Ask HN: What do I need to know before registering a 2 person LLC on Legal Zoom? - <AUTHOR> What do I need to know before registering a 2 person LLC on Legal Zoom? <comment><USER2> That the LLC form is really 1 page and 1 follow-up form. This will cost < $100 in total if you spend 10 minutes googling how to do it. (I'm not a lawyer, but this is what I know)

1\. LLC FAQ <http://www.sos.ca.gov/business/llc/llc_faq.htm>

2\. LLC Form (1 pg) <http://www.sos.ca.gov/business/bpd_forms.htm> (search for LLC-1) — $70

When you get approved, you will need to submit a Statement of Information which costs $20.

3\. If you don't make money you can waive the first year's min. franchise tax of $800.

4\. Lawyers will usually help you for free if you are starting a legit business, but it will be costly (we just got a bill for $10k for starting up our s-corp).

5\. Good luck!

<comment><USER3> I've heard that the approval process is sped up if you actually go to Sacramento and file in person. Is this true?

<comment><USER4> I don't believe so. If you file in person you have to pay an extra handling fee. If you want expedited filing i think it costs an extra few hundred dollars.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> First, I'll echo other people's advice: just file the forms yourself. Yes, its annoying having to handle physical paper and envelopes.

However, since you have a partner in this LLC, the really important thing is to set up your "operating agreement". This will decide how the company is controlled, revenue shared, what happens when someone leaves... etc. Don't wait until someone wants to leave or you're making decent $ before trying to figure this out. You can file the agreement with the state, too.

If I were you I would write down in your own words what you want in the operating agreement and then take the money you saved from NOT using legalzoom and have a lawyer codify what you have into legalese.

<comment><USER4> For more info check out "Business Law for Entrepreneurs"

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> One thing to keep in mind of a LLC is that the annual franchise fee is not limited to $800. If you start to make money, you will need to pay a fee calculated based on the "gross" revenue, not "net" revenue (which is sales minus expenses). Also, you will need to pay self-employment tax on any money leftover.

I summarize some of the tradeoffs in the following ...

<http://www.lovemytool.com/blog/2008/01/bootstrapping.html>

<comment><USER6> This $800 minimum franchise tax is only in California. Other states have other tax requirements.

FYI: You can defer that $800 payment if its your first operating year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's really easy to register an LLC in Pennsylvania, you can actually mostly do it online.

</comment><comment><USER8> Splitting ownership exactly 50-50 risks deadlock in worst case scenarios. Give someone 50+1 or give a mutually respected third party a tiny share to break ties if all else fails. You probably won't need it, but it's there just in case.

<comment><USER9> You can always put Felix Dennis' "Mexican Shoot-out" clause in place. If the owners are in a deadlock, one can chose to execute the clause. When that happens, each owner places a sealed bid to buy the entire business. Whomever has the highest offer, wins... Brutal, but fair.

<comment><USER8> Something like that is another good option. I hadn't heard exactly that variant; the one I've heard the most about has one partner offer a price, the other has to either take it for their half or pay that same amount for the other half.

Within the last year I read some research suggesting a further refinement that better ensures the partner who valued the business highest winds up with it... but can't find the reference right now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Legal zoom charges you on top of state fee's. Your state will normally charge you 4-500 bucks. Legal zoom will charge you 100-300 + state fee's.

The forms are easy enough to fill out yourself.

</comment><comment><USER11> That if you're looking to raise funding, being an LLC will be a continued point of annoyance that will become worse as the level of funding rises. You'll be forced to convert to an S corp as soon as any experienced angels or VCs become involved beause they simply won't do deals with you otherwise - which can be a big headache, legal expense, and drain on time.

<comment><USER12> An S-Corp is actually worse from the VC standpoint than an LLC, b/c S-Corps don't require incorporation (DBA's can apply for and receive S-Corp status). This means it's easier to take the money and run.

Some VCs prefer LLCs because it gives them the risk-minimizing benefits of a corporation, while at the same time giving them a hand in managing the business (a la partnership form). HOWEVER, many VCs, especially the smaller ones, are unfamiliar with LLC law, and avoid it b/c they don't know about it. Some VCs prefer S-Corp because it ideally gives them access to the founders' personal assets, but in practice, a bankruptcy court will try very hard to deny this benefit.</comment></comment>


Why India has never seen a military dictatorship - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/418468/why-india-has-never-seen-a-military-dictatorship/

<comment><USER2> Not a military dictatorship but they did have "The Emergency" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emergency_(India)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emergency_\(India\))

</comment><comment><USER3> They're preoccupied with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_politics_in_India](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_politics_in_India)

</comment><comment><USER4> >We perhaps don't realise what a luxury that kind of certainty is.

It indeed is a luxury.</comment>


DBD::CSV – DBI driver for CSV files - <AUTHOR> https://metacpan.org/pod/DBD::CSV

<comment><AUTHOR> Runs on many platforms, see [http://matrix.cpantesters.org/?dist=DBD- CSV+0.41](http://matrix.cpantesters.org/?dist=DBD-CSV+0.41) the only requirements is flock() system call.

I used it and it works like a charm.

Submitted as an answer to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7175830](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7175830)</comment>


Playing the numbers game. - <AUTHOR> http://30sleeps.com/blog/

<comment><USER2> I had this same conversation with someone last night.

I suck at meeting new people. But I can email 100 people for a meetup, a few will respond, and the majority will forget they ever heard from me. Ultimately though, there no harm in playing the numbers to make new connections.</comment>


IKEA switches from Verdana to Noto (Google, Monotype) for 2020 catalogue - <AUTHOR> https://www.itsnicethat.com/news/ikea-changes-typeface-to-noto-monotype-google-graphic-design-210819 <comment><USER2> As a futura fan, I really admired Ikea for switching to verdana for purely utilitarian reasons: they needed a font that had the absolute widest unicode coverage for use in basically any language on planet earth. It was a short list.

That said, I cringed at verdana's bell-bottom almost-serifs, especially when used at undignified large headline sizes, far larger than it was ever intended to be set.

The move to noto makes me happy.

</comment><comment><USER3> When IKEA announced the switch from Futura to Verdana, I thought they had made a mistake. I was appalled. Now, Verdana's grown on me (although Futura is still much nicer), and I wish they'd keep it.

Goes to show how critical familiarity is in building a strong brand.

<comment><USER4> While I never thought Verdana was bad, it was I think quite a boring choice. Now they are moving to Noto which dare I say is not the most exciting of fonts either but from an utilitarian perspective, well, I guess it get the job done so maybe it's a good choice after all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why not use Noto where there isn't coverage for Verdana? Not only that, we see Noto everywhere and it becomes a cliche instead of a brand identity, and they are making this sacrifice to have a few extra scripts.

</comment><comment><USER6> > "Trapped in system thinking: After ten years, Ikea says goodbye to Verdana > and replaces it with Noto."

How is using verdana "system thinking"?

</comment><comment><USER7> Now if only I could actually order stuff from their website ...

</comment><comment><USER8> (2019)</comment>


Show HN: Angular 2 HN – A responsive Hacker News client built with Angular 2 - <AUTHOR> https://angular2-hn.firebaseapp.com <comment><USER2> Looks quite nice but it's sloooow on my android device (note 5 using AC with a gigabit line). Takes about 5-6 seconds on average compared to less than one in a web browser.

That being said, the hn interface is poor on mobile.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. And really eh? Hmmm haven't tested on an Android device throughly and it does load pretty decently on my iPhone.

But as someone already mentioned here, there definitely is some work that needs to be done to speed up the requests in general. There's quite a large transfer that happens on every page because of the way I load each item individually. I'll have to find a way to speed that up.

<comment><USER3> Honestly it is _seems_ slow on my extremely fast MacBook Pro. In my experience, loading animations that aren't delayed by some period longer than human perception of "slow" can make reasonably performing software _seem_ slow. Consider delaying the loading behavior until the response has taken longer than some threshold.

<comment><AUTHOR> Very good point, I have the loading indicators show immediately if the response isn't received. Any slight internet connection issues or even just a slight stagger for the requests to complete, it'll show the loading icons.

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll consider delaying the loading behaviour so it doesn't show all the time when the app is performing normally.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Update: Just fixed the comment section to not load individually async. It now loads at a proper speed. A post with > 1000 comments now takes ~ 200ms and 130KB (where it used to take ~15X longer).

Appreciate all the feedback folks. I'll be updating the post pages in the next few days to do the same to make this app substantially faster.

<comment><AUTHOR> And done. With this absolutely amazing API ([https://github.com/cheeaun/node- hnapi/](https://github.com/cheeaun/node-hnapi/)), items don't load individually and everything loads roughly with half the bandwidth than right here on the original site.

Not to mention that requests now get cached :)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I know, another Hacker News client? There seems to be a new one everyday.

I wanted to build one with a responsive UI that would provide a `native` feel regardless of which device you use. Decided to use Angular CLI, RxJS and Webpack to do the job.

There are definitely areas of improvement and I would love some feedback :)

<comment><USER4> For mobile I care about data usage and speed without WiFi, before native feel. This version downloads each comment in a separate request and the total is huge. Even the main page (with everything already cached) takes ~7KB on original site and ~28KB on your client.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, you're right I'm loading every item individually async from the official API. Not only are the requests unnecessarily large, it can take a while to load with a large number of comments. Definitely something to work on and fix.

