Ghash.io very close to 51% of bitcoin pool - <AUTHOR> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=406152.0 <comment><USER2> I don't know much about the particulars of BitCoin mechanics, but the general spirit of this story seems like a natural evolvement of any unregulated organization. People who favor unregulated markets/societies dislike the concentration of power in the hands of a central authority, but the reality is that in any social system _there will always be concentration of power_ in the hands of the few. I've read a hypothesis[1] that it was this dynamics that propelled the neolithic revolution (the transformation of humans from nomadic hunters-gatherers to settled farmers): most people suffered as consequence (hunger, disease, less leisure), but a few benefitted greatly.

The same thing happened in the American Gilded Age. In that period of unprecedented (and largely unregulated) growth, much of the US population became quickly enslaved by a few members of an elite group, later called the robber barons (Rockefeller, Frick, JP Morgan, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Mellon et al.), and it took tremendous efforts by the American press and then by President Roosevelt (the first) to partially dismantle that semi-feudal structure and strengthen the central government, to free the populace from the stranglehold of the robber barons.

While a central power can be abusive, it is almost always better than feudal oligarchy, at least if it is governed more-or-less democratically.

So while BitCoin is an algorithm intended to avoid a single organizing entity, it is no replacement for a social pact, enforced politically by some fair means. Perhaps a better algorithm could somehow prevent any sort of concentrated power, but I doubt it. The desire for power (even with the best of intentions) is so essential to humans, that it probably cannot be circumvented by technology alone.

[1]: [http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/12/19/111219fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/12/19/111219fa_fact_batuman?currentPage=all)

<comment><USER3> "In that period of unprecedented (and largely unregulated) growth, much of the US population became quickly enslaved by a few members of an elite group, later called the robber barons (Rockefeller, Frick, JP Morgan, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Mellon et al.)"

You ought to rethink what you define as "enslavement". As far as I am aware, neither Rockefeller, nor JP Morgan, nor Carnegie "enslaved" the US population when they helped transform the by then agrarian nation into the industrial and economic powerhouse it later became. They didn't use force, as far as I am aware, in their dealings and the wealth of their achievements certainly wasn't created at the expense of those who didn't.

<comment><USER4> Did the robber barons kidnap people from Africa, ship them across the sea in chains and force them to work by whipping them if they didn't? No.

Still, have you ever heard the song "Sixteen Tons?"[1] You might recognize the lines "another day older and deeper in debt" and "I owe my soul to the company store." It's about the life of a coal miner in Kentucky. Those lines refer to a system where the company paid its workers in vouchers that they could use to buy food and clothing from the company store. Prices at the company store were higher than the workers could afford on the wages they received, but since they didn't get cash they didn't have the option to buy elsewhere. So they'd buy on credit and gradually build up a debt to the company that they had no way to pay off.

Is that slavery? Perhaps not technically, since the workers weren't owned by the company and couldn't be sold. But they didn't have many choices, either. They were basically stuck doing a fixed amount of work each day in exchange for food and lodging. Sounds an awful lot like slavery in practice.

[1] Obligator wikipedia link - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixteen_Tons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixteen_Tons)

<comment><USER3> Having to work to each day for food and lodging is like slavery in practice? That a preposterous notion.

Whether you live in a desert island, a small village with no water or electricty, or New York, you will still have to face the practical demands of your survival, of which food and lodging are the primary - in the sense that they are the most immediate,- but not your only, concerns. Whether by hunting and killing your own food, or buy buying it from the supermarket, the facts are the same: you have to work for your survival, it is not guaranteed by nature. And for myself,if I may, I take having to work so I can buy my favorite food and drink at the supermarket every day over having to savagely hunt and kill the food I eat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In 2011, Jed McCaleb pointed out that bitcoin mining pools can collude. So in fact, Bitcoin _is based on trust_... it is based on trust that mining pools are not colluding against you.

His idea was to make this trust explicit. And that's the birth of Ripple. Ripple's consensus process is predicated on trust that other entities are not colluding against you.

The Ripple protocol is not subject to the 51% attack that Bitcoin is subject to. Making entries in the ledger has nothing to do with computational power.

