Good Java GC presentation - roman-m http://codedependents.com/2011/06/10/java-heaps-and-garbage-collection-with-some-zazz/

<comment><AUTHOR> In my opinion just some paraphrasing of the old Sun documentation from several years ago. You're better to read the source material to fully understand what's happening in the VM, its a bit incomprehensible at first but a couple of reads and it really sinks in.

</comment><comment><USER2> I am the author. I absolutely see what you're saying about the panning and zooming but do consider that the presentation was meant to be presented live and talked during. So each focal point would be on the screen for a few minutes while we talked about it. So if you're just sitting and flipping through them, I can see how it would be nauseating.

Also, I have to admit, it was an excuse to use Prezi which I think is really cool. I may have gone overboard with it, but its a lot of fun. It did seem to work pretty well live where the zooming out brought context to each topic by showing you the broader topic once in a while.

Thanks for the comments.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is this a blog post about Java GC or an excuse to use Prezi? I can't tell.

<comment> roman-m I guess both, why to divide when you have a win win.

<comment><USER3> This just doesn't seem like the sort of presentation you should use Prezi for, that's all. The zooming and swooshing and panning and spinning and turning and ... distracts from what I care about: the content. Don't get me wrong, Prezi can be really cool in the right situation, just not this one.

Of course, distracting people from the content is exactly what I'm doing here, so I'll leave it at that :-)

<comment><USER4> I couldn't figure out how to see everything I wanted to, and quickly abandoned my attempts. Not a win-win.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Prezi makes this presentation completely impossible to digest. Is it available in good old text somewhere? Hell, I'd even accept PowerPoint.

</comment><comment> roman-m I came to the conclusion that there is much more Java monkeys read HN than it being reflected by the posted content.</comment>


Trolldor: Global Blacklist of Twitter Trolls - <AUTHOR> https://www.trolldor.com/

<comment><USER2> "Three reports from different users are needed for a Twitter profile to be listed as a Troll. ... A user who is marked as a troll cannot report other users."

Oh, so it's been completely thoroughly thought out and is definitely not open to abuse.

/sarcasm

</comment><comment><USER3> I am absolutely against these kinds of public shaming lists. Either somebody is breaking the law (i.e. in cases serious threats are made) or not.

This hyper sensitive "let's ban anything that is different from my own world view, because TROLLS" is getting more and more ridiculous.

</comment><comment><USER4> _The user placing the report can choose between sending an anonymous report or make their identity known when sending their report._

Anonymous reporting? That is not within the spirit of either Twitter or your own stated mission. If you are reporting someone as a troll a log should be kept.

EDIT TO ADD:

Having researched a bit more the entire concept is nonsense

[1] Access to your Trolldor account to see if you have any reports, are listed as a Troll or find out who reported you. ( _I thought you said you cannot see who reports you? Which is it?_ )

[2] Inappropriate behaviour listed as -

Provocation - we love debates and good discussion on Twitter. However, users who just look to provoke for fun can be reported in this category.

 _Are you kidding me??_

\</comment><comment>-----

Creep - we all know who they are: they fill up your timeline on a daily basis with messages worshipping their idols, friends, relatives and colleagues. Now you can let them know that their behavior is too much

 _Last time I checked it was not trolling to post photos of MY family on MY Twitter. It is more creepy that someone follows me and goes to the trouble of reporting me to Trolldor for photos of my family._

\</comment><comment>----

Retweeter/Favoriter - users who never create their own content and just retweet and favorite other people's tweets. A warning with a report might encourage them to show the world what they have inside.

 _Yes kids - roll up and get listed as a troll for using the features built in to Twitter! Next up FaceTroll. A service for reporting Facebook users who update their status!_

\</comment><comment>----

Insult/Threat - insults and threats are a delicate matter, but Trolldor is a good way of letting everyone know that a profile is continuing to making abusive use of Twitter.

 _Twitter already has this_

\</comment><comment>-----

False identity - you can use this category to indicate profiles that seek with usurp another's identity for unclear purposes

 _Twitter already has this and, more to the point, who the fuck are you to decide if an identity checks out?_

\</comment><comment>-----

However, to end on a positive, the design is excellent.</comment>


Ask HN: What AD networks are there that don't scam people? - <AUTHOR> Currently my businesses have most of the influx of new clients coming from ad networks...
The problem is that I noticed that no matter what I adjust, the flow of new clients keep dropping while my budgets keep getting hungrier and hungrier...
And every time I check, Google found a new way to scam me out of my money.
They disabled every single method you had to prevent ads from showing on mobile apps while still showing on the AdSense network on mobile web.
When I click on the top budget consuming apps on my list, every single one is some sort of scam, with user reviews complaining the apps are putting ads in front of toddlers, or that they can't do some crucial thing without clicking ads, or that the apps auto-click ads and so on.
I am tried of playing cat and mouse with google, I keep adding apps to ban list, adjusting topics, targetting and so on, and Google keep removing whatever features I used to get rid of the scams draining my budget.
So what other networks are out there? Reputable stuff, where I can advertise to engineers, hackers, and so on, not to toddlers. <comment><USER2> Established networks dont give you enough ROI. Google and Facebook for example have slowly become more and more expensive to the point where if you aren't dedicated to optimizing and testing ads on their platform, you'll lose money.

The best way forward is to look at smaller networks. What new platforms are your target audience using that isn't quite "mass-market" yet.

In my experience I found content marketing to be better - although its not exactly plug and play yet like Adwords is. Maybe try advertising on blogs and other publications (maybe via Outbrain or something similar).

</comment><comment><USER3> Before online ads, the industry new half of every dollar spent was wasted because the viewer was not your target audience.

I would suspect that the ratio is worse for online ads. The cat and mouse game of ad fraud is a more difficult game for the cat.

Ads may not be the best way to find engineers. I'm trying to figure out the same as your last paragraph.</comment>


Jeffrey Epstein Gave $850k to MIT, and Administrators Knew - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/10/business/mit-jeffrey-epstein-joi-ito.html <comment><USER2> Are there any studies on the ethical and moral presumptions in taking miscreants' money? Is it required to shun miscreants? Is it an approval of miscreant actions if the money is taken?

Is it that the miscreant may come back and say "this is why I do it, so I can give.."? Would a simple public disclaimer "we not only not condone, we vehemently oppose ..." at time of donation resolve this? What makes taking with a disclaimer hypocritical?

If you were dying of liver cancer, knowing a a new liver would save you, and a murderous dictator walked up and said, here is my matching liver, would you take it?

<comment><USER3> If you take $1M and don't do what the donor asks, I'm guessing word spreads and other would-be-donors know not to donate to you.

How do you determine as an outsider the difference between a donation with an ask and a "no strings attached" donation?

Why didn't he donate anonymously?</comment></comment>


ReCurta: Our goal is to build the first Curta calculator since 1972 - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/daeken/ReCurta <comment><USER2> Marcus Wu designed, 3D-printed, and assembled a 3x scale working Curta calculator. He shared his models and progress on Thingverse at [https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1943171](https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1943171)

His YouTube channel includes many videos of the development, assembly, and operation of his calculator. Watch a short demonstration at [https://youtu.be/ShFkJgck6Pw](https://youtu.be/ShFkJgck6Pw)

Adam Savage commissioned Marcus to build a copy. Adam unboxes his 3D-printed Curta on YouTube at [https://youtu.be/j9uRckJLqLk](https://youtu.be/j9uRckJLqLk)

<comment><USER3> I wonder if Adam ever envisioned he would get such a following when he agreed to co-host Mythbusters.

<comment><USER4> I agree that Mythbusters was important to Adam's progression, but perhaps not just because of the exposure of being a co-host of a popular show. It gave him "fuck you" money and let him know just how many people at large are interested in doing what he does.

Ultimately, Adam has done much more to put him in his current spot than just co-host Mythbusters. He has gone to maker events, cons, and works hard to encourage others to take up the making hobby. He makes tutorials on how to create props freely available. He actively participates in the community, and makes people feel good about themselves - such as unboxing and praising creative efforts.

IMO, Adam is the quintessential example of what is possible when someone no longer has to worry about providing for food and shelter, and can do what they want. Maybe he's the 1% in that regard, but the value provided by his 1% is worth the other 99%.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Well, this is a surprise! ReCurta had been in a bit of a holding period for a while; we did all the drawing translations and the conversions to Solidworks, but then hit a wall when it came to finding a way to actually make the thing.

Last month, I bought a lathe and mill and started teaching myself machining, with the goal of making it myself. It's going to take a long time, but it's pretty amazing making brand new Curta parts.

<comment><USER6> You may want to look into etching as a method of manufacture of flat pieces of metal as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Per [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curta](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curta) "The Curta is a small mechanical calculator"

<comment><USER8> Also that Wikipedia page mentions that someone had made a Curta using a 3D printer but because it the low tolerance they had to make very big pieces.

<comment><USER9> Yes! There's a video on Tested (YouTube) where Adam receives his

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The Curta-Test: A 3D-printer to be able to print a functioning Curta in original dimensions

<comment><USER11> Can anybody estimate how far from that are modern 3D printers in terms of precision?

<comment><USER12> Current SLA printers could probably do it, they have much better resolution than the typical FDM machines. SLA machines have gotten a lot cheaper in the past few years but the consumables (resin) remain expensive. And FDM printers will probably never really get significantly better than the current state of the art, there's only so much refinement you can make to squirting melted plastic out of a nozzle.