<comment><USER5> Write a couple hundred lines of your favorite language and throw it up on Google App Engine. Have the code query all relevant threads/comments and store them in GAE's free memcached service. It should fall perfectly into the free tier, and if not the $300 free trial should last you a full year. Finally have the angular2 app query your GAE project directly and you should be looking at < 50 ms loads of much more efficient json data.

Wish I worked for Google, but I just like GCP (currently migrating my company's infrastructure to it).

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the shout out, Ben! I sadly have to correct you though: our $300 free trial for all of GCP is time limited to two months. That said, you're right about App Engine and it's free tier, it goes a long way! Since Firebase is built on Google Cloud, you can easily still use Firebase for the "front end" / client, and serve it up as a json response as suggested.

Disclosure: I work on Cloud at Google.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> sras-me I finished making something like this last week [1]. It sourced stories from both Reddit and hackernews. The UI to read comments also had some nice additions. Also built with Angular2.

[1] [https://sras.me/reform/#/setconfig;reddit=programming,scienc...](https://sras.me/reform/#/setconfig;reddit=programming,science,askscience;hackernews=topstories,beststories,askstories,showstories)

<comment><AUTHOR> This is cool! Thanks for sharing. I like how you can open the comments inline. One thing I think that might be cool to add would collapse button that shows (bottom right the screen maybe?) when you open inline comments. It would be nice to collapse the comments without having to scroll all the way back up.

<comment> sras-me > It would be nice to collapse the comments without having to scroll all the > way back up.

Was done like that initially. But when user collapses the inline display, it felt that the user is left at a random location, and had to scan the items to find where they left off. So I removed the link at the bottom to collapse the inline display, forcing them to use the top link. When the user collapses using the top link, the scroll position is not 'jumped', and hence the experience felt better.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fair point, I can see how that can feel like you're left at a random location.

One other thing I noticed is that stories don't seem to load on my iPhone, but works fine on browser. Not sure why though.

<comment> sras-me >One other thing I noticed is that stories don't seem to load on my iPhone, but works fine on browser.

I am not sure (I don't have an iPhone around to test this), but it might be because there are no story sources configured in your Phone. The link I provided,

[https://sras.me/reform/#/setconfig;reddit=programming,scienc...](https://sras.me/reform/#/setconfig;reddit=programming,science,askscience;hackernews=topstories,beststories,askstories,showstories)

was a config url, that included a bunch of story sources to use (subreddit and HN pages).

This config is stored in the local storage. So you don't have to use the config url next time you use the app.

You can also add subreddit and hackernews pages using the settings page. Can you please try it and let me if this is the case?

If it is not, can you please check if the log is showing any network activity (there is a log at the bottom where it shows active requests)

<comment><AUTHOR> Okay it's not the iPhone, it's just Safari for some reason. Tried on Chrome and everything loads perfectly fine (I like the experience on mobile). I can add stories and everything no problem.

On Safari I don't see any requests and clicking add story or Reddit does nothing :(

<comment> sras-me I just tried it on Safari in my Macbook. It seems to work fine (Version 9.0.3 (11601.4.4)).

Anyway, it is alright. Thanks for all your feedback.

I found a small issue with your app. Please take a look at [1]. When the thread is too deep, the container becomes so narrow that the text becomes almost vertical.

[1] [https://angular2-hn.firebaseapp.com/item/12455034](https://angular2-hn.firebaseapp.com/item/12455034)

<comment><AUTHOR> Okay weird, yeah not sure why it's happening for me.

And thanks so much for spotting that, will fix that up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interesting. I am contemplating the shift from Angular 1 to 2. It is so vastly different.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah it's completely different. Will definitely suggest looking into it a bit before making the switch especially if you're planning to do so for a large project. There's quite a bit of overhead you most definitely would have to deal with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> GJ, this definitely looks good! Speed is OK imho, although you can feel a little delay on my device (OnePlus One).

However, I will probably stick to Materialistic (HN native Android App) for feature reasons.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Yep absolutely speed definitely needs work. And yeah for sure apps like Materialistic, HackerNews-React-Native are way more fully fledged.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is amazing!

<comment><AUTHOR> Cheers mate, glad you like it :)</comment></comment>


Philip K. Dick, Sci-Fi Philosopher, Part 2 - <AUTHOR> http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/21/philip-k-dick-sci-fi-philosopher-part-2/

<comment><USER2> Only slightly off topic, but anyone who hasn't should read Philip K Dick. Reading an anthology of his short stories is like reading the plot summary of almost every major Sci-Fi film in the last 30 years.

<comment><USER3> Quite true, and sometimes in a very literal[1] sense![2]

[1] Literal in the classic sense, not the contranymical nonsense that has been thrust upon it thanks to teenagers who "can't even"...read a dictionary.

[2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_adaptations_of_works_by...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_adaptations_of_works_by_Philip_K._Dick)

<comment><USER4> Wow. You know nothing about English. Dickens used "literally" in a figurative sense:

[http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3007](http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3007)

Looks like you literally can't even read a dictionary:

[http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literally](http://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/literally)

> 2 : in effect : virtually <will literally turn the world upside down to > combat cruelty or injustice — Norman Cousins>

It's fun to take illiterate pedants down a peg. Everyone should try it for themselves.

<comment><USER3> Okay, so I came across a bit strong there, and I apologize for that. Yes, language is fluid, and meanings "flip polarity" all the time ("nonplussed" comes to mind).

Yes, there is ample evidence that it was used to mean "with emphasis, but not in reality" for some time. I was wrong. I was attempting to make a glib remark without much consideration for facts...next time I'll endeavor to either keep my snide commentary to myself, or at least do a bit of fact checking.

...but in the mean time/back to the parent topic, people really should read Phillip K. Dick. He's a fantastic writer and visionary, and uses language far better than I can.

<comment><USER5> Haha, good on you for recognising where you came across badly and backing down.

And yeah, I'm completely in agreement: PKD is amazing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Christianity, lest it be forgotten, is a metaphysical monism where it is the > obligation of every Christian to love every aspect of creation

This is fundamentally incorrect. As far as Judeo-Christian theology is concerned, there is a clear distinction between God and creation.

Incidentally, this is also why Spinoza (a Sephardic Jew and monist) was excommunicated.

<comment><USER7> What do you mean clear distinction?

<comment><USER8> > to love every aspect of creation

He means that Christianity canonically differentiates a Creator (God) and that which was created (universe, people, etc). So, this person or tree is not God, nor is it an aspect of God.

<comment><USER7> Thats not what I read in that sentence at least.

What I read is the act of _creating_ not _what_is_created_

But I could obviously be wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> His Gnosticism reminds me of [http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on- moloch/](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/)</comment>


The Jedi Packet Trick takes over the Deathstar (2010) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.alchemistowl.org/arrigo/Papers/Arrigo-Triulzi-CANSEC10-Project-Maux-III.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> Selected Excerpts:

"PCI-to-PCI transfers are not marshalled by the OS o PCI-to-PCI between the NIC and the GPU"

[...]

"a PCI card has DMA over the whole RAM o we can play in memory and the OS shall never know"

[...]

References

"Broadcom firmware development kit: [http://www.broadcom.com/products/communications_processors_d...](http://www.broadcom.com/products/communications_processors_downloads.php) [Not currently online, use Wayback Machine or Google keyword search]

Papers by John Heasman (ACPI, BIOS and PCI rootkits): [http://www.nextgenss.com/research/papers/](http://www.nextgenss.com/research/papers/) [Not currently online, use Wayback Machine or Google keyword search]

Implementing_And_Detecting_A_PCI_Rootkit.pdf Network Interface Firmware Back Door with Tigon2, eEye Industry Newsletter, 25th April 2007, [http://www.eeye.com/html/resources/newsletters/vice/VI200704...](http://www.eeye.com/html/resources/newsletters/vice/VI20070425.html) [Not currently online, use Wayback Machine or Google keyword search]

A. Singh, Mac OS X Internals, Addison-Wesley, 2006, [http://osxbook.com/book/bonus/chapter4/efiprogramming/](http://osxbook.com/book/bonus/chapter4/efiprogramming/)

Rowan Atkinson, "Blackadder", BBC TV series."

Author's Twitter: [https://twitter.com/cynicalsecurity](https://twitter.com/cynicalsecurity)

(My thoughts: Future Hardware/OS Designers should seriously think about these and related issues...)</comment>


Everyone in a tech startup should learn how to code - <AUTHOR> http://www.alexanderpeiniger.com/2013/03/everyone-in-a-tech-startup-should-learn-how-to-code/

<comment><USER2> My experience is that few people care to learn how to code. Even fewer people _can_ learn to code, even minimally. Learning to code just a little bit takes a long time and is about as frustrating and dangerous as learning how to ride a motorcycle just a little bit.

I'd rather work with people who have good ideas, management skills, financial savvy, marketing expertise -- a well-rounded team. Only hiring programmers, or telling potential hires they will have to learn to code is just going to create a monoculture and alienate good people with valuable non-programming skills.

Making everyone learn to code is neither practical nor necessary. Dr. Johnson said "You may scold a carpenter who has made you a bad table, though you cannot make a table. It is not your trade to make tables."</comment>


Some rather strange history of maths - <AUTHOR> https://thonyc.wordpress.com/2016/08/18/some-rather-strange-history-of-maths/ <comment><USER2> The original article seems to be an intentional misunderstanding of what "Math is everywhere" is generally taken to mean.