\-----

Link to the 2011 discussion that spawned Ripple: [https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=10193.msg146250#msg1...](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=10193.msg146250#msg146250)

EDIT: Adding a link explaining Ripple's consensus process for making changes to a shared ledger: [https://ripple.com/wiki/Consensus](https://ripple.com/wiki/Consensus)

<comment><USER6> Nice try Phil. Please get your Ripple propaganda off of HN. Ripple currency, XRP, is magicked up by Ripple Corp which owns nearly all of it and is the purest form of a pyramid scheme.

<comment><USER7> Just to play devil's advocate here, is there any proof to that claim?

<comment><USER8> I don't have a dog in this fight, but Ripple Labs did set things up so they would start off with all the network currency, and still own the majority of it: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripple_(payment_protocol)#XRP](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripple_\(payment_protocol\)#XRP) .

<comment><USER5> That's correct. From Ripplelabs.com:

"Because Ripple's new architecture does not require mining [to reach consensus], the creators of Ripple faced a choice: exclusively distribute XRP via mining or diversify distribution methods to include useful mining, business development, funding third-party developers, and hiring talent at Ripple Labs, the company responsible for improving upon and promoting the Ripple protocol."

XRP is currently distributed via the "Computing for Good" program:

"We're giving away XRP in exchange for donating computing power to scientific research via World Community Grid. Anyone with an Internet-connected computer or Android device can participate."

link: [https://www.computingforgood.org/](https://www.computingforgood.org/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If a pool has control of >50% of the hashing power, it means that they _could_ do damaging things to the Bitcoin network as far as I understand.

People will explain that it's not in the pools interest to do this, but it's missing the point. The pool is now a potential weapon, with a very small number of people in control. This means they are now a potential weapon against Bitcoin, and if someone external wanted to hurt Bitcoin GHash.io might be a good starting point to do this of which there are many ways to potentially realise this goal (blackmail, hacking, bribery, covert seizing of control etc)

The more pools there are, and the more evenly the hashing power is ditributed amongst these pools the safer it is for everyone who has interests in Bitcoin.

Peer-to-peer decentralised pools to me sound like an excellent way to mitigate this sort of risk, and I think it's important. Consolodation of pool hashing power I beleive is a natural inevitable market force. One pool has to be objectively the best and will attract the most miners. From what I gather, p2p pools are a fairly large technical challenge and the question still remains as if they can still compete with centralised pools with regards to efficiency and reliability (profitability).

<comment><USER10> With Bitcoin as popular as it is, it would be an increasingly lucrative strategy to short BTC, damage the network, re-buy low, and undo the damage. Sure, this is sort of a one-time use weapon, but there's no reason to believe that GHash.io's operators are in this for the long haul - perhaps, in the words of that amazingly catchy television commercial, they "need cash now."

<comment><USER11> It is currently pretty much impossible to short large quantities of bitcoins. Besides, such an attack would probably crash the whole system which could render the potential shorts useless. Too much uncertainty for anything that big.

I really can't see the way for anybody to benefit from a 51 attack. However, a potential attack will probably be a black swan, which will make it "impossible" to foresee for 99% of us, so the fact that there isn't any clear way to benefit from it, doesn't actually mean that there isn't a way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Folks are missing an important point here about the incentives of a pool majority (that I recall Satoshi mentions in the original whitepaper[0]): even if a particular agent has a majority in the mining network, it isn't in their interest to upset trust in a system that they have such a large investment in.

Where would the sense be in taking the risk to undermine public trust in BTC for a short-term gain like modifying a few transactions when you have such a large stake in the system?

[0]: [http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf](http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf)

<comment><USER13> [https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=327767.0](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=327767.0)

I dunno, maybe to double-spend their coins? GHash.IO has been accused of double-spending in the past. Reaching 51% will enable them to double-spend their coins.

If GHash.IO really cared about BTC, they would stop before they reached majority stake in the Hashrate. All other pools in the past have purposefully gimped their hashrate in these situations.

A pool reaching 51% _is_ undermining the trust of the BTC system. Period. GHash.IO apparently doesn't care however.

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

Furthermore, as the thread I linked to suggests, GHash.IO attempted to double- spend against BetCoin back when they only had 24%. This isn't a theoretical problem, these guys actually are trying to double-spend bitcoins.

