Direct use value of Bitcoin - <AUTHOR> http://blog.oleganza.com/post/42262765318/direct-use-value-of-bitcoin <comment><USER2> It can be useful to frame such discussions in some conventional reference, thus here's my top of head summary of Bitcoin vs. the well established three main uses of money; ie. money as a...

 _Unit of account_ : Works fine but has issues due to the relative volatility of its value. Also, the complexity of accounting that can result from blockchain rollbacks and other Bitcoin-specific issues (new "invoices/receipts" scheme, etc...)

 _Store of value_ : Far too volatile at present to be much good; though it has been heading upwards, an individual party could easily destabilize the entire economy.

 _Medium of exchange_ : Excellent speed and reach, theoretically an improvement on existing systems due to a lack of chargebacks (finality). Realistically, increasingly complex to implement, particularly securely, and especially for real time goods and services. Unfortunately the market is relatively small and spotty right now, so any benefits here are largely negated for general commerce.

I can't help but feel the blockchain-tricks referenced by the author (in addition to the upcoming "invoices/receipts" mechanism) are nought but scope creep, best left out as violators of "do one thing and do it well", and in general a bad sign for Bitcoin's future.

That said, I am all for Bitcoin, I think it's great. It's just important to be realistic about its objective properties vs. other systems.

<comment><USER3> Perfectly said.

I'd also add that I'm not sure bitcoin ever needs to be anything more than a medium of exchange. In digital commerce there is no reason not to denote in one currency, exchange in another while marking to a third.

Chargebacks, speed, etc all get translated to transaction costs. Lower transaction costs by an order of magnitude or two and all sorts of things become possible.

<comment><AUTHOR> You miss one thing, though: the block chain has real costs. If you want another block chain for the document timestamping, for instance, then you'll have to convince people to mine that block chain. Inevitably, it'll be just another currency not very different from Bitcoin. And since both have almost the same objective properties and Bitcoin is already more valuable, nobody will spend CPU on your currency. So you'll end up using the Bitcoin block chain anyway.

This is exactly what is happening to Namecoin: initially, it was just another blockchain, but very soon people realized that nobody is willing to spend any CPU/GPU time on Namecoin if Bitcoin is worth more (no matter how much more). So Namecoin guys proposed "merged mining", which is just a fancy way to reuse proof-of-work done on Bitcoin block chain without asking people to devote any resources specifically to Namecoin.

<comment><USER4> The Namecoin and Litecoin blockchains have relatively large/robust user/contributor networks behind them.

Both are almost identical to Bitcoin, with very little modification.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> He writes about direct value of Bitcoin - but half of the examples he mentions are about crypto in general not about the particular system:

\- Smart Property is just a theoretical proposal for a system and the linked page says: Smart property was first proposed by Nick Szabo in his 1997 paper, "The idea of smart contracts". There are currently no implementations of this idea.

\- decentralized DNS is realized in a different system that uses the code from bitcoin software but is not connected in any way to the bitcoin system itself: <http://dot-bit.org/Main_Page>

I guess you can use bitcoin to do secure time-stamping of messages that can fit into the format of a bitcoin transaction (there is some place for comments or something) - so you can piggyback a message on a bitcoin transaction.

Finally <https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Contracts> seem to be connected to the existing bitcoin system, but it is not clear how much of it is already implemented in the clients.

<comment><USER6> More accurate title would be "direct value of cryptocurrency". Bitcoin has very conservative approach with this. The core developers won't merge any features which don't serve the basic idea of currency.

However alternative chains could be used to develop many of these systems. I think there can be a tremendous value with public database, not controlled by anyone. Lately I have been thinking about alt-chain which could be used as a distributed stock/asset/IPO ledger. Similar to <http://www.bitcoinx.org/> , but done in a separate chain to server the needs better.

<comment><AUTHOR> See my comment above. Many cool features (like timestamping) do not need any modification of the existing software. E.g. it is entirely possible to make DNS without alternative chain (like Namecoin), but fully on the existing block chain with timestamping through deterministic addresses.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Gold: limited, durable, easy to use as physical transfer of value because of high value per unit of mass (due to rarity)

Bitcoin: limited, durable, easy to transfer between any two connected users

Whether you can make jewlery or timestamp things doesn't really matter for the main usage.

<comment><USER8> How durable is Bitcoin, really? In case of major economic turmoil, the value of Bitcoins can drop to zero _and stay there permanently_.

This is very different from gold. In a truly apocalyptic scenario, gold also becomes nearly worthless. However, when society bounces back, the value of gold can be re-inflated based on the intrinsic value of gold.

In the case of Bitcoin, such a bounce-back is not as likely to happen, because it would be so tempting for people to just start an entirely new blockchain.

<comment><USER7> As durable as P2P network. In truly apocalyptic scenario I'll most likely be dead so I don't really care.

Resetting accounts to zero might be favorable scenario over getting killed over few pounds of gold in my basement and my suspected withholding of the information where is more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The first two paragraphs seemed to be directed towards the layman, and then the author takes a tangent with: "For example, the block chain (distributed transaction history) is designed to be extremely hard to forge and very easy to verify." You lost me completely.

<comment><USER10> The bitcoin blockchain is a replicated database (not distributed, as this guy claims) which contains a copy of each and every bitcoin transaction ever made since the beginning of time. It's basically how they 'solve' the so-called double spending problem where a digital coin can be duplicated (spent twice) unless there is some way to verify the uniqueness of said coin. Given a total history of every transaction ever made, a recipient can check whether a coin hasn't been already given to someone else by the sender.

The idea is that anyone can participate in the peer-to-peer network that maintains this database, and that this database is signed on a block-by-block basis by the participants to maintain consensus. Hence the term 'block chain'.

Now, since the data in the block chain is a set of time-stamped transactions that are difficult to forge (unless someone controls >50% of the network), one can use it to store other time stamped information such as contracts.

(disclaimer: the above is just a semi-laymans attempt to explain the block chain to OP, feel free to correct me where I am wrong:)

<comment><USER11> (One of the better explanations I've seen). Indeed, the bitcoin.org website claims that the blockchain is the central innovation in Bitcoin (since the rest of the ecash crypto has been around for decades)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Oleg,

I learned quite a bit with your article but there is a statement that is not quite accurate: "dollar bills do not have any value in themselves"

Legal tenders like dollar bills are the value themselves, it might even come to a situation where the material used to build it costs more than the actual value of the medium (1 cent coins).

I wrote an article some time ago and I would be very happy if you could read it and give your thoughts: [http://eduardo.intermeta.com.br/posts/2013/1/18/bitcoins- and...](http://eduardo.intermeta.com.br/posts/2013/1/18/bitcoins-and-the- future-of-electronic-money)

<comment><USER13> How do you figure that a dollar bill has any intrinsic value? The raw materials have some minor value, sure, but the cost of making a dollar note is significantly lower than a dollar.

A dollar bill is a promise of value, conceptually no different to a cheque from the US government. If you believe that money has any value in itself, then I have some Zimbabwean dollars to sell you.

<comment><USER12> I did not 'figure'. What you described is representative money, not fiat/paper money.

<comment><USER13> Representative money is a particularly vague term, which usually means money backed by a physical commodity, but can also encompass fiat money as well.

There's nothing inherently magical about something being legal tender. The only difference between a $1 cheque and a $1 note is risk. The probability of a cheque bouncing is more likely than the USA economy collapsing into hyperinflation.

<comment><USER12> As you said, once I give you a dollar bill, the transaction is over. If I give you a check it will takes days for the actual transaction to happen and the money transferred (which can possibly end up in a physical transfer of cash)

Money does not depend on any kind of backing at all, for instance: the US gov has been flooding the market with dollars backed by the promise it will buy them back someday. Some countries don't even bother buying dollars anymore, they rely 100% on swap agreements.

Even if the economy collapses, the dollar will still be accepted for paying your gov duties, which means it will collapse too, equalizing the system. (inflation and deflation can be too complex for me to have any useful discussion)

<comment><USER13> You say money does not have any backing, and then immediately after you say that dollars are backed with a promise from the US government.

Fiat money is backed by the faith in a countries economy and government. A dollar is worth something to me because I can ultimately exchange it for goods or services produced in the United States. If this were not possible, for instance if the USA completely closed their borders to all foreign trade and travel, then the dollar would be worthless to anyone outside the country.

You mention that a cheque needs time for the money to be transferred. So you give me a cheque for $1, I would have to wait for the dollar to be transferred from your bank account to mine. But what if I didn't cash the cheque? What if I gave that cheque to someone else as a substitute for a dollar bill? If Alice gives a cheque to Bob, then Bob can pay Carol with that cheque if Carol trusts Alice is good for the debt.

Finally, regarding the dollar being accepted for paying my government duties, that's only true for countries that have the US dollar as their official currency. If the USA disappeared tomorrow, the dollars I own would be worthless; they only have worth because they're backed by the USA, much has a cheque only has worth while a particular bank account exists and has funds.