The way I interpret it, is that if you study how anything works in enough detail, there is almost always a way to understand it mathematically.

<comment><USER3> Correct. We are surrounded by systems and understanding systems is definitely a mathematical activity.

<comment><USER4> I disagree entirely. Systems that have proved amenable to mathematical analysis remain relatively few. Pick any one book that aims to describe some aspect of the world; chances are it won't contain a single formula.

<comment><USER5> And for every topic in those books not containing any formulas there is another book or paper on that topic with formulas.

<comment><USER4> I must be thinking of a wider range of systems than you are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> A post responding to the Sci Am article "Mathematicians Are Overselling the Idea That Math Is Everywhere" that was discussed on HN the other week:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12304146](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12304146)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a pretty weird argument. You can replace math with physics, chemistry, or whatever other science you can think of and the argument still goes through. If his argument is invariant with respect to subject change it means he's not really addressing anything specific to math but just pointing out that hard things tend to be exclusive things.

So in essence the people that say "math is everywhere" are trying to democratize it. Whereas the argument in the SciAm article seems to point to a more stifled mathematical landscape. I've never seen someone make an argument "X is elitist" in order to democratize something. If anything people usually get their pitchforks out and all the folks with an agenda come out of the woodworks and start using the mob to advance their own goals. In this case I suspect there are a few folks that would like to kill funding for basic mathematical research and this guy has started selling them the pitchforks.

</comment><comment><USER6> Michael J. Barany, the OP of the scientificamerican article, wrote a response to this response: [http://mbarany.com/ReplyToThonyC.html](http://mbarany.com/ReplyToThonyC.html) (not very convincing, IMHO, mainly because all the "math is elitist"-arguments Barany makes are not specific to math, but to any intellectual endeavour. One could /s/math/writing/g in the whole article and it would continue to make sense.)

<comment><USER7> That's an interesting thought. But I don't generally share the resentment (although I didn't even read the link).

Writing still has to be logical, most of the time. Math papers are verbalized a lot. You can't draw a fine line between writing (literature) and maths. That's why the argument still holds. They are both the same thing from a different perspective, what you called intellect.

Mathematics is the most reduced form, though, and it is maybe more exclusive by nature, since it is all about learning and abstraction, whereas literature and language is most basically developed from calls to action, like, literally developed from calls.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Another response to the same article: [http://blogs.ams.org/blogonmathblogs/2016/08/29/dont- worry-m...](http://blogs.ams.org/blogonmathblogs/2016/08/29/dont-worry-math- is-still-everywhere/)

</comment><comment><USER9> Does this strike anyone else as a bit of a circle jerk?

"Hey, this guy in a popular science magazine wrote about how math is so important, so I'm going to write a blog post about how math is slightly less important than he said it was."</comment>


WhatRuns – Discover what runs a website - <AUTHOR> https://www.whatruns.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> I wasn't sure how to add this to the post but I wanted to ask - how would you guys say this plugin works, and would there be any privacy concerns behind this? I mean, I imagine it basically reads the data of every website you visit, right? Now, fair enough, it probably needs to, but would that mean it can possibly see what you enter, too? I'm not too familiar with plugin permissions so I was just wondering since I've been using this for a while. Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER2> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15098028](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15098028)</comment>


Things I Enjoy in Rust: Immutability - <AUTHOR> https://blog.jonstodle.com/things-i-enjoy-in-rust-immutability/ <comment><USER2> I remember when HN was infatuated with Golang, and was on the front-page of HN what seemed like every day. Now all I see is Rust, and Golang is rarely seen.

What happened? Did HN ditch Golang for a new girlfriend?

<comment><USER3> Go wasn't generic enough to monomorphize into the niche that rust is filling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I love the idea of immutability in Swift too.

let x = 42

However, for mutability I prefer when the language uses another keyword.

Swift uses 'var'. Scala and Kotlin I believe use val and var.

Throw in non-optional by default and I feel like programming becomes more enjoyable.

</comment><comment><USER5> Hmmmm. Being able to redeclare the same identifier in a scope makes it look suspiciously like a variable. I like the updated_point example better.

But yeah, otherwise, awesome.

<comment><USER6> That was my first thought as well. If you keep mutable variables function- scoped, I see no difference between:

        // We do this:
        let point = Point { x: 2, y: 4 };
        let point = Point { x: 4, ...point };

and

        let point = Point { x: 2, y: 4 };
        point.x = 4;

And that's generally what the problem is with mutable variables. You either erroneously assume `x == 2`, or have to read all the code between assignment and the point you're trying to change something.

Immutability gives you less thinking and parsing overhead. This kind of defeats that purpose.

<comment><USER7> The difference is the let key word makes it obvious you're rebinding the name.

Shadowing is one of those things that intuitively raises a red flag first time you see it but actually is extremely helpful. It dramatically reduces noise e.g. in functions where you take an input parameter and want to convert it to a different type to work with it. No more prefixing or suffixing the variable name, you just rebind it which makes the intent clear (at least to me).</comment></comment></comment>


Tell HN: I'm in yr clouds, watching your servers. - <AUTHOR>

If you love the work that Amazon is doing with AWS, you can be a part of it. Our team is building high scale, high availability systems to monitor and automate AWS cloud resources. This is an awesome problem space that's full of hard challenges.
For me personally, I'm a former AWS customer that loves the product so much that I wanted to work on it!
The official job listing is here: http://aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/cloudwatch-jobs/ If you're interested, or have any questions, feel free to email me directly at firstname.lastname@example.com.
We're looking for not only strong backend developers, but also frontend/UX folks. So if helping people visualize a lot of data to find the needle in the haystack is a passion for you, this is a great opportunity.
Thanks! Brian <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable job posting link: <http://aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/cloudwatch- jobs/></comment>


How to win at niche Internet marketing - <AUTHOR> http://www.challenge.co/

<comment><USER2> Linkbait/Spam?

<comment><AUTHOR> Unintended. Apologies.</comment></comment>


Sandstorm's security track record, and what it means for self-hosting - <AUTHOR> https://sandstorm.io/news/2016-02-29-security-track-record <comment><USER2> I'm continually impressed with sandstorm. I played around with their thing on oasis and it all worked as advertised. It's not extremely _polished_ yet, but the functionality is there. I've been looking into their serialization protocol, Cap'n Proto, for a side project and again it seems quite well designed.

I sincerely hope the future is one in which lots of families, people, etc, self host their own "cloud apps" rather than delegating it all to facebook, gmail, etc, and sandstorm looks like it could be a winner here. (Or maybe owncloud, or that thing that HN blogged about a week or two ago, or...)

<comment><USER3> I looked around for mobile support, but couldn't find a list of client apps for iOS/Android. Seems a reason to skip on sandstorm for now.

<comment><USER4> We definitely want to build a "Sandstorm App" on mobile at some point, although it's worth noting that it would mostly be a hub for other apps to hook into your Sandstorm server, which to some extent they can do already, as demonstrated e.g. by the TinyTinyRSS Android app which can sync with your TTRSS instance on Sandstorm.

At present most of our apps are focused on productivity tasks (e.g. real-time collaborative document editing) with I think is the kind of thing people still mostly do on desktops. You can totally open Sandstorm and Etherpad on a phone browser, though, and I commonly do this when demoing it to people.

In any case, we obviously have a lot of work still to do, but I hope that doesn't stop anyone from trying out what we have so far. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I really, really want to support sandstorm! I think their model is awesome, especially because i fully support a decentralized web where the masses and the regular Janes/Joes have a valid alternative to the silos on the web. However, I tried using rocket.chat recently, and while installation of app was _dead simple_ , actually using it seemed non-obvious. I'll admit I'm no super devops/engineer, but i do successfully manage my only little server via other providers (e.g. digital ocean, etc.)...so it was a little annoying that i had to spend more time than i expected to see how to actually _use_ rocket.chat via sandstorm. Here's where a little documentation could have gone a _very long way_. My interest in sandstorm was for setting up apps _only_ for my family...and eventually having my "non-technical wife" (her words not mine) use and manage things. I'll be honest, i will speak highly of sandstorm for techies, and I will support you guys - even if only because you so greatly support open source and a decentralized web - but seriously, you guys could be getting so much more attention and _BUSINESS_ if you only had much more "civilian" documentation (I'll say more on the "how to use an app" side, since installation of apps is so dead simple)...until then i can not in good conscious recommend your service - at least not for all apps - to the "non- techie" people that i know. Again, i state this not to disparage your service, but because I really, really want you guys to succeed! When you do (update/create more user documentation), let's talk; my handle on your platform is mxuribe. Thanks and good luck!

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the feedback. I'd love to know what were the specific usability problems you ran into. Documentation is great but if we can eliminate the confusing parts entirely that's even better. Rocket.Chat in particular does have some rough edges that we're aware of and working with them to fix.

<comment><USER5> In essence once a grain for rocket.chat is set up, what non-ephemeral url should be used for users to connect from their rocket chat client (either desktop or mobile)?

I tried the grain's url, the "share with others" url, etc...But none work via rocket chat's clients. I did find the following discussion: [https://github.com/RocketChat/Rocket.Chat/issues/1352](https://github.com/RocketChat/Rocket.Chat/issues/1352) ...Again, I'm just not understanding what url i can share for my family to use - via for example mobile device - to connect/chat on this grain (whether i kill my browser sessions or not).