<comment><USER14> >All other pools in the past have purposefully gimped their hashrate in these situations.

This has even occurred with altcoins (which are often widely believed to be pump-and-dump schemes) where a pool gets too close to 51% and voluntarily makes an effort to reduce their hashrate (either by blocking new signups, issuing fewer work units, etc.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> There's no safety even if GHash.io is below 50%. How can we tell that GHash.io and BTCGuild aren't already colluding? They have 61% between them.

<comment><USER16> Even without that collusion, if you control 40% you still have a high probability of pulling off a double-spend attack. My recollection (sorry, I don't have a link, so I might be wrong) is that someone somehow associated with GHash.io already pulled something like this off when they were still below 30%

<comment><USER17> c.f. [https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=327767.0](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=327767.0)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> For a very good (if long) explanation about Bitcoin in general and why this information is potentially relevant to the progress of Bitcoin - [http://www.michaelnielsen.org/ddi/how-the-bitcoin- protocol-a...](http://www.michaelnielsen.org/ddi/how-the-bitcoin-protocol- actually-works/)

</comment><comment><USER19> Could someone with knowledge of Bitcoin explain what happens when a share of the pool hits 51%? Is this dangerous in some way?

Edit: Thanks to those who took the time to explain. Very interesting.

<comment><USER20> The pool operators could launch 'double spend' attacks. Essentially with > 50% of the hashing power, a bad operator is able to generate a chain faster than the rest of the network. They can hold back this longer chain in secret, execute some transactions on the _honest_ chain, then broadcast their chain (which doesn't have those transactions included) to the network. The network will use the evil chain since it is the longest, and since those transactions are not included, whoever accepted them beforehand has been ripped off.

It worries me that it's this hard to convince miners to leave a pool. If I wanted to kill Bitcoin and had a few million to spare, I'd open a pool with no fees PLUS a bonus of 1 or 2% from my own pocket. Good luck getting people to leave that pool.

<comment><USER21> There are rumours that that double-spend attacks have already been tried or experimented with by someone linked to the Ghash.io pool: [https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=327767.0](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=327767.0)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> If you check [https://blockchain.info/pools](https://blockchain.info/pools) Ghash.io is back down to 39% of blocks created, which is still big, but not as scary.

A good explanation is due to the random variation in the who the block is a awarded to.

<comment><USER23> The chart you link is over the past 4 days.

In the past 24 hours, they are still at 41%.

Although I agree there's bound to be a bit of random fluctuation.

<comment><USER9> It's dropping nicely, down to 39% over last 24 hours.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Can someone please explain what Ghash.io and BTCGuild are? I have checked both homepages and subpages, but still don't understand what it is. Ghash.io wants me to download a binary, the other one talks about a "mining pool". Can't figure what that even means..

 _Disclaimer: Bitcoin noob here_

<comment><USER9> You can mine Bitcoin on your computer. The chance of discovering a 'block' and receiving the 25 BTC reward are however very low as it's very competitive. Mining solo, you're playing an 'all or nothing' game and you could run for months, even years without earning any reward.

Pools are collections of people who mine Bitcoin. When a block is discovered by someone in the pool, the reward is shared amongst everyone who is in the pool relative to their contributed hashing power (often minus a small fee for the pool operator).

Ghash.io is the largest pool, and the member of the pool control a good 35-45% of total hashing power on the Bitcoin network. A pool with >50% the total hashing power is bad, because the operators in charge of the pool could carry out malicious acts on the Bitcoin network without any members of the pool being aware they are contributing to these acts.

<comment><USER24> Oh that's completely new to me. I thought that mining means that I need to let the PC run for hours to get some BTC someone send to me. Is the mining you're mentioning unrelated to another one sending your BTC?

Can anyone _" lucky"_ enough receive 25 BTC from nowhere, is that what you mean by `25 BTC reward`?

How can people share a "computer cluster"/minin pool (that is what you mean right?). Do you mean that one person or company owns such a huge cluster and let's all members share 'virtually' a single 'Bitcoin wallet'?

 _I 'm not really that familiar with it, sorry for the nooby questions._

<comment><USER25> "Mining" is basically brute-forcing a value (the proof of work). Whoever stumbles on that value gets a previously agreed-upon bounty awarded, currently 25 BTC.