<comment><USER12> Interesting how the cheque situation you explained (not cashing and passing it to others) is somewhat similar to what happens to swap agreements. It's really interesting how currency can manifest itself without a regulated system.

The main point of my article (I think my poor writing didn't help me convey the message) is that even when we move on to electronic money (like bitcoin) people will still not want to carry them (having their own wallets at home), they will prefer a bank or service to take care of this. I think this is great because we could start using bitcoins with systems that are already in place, I even built a small demo for Verifone PoS which integrated nicely with our current systems (I run a credit card company)

Sometimes I also think that electronic money, like credit cards, could not be as democratic as paper.

<comment><USER13> Ah, okay, so you're more talking about the value of credit? Being able to buy something in advance of having the liquid funds to cover it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Isn't this value derived from the system as a whole rather than Bitcoins themselves? If the monetary value of Bitcoin dropped to zero for some reason you wouldn't be able to use your existing Bitcoin for these purposes.

It's kind of like saying you could use the comment/memo area of wires/checks to send or timestamp messages.

<comment><USER4> >Isn't this value derived from the system as a whole rather than Bitcoins themselves?

Capital B Bitcoin (never plural) refers to the system as a whole. Lowercase b bitcoins refers to the units of currency.

And yes, this value is derived from Bitcoin, not bitcoins- which is what the article says.

>If the monetary value of Bitcoin dropped to zero for some reason you wouldn't be able to use your existing Bitcoin for these purposes.

Yes, you would. All of these uses would still apply if bitcoins were worthless.

Namecoins are essentially free, yet they can be used to do all of these as well. In fact, Namecoin is the third item on the list in the article.

<comment><USER15> _All of these uses would still apply if bitcoins were worthless._

No, because if bitcoins were worthless, there would be no incentive to mine, and if there is no incentive to mine, there is no security for the blockchain.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > It costs nothing

Doesn't it costs you anything to make a transaction with Bitcoin? That was more than I knew.

<comment><USER17> The costs are negligible - several cents per transaction nowadays, and is always up to you to define related to how important the transaction is and how fast you'd like the network to confirm it.

In any case, the costs are miniscule compared to standard transaction fees that banks charge.

<comment><USER18> The costs are neglible now, but based on how Bitcoin works (shared transaction list) it seems likely that the costs will rise in the future:

1) Currently there's a transaction size limit of 1 MB in the protocol, with typical "large" transaction sizes being about one third of this. Once average transaction sizes will hit the limit, miners will probably include transactions paying higher fees, thus auctioning the available space.

2) Even if Bitcoin users agree on a protocol change to increase this limit costs will rise, as every transaction needs to be forwarded to all other nodes (or at least to the miners). So increasing transaction sizes will create higher hardware requirements for miners, without necessarily increasing their income. And there's the further complication that a fork will only work if a majority of the network actually supports it.

<comment><USER4> 1) No, Gavin (Bitcoin lead developer) says he wants to make the transaction and block size unlimited (or rather, let the miners limit it). This should keep fees down. <https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=140233.40>

2) No, costs for the majority of transactions will not go up- in fact, they may go down. Most miners already charge different fees based on any given transaction's size. The fees range from about a half-cent USD to about two cents USD. If someone wants to send a 2MB transaction, the miners will be able to charge whatever transaction fee they choose for expedient processing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Looking to buy bitcoins?

Here are guides + ratings on how to buy bitcoins, in the united states, europe, and around the world:

<http://howdoyoubuybitcoins.com/>

Let me know if you have any feedback! We're always trying to improve!

</comment><comment><USER20> I thought old transactions in the block chain were rolled up into a new block and signed. So old transactions do vanish. Am I wrong or right on that one?

<comment><USER21> Just a digest of the previous block makes it into the next. Every client must have the entire block chain - every transaction ever made.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's not true. You may want to have entire block chain - if you wish to verify every block. Miners need to do so, to be sure they don't build their blocks on top of invalid blocks. Regular people don't require that and can trust some web wallets or light clients like Electrum, that store only block headers and keep track of personal keys, but do not verify all the transactions.

<comment><USER21> It is true if we define client as "client which implements BTC protocol". If you define it as "random internet strangers I trust with my money" then of course it does not require the blockchain and also does not provide any of the strong guarantees from BTC. Even for Electrum which does not have your private keys, you are still trusting what it says the blockchain contains. If subverted this could for example lead you to believe that someone had sent BTC to your wallet that were not actually in the true blockchain.

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't say I don't need to trust anybody. I have to trust even the full client: I need to validate the checksum, make sure I don't have viruses and keyloggers on my machine, I have to trust my backup system and have to trust people who understand crypto better than me.

Everyone must trust someone, there is no clear line in the usability-vs-trust balance. I'm perfectly okay to trust a web wallet on blockchain.info small amount of bitcoins because they do a very good job with their iPhone app and SMS notifications. I'm also okay to put some of my money into Electrum and some - in Bitcoin-QT. And keep some on bitcoin-central.net in case I need to sell BTC for fiat quickly.

Given all of that, it's not fair to say that "the true" client is this one, while all the others - are considerably different. For people who value their time, it's important to be able to sacrifice some trust for usability and vice versa. If we would always tell them that they _must_ use the full client, we are just imposing our personal tradeoffs and do not respect theirs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> With widespread adoption, I could imagine software licensing getting a lot easier.</comment>


Why Isn't F# the King of .NET? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@chrisdaviesgeek/why-isnt-f-the-king-of-net-2a9a1963e087#.edqv5al5j <comment><USER2> Several reasons come to mind:

\- F# replaced C++ on the black sheep role from Microsoft languages list, usually missing from their documentation when they list available languages (.NET Native and .NET Core are two examples)

\- Lack of GUI tooling forcing any desktop developer to use a mix of C#, VB.NET, C++/CX for the UI + F#, or load XAML files by hand via type providers

\- It is easier to gain adaptation at the enterprise level with multi-paradigm languages and existing ones are getting good enough support for FP algorithms, even if it is not clean approach. I rather have this than no FP at all.

\- Many enterprise developers and their managers are still quite vocal against type inference and LINQ in C#, VB.NET, let alone allow something like F# on their codebases

\- Since F# got type providers, many presentations try to sell the language to C# devs based just on this feature, which doesn't matter at all for the typical ETL and CRUD enterprise applications

<comment><USER3> They actually explicitly used to say...do your UI in VB or C# and your compute intensive work in F#. F# just wasn't their focus. They were productivity language/tooling focused.

I haven't heard anyone against type inference. Not saying that it doesn't happen. Every place has it's weird "thing"...just haven't seen it personally.

I guess I'm saying that I don't think it was some kind of conspiracy or anything. I just think that there focus was/is elsewhere.

<comment><USER2> > I haven't heard anyone against type inference.

I have seen C# style guides that forbid _var_.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've worked with people that couldn't be convinced that using var in C# was not the same as the old terrible untyped Variant type from VB.

<comment><USER4> var is _not_ the same as Variant. var is merely a placeholder for the real type, which the compiler infers from the RHS expression type. Variant is closer to object than var.

EDIT: It turns out the parent and I agree 100%. Darn double negatives! :)

<comment><USER5> Isn't that exactly what GP is saying?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Because it's a functional language. And other than noisy functional language fans, most people prefer imperative programming.

<comment><USER7> I'm not entirely sure why this is getting downvoted. I'm a moderately noisy FP fan myself, but this statement does seem, on the balance of evidence, to be true. I'm interested to know _why_.

<comment> V-2 Maybe because dismissing those who appreciate the advantages of functional programming as "noisy fans" is condescending, and implies that their preferences are based on emotional rather than rational grounds. I'm not a noisy fan of FP at all, but I like a lot of concepts (like immutability), and I do adapt them in my code

<comment><USER8> I think noisy fan was meant to imply that people who are in favour of functional programming languages tend to be more vocal in their views, rather than those who are in favour of imperative programming languages.

This is probably because imperative languages are the majority, so there's no need to soapbox, rather than anything related to the communities or the merits involved.

<comment> V-2 And if the downvoted comment used the phrase "more vocal in one's views" instead probably it wouldn't get downvoted much

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think it's syntax.

C# was _painstakingly_ designed to be palatable by large hoards of programmers, most of which used C++ and Java at the time. With stuff like out and ref parameters, the unsafe keyword, a C++-like class syntax (even with things that look like destructors), it was obviously an important goal to appeal to C++ programmers more than Java could.

F#, on the other hand, doesn't look familiar at all to anybody but experienced functional programmers. This matters, because as a language you don't get a lot of time to seduce programmers. Most of us use the first code snippet we see as a way to determine whether to keep reading or close the tab.

That, or the language really needs to offer something special to keep us reading. PHP's advantage was "just upload some files over FTP and it works, no need to learn that complicated unixy cgi-bin stuff". Elixir/Erlang/go have "super high concurrency without the headaches". None of F#'s many cool features have the same "ok, now you got my attention, I need this, _now_ " aspect.

These days there's a wider variety of syntaxes that a common. Ruby, JavaScript and Python became popular, also more popular than they were when F# first appeared. I suspect the syntax will feel less strange to many people. Maybe things are going to change.