Sorry i didn't mean to make this almost a support inquiry. Maybe a simple note displayed upon creation of the grain like the following would help: "Hey, you just created a rocket chat grain, if your users are going to connect using one of rocket chat's clients, they need to enter this following url: xyz12300d64bnfnskdfnfgi3o45titj34.oasis.sandostorm.io/whatever/rocketchat/whatever/2342342r". And you can imagine if you look at your "abandon logs"; how many other users try your service, can't figure out how to connect to it for a particular app (again we're talking typical, non-techie users), and then never come back? Again, my comments are coming from a fan of yours. ;-)

<comment><USER4> Ah, the problem is that Rocket.Chat's client apps actually don't work with the Sandstorm app right now; it's only accessible in the browser. That's definitely something we're trying to get the Rocket.Chat team to fix, as you can see in that bug thread.

<comment><USER5> Got it, thanks. Yeah, not specific to only rocket.chat, I think you will win more clients if you clarify - maybe in the intro text for each app? - that the app is designed currently for "in browser" use, etc. In any case, thanks a bunch for this clarification! You guys keep rocking on!!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It wasn't initially clear to me when reading... Is this referring to the Sandstorm environment automatically applying updates as they are released to the apps you have enabled? Or are these vulnerabilities that the Sandstorm environment itself mitigated without the need to apply a patch?

Clicking through it seems like they are saying "security non-events" meaning if you self-hosted an app yourself you would have been vulnerable, but because you managed the app through Sandstorm, you were never vulnerable. This is definitely very interesting!

<comment><USER4> These are things Sandstorm mitigated even before the vulnerability was reported, much less patched! The magic solution is fine-grained containerization, meaning every document goes in its own container and Sandstorm (the platform) manages access control to containers.

This page describes individual CVEs and how they were mitigated: [https://docs.sandstorm.io/en/latest/using/security-non- event...](https://docs.sandstorm.io/en/latest/using/security-non-events/)

This page has a more general overview of the concept: [https://sandstorm.io/how-it-works](https://sandstorm.io/how-it-works)

(It's funny how many people initially react to this idea with something like: "How is that not obviously wrong?" Guess what? It works. And no, it's not inefficient -- our managed hosting service runs a healthy profit margin.)

<comment><USER6> Yea, reading your page detailing the CVEs, you show that all reported grade 6 or higher CVEs against Wordpress in 2014-2015 were not ever exploitable against the Sandstorm hosted app. Of course, it's just a static page reflection, so that certainly helps your attack surface!

But I 100% agree with your premise, providing dependable security (even at a reduced functional footprint) is a key deliverable for Sandstorm and adds tremendous value to the platform. I assume you have found that adoption is hindered significantly by people "nervous" to try it? The premise is if you can make Sandstorm feel more safe, easy, reliable, it could it become mainstream. So security benefits are a huge bonus.

It also looks like the Sandstorm authentication design has really paid off. I think it's part of the initial complexity of evaluating your system, which is unfortunate, but it's great to see it providing real-world protection for a lot of your apps.

<comment><USER4> Yeah... Honestly Wordpress is my least-favorite example because it's the one case where the Sandstorm version of the app has significant features removed (namely, the ability to post comments). This is why we push it to the bottom of the app market, despite being a popular app. However, as noted in the document, we _could_ produce a version of Wordpress on Sandstorm which has comments and is still just as secure. It's just that we'd need to spend some engineering time on it, and there are so many Wordpress hosting services out there that I just don't feel like it's the most valuable use of our limited resources. :/

For apps like Etherpad, on the other hand, Sandstorm has blocked several serious security vulnerabilities with zero loss in functionality -- in fact, Etherpad on Sandstorm has more robust sharing / access control than Etherpad stand-alone. :)

<comment><USER6> The depth you are going into security hardening and analyzing vulnerabilities potential impact on your system seems almost extreme ;-) [https://github.com/seccomp/libseccomp/issues/27](https://github.com/seccomp/libseccomp/issues/27)

I see you have an App Market -- is anyone selling apps for Sandstorm, or are they all free? If there was a way to monetize, I'm surprised someone wouldn't invest the time to make Wordpress support comments and then sell it on your market?

To me this is a really interesting monetization model... can a few small developers write a Sandstorm app which potentially 1M+ users could one day be deploying and self hosting, while charging some nominal annual fee to fund the development?

When I saw the YC W16 startup on the front page a few days ago selling the pretty box to enterprises who wanted to self-host, first thing I thought of was Sandstorm. Why sell hardware? You are making the platform which makes managing the apps possible for 90% of businesses, that has to be where the value is.

<comment><USER4> We plan to support paid apps at some point (more precisely, in-app purchases, which my friends who worked on Android say is far more effective than paying for the apps themselves), but haven't gotten there yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Song?</comment>


Why 400-Day and 1000-Day Clocks Run So Long - <AUTHOR> http://clockinfo.com/posts/7588 <comment><USER2> > The clock movement supplies one unit of energy to the pendulum for each > oscillation. A torsion pendulum oscillates about 8 to 20 times more slowly > than a swinging pendulum. This represents a major savings in energy, enough > to increase an 8-day running time to 64 to 160 days.

This is way cool. Just looking around real quick, the first of these models were made in 1900: [https://clockhistory.com/0/schatz/model- names/standard-400-d...](https://clockhistory.com/0/schatz/model- names/standard-400-day-clock/page1.html)

I wonder what how this was discovered, measured, and tested. Making prototypes and measuring how long it lasts is obviously too time consuming.</comment>


Ask HN: Reading analytics on an owned content site? - <AUTHOR> Hola HN - I wanted to set up a site with a few pages of content. I wanted to figure out if there was a way that we can track the amount of time spent on page, the read length (% of page read) per user? And if the community has used something to solve problems like this? <comment><USER2> I think Google Analytics automatically tracks time spent per page, and this guy can track scrolling: [https://github.com/googleanalytics/autotrack](https://github.com/googleanalytics/autotrack)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you !</comment></comment>


Accessing RAM sometimes costs extra log(N) - <AUTHOR> http://arxiv.org/abs/1212.0703 <comment><AUTHOR> In response to "The Myth of RAM" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12383012](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12383012)

It so happens that a large part of my PhD was on this very subject. The result I've got N log(N), this is more visible when you get to larger RAM (I had 0,5 TB RAM at the time). We have an empirical result, a justification and a rigorous predictive model.

The reason has to do with hashing, but a different type: TLB.

Feel free to take a look at a free copy at [http://arxiv.org/abs/1212.0703](http://arxiv.org/abs/1212.0703) where we establish the VAT cost model.

<comment><USER2> Very interesting and informative. I would have expected a TLB to incur an additional cost beyond exhausting the cache hierarchy. But, I would have expected it to be a single additional cliff around a gig at most.

Shame there's no discussion here. I've x-posted to [https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/509qhd/randoml...](https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/509qhd/randomly_accessing_n_items_in_dram_is_on_in/) Maybe that will drum up a bit more conversation.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Looks like it worked.</comment></comment></comment>


Stop Wasting Time: Pair Programming Rocks - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/javascript-scene/stop-wasting-time-pair-programming-rocks-4a99604cb09d <comment><USER2> So how is this different to simply asking people for help?</comment>


Solo YC Applicant Founders Unite - <AUTHOR> https://timrpeterson.wufoo.com/forms/solo-yc-applicant-founders-unite/

<comment><USER2> Are you interested in solo applicants who didn't apply to YC this time?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes.</comment></comment>


After Years of Abusive E-mails, the Creator of Linux Steps Aside - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/science/elements/after-years-of-abusive-e-mails-the-creator-of-linux-steps-aside# <comment><USER2> Extensive discussion a few days ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18000698](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18000698)

</comment><comment><USER3> The first time I've seen it reported that Linus was compensated 1.6M. (not related to the subject of abusive behavior)

I'd also like to say as a manager of a bunch of top notch woman engineers, we don't have an abusive environment, we don't have a frat boy environment, and it's friggin awesome. (and we are hiring, PM me :) )

<comment><USER4> Also first I've heard that the New Yorker was directly involved in the decision:

 _Torvalds's decision to step aside came after The New Yorker asked him a series of questions about his conduct for a story on complaints about his abusive behavior discouraging women from working as Linux-kernel programmers._

On the topic of women engineers and also as a manager of top-notch woman engineers: wholly agree. For the Moneyball readers, I sometimes joke that women engineers are the Greek Gods of Walks when it comes to software development. Which is really just another way of saying that characteristics traditionally associated with women correlate in my experience with skills that are often underestimated in software development and evaluating them with brogrammer-world biases is a competitive disadvantage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Discussions on this topic have descended into culture war elsewhere and been shut down.

It would be great if at least one thread could discuss how management of software projects can evolve to better serve all contributors instead of people digging trenches.

I am guilty of enjoying Linus tirades, especially when he is making technical arguments. I think a lot of people use colourful language as emphasis. I don't subscribe to the idea that women are delicate flowers and need to be protected from a bit of swearing. Adults in general shouldn't be wrapped in cotton wool. But Linux hasn't been a hobby project for ages and development discussions are open and archived and improving the quality of discourse there is worthwhile. If Linus can learn to communicate better, while maintaining his honesty and passion it will benefit everyone, himself included.