I have a cheap 300USD FDM printer and even on that you can put a 0.2mm nozzle on and use 0.04mm layer height. These sizes however are already not very practical, in addition to being excruciatingly slow to print it does a very poor job of handling any geometry with overhangs in the printed object.

Even the cheaper SLA models (i.e. Wanhao D7 is ~500USD shipped from china and a kickstarter model called SparkMaker is supposedly going to be 250USD) are capable of fantastic levels of detail.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The "original Curta Type I engineering diagrams" can be found here: [http://www.vcalc.net/curta_1_engineering_drawings.zip](http://www.vcalc.net/curta_1_engineering_drawings.zip) (warning: large file)

 _Everything produced as part of this project is being released into the public domain. Everyone should be able to inspect, visualize, or even build their own Curta calculator; it shouldn 't be fated to forever be an expensive relic on eBay._

Interesting. I wonder if the Chinese might take off with the plans and start making clones, the same way you can now find surprisingly good mechanical watches on AliExpress.

</comment><comment><USER14> A nice video explaining how they work:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loI1Kwed8Pk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loI1Kwed8Pk)

</comment><comment> matt-attack Awesome! I've got a great mint condition Curta and it's simply an amazing piece of engineering. Love to see renewed interest in the design.

<comment><USER15> Long-shot, but if there's any chance you're in the Bay Area, do you think I could buy you coffee or lunch to check it out some time? I really want to see a Curta in-person.

<comment><USER16> They have one at the Compute History Museum, although it's behind glass. It's worth going here for everything else they have too - try to go when they have an IBM 1401 demo going.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Oh man, I've been wanting to buy my dad a curta for years (he started his career in electronics, repairing calculators in the 70s/80s). If something like this pans out might make it affordable.

</comment><comment><USER18> Did you try and drag it into fictiv to see what they would qoute you for making it :)?

[https://www.fictiv.com/](https://www.fictiv.com/)

</comment><comment><USER19> > 2 years ago

Would be worth updating the title to (2015) or (2016)

</comment><comment><USER20> Why wouldn't you 3d print it?

<comment><USER6> For the same reason you will not be printing a mechanical watch: the device parts have a resolution that is measured in 1/100ths of a mm, no 3D printer that is even close to affordable can make parts like that. Besides that you will want your parts to be made out of metal powder to be sintered rather than plastic filament which is the material of choice for budget 3D printers.</comment></comment>


Nvidia blames Apple for breaking Chrome's incognito mode - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2016/01/13/nvidia-blames-apple-for-bug-that-exposes-porn-browsing-in-chromes-incognito-mode <comment><AUTHOR> here is my understanding about the difference between win and mac graphics.

on windows, the os graphics layer is thin. it's a dummy dll, and all graphics calls will be forwarded to the graphics driver.

on mac, however, the os graphics layer is thick. The os maintains all graphics states and resources. a lot of the work is done by the os, not the driver. the obvious benefits of this are consistency and live switching the gpus while an app is running. you can switch between intel gpu and nvidia gpu.

see this

[https://books.google.com/books?id=Ryb-k7jrPnIC&pg=PT44&lpg=P...](https://books.google.com/books?id=Ryb-k7jrPnIC&pg=PT44&lpg=PT44&dq=mac+os+x+graphics+driver+architecture&source=bl&ots=ql9ZOAiY7m&sig=fglkeEQoh0oieaOOxiz1pq7JR3U&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj44drOrqfKAhVR6GMKHRn_B6kQ6AEISDAG#v=onepage&q=mac%20os%20x%20graphics%20driver%20architecture&f=false)</comment>


Terence Tao – Understanding 1+2+3 =-1/12 Without Complex Analysis - <AUTHOR> https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2010/04/10/the-euler-maclaurin-formula-bernoulli-numbers-the-zeta-function-and-real-variable-analytic-continuation/ <comment><USER2> Tao is Tao, but I prefer to recommend the video from Mathloger [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcKRGpMiVTw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcKRGpMiVTw) (and the followup [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuIIjLr6vUA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuIIjLr6vUA) )

<comment><AUTHOR> Tao's article certainly requires more background to read, but it gives a much deeper insight than explanations based on Cesaro or Euler/Ramanujan summation, which (as Tao points out in the article), in addition to being very puzzling, are actually mutually inconsistent. His main result is that these classical sums / the zeta function are only the _constant term_ in a certain asymptotic expansion associated with a smoothed version of the original sum. Recognizing the existence of the non-constant terms in that expansion corrects the nonsensical negativeness and logical inconsistency. This is intimately connected to the analytic continuation POV, which is discussed in section 2. It's well worth a read if you have time over a few days. I wrote an overview of the strategy here:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/cx3qzv/terence_tao_un...](https://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/cx3qzv/terence_tao_understanding_123112_without_complex/eyiun42/)

<comment><USER2> The video gets to a similar point at 27:10.</comment></comment></comment>


iPhone 8 Teardown - <AUTHOR> https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone+8+Teardown/97481 <comment><USER2> >Once again, the light sensor is covered by a colored filter, which we believe assists the True Tone system.

Are we sure about that? Because camera one is total BS :) according to Stephen Su, 'responsible for developing the camera module for several generations of Apple's iPhone', the blue filter on camera lens is 100% for looks, Jobs just liked blue color and demanded custom spec part.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39JD3eutMaM#t=25m50s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39JD3eutMaM#t=25m50s)

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow, the battery is crazy low capacity. Wonder if battery life will really be longer as claimed in real usage?</comment>


The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows - <AUTHOR> http://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com <comment><USER3> Ah, so it's called "vemödalen". Good to have a name for the feeling that keeps coming back to me whenever I think about new ideas to build. It's already been done, likely better than I could ever have. It's probably just one Google search away. It makes me fear searching. I'll just take few more minutes, few more hours, few more days, to toy with my new idea. It's probably been done already. But I don't have to know about it _right now_. Do I?

Sometimes it's already done 20 times. Otherwise, it truly isn't. Or at least it isn't visible on-line. I think that with age I managed to learn how to invent new flavours of old ideas, things that have not been done before in the exact way I want them to. Is this just me lowering my expectations?

I often find myself resenting tourists. I see all those people taking the same pathetic photos at the Tower of Pisa, photos that have been taken a million times before. Like they couldn't just go to Flickr. But here I am, coding my own hobby project, a thing that has been done a thousand times before. I do it in a different language, using different approach, personalizing it in every way I can, and yet I what I'm doing is nothing but taking yet another photo of the Pisa tower.

Some people say "think locally". Just because it has been done before somewhere else, doesn't mean it's been done near you. Narrow your scope. To your country. To your city. To your family. To yourself. But it feels wrong. The world is connected, and being limited to a subset of it feels... incomplete. Do it full-scale, or don't do it at all. That's what I keep thinking.

I guess many a HNer knows this feeling too. Maybe some of you found a way to make peace with it. I think so, after all, many have probably done it before. If you did, please share.

I apologize for venting out.

\----

Anyway, it's interesting that I couldn't find any reference to the word "vemödalen" other than The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. Did they invent this term? Or at least the name, since like everything else, the identification of the phenomenon has been already done before.

<comment><USER4> The credits on the video versions all include "Coined by", so yes, they appear to all be neologisms. In one sense, it would be neat if these really were existing words plucked from obscurity. But they're good words, and useful, so I hope they stay.

<comment><USER3> I agree. The first step to be really able to talk about something is to have a single word for it. It seems that's the way our brains work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You're in a nearly empty building after hours and you get into an elevator. As the door is closing, you decide to let out a long, voluminous, and smelly fart, and it's at just this moment that a beautiful person of your preferred gender walks into the elevator.

Needs to be a word for that.

<comment><USER6> That sounds like something that would be defined in the Meaning of Liff - <USER2> dictionary created by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd.

<comment><USER7> See also the "Sniglets" by Rich Hall, collected in a series of books.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I really don't care if it's somebody on tumblr making youtube videos, but we need more words! Great website, but I wish it was more active.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm struck by "lachesism". I do not "desire to be struck by disaster". However, I do recall feeling far more present and alive after near-death experiences. Even with the pain. But only for a while.

Also, I found what seems to be a poetry contest about lachesism, which apparently started 2015-04-13.[0] And then there's "23 emotions people feel but can't explain".[1]

[0] [http://hellopoetry.com/words/691456/lachesism/poems/](http://hellopoetry.com/words/691456/lachesism/poems/)

[1] [http://imjustalonelyfandom.tumblr.com/post/123649660455](http://imjustalonelyfandom.tumblr.com/post/123649660455)

</comment><comment> Dorian-Marie His YouTube channel: [https://www.youtube.com/user/obscuresorrows](https://www.youtube.com/user/obscuresorrows)

</comment><comment><USER10> Just want to draw attention that most of these are made up words. They don't appear in the dictionary. Use these words wisely.

<comment><USER11> There is no _Académie française_ for English - the borders of our language are fuzzy and based on drifting actual usage. Or, in other words, English dictionaries are a lot like open source: based on running code and rough consensus. OED just added "Redditor", "shareable", and "butthurt" to its pages this year.

So, if you like them, use them. Don't get hung up on the fact that some of them may be new.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Learned about this site a year or so ago while browsing Jason Silva's "Shots of awe" videos. Not directly related but also highly recommended for those who dabble in philosophy.

</comment><comment><USER13> How about a word for the realization that one isn't as unique as one thinks? (It's a common reality, but probably a rare realization.)