</comment><comment><USER10> As someone who keeps hearing about F# but has not used it, I look at C#'s evolution - generally speaking, the language just keeps getting more and more terse for the common use cases (without sacrificing readability), especially in line of business applications. Combine it with a tool like Resharper, and generally, coding in C# is quite a pleasure.

Also, it is not as if C# is stagnant - e.g. the introduction of async and await keywords.

It _seems_ as if people promoting F# try to create use cases which are, frankly, not very often seen in the domains where C# is commonly used. Maybe I am completely mistaken, but F# seems to lack a so called "killer app" use case where people notice and say "aha! That's why you need it".

<comment><USER11> As someone who writes in C# and F# I can say the absence of nulls in F# alone makes it worth switching. Typically if something compiles in F# then it works reliably - a huge time/money saver.

<comment><USER10> Not disagreeing - can you explain a scenario where this helped so we can all understand how it is better than dealing with nulls in C#?

<comment><USER12> I'm working on a big c# app right now. All over the code base are areas where we always assumed a call to .first() would always return at least one thing. The business needs have changed and now we have use cases where we return nothing. I've been playing a game of hunting down the many little areas where this could crop up.

I can imagine that in f# this refactor would be a lot simpler and would allow me to have a case of empty that I could propagate around and handle transparently.

<comment><USER13> How would functional programming help you in this department?

<comment><USER14> In C#, null is just one possible value of the regular type Foo. The compiler cannot tell whether you have started returning null where you previously only returned non-null values, nor can it tell whether you've handled those null values correctly at the consumption site.

In F#, None is a subtype of the Option<Foo> union type, which is different from the plain Foo type and from the other subtype Some Foo. If you change a function that used to return a plain Foo into one returning Option<Foo>, every place in your code where that function is consumed will throw a compile error until you edit it to unwrap and handle the distinct Some Foo and None subtypes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The title would be better as "Why the F# Isn't F# the King of .NET" ;)

</comment><comment><USER16> Some of reasons reasons:

1) F# team prefers an ivory tower of pure language design to making killer _new_ products like Akka.

2) Meaningful whitespace is a matter of taste and not some golden standard. I like my languages with punctuation marks in them, thanks very much.

3) Total global inference and ultimate succinctness is a matter of taste and not some achievement. I don't program in Brainfuck and ML.

</comment><comment><USER17> _> I think within five years or so, functional-first programming will be the norm. _

I highly, highly doubt this.

<comment><USER3> The guy that writes Mechanical Sympathy, Martin Thompson, has said that people who think pure functional programming are the future are missing the point that hardware favors the imperative model. He's worth a listen to. Many talks on YouTube.

<comment><USER18> Im hearing that for the first time, could you elaborate?

<comment><USER2> The issue is that imperative algorithms and data structures are easier to optimize for hardware regarding cache sizes, memory access patterns and memory reuse.

Whereas this is also possible in FP languages, but since they tend to abstract the hardware, it requires support from "clever" compilers.

I don't fully agree with him, given the previous experience with the Connection Machine and *Lisp, but as usual in computing, unless one doesn't implement something and prove it with benchmarks, it doesn't happen.

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

<comment><USER3> Actually, that was one of his major points in the lecture that I referenced. Basically, you should start with measurements and go from there. He said that he personally uses FP quite a bit, so he wasn't a hater per se...except for FP fan boys. He did go on about that quite a bit.

The main thing that he stressed about data structures was that memory layout matters in that hardware has a lot of built in intelligence for accelerating memory access patterns that it can discern. The way that immutable data structures are created, updated, and destroyed don't produce a suitably detectable memory access pattern, apparently. His explanation was detailed and is worth watching. That being said he wasn't proposing "share state for all". He was mainly proposing the scientific method.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I actually think it's catch-22 with popularity as well as being a bit niché.

* When choosing language/platform for enterprise projects (where .Net is most commonly used) the company will go with one where they can find/have talent and resources. There's not many F# developers out there so you're severely limiting yourself.

* Since C# is more popular and has better tooling there has to be a substantial advantage of using F# instead. From what I can see that may only happen in certain financial and engineering solutions where minimizing the risk of errors, unit conversions, calculations etc is severe (Lose a couple of million dollars/Challenger-explosion -severe). Those projects are pretty far between ,and in some of them you can simply make do with c#. Another problem might some of those kinda of projects are usually not done in .Net to begin with.

It seems that F# is very nice for projects that are more based around calculations and formulas, but that's not enough for it to gain critical mass. Also C# has been encroaching on F# by becoming more functional with things like LINQ, lambdas etc. The type system is worse (C# main weakness right now), but still.

I'm no F# expert though so feel free to correct me

<comment><USER20> I would totally learn F# if I got hired for a job using F#. C# not so much. I wouldn't even apply to a job if it was a Java development job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I tried playing around with it for a little while. I had trouble dealing with functional in the .NET world. That's purely on me. However, I tried writing a WPF app and the scaffolding required was a bit absurd. Then I tried writing a web service. A LOT less scaffolding and I did get me off the ground a bit.

However, trying to apply some existing things were slightly confusing. I had trouble understanding immutability with the existing C# structures and wasn't sure if anything I was doing in this was correct. My Google-Fu was a bit weak.

What I found strange was that I wasn't able to create a Folder in Visual Studio. I'm not sure if that was a design choice, but I decided that if Microsoft wasn't going to take this language seriously. Then I wouldn't either.

</comment><comment><USER22> One thing I don't see mentioned - C# allows you to write pretty functional stuff. The Action and Func objects allow me to do a lot of what I would normally want a true FP language to offer, and most of the rest can be accomplished by convention.

</comment><comment><USER23> I like F# much (and hate any C-like language as the plague!) but let's not mislead ourselves. F# have inferior tooling, is worse for database development, type inference is crazy sometimes and is hard to build the same kind of generic solution as with C# or similar languages.

I use it only on osx and is even less good. Still stick with it because I see the potential and the time-savings in other aspects, but after years on OOP- Imperative have take a long time to get there...

</comment><comment><USER24> "It has killer tooling — some of the best in the business "

Some important things are missing compared to C#. I can't use F# in the immediate window in Visual Studio, so if I set a breakpoint I have to use C# to interact with the program, which is extremely weird and impractical.

F# is a _fantastic_ language though.

</comment><comment><USER25> It would have been if C# stayed at v2.0.

<comment><USER26> You think? C#2 isn't far from Java, and yet Java still dominates over Scala.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Yet another "my programming language is better than your programming language" blog post - have we really not progressed beyond this?

</comment><comment><USER28> Just curious. What "flabby messaging system" is the author referring to in the article?

<comment><USER29> I think he is referring to BizTalk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Because marginal returns...

The author alludes so too: "C# is good enough for most".

</comment><comment><USER31> First I read «Why isn't it the Fucking Kind of .NET?». Go ahead and downvote me :P</comment>


Microsoft: The Worlds Servers are not yours for the Taking - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/12/microsoft-tells-us-the-worlds-servers-are-not-yours-for-the-taking/

<comment><USER2> Confusing headline edit — implies it is MS in the accused's seat!

<comment><USER3> Yeah, the original headline is clearer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Microsoft was the first to join the Prism program but now the world is watching they start to grow a conscience ?

<comment><USER5> Everyone else did as well, and so would you if the Feds threatened to shut down your business if you didn't comply.

There are many ways to fix the law and govt, protesting and voting are a couple. Thinking you are above them and can do what you want, however, is not.

<comment><USER4> When you are as big as Microsoft and the feds are heavily dependent on your products, they just don't shut you down.

To me, they were the first because they have a long history of collaboration with the feds and the NSA knew it was a done deal.</comment></comment></comment>


A new method for reading - <AUTHOR> http://learn2spritz.com/

<comment><USER2> How is this much different compared to other software on the market, such as 7 Speed Reading or Spreeder [http://www.spreeder.com/](http://www.spreeder.com/)?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I was not aware of spreeder. But after trying it the ergonomics of spritz are improved, eg. the red letter really focuses. In the case of 7 Speed Reading, it is much more lean.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: I have a week before my new job: what should I do/learn? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> \- Practice the commute. Lack of punctuality sets the wrong expectations.

\- Find good places to eat healthy food. Bad food affects capacity to make use of correct judgment.