I am a bit disappointed that this has been mixed up with gender politics because it seems to me that the lack of representation by gender, race, social position etc is a bigger societal issue and putting any of that back on Linus seems a little unfair.

<comment><USER6> > I don't subscribe to the idea that women are delicate flowers and need to be > protected from a bit of swearing.

You're right that women - like anyone - are generally capable of dealing with a harsh environment, but the difference is women are penalized for doing so.

The most effective way to operate in a harsh environment is to match it. If busting balls is the way your peers call attention to a technical issue, then when you want someone to pay attention, you'll bust their balls. If someone challenges you in a rude way, often a rude rebuttal is the most effective response.

Women can do that just as well as anyone else, but the problem is when they do, they're judged more harshly. This isn't a question of corporate policy, but of human socialization. We all unconsciously expect women to be more mild and agreeable. So when they are rude, profane, or combative, we notice it much more readily and it provokes a stronger emotional reaction. People are much more likely to write them off as "unprofessional" or "drama". This in turn closes off one of the main options for dealing with a harsh environment.

There are two possible solutions to this: fix human socialization so that people no longer have involuntary unconscious biases about combative women, or simply cultivate an environment that discourages everyone from being combative, so we can avoid the issue and get back to building stuff.

The former would be ideal, but it requires broad sweeping social change (and a lot of time). Until that can happen, we unfortunately have to settle for the latter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> My experiences as a leader have shown me, time and time again, that people respond far better to praising what they did right, rather than excessively focusing on the negative. If Linus is serious about this, it's going to ultimately make Linux even better.

Good read - "Negative Feedback Rarely Leads To Improvement" [https://hbr.org/2018/01/negative-feedback-rarely-leads-to- im...](https://hbr.org/2018/01/negative-feedback-rarely-leads-to-improvement)

<comment><USER8> >people respond far better to praising what they did right, rather than excessively focusing on the negative

Interesting. I wonder how much impact all the negative feedback from social media and traditional media had on the timeline of the behavior standards for LKML.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This should stay on the homepage. The claim that Linus's recent action was in fact a reaction to their story is new information, that substantially changes conversation. This is not a dupe nor a needless rehash

</comment><comment><USER10> Avoiding the difficult questions raised by the article, I'd like to keep it simple: I won't work with someone that thinks it's okay to tell a coworker to kill themselves, even if it's hyperbole.

<comment><USER11> He didn't say it to a co-worker, he said it to a hypothetical person that doesn't actually exist in the real world.

Quote: _" So here's a plea: if you have anything to do with security in a distro, and think that my kids (replace "my kids" with "sales people on the road" if you think your main customers are businesses) need to have the root password to access some wireless network, or to be able to print out a paper, or to change the date-and-time settings, please just kill yourself now. The world will be a better place."_

EDIT: _Why_ is this getting downvoted? Because the truth doesn't fit the narrative?

<comment><USER12> At the end of the day Linus is making a very clearcut threat here: "if you harbor a particular idea on this topic then I believe you have no right to exist and should end your life immediately". That's wholly out of bounds in a technical discussion. Especially coming from a person in a position of ultimate power.

<comment><USER13> First of all, the whole thing is hyperbole. Linus doesn't actually believe people should kill themselves over holding that particular opinion, which no actual person holds anyway.

Secondly, you added that "you have no right to exist" part yourself. It comes from _your imagination_ , not Linus Torvalds.

Lastly, it _wasn 't_ a technical discussion. It wasn't on a mailing list. It was a random personal Google Plus post where Linus vented about some annoyance he faced using an actual Linux distribution (OpenSUSE). Obviously he's not in a position of "ultimate power" because he can't force the OpenSUSE guys to change that annoying behavior _for him_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Linus crossed the line long ago and it's good that he's taking a break to reevaluate his actions. It's one thing to be passionate and opinionated but Linus has shown to be a downright asshole in his administration of Linux.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm not sure how I feel about this article. On the one hand, it brings to attention an important side effect of the unfriendliness of the community around Linus, namely that it's particularly discouraging to women. On the other hand, the problem is that it's a mean culture with Linus at its core. Based on this article it doesn't sound like he's sexist per se, even though the consequences of his behavior affect women more.

It's a tricky line to draw, especially since many people in tech _are_ openly sexist. At the end of the day, I'm happy with the idea that creating a more civil community will also help address some of the gender issues.

<comment><USER11> > I'm not sure how I feel about this article. On the one hand, it brings to > attention an important side effect of the unfriendliness of the community > around Linus, namely that it's particularly discouraging to women.

 _Why?_ What does that have to do with women? Linus said _nothing_ about women. If you want to argue that women are hypersensitive and avoid conflict and _therefore_ Linus is discouraging them, say it. Except saying that would be sexist, wouldn't it?

<comment><USER16> I'd argue some people are hypercritical and instigate conflict by gratuitous insult.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Why did this get flagged? I don't see how this article isn't relevant or violates any HN submission rules.

<comment><USER18> > _" Why did this get flagged?"_

Submissions (and comments, for that matter) are flagged by members. When enough members flag an item, the [flagged] tag appears.

Asking why an item got flagged is in many ways pointless: as there's no single member responsible, finding an answer more definitive answer than "users flagged it" is nigh impossible.

Speculating, this may have ended up displaying a [flagged] tag because a significant discussion regarding the topic happened very recently (3 days ago, over 2K votes, over 900 comments).[0] The discussion in many ways is contentious and generally produces more heat than light and new insight. Members may feel there's little to be gained by discussing it again.

[0]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18000698](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18000698)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've never understood why the people who complain about this don't just fork and start a new community, which will a priori be much better (er, right?).

<comment><USER20> I suppose most people see the sense in a "middle-ground" where you work to improve a community you value instead of abandoning it at the first sight of trouble?

<comment><USER19> The only developer complaining in the article did in fact abandon the community: [https://sage.thesharps.us/2015/10/05/closing-a- door/](https://sage.thesharps.us/2015/10/05/closing-a-door/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Which would you rather have?

A) A guy who thinks you're an idiot, and tells you--to your face--exactly why he thinks you are one.

or...

B) typical open office dweller who _also_ thinks you're an idiot, lacks the stones to tell you in-person, yet somehow manages to have just the right amount of stones to tell everyone else how stupid you are.

All I know is that we have a whole lotta people in this industry with absolutely no business plucking the splinter out of Linus's eye.

</comment><comment><USER22> I thought he was taking some time off, how is he stepping aside?

<comment><USER23> It is temporary as he originally stated, the title is just click bait of course.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Just do another fork of linux with some likeable coders... because the world needs more forks

</comment><comment><USER25> [https://youtu.be/pwn3gIipCjU](https://youtu.be/pwn3gIipCjU)

</comment><comment><USER26> Not all emotions must be pleasant. Why do people think there's something wrong with unpleasant emotions?

<comment><USER27> Every person is free to experience their own unpleasant emotions. It's not OK to verbally abuse other people just because you can't control those emotions. It's especially offensive with email since it takes time to type and one could make a habit of not hitting send immediately - write a draft and give yourself time to cool off, then edit out the nastiness before sending. If that seems a waste of time, one might learn to just not write the stuff that needs to be removed in the first place just for efficiency sake.</comment></comment>


Show HN: End-to-end encryption for Twitter direct messages - <AUTHOR> So, you want to avoid mass surveillance and don't trust big tech companies either? But you're tied to your existing network of contacts like everyone else?  Well now you can send encrypted messages to your contacts over the Twitter direct messaging channel.
It's a serverless SPA called Seecret, a Twitter client hosted at https://www.seecret.io
Seecret is open source and freely distributable. You can host it anywhere even from your own localhost server. The app is just plain html and javascript, with no server-side processing at all, no tracking, no logging.
Steps:
1-Grant Seecret.io permission to connect to Twitter. (Just like Facebook connect). Twitter uses Oauth 1.0a (srsly?) which doesn't support serverless auth so we integrated Oauth.io to handle it. Read about it at https://oauth.io but they are a trusted Oauth 1 proxy service.
2-Seecret then gens an RSA key with a long passphrase saved locally. You can change the passphrase and even delete it (and the key) from local storage. If you delete these you'll need to reimport them each time you use the app. To read more about concerns and approaches re: local browser storage of keys etc read our FAQ at https://www.seecret.net/faq.html
3-Send encrypted msgs over Twitter to your existing contacts!
The code for Seecret is fully auditable and the app uses  Subresource Integrity Checks for all dependencies. Unfamiliar with SRI? Read more about it at https://www.w3.org/TR/SRI/. In short, it lets you verify for certain you are using the uncompromised code with no CDN intercepts.
Want to host your own instance? It's easy! Read more at https://www.seecret.net/mirror.html
Read more about our approach, explanation of the technology choices, and why we made it open source and freely distributable at https://www.seecret.net/faq.html <comment><USER2> Cool, but if I have to get the person on the other end to install something and accept an invite, why not just ask them to use a secure messaging client like WhatsApp?

<comment><USER3> WhatsApp and Signal require that you give someone else your phone number. Threema requires that someone else buys an app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is really cool. I worked on something similar during a hack day while I was still at Twitter.

[https://github.com/jkubicek/Switters](https://github.com/jkubicek/Switters)

My project used QR codes attached to a tweet as images to encode the message. It's still got a long way to go before it's at all user friendly, but I had fun building it.

