoin are anything but - I directed him to read about The DAO.

He promptly rabbit-holed and came up an hour or so later with your gem of a paper.

So ... nice work! A sanskrit professor found, understood, and thoroughly enjoyed the paper. And then hipped his programmer friend to it :)

<comment><USER6> Straight question: do you have a good link for the main technical differences between ethereum and bitcoin?

<comment><USER6> OK - I've read the paper on arXiv - can see that ethereum (for better or worse) has smart contracts layered on top where as bitcoin does.

I seem to recall that there was another more fundamental difference at the blockchain level, was wondering whether there was any link for that ...?

<comment><USER4> re: blockchain differences: I hear that Ethereum is planning to move to proof- of-stake, rather that proof-of-work, but I don't have an opinion on that. There may be other salient differences I'm unaware of.

It's the 'smart contracts' that I think are foolish.

Replacing the legal system with code only makes sense if all of the following obtain:

(a) the code is 100% bug-free (b/c accidents cannot be rewound)

(b) all code-writers are 100% honest (their code does what they say)

(c) all contract participants are 100% perfet code readers (so as to not enter into fraudulent contracts)

(Strictly speaking, only one of (b) and (c) needs to be true).

None of these conditions will ever obtain.

<comment><USER7> And even then you haven't really replaced the legal system if you are dealing with any goods that exist _outside_ of the blockchain, since no matter what the "smart contract" code does, those ultimately need to be transferred outside the smart contract system and subject to the legal system.

(And, actually, even transactions entirely within the blockchain may trigger legal consequences, so even for them you've merely supplemented, rather than replaced, the legal system.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _More specifically, we search the Ethereum blockchain for contracts whose bytecode (which is always stored on the blockchain) is similar to that of some known Ponzi scheme. We use the normalized Levenshtein distance (NLD) as a measure of similarity between two bytecode files._

...

 _This search resulted in further 55 potential new Ponzi schemes, not included in our original collection of 137 contracts._

It's so awesome that it's possible to do this and that it actually works!

</comment><comment><USER9> > To this purpose, we count the number of transactions from July 30, 2015 (the > date of the origin block in Ethereum) to March 6, 2017 (the date when we > extracted the transactions), obtaining a total of 16082269 transactions. > Since we counted 17777 transactions related to Ponzi schemes, we have that > Ponzi schemes only constitute ∼ 0.05% of the transactions in the Ethereum > blockchain.

</comment><comment><USER10> I've been sort of amazed at how brazen people are in cryptocurrencies about pyramid schemes. They'll even call themselves ponzi schemes. And how many people will join them, knowing that it's a scam, just assuming they won't be the last suckers in.

<comment><USER11> People have argued that cryptocurrencies themselves are pyramid schemes - <USER2> people who start mining early win out, and the people who join later to speculate on the currency have less and less chances of striking it rich.

(Obviously this is based on the view of cryptocurrency as purely speculative, not as an actual _currency_ with which to buy things, but even now, it's still pretty difficult to buy a lot of things with Bitcoins.)

<comment><USER12> Those people don't understand what a pyramid scheme is.

The acquisition of bitcoin by newcomers in no way enriches earlier adopters, as in a classic pyramid scheme. Miners continually invest huge sums in capital equipment with the hope that the price continues to rise. If it does not, they are toast. This is not gambling or a Ponzi; this is just a risk/reward business decision. It's the exact decision that the capitalist makes when she decides to build a new production line at the factory.

Buying bitcoin early is like investing early in any new technology: it could be worth nothing, or it could go bananas. Many alt-coins have trickled down to very low prices over time or stopped functioning altogether. There are no sure things in this space, even for the early adopters.

<comment><USER13> > The acquisition of bitcoin by newcomers in no way enriches earlier adopters, > as in a classic pyramid scheme.

Of course it does. Bitcoin used to be at $1, now it's at $1,xxx. What happened in between was a massive influx of newcomers.

The difference to, for example, the stock market is in the "underlying value". If I buy some stock and it's price collapsed the next day, I'm still entitled to my share of future profits etc. If the company is sound, I have lost nothing.

A ponzi scheme's underlying value is only the future growth of the scheme itself.

I'd say the jury is still out for bitcoin et alt: how much of the growth is being fuelled by speculation, and to what extend is that speculation actually speculating on future speculation?

<comment><USER14> >Bitcoin used to be at $1, now it's at $1,xxx. What happened in between was a massive influx of newcomers.

That argument does not follow. An equivalent argument is:

"A house in San Francisco used to cost at $100k, now it costs $1000k. What happened was a massive influx of new people to San Francisco."

What happened is that the utility of a house in San Francisco changed and no one was willing to sell below $1000k.

<comment><USER15> > "A house in San Francisco used to cost at $100k, now it costs $1000k. What > happened was a massive influx of new people to San Francisco."

Seems pretty reasonable to me.

<comment><USER16> Except that it isn't--it's a bubble and at some point that bubble is going to pop. We already went through all this in 2008 and people have already forgotten the lesson! It's amazing how fungible the human mind is. "This time it will be different." That's what every communist who ever lived thought, too. This time, the stupid scheme of wealth transfer will work perfectly if we just can pass a few more laws and control a little bit more of people's behavior, we can build our everlasting, perfect utopia.

Real estate crashes when the last marginal buyer is priced out of the market. California real estate has crashed 2-3 times just in my lifetime. It will crash again and whoever bought at the top will be bagholders. It is the immutable law of bubbles.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The paper points out that many of the Ponzi contracts on Etherium have exploitable bugs. Some can be induced to compute too much and thus run out of "gas", aborting. Some allow an attacker to change the party who gets the fees. Some can be stalled out with a suitably constructed transaction.

Making Etherium contracts a full byte code execution engine was a big mistake. That form is too bug-prone and led to the DAO debacle. It should have been something simpler, such as a decision table.[1] That simple declarative form can handle most useful business logic, but can't loop. It's always decidable and is easy to hand-check.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_table](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_table)

<comment><USER18>
       full byte code execution
       engine was a big mistake

An even better scheme would have been proof-carrying code: a contract should have been a pair (c, p) where c is the program expressing the contract (in a Turing complete language) together with a proof p in a suitable program logic (for total correctness) that proves that c does not do a bad thing (e.g. consume too many resources). It's easy to check that the proof p is valid for c.

<comment><USER17> Too complex for the purpose.

<comment><USER18> Yes and no.

The proofs could be auto-generated for decision table based contracts, so a decision table could be a convenient DSL for simple contracts, without preventing more complicated contracts. The average contract writer would never need to see the full language or be exposed to proofs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think the vast majority of coins and tokens are near worthless. People invest in them because other people invest in them, in hopes of seeing returns like early investors in Bitcoin and Ethereum did. There will be a correction at some point.

But that's not to say that a blockchain with functionality aside from store of value (like Ethereum) couldn't pan out and enable a whole new universe of use cases for trade, company formation and ownership, and contracts in general, on a global, super-fast, completely automatable scale. It could be yuge - <USER3> since no-one knows what will happen and it's still early days, the current valuation of Ethereum is also highly speculative. If it works out though - maybe the current valuation of Ethereum will look cheap in retrospective.

<comment><USER20> I can see the use of blockchains and networks like ethereum, but it seems like the majority of use cases could run on a private network. I still don't see the appeal of a single public network. Why not a dozen or a hundred? That's why the value or Ether seems so useless to me. There was a backlog of transactions lasting hours yesterday and this is supposedly just the beginning.

<comment><USER21> So far, there hasn't been any killer use case for ethereum yet. Everything it does, can be done more efficiently outside of the ethereum network. Some say that its "decentralized" on ethereum though, but this isn't true, because a lot of the inputs to ethereum contracts originate from a centralized source. For instance, if you want to make a smart contract that sends you 100 eth based on the outcome of a basketball game, the centralized source where you get the trigger on who won the game, is the centralized source your contract has to trust. It doesn't really matter whether the contract was executed on the ethereum network, it is still vulnerable to centralization. Whats the difference between that and just making it work on bitcoin by having a service sign a multisig transaction sending you btc if the basketball team wins? The only way something can truly be decentralized, is if all the actions in the smart contract are primitive actions based within the network itself. For instance, if y address receive 1 eth, send x address 2 eth. Neither action requires trust outside the ethereum network.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> So, is this new "Ponzi" going to support Racket, or only plain Scheme?

</comment><comment><USER23> Also check out "The postmodern Ponzi scheme: Empirical analysis of high-yield investment programs", Moore et al 2012 [https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0aea/69ae7be6f3ff215dc81828...](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0aea/69ae7be6f3ff215dc818285b8ae085941acb.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER24> Calling ponzi scheme a "ponzi" is pretty epic.