</comment><comment><USER3> What is your new job?</comment>


Ask HN: Review my Startup: GroupTabs - <AUTHOR>

GroupTabs offers location based group deals. As soon as enough people check-in, the deal unlocks, and everyone gets the deal.
www.GroupTabs.com
We launched last week. Our first two deals have already gone down, and our third deal is set for tomorrow night.
We combine the popularity of discounted group deals with location based services. Our goal is to incentivize the many people with smartphones who have never heard of foursquare/Gowalla/etc (at least until last week's Facebook Places announcement) to try out checking in. We are hooked up to Twitter/4sq API already. Gowalla is next. Facebook Places we will do as soon as they unlock Write access.
We went non-native via gtb.me to hit as many phones as possible on launch. Android/BBerry apps are almost ready for public beta. iPhone works based non-natively, ironically, so it comes last.
...And, to address what is probably the first question, our deals our small, so they are designed to 'tip' rather quickly. And we require that participating merchants have some special going on until our deal unlocks, so you are rewarded just for showing up, even in the event the deal doesn't tip.
Advice that we can offer from our launch: This has been said a lot of times, but it should be said again. Read http://www.balsamiq.com/blog/2008/08/05/startup-marketing-advice-from-balsamiq-studios/ We read it adozen or so times. If you are launching a startup you need to read it. Pledi's advice is invaluable. We were covered by VentureBeat (http://bit.ly/a8s2Ad), Mashable (http://bit.ly/9alqKF) and ReadWriteWeb (http://bit.ly/9UmAjH) among others before we even launched. <comment><USER2> Pretty neat idea, and I commend you guys for going up against Facebook, Foursquare, Gowalla, and Twitter who are sure to provide the exact same functionality at some point.

A few things I noticed right away:

1\. I can't tell what city you're servicing right away, I had to search for the tiny address at the bottom of your homepage (NY I take it). You should make it very obvious where you're targeting right now. Maybe put the address in the hero section where you have the other event details, and perhaps provide an embedded google map too.

2\. This is a minor design issue, but your main logo pushes your hero section down almost 200px. I would tighten things up a bit, but that's just me.

3\. Design again: get a good designer to help you with your typography. If you're DIYing your design, look into grid systems, your alignments are headache inducing.

Where is your revenue coming from? Are the venues paying a fee for the potential of foot traffic?

Also, what would stop me from creating a similar service which simply queried Foursqure, Twitter, Facebook, Gowalla, etc. for location info and providing deals based on how many people checked in? It would essentially just be a deals site that functions on check-in services: you advertise a deal, you negotiate with the venue, and all people need to do is show that they checked in with one of those services.

Good work so far, though!

<comment><AUTHOR> 1\. Thanks...we are getting people from all over the country (and world) registering...so we should make that clearer.

2/3. Design is a work in progress and yes it is done by ourselves. We have a new release of the index coming soon. Well aware of grid concept so will see what we can do about that.

Revenue is from venues for verified check-ins (GPS).

As to a similar service, nothing stops you or anyone else. The notion of culling check-ins goes against what we are selling the business on, which is bring in new people, not people who are going already and checking in. _It would essentially just be a deals site that functions on check-in services_ That really is what we are. We are platform agnostic...just started with checking you into foursquare if you like automatically because it is most popular in NYC. We

<comment><USER2> Sounds great! Good luck, guys!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> May want to change the name. GroupTabs sounds like everyone is paying together (are they?).

If we are just unlocking deals by having enough people show up - its certainly a chicken or egg problem determining if the people go. What happens if not enough people show up? They get screwed out of the deal that they went to a specific place solely for. The appeal for business owners is to get people to come, right? This means that the ones you are attracting are by virtue not customers otherwise. This is tricky and may require pre-organization from the users to make sure enough people show up to unlock the deal.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. The service is actually free to users, so know paying together. For example, tomorrow night's deal: You get a free glass of wine, sangria Or beer with every tapas you purchase at a restaurant, Sala, on the Bowery in NYC.

Whether a deal tips or not is our biggest issue...which is why we are setting low thresholds. To address it, one of the first changes we've made is posting our deals earlier than we initially planned to...instead of that morning, we are looking at anywhere from 1 to 3 days ahead. Also rolling out an update homepage with a feed of upcoming deals to build up interest.

<comment><USER3> This is similar to groupon, with a twist. Also try looking into issues they've had. I recall business owners complaining and pulling out of Groupon due to network effect negative impacts on their businesses - along the lines of "now they only come when I have coupons and I can't afford to do that"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Clickables:

<http://www.GroupTabs.com>

[http://www.balsamiq.com/blog/2008/08/05/startup-marketing- ad...](http://www.balsamiq.com/blog/2008/08/05/startup-marketing-advice-from- balsamiq-studios/)

<http://bit.ly/a8s2Ad>

<http://bit.ly/9alqKF>

<http://bit.ly/9UmAjH>

</comment><comment><USER5> Yeah, "GroupTabs" doesn't imply anything related to what you do IMO. I agree that a name change is a priority.

Also, how is it different from Groupon?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thinking about the name...

As to Groupon, two big differences: 1) You are not paying for anything up front. You simple get percent off/something free/etc if enough people show up. 2) Groupon deals 'tip' if enough people commit to buy. We 'tip' if enough people show up.

<comment><USER5> Okay. I just read your response to someone asking for your revenue model. Can you explain how check-in is going to work? I think your reply was incomplete.

<comment><AUTHOR> Check-ins are GPS verified. We are not doing a hardware solution like Shopkick, but we also aren't allowing SMS checkins like foursquare. We've gone for a middle ground. No GPS coordinates that fit in the lat/long we've set as acceptable around the venue then no check-in.

Merchants are charged based on check-ins.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


More flexible machine learning improves image classification - <AUTHOR> http://news.mit.edu/2015/more-flexible-machine-learning-1001 <comment><USER2> The paper described in the article: [http://arxiv.org/pdf/1506.05439v1.pdf](http://arxiv.org/pdf/1506.05439v1.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER3> So is this just the k-nearest neighbour approach with the Wasserstein distance as the measure? Is it the efficient implementation of the Wasserstein distance that makes this outcome interesting? Or is it the use of a non-parametric model in image classification?

<comment><USER4> Previous models had a loss function where you are either right or wrong. This model uses the similarity of concepts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Could this approach benefit from using Word2Vec?

<comment><USER6> The way I read the article (have t read the paper) the methods are very similar in concept, in that they are using word embeddings.

Basically instead of training on Wikipedia, they train on the categories assigned by Flickr users. And using a different word embedding algorithm than word2vec does, but the principal is similar imho</comment></comment>


3D Printer Benchmarking with Action Figures - <AUTHOR> http://replicatorinc.com/blog/2009/05/3d-printer-benchmarking-with-action-figures/

<comment><USER2> This seems like nothing more than a marketing post pseudo-wrapped in a thin layer of content.

<comment><USER3> You could have phrased that as, "I don't think there is much information in that article. It might just be marketing."

You don't need to be hostile here.

<comment><AUTHOR> Pie,

Thanks, I agree. It may not have been a great submission/article, but it wasn't marketing pap. I tried to add a lot of photos to give people unfamiliar with the products a clear picture of what this tech is capable of. If anything I think this article would dissuade most people.</comment></comment></comment>


Many SSD Benchmark Reviews Contain Flaws - <AUTHOR> http://blog.zorinaq.com/?e=29

<comment><USER2> What would've been great is if instead of just pointing out the flaws in testing methodologies, the OP picked out a few publications that do run the tests accurately. That way we could judge how seriously to take some of the claims of the X25-M successors, like the X25-E Extreme.

<comment><AUTHOR> Anandtech seems to come out of the pack.

For example they are the only ones who seem to benchmark SandForce-based SSDs (from OCZ, Crucial, ADATA, etc) correctly by taking care of defeating the transparent compression and deduplication features of this controller. They did that by patching IOMeter to use blocks of random bytes instead of constant bytes.

<comment><USER3> On the other hand the SSD is probably doing transparent compression and de- duplication because it helps with real-word workloads.

If you only test the pathological it isn't informative if your real workloads could benefit from compression and de-duplication.

<comment><AUTHOR> Anandtech takes care of testing the 2 cases, 100% random data and non-random data, to give a range of expected performance on real-world workloads.

However they only do this for tests run with IOMeter, because most other benchmarking tools are unable to write random data. Which brings me back to one of my points that many benchmarking tools are flawed in the sense they don't take into account potential deduplication.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great article. I would be interested in more detail on how you specifically benchmark storage. I benchmark a lot of enterprise SAN storage for Oracle database clusters and I've found a tool called ORION that works surprisingly well. It tests small random I/Os, large sequential I/Os, or any combination thereof, and uses the Oracle asynchronous I/O libraries so you can simulate a real database workload.

The nice thing is that I can plug in my workload mix - 90% read, 10% writes, point it to all of my raw devices, and it will test all combinations of small random, large sequential I/Os, multiple queue depths, and give me CSV file outputs showing my I/O per second, MB per second, and latency for every data point.

You can also tell it the size of your storage array or disk cache, which it will add to Linux kernel cache, and pre-warm the cache with /dev/random. For example, if I'm testing on a server with 64GB of RAM and 8GB of storage cache, it will pre-warm a total of linux kernel cache + 8GB, so it might pre-warm 60-70GB of data before each data point to get accurate, repeatable results without the effects of cached reads/writes.

<comment><AUTHOR> I use scripts I wrote myself in combination with Linux CLI tools (dd, iostat). They give me 6 pieces of information: sustained sequential read and write throughput (at different LBA offsets), read and write latency (4kB I/O with queue depth of 1), and random read and write IOPS (4kB I/O with queue depth of at least 32, and, if necessary, using random data to characterize the effectiveness of any dedup/compression feature).