</comment><comment><USER5> I made something similar called: anycrypt

The idea was to allow any user to encrypt over any platform (only over the browser ATM)

It uses keybase

[http://lettergram.github.io/AnyCrypt/](http://lettergram.github.io/AnyCrypt/)

</comment><comment><USER6> > Twitter uses Oauth 1.0a (srsly?)

Why the srsly?</comment>


How to Talk to People About Complementary and Alternative Medicine - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/how-to-talk-to-people-about-cam/

<comment><USER2> All very well, though without a suitable social context it is difficult to attempt the Socratic method (or any other method that leads to critical thinking) without appearing patronizing or condescending.</comment>


Monoprice now has $400 3D printers - <AUTHOR> http://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=13861 <comment><USER2> What are the more practical uses of 3D printing at this point? Is it still in early adopter phase? Are (everyday) users saving any money by having their own 3D printer?

<comment> at-fates-hands I actually had a friend who went to school for this and uses it for almost everything. He prints silverware, plates, glasses and other things instead of going out and buying them.

He prints a lot of other things you probably wouldn't think of. One time the toilet paper roll holder in his bathroom broke so he just printed a new one. He also had a lamp in his study break and instead of going out and buying a new one, he printed a mold of a lamp, then took the wiring out of the old one, wired it up on the new one and boom! New lamp.

He really made me think there's a ton of uses people would never think of for 3D printing, the stuff he does really opened my eyes.

<comment><USER3> One of the comments in this thread says "Filament isn't food-safe" \-- what is your friend using to print these things?

<comment><USER4> PLA is actually a bioplastic made from veggies and is actually considered food safe[1]. In fact, many of the plastic cups that you use are made from PLA, particularly anything clear. They can biodegrade given enough heat. The non- foodsafe part of 3d printing PLA is the hot end which is not clean, and can also be cross contaminated from printing other plastics such as ABS which is oil based.

[1] [http://reprage.com/post/36869678168/is-3d-printed-pla- food-s...](http://reprage.com/post/36869678168/is-3d-printed-pla-food-safe/)

<comment><USER5> You also have to deal with the FDM void issue. Look closely between the layers: they cannot be there if you are to consider your product to be food- grade. Fortuately there are ways to remediate this.

ABS is weak to acetone, so you can make an acetone vapor bath. Look this up how to do it.

PLA is the nasty one, as the solvent that dissolves it is methyl-ethyl ketone (MEK). Nastiest stuff I've worked with outside a fume hood. Use a respirator, gloves, and trash clothing. The stuff dissolves all sorts of polymers. It's also used as a polymer glue. But tl;dr: Don't use if if you don't have to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The Maker Select[0] is also available for $350.

[0] [https://www.monoprice.com/product?c_id=107&cp_id=10724&cs_id...](https://www.monoprice.com/product?c_id=107&cp_id=10724&cs_id=1072403&p_id=13860&seq=1&format=2)

<comment><USER4> I just received this printer a week or so ago. It's an absolute steal for the money. Here's a part of a phone car holder I printed last night. It took five hours with a layer resolution of 0.15mm and a shell of 0.4mm with a 20% infill.

[http://imgur.com/a/4U9Xz](http://imgur.com/a/4U9Xz)

I think overall it's a great printer! with a printable area of 200x200x190mm (8x8x7 inches) and a heated bed, it really can't be beat as an entry level printer.

Edit: here are a few others that I didn't skimp as much on the print settings with. [http://imgur.com/a/c7IGV](http://imgur.com/a/c7IGV)

<comment><USER7> FYI: The second imgur link doesn't actually show any pictures. The first one looks great, though.

<comment><USER4> hmm, works for me in an incognito window. Sorry, I wouldn't know how to fix that. :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm waiting for the Tiko 3D printer to arrive that I backed on Kickstarter for $179. The original delivery was to begin in November, however it's delayed (surprise!) - however, it sounds as if the delay isn't so bad so I hope to have it early next year.

The Tiko is at a really sweet price spot. While I've had access to an Ultimaker printer (around 1000€ when it was purchased), at below $200, even just occasional printing makes it interesting to have a 3d printer at home.

<comment><USER9> I backed Peachy printer [https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-peachy- printer-the-fi...](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-peachy-printer-the- first-100-3d-printer-scanner#/story) Delivery was estimated July 2014, and I'm still getting emails from them about how they're getting ready to begin production.

<comment><USER8> At least it sounds as if there's still hope.

I quite liked their statement:

"I am sorry that I predicted such early shipping dates in the campaign. I was completely naive about the shipping dates, and the amount of time required to really take the Peachy to v1.0. I should have done more research on how long hardware product development takes, having said that I don't think research would have made me wise enough. I know now that getting a grip on how long R&D takes really requires one to experience it first hand. I do know one thing, I was dead wrong about our original shipping dates, and I posted those estimated dates without having the skillset to really estimate them. I'm also glad we didn't stick to our estimated shipping dates. When you're wrong about something its disastrous to not admit it and just stick with the original plan. If we had shipped what we had at the original shipping dates we would have disappointed everyone. The printer didn't work that well and wasn't designed to be produced in high volume. Today, after a lot of R&D, we have something that we can't wait to send you."

\- Rylan Grayston

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> can any experts explain the difference with their low end $350 model?

[http://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=13860](http://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=13860)

I have no clue what I am looking at in difference other than the $350 one is open metal frame and the $400 looks like a wooden box. The $400 one was recently $500 so I assume it is a better value?

<comment><USER10> A few key differences: the $350 model has a heated build platform, larger print envelope, but slower print speed. The heated build platform allows one to use a wider variety of materials---in my experience however, for these consumer printers it's better to stick to using PLA for anything but small objects, unless you're specifically designing for FDM. The steel frame should be an advantage (weight and stiffness to dampen vibrations) but the weights listed on the spec sheet show the $350 and $400 models to be pretty similar.

In the end, I don't know that there's much of a difference based on the spec sheets. It'll probably take someone with direct experience with these models (or the printers they're based on) to decide between them.

<comment><USER11> The direct drive extruder would allow the use of flexible filament as well.

While they're similar weights, the metal printer will be much more dimensionally stable than wood.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Looks like Barnes & Noble is gonna be selling a "Da Vinci Jr 1.0 3D printer" for $250 in their stores on Black Friday.

No idea how it compares to the Monoprice printer.

<comment><AUTHOR> 3 out of 5 stars on amazon

[http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00V3J8JEG](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00V3J8JEG)

Looks almost like a toy for kids.

<comment><USER13> I believe the low-end DaVinci printers also have DRM on the filament reels so you can only use their filament.

<comment><USER5> That is correct. The cartridges are chipped. Not only that, but if the printer breaks down, they are completely closed source and effectively unfixable.

If you want a good printer on the cheap, try here: www.aliexpress.com/item/Black-Factory-High-Quality-Precision-Reprap- Prusa-i3-DIY-3d-Printer-kit-with-2-Rolls- Filament/32357171936.html?ws_ab_test=searchweb201556_9_79_78_77_80,searchweb201644_5,searchweb201560_8

It's $220, free shipping. It's a Prusa i3, easily moddable, fixable, and complete open source software stack. I know 2 people who have them. And aside the initial tuning (which is always fiddly), the printers are rock solid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think 3D printing is similar to copier/printer technology about 15 years ago. Back then, you could have your own deskjet printer at home by that was only for low quality stuff. If you wanted professional prints, you would go to a Kinkos etc. Now you can get great quality prints at home with a cheap lazerjet. Similarly, I think in the next 10 years 3D printing will evolve to a point where everyone will have one in their home.

</comment><comment><USER15> The MOD-t from New Matter sells for $400. I've not used it myself, but saw it at the Maker Faire in NYC: [https://store.newmatter.com/#!/mod-t-3d-printer](https://store.newmatter.com/#!/mod-t-3d-printer)</comment>


Cryptoeconomics 101 - <AUTHOR> https://thecontrol.co/cryptoeconomics-101-e5c883e9a8ff <comment><USER2> It'd be cool to have digital cash, but I think we're decades away.

Unfortunately, it seems that cryptocurrency enthusiasts focus more on the crypto than on the currency. To be taken seriously, there need to be realistic approaches to things like monetary policy. The ungoverned money supply of cryptocurrencies seems to be touted as a feature, but AFAICT, it's a fatal bug.

Think of the money supply as the denominator and total addressable value as the numerator; the goal with a stable currency is to keep the _ratio_ constant over time (or as close as possible).

The fixed money supply of bitcoin is a joke. If the currency were successful, bitcoin's fixed supply (a constant denominator) wouldn't keep up with global growth (a growing numerator), which would make the currency more valuable over time. This would result in a deflationary spiral (no one spends the money b/c they're better off waiting and letting it appreciate, which leads to less spending, which leads to even more deflation, etc.)

The etherium money supply is said to be TBD, but why would anyone be optimistic? Consider the layers of analysis underpinning the last Fed statement in May:

[https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/files/monetary...](https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/files/monetary20170503a1.pdf)

A) political philosophy (for the Fed, the goal is to maximize employment and stabilize prices), B) macroeconomic understanding (for example, the relationship between money supply and growth), C) economic data collection (employment, prices, inventory, output, etc.)

That's incomplete, but consider: how much of that kind of thing is even approached by any cryptocurrency community? Does anyone think the same kind of extreme care taken by the Fed is going to be replicated?