This is also very honest: [https://medium.com/@cincinnati/the-ponzico-white- paper-8baa9...](https://medium.com/@cincinnati/the-ponzico-white- paper-8baa98b19b97)

</comment><comment><USER25> > The possibility of creating "trustworthy" frauds that still make users lose > money, but at least are guaranteed to execute "correctly".

So.. Gambling. It's like academic clickbait.

</comment><comment><USER26> I will take my chances.

[https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1944495.0](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1944495.0)

</comment><comment><USER27> Programmatic contracts lead to programmatic due diligence, great idea!

</comment><comment><USER28> All cryptocurrencies are ponzi schemes. The early adopters get richer because more people come into the market later. Eventually the increasing values due to more interest will have to stop, whether because people lose interest or because everybody's already in the pool. At that time whether the late comers are totally screwed or just don't make a profit like the early adopters depends on what exactly happens.

Cryptocurrencies are the baseball cards of a new generation of wealthy libertarians (they have no inherent value like a useful commodity, and they have no backing of a powerful government. They just have value because some people decided they are valuable.) How badly the next financial crisis effects those people will determine how much cryptocurrency values are adjusted.

<comment><USER29> > They just have value because some people decided they are valuable

This is the basis of any currency. Backing of a powerful government is a mixed blessing.

<comment><USER30> Is it though? All the meaningful currencies in use today, that I can think of at least, are blessed and regulated quite heavily by governments. Maybe this is a bit of a theory vs real world question.

<comment><USER31> The part where a government manages a currency can be bad because it can be mismanaged, which could lead to things like hyperinflation.

The good part of the government management is the part where they investigate instances of counterfeit, but that part's already taken care of with cryptocurrencies.

<comment><USER32> A _major_ good part of management (whether by the government or a semi-public reserve bank) is that it can have adjustible monetary policy (add/remove currency to/from circulation to promote growth or prevent inflation).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google Takes Aim at the iPhone with Android "Silver" Program - <AUTHOR> https://www.theinformation.com/Google-Takes-Aim-iPhone-Silver-Program

<comment><USER2> I can't read past the paywall.

[http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently- apple/2014/04/google-c...](http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently- apple/2014/04/google-creates-new-pro-android-campaign-to-better-compete-with- apples-iphone-keep-samsung-in-line.html) has excerpts but there's scant actual information.

Key points:

* No more Nexus

* If you're in the Android Silver program, no bloatware or no un-uninstallable bloatware.</comment>


Polychord - <AUTHOR> http://polychordapp.com/videos.html

<comment><USER2> I love this app! If you haven't tried it yet, you should check it out.</comment>


University of Calgary paid $20K in ransomware attack - <AUTHOR> http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/university-calgary-ransomware-cyberattack-1.3620979 <comment><USER2> "and we did not want to be in a position that we had exhausted the option to get people's potential life work back in the future if they came today and said, 'I'm encrypted, I can't get my files,'" said Dalgetty. "We did that solely so we could protect the quality and the nature of the information we generate at the university."

Maybe your dumb asses should protect things by having offline backups instead?</comment>


The case for drinking as much coffee as you like - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/11/the-case-for-drinking-as-much-coffee-as-you-like/265693/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> "If you are having trouble sleeping, cut back on your last cup of the day."

I wish! The older I get, the less caffeine I can have in any form, and the earlier in the day I have to quit drinking it. At this point, being 47, even a decaf (which has tiny amounts of caffeine; see [https://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20061011/decaf-coffee- isnt-c...](https://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20061011/decaf-coffee-isnt- caffeine-free)) coffee after 10 a.m. affects my sleep.

<comment><USER3> My anecdote is that coffee definitely has something besides caffeine that affects the central nervous system. I tend to quit drinking coffee few times a year, and I replace it with heavy tea drinking.

No amount of tea makes the withdrawal symptoms go away. After a week, the physical effects (headache, tiredness) thankfully fade, but nothing seems to help with the depression that comes in a month. Due to that, I haven't really gone beyond a month of not using coffee -- it just doesn't seem worth it.

I would find the people who think that coffee is not a narcotic amusing if they weren't so fucking serious. I really wish there was more scientific data on this. Seems like all studies just focus on the caffeine effects.</comment></comment>


The Bitcoin Halving, Explained - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/ryze-crypto-digest/the-bitcoin-halving-explained-d1dd1c7833f0 While governments around the world are using quantitative easing to print money, Bitcoin is set to undergo quantitative tightening.
The Halving reduces the reward that miners receive for confirming transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain, and subsequently, Bitcoin's rate of supply will be cut in half.
Here's a deep dive I wrote on what the Halving is, and why it matters:
https://medium.com/ryze-crypto-digest/the-bitcoin-halving-explained-d1dd1c7833f0 <comment><USER2> This paragraph neatly sums up the "gold" myths of Bitcoin:

> This means that things that are hard to create, and whose creation can't be > faked, have value. Bitcoin, like gold and other precious metals, has both of > these properties. Mining Bitcoin requires large amounts of electricity and > computational power. In fact, the Bitcoin network uses a similar amount of > energy every year as the entire country of Venezuela.

Actually a distributed ledger is not the same as a rare metal:

1\. Unlike gold, Bitcoin can cease to exist. If nobody keeps the blockchain alive, it doesn't exist any more. Try to make gold disappear from the ground!

2\. Unlike gold, the operators can decide to increase supply. Or reduce it. By orders of magnitude. It's a code change. Try that with gold.

3\. Forks are abundant. Good luck trying to invent a new element.

4\. The economical benefit of Bitcoins is much too small to explain the energy use. It can't even keep up with the transaction count of a small town. The energy expenses can only be justified by expected future return. This is actually where Bitcoin is somewhat comparable to gold as a valuable. It's just that gold actually has real-world uses besides acting as currency. So we know the price for gold won't go to zero. Unless of course we find ways to defy our current physics!

<comment><USER3> I'll provide counter arguments to these statements.

> 1\. Unlike gold, Bitcoin can cease to exist. If nobody keeps the blockchain > alive, it doesn't exist any more. Try to make gold disappear from the > ground!

To kill the blockchain, one would have to destroy every single copy. Try finding all of the thousands of copies of the blockchain archives around the world and make them disappear.

> 2\. Unlike gold, the operators can decide to increase supply. Or reduce it. > By orders of magnitude. It's a code change. Try that with gold.

The "operators" cannot arbitrarily decide to increase supply. It would require a coordinated effort by developers, miners, exchanges and other node operators. As past attempts to hardfork the bitcoin blockchain have shown, this is extraordinarily difficult.

The value of gold can theoretically be decreased by orders of magnitude which is effectively the same thing as increasing supply. Through a coordinated effort by buyers and sellers the value of gold could decrease 10x tomorrow. This is also extraordinarily difficult.

> 3\. Forks are abundant. Good luck trying to invent a new element.

Yes. Bitcoin is different than gold in this respect. I would argue this is one of the advantages that digital currency has over a physical currency. Forks encourage innovation. A fork of Bitcoin does not affect the main chain.

> 4\. The economical benefit of Bitcoins is much too small to explain the > energy use. It can't even keep up with the transaction count of a small > town. The energy expenses can only be justified by expected future return. > This is actually where Bitcoin is somewhat comparable to gold as a valuable. > It's just that gold actually has real-world uses besides acting as currency. > So we know the price for gold won't go to zero. Unless of course we find > ways to defy our current physics!

The market disagrees with your first statement. If there is no real economic benefit to Bitcoin, then the market has been operating irrationally for many years. While this is possible, it is becoming increasingly difficult to justify a conclusion that the market is irrational.

Bitcoin also has "real-world" uses besides currency. There are timestamping functions and tokenization protocols that provide a benefit beyond currency. These are all digital uses, but very real.

<comment><USER2> Oh I don't want to kill Bitcoin. I'm just saying it can disappear. Gold can't. Similarily, gold miners can't just agree to alter supply. It's impossible for them to increase supply ten times across the board.

You claim there is a "main chain" in Bitcoin as if it were a physical fact. That's one of the myths! It's called consensus protocol for a reason. Forks are part of the protocol and sometimes splits require manual intervention to stabilize the network.

The scarcity of Bitcoin is arbitrary. Markets being irrational for years is nothing new. As long as there is influx of capital, it keeps going. Like gods or other fiat currencies, Bitcoin depends on people believing in it to exist.

I agree that there are other uses for Bitcoin but they are marginal. The high transaction costs of bitcoin mean that if we ever wanted those features badly enough, a service with less energy consumption would be established.

<comment><USER4> >Similarily, gold miners can't just agree to alter supply. It's impossible for them to increase supply ten times across the board.

An asteroid containing gold can be mined to drastically increase the supply. A gold asteroid could just hit Earth today and we could increase the supply with current technology.