A lone miner has a very low chance of finding the value, but will get the full 25 BTC. In a pool, a number of miners combine their computational power, and if the pool finds the value they get awarded a fraction of the bounty corresponding to the amount of work they did (the number of possible values they checked). E.g. if A, B and C are in a pool, A verified 140 values, B verified 100, C verified 10 and one of them (who it was isn't supposed to matter) they'll get respectively 14, 10 and 1 BTC. If they had not been in a pool, one of them would have gotten 25 and the others 0. So being in a pool reduces your payout, but increases the chances that you get a regular payout.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Why ghash.io is so popular? Is their some specific reason for mining in GHash pool instead of some other?

<comment><USER27> EDIT: I'm talking in general. I mine litecoins (and sometimes other alt coins), not bitcoins, so that's what I'm most familiar with.

Big pools are popular for a number of reasons:

1) Lots of hashing power means lots of blocks found means more payment more often, even if it is less coins. People get impatient and leave smaller pools if they aren't getting paid right away.

2) Network effect. It's the first Google search result. This might be the biggest factor.

3) Probably more reputable, so I'll probably get paid too, most pools have honest operators but some can shut down shop and take coins people haven't cashed out yet and run or do other shady things.

4) Probably less downtime, beefier hardware.

I don't know the specifics of GHash in particular if there's anything that makes it more appealing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Ghash.io is "just" a pool. For them to do anything scary, all the members would need to collude, right? Or can the pool "direct" the mining in such a way that eg. double-spending can happen without the consent of individual miners?

Obviously, the second there's evidence of double spending or similar, any value of Bitcoin will disappear as dew on a summer morning and the value of all the ASIC gear with it - so there is a very strong incentive for each individual miner to refuse to participate.

<comment><USER29> None of their miners have to collude in any way; scary stuff is entirely up to the pool operator to execute and the miners won't even know that they're helping until it has happened.

At this point it's tempting to consider just mining for this pool as collusion, however. GHash.io have been known to abuse their mining power to double-spend already. Miners are not showing much will to leave for other pools, however. It's a dire situation.

<comment><USER30> > It's a dire situation.

Hoards of people dump insane amounts of money into a new, unproven and unstable currency technology. What could go wrong?

<comment><USER31> Mining power can centralize -- there are some solutions to this. One of them is [https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/P2Pool](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/P2Pool)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> It might already be considering that there is a substantial proportion that is "unknown" mining power: [https://blockchain.info/pools](https://blockchain.info/pools)

On the other hand, the heuristics of blockchain.info do determine block ownership are not perfect either: [https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=123726.0;all](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=123726.0;all)

<comment><USER32> Can you explain what the threat is please?

<comment><USER33> [http://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/2014/01/09/warning-ghash- io-n...](http://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/2014/01/09/warning-ghash-io- nearing-51-leave-pool/)

\---The attacker can----:

Reverse transactions that he sends while he's in control

Prevent some or all transactions from gaining any confirmations

Prevent some or all other generators from getting any generations

Double spend Bitcoins

\---The attacker cannot---:

Reverse other people's transactions

Prevent transactions from being sent at all (they'll show as 0/unconfirmed)

Change the number of coins generated per block

Create coins out of thin air

Send coins that never belonged to him

<comment><USER34> Is there really a practical difference between double spending and generating coins out of thin air? I can just duplicate coins by sending to two wallets I control. Or is there something that would prevent me from later spending some of those coins?

<comment><USER35> I think that they would not be able to do that: only one of the two transactions could be in the longest correct block-chain. That's because it is easy for the clients to detect and reject a block-chain that contains double spending. What they can do is pay for goods or services and revert the transaction after the goods or services have been delivered.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> With all the concern over double spending, I'm wondering doesn't double spending happen frequently?

It seems like all you'd have to do is make two transactions within a short time period like < 1 second. Doesn't this happen from time to time?

<comment><USER37> That's why nobody should be accepting transactions with no confirmations.

<comment><USER36> Right, but surely it happens, no?