That's it. Once I have these 6 synthetic results, that gives me more and better information than 9 out of 10 benchmarking articles on the Net.

I usually don't need more complex synthetic benchmark results (eg. x% read / y% write). After that I simply test the real workload.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've written a cross-platform, pure python benchmark for IOPS; see [http://benjamin-schweizer.de/measuring-disk-io- performance.h...](http://benjamin-schweizer.de/measuring-disk-io- performance.html)

</comment><comment><USER6> One could also argue that if it's really that hard to tune your benchmarking system to get the optimal results it's not really relevant to any real-life task...

</comment><comment><USER7> I really think real world app testing is the best way to test these things. Important things like app launch times, boot times, performance the above after the SSD has been aged. Average numbers matter way more than peak numbers as peak numbers may last a fraction of the times as other measured rates.

</comment><comment><USER8> Seems for most purposes, a simplistic benchmark that represents some realistic scenarios is preferable to benchmarks designed to maximize performance numbers.

</comment><comment><USER9> Ouch, it looks like defragging your SSDs became worthwhile again!</comment>


First Smart Watch app full of memes - <AUTHOR> https://pocketmeme.xyz/ <comment><AUTHOR> We made the first Smart Watch app full of memes.

And it's available on Apple Watch.

Why?

Cause we think that Smart Watches are more than just fitness trackers.

What we have:

\- Thousands of funny memes and jokes

\- Hundreds of new memes each day

\- No ads and payment

\- No personal information gathering

It's just memes, nothing extra.

</comment><comment><USER2> cool that you created one because you can laugh when you want

</comment><comment><USER3> cool that you created one because you can laugh when you want

</comment><comment><USER4> Клас!!!!!!!

</comment><comment><USER4> клас

</comment><comment><USER2> Бомбезно</comment>


Show HN: Ponzi.es – Startup sticker ponzi scheme - <AUTHOR> https://ponzi.es <comment><USER2> From Wikipedia:

Ponzi's original scheme was based on the arbitrage of international reply coupons for postage stamps; however, he soon diverted investors' money to make payments to earlier investors and himself. ...

The profit that could be made by taking advantage of the differing postal rates in different countries to buy IRCs cheaply in one country and exchange them for stamps of a higher value in another country was the intended profit generator for a scheme operated by Charles Ponzi, which became the fraudulent Ponzi scheme.

<comment><USER3> For anyone interested in more information on this, or on Ponzi himself, I'd highly recommend giving Ponzi's Scheme[0] a read. It's a great book on the subject.

[0] [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0812968360](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0812968360)

<comment><USER4> "Ponzi: The Incredible True Story of the King of Financial Cons" is good too: [http://smile.amazon.com/Ponzi-Incredible-Financial- Library-L...](http://smile.amazon.com/Ponzi-Incredible-Financial-Library- Larceny-ebook/dp/B000FC1BGU/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why not ask for "one or more" stickers? (Still promising only two total in return). If you're not being purist about the ponzie part, that is. Then you might be able to carry it on a little longer.

<comment><USER6> Because they're being purist about the ponzie part

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Which of the examples is considered to be a "startup"? The featured one is a 15-year-old spinoff of a public company with hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. The second one is an actual public company with 4000 employees. The third one might be sort of a startup, but they have over 100 million dollars in VC backing.

<comment><AUTHOR> For the sake of simplicity, we're using it as a blanket term for "tech company" and are happy with stickers for anything from a tiny 1 person company to a behemoth like Google (or an event like a hackathon).

<comment><USER8> Wouldn't it be better if you use "tech company" term instead? If the blanket term is already widely accepted, I see no point in using "startup" instead, as that will probably cause much more confusion.

<comment><AUTHOR> We originally had "tech company" on the site, but after showing it to a few friends and people that were crashing at our house, it was clear that people had a better understanding of the site when we used "startup", so we decided to go with it.

<comment><USER9> That's a huge sample bias there. Cool idea, but 'startup' in the name was a bit confusing at first.

<comment><USER10> You all over think everything on this forum. I guess that's part of the beauty of it and likely how some people get stuck doing nothing.

<comment><USER9> What, I'm over thinking things because a bunch of SF techy folks preferred the world startup to company?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Self sustaining version:

Send us 3 stickers and postage. Get 2 unique stickers back. You get all the profits of the excess postage (assuming bulk rate) plus the extra sticker can go to a bin / advertising page of ALL THE STICKERS.

<comment><USER12> Then it wouldn't be a Ponzi scheme though. The whole point is that you depend on future investments (receipt of cards) to satisfy current investors.

<comment><USER11> You are correct.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Why not ask for 50 cents or a new stamp in the envelope? Including a stamp is easier in an envelope, and it should make prepping a return envelope simpler. Require "forever" stamps to protect yourself from a postal price hike.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, we should update the website! If you send us a forever stamp instead of 50 cents, we'll honor it.

<comment><USER14> You should let people know _not_ to send coins, too. Coins can get violently ejected from postal sorting machines and cause injuries.

(And as general advice, if you're going to do a mail campaign like this in the future, it might be a good idea to actually chat to a postal carrier about it first.)

<comment><USER15> You're right that people should not send coins in regular envelopes. But of course people mail coins, keys, and binder clips pretty frequently. Do you think USPS employees stand around an open sorting machine just waiting to get hit in the face with a paperclip?

I actually know someone who has worked on those machines for decades. He never told me anything other than that the machines might reject your letter, or your thumb drive might fall out and they'd not be able to find where to send it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I bet a lot of companies would just give you their stickers, simply to take advantage of your distribution network. It would be funny if this became a legitimate business idea (while the trend is alive).

<comment><AUTHOR> We've actually already had a couple reach out, but we've turned them down because we want to see how long we can sustain this by "crowdsourcing" stickers (i.e. being a ponzi scheme).

<comment><USER17> He also lied. So keep that in mind while thinking of being true to the original, and just keep it going! :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The nit picking in these comments seems, for once, to actually be in good spirit, but this is a really fun idea!

I would love to do this with startup / event t-shirts so I could (eventually) clean out my drawers...too bad sizing clothes is a little more complicated than stickers.

<comment><USER19> I'll take your smalls ;)

One advantage to being a small built female at these events, t-shirts in my size are always left.

<comment><USER20> If they have female sizes, otherwise we've aquired new dresses..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is awesome in every way. Talk about a fantastic project

<comment><USER22> This is an Internet age Ponzi scheme.

<comment><USER23> Not really; while it does use some of its mechanisms, it lacks the crucial one: recursion.

<comment><USER24> How so? Each new "investor's" sticker goes to "pay off" a previous one, and then they are in turn "paid off" with the stickers from two new "investors."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I wonder if they'd honor the deal if I sent them a letter internationally...with an Australian 50¢ piece

<comment><AUTHOR> If you send us an international stamp instead of a 50¢ piece, we'll honor it ;-).

<comment><USER26> not sure how to get a stamp for sending mail _from_ the US to where I live honestly. But the idea is cool and thanks for considering internationals as well ;)

<comment><USER27> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_reply_coupon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_reply_coupon)

Might work if they are still sold in your country.

A bit expensive though and not sure if they are willing to accept these, because they have to be _exchanged_ for a stamp, they don't count as a stamp themselves.

<comment><AUTHOR> If we can exchange it at a standard postal office, we'll do it.

<comment><USER26> The article linked by thesimon states "UPU member postal services are obliged to exchange an IRC for postage, but are not obliged to sell them" so it looks like this would work. They cost 2€ here in Germany ($2.20) compared to $1.20 for a USPS First-Class Mail International Letter, so it's not _that_ bad. Really cool!

<comment><USER24> And this would nicely keep with the whole theme, since Ponzi's original scheme involved arbitrage with IRCs, before he decided it would be easier to just rip people off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Can I just mail you postage instead of heavy quarters? I think that would be nicer to the USPS.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup! As long as it's a Forever stamp, we'll honor it :-).

<comment><USER29> What about a BTC address worth 50¢? 8D

<comment><USER30> Exchange rates can and will change while in transit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Update: Received two stickers in response! Very cool. Thanks Max for running the scheme. [http://imgur.com/uwnXc86](http://imgur.com/uwnXc86)

</comment><comment><USER32> That moment you see this and then wonder where your pile of stickers went.

</comment><comment><USER33> In case anyone was curious, mailing cash is legal according to this Snopes Article - www.snopes.com/legal/postal/sendcash.asp

Can't find a current USPS FAQ, though.

<comment><USER7> Who would think this was not legal, and why?

<comment><USER33> Mailing physical cash? Because it's a security concern? (theft)

<comment><USER34> Why would a security concern (which would apply to mailing anything of value, not just cash) imply any legal issue?

<comment><USER33> If a particular address was known to consistently receive cash in the mail, wouldn't that make it a target of theft?

As someone who lives in the Bay Area and has seen car windows smashed for the change in the cupholder and a friend's motorcycle knocked over to get the flattened soda can that was being used as a stabilizer, yes, that's a security concern.