Yes this is a silly scenario but it's possible and just as likely as Bitcoin randomly inflating its supply. Both can pretty much be written off as impossible when discussing supply of Gold or Bitcoin.

<comment><USER2> It is a category error to equate cultural properties with physical properties. Gold is universally scarce, durable beyond our imagination, and perfectly fungible. While there are other elements with comparable physical properties, cultural artifacts like Bitcoin can never qualify.

The guarantees of Bitcoin rely on technology (algorithms, Internet- connectivity) and society (self-interest). If any of those things fail (say a broken hash, a network partition, or just disinterest) Bitcoin can't fulfill its promises anymore. But one can believe in them holding for a little while longer. If others do the same, it keeps going.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Essentially, Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme with deflation built into the algorithm so that scarcity is artificially created over time to maintain the illusion of value.

<comment><USER6> How do you feel about the Dollar in comparison? It appears to me that one constantly devalues the units held, like an invisible tax on the poor, while the other appreciates.

<comment><USER5> The US Dollar can be adjusted as needed, according to the needs of society (such as population growth and economic expansion). It's backed by the force of an entire military, and is also backed by an interconnected mesh of dependencies across an entire global economy.

If the US government fails so spectacularly that the US Dollar loses value, do you honestly think that the internet will even be working at that point? And without functioning internet, there won't be anyone mining bitcoin, which means that control of the blockchain will be easily seized by whoever has control of the largest mining pool. This would very quickly result in complete devaluation of Bitcoin (but not before whoever took control would be able to cash in a LOT of money).

If we had truly decentralized peer-to-peer internet (think ham radio over mesh with millions of portable devices or something) with truly peer-to-peer DNS and full encryption, and no centralized control, then MAYBE bitcoin might have a chance if the government collapsed. But we don't. So (at least for now), the idea that Bitcoin would function as a viable currency in that scenario is a giant joke.

It's true that the US Dollar is inflationary (while Bitcoin is "deflationary"), but that is by design to drive economic growth. Simulations (and history) have shown that with a slightly inflationary economy, people are more likely to spend their money instead of holding onto it. This causes a constant cycle of spending and earning, driving more goods to be created, and causing more people to do more work.

Deflationary economies, on the other hand, often result with the economy stagnating (because people are more inclined to just hold onto their money instead of spending it). You could argue that this is better (because people like the idea of their money gaining in value over time), but to make that argument, you would have to prove that economic growth is a bad thing.

<comment><USER7> Alternatively, perhaps Bitcoin is just another payments system with a different set of tradeoffs. Namely - it has a preset supply schedule that you can easily see, which won't be affected by political whims, or change at a moment's notice.

<comment><USER5> Sure, and the same could be said about practically every other crypto- currency.

As to the idea that it isn't subject to whims or political stability, I would argue that one merely has to look at the history of Bitcoin's price to prove that statement is false. Bitcoin's price is highly reactive to political news and random whims of the market (as well as manipulation by bad actors).

I'm not saying that crypto-currency doesn't have its place. I'm just pointing out that a lot of the fundamental principles that people swear by when it comes to Bitcoin are flawed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Posts without URLs get penalized, so I made your link be the submission. If you want to say something else about the article, the place to do that is as a comment in the thread.

</comment><comment><USER9> Short version: Bitcoin block reward halves every 4 years. Next halving is this May. Much speculation over whether the price will go up or down. Profits to miners decrease 50% if price stays the same.

<comment><USER10> > Profits to miners decrease 50% if price stays the same.

Nit: Revenue to miners decreases 50% if price stays the same.

<comment><USER9> Right. The cost of hardware and power is substantial.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > Like gold, Bitcoin has a fixed supply.

Gold may have a finite supply, but it's been mined for millenia and has slowly increased its supply rate over time, and will likely continue to do so in our lifetime.

In contrast, Bitcoin's emission which ranges from 2009 through 2140 is heavily tilted to the first few years.

Its final century from 2040 through 2140 accounts for only about 0.5% of emission.

The only point of the halvings is to be able to claim "finite supply". A constant reward would still have the yearly supply inflation rate (stock to flow ratio) going to 0, albeit more slowly. So crucially, supply would still be scarce, would be more predictable (time independent), more fair to late adopters, and be much closer to Gold's emission over our lifetime.

It would also avoid the inherent instability [1] of mining rewards dominated by transaction fees.

If we further consider the fact that coins inevitably get lost, then even a constant reward will yield a softcap of supply, where yearly emission merely serves to balance the yearly losses.

Unfortunately, practically all cryptocurrencies subscribe to the notion that early miners must receive greater rewards, even when they often already enjoy lower difficulty.

[1] [https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~arvindn/publications/mining_CC...](https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~arvindn/publications/mining_CCS.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER12> I think the stock to flow model is a little silly. S2F and price are both coincidentally exponential, it's like the old pirates vs global warming joke. That being said I do believe there's a chance the halvening isn't fully priced in since this will fundamentally disrupt the amount of sell volume.

</comment><comment><USER13> Doesn't Bitcoin need miners in order to continue to exist? Why would it possibly make sense to drive the reward for mining down to 0 asymptotically? At the end of that curve, doesn't Bitcoin cease to exist because it can't be spent?

<comment><USER7> Miners also receive transaction fees.

<comment><USER6> This is a crucial point. The idea with BTC is that as the block reward decreases over time, transaction volume (and therefore fee collection) would increase. This requires the network to be used more over time, which does appear to be happening.

<comment><USER14> Given that transaction volume is capped, fees may be very very high in the future.

<comment><USER7> There are several systems that would allow users to essentially batch settle (ex: lightning network), at which point fees could presumably rise significantly.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Apple Removes 'Time Remaining' Battery Life Indicator in Sierra 10.12.2 - <AUTHOR> http://www.macrumors.com/2016/12/13/macos-sierra-10-12-2-battery-life-indicator/ <comment><USER2> I've been using this feature for years successfully and with the understanding that if I context switch to something radically different the estimate would be wrong (in practice this meant waiting until it updated reflecting the new usage). I'm shocked that they think this is an appropriate solution to people complaining about battery life.

I find its removal very, very aggravating. My workflow is typically very consistent, e.g. terminal window open, iTunes playing, and a browser tab(s) or Xcode. It was useful to see "based on my current workflow, I have roughly 45 minutes of power remaining." It has always been accurate enough...

The percentage indicator means NOTHING to me, it is just as bad as the time indicator-- as most anyone with an iPhone can understand. How often does your 1% of battery last inexplicably longer than the previous 10%? I've had it last over an hour at 1%. WTF?

I also have found it to be a useful metric for seeing the condition of my battery or to help crackdown on rogue processes that are consuming too much power. E.g. "Why am I only seeing 4 hours remaining instead of the usual 6?"

I love MacOS, and iOS, but I'm really starting to hate Apple. Truly hate them. I feel trapped as I've yet to find a PC laptop I like as much as a Macbook Pro (largely because of the trackpad). I've been using Macs as my primary machines for 12 years... it makes me sad to feel this way but the "good" feelings I used to get seem like a distant memory.

<comment><USER3> I just bought a brand-new 2015 model 15 inch, which Apple still sells. Best laptop I bought, couldn't be happier. It's a lot less expensive, has all the ports, extraordinary 12 hour battery for me doing C++ in Emacs all day. Still has escape key for evil mode in Emacs. I thought about switching to a Windows machine, but I'm really glad I stayed with Apple on this one. I think time will tell on the most recent new models, and I bet Apple will address many of the complaints. Many people are not early adopters of any new release by any major manufacturer, specifically for this reason. The first iteration of major new designs by most super large companies are often met with a wide range of divergent opinions. I suspect Apple will be smart to listen to consumers and improve the next iteration of this current new model.

<comment><USER4> I've been using the same model, but I don't get 12 hour battery life. What is your brightness setting?

The 2016 seems to have a longer battery life and the screen is far brighter than the 2015 model which means one can run with the same brightness setting on lower power.

<comment><USER3> I agree that the screen is brighter in the new 2016. I never use screens at full brightness, it bothers my eyes. Emacs is very low power, so it uses a lot less battery than CLion or Eclipse, probably. That probably helps. I don't code to music, so that saves battery also.

Are you saying that 2016 has longer battery life than 2015? That seems contrary to the current scandal.

<comment><USER4> > Are you saying that 2016 has longer battery life than 2015?

Yes, that has been my reading and the review [1] confirms about 2 more hours than the 2015 15" model.

The brighter screen is relevant for battery use, because the laptop can run on even a relative dimmer setting with same brightness with perhaps even more battery life.

10.12.2 update seemed to fix problems for some people. Others were complaining not realizing high CPU of background processes. With new OS upgrade, e.g., 10.12.1 I do a clean install.

Incidentally, I think the 2015 model is _an outstanding_ unit and a far better deal than the 2016 model and great for most people. The extra battery life and smaller, lighter is important for me.