<comment><USER37> Yes, but it's really at the parties risk.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> [https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=26656.msg334463#msg3...](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=26656.msg334463#msg334463)

</comment><comment><USER39> 1\. Buy millions of alt crypto coins (e.g., PPC which is less vulnerable to 51 attack), 2\. destroy BTC by getting 51% control of hash pool, 3\. profit.

<comment><USER20> What?

<comment><USER40> i think what is implied there is a potential plan to make tons of money by destroying bitcoin in favor of an alternative coin you've heavily invested in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm doing my part by moving my altcoin mining capacity over to Bitcoin pools. Not much, but every little bit reduces ghash.io's share.

</comment><comment><USER41> I don't understand the forum thread. Can someone please explain it in layman terms?

</comment><comment><USER42> OMG it is NSA trying to eradicate Bitcoin!!! :-P

</comment><comment><USER43> Wish I could filter out the bitcoin news.

<comment><USER44> You can: [http://hn-filter.appspot.com/#preset=bitcoin](http://hn- filter.appspot.com/#preset=bitcoin)

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I don't understand anything. What's going on?</comment>


Show HN: Bot market – quality control for a decentralized identity system - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/six-degrees-of-separation/bot-market-1ee2a77e7df7 <comment><AUTHOR> TL;DR: If we can't prove that bot is a bot, let's give bot owners what they want - a convenient bot market and bot management tools. This way we will know the number of bots and their cost.</comment>


GXUI – An experimental Go cross-platform UI library - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/google/gxui?hn <comment><USER2> A propitious beginning. You'll need xorg-dev, libgl1-mesa-dev, and go-gl/glfw to install. Getting can't find "Arial.ttf" panics? But looks quite nice, though windows take some time to build. Here is a screenshot of "polygons" sample:

[http://imgur.com/9xyfaEd](http://imgur.com/9xyfaEd)

<comment><USER3> Drop a copy of the ttf file into the folder you are running it from and the panic will go away. The Dark theme looks for SourceCodePro Regular.

<comment><USER4> Consider compiling the fonts into the binary.

This is what I did for go.uik: [https://github.com/skelterjohn/go.uik/blob/master/luxisr.ttf...](https://github.com/skelterjohn/go.uik/blob/master/luxisr.ttf.go)

<comment><USER3> I was just building it for fun, I didn't work on this project. That does looks like a quick solution for where they are at right now though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'd love to see this evolve into something production worthy, even if it can't be done in idiomatic go style. A good cross platform GUI library is, to my mind at least, the largest void in an otherwise excellent standard library.

</comment><comment><USER6> "..we need your permission to use and distribute your code. We also need to be sure of various other things—for instance that you'll tell us if you know that your code infringes on other people's patents.." How can I know that my code doesn't infringes any other people's patents?does it apply if you are not is USA ?

<comment><USER7> That is a weird statement they make there, especially since the actual CLA as far as I understand it doesn't talk about that, it just includes provisions that you grant a license to all of your patents that the contribution would infringe.

 _[...] You hereby grant to Google and to recipients of software distributed by Google a [...] patent license [to use and distribute] the Work, where such license applies only to those patent claims licensable by You that are necessarily infringed by Your Contribution(s) alone or by combination of Your Contribution(s) with the Work to which such Contribution(s) was submitted._

[https://cla.developers.google.com/about/google- individual?cs...](https://cla.developers.google.com/about/google- individual?csw=1)

<comment><USER7> Extension: in point 5 this is actually covered:

 _You represent that Your Contribution submissions include complete details of any third-party license or other restriction (including, but not limited to, related patents and trademarks) of which you are personally aware and which are associated with any part of Your Contributions._

It doesn't require you to know if your code infringes patents, it just requires that IF you know, you disclose it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Would be nice to put what platforms are supported in the Readme.

<comment><USER9> Well the project is in it's infancy, so this may change, but currently the only thing needed to run it is a platform that supports Go and OpenGL.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This go submitted 19 hours ago [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9222587](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9222587) and got no attention. It's now number #1 on github/trending. I believe it was not realized that this is coming directly from google.

<comment><USER10> I don't think too much significance should be placed on the fact that it's coming "from Google".

As mentioned in the Readme, it's just code written by a couple of Googlers that happens to be owned by Google.