<comment><USER35> How would you know if a particular address receives cash in the mail?

<comment><USER33> Well, in this case visit their website :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> If I want to just buy a load of different startup/saas/tech stickers, is there a place I can do that?

<comment><USER37> Stickermule[0] and RedBubble[1] come into mind.

[0] [https://www.stickermule.com/](https://www.stickermule.com/) [1] [http://www.redbubble.com/](http://www.redbubble.com/)

<comment><USER38> And [http://www.unixstickers.com/](http://www.unixstickers.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Given how many useless stickers I've been given at conferences this might go on for quite a while.

</comment><comment><USER40> Looks like they ride on the Notifuse successful initiative: "Free dev stickers, worldwide shipping" [https://notifuse.com/stickers](https://notifuse.com/stickers)

</comment><comment><USER41> Inspired by what you guys done. I created one based on favours :). [http://ponzifavour.com/](http://ponzifavour.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah! This is awesome. Just subscribed :-).

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Curious to know what the privacy policy is with this thing.

</comment><comment><USER43> Nit, but: it's not actually a Ponzi scheme. What made Ponzi's scheme a Ponzi scheme was not the postal coupons. It was pretending that investors were making huge profits to make them keep their money invested, and paying them with each other's money. At that point the coupons was just an alibi.

Of course I don't know ponzi.es' long-term plan, maybe they'll start taking investment and promising huge returns. That'd be pretty funny. Though I don't know if you can legally run a Ponzi scheme, even an ironic one.

<comment><USER24> Isn't that exactly what this is? You "invest" a sticker, and you get a 100% return on your investment by receiving two stickers. It's not explicitly stated, but given the name and the context, I assume that the stickers you receive come from new "investors."

<comment><USER44> A ponzi scheme would require a larger upfront sticker investment from new investors with large but unsustainable sticker returns over time.

This is just a straight up 'sticker + $.50' for 2 stickers exchange.

<comment><USER24> I thought that a Ponzi scheme was simply one where returns to existing investors are paid from the capital contributed by new investors.

<comment><USER43> Wouldn't that be a pyramid scheme?

<comment><USER24> I believe, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that in a pyramid scheme the individual participants receive money from new participants that they recruit (and the people your recruits recruit, and so forth down the line). If you join a pyramid scheme and then do nothing else, you receive nothing.

A Ponzi scheme is centralized, with new participants joining directly with the scheme, and proceeds paid out to all existing participants.

As structured, this sticker scheme is a Ponzi scheme, since it's all centralized and you don't do anything besides send in your sticker and postage.

<comment><USER43> No you're totally right, it's not a pyramid scheme. I still don't think it's a Ponzi scheme though because I don't think a sticker and return postage constitutes an investment. It's just a normal, if unsustainable, trade.

For now. It would be totally consistent with how Ponzi schemes work in real life to start with something legit that turns out to not be sustainable, and then turning it into something fraudulent. Say once people have started sending in stickers they should choose to offer a service where they hang on to your stickers to save you the trouble of mailing back and forth, and doubling your holding every 10 days. Then a sticker would be an investment and it would be a Ponzi scheme.

I can only hope they'll do something like that. It'd be totally in the spirit of Ponzi.

<comment><USER24> Obviously it's not actually a Ponzi scheme if you take the whole "stickers" thing into account. Which is presumably why they aren't being raided by the authorities right now.

But it's definitely meant to mirror the structure of one, just with stickers instead of money. If they had you send in $10,000 instead of a sticker, and promised $20,000 back, it would clearly qualify.

So I'd say it's "a Ponzi scheme, but for stickers."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> If I send 2 stickers will I get back 4?

<comment><AUTHOR> To (somewhat) rate limit it, we'll only send 2 stickers back per envelope (regardless of whether the envelope has 1 sticker or 10 stickers in it).

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Can I also send you a dollar and get back four stamps for return postage?

</comment><comment><USER46> the amount of time and effort I'm willing to spend to get start up stickers is probably about equal to the effort it takes to type in the address to mail them to. probably less.

</comment><comment><USER47> Always wanted that github sticker, never knew where to get from :)

<comment><USER48> [http://github.myshopify.com/products/die-cut-github- stickers](http://github.myshopify.com/products/die-cut-github-stickers)

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> You got something here

</comment><comment><USER50> Would you send it to the EU and take euros :)?

</comment><comment><USER51> Are you going to do all this work by hand?

<comment><AUTHOR> To be honest, we weren't expecting this large of a response. But yes!

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> I want PONIES!

</comment><comment><USER53> Why.

<comment><USER54> No, seriously, why is this even worth spending time on? WTF? This isn't even amusing. It's just random.

<comment><USER17> You've just defined modern art.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> LOVE IT

</comment><comment><USER56> 32 points, 35 minutes ago? Is this a voting ring?

Edit: As mentioned below, also with 0 comments at the time (this was the first comment)

<comment><USER57> Not common to see the top story on HN have 0 comments, as it did when I loaded the page ...

<comment><AUTHOR> Honestly not sure. I've never had a post rise this quickly, though it's definitely fun to watch! Here's a screenshot of where people are visiting from: [https://i.imgur.com/Of5xKOk.png](https://i.imgur.com/Of5xKOk.png)

<comment><USER57> What did you use to generate this?

<comment><USER58> We're using piwik([https://piwik.org](https://piwik.org)) for analytics, which has a nice map view.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Intel Said to Be Near Purchase of Infineon Division - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-08-26/intel-said-to-be-near-purchase-of-infineon-division.html

<comment><USER2> Its the same story during/after every downturn in an economic cycle -- the strong buy up the weak.

Do the weak become weak because they don't anticipate the inevitable cycles?</comment>


Everything that is wrong with bookmarks - <AUTHOR> http://www.matusiak.eu/numerodix/blog/index.php/2011/02/15/everything-that-is-wrong-with-bookmarks

<comment><USER2> _This kind of situation is standard silo behavior. By making the import feature so mediocre, the browser vendor would pretty much ensure that the user would not switch browsers without paying a high price for it._

This simply does not hold up. The high price for a shoddy import feature is paid by the vendor of the browser the user is switching to. There might be a valid point if the discussion were about a shoddy _export_ feature.

 _And yet, bookmark sync is yet more silo behavior: you can sync your bookmarks from Opera to Opera, but not from Opera to Firefox._

But the converse doesn't hold true. Mozilla's Sync is a documented, open API with several people having implemented their own servers, even, and you can use stuff like Firefox Home to access your synced data with mobile Safari.

 _I've come all this way without mentioning just about the most glaring problem that bookmarks have: bad page titles. … Quite apart from the length problem, web sites often prefer to give articles catchy titles rather than descriptive ones._

Or worse, setting the title text to something which isn't a title at all, i.e., clever web developers who abuse the title element by just regarding it as the text that appears in the tab.</comment>


The world's most viewed picture is of a hill in Sonoma - <AUTHOR> http://blog.sfgate.com/stew/2014/04/16/the-worlds-most-viewed-picture-is-of-a-hill-in-sonoma/

<comment><USER2> It seems strange to me that a hillside covered in a grass monoculture, lacking its natural vegetation cover should be considered suitable for such a prominent image. A lot of the hillsides around the bay area are like that - low diversity weedy short vegetation with a few scattered tree lupins. That sort of vegetation cover makes me sad rather than appreciative.</comment>


When is a 9 inch pizza tha same size as a 12 inch? - <AUTHOR> http://amazingserviceguy.com/2627/your-customers-perspective/

<comment><USER2> That's why when I order a pizza I ask them to cut it into only 4 slices. I can't eat 6.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wish I had thought of that...

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'd prefer not to treat all my customers as morons.

(Regardless of how many are...)

EDIT: What's with the boom of posts demonstrating how _stupid_ non-computer people are? It's rather elitist...

<comment><USER4> Treating all customers as morons is certainly a bad idea - but so is treating all customers (including those who are morons and/or assholes) as kings, very often.

It's a tradeoff between the asshole customer's money being just as good as the pleasant customer's, and the effort you have to expend to get it.

A customer who repeatedly ties up service people for hours with baseless, aggressive complaints about their $20 purchase is simply not a customer worth having.</comment></comment>


Obtaining publish access to 13% of npm packages - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ChALkeR/notes/blob/master/Gathering-weak-npm-credentials.md <comment><USER2> I think this is a good example of something that's relatively unlikely to be an issue, even though it sounds scary. Sure someone could potentially inject code into a npm package that would allow them to snoop on anyone who used the package, but it would most likely be discovered very quickly. To hack developers of popular packages is similar to trying to beat up the karate dojo when there's a bank right across the street.

Plus we all know that corporations rarely update their dependencies so therefore, anything you wrote to snoop would be caught before they updated. You'd most likely just get bleeding edge developer's information, which might net you access to Netflix?

<comment><USER3> Devs might be better than average at discovering and counteracting pwnage, but they're also much higher value targets. They often _are_ the Bank.