[1] [http://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-MacBook- Pro-15-Late-2016-...](http://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-MacBook- Pro-15-Late-2016-2-6-GHz-i7-Notebook-Review.185254.0.html)

<comment><USER3> That's a rather interesting conclusion the review has on the battery. If that's true (which would be great), I wonder why there is such a controversy going on about the batteries, if actually they last longer than the prior models?

<comment><USER4> I think it is true. The tables in the article that show power draw for different tasks and models is informative. They compare the 2016 15" with the 2015 15" for idle, WiFi, X.264 video, etc.

I think a lot of people with new laptops didn't fully understand that spotlight indexing and other things were going on in the background. Also, it seems as if 10.12.2 update two days ago seems to have fixed problems for some. There is a macrumors forum note with lots of replies confirms this for some.

I am a fan of fresh installs with each new OS release and I think that and using Safari and not Chrome, using Ghostery and Adblock Plus (or whatever), and some other things I do to take out unnecessary processes makes a difference for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> > Apple believes that the battery life indicator in macOS Sierra is ultimately > inaccurate and has led to some confusion about battery performance, and so > it has been removed in macOS Sierra 10.12.2.

I think that's the worst possible way to react against the new Macbook pro battery life complaints.

<comment><USER5> In fairness, the reports from this update are that they actually solved the battery issues.

<comment><USER6> but how would you know? what are you comparing it to?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you still need a time-remaining indicator, try Coconut Battery: [http://www.coconut-flavour.com/coconutbattery/](http://www.coconut- flavour.com/coconutbattery/). It's free and works well.

</comment><comment><USER8> The way they are going with feature removal, Apple products in 50 years will be slate tablets. Made of actual rock.

<comment><USER9> >Made of actual rock

Aluminum, actually.

<comment><USER10> Magical revolutionary slab of wireless aluminum. Pairing seemlessly with others magical revolutionary slab of wireless aluminum. Just put one atop the other and they will stack automatically.

<comment><USER11> With infinite battery life even...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > It seems Apple believes reports of bad battery life are largely based on the > faulty indicator

So to use a car analogy, it sounds like Apple means one of two things:

If I remove the MPG indicator from my car I can get more MPG out of my car, or If I remove the MPG indicator from my car I won't complain about its poor MPG.

Either way sounds stupid to me.

<comment><USER13> remaining battery isn't like MPG though, it's more like remaining range. The trouble is computer use patterns can be way more bursty than car fuel usage in normal conditions. The nearest equivalent to spot MPG (how does what I am doing now affect endurance) would be the battery used by individual applications, and I believe that's still there.

<comment><USER14> Doesn't everyone know this? It's still a useful gauge to have.

<comment><USER15> exactly, rather than remove it, if they must tinker, just add something like "At current usage levels you have approximately xxx hours of battery life remaining."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> According to performance tests and not just looking at battery life indicator 2016 MBP is not that bad

[http://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-MacBook- Pro-15-Late-2016-...](http://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-MacBook- Pro-15-Late-2016-2-6-GHz-i7-Notebook-Review.185254.0.html)

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm curious as to why not instead measure average battery consumption by each user to get a mean, and range which would allow a "range" of time to be shown (at the start this would be a much wider range of course).

The user could then adapt to this range because they know the usage the best. Considering the dynamics of the computer and how we use them a range would be much more suited to fulfill this type of feedback from the system.

</comment><comment><USER18> Incredible. One would have thought that this is a solved problem. Of course it depends on usage how long the battery will last - so what? It's not like OS can't determine the power spending trend and draw conclusions about approximate time left.

What is probably issue here is that Apple gets blamed for lots of things which are outside of their control. But it would be much nicer if OS advised customers how to fix these issues and get longer battery life. But yeah, removing indicator is easier.

        Sheldon: "Your fix engine light is on."
        Penny: "Yeah. I really should put a tape across it."

<comment><USER19> For what it's worth, iOS battery settings will list off suggestions for improving battery life, such as lowering display brightness if you keep it high all the time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Somehow I doubt that the percentage indicator is any better. At constant 100% (or 50%) CPU utilisation, tracking the percentage, would you see a linear graph going down, hitting 0 as the machine shuts down? I've never tested that but it would be interesting to see the results for different models/OS versions.

</comment><comment><USER21> Yesterday, with the new update my mac was shut down unexpectedly, I haven't seen any warning from the battery indicator :( I hope this is not a default behaviour.

</comment><comment><USER22> This is sad, if true.

<comment><USER23> It's true. Installed 10.12.2 update this morning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Why not just show the user how many mAh are left?

<comment><USER25> "Mah what? mAh battery is going to last how long?"

It would be a meaningless number to non-engineers. Sounds like we need smarter predictive algorithms based on previous usage patterns etc, not degrading the "average user" experience.

<comment><USER24> I see no difference between mAh and MPG in terms of ability to understand for most people. If we expect more of people, they can learn. If we constantly dumb things down, all we do is create a depressing economy where no one understands anything, and always has to have someone else fix their trivial problems.

<comment><USER25> Miles and gallons are all measures most people have a relative understanding of.

If I drive x miles I need y gallons. Easy-ish.

What about amps?

<comment><USER26> Are those LA miles or Wyoming miles? apple is dealing with users who see their car is rated 30MPG for highway and then complaining when they only get 10MPG in rush hour LA traffic.

<comment><USER25> Cars have 3 types of MPGs I can think of: -Instant -Average (over any given length of time) -EPA Rated.

I've never heard someone complain they get bad mileage sitting in traffic and not understand that instant mpg != EPA mpg for specific conditions.

This is why its strange that Apple removed this measure.

However, I am not sure what you are arguing. For displaying the mAh or for bringing back the 'Time Left'?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> they removed it because it's inaccurate and useless. if i start rendering some huge video then the time remaining goes down drastically. so it said 90 minutes, it now says 10 minutes.

useless.

<comment><USER10> But... That's logical.

It evaluates the remaining time using current ressource usage. It is "accurate". It can't predict how much time your rendering will take, it can't predict the future. But it does an accurate estimate of how much the battery will last under the _current_ load.

(imo, _current_ load is better than trying to compute the load _trend_ )

<comment><USER27> logical but still useless.

if a measurement like time remaining can change at random based on load and the load can change at random based on user behavior then why show time remaining at all?

if it jumps from 90 minutes to 10 minutes, what's the point of even showing it?

"okay now i have 10 minutes left"

it would be more accurate to say "you have 90 minutes left at your current level of cpu utilization" but i don't think that can fit in the menu

help me figure it out, i don't get why a user would need this functionality ever.

<comment><USER10> Because "you have x minutes left _at your current level of cpu utilization_ " has always been implied.

If user have forgotten that, it's no reason to remove it.

In fact there's rarely a reason to remove a feature if it doesn't cause issues.

Taking your own exemple of video rendering, if I begin a render and After Effect (or similar) says it will take 50 minutes to render, but the remaining time says I only have 20 minutes left of battery ( _implying "at the current load"_), I know I have to charge my laptop if I want to render the video.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Cool, reposted news from three days ago.

Just as dumb today as it was then.</comment>


How Do I Protect DIY Electronics from the Environment? - <AUTHOR> I'm looking to protect a piece of electronics that will be put in the Freezer and Outdoors. I've looked into Conformal Coating to protect the pcbs from Condensation. Is this a good solution? <comment><USER2> Your first line of defense will be conformal coating. There are various options here. Easiest to apply for DIY electronics would be in spray form (such as Electrolube HPA200H spray)

However, if you have an RF component and/or RF circuity in your PCB, you should be careful with conformal coating. As the frequency goes up and impedance requirements gets tighter, conformal coating becomes harder and harder to use, because it alters the RF circuit behavior. Also, obviously, you should not be coating certain sensors (pressure sensors, humidity sensors, etc).

Your next line of defense is your enclosure. Ideally, all your connectors should be IP67 or IP68 rated, and you should place your PCBs in an enclosure which is itself IP67/IP68 rated. This is usually achieved by using a gasket and designing the enclosure with a proper gasket opening.

If your device is going to be exposed to sunlight, you should make sure that any active IC in your system will not exceed its operating temperature. Metal enclosures exposed to sunlight will heat up considerably. You may want to think about a cooling solution, based on your power dissipation (enclosure with fins, etc).

<comment><USER3> And if it's a sealed container OP may want to consider a bag of silica gel desiccant. Depending on what else is in the box (or what the box is made of) they might want a vapour phase inhibitor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Conformal coating is good for protecting against crud on the circuit board in general, so yeah, it'll help against condensation. To be super sure, put the board into an IP68 enclosure with a couple of sachets of 'Do Not Eat', and use IP68 rated cable glands for all cables going into and out of the enclosure to make sure no additional moisture gets in.