I think it will be interesting to see it get more fleshed out, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Would be nice to know the background of the project.

Writing a UI library is not an easy thing.

Was it written from scratch, or some existing library was used as a reference? Had the authors had any background in developing UI engines? How long it took them to write this?

</comment><comment><USER12> I really like andlabs gui. Any difference list between these two projects?

</comment><comment><USER13> Is this going to be supported on Android ?

</comment><comment><USER14> one step closer to replace Java by Go on Android? ;-)

</comment><comment><USER15> fake hype; not from google:

> This is not an official Google product (experimental or otherwise), it is > just code that happens to be owned by Google.

<comment><USER16> Well, it WAS started by Googlers, working at Google.

And it's not like officially sanctioned Google programs are not often crap.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> google hype tactics : "This is just an experiment to test concept feasibility", "This is unfinished, please consider that.", "This isn't a product, it's an experiment.", "Oh, it's just a side project of some employees, ignore that google owns it."

<comment><USER18> Well at least the title here on HN doesn't mention Google.

<comment><AUTHOR> It did before, that was my bad. For me it makes a difference, even if they decline responsibility. Maybe they put it in the official account just to test the reception, and I for one would welcome an officially backed IU Go library with open arms.

<comment><USER19> There are many 20% time hobby projects by Googlers hosted on the /google GitHub account. Don't read to much into it.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Tenpree – A tenant prescreen tool for landlords - <AUTHOR> http://tenpree.com <comment><USER2> There should be a landlord prescreen tool for tenants. Then tenants can know whether or not the landlord in question has the proper building permits.

<comment><USER3> Not just permits, but also whether they are a giant asshole.

Edit: I guess the person downvoting has never experienced an asshole landlord.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is neat. I would flip the payment to the applicant as that is the common practice with landlord applications in the US.

</comment><comment><USER5> Is this at all checked out against any fair housing laws?

<comment><AUTHOR> As far as I know the questions are in accordance with fair housing laws.

<comment><USER5> It'd be nice to be able to see the exact wording of the questions prior to signing up, some kind of demo at least. That is a huge sticking point.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. I played around with having some screenshots on the homepage but ended up not including it. I like the idea of a quick demo though.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you make a sprint/project retro awesome? - <AUTHOR> What were some practices, questions, or exercises that led to your best experiences with retros? <comment><USER3> I've been told you should play around with new ways to retro. Meh. We have a spreadsheet with columns: went well, wishy washy, needs improvement, action items, and give thanks. People can fill it out as things come up in the sprint or in the fisrt few minutes of retro.

It guides discussion, but requires active participation and a shared knowledge that this is a "safe place" to call out issues. We try to make action items around things that are frustrations for improvement. The give thanks is a good time to reflect on help you've gotten. Personally, I'll reach out to individuals called out in that column (who are on other teams) and their manager to say how they helped me or the team.

Really, we learn by making mistakes. Spotting them and discussing them and coming up with actionable, trackable remediations is what makes retros valuable to us. Bigger mistakes and being honest about lapses in meeting expectations lead to better retros.

</comment><comment><USER4> We iterate or try new things in retro often, but recently my team has been sticking with a RealtimeBoard (or sticky notes, if in person,) where each person fills out a success/praise, a frustration, and an idea or improvement.

This method of presenting things that worked and things that didn't cuts out a lot of wasted meeting time by jumping straight to pain points.

</comment><comment><USER5> I try to make sure people leave with an improvement to work on - <USER2> small. Then start by assessing that - otherwise it just becomes a moan-fest and nothing gets better

</comment><comment><USER6> By not having one? This must be a trick question.

<comment><USER7> Just curious, why wouldn't you want to have retrospectives? They take up time, sure, but they're also incredible times to share lessons learned and look back at a block of work.

<comment><USER6> I'm very cynical. I've rarely seen anything useful come out of a retrospective.</comment></comment></comment>


How yoga helped me become a better programmer - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@fwouts/how-yoga-helped-me-become-a-better-programmer-aef09b554897 <comment><USER2> I encourage people to pick whatever physical activity they enjoy, but it's important to point out that there's nothing too special about Yoga, and a whole range of physical activities (especially weight-training) will give you that endorphin rush and will improve overall wellness.