When know-nothing articles like this one pass for news, well... let's just say the emperor's naked.

<comment><USER3> If bitcoin is the only world currency and money velocity is constant, it will rise/fall by the same percent as the world economy. We already have a similar financial instrument - Vanguard total world stock ETF. Why this ETF does not produce a deflationary spiral? I think the answer is the same for bitcoin.

[https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundId=3141&...](https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundId=3141&FundIntExt=INT#tab=1)

<comment><USER4> The velocity of index funds is far different from that of currency. The former doesn't even fulfill the requirements of currency, try buying a haircut with that fund...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This submission is an ethereum pump article.

It has never made sense to have turing complete currencies. Ethereum will continue to be a great idea in the short term and a terrible idea in the long term.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, I got that vibe around

> I believe in 50 years, cryptoeconomics may be a discipline as widely studied > as physics and Satoshi may be as widely revered as Galileo.

Holy cow. I stopped reading at that point. Did the author read that over before publishing?

<comment><USER7> I can easily imagine a dystopian future where basic sciences are no longer taught and Galileo seems irrelevant and quaint compared to the everyday chores one must do to avoid being repurposed as stock for the local Soylent Green factory.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> An understanding of how to authenticate the blockchain and transactions is obviously essential, however, I haven't seen the same level of discussion on the affects of managing (or lack of managing) the crypto-currency's money supply. With bitcoin the total number is finite. With etherium, it appears that money supply management is being debated. IMHO this management of the money supply is a huge issue.

<comment><USER9> At any given time the supply of etherium is what it is, as with fiat currency. It's still finite, even as it continues to grow. The value of etherium is a function of the current and anticipated future supply, just as the value of Bitcoin is a function of the expected current supply (some amount is known to have been lost, some amount is "known" to have been lost, some amount is expected by some parties never to be touched again, etc.)

In practical terms I don't see how this is necessarily a huge issue in the one case and not in the other.

<comment><USER8> > In practical terms I don't see how this is necessarily a huge issue in the > one case and not in the other.

In the case of fiat currency, the supply of money is based primarily on 1) Increases/Decreases in the loans provided by banks and to a lessor extent 2) a central banks balance sheet.

I don't believe it's possible to add to the supply of bitcoins simply by loaning them into existence vs. fiat currency. That is, there isn't a closed- loop system similar to the banking system that allows for this elasticity of bitcoin units.

I'm not advocating that this is a requirement or even desirable, it's just a limitation that I don't see often discussed.

<comment><USER10> _I don 't believe it's possible to add to the supply of bitcoins simply by loaning them into existence vs. fiat currency._

Of course you can. People deposit BTC in your bank, and you then loan that out to others while telling the depositor that they can withdraw at any time.

<comment><USER11> You can give out credit backed by BTC but it's impossible to give out more actual BTC than you hold, much like gold, unlike fiat.

<comment><USER12> and that credit won't be accepted by anyone who doesn't trust the creditor (bank in this case). so it's useless unless you only intend to spend the credit at certain locations that accept this credit

cash, on the other hand, doesn't suffer from this predicament, since it's legally must be accepted. so Bitcoin lending via credits can't work, if at all.

<comment><USER11> The entire world banking system for hundreds of years was based on credit backed by gold, so it definitely can work.

My only point was that this wouldn't equate to more btc in circulation, just more credit.

<comment><USER8> > The entire world banking system for hundreds of years was based on credit > backed by gold

Just adding that the system above, rightly or wrongly was not sufficient for the expanding credit requirements of the world.

> so it definitely can work. Depends upon what your definition of work :)

> My only point was that this wouldn't equate to more btc in circulation, just > more credit.

Exactly. And be subject to the problems with bank runs because of the inelastic nature of gold.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > Decentralized P2P systems based on cryptography were not new in 2009 (you > probably heard of Kazaa and Bittorrent prior). What these earlier > decentralized systems lacked was economic incentives, and the lack of baked > in economic incentives is arguably what stifled these early P2P systems from > persisting and thriving over time.

Both Kazaa and Bittorrent worked because of economic incentives.

For example-- if you visited what.cd before it got shut down, you would find all these beefy seedboxes just sitting there waiting to shoot data at noobs to improve their ratios.

If there's a distinction to be made, it's that the P2P filesharing ratios aren't fungible.

<comment><USER14> And now you find the same thing at [http://apollo.rip](http://apollo.rip) or [http://redacted.ch](http://redacted.ch), almost exactly as it was.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The main reason I don't own any bitcoin is that I don't think the economics of mining make sense in the long term.

Specifically: bitcoin depends on _distributed_ mining power in order to prevent individual miners from being able to manipulate the blockchain.

However, if you accept that (1) there are economies of scale in mining, and (2) miners are rational and will only mine when they can make a profit, then I see no reason to believe mining power should stay "distributed" rather than develop into a monopoly.

I realize this hasn't happened yet, but I don't think it makes sense to base a currency on such shaky foundations.

The basic argument is also made in the paper discussed here:

[https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/declining-profitability- for-...](https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/declining-profitability-for-new- miners-threatens-bitcoin-decentralization/)

also:

[https://arxiv.org/abs/1603.05240](https://arxiv.org/abs/1603.05240)

[http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/7789434/](http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/7789434/)

<comment><USER16> > I realize this hasn't happened yet

Don't be so sure... there are already mining pools that collectively control far more than 50% of the network's mining capacity. This is supposed to be existentially problematic for bitcoin, but the majority sentiment appears to be ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

<comment><USER15> The situation reminds me a little bit of the Keynesian beauty contest: what matters isn't what I think of bitcoin, it's what other people think.

Do I think the average person buying bitcoin today is even aware of these problems? Not a bit. Are they going to wise up soon? Probably not.

So maybe it makes sense to bet that Bitcoin will be popular and unaffected by these issues for a while. (I mean, you can still use it to buy heroin, right? Growth potential.)

On the other hand, ignoring the long-term problems feels a little like knowingly buying into a pyramid scheme.

<comment><USER17> Exactly, markets are based in perception. Doesn't matter what is the true value of anything, it depends what majority thinks. To quote GOT "Power lies where we think it lies".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I've been searching for the perfect word that encapsulates everything we do in the blockchain space and I guess "cryptoeconomics" is really the best fit. It talks about crypto but it also alludes to the motivations of participants in one word and seems to be able to be applied to both blockchain engineering and smart contract protocols. I guess I'll be using this term in the future

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. Financial incentives are the lowest common denominator that we have as people. Cryptocurrencies align people with this lowest common denominator.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Wow. It's just distributed signed ledgers.

<comment><USER20> Plus smart contracts, in Ethereum's case. As a very rough analogy:

Bitcoin is a massively replicated database with a single table having accountid and accountBalance, with a stored procedure that lets you transfer some of your own account's balance to any other user.

Ethereum is a massively replicated database with that same table, but you also have developer rights. You can make your own tables and stored procedures, and other people can use them.

(Some reasons that's just an analogy: they aren't actually SQL databases, Bitcoin uses UTXOs instead of accounts and has limited scripting, and Ethereum's "stored procedures" themselves have accountIds, with their own balances.)

<comment><USER21> The post insinuates that the etherium scripting language is Turing complete. How can that be safe?

<comment><USER22> You will have to define "safe", but in general things like infinite loops are effectively bound by the amount of gas provided. Mistakes are still expensive, and it is easy to get the code wrong (the DAO hack and quadrigacx screw up this week are obvious examples), but the network itself is fairly stable, which is priority number one.

<comment><USER23> Is there an analysis/post-mortem on the QuadrigaCX snafu anywhere? I would be very interested in reading a detailed account of exactly what went wrong.

<comment><USER20> Here's their comment:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/6ettq5/statement_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/6ettq5/statement_on_quadrigacx_ether_contract_error/)

Also, it's normal practice for a contract to throw an exception if ETH is sent to any function that doesn't know how to deal with it. This includes the "fallback function," which is what runs if no other function in the contract is called. With recent versions of Solidity, this throw is built in, unless you mark a function "payable." But they were using an older contract, and there was no protection built into their fallback, and that's what made them vulnerable to this issue in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Lest anyone be confused this is an obnoxious and not so subtle sales pitch for Ethereum, it isn't particularly informative.

</comment><comment><USER25> >This approach has historically been thought of as insecure (the nothing at stake problem and the long-range attack have been two of the major unsolved vulnerabilities), but Vitalik and team have been diligently working on solutions to these problems. Ethereum now runs on proof-of-work, but the expectation is to switch to proof-of-stake in the next 12–18 months.

Well with all the other stuff on his plate solving a very difficult problem in the next 12-18 months will be easy and luckily there's no actual time limit aside from the same one he baked into etherium.

</comment><comment><USER26> From an earlier comment yesterday:;

Etherium is a panacea for anyone hoping to reduce contractional friction, and I believe we're at the tip of the tip of the iceberg if the tech and ether are here to stay.

Bitcoin, on the other hand, still concerns me. If/when BTC is makes its appearance in the every day lives of ordinary people, its anonymity value will have eroded significantly. Traditional currencies have not yet started to compete with BTC, but they can and they will if necessary. Try getting a mortgage, car loan, business loan with BTC as collateral as one example of where my concerns rest. Look at the grossly inverted price of BTC and gold prices (artificially assuming 1BTC = 1Oz).