</comment><comment><USER5> Believe it or not, I've had reasonable luck with JB Weld. Just make sure anything that might get warm has a little bit of heat sink poking up through the stuff.

Edit: Looks like you're aiming for an actual product release. There's no substitute for potting your circuit inside its enclosure. I'd look for a silicone based solution as you're aiming for large temperature swings.

<comment><USER6> Make sure you use a low odor silicone on electronics.

<comment><AUTHOR> Any reason why? Looking into acrylic, silicone, and urethane right now

<comment><USER7> Everything in the freezer with aromatics will add to the flavors of other things that are not completely sealed. Last thing you want is a frozen pizza to taste like silicone glue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Hi,

I've had good results with simple plastic cases, as long as a few rules are followed:

\- The case must have a gasket on its cover

\- Any openings must be on the bottom of the case (including antennae!)

\- Cable glands or waterproof connectors must be used on all openings

\- All cables must have a little slack, so they hang below the case and come straight up

\- Put a couple of dissecant bags inside the box

I've been using this for various DIY outdoor projects for years, like putting mikrotik routerboards, raspberry pis, arduinos, etc. outdoors.

Water will accumulate in all openings not on the bottom of the case, and air pressure changes will cause the box to "suck" this water in, no matter how tightly sealed that cable gland is. That's why the openings should all be at the bottom.

Just my 2 cents.

</comment><comment><USER9> Sounds like a question for electronics StackExchange. Let me know if you ask there, I'm interested in protecting a bike light I put together.

<comment><USER10> Or [http://www.reddit.com/r/AskElectronics/](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskElectronics/)

(Disclaimer: I am a moderator there)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is condensation a problem in a freezer? There is no moisture in the air b/c the temp is less than freezing, no?

Condensation happens when moist air hits a cool surface, how much power is your circuit consuming? You may not have a problem.

I have designed a number of telephony products (e.g. T1 repeaters) for use in outdoor environments, we never coated the circuit boards.

</comment><comment><USER12> Conformal coating isn't necessarily guaranteed to be rugged against abrasion and handling, so you may still need an enclosure. Also, as others have mentioned, not all components can survive the process. But it has the advantage of being something that a PCB house already knows how to do.

Along the lines of "do things that don't scale," household products such as Household Goop (aka Shoe Goo), silicone sealant, etc., work pretty well.

If you have one or two components that can't be coated, you can leave them off the board and solder them by hand after coating.

</comment><comment><USER13> Conformal coating will work. You could also use clear varnish, which is what they use to coat tesla coils.

<comment><USER14> The guy in this video says that conformal coating may detune RF circuits [1].

[1] [https://youtu.be/32Q_z3HcEso?t=7m](https://youtu.be/32Q_z3HcEso?t=7m)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Is that a cooling solution for mining rig?:)

</comment><comment><USER16> Epoxy or sikaflex encapsulation.

</comment><comment><USER17> clear silicon caulk and caulk gun.

</comment><comment><USER18> If you don't have any components that generate a lot of heat, I bet a few coats of clear spray paint would work.</comment>


Google Chrome Predicts And Pre-Loads Instant Pages - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_chrome_predicts_and_pre-loads_instant_pages.php#.TjgmVS2Vag0.hackernews <comment><USER2> I just added page prefetching to my site and I'm very impressed with how well it works. Now it will be interesting to see if the # of pageviews / per visitor increases over the next few weeks.

<http://imgfave.com> (scroll down to the bottom and click "next page" to see it in action)</comment>


Show HN: App Theta Estimates Competitors' Revenue - <AUTHOR> http://apptheta.com/

<comment><USER2> From the website: > Step 1: "Sync your app sales reports to see sales trends and competitor predictions."

Is that the main way in which you estimate app sales, because everyone syncs up their own sales and the you share it with competitors? Or do you merely use the actual sales data to train machine learning algorithms to better predict the actual?

<comment><AUTHOR> Just as you say, we're using "sales data to train machine learning algorithms" \- and then we display these estimates for your app categories.

Some larger shops instead use App Theta with their private data. That's our basic business model - use it for free, or pay to keep your sales out of the public training data, while still using the system.

Also, please check out this FAQ: [http://apptheta.com/faq/](http://apptheta.com/faq/) \- we'd love to have comments on how we talk about the service.</comment></comment>


Facebook Has No First Amendment Right to Send Unauthorized Texts, Says Court - <AUTHOR> http://reason.com/blog/2017/02/10/facebook-has-no-first-amendment-right-to <comment><USER2> Facebook is borderline scammy with it's practices. I few months ago I made a mistake of installing Facebook Messenger (which is now only called "Messenger" in the Play Store) to communicate with a friend who was in town. To use the app I had to verify my phone number. When my friend left town, I removed the app. To my surprise, I kept receiving notifications from an app called "Messenger" which is not accidentally also how the SMS app in stock android is named. There is no way to disable it from my phone and after 15 minutes of looking around I could not find a way to fully disable it in the browser either. I could remove my phone number from the account entirely, but then I would not be able to use sms to recover my account. The best I could do was to set the maximum number of messages to 1 per day.

That, and you also can't change your relationship status to married retroactively without Facebook notifying every person in your contact list.

<comment><USER3> Facebook _really_ wants you to install Messenger on your phone, for some reason:

[https://brachistochr0ne.wordpress.com/2016/12/26/facebook- ha...](https://brachistochr0ne.wordpress.com/2016/12/26/facebook-hates-mobile- unless-you-use-their-app/)

<comment><USER4> Surprised it has not been mentioned yet, but mbasic.facebook.com would solve the issue in both articles. I don't even have a facebook account and I'm constantly referring people to the slimmer version. I guess they must not advertise it.

<comment><USER5> There's something weird happenning here with that subdomain. I've just tried using that domain to access facebook on my android phone a couple of times, it was redirecting me to [https://mobile.facebook.com/?_rdr](https://mobile.facebook.com/?_rdr) every time.

Until I've decided to try it in the Chrome Incognito Mode. It worked correctly, without redirecting to the normal facebook's mobile site.

But after coming back from Incognito, it started working as intended on normal browsing mode too.

<comment><USER6> I noticed something similar when I was travelling in either Hong Kong or Thailand. The network operators in that country offered free access to Facebook and so when accessing mbasic... it would ask you if you wanted to use Facebook for free, and if not then it would forcefully redirect you to the regular Facebook interface - no option to use the lightweight one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm just going to take a moment here to vent about the nuisance it has become for me to deal with smartphone app notifications.

It isn't just facebook, although facebook is probably the worst. I live in a city and I pretty much need a smartphone to do anything, but it has become so annoying dealing with the myriad of notifications and advertisements from random apps, and trying to find settings to disable everything.

90% of the time when my phone buzzes it's because sprig is telling me I need to eat dinner. Messenger is telling me it's someone's birthday. Yelp is trying to tell me there's popular a new spot nearby. Hell, even youtube was sending me recommended videos and touching the notification caused this random video to immediately play, using mobile data.

It is getting out of hand. You have to figure out how to disable this stuff in each app independently, sometimes digging through confusing options menus looking for buried settings. Sometimes I haven't even found a way.

This has taught me to usually ignore my phone, but it's especially annoying if I'm waiting for an important e-mail or text. My smartphone has just become an advertisement line sending bullshit that I don't care about, that I have to wade through to get to important stuff.

Am I the only one? Is there a solution to this?

<comment><USER8> In Android, you can easily disable all notifications for any particular app.

Settings -> Notifications -> {app} -> Block All

<comment><USER9> It's even easier than that. Instead of sliding the notification off the screen, slide it ever so slightly to the right. It displays this little gear thing, and you can block all notifications for that app from right there. I have a stock Nexus phone so YMMV.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What annoys me about Facebook is that:

* Production appear to be the only QA they do

* Most of the time _something_ doesn't work... then you come back and it suddenly works, then it's broken again

* The news feed is non-deterministic. You can refresh and see something completely different

* Features [like the one in question] are always "opt-out" or "on by default". The attitude is "force the user to use the new feature" rather than improving it until people _actually want_ to use it

I'm glad to see them get into hot water on that last point. I see this user- hostile "we know better than you" authoritarian attitude taking over quite a few tech companies.

<comment><USER11> #3 is why I use Most Recent sort, which of course they boot me out of every once in a while, and I have to re-select.

<comment><USER12> Bookmark this instead to avoid being booted out of it:

[https://www.facebook.com/?sk=h_chr](https://www.facebook.com/?sk=h_chr)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13>
      The case will go forward with Facebook defending its text
      messages on technical grounds; it argues that the texts
      were not automated because Brickman and others who received
      them had supplied Facebook with their phone numbers.

That sounds like a strange definition of "automated" and a very weak argument.