A lot of people just consider different forms of cardio to be a physical activity, and they are fine too, but do yourself a favor and add a bit of weight training to your routine (3 hours a week should suffice).

<comment><USER3> Yoga includes focus on meditation and breathing techniques. Brain waves associated with flow state (alpha and theta) have been reported as increasing with yoga practice. In addition brain waves associated with eureka moments (gamma waves) have also shown an increase with yoga practice.</comment></comment>


Larry Ellison gets 3rd crack at America's Cup - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2010/02/08/MNRO1BTQ2E.DTL <comment><USER2> its creepy that hes 66 and looks like hes 45

<comment><USER3> "Rich 50 is middle class 38."</comment></comment>


Komodo IDE adds collaboration a-la-gdocs. Good for remote pair programming - <AUTHOR> http://www.activestate.com/blog/2011/04/komodo-7-alpha-code-collaboration

<comment><USER2> I have used Emacs this way - you just open another window (frame, in Emacs parlance) on the other guy's X server.

I works even if both of you are using Windows (shrugs) or OSX (which still comes with X).</comment>


Shards of Lost Technology, and the Need for High-Level Architectures. - <AUTHOR> http://www.loper-os.org/?p=46 <comment><AUTHOR> _The instruction set of a properly designed computer must be isomorphic to a minimal, elegant high-level programming language._

I've been a bit confused about the details of the loper-os project. For some reason, this sentence sparked a micro-epiphany and the whole thing came into focus. So, I thought the article, and the project at large, was worth sharing with HN.</comment>


Big Companies and the Military Are Paying Novelists to Write Sci-Fi for Them - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/better-business-through-sci-fi <comment><USER2> Companies commissioning stories has gone on for a long time.

For example, the Isaac Asimov story "My Son, The Physicist" was commissioned by an electronics company to run in an ad in "Scientific American".

Another Asimov example. "Think", IBM's in-house magazine, commissioned Asimov to write a story based on this quote from J. B. Priestly:

> Between midnight and dawn, when sleep will not come and all the old wounds > begin to ache, I often have a nightmare vision of a future world in which > there are billions of people, all numbered and registered, with not a gleam > of genius anywhere, not an original mind, a rich personality, on the whole > packed globe

Asimov write the story "2430 A.D." about a world where Priestly's nightmare had come true. (The title comes from his estimate of when human population at its current growth rate would reach the point where the Earth had so many people that there were no resources left for non-human animals).

The funny thing about this story is that "Think" rejected it, because they wanted a story that _refuted_ the quotation. So Asimov wrote another story, "The Greatest Asset", that refuted Priestly, and sent that to "Think".

"Think" then decided they liked the first story better and ran "2430 A.D."!

I'm pretty sure that there was at least one other similar case with Asimov.

<comment><USER3> I always remember my Grandfather suggesting that Michael Crichton (sp?) wrote a bunch of stuff to order by the government. I was never entirely sure I believed him, but then never entirely dismissed it (as evidenced by this comment).

<comment><USER4> Huh. I now totally believe Crichton wrote agitprop for hire.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Reminds of this story from a while ago: the head writer for Call of Duty switched to working at a think tank, given his experience imagining the future of warfare. [http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/09/22/call-of-duty-star- video-...](http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/09/22/call-of-duty-star-video-game- director-takes-unusual-think-tank-job/)

<comment><USER6> It's the opposite of when Valve hired a Chief Economist in 2012[1]. We've come full circle.

[1][http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/06/18/yanis_varoufa...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/06/18/yanis_varoufakis_becomes_chief_economist_for_valve_software.html)

<comment><USER7> CCP (the EVE Online people) have a whole team of economists also.

My favorite story, though, is still epidemiologists studying the Corrupted Blood plague in WoW for real world lessons on bioterrorism.

<comment><USER8> Hopefully they don't come to the conclusion that "rebooting" is the best way to solve the problem.

<comment><USER9> It's ok just because C-173 got Cronenberged there are still plenty of dimensions left. Sometimes rebooting is the only option.

<comment><USER10> Bit of a nitpick, but it's actually [C-137]([http://rickandmorty.wikia.com/wiki/Dimension_C-137](http://rickandmorty.wikia.com/wiki/Dimension_C-137))

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> We proposed something similar for the field of software engineering research.