<comment><USER14> Vemodalen

[http://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/post/102182393150/...](http://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/post/102182393150/vem%C3%B6dalen- n-the-fear-that-everything-has)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Very nice - thanks to whoever posted this.</comment>


Is Shenzhen the new Silicon Valley? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26741295

<comment><USER2> Nothing against the OP submission per se, but these frequent BBC stories titled "Is X the new SV" (and the corresponding posts to HN) are getting pretty tiring.

There are interesting points made about the different places and it would be nice if they at least could give each an actual different focus. I'm not sure it even works as click-bait anymore. :-/

Other very recent ones: Could Berlin be the next Silicon Valley - [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-26790422](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-26790422) Is Cambridge's start-up scene rivalling Silicon Valley? - [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-26683055](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-26683055) Can Tokyo ever rival Silicon Valley? - [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-26580038](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-26580038)

If someone wrote a meta story contrasting all of them, that'd be interesting.

<comment><USER3> They're doing a series on places trying to replicate the success of the valley, so it's understandable although quite unimaginatively titled for each piece. I presume there will be a program dedicated to comparing them all once the series concludes.</comment></comment>


How Beats Tricks You into Thinking It Makes a Premium Product - <AUTHOR> http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2015/06/how-beats-tricks-you-into-thinking-it-makes-a-premium-product/

<comment><USER2> Didn't trick me - they're selling headphones to image-conscious teenagers for $100+ a pop. Hard for me to believe they would actually compete on product quality as opposed to promotion, when a sucker is born every minute.</comment>


China wants to buy AMD - <AUTHOR> http://www.thestreet.com/story/13022870/1/advanced-micro-devices-amd-stock-spikes-today-on-takeover-speculation.html?puc=yahoo&cm_ven=YAHOO

<comment><USER2> No, the country of China does not want to buy AMD.</comment>


Technical Challenges Developing a Distributed SQL Database - <AUTHOR> https://blog.yugabyte.com/6-technical-challenges-developing-a-distributed-sql-database/ <comment><USER2> As a precursor to this (excellent, in depth) post I also recommend Martin Kleppmann's Designing Data-Intensive Applications, which is (to date) the definitive 101 book on the topic.

He also did these awesome Tolkien-esque maps of the database engine ecosystem: [https://martin.kleppmann.com/2017/03/15/map-distributed- data...](https://martin.kleppmann.com/2017/03/15/map-distributed-data- systems.html)

Anyway, I inject this sort of stuff directly into my veins, so thanks very much for the post!

</comment><comment><USER3> Good post! May sound more credible if you have mentioned that YugaByte started as a fork of Apache Kudu and some of the design decisions and technical challenges that you mention were addressed by the code that was already there before your fork.

<comment><USER4> Hi rekoros,

I am the CTO/Founder of YugaByte and author of the above post. Thanks for your comments, glad you liked the post! You make a great point about YugaByte DB using Apache Kudu to start out, but wanted to clarify a few things.

* This is a post about our architectural decisions in building a distributed SQL database, and less so about how we actually implement it. Hence there is no mention of any starting points as far as the codebase.

* Also, we have used the RocksDB and PostgreSQL codebases in their entirety in addition to Apache Kudu, and make no secret of this fact ([https://docs.yugabyte.com/latest/architecture/concepts/ackno...](https://docs.yugabyte.com/latest/architecture/concepts/acknowledgements/)).

<comment><USER5> I genuinely never thought I'd see a fully distributed db. This is the magic bullet people been looking for in terms of having a simple ish db compared to complex data layers.

Incredible work. And supporting full postgresql.

This does sound a lot like a marketing post. But me no cares. This is pretty awesome I'm rarely this hyped for a technology.

<comment><USER6> I always though it was one of the pursuit of Google but NoSQL was all the rage and I was never taken seriously ... until F5 that is.

Funnily enough, all what I would call "NoSQL papers" are very well known, yet F5 is hardly ever talked about. As if some people would not like to admit they might have been wrong ;-)

<comment><USER7> It's not talked about cause it's named F1 ;)

<comment><USER6> Yes ! Thanks for the correction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I find Spanner an absolute beautiful database, and I recommend people to checkout CockroachDB as well, which is inspired by Spanner.

<comment><USER9> Shouldn't talk about Spanner and Percolator without discussing Calvin, either. [https://www.infoq.com/articles/relational-nosql- fauna](https://www.infoq.com/articles/relational-nosql-fauna)

<comment><USER10> YugaByte DB product manager here. we have compared the Spanner and Calvin architectures in depth previously ([https://blog.yugabyte.com/google-spanner- vs-calvin-global-co...](https://blog.yugabyte.com/google-spanner-vs-calvin- global-consistency-at-scale/)). one key difference comes from the fact that Calvin's deterministic locking protocol requires advance knowledge of all transactions' read/write sets before transaction execution can begin -- this leads to repeated transaction restarts if the secondary index is on a column whose value is changing frequently as well as no support for client-initiated sessions transactions. in other words, Calvin is better suited for a transactional NoSQL database as opposed to a true distributed SQL database.

<comment><USER11> This take on Calvin is inaccurate:

Under contention, a Calvin-based system will behave similarly to others which use optimistic locking schemes for Serializable isolation such as Postgres, or YB itself. There are advantages to the Calvin approach as well. For example, under Calvin, the system doesn't have to write out speculative intents to all data replicas in order to detect contention: The only writes to data storage are successful ones. The original paper only describes this briefly, but you can read about how FaunaDB has implemented it in more detail: [https://fauna.com/blog/consistency-without-clocks-faunadb- tr...](https://fauna.com/blog/consistency-without-clocks-faunadb-transaction- protocol)

It's also not a stretch to see how the protocol described in that post can be extended to support session transactions: Rather than executing a transaction per request, the transaction context is maintained for the life of the session and then dispatched to Calvin on commit. (This is in fact how we are implementing it in our SQL API feature.)

I would instead say that one of the more significant differences between Calvin and Spanner is the latter's much stricter requirements it places on its hardware (i.e. clock accuracy) in order to maintain its correctness guarantees; a weakness its variants also share.

<comment><USER10> Only if things were that simple :) Calvin avoids the need to track clock accuracy by making every transaction go through a single consensus leader which inherently becomes a single point of bottleneck for performance and availability. Spanner and its derivatives including YugaByte DB chose not to introduce such a bottleneck in their architecture with the use of per-shard consensus — this means caring about clock skews for multi-shard transactions and not allowing such transactions to proceed on nodes that exhibit skew more than the max configured. The big question is which is more acceptable: lower performance & availability on the normal path OR handling offending nodes with high clock skew on the exceptions path?

<comment><USER11> Sorry I can't let this go unchallenged. Again, you are inventing an architectural deficiency where the is none. The log in Calvin is partitioned and does not require all transactions to go through a single physical consensus leader. There is no single node in a Calvin cluster which must handle the entire global stream of transactions. The Calvin paper itself extensively covers how this works in detail: [http://cs.yale.edu/homes/thomson/publications/calvin- sigmod1...](http://cs.yale.edu/homes/thomson/publications/calvin-sigmod12.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The article makes mention of Aurora and Spanner as inspiration; did CosmosDB not exist yet? I realize Cosmos is really more of a document database but given its ability to be queried with SQL in addition to massive horizontal scale and global replication seems like it should be more or less in the discussion.

Reference to querying Cosmos with SQL: [https://docs.microsoft.com/en- us/azure/cosmos-db/how-to-sql-...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en- us/azure/cosmos-db/how-to-sql-query)

<comment><USER10> YugaByte DB product manager here. Yes, CosmosDB and its underlying architecture were indeed not yet publicly available when we started the YugaByte DB project early 2016. However, classifying CosmosDB as a distributed SQL database is a bit of stretch given no support for SQL on the write path (the write path uses a custom document API). This means no support for multi- row/multi-shard ACID transactions as well as features such as client-initiated session transactions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Following research papers from academia also explored similar problem:

1) BESPOKV: Application Tailored Scale-Out Key-Value Stores [http://people.cs.vt.edu/~butta/docs/sc18-bespokv.pdf](http://people.cs.vt.edu/~butta/docs/sc18-bespokv.pdf)

2) ClusterOn: Building Highly Configurable and Reusable Clustered Data Services using Simple Data Nodes [http://people.cs.vt.edu/~butta/docs/hotstorage16-clusteron.p...](http://people.cs.vt.edu/~butta/docs/hotstorage16-clusteron.pdf)

DynomiteDB from Netflix allowed to scale singe server NoSQL stores. [https://github.com/Netflix/dynomite](https://github.com/Netflix/dynomite).

<comment><USER10> Thanks for sharing these. Hadn't heard of the first 2, so look fwd to reading them. We did review the Amazon Dynamo architecture (which is used in Dynomite) in depth but found it to be lacking for supporting even single-row linearizability. multi-row ACID with serializable isolation builds on top that property. These are must-haves in a storage architecture to power a distributed SQL API.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I wonder where the lessons of NonStop SQL fit into the picture? It seems like there is some knowledge to mine there.

<comment><USER10> assume you are referring to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NonStop_SQL](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NonStop_SQL) \-- was not aware of it so thanks for bringing it to attention. first impression is that it was a technology way ahead of its times. in late 80s (and some would argue even recently), majority of apps can be run easily on monolithic/single-node SQL databases. they are not generating data at a volume that requires multiple nodes (in this case parallel computers) and user perception can indeed tolerate high latencies, manual failover and repair. we are now in a different era when it comes to data volume and user perception.