<comment><USER14> If that passes muster, the next argument we'll hear will be, "we bought this list of numbers from ATT, and your number is on the list, so our robocall to your number isn't really 'automated', _per se_."

<comment><USER15> A spammer used that exact defense before, that it's not spam, because they used legal means to obtain the email addresses.

A slashdot poster once compared that to (if I can add some embellishment) saying that "I have a valid driver's license and comply with local laws, therefore I can park on your lawn."

[https://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=157986&cid=13234763](https://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=157986&cid=13234763)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> On my dad's birthday, my aunt got one of those "reply 1 to post happy birthday" texts. She replied 1. And it posted 1 onto my dad's timeline, not happy birthday.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/facebook/comments/2qbg9j/reply_1_to...](https://www.reddit.com/r/facebook/comments/2qbg9j/reply_1_to_post_happy_birthday_text_doesnt_work)

<comment><USER17> Oh what a very well thought a and nicely implemented feature... Not

Typical of fb "new features". Annoying and half broken

<comment><USER18> Version 2 posts "true" to the timeline.

<comment><USER19> So they moved from C to C++?

<comment><USER18> It's a perfect opportunity for a rewrite.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Facebook's attitude - "when Facebook forces itself on you, it's just good parenting".

</comment><comment><USER21> Full decision, if anyone's interested:

[https://www.dropbox.com/s/68g4zq28aqiaqor/IMG_1374.PDF?dl=0](https://www.dropbox.com/s/68g4zq28aqiaqor/IMG_1374.PDF?dl=0)

</comment><comment><USER22> And this is why I haven't set up 2FA: I don't trust them (or Google) not to abuse my phone number.

<comment><USER23> Same

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> > Facebook attorneys argued that the TCPA's allowed exceptions—for emergency > communications and _debt collectors_

Debt collectors get a special exemption?

<comment><USER25> no they don't. The article isn't reporting accurately on Facebook's argument. The TCPA has exceptions for emergency communications and debt collection activity where the debt is owed to or guaranteed by the federal government. General debt collection most certainly isn't exempt from TCPA compliance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Sort of off-topic but something that I've noticed that Facebook does that is really scummy is they make you receive an email notification before you can opt-out of that type. At one point I set my email notification preferences to "Only notifications about your account, security and privacy" but that had the consequence of not getting notifications if someone sent me a message. So I changed it back to all notifications but then I had to get all the different types of emails (recent statuses from your friends, recent photos from your friends, recent videos from your friends, etc.) in order to opt-out of each one individually. On the notification setting page, all I can do is opt back in to receiving the notifications, not opt out of other notifications that I am currently set to receive.

Does anyone know how to selectively turn off the email notifications without first receiving them?

<comment><USER27> [https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=notifications&section=...](https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=notifications&section=email&view)

<comment><USER26> Thanks but that's the page I was talking about. I can only choose to re-enable email notifications that I've turned off there. I can't disable notifications from that page, I have to wait to get an email that I don't want to unsubscribe from that type of notification. I can see why they'd do it, but it's still really sleazy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Is anyone from the TCPA bar here? How long does it typically take for a TCPA class action law suit to proceed?

The timing on this seems unfortunate (for professional TCPA claimants):

We have a president who might not like this law so much[1]. He also wants to reduce regulation (see his executive order). Ajit Pai has first amendment rights as one of his core issues[2]. I could, howe er, be incorrectly conflating Pai's conception of the first amendment and Facebook's.

Ready for a repeal of the TCPA? We could be headed that way.

[1]: Thorne v. Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.

[2]: [https://www.fcc.gov/about/leadership/ajit- pai](https://www.fcc.gov/about/leadership/ajit-pai)

<comment><USER25> FCC can't repeal the TCPA, only Congress can do that, and it's unlikely given the way even modest amendments to the law have been roundly criticized. Last try in 2013 was the only time I've seen Mother Jones, NYT editorial page, Bill O'Reilly, and the Wall Street Journal agree on something.

The new chair of the FCC could whittle away at many of the consumer-friendly rulings of the agency, but those date back to 2003 and it would be hard to throw all of them out. Any new regulations could also be challenged judicially and that would delay their effective date. So I don't anticipate a major, sudden change. It also seems like Pai's agenda puts a high priority on reversing net neutrality and other telecom stuff and not the TCPA.

This ruling against Facebook is not that important. Article itself says that the Ninth Circuit has shot down constitutional challenges to the law in '95 and in '14, the latter went to the USSC but not on those grounds.

(to answer your first question, it's about 3-5 years from filing to final settlement.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> First. There is a difference between "texts" (SMS) and "notifications" (Apples own private system). Suing Facebook by confusing the courts on this difference is absolutely horrifying. I am no facebook fanboy, but push notifications should not be handled by the "Telephone Communications Privacy Act". W(who)tf wrote this confusing article. We engineers here have a responsibility to know the difference.

I am sure lawyers are laughing over whiskey somewhere.

"You see, Brickman had opted out of receiving texts from Facebook via the platform's notification settings."

then later in the article

"The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, argues that Facebook's sending unauthorized text messages is a violation of the federal Telephone Communications Privacy Act (TCPA)."

<comment><USER30> Why is the distinction important? I have heard people regularly confuse the two but now I'm wondering if it even matters outside of a technical discussion.

<comment><USER31> The only difference of my head is because one is messages received over the network and the other is messages generated by your phone (which can certainly be from network messages, but could also be because you have arrived at your destination, reach your fitbit goal, etc).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This communication would be protected under the first amendment if they addressed the recipient by name, used the senders name and had a mechanism for replying to a human being. That's one to one speech. If they failed to adhere to that standard it's likely their communication would be classified as one to many communication and therefore subject to TCPA and a host of other restrictions.

</comment><comment><USER33> I'm going to play devil's advocate here...

Sending a text does no harm, receiving a text incurs no harm. This lawsuit is ridiculous. There has to be some sense of harm done at some point, doesn't there?

We're filing lawsuits over being annoying now...

</comment><comment><USER34> Weird. Of all the things I'm concerned about @ FB...spam texts is not one of them

</comment><comment><USER35> How many of those are counted in DAU/MAUs if this is their only action of a day?

</comment><comment><USER36> Is it me or is everyone using the First Amendment to invent all sorts of new stuff these days. Can I throw a rock at my neighbor's window and claim the first amendment allowed me to do so because I don't like them?

<comment><USER37> No, because that would be property damage.

<comment><USER38> So much for the tolerant left! ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Please, PLEASE let this be expanded to telemarketers and email spammers, et. al.

</comment><comment><USER40> I'm not really sure what this is about, but I only use the browser version of Facebook (which is very functional), so that may be why.

</comment><comment><USER41> It will be interesting to see how this settles out legally. In the mean time, don't share your phone number with bots.

</comment><comment><USER42> Whenever one of these posts come around, people start sharing horrible experiences they've had with facebook and how they're "scaling back" or tailoring their facebook usage ie. using the mobile browser instead of the app. It's a strange discussion. Just leave the platform and send a formal request to delete your account. It's like reading a meth addict forum.

<comment><USER43> It's not so easy to leave when so many people are in your contact list only on fb and also there are many discussions and posts made on fb that one would miss out on.

<comment><USER44> Curious, are these discussions and posts really important?

How many crucial conversations have taken place only on Facebook?

I removed my account a couple of years ago when I found out stuff about people that I would have been happier not knowing. And I haven't missed much.

I don't expect that my social life and yours are that similar though.

<comment><USER45> Personally, I joined Facebook only because the co-working office space that I rent space in coordinate most events and notices through a private Facebook group. To know (for example) when government representatives or media are going to be on-site.

I still don't really use facebook socially at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> deleted my profile 10 years back. everytime someone takes a picture of me, i explicitly tell them not to post it on facebook.

</comment><comment><USER47> i deleted my number from Facebook but it still keeps the number asks me to confirm it for security whenever i login.

</comment><comment><USER48> How can a non-human entity be entitled to free speech...

<comment><USER49> As I understand it, to allow certain types of lobbying or something companies lobbied for, there's a ruling in the US that companies are people in some contexts.

<comment><USER50> Whilst corporations are entities _apart from their directors_ , I find this being twisted to mean they are _people_ incredibly distasteful.

<comment><USER51> They are not considered people. They are considered persons. In a legal context, a person is not a human being, but any entity to which rights or responsibilities (also read: liabilities) can be attached.

No court has said they are human beings. And they do not have all human rights. They have only those rights which law and case law have put upon them.

<comment><USER50> You are right the term is person. And they do not have all human rights. I am no expert in the US constitution either. However I still feel that a corporation argueing for rights to free speech (like Facebook here) is not in the spirit of the contstitution. Free speech is a human right not a corporate one

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> But hey, they freed a country!</comment>


Dokan – User Mode File Systems on Windows - <AUTHOR> http://dokan-dev.github.io/ <comment><USER2> I used the .NET wrappers for Dokan to write a read only version of ZFS in C#.[1] It was pretty easy to get things to get started with.