As a criminal, what credentials do you want - some teen's facebook login? or some dev's admin credentials which you can use to compromise entire databases? What about software signing keys for your malware? Access to someone's software update distribution channels?

Some companies strictly separate devs from these things, but not all of them by a long shot - and even when they are, admins aren't going to necessarily be code auditing every single release. One slip is all it takes.

Debian builds has been breached. Sourceforge has been breached. _Un_ hacked package managers and credentials already make me nervous. Up your paranoia, and have enough self esteem as to realize you're worth targeting - and know that all the Karate in the world won't protect you from being shot in the back from behind. They won't stake out the Dojo either - it'll be your home or favorite bar.</comment></comment>


Id to release Doom3 source code - <AUTHOR> http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/36383/Id_To_Release_Doom_3_Source_Code.php

<comment><USER2> "Note that Doom 3's famous shadow renderer is based on technology patented by Creative Labs."

This is a very sad situation, given that this technology was independently rediscovered and popularized by John Carmack. He learned about the patent only after the fact.

<comment><USER3> To me that whole debacle was one of the biggest examples of the problems with the patent system today. For all intents and purposes Creative patented a mathematical formula.

<comment><USER4> It's worse than that, really. Creative _bought_ a company (3D Labs) that patented a mathematical formula. Creative wasn't even directly responsible for coming up with the technique.

<comment><USER5> I don't think most people take issue with the fact that patents are purchasable or otherwise transferable.

If I create a valid, useful (non-software) patent, I should be able to sell or license it in any way I see fit.

The issue is software patents, at least in these circles.

<comment><USER6> >I don't think most people take issue with the fact that patents are purchasable or otherwise transferable.

I do, because I object to the absurd concept of ownership over ideas. Software patents just take the absurdity to the utter and bizarre maximum. There is no benefit for humanity to be gained through patents, they merely hinder our technological advancement.

<comment><USER7> > There is no benefit for humanity to be gained through patents, they merely > hinder our technological advancement.

I disagree. There are three alternatives (that come to mind) to patents:

1) Make all information freely accessible to anyone. This is the one we'd all like everyone to do. However, there's very little (economic) incentive to innovate when you do all of the heavy thinking and anyone else can just come along and beat you to the implementation.

2) Stop innovating. If you can't protect your ideas, you might as well just stop trying.

3) Hide your information. Only you can benefit from the information if no one else knows about it. (You can't license information and keep it a secret at the same time!) There are laws to help protect you, but you also have to do a lot of work to protect yourself. You can also keep your information secret indefinitely.

By filing a patent, you're telling the world how to do something (allegedly) new. In 20 years, (or longer/shorter, depending on the country) everyone is freely able to use the idea.

<comment><USER8> The problem is, patents are not a repository for searching for solutions and solving problems. If you were to do so, you open yourself for further liability down the road. Not only that, you then harm the person who discovers the same solution independently, even though, your patent did not help them in anyway.

<comment><USER7> > The problem is, patents are not a repository for searching for solutions and > solving problems.

Tell that to the generic-brand pharmaceutical companies. ;)

> Not only that, you then harm the person who discovers the same solution > independently, even though, your patent did not help them in anyway.

In the old way, where you had to actually present an implementation of the patented idea, I imagine this would have encouraged inventors to innovate more rapidly. The current system is very broken, and allows patents for things like the perpetual motion machine. (I'd try to provide a link, but engineers shouldn't be looking at patents.)

"Oh, you're trying to genuinely improve our lives? Too bad I already came up with the idea in the shower one day and wrote it down before you did! But I'm willing to let you go ahead and try for $40 million."

<comment><USER9> If it can be shown that you can show that you have a history of reading patents, then it can be argued that you wilfully infringed. It certainly makes defense much harder. Patent lawyers generally recommend that engineers NOT read patents for that reason.

<comment><USER10> What about reading only expired patents?

<comment><USER9> I don't know, I'm not a patent lawyer myself.

I suspect however, that they would advise you this is a risky activity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This article is almost a month old now. I'd guess we will see a release around December like they have done in the past. I wouldn't expect anything before October. This will be the first id software release in c++ and it will be interesting to see what subset of the c++ language they used.

<comment><USER12> You can get a pretty good idea from looking at the mod sdk code, which is available from here: <http://iddevnet.com/doom3/>

There's quite a lot available in the game code; the physics system at least, maybe also the script interpreter? I haven't looked in a while.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm sure Carmack says alot more about the patent issues and open sourcing the engine in the keynote. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zgYG-_ha28>

<comment><USER14> It is amazing how technical his talk is it`s really intressting if you have a progamming background.

And it just so different to any other keynote for a game i have ever seen.

edit: 5 mins to the end he talks about the doom3 opensource

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I hope they include the changes to the engine made for ET:QW. I'm particularly interested in megatexture. But they say "Doom3 source code" not Id tech 4, so they probably won't.

</comment><comment><USER16> There's a nice writeup of someone going through the original quake code: <http://fabiensanglard.net/quakeSource/index.php>

Seems to turn up in most threads about iD engine source/dev - I'll do it this time :)

<comment><USER17> And if you want to follow an experienced programmer's quest to make a fast and stable DirectX9, C++ Quake engine then follow <http://mhquake.blogspot.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I know nothing about game development, I just play them, but would be interested in seeing the source code of this game.

<comment><USER19> Carmack has released id's previous engines, they're pretty interesting to read, and folks are still maintaining them. The technology ioquake3[1] is 10 years old now, but well-maintained as an open-source project. Darkplaces[2] is a heavily-updated Quake I engine that maintains backwards compatibility with Q1 while using fairly modern game programming techniques. Google ported Darkplaces to NaCl a while ago, and it has renderers in OpenGL, Direct X, and OpenGL ES now.

[1] <http://svn.icculus.org/*checkout*/quake3/trunk/README> [2] <http://git.xonotic.org/?p=xonotic/darkplaces.git;a=summary>

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> No mention of license, though.

<comment><USER21> previous games were released under GPL, this one should probably follow.

<comment><USER22> yes but which version :)

<comment><USER9> Almost without question v2. That is what they used in the past and this time there are patent issues to boot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I must say that, unlike with Doom I and II, it will certainly be more exciting to wade through the source code and learn tricks than actually play the game and wade through the endless monotonic, boring action.

<comment><USER17> Doom 3 is actually a very nice if somewhat cheesy horror shooter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> August 4, 2011 ?</comment>


Ask HN: Is there an OkCupid for jobs? - <AUTHOR> I've seen various sites (e.g. TrueJob) that use this as a tagline but I haven't yet found a site that follows the OkCupid format of asking both sides questions and then matching based on those answers. Most job posting and searching sites don't allow users to search for, or companies to list, information I would find very useful. For example how does the company feel about dogs or code comments or test coverage? <comment><USER2> This is a good idea, and if you build it, my company will be a client.</comment>


A Telegram bug that disclose phone numbers of any users in public groups - <AUTHOR> https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRx2wO2kj0axlQtv2CDSjPGlRKJOHtucvpOKGFKybh2eVVGZqvt_JJv-2Q11NHn5Y4um_F4-bgA6q5v/pub <comment><USER3> Whilst not the same as mentioned in TFA, I noticed in Signal that if you allow it access to your contacts it will tell you how many of your contacts are already on Signal. I understand this is useful from a usability/discoverability aspect, but from a privacy perspective I have no reason to be made aware of the fact that one of my old bosses who's number is in my phone is on Signal and neither should they know that I am on Signal for the same reasons (or lack thereof).

What's worse is there seems to be no way to opt-out of this behavior. I can deny Signal access to my contacts, thereby not knowing which of my contacts are on Signal, but that doesn't stop the other party from knowing if I am on Signal if they have given Signal access to their contacts.

It's not farfetched to consider a world where an oppressive regime may outlaw the use of something like Signal, Telegram or even WhatsApp and they'd be able to easily determine if you're using such a service through passive techniques such as these.

As far as I know, Wickr is a bit more privacy focused, but it doesn't tick the open source box for me (although the supposed source code is published[1] for public review).

[1] [https://github.com/WickrInc/wickr- crypto-c](https://github.com/WickrInc/wickr-crypto-c)

<comment><USER4> > from a privacy perspective I have no reason to be made aware of the fact > that one of my old bosses who's number is in my phone is on Signal and > neither should they know that I am on Signal for the same reasons (or lack > thereof).

I agree that there are some contacts that I would rather not know that I was on Signal, but, unfortunately, this is an impossible problem to solve when the goal is to create an end-to-end encrypted messaging platform where your identifier is your phone number. The server has to know when a number is not a user so the app can fall back to sending unencrypted SMS (although why Signal falls back to SMS is a mystery to me) and it also has to carry the current public key for each user so that you can be sure that you're talking to who you think you're talking to.

Put another way, even if Signal didn't advertise that, "So-and-so is on Signal, say hey!" you could still theoretically determine whether or not a given number is on signal by sending a message to that number. If it fails, you know they aren't. And if it succeeds, well, then you know they are.