<comment><USER15> And if we are being honest not much has changed 99% of the projects still can run fine on monolithic/single-node SQL databases.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Interesting that spanner doesn't support foreign keys. Is this a fundamental limitation or just a missing feature?

<comment> joatmon-snoo Spanner uses a hierarchical table model instead, where a parent table key is a strict prefix of the child table key.

[https://cloud.google.com/spanner/docs/schema-and-data- model#...](https://cloud.google.com/spanner/docs/schema-and-data- model#creating_a_hierarchy_of_interleaved_tables)

From a technical perspective, I'd guess that the reason was because it makes local transactions trickier to do. Spanner has a philosophy of avoiding work that isn't required, and knows how to optimize transactions that don't require 2PC-ing data on different servers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Not really developing a distributed dB but using one. Inaccurate and misleading title

<comment><USER18> No this is about developing one. They talked about how they looked at the existing database options and how they choose different bits/pieces.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> That wasn't immediately relevant to me, but is definitely a good read since I imagine I'll be dealing with these problems within a year.

Thanks!

<comment><USER19> Why was this downvoted? I literally thanked the poster for sharing this because it was interesting and a thing I may have to run into soon.

I'm sorry you're all offended that I'm on legacy projects right now and we're not at this point yet.</comment></comment>


Prolific fake news writer Paul Horner dead at 38 - <AUTHOR> http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/article/2017/sep/26/prolific-fake-news-writer-paul-horner-dead-38/ <comment><USER2> Regardless of this guy's politics, it's weird for someone to die in their sleep at 38.

He was arrested on drug charges before, and my subjective impression of his demeanor makes me think he might have been on downers like heroin or klonopin.

If he did die in his sleep for no reason though, then it is a terrible thing and it pains me to think about.

I can't imagine being dead in just 10 years.

</comment><comment><USER3> Good riddance.</comment>


What's Wrong With Ruby? (2007) - <AUTHOR> http://www.bitwisemag.com/2/What-s-Wrong-With-Ruby

<comment><USER2> quoting the article:

"If I was put off Ruby by the hype, I was put off more by the many cutesy introductory tutorials I encountered when trying to get into it. Why's (Poignant) Guide is a particular horrid example, but there are many others."

And this is the kind of deeply argumented analysis you bring to support "ruby wrongness" ...

..Sounds more like an unhappy child whose friends got a new toy to play with but he can't be happy all the same (because he spent too much time trying to make his old one shiny and new..)</comment>


Ask HN: My site's popular. How would YOU monetise it? - <AUTHOR> http://favstar.fm/ Hey guys, the server bill's getting pretty big now.  I'd like to start setting up some paid accounts pretty soon.  Apart from crawling people more often, can you see any creative ways to give extra benefits to paid members?  Any suggestions appreciated.  :-) <comment><USER2> Virtual goods. Go super edgy, forget flowers.gif and hugs.png: vices sell, introduce liquor, hookers and hard drugs. Maybe even go deep on the cultural references, even be a little harsh and xenophobic. Virtual gifts have a general positive connotation because they're usually given to _friends_ , on facebook and other closed social networks. Twittering is a place for adversaries, a perfect play ground for irony and everything anti.

As a super premium: allow people to upload their own text and graphics for a dollar, and attach _that_ to the tweet.

      @squarejaw bought *victim* a pair of nads

      @ironical sends you a touching violin solo on a miniature DVD

      @citygirl sends you another pair of pink polo shirts to wear over all your others

etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting idea. Would anyone here actually pay for virtual goods? Examples? I can't say I ever have on facebook apps etc..

<comment><USER3> I own about $20,000 of notional fractional interest in an absolutely ginormous pool of paper slips with numbers on them. Except, there isn't actually any paper anymore, since they made it all electronic. But if there were slips of paper, they would number in the billions, each saying that I own fractional interest in the real property and future earnings of a particular person. No person named on any of the non-existent pieces of paper actually exists -- that is the point of having the paper in the first place. Or not having it, as the case may be.

I have also paid for software, music, videos, text messaging, online connectivity, phone time, concerts, priority boarding, and World of Warcraft.

But I wouldn't ever pay money for virtual goods, oh no, _that stuff just isn't real_.

(Moral of the story: it is all how you sell it.)

<comment><USER4> If you think you've talked me into buying you "kiss under mistletoe" you're wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't think you'd be able to get people to pay for premium features...what would they be anyways? I do have 1 idea: Sponsored tweet placement. Companies are probably willing to pay extra money for certain tweets to get special placement.

Besides that you should get retweets/replies working, i wanted to RT a few things and got put off by the coming soon box.

<comment><USER6> Sponsored tweets are a good idea. But results are best when companies get to target the audience based on their interest. For example, a company would more likely to spend to show ads on specific search term than all the search term. So if you can find a way to categorize the people visiting your site based on retweets or fav patterns and have separate categories of favs then you can have targeted sponsored tweets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Why not a simple "Buy this on a t-shirt" link next to popular tweets? Given how easy it is to print stuff on shirts now, I'm sure someone has an API for resellers looking to put words on a t shirt.

<comment><USER8> Fark.com and CNN.com also do this. And it's an awesome idea. Geeks love snarky/one-liner tshirts.

(hint: offer them in black and in XXL)

<comment><USER9> I wish there were fewer black tshirts out there. I will buy any color but black.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys, the server bill's getting pretty big now. I'd like to start setting up some paid accounts pretty soon. Apart from crawling people more often, can you see any creative ways to give extra benefits to paid members? Any suggestions appreciated. :-)

<comment><USER10> You might want to check out the story behind HotOrNot: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_or_Not>

They were in a similar situation and according to Wikipedia, they sold in 2008 for a rumored $20 million. They started in 2000 and I believe they made a deal with their internet service to reduce cost.

<comment><USER11> Founders at Work details HotOrNot's launch. If I remember correctly, they worked out a deal with Rackspace where Rackspace would provide hosting and HotOrNot would promote the fledgling hosting company whenever they could.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> nice work, it's fun to get some of the best stuff out there that doesn't seem to be made up like tfln or fml

1) Add tipjoy functionality, encouraging users to tip the best/funniest/helpful tweets.

2) charge referral fee to users who you scrape. Each new follower they get from favstar.fm costs $0.10 (seems like many of the people you are featuring are self-employed or creative types who would probably like more followers)

3) sponsored favoriters... allow brands/users who want their profile pic to show up as if they had favorited a tweet. pay per impression or click basis (they could get creative with the profile pics to grab attention)

4) promotion of top favorites across the web. build plug and play modules that people can add to their own sites, my yahoo, igoogle, their facebook page, etc. (or maybe just an RSS feed). Anyone can post it to their own site for entertainment value, but the only tweets that are eligible for the module are ones from paid accounts. Trouble is, the best/funniest twitter users probably wont want to pay for that distribution, they don't need it.

</comment><comment><USER13> I found a small problem on your site (for me at least). For reference, I am running Firefox 3.5 on Gentoo.

On a page like this, <http://favstar.fm/users/asshuku>, the Japanese kanji is being rendered like Chinese kanji. It's still readable, but it's just a little off-putting. I'm not native Japanese (I can read it, though), but the best example I can give of what this feels like for a Japanese person is that all of the text on the page has been highlighted and underlined. Readable, but annoying.

I was playing around with it in Firebug, and it looks like a simple(?) fix would be to change the line: <html lang="en" xmlns="<http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml> xml:lang="en"> to: <html xmlns="<http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml> xml:lang="en"> or: <html lang="ja" xmlns="<http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml> xml:lang="ja">

You might also be interested in seeing Google's solution (<http://www.google.com/search?q=google.co.jp>), Slashdot's solution (<http://www.slashdot.jp/>), or Wikipedia's solution (<http://www.wikipedia.ja/>).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. Will fix.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> What's your definition of popular? I can't find any stats on your site that show any reasonable levels of traffic that would allow it to be either ad or freemium supported.

</comment><comment><USER15> Maybe deck network (<http://decknetwork.net/>) or fusion ads (<http://fusionads.net/>)?

<comment><USER9> The Deck is by invitation only.

<comment><USER16> They're both by invitation only.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Might I suggest <http://FeaturedUsers.com>? It's a Twitter application ad network for users who want to promote their Twitter account. It integrates into your site w/ 1 line of Javascript. Full disclosure, it's my project. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey Dusty, I had a look at your site a few days ago and followed you on twitter. I was interested until I had a look at a few of the people advertising themselves. The ones I saw looked pretty boring. ;-) I would be interested in talking to you more about it though. tmhaines at googles mail system.

<comment><USER18> I know a few people using Dusty's service, for most it covered the hosting bills and has much better returns than Google AdSense. He's putting a lot of energy into making it even better.

I suggest diversifying your ad real estate, at least initially, there's no reason you can't have Featured Users + Adsense + Deck, etc. Just don't go overboard with the # of ads on the screen, you'll drive people away.

You may also try using Google AdManager or OpenX and selling ads yourself. I prefer the former because Google handles the hosting.

<comment><USER15> Deck is exclusive. From <http://www.decknetwork.net/>

> Only a single ad will be shown for each page viewed.