[http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2983986](http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2983986)

Pasting abstract here

"Software engineering researchers have a tendency to be optimistic about the future. Though useful, optimism bias bolsters unrealistic expectations towards desirable outcomes. We argue that explicitly framing software engineering research through pessimistic futures, or dystopias, will mitigate optimism bias and engender more diverse and thought-provoking research directions. We demonstrate through three pop culture dystopias, Battlestar Galactica, Fallout 3, and Children of Men, how reflecting on dystopian scenarios provides research opportunities as well as implications, such as making research accessible to non-experts, that are relevant to our present."

<comment><USER12> Interesting. I didn't realize this could be a paper material. Also, whatever includes BSG in it, I'm an instant fan :). Thanks for mentioning it; it was a good read.

In your paper, you cite an interesting piece about the optimism bias of people[0]. Skimming through it, it seems to somewhat support my current belief that we need _more_ , not less utopias and optimistic visions. To quote from the ending of the text:

"Overly pessimistic predictions may be demoralizing if these predictions are believed and, if these predictions are fulfilled, the outcomes that are obtained may not be very satisfying. Overly optimistic predictions, however, may confer benefits simply by symbolizing a desired image of success, or more concretely by aiding people's progress to higher achievements. Given that predictions are often inaccurate at least to some degree, it is possible that people may derive benefits from shifting the range of their predictions to the positive, even if this means introducing an overall higher rate of error into the prediction process. Countering optimistic biases in the name of accuracy may undermine performance without achieving the accuracy that was intended, whereas the maintenance of optimistic predictions may serve to align us, both in thought and in action, more closely with our goals."

Evaluating dystopias can be useful to avoid disastrous failure modes, but I feel we shouldn't dwell _too_ much on them, and instead focus on trying to achieve the optimistic goals the best we can.

\--

[0] - [https://sci-hub.cc/10.1017/CBO9780511808098.021](https://sci- hub.cc/10.1017/CBO9780511808098.021)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I honestly don't care if there is a "sinister" purpose behind the good scifi I've read. Fund the next Iain banks please. In fact - throw me $50k to live for a year and you've got yourself a book - or I can at least guarantee some words on pages mentioning spaceships / robots, etc.

<comment><USER14> Speaking of whom - a friend and I were the other day wondering Just Why On Earth none of his SciFi appears to have been optioned for conversion to other media. I can imagine scope, complexity and presumably huge budget leaving prospective optioners with slightly soiled breeks, but all the same — not even a hope of one of the tales in The State of the Art?

<comment><USER2> Same question for a ton of science fiction and fantasy. Some things that could be excellent on the silver screen, or as a television series:

• Fritz Leiber's "Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser".

I've not seen anything indicating anyone has ever even started development on a movie for this.

• Richard and Wendy Pini's "Elfquest".

Warner Brothers announced this in 2008, but canned it because they thought it might compete with another project of theirs, "The Hobbit".

• Larry Niven's Known Space series.

One Known Space short story made it to TV: "The Soft Weapon" was adapted to the Star Trek universe and became the Star Trek: The Animated Series episode "The Slaver Weapon", with Mr. Spock taking the place of Nessus the Puppeteer.

Ringworld has been in planning as a movie or miniseries at least three separate times, but never got past development.

• Anne McCaffrey's Pern series.

This actually got so far as casting and set building, and was within a few days of starting shooting for a pilot for a TV series for Warner Brothers Network, but when the showrunner presented the final pilot script to Warner Brothers for approval, they sent it back with so many changes it no longer resembled Pern (the changes have been described as turning it into something like a cross between Buffy and Xena). The showrunner, Ronald D. Moore, was a fan of the books and quit rather than accept the changes, and the project died.

There have been a couple of announcements since then, but as far as I know none ever went past announcing hiring a screenwriter and maybe an executive producer and then never being heard from again.

<comment><USER14> I've had problems with Niven — his scope is grand and majestic, but I've often found his narrative a little bit clunky and paint by numbers, if that makes any sense?

I've jotted down your other suggestions for further reading, thanks!

<comment><USER15> Niven was once my favorite Sci-Fi author, but