[1]: [https://github.com/AustinWise/ZfsSharp](https://github.com/AustinWise/ZfsSharp)

</comment><comment><USER3> Dokan has been around for years and hasn't worked really well. Is this new improved fork much different from what existed before?

<comment><USER4> Yes, 391 commits of fix, improvement stability and features ! We are much more near from a real filesystem than dokan ever was.

<comment><USER5> I used to use [https://liquesce.codeplex.com/](https://liquesce.codeplex.com/) which I believe was based on Dokan prior to being silently abandoned by the developer.

Is Dokan the appropriate library to build a disk pooling solution on top of? If so, can you recommend any such projects?

TLDR - Create a "Dokan" folder on each of my 5 physical drives, present a drive to my OS that shows all files from these 5 drives as if they were one physical drive.

<comment><USER4> Yes Dokan is able to do what you describe. There is a mirror example in the repository that mirror a device or folder. With a little of changes based to the mirror, you can create a sub directory for each of your devices in on folder. (Create a fake main directory that list all directories of your device and after reroute all file opening request to the right device)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> TLDR: FUSE for windows.

<comment><USER7> Note that there seems to be a FUSE API wrapper too.

[https://github.com/dokan-dev/dokany/wiki/FUSE](https://github.com/dokan- dev/dokany/wiki/FUSE)

I wonder how well this works.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Can we have Fuse on Windows with the new Linux emulation subsystem announced recently ?

<comment><USER9> Fuse is a kernel module, so probably not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wuala is using it, too.

<comment><USER11> Used to use. First they migrated to [https://www.eldos.com/cbfs/](https://www.eldos.com/cbfs/) and now they don't exist anymore.

<comment><USER10> Wait, what?

What happened? :( I really liked that service.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The title concisely explains why I am using Linux.

<comment><USER13> Then explain why people use OS X? Seriously the worst file system that so many developers (And I am guessing a HIGH percentage of Linux developers use) I can't stand going to Linux conferences and the Macs come out and are running OS X.

<comment><USER14> Could you elaborate please?

<comment><USER13> [http://www.cio.com/article/2868393/linus-torvalds-apples- hfs...](http://www.cio.com/article/2868393/linus-torvalds-apples-hfs-is- probably-the-worst-file-system-ever.html)

HFS is the worst file system and it has effected me several times and I avoid Macs and OS X like the plague.

<comment><USER15> Your experience could be fact, but in about 10 years of using MacBooks for work, it has effected me about 2 times, yet I had way more issues with sound/graphics/sleep/projection/skype/internationalization on the Linux distros I have tried. I don't mean to start a flame war, but there is probably a reason you see MacBooks at linux conferences, and FS bugs are not a huge factor.

<comment><USER13> > sound/graphics/sleep/projection/skype/internationalization on the Linux > distros

Paper Cuts

HFS+ problems are a disaster. I lost 2 10 hour days of video edits and work and my backup were also garbage.

> FS bugs are not a huge factor

You know you are not seeing things clearly when you say statements like that.

<comment><USER15> > Paper Cuts

Those things preventing the system from being usable one way, or another. So, for my experience, worse than paper cuts. Not to mention there is a great idiom about death by paper cuts.

> HFS+ problems are a disaster. I lost 2 10 hour days of video edits and work > and my backup were also garbage.

I haven't. No one else I know has. You're missing my point that this is anecdotal data. It's not a disaster if it's not impacting enough users.

> You know you are not seeing things clearly when you say statements like > that.

You know you are not seeing things clearly when you think you know how clearly someone is seeing things. I know, for example, not to store Cyrillic music names on my MBP after I hit a bug. I have also read how bad HDF+ is, legacy wise. However, that's one factor of usability, among many. I've lost more raids than hfs+ files. Every filesystem has bugs, whether it's a huge factor or not is whether enough people encounter them or not.

<comment><USER13> Just do a little research on HFS+ issues. It is not a small problem. This was one of the reasons why the OS X server was killed.

Some limitations that really do have a major impact on people: (Features Missing)

        data checksums

        nanosecond timestamps

        concurrent access (let more than one process at the time access the filesystem)

        checksumming

        snapshotting

        longer time frame (February 6 2040 for HFS+)

        sparse file support

        real hard links

<comment><USER15> Fortunately, the impact is not major enough to prevent me from being a happy MBP user.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


SVG Workflow for Designers - <AUTHOR> http://danielmall.com/articles/svg-workflow-for-designers/

<comment><USER2> Tangentially, are there any open source alternatives that mimic the "Save for web" functionality of the Adobe products?

I feel like this black box functionality has made Adobe products almost mandatory for web designers and I'd like to see innovation in this area.

I'd love to see a tool that better takes into account color space issues with varying monitors (PC vs Mac) right from the start.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a horrible, convoluted workflow - with good reasons for being that way. Like many I've seen graphic designers engage in.

Their tools suck, badly, and are just letting them down. I know the difficulty of replacing those tools is high - but man it needs to be done.

</comment><comment><USER4> Our drawing app WebCode ([http://www.webcodeapp.com](http://www.webcodeapp.com)) instantly generates nice and readable SVG code from your drawings. It also outputs JavaScript HTML5 Canvas code and HTML+CSS code.

</comment><comment><USER5> Does anyone know a good tool to go from an SVG to all the app icon sizes? I found a couple of non vector tools in that space but nothing for when you can start with the SVG.

<comment><USER6> Do you mean automatically? Inkscape can certainly save an svg to different sized outputs. Perhaps there's a plugin for this use case (Inkscape is scriptable with python)

<comment><USER5> I do use Inkscape although I find it a bit clumsy particularly in output. May look at scripting it one day. I will have a look for plugins.

I was also disappointed that the latest version isn't built for OS X and while there are instructions to build it without using X they didn't work first time and I didn't have all day to hack on it.</comment></comment></comment>


Professional Level Login Design [Pt.1] - PHP Tutorials - <AUTHOR> http://www.dreamincode.net/forums/topic/54760-professional-level-login-design-pt-1/

<comment><USER2> The article has some bad practices.

From a quick glance: no bcrypt (uses SHA-512), no HMAC (uses string concatenation), uses DB-specific deprecated `mysql_*` functions instead of PDO (or PEAR::DB etc).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I am not the author of this article but I really apologize if this article has bad practices. I am just a beginner who wants to learn how to design secure login systems in Php. It's a key skill for every web developers. Please, can anyone post useful resources on designing flawless login systems in Php. Thank you.

</comment><comment><USER3> No prepared queries?</comment>


Chasing fake volume: a crypto-plague - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@sylvainartplayribes/chasing-fake-volume-a-crypto-plague-ea1a3c1e0b5e <comment><USER2> Interesting analysis that brings up the debate of unregulated markets.

A further question this raises is; if so much of the volume of a considerable number of exchanges is fabricated, when (not if) this gets discovered in the mainstream, will the price and prospect of cryptocurrencies come crashing down even further?

</comment><comment><USER3> It's quite obvious that every crypto trader and exchange would check what's not allowed on "real" exchanges and do exactly that.

</comment><comment><USER4> White label exchange providers openly advertise wash trading as a feature. Also many provide liquidity from other exchanges so using aggregate market cap across exchanges is extremely inaccurate.

</comment><comment><USER5> Idk about this guy's methodology. Falls apart in the last section because Binance does not have much wash trading going on, whereas HitBTC is full of fake volume wash trading. It's easy to observe the wash trading directly, if you watch the books you'll see instantaneous matches in between the best bid/ask. Shame they decided to use this "marketing hack" rather than offer a competitive product.

(Binance wash trading has most likely been seen in their trading volume "win a Porsche" etc giveaways.)

</comment><comment><USER6> Huobi and OkEx have been doing this for years and years. The CEO of Binance had a nice (now deleted) rant on reddit, calling them out for this. Solution: Don't use the sketchy as hell exchanges</comment>


Why is Bill Gates selling nuclear tech to China? - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/post/why-is-bill-gates-selling-nukes-to-china/2010/12/20/gIQA3FPmuO_blog.html

<comment><USER2> Because Bill Gates realizes that China is the world's largest consumer of energy, and its share of total global energy consumption will continue to rise in the coming decades. It is the biggest and most lucrative market for a nuclear technology startup's products and services. (Comparatively, the U.S. is very slow and/or unwilling to invest heavily in nuclear power).

On a "greater good" level: China's enormous fossil fuel appetite can have disastrous environmental and economic consequences, and the depletion of resources could lead to regional or even global conflicts -- whether cold or hot -- in the not-too-distant future. (Many wars are, at their most basic level, contests over the division of scarce resources). So, if we don't help China develop alternatives to fossil fuels, the world loses in a big way. Oil prices spike, economies reel, and the environment takes it in the backside.