I hear it's a pretty sweet deal, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Adsense would be a good place to start

<comment><USER8> Agreed. It's boring but starts you along the path to eventually selling your own ads. I'd also recommend highly targeted affiliate programs, which can pay better than AdSense and give you more control over who/what is shown.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I really didnt see why some of the tweets were being favorited. Based on their content, i'd agree with vulpes above - it'd be pretty difficult to get ppl to pay $$. Sponsored placement sounds like a good idea.

Another suggestion, although not monetization related - provide a widget of say the top favorited / top favorited users - that bloggers could embed on their blog - increases distribution.

</comment><comment><USER10> I would say register with a site like Quantcast.com so you can publicly quantify popularity of your site. This gives bloggers and businesses easy access to your numbers. People like to talk with popular sites.

You might want to check out Chris Anderson's book on Free: the Future of a Radical Price as a good source for brainstorming business models.

</comment><comment><USER21> After tweets have proved themselves, remove them from the site and hawk them to comedians. You'd just need one motivated buyer willing to spend a lot. Or better yet, use them yourself like William Shatner used Sarah Palin (giving back some to the original tweeters for an extra bonus).

</comment><comment><USER22> I would love to suggest a good business model, but I am afraid I will have to tell you that even twitter is not able to monetize its huge traffic.

Forget monetization for now. Try to get acquired by somebody who think they can make use of your traffic.

</comment><comment><USER23> The layout is bit odd to show the content; I prefer a site like fav.tweets: <http://www.sixteenseven.com/fav.tweets>

</comment><comment><USER24> Sell it on to a 'greater fool'?:-)

</comment><comment><USER25> use your traffic numbers as a proof of popularity and sell the idea to Twitter, then let them worry about it.</comment>


Ask HN: How has your company responded to Covid-19? - <AUTHOR> How had your company responded to COVID-19 in terms of working from home, travel, etc.? <comment><USER2> There's not much to respond to, really. My company sent out a memo reiterating the common-sense things to do to protect yourself, and reinforcing our already-existing "never come to work sick" policy. That seems sufficient to me.

Edited to add: my employer has had a teleworking policy for years that works well with this. The policy is that if you want to work from home, you can. Almost nobody does, though.

</comment><comment><USER3> I work for a state government. Some of my peers are handling the response for the whole state so they've been open to people working from home. There are notices everywhere of washing hands and not touching your face. Anyone who has traveled recently has been requested to stay home as well.

</comment><comment><USER4> They said they'd pay if we buy sanitizer - no one did. There is an option to do remote work if they have to close the office building. I'm in Germany, there's always soap where there's water.</comment>


Designing forms for gender diversity and inclusion, with examples - <AUTHOR> https://uxdesign.cc/designing-forms-for-gender-diversity-and-inclusion-d8194cf1f51 <comment><USER2> Science is a hell of a thing.</comment>


A Turkish physicist wrote research papers in prison - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-01370-1 <comment><USER2> Can Dündar once described the prison library of Silivri

Sadly I couldn't find a translation in English, but the original in Turkish is also linked

[http://www.zeit.de/2017/43/meinungsfreiheit-tuerkei- haeftlin...](http://www.zeit.de/2017/43/meinungsfreiheit-tuerkei-haeftlinge- bibliotheken-autoren) [http://www.zeit.de/kultur/2017-10/meinungsfreiheit- tuerkei-h...](http://www.zeit.de/kultur/2017-10/meinungsfreiheit-tuerkei- haeftlinge-bibliotheken-autoren-tuerkisch)

The first paragraph is a rather good summary

>Do you know where the literacy rate in Turkey is highest? In Silivri. Because there is Turkey's largest prison, and it is full of writers, journalists, scientists and intellectuals. There is a fairly extensive prison library there, which is steadily growing, as each inmate author asks his publisher for donations or donates his books to the library at the end of his stay. When I was there I happily discovered four of my books in the catalog. Imagine, you are behind bars as "offenders" and your books are there to "help the offenders better them self". Another piece of black humor in this matter: Once a prisoner asked for a book, the librarian's answer was: "We do not have the book, but its author is here."

<comment><USER3> I spent a memorable day once with a Turkish acquaintance who was also doing archival research in Lisbon when I was doing my PhD work there. Her mother came to visit and we walked all around the city.

My acquaintance's mother and father both turned out to be prominent Turkish intellectuals. I asked her mother how she'd met her father - it turned out they met in prison. She said that was a pretty common origin story for Turkish academic couples of her generation, because that was where all the smart people were.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The brain drain faced by Turkey in the last century is getting to even further extremes. I'm doubtful that the universities can restore their past reputation or 'quality,' but Turkish academics themselves will hopefully persevere and flourish in other countries.

<comment><USER5> Not all academics are pursued by the government. However, if you state an opinion against the government openly or are an expert in an important field such as constitutional law or state theory you are sure to face some consequences.

For example all my constitutional law professors at one of the most prominent law faculties in Turkey were either arrested or forced to retire. Nowadays, our professors only state that new laws contradict the whole legal system but are afraid to speak out. For example, there are horrifying changes with executive decrees to the most basic rights such as Habeas Corpus. They contradict with the constitution but no one can take these executive decrees to the supreme court, because that is not allowed. The professors jokingly state that they do not want to speak further about these subjects, because they do not want to be subjected to these very laws they'd want to criticize.

<comment><USER6> It's funny to read people being astonished about the habeas corpus violations in turkey, while hapily forgetting the US disregarded it too since the patriot act.

The scale of violence is not the same, but you are sliding in the wrong directions too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > One of my students Google-translated some research papers for me into > Turkish, but they were held back on suspicion that they included secret > codes — presumably because they contained so many equations.

Such a fearful and non-results-oriented suspicion. Even if a physicist were able to hide messages in equations, what malicious activity did they believe he could accomplish?

<comment><USER8> Not to mention the availability of vastly more suitable communication channels. I recall American news media giving a similar justification for not showing video statements by Al Qaeda. It was certainly realistic to expect that Al Qaeda would engage in communications with malicious effect, but it seems like _quite_ a stretch that they'd rely on CNN to be their C&C channel. Maybe it hadn't quite sunk in at that point that the Internet extends well beyond the US.

<comment> maze-le Its not a strech. Not showing videos released from terrorist groups, might be a valid strategy. After all, terrorism is a means of political communication through violence. When you remove one of the most potent channels of communication, you could remove the ability of these groups to 'terrorize'. Albeit, in times of facebook youtube and twitter this is not possible anymore.

So theoretically, a valid idea. Practically not possible and maybe even counterproductive.

<comment><USER9> There are some people so desperately crying out for us to stop our government from killing innocent people overseas without our consent that they feel the situation is all but hopeless, so they start killing and causing destruction themselves to draw attention to the problem, and government simply doesn't want the voters to see that.

<comment><USER9> In case this has to be said, no, I will never defend the killing of innocent people.

But the big question I ask myself, and ask of others: Are you innocent?

<comment> maze-le What kind of nonsensical comment is that?

<comment><USER9> My tax dollars pay for this: [https://theintercept.com/drone- papers/](https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/)

Do yours?

<comment> maze-le My taxes support this at least. Ramstein Air Base is a relay station in the drone wars and is partly supported by the German government. And I don't like it either. The scale of it is disproportionate and counterproductive. With each drone bombing, they kill 2 terrorists and create 20 new ones.

<comment><USER9> Then I'm not sure why you're calling my comment nonsensical. You agree with it. Cheers, have a good one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you are against to Erdogan, you will be declared as a terrorist at best. He is a control freak, and lost his sanity when he was a little boy. People of Turkey suffer a lot because of him.

</comment><comment><USER11> _For example, one of the arguments in my official indictment was that I had visited the United States and Canada, countries favoured by supporters of the movement that the government believes was behind the coup._

That's crazy.

But why is he already out when he was sentenced to six years in prison on December 20, 2017?

<comment><USER12> The text reads: _".. in July 2016. Theoretical physicist Ali Kaya is one of them. He was arrested three months after the failed coup and held for more than a year before his trial took place. On 20 December ..."_ — that sounds like December 2016 to me, not 2017.

<comment><USER11> No, it reads: " _He was arrested three months after the failed coup and held for more than a year before his trial took place. On 20 December, a court declared him guilty of being a member of a terrorist organization and sentenced him to six years of imprisonment_

The coup was in July 2016. He was arrested after 3 months (October 2016) and after waiting for more than a year in prison, the sentence was declared. This makes it December 2017. Anyway, that doesn't even matter. 6 minus 1 year is still 5 years, and the articles reads as he's already out. What am I missing?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Most people I meet from Turkey have a story of state persecution. One guy wrote two books in prison before being released awaiting trial. He fled when the verdict came down.</comment>


About 40% of Europe's "AI companies" don't use any AI at all - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/the-download/613078/about-40-of-europes-ai-companies-dont-actually-use-any-ai-at-all/ <comment><USER2> This has been going on for some time. To see if you have a viable product it is easier to use humans than spend years building a workable AI solution.

See [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17477768](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17477768) for a similar story.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, was hoping for some HN insight on the issue. Good read.</comment></comment>


Four Days Trapped at Sea With Crypto's Nouveau Riche - <AUTHOR> https://breakermag.com/trapped-at-sea-with-cryptos-nouveau-riche/ <comment><USER2> "I, too, was a lonely intelligent child who knew the special horror, as most lonely intelligent children do, of thinking both very little and too much of themselves at the same time."

Article is worth it for that line. What an outstanding description of my childhood and likely the childhood of half this site's visitors.