Before BTC there was growing dissatisfaction with money center currencies that persists today. BTC 'took the edge off' for many in those circles and may have relieved pressure on gold prices. I don't necessarily believe this, but I've read in economic revisionist circles that BTC would be means for certain central banks to redirect some demand and attention for precious metals away from their vaults and toward an asset class they, better than anyone, are capable of mining with their existing computing infrastructure. So, by invention or acquiescence, BTC serves money center interests, for now, but not indefinitely.

BTC remains a highly speculative and risky asset/network in my mind.

<comment><USER27> I think the killer drawback to BTC will be the implementation of its proof-of- work consensus which present these major issues:

\- The throughput for BTC transactions is incredibly low and will not improve significantly in the future. In theory, its block-time is 10 minutes, in practice it can take as long as 20 minutes for a single transaction. This is in fact by design and deters attackers-- more frequent blocks make it easier for competing chains to get out of sync.

In comparison, Ethereum has 15 second block times, 3 minute verification. It fixes the security risks with an implementation based on GHOST.

\- BTC mining is highly centralized and expensive. By 2020 it is estimated the amount of electricity used globally to mine BTC will be as much as Denmark consumes.

Ethereum already decentralizes mining by nullifying the advantages of using ASICs. And it will fix the energy consumption issue by switching from proof- of-work to proof-of-stake.

BTC will be seen as the first effort that introduced the blockchain to the public. But I doubt its longevity. We have witnessed this multiple times with tech. Consider:

\- Personal computer (Altair, Apple, later Commodore, Tandy, Atari) \- Internet (Altavista, Yahoo) \- Social web (Myspace, Digg) \- PDAs and mobile phones (Palm, Nokia)

In each of these scenarios, a second generation technology always came along and ate the lunch of the one first out of the gate. Why? Robustness (more use cases, platforms), efficiency/cost, and more user friendly.

<comment><USER28> "Why? Robustness (more use cases, platforms), efficiency/cost, and more user friendly."

More fundamentally, the second platform benefits from the hindsight of the first platform's experiences, having the opportunity to fix any mistakes that happened to be hardcoded into the first platform's design.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Yes, cryptocurrencies and tokens have a lot of speculation from a dollar price perspective, and there are still non-believers and manipulators, but the blockchain and smart contracts technology is brilliant and the idea is already on people's mind, and it will only become stronger, despite of the price.

Social Network: For years I've seen people complaining about Facebook, others building alternatives. If there is one way that Facebook could be defeated and decentralized is by using a P2P blockchain social network. Take for example Steem, not perfect but proof of concept works.

Advertisement: another example is BAT (by the JS inventor), funded in 30 seconds, it could be a real threat to Google. Just pair it with Mist browser and ENS, and you can see the potential.

...

I think it's no longer about Bitcoin, it's about a profound decentralization of the Internet. Some call it the Web 3.0.

<comment><USER30> Why do you need a block chain for a decentralized social network?

Also what actual benefits would a "decentralized" social network bring? Facebook works because it got a lot of things right it let people communicate and share ideas rather than being a glorified geocities where bands come to die like MySpace and it got a critical mass of users which drove it home.

Blockchain will not decentralize the internet it might decentralize the World Wide Web, but even then considering the power costs and the fact that bandwidth still costs a ton of money even in developed nations why would you want to "decentralize" a bandwidth rich service in the current landscape.

I can understand the usefulness of a blockchain for certain applications e.g. clearing houses. But every time some one says it's like X but decentralized and runs on the hot new blockchain I just want to head bang a wall, I could be too old or too dumb to get my head around it but it simply looks to me that there is a cool toy that every one wants to use as a hammer which makes them look at everything that they want to build as a nail regardless if it makes sense or not.

<comment><USER29> First, it's not what I want, it's what I perceive – only my opinion.

Why a blockchain for social network? To really control my data and my online persona. It doesn't have to be a public blockchain, can be private and shared to my friends, if I wanted to.

I agree with you, that in poor countries the infrastructure is not prepared yet, but the world wasn't prepared also when the Internet was on dippers, this is just the beginning, I believe.

<comment><USER31> > To really control my data and my online persona.

But _HOW_ does blockchain give you "control over your data" in a way that uniquely requires a blockchain? You can do a heck of a lot just with existing tools, like asymmetric crypto and hashing.

The only use I can think of right now is to _globally prove_ that user X really did publish Y at some time Z in the past. In other words, preventing anyone from "backdating" a piece of content.

Now, while that may be useful, it's not really offering you _more_ control over your public persona. It's really just restricting what _everyone_ can do in order to curb a certain kind of abuse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I really like what Buterin writes - but Cryptoeconomics is a misleading name - it more like crypto-game-theory i.e. much narrower than the name suggests.

<comment><USER33> This article isn't written by Buterin.

<comment><USER32> But he coined the name.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I have a short section on cryptoeconomics in my upcoming book, which I'll post below (still developing, and still in draft). Unlike practically every other description of the "field", I don't take it for granted and don't uncritically adopt it. (Feedback always welcome!)

<snip> The technological imperative of smart contacts and blockchain technology presupposes rational contracting, which leads to particular moral and epistemological positions. Early rationalizations of the moral and epistemological position of cryptographically-assured smart contracts can be found in Reagle (1996) and Szabo (1997). Since that time, several authors have further developed the concept, leading to what is today sometimes called "cryptoeconomics." This emerging field deploys the technological affordances of (public key) cryptography: specifically, the ability to authenticate and verify parties; ensure non-repudiation of data; and in some cases, selectively reveal identities (as with blind signatures) (Chaum, 1982). Leveraging these cryptographic affordances, authors use the closely-related fields of rational choice theory and game theory to construct protocols and arrangements for creating social behaviours. In an early speech, Buterin suggests that, with cryptoeconomics, "as soon as you have a decentralized consensus framework that controls an internal asset and there is this valuation equilibrium where people care about it… the cryptosystem has the capability to have real world consequences…" (Vitalik Buterin: Cryptoeconomic Protocols In the Context of Wider Society, 2014). For instance, Buterin considers a number of rational choice strategies, including the prisoner's dilemma, Nash equilibria, hawk/dove games, markets, reputation, and an odd characterization of legal courts. Following Nick Szabo's earlier discussion of smart contracts, Buterin focuses much of his discussion of cryptoeconomics on Schelling points.

Schelling points, or focal points, are a game theory concept developed by Thomas Schelling in his book The Strategy of Conflict (1960). The strategy allows two or more parties to reach agreement in an environment with little information and no possibility of communication. The key insight of Schelling's theory is that coordination is easier when people's attention is drawn to prominent or focal points. Schelling offers the example of two people in New York who need to meet in an undetermined location without having prior communication. According to Schelling, on game theory assumptions, each party will likely pick Grand Central Station because in a world in which many possibilities are equally likely, humans look for patterns or unusual focal points of reference. The assumption made by each party is that if I think Grand Central Station is a good meeting spot, the other person may think the same.

Similarly, in his descriptions of cryptoeconomics, Buterin offers the example of picking matching numbers from a list without coordination or communication (Vitalik Buterin: Cryptoeconomic Protocols In the Context of Wider Society, 2014). People will, according to the theory, look for something—anything—that makes one number stand out—perhaps an even number, or a number with many zeros, or a well-known lucky number. Thus, given the following numbers: 2349 65 22 100 932, both parties will likely choose "100." In Western, decimal- based numeracy, 100 "stands out" from the rest of the numbers, and therefore, lacking any other way to coordinate, the rational choice is to assume a common set of beliefs with the person you are trying to coordinate with. Of course, these choices are culture and context specific. With numbers, other patterns might be significant (such as "lucky" numbers), and the same goes with meeting in New York: as times, people, and places change there might be other possible focal points—Times Square, One World Trade Center, Brooklyn Bridge, or the New York Public Library. In these scenarios, all available options might be "weak" focal points. Consider the following scenario where there might be only weak focal points: negotiations between a workers' union and a business break down and cannot make progress. On the theory of Schelling points, this might be due to lack of strong focal points, in the sense of shared interests and values. Until some stronger focal point can be found, coordination will not be effective. On the other hand, some focal points are very "hard"—so hard that they curtail negotiation. For example, in most of the Western world, the price tag on a retail good is not usually an invitation to start haggling (Szabo, 1997). The stated price is a hard focal point that communicates the context and sometimes the parameters of the contract.

While the use of Schelling points is quite powerful and can be used to carefully navigate social contexts, it is not without issue. At its heart, like all rational choice and game theory strategies, a rational (or maximizing) actor is usually assumed, along with some kind of contractual framework or rationality. Fundamentally, cryptoeconomics fails to fully recognize that actual societies are also the result of war, exploitation, racism, and patriarchy (Held, 1987, p. 113). Patriarchy is an especially important value to consider for cryptoeconomics, since complete freedom and equality—the ability to sincerely engage in contractual negotiations—is a uniquely male capacity in most modern contexts. Rational choice or game theory assumptions lead to a shallow view of human sociality, which is likely to produce bad ethics and/or lead to significant errors in use and development (as with The DAO in 2016, see Chapter 8). One alternative to this kind of rationality, suggests Virginia Held, is to focus on "relations of concern and caring and empathy and trust" rather than a fiction about ideal contracts (Held, 1987, p. 125). Such a suggestion does not mean that we should dismiss the role of contracts in society ("smart" or otherwise), rather it implies that contracts themselves are embedded in social contexts.</comment>