I'm not naive enough to assume that the "greater good" argument is at the heart of what Bill Gates is doing. It's not. It's a nice consequence, but the goal here is profit. And it stands to reason that Gates and his startup will go where the profit is. If the U.S. was the buyer, they'd just as soon sell to the U.S.

Finally, the headline of the article is a bit sensationalist. The way it's phrased, it gives the immediate, emotional impression that Gates is selling or developing nuclear _weapons_ technology to China. That is obviously not the case, but it's what many people would infer, even if subconsciously, when they see the phrase "selling nuclear technology to China."

<comment><USER3> From what I know of the technology proposed here, nuclear weapons aren't even possible with the fuel or byproducts. Only really dirty bombs would be possible, but I'd say that's a problem regardless of nuclear technology.

I say go for it, it's good for the environment, and good for the bottom line.

<comment><USER4> Also, China's had nuclear weapons since the 1960s. Not like this is a proliferation situation here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Time to come up to speed on TerraPower:

[http://www.terrapower.com/Technology/TravelingWaveReactor.as...](http://www.terrapower.com/Technology/TravelingWaveReactor.aspx)

<http://www.terrapower.com/WhoWeAre.aspx>

Local power solutions garnered recognition a few years back, riding the coat tails of the housing boom. Paying $50,000 for a home power plant seemed reasonable. At least Toshiba thought so:

<http://www.toshiba.co.jp/csr/en/highlight/2005/fuelcell.htm>

The events of 2008 may have changed the discussion but the idea still has merit.

Edit: fixed link

</comment><comment><USER6> Good for Bill Gates. It is very sad that this is not happening first in the US. Pretty depressing, actually.

</comment><comment><USER7> Long story short.

It's easier to get things done in China in certain areas because the government there is more receptive and willing to provide funding. While their system of governance isn't perfect there's no opposition party screaming at them about socialism or government spending.

</comment><comment><USER8> Why not go for a less provocative title: Bill Gates, Arms Dealer or Communist? You Decide.

</comment><comment><USER9> Because they are not our enemy? And the US has enormous obstacles to adopting any new nuclear technology.

<comment><USER10> Did you read the article? You post suggests you only read the headline.

<comment><USER9> I was indeed responding to the headline, which was an attention-grabbing slur on Bill Gates - "Why would he do that awful thing!"

<comment><USER10> No, it's not.

Please read articles before commenting.

<comment><USER11> To be fair, the headline _is_ somewhat inflammatory, if subtly so. The phrase "selling nuclear technology to X", where X is {Iran, China, Cuba, Russia, North Korea}, tends to elicit a defensive response in Americans.

The contents of the article, of course, show this response to be incorrect here. I imagine the title was picked _because_ of the response it would generate. It's catchy.

<comment><USER10> While true, I don't consider it a defense for bad commenting. I would consider actually reading the article before commenting to be a basic requirement of participation on HN. (Within reason; occasionally, entire books or a semester of lectures are linked.)

<comment><USER9> Ok, point taken. For instance, when somebody wastes everbody's time picking nits about oh, a comment about a bad title, I'll downvote them and post followon comments backpedaling and deliberately not getting the point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> So how will terra power prevent their technology from being stolen and local competitor sponsored by the gov used to drive them out of the market?</comment>


Why Do Cars Have Fuel Doors on Different Sides? - <AUTHOR> http://www.pbs.org/newshour/businessdesk/2009/08/why-do-cars-have-fuel-doors-on.html <comment><USER2> As interesting as the idea is, I don't think the analogy with Darwinian evolution quite holds. In order for something to act as a selective _pressure_ it needs to actually exert _pressure_. That is, just simply saying, "Well, if it weren't that way, then certainly someone would jump in with an alternative" doesn't work as an explanation because it's never happened. Taking it back to biology, it's as if someone asked "Why don't we have 3 eyes?" You could come up with all sorts of reasons why 3 eyes might be worse than 2, but until someone is actually born with 3 eyes and has trouble surviving because of it, none of your reasons would be valid selective pressures.

 _Edit_ : As to the original question, I imagine the right answer is something more along the lines of: where to place the fuel door is considered rather unimportant, and so left until last. At that point, it goes wherever it will fit...

<comment><USER3> I think you're right that such pressure has not been applied via market selection, in that a carmaker has never been advantaged/disadvantaged by its choice of fuel door sides.

However, merely realizing that such counterplanning would be possible, should a bias to one side emerge, does provide pressure in a game-theoretic sense. It makes any attempt to synchronize a car fleet on one-side self-defeating, even in the thought-experiment stage. So it works at the level of conscious strategy, for any design team that even begins to consider a placement strategy other than 'whatever fits our other choices'.

<comment><USER2> You're making a big assumption that "putting them all on the same side" has ever been seriously considered or that, were it considered, the result of jamming up gas stations was considered. Without empirical evidence to support these assumptions, Occam's Razor would have me believe that it's as simple as: nobody's really thought about it (other than, as pointed out above, to balance the suspension in high-performance vehicles).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> When I was in high school, one of our teachers was actually struck and killed by another car while refueling his own car on the side of the road late at night. I know it's a remote risk, but I'll still always prefer a car that has the fuel door on the passenger side just to be safe.

</comment><comment><USER3> I suspect there's more to this story than this 'just so from a biz/econ/evolutionary' analysis.

For example, somewhere, sometime, there must have been a regulator or dominant local supplier that achieved de-facto side-standardization. Did the gas- station-clumping emerge, or a later-entrant benefit from opposite-placement?

Is there a car census anywhere to tell us if regions have different distributions, or if it approaches 50/50 everywhere? (That writer who tallied driver cellphone use could tackle this next.)

Did gas cap placement migrate to the sides -- and higher off the ground -- because the old center-rear gas caps were too low, too dangerous in crashes?

</comment><comment><USER5> where I live, the fuel hose reaches either side of the car, isn't it like that where you live?

<comment><USER6> Sometime, often actually. But not everywhere.

If the hose is too long it dangles on the floor, so they try to avoid that with springs holding it up, but I assume that costs extra.

<comment><USER7> maybe the long fuel lines are not long enough to reach around superawesomemegabigsuv4x4hummertrucks.

on a different note, i've always wondered why the bike chains are always on the right side.

<comment><USER8> Maybe bike chains are always on the right side because the right leg is typically the strongest and most dexterous, so it will cope better with jammed trousers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm not sure if this is true across all models but someone who works in the industry once told me that the dashboard graphic of the fuel tank is situated the same side of the speedometer as the tank is on the car.

So if you get into a car and the fuel indicator is to the left of the speedometer, your fuel tank is too. I've only had a couple of cars but it seems to be the case so far.

<comment><USER3> Most modern dashboard fuel indicators -- and certainly dashes in rental cars -- include a little triangle pointing to the side with the gas cap.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I had always thought European cars had the door on the passenger side, while Japanese and American cars had it on the driver's side. I admit to not having driven all that many cars, especially American ones, but I don't think I've ever encountered a counterexample. I'm sure one is forthcoming, though :)

</comment><comment><USER11> I've wondered why different cars have fuel doors on different sides, but have always believed that car companies just never agreed on a standard. I'm glad that's not the case and that there really is a reason.

<comment><USER12> I don't think it's really the case, more like a writer fascinated with Darwinism and equilibrium finding them everywhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Why not have the fuel door in the center - either in the front of the car or at the back?

<comment><USER6> Many old cars have the door behind the license plate in the back.

It's not easy to find if you don't know it's there. It's not common anymore.</comment></comment>


Hacker Monthly Issue #10 - March 2011 - <AUTHOR> http://hackermonthly.com/issue-10.html <comment><USER2> I look forward to this every month, its always packed full of good information. Especially since students get it for free.

When I graduate and have some income I will pay for a subscription.

Really good product.

<comment><USER3> I had no idea students get Hacker Monthly for free. Thanks for the tip!

<comment><USER4> More details here: [http://hackermonthly.posterous.com/students-read-hacker- mont...](http://hackermonthly.posterous.com/students-read-hacker-monthly-for- free)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I just saw you use e-junkie for fulfillment. Are you satisfied with them? I am considering using them for a digital goods sale, except mine would be an one- off sale of unique items.

<comment><USER4> Very happy with them. Balsamiq and BCC use it too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Free?! The link directs to PayPal page asking me for $29.00...

<comment><USER7> That is confusing text. I assume the subscription is for the next 12 issues, so you'd get that one free as a bonus.

Hacker Monthly isn't free, but they link to all the articles, so you can consume the same content by clicking the titles listed. HM just packs it into a beautiful package.</comment></comment>