Almost everything wrong with tech (at least socially) can be laid at the feet of what it's like to grow up as an overly smart over-educated nerd. If I were contracted by an evil genius to design a brainwashing program to turn kids into sociopaths, I'd just design something exactly like my experience in public school. There's a special kind of head fuckery that you get from being constantly told by adults you're superior while at the same time getting beaten, ignored, and humiliated by most of your peers. I spent most of my late teens and early 20s on a semi-deliberate quest to deprogram myself. I like to think I was somewhat successful.

</comment><comment><USER3> This reminds me a lot of David Foster Wallace's "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again", where he goes on a Caribbean cruise full of retired people. (Highly recommended. The story, not the cruise.)

Don't read this looking for insights about Bitcoin, any more than you'd read DFW's article for insights about being retired. This is a fish-out-of-water story, and those kind of stories are best when they're about the fish itself, not about the water of lack of it.

</comment><comment><USER4> Very well written and funny article documenting the shitcoin bros!

I thoroughly got exactly what I wanted: the exact same shilling I expected from these fake-intellectual, tax-evading bros.

</comment><comment><USER5> I guess I'm in the minority but I thought it was excellently written and very funny.

<comment><USER6> I don't think you are. It is exceptionally well written and full of wit. Not all articles have to be like this, but in this case, this works and works wonderfully.

<comment><USER7> > I am not 10 feet tall and 22, but I am a tiny hyperactive white woman with > weird hair and poor boundaries, so I revert to an old standby and start > serving full manic pixie dream girl. It's not exactly an act. I'm a terrible > actor. It's just about dialing up the parts of my personality that men tend > to find most delightful, giggling a bit more, scratching my arse a bit less, > and hoping nobody Googles me. It helps that I don't have to fake ignorance > of the crypto-scene drama. I only have to pretend to care.

Integrity and professionalism bordering on zero.

<comment><USER6> > Integrity and professionalism bordering on zero.

Absolutely not. You are considering she's there as a journalist to produce and informative piece of news. She's there as a writer to produce a feature about how does it feel to be in one of these cruises.

By your standards, all gonzo journalism or, for that matter, any piece of new journalism is unprofessional. That is just plain absurd. The reader knows she is writing from a personal point of view and should be capable to understand what that means in the context of the experience.

<comment><USER7> I'm going to flag all "gonzo journalism" submissions in the future. HN isn't a cheap tabloid aggregator.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "John McAfee has never been convicted of rape and murder, but—crucially—not in the same way that you or I have never been convicted of rape or murder."

That's a well crafted line right there.

<comment><USER9> Yes, I laughed out loud with this line!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This, unfortunately, is how most business'y events are, unless very corporate or govt-related. Just slightly less blatant. I really envy people who have this ability to filter it all out and still feel at ease.

</comment><comment><USER9> I really enjoyed this article. It really captures the weirdness of this kind of event, and rings true to the bandwagon-crypto people I've met, with a bit of good-natured caricature added. She also writes very well about the role of women during the event.

</comment><comment><USER11> This provides a condensation of what I've experienced visiting Silicon Valley as an outsider.

<comment><USER12> As a Silicon Valley resident, it doesn't come close to what I've ever experienced in my day to day life: one of your typical suburban grunt worker at a big corporation how goes to work in the morning and goes home in the evening for family dinner and invites friends over on the weekend for BBQ.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > In 2017, Salman says, it was relatively easy to raise funds for a nine- > figure ICO.

There weren't many ICO's that raised nine figures. In fact most of them had a cap far below nine figures.

</comment><comment><USER13> > I knew about bitcoin only as an investment vehicle favored by several > essentially sweet nerds close to my heart—and I knew, too, that > cryptocurrencies are the pet untraceable funding model of the far-right.

The author really hasn't been paying attention if she failed to realize it is the pet funding model of drug dealers, ransomers, scammers, and money launderers, and only instead opted to use it to mock the political spectrum she doesn't agree with. This article is poor journalism at best.

I can't believe someone paid the author to go on this cruise and to write such shoddy work. I'm not a fan of the cryptocurrency space, but I had to stop reading this -- it was a Im-better-than-you hit piece to justify the paid trip.

<comment><USER14> >> I can't believe someone paid the author to go on this cruise and to write such shoddy work.

This is how this level of journalism works: CyproCruise has a promotion budget. That budget includes "free" tickets for journalists. They offer these tickets to hip/cool outlets but, as this is a cruise, they need the name of the journalist before actually sending the ticket. So hip/cool outlet sends bio/headshot of the journalist they want to send.

She is admittedly short, petite, young and has cool hair. In her headshot she probably looks 22. Boxes ticked. Cryptocruise sees her both as another attractive female and, being misogynist pigs, thinks her incapable of doing any real damage. So she gets the ticket. Whether her bosses tell her they have paid for the ticket, or that it has been provided, we can never know.

Everyone got what they thought they wanted. Cryptocruise got another attractive female on their boat, and at a discount. News outlet got what they wanted: a colorful description of exactly how misogynist crypto has become. And we readers go our thing too: I actually read the entire article. It reinforced my understanding and assured me that cypto is not long for this world, at least in its current form. Everyone got their thing and made a few bucks doing so. That's how journalism works.

[Think of how awful the article might have been. Imagine if they had sent a 45yo hetero guy, someone who might have fallen in with a very different crowd on this boat.]

<comment><USER15> Except she's Laurie Penny who has been an extremely active anti-men writer for a long time. If they were expecting anything other than the worst hatchet job imaginable, then they didn't do even 5 minutes of research.

[https://www.theguardian.com/profile/laurie- penny](https://www.theguardian.com/profile/laurie-penny)

<comment><USER14> You honestly think these people read her bio? The people promoting this cruise didn't get past her headshot. I'm interested to see which other journalists were invited.

<comment><USER15> I think she's perhaps more well known for this type of thing than you realize.

<comment><USER7> So they probably wanted her to write a piece like this to generate controversy?

<comment><USER15> Possibly, but I don't think it's an accident to put literally the most hostile journalist imaginable on board.

<comment><USER16> Nah, the most hostile journalist possible would have been the FT's Izabella Kaminska. Or possibly David Gerard.

<comment><USER17> FT would have been Jemima Kelly. [https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2018/08/02/1533182400000/One- for...](https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2018/08/02/1533182400000/One-for-the- ladies----/)

If I'd gone I'd definitely have tried for the McAfee interview. As it was I just made sure Laurie had read my book first.

(of course we know each other, it's the worldwide SJW conspiracy)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I generally enjoy articles like this but this one was a hard read. Something about the way the author jumps back and forth from people, events, ideas, internal monologues, to random facts about chairs.

</comment><comment><USER19> What a great writer!

</comment><comment><USER20> Hopeless juvenile article which is all about the writer and her naive opinions. Wondering why this made it onto HN? Is there some nugget here I missed?

<comment><USER21> No. Just typical Laurie penny nonsense.

I don't know why anyone pays attention to her.

<comment><USER22> Because she is funny. And possibly the bastard offspring of Hunter S Thompson and PJ O'Rourke.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> "For instance, in October, artist Kelly Donnelly released the feminist anthem "I Am She" using Ethereum" \- has anyone heard of this? It's the first mention I can find.

</comment><comment><USER24> Authors nowadays have the tendency to (ab)use their own articles as vehicle to talk about themselves -- and it's ever too often either completely unrelated to the content or some superficial, forced connection. It's quite annoying.

<comment><USER25> I know. Like when Mark Twain visited Germany in 1878 and then used his report ("A Tramp Abroad") to talk about his own feelings rather than objectively describing the fascinating arts and crafts of Prussia.

<comment><USER23> Or how David Halberstam selfishly described his reaction to seeing a Buddhist monk burn in Vietnam: "I was too shocked to cry, too confused to take notes or ask questions, too bewildered to even think.... As he burned he never moved a muscle, never uttered a sound, his outward composure in sharp contrast to the wailing people around him."

What an amateur. No wonder he only won one Pulitzer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Typical example of poor journalism. Written to be sensationalist and carry a narrative that was already all decided before setting a foot on that boat.

</comment><comment><USER27> I tried to enjoy this, but as writing it kind of flaunts "show don't tell." The author could have written half of this without ever setting foot on the boat. Like, it feels like she came in with her burns prepared beforehand, and only paid cursory attention to the people.

</comment><comment><USER28> It talks a lot about shame and misogyny and abuse of power, but doesn't actually report on any instances of it other than "they hired pretty girls to party on the boat", which I can assume were consensual transactions those women engaged in voluntarily.

Where is the big dirt she keeps alluding to? Are we just supposed to hate them by default for being rich and white and male and schlubby and tasteless?

<comment><USER29> We aren't supposed to hate them, we are supposed to laugh at them.</comment></comment>


How I became Leonardo da Vinci on the Blockchain - <AUTHOR> https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2018/06/how-i-became-leonardo-da-vinci-on-the-blockchain/ <comment><USER2> There are other prohibitive problems with this idea.

What happens if someone dies or the private key is otherwise lost?

What if the private key is stolen and the thief uses it to authorize a dirt- cheap sale to themselves?

What happens if the item is sold but the "token" is accidentally (or deliberately) sent to the wrong recipient?

What happens if the courts determine that someone else is legally entitled to the work in question (e.g. via divorce judgement) but the current owner destroys the private key out of spite?