<comment><USER5> >this is an impossible problem to solve when the goal is to create an end-to- end encrypted messaging platform where your identifier is your phone number

Right, the use of phone number as identifier is flawed by design, and not secure

<comment><USER6> A big part of practical security is usability. It's hard enough getting most people to adopt Signal or other encrypted messaging services. If they couldn't "just send a message to a number" it would be that much more difficult. The tradeoff seems worth it in this case.

<comment><USER7> People seem fine adding each other on Facebook without using a phone number. When I add people on LINE messenger I use their ID not their phone number. When I meet a new person and exchange some contact details, it is rarely a phone number. I would also like to talk to some people who I do not want to know my phone number. I think this tradeoff was a mistake for Signal.

<comment><USER6> You are clearly not the target audience for Signal. There of course is a space for the type of app you're describing, but saying that the tradeoff that Signal has chosen was a mistake is to misunderstand the goal there.

<comment><USER8> What goal do you mean? Sell users to marketers?

<comment><USER6> Do you have evidence that this is happening? Otherwise, completely FUD.

The goal I was referring to is making it easy for regular folks to use end-to- end encryption. Any real measure of security needs to be practically usable by the intended audience, and the clear and consistent intended audience for Signal is regular folks who don't have a sophisticated threat model. If any other identity scheme were used, I'd guess the number of Signal users would be an order of magnitude smaller.

This is not to say that there aren't great reasons to have more elaborate secure messaging systems that address these questions, for anyone with a different security model.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> 1 point by RichardHeart 44 minutes ago | parent | edit | delete [-] | on: Telegram 0-day vulnerability that can be used to d...

"TELEGRAM'S REPLY ZDNet has reached out to Telegram for comment earlier today, and the company has looked into the issue reported by Hong Kong protesters. "We have safeguards in place to prevent importing too many contacts - <USER2> to prevent the scenario," a Telegram spokesperson said.

"In fact, our data shows that the bot displayed on the screenshots got banned from further imports after two seconds - and only managed to successfully import 85 contacts (not 10,000)," it said. "Once you get banned from importing contacts, you can only add up to 5 new numbers per day. The rest of the contacts you add will look like they're not using Telegram - even if they are."

However, this ban limit can be bypassed. A determined threat actor like the Chinese state can easily employ multiple bots to exploit this issue, instead of just one, and they'll eventually import the entire phone number sequence they want to cover."

</comment><comment><USER10> [https://www.zdnet.com/article/telegram-voicemail-hack- used-a...](https://www.zdnet.com/article/telegram-voicemail-hack-used-against- brazils-president-ministers/)

</comment><comment><USER11> You know what would be a great way to mitigate this kind of attack vector? Stop insisting on tying identity to phone numbers.

</comment><comment><USER12> Telegram says they block massive contacts imports, says that particular bot was able to add only 85 contacts and then throttled to 5 new contacts per day.

My questions is how do they distinguish legitimate imports? I have 2K phone numbers in my address book. Would it take a year for me to be able to message my friends on telegram?

<comment><USER8> I assume there are some limits on number of uploaded contacts (probably on order of thousands) but they can be bypassed by creating thousands of accounts each with different contact list. One SIM card here in Russia costs as low as several dollars, and probably cheaper if bought wholesale, so it is not very expensive.

Also, here is a quote from an article in Russian [1], where it is claimed that there is a software to de-anonymize Telegram users:

> A phone number used by [Telegram] account @silovikicat was discovered using > a program titled "Insider-Telegram" developed by the "Center of research of > legitimacy and political protest". The head of the "Center" Eugene > Venediktov explains: "Currently the database contains over 10 million of > numbers. We just go through all possible numbers and check whether they are > registered in Telegram: for example, we take all numbers starting with a > prefix +7911 and check them. You automatically see all contacts from you > address book in your Telegram, don't you? We just have a very "fat" address > book with phones of all users from our country."

> When a phone number provided by Eugene is added into an address book, > Telegram automatically matches it with account @silovikicat («Siloviks' > cat»).

[1] [https://meduza.io/feature/2019/08/10/kto-takoy-tovarisch- may...](https://meduza.io/feature/2019/08/10/kto-takoy-tovarisch-mayor)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The widespread usage of Telegram in a situation as sensitive as the Hong Kong protests is a failure on behalf of the security industry in educating the public.

Even WhatsApp is miles better, but in reality it should be a no-brainer for the relevant people to use Signal or perhaps Threema/Wire. What a shame that charlatans have successfully marketed themselves to the top of this segment with a distinctly inferior product.

<comment><USER14> I don't think Signal supports very large groups well (hundreds of users or more). Or things like announcement channels where tens of thousands can subscribe, but only a handful of accounts can post. Sounds to me like they have a superior product.

<comment><USER15> > Sounds to me like they have a superior product.

Groups in Telegram are not encrypted. And now its shown that it also reveals phone numbers, and this is not a feature.

Whatsapp shows phone numbers by default, so it wouldn't be a criticism of whatsapp.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It could be argued you already had the phone number of your victim.

If mobile numbers in your country are in the 2________ range, how feasible is it to add millions of phone numbers to your contact list to find out the number of someone? I think this is nonsensical.

<comment><USER17> >If mobile numbers in your country are in the 2________ range, how feasible is it to add millions of phone numbers to your contact list to find out the number of someone? I think this is nonsensical.

If you're a state actor probably pretty easy. Get a couple thousand rooted remote controllable android devices (which you probably already have for other projects) and have them automatically add 10k phones numbers each. Then have them join public telegraph lists and check for matches. Now you have gone through 10 million phone numbers. Run it in a loop 10 times and you have 100 million. Might take a few days to setup and run.

I don't see why this is infeasible in any way to do if you have a moderate budget (ie: state actor).

edit: And if your target is in your jurisdiction then you probably have a good mapping of names to phone numbers already.

<comment><USER18> All this to get an app to make "do any of my contacts also use signal" requests? You could probably just figure out what endpoint the mobile client calls and imitate them yourself to avoid all the overhead of setting up the mobile devices. If you have to register to make the request, just provision a bunch of VOIP numbers and go to town.

Point being, if "who is using signal" is a question you want answered, it's far more trivial than having to acquire actual devices. Your oppressive regime could go from zero to black bag list in an afternoon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This _appears_ to be a similar attack vector, to the one which might have been used for scamming Swiss Revolut customers, by determining legitimate users via the phone number range, in order to deliver fraudulent SMS messages.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Revolut/comments/cu07cv/revolut_sca...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Revolut/comments/cu07cv/revolut_scam_swiss_why_did_the_scammer_have_my/exq79mv?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x)

</comment><comment><USER20> f*ck no wonder I get so many robo calls

<comment><USER21> Nah man, you can thank the FCC for that.

<comment><USER22> s/FCC/human nature/

<comment><USER23> I live in $civilized_country and have gotten one unsolicited phone call ever. It was from an Indian, so either it was a scam or someone who doesn't adhere to telemarketing blocklists.

Do not blame USA's inadequacies on human nature.

<comment><USER24> People in the US don't get uniform amounts of spam calls, so I'm doubtful that your experience can be taken as representative of your entire country.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Cloud Postgres (Beta)—PostgreSQL Clustering in the Clouds Made Simple - <AUTHOR> http://www.postgresql.org/about/news/1435/ <comment><USER2> Terribly misleading marketing blurb.

If I read this right then this is not a tool that you can download but a SaaS- addon that works only on one fairly obscure cloud-platform (openhosting.com).

Too bad, I'd happily pay a license fee for a capable OSS(!) Toolchain that integrates well with chef/puppet and any cloud. This is an area that would greatly benefit from standardization - currently everyone rolls their own.

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting. I was just looking for a Postgres as a service this morning. I decided to go with <https://postgres.heroku.com>

</comment><comment><USER4> EnterpriseDB also offers a semi-managed version of Postgres that can run on your own AWS account: <http://www.enterprisedb.com/cloud-database/amazon>

<comment><USER5> We've been using it for nearly a year now and have been pretty happy with it. Very little problems, and anything that has come up we've gotten very fast response on. We're small, so it's just not cost feasible to have a full-time DBA on staff. This is the next best thing I've found.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Looks like OpenHosting launched this on Nov 6th...

I guess pricing info is here?

<http://www.openhosting.com/pricing/calculator/>

</comment><comment><USER7> Great, Sometimes i just wish Wordpress would officially support Postgre.

<comment><USER8> It will never happen. Thousands of plugins and themes are written assuming MySQL.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Great to see Postgres starting to take off in the cloud- I far prefer it over MySQL, but stuff like Amazon RDS has made MySQL more usable.

</comment><comment><USER10> Very cool: it builds PG clusters so I don't have to! (Can I still bill my clients as if I did the work?)

</comment><comment><USER11> I still like the idea that my postgre server is on my local network. It could be used for backup.

</comment><comment><USER12> I just tried their failover feature. It is really compelling. They deliver an IP address for the master. This IP doesn't change during or after a failover. I wonder if they can setup replicas in different availability zones.

</comment><comment><USER13> Cool. Heroku Postgres could use a challenger.</comment>