Additionally, this system does not solve any practical problems. If I am a collector of stolen art, I don't really care about some ephemeral blockchain token, all I really care about is being in possession of rare art that I can personally admire.

Finally, it is impossible to generate a reproducible hash based on a physical object, so there is nothing preventing someone from keeping the original and selling off a fake in its place, forever corrupting the supposed chain of trust established by the artist.

<comment><USER3> > being in possession of rare art that I can personally admire

Isn't it usually more about showing off that de Hory painting[0] to your Yakuza friends?

[0]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmyr_de_Hory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmyr_de_Hory)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Blockchains don't really work for ownership of non-digital assets.

I think they can and will be incredibly useful for digital trade, but too many people are trying to make rigid secure digital systems represent the squishy nondeterminism of analog law. Fundamentally, you can't keep an accurate ledger, because there is no interface for proving ownership of physical items.

<comment><USER5> There is an interface for proving ownership of physical items. It is a centralized system, composed of courts and governments, but it works.

If someone challenges your ownership of property, you bring your papers to court.

The same thing could work for cryptoassets: you have a centralized, trusted system for validation of custody of assets, and then its share distribution is handled on the blockchain.

<comment><USER6> In this instance, what advantage does blockchain offer over the existing systems?

<comment><USER5> I guess fast, low cost transactions

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> To wit:

"In other words, blockchain can guarantee parameters of transactions, but it cannot sanitize the endpoints. It cannot impose the type of social-justice and good-actor constraints that some of its proponents believe will lead to disintermediation of centralized marketplaces like Amazon (customers will still want easy returns, "no questions asked" guarantees and customer service) or large financial intermediaries (banking clients will still want automatic fraud reversal and credit card rewards)."

\-- [http://goo.gl/BtVyx3](http://goo.gl/BtVyx3)

</comment><comment><USER8> The only good implementation of blockchain stamping is OpenTimestamps from Peter Todd.

And because it is smart and nor an overhyped ICO, it is offered for free and actually works.

See [https://opentimestamps.org/](https://opentimestamps.org/)

edit: oh, it seems the project in question (veritart) is actually using opentimestamps.

<comment><USER9> You don't need a "blockchain" for timestamps. There have been timestamping services for years.[1] There's a standard: RFC 3161. Many of the SSL cert providers also have a timestamping service.

Timestamping would be very useful if Google used signed timestamps to determine provenance. Scraper sites should be outranked by the original source.

[1] [https://freetsa.org/index_en.php](https://freetsa.org/index_en.php)

<comment><USER10> The obvious rebuttal to your claim is that those services are all _centralized_.

<comment><USER11> The obvious rebuttal is, do they need to be decentralized?

<comment><USER10> To prevent any one party from being able to deceive others about the timestamp.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > Blockchain is amazing technology - but it is a solution in search of a > problem.

True.

<comment><USER13> I disagree. Blockchain and crypto currencies that use PoW are a terrible invention. Bitcoin mining alone is now using more electricity than Ireland, and this figure is only increasing even more. In an age where the global effects of climate change are becoming more and more apparent while still too little is done to mitigate it, maybe we should not exacerbate the problem even further This applies especially to something like crypto currencies that, so far, provide very little in terms of tangible societal benefits.

We could of course discuss PoS solutions, but those have their own drawbacks, and that still would not change the fundamental fact that crypto currencies and blockchains have yet, after roughly a decade, to find any kind of non- niche use case. Google needed far less than a decade to become the dominant search engine. Netflix did the same of video streaming. Modern smartphones exist for about as long as Bitcoin, and they have become globally ubiquitous. So how good can the blockchain really be?

<comment><USER14> I think the two of you are violently agreeing with each other.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> A blockchain only guarantees that calculations are done in a certain way, not that the input data is correct. That same problem also existed before the blockchain as you can see with e.g. Amazon reviews and fake news. Traditionally that problem was solved by having a centralized authority that decides on what input data is correct and what isn't, but that, of course, comes with the usual problems of centralization and monopolies, and also, doesn't seem to work well at scale (as you can again see with the crumbling Amazon review system).

While the criticism in the blog post at blockchain as a technology is misdirected in my opinion (and maybe even purposefully misunderstanding what problems blockchains solve), I think the main problem of "shit in - shit out" is a very interesting and important one, even more so in decentralized systems where you don't have the crutches of a centralized verifier available.

However, I'm pretty optimistic that that problem can even be solved with the help of blockchain. I hoped that I wouldn't have to plug our project[0] before we have anything published, but this seems too close of a topic to pass up. Over the next few weeks, we will be publishing both code for our first testnet and our whitepaper for a decentralized information verification system that aims to solve the problems laid out in this blog post, that we worked on for quite some time.

[0]: [https://rlay.com](https://rlay.com)

<comment><USER16> How is the information verified in your system? Why does it need a blockchain?

You mentioned that the "criticism in the blog post at blockchain as a technology is misdirected", how so?

<comment><USER15> > How is the information verified in your system? Why does it need a > blockchain?

The information is verified by creating an open system where anyone can point out wrong information (by providing oposing information). That is done with the help of a token in our system, which is issued to people who help establish consensus about what's true and what isn't. The token is the main reason we need a blockchain, and the gametheoretic aspects behind it dictate that there needs to be a token or similar in our system for it to work.

> You mentioned that the "criticism in the blog post at blockchain as a > technology is misdirected", how so?

The "shit in - shit out" problem exists also with traditional systems and is not solely a blockchain-problem. That's what I meant to say with that.

I think that's about as much as I can share right now without angering my colleagues. The whitepaper which is coming out in a few weeks goes more into depth about the specifics of each part of the systems and provides some game- theoretic and economic foundations for the system.

<comment><USER17> > _The information is verified by creating an open system where anyone can > point out wrong information (by providing oposing information)._

How do you combat "spam", were some users send thousands of fake registrations of well known art works?

How do you combat sockpuppet that send wrong opposing information to steal the art work of the original creator?

How do you combat sockpuppets that send wrong information to support fake claims?

If some piece of art has two claims, who decides which one is the correct?

<comment><USER15> > If some piece of art has two claims, who decides which one is the correct?

In the end I would say that all of your other questions can be reduced to this one, by adding weight to claims, which makes the quantity of claims and indentities irellevant.

We are not focused on the art market, but open to any kind of information. But for the example of the art ownership verification:

\- Person A (true owner) claims that they own the Mona Lisa with a weight of 10 tokens

\- Person B (non-owner) claims that they own the Mona Lisa with a weight of 10 tokens

\- An additional actor X who knows about the ownership can add additional weight to the claim of Person A. If the consensus in the end decides (based on the weights) that Person A is the true owner, actor X will be rewarded. There are some specifics about how we construct the reward function that I can't talk about yet, but the core of it is that all participants in the network are incentivized to only submit true information, and also incentivized to combat any wrong information they see by providing conflicting true information.

If you are interested in the topic and would like to discuss more deeply feel free to reach out to me via the email on the website (I'm Max).

<comment><USER18> I can see and am grateful for your effort to answer the questions as helpfully as you can. But to me, when you say "the owner of the Mona Lisa is whoever has the most tokens in our system", it sounds like complete nonsense. The Louvre owns the Mona Lisa, and if your system disagrees with that, your system is broken.

<comment><USER15> I can definitely see where you are coming from since that mechanism of "most token wins", sounds very unintuitive and inherintly cheatable (and in a lot of places has rightfully bad connotations like "pay to win" in video games). When I first heard it I also had the same reaction. Sadly I don't think that I can offer any more information right now, but we are all very eager to publicize it and put it out into the open for critic ASAP.

<comment><USER19> >I can definitely see where you are coming from since that mechanism of "most token wins", sounds very unintuitive and inherintly cheatable (and in a lot of places has rightfully bad connotations like "pay to win" in video games).

It does indeed seem exactly that way. You said upthread:

>An additional actor X who knows about the ownership can add additional weight to the claim of Person A.

But how do you verify that X is someone "knows about the ownership"? What if X was someone A or B paid or incentivized to vouch for them so the consensus would be swayed? How do prevent bad actors from gaming the system in this way? If the asset in dispute is valuable enough it would certainly be worth it to a bad actor to pay a little to cheat and have the consensus fall on their side.

<comment><USER15> > What if X was someone A or B paid or incentivized to vouch for them so the > consensus would be swayed?

If B were to pay X a bribe of amount N, so X enforces the statement with amount N, B could also directly enforce the statement with amount N, which would lead to exactly the same result. If X would receive less than N, to add a weight of N, they would be gifting some money to B, and vice versa. So between rational untrusted parties, a simple bribe would not make sense. There are some rationality assumptions relating to 51% attacks similar to PoS oriented systems that have to be met, but there are some mechanisms in place that should reduce the practical requirement regarding rationality among participating parties significantly.

> If the asset in dispute is valuable enough it would certainly be worth it to > a bad actor to pay a little to cheat and have the consensus fall on their > side.

Good question, but I'm afraid that's one of the questions I can't answer right now without leaking too much information.

<comment><USER20> > If B were to pay X a bribe of amount N, [...] B could also directly enforce > the statement with amount N

Okay, better question: how do you deal with the (pathologic, and therefore approximately guarranteed to come up) situation where A's life savings are ten dollars and a horse, B has 100 million dollars, and B claims (with amount ≥ 11$) that B owns A's horse.

<comment><USER15> As long as the "100 million dollars" don't make up more than 50% of the tokens in the network, the incentives are supposed to play out in a way that all the other participants of the network contest the wrong statement made by B, and thus B isn't able to introduce information that is deemed wrong. So in general the situation should be preventable. There are some specific versions of that edge case that come to my mind that where that situation could indeed be unresolvable but in those cases that should be detectable and displayable to the users of the system.

As I said in my previous comment, there are some rationality requirements regarding some of the token amount.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> You can assert that you created media by proving that you had it before anyone else. Blockchains allow you to upload media or a hash of the media into a (relatively) permanent, (relatively) immutable ledger. Relative permanence and immutability are valuable qualities.

Uploading a hash into the bitcoin blockchain is trivial; marketing this type of service is not. The advertising or promises of a specific venture do not necessarily reflect the value of a technology.

<comment><USER22> ...and that is the purpose of a copyright too when filed with the USPTO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is confusing claim and dispute resolution.

The Louvre Museum possesses the Mona Lisa, and claims it is the owner. If I break in and steal it, I possess it, and I can claim ownership. But the Louvre can take me to court and the judge will resolve the dispute.

Any blockchain is not a dispute resolution mechanism but an efficient claim storage, and as such blockchains can never expect to replace authority of courts - which leads to back to the usual politics

<comment><USER24> I think cryptocurrencies could be part of a novel arbitration system, actually. Parties to a human-readable contract put up a bond on a smart contract which authorizes some mutually agreed arbitrator to disburse the bonds on completion of the contract, according to how things turned out. It's an irrevocable submission to the arbitrator's authority over restitution and punishment, but the smart contract prevents the arbitrator from absconding with the bonds (though they could still collude with one of the participants.)

<comment><USER25> This is how we do arbitration in OpenBazaar. Users can offer their services as arbitrators and compete on terms, price, and reputation. When a buyer makes a purchase they can choose one from a list of ones pre-approved by the seller. Then funds are sent to a 2-of-3 multisig address where each of the parties has 1 key.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> We actually built something very similar to this recently. It's an art auction house app running on a private blockchain that we spun up using Hyperledger Fabric, with the front-end written in React.

Video walkthrough of the app if you're interested: [https://youtu.be/HScND22bPcU?t=198](https://youtu.be/HScND22bPcU?t=198)

(Actual demo starts at 3:20)

</comment><comment><USER27> it seems the ethereum blockchain is not immune to human lies. Aka the oracle problem, provenance problem.

</comment><comment><USER28> My criticism of blockchain is how niche the uses are.

Bitcoin is great, worldwide transactions that are immune from the US government printing money every year. I understand that.

Voting and timestamps, great uses for blockchain.

However more complex work may need significantly more oversight. Sure its not great to add columns to a database, but you are not going to have this ability if millions of people dont need the columns. Thats the fault of decentralized chains.

Centralized blockchains defeat the purpose obv, but that hasnt stopped hundreds of coins from doing this.

Im very skeptical of crypto outside of bitcoin.

</comment><comment><USER29> Bad application of technology doesn't (necessarily) mean that technology sucks.

Not that I care for most projects in blockchain sphere, as 95% of them are scam and 4.9% naive / misguided. But blockchain does have its uses, it's just the ICOs (and other manifestations of greed) that gave it a bad name. Audit logs anyone? That's the killer feature.

<comment><USER30> For auditing there are auditing companies, they can timestamp the consumers data.

If you don't want to pay an auditing company, you will have to pay the computing power for proof of work. Not a big gain.

<comment><USER29> Sure it is. It commoditizes trust, making audit logs easily accessible and cheap for many many companies. Besides, which auditing company do you trust?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> "On two occasions I have been asked, — 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."

[https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_Babbage#Passages_from_...](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_Babbage#Passages_from_the_Life_of_a_Philosopher_\(1864\))

<comment><USER32> Which is cute and all but it's the blockchain proponents that seem to think it will give right answers. Hell they frequently ellide the need to supply figures-right or wrong- at all.

<comment><USER33> I don't think this is accurate. It's the nontechnical zeitgeist shouting blockchain, not those in the know. Just like how carbon nanotubes were supposed to be the best at everything from conductors to batteries to bullet proof vests, and there are 0 usable products on the market. It's just easier to to get away with for programs.

<comment><USER32> And yet here we are discussing a blockchain start up putting almost zero effort into verifying the provenance of a piece of art despite verifying the provenance of art being its entire business model. Or are we just going to Scotsman them into non-technical shouting?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> It's worth noting that Verisart is very similar to [https://www.ascribe.io](https://www.ascribe.io) which preceded it. Though ascribe has focused their marketing more towards digital art.

</comment><comment><USER35> In the comments the author says, "Blockchain is amazing technology - but it is a solution in search of a problem." That's really the tl;dr of this article. Blockchain has a lot of potential value but arbitrarily throwing it at problems won't magically create the value (not counting investors blindly throwing money at buzzwords).

<comment><USER36> I have yet to come across _any_ problems that are solved better with a blockchain than with any other traditional technology - except for the original one, a distributed electronic currency.

<comment><USER27> also decentralised clocks, which can provide decentralised timestamps, which is a kind of related concept (double spend resistance)

<comment><USER20> Also a non-redactable public record, although it's a bit hard to do that robustly; you need a transaction saying "find md5^[N]([X]) xor [md5^N(X) xor data]" to ensure you data is already securely embedded before anyone can determine that it's classified/copyrighted/otherwise-censor-bait.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Blockchain is not optimized for physical reality but the digital one.

</comment><comment><USER38> One could use blockchain to record the microscopic surface imperfections on the art. It would be like matching up the broken ends of stick...

</comment><comment><USER39> When you only have a hammer, everything's a nail?

</comment><comment><USER40> After just reading the title I thought this was going to be an article about all of the bots "painting the tape" and manipulating bitcoin prices on various exchanges.

</comment><comment><USER41> now try to sell it

</comment><comment><USER42> Check out the book The Billionaire's Vinegar by Benjamin Wallace if you're interested in learning the background on why blockchain technology won't solve these kind of problems. Hardy Rodenstock fooled the foremost wine expert in the world.

</comment><comment><USER43> > I don't understand the blockchain hype.

> A startup has certified my artwork & placed their verification on the > bitcoin blockchain.

> Now art dealers & auctioneers can feel secure that I am the original artist.

> One small problem… I am not Leonardo da > Vinci![https://www.verisart.com/works/23f2c64a-08c6-4a42-8013-84ac8...](https://www.verisart.com/works/23f2c64a-08c6-4a42-8013-84ac8422dffb) > …

Mkay, so the system is working as designed? It seems the issue in this case is that the people behind that startup are dumb. How does that translate to blockchain tech not being useful? If you don't properly verify the information you commit to a blockchain, don't trust the information on the blockchain. Meanwhile, you can rest assured that the information was committed by someone who controls a specific private key. Why would anyone expect anything more?

<comment><USER44> > How does that translate to blockchain tech not being useful?

By proving that without a central authority (centralization) verifying everything going into the blockchain, it is actually useless?

I have seen tons of threads where people like to mention shipping as a good use-case for blockchain. Supposedly it ensures manifest etc can't be doctored. And as this example shows if the data is tainted at source, blockchain is just a database, a rather complex one at that. In that case, it is better to use a traditional and controlled database.

<comment><USER43> > By proving that without a central authority (centralization) verifying > everything going into the blockchain, it is actually useless?

So then I guess there's no use for cryptographic signing, hash chains, and graph-theoretic consensus protocols? Because that's what you're saying. Your characterization of blockchains as "useless" only makes it seem like you have no idea what it actually is. It's not that complicated. It's just a handful of known and widely-accepted-as-not-being-useless-on-their-own algorithms which have been combined in a creative way.

> In that case, it is better to use a traditional and controlled database.

So then you get...what? You get the same thing but without cryptographic integrity checks. If incorrect data is committed, don't use that data. Or, better yet, commit a revocation of that data. At least you don't have to worry about Larry's shipping company cooking the books after the fact to their own advantage.

<comment><USER45> > So then I guess there's no use for cryptographic signing, hash chains, and > graph-theoretic consensus protocols? Because that's what you're saying.

What's being said is that it's not useful for shipping (and physical asset provenance) applications. The validity of the components is a necessary but not sufficient step in validating the application, and the latter cannot be derived from the former. The usefulness of blockchains for currency does not, in itself, imply their usefulness in shipping.

>At least you don't have to worry about Larry's shipping company cooking the books after the fact to their own advantage.

This is not as much of an advantage as it seems, if Larry can defraud you by going around the blockchain. Your risk is then determined by Larry's inclination to fraud, which is the same in either case. Fixing one hole in a fence doesn't help if the cattle can get out through another that you cannot fix.

What this argument needs is the outline of an actual solution to the problems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> cool, now we all know that you are a fraud, permanently. Your reputation as an artist is doomed since the blockchain is nothing but a reliable and immutable ledger. Since it's public and verifiable now that you are knowingly stealing other artist's work, all of your other works and contracts will be crushed in the market. (yes, I'm being hypothetical here, I know it was just a proof of concept, etc)

So.. it is working as intended?

<comment><USER47> But the knowledge that he's stealing others' work comes from sources other than the blockchain record, if you don't count the fact that it's internally invalid for a living person to claim a work created in 1506. So the immutable ledger provides no value.

Regardless, taking a picture of a painting doesn't verify that you painted, or even currently own that painting. Adding a timestamp doesn't change that.</comment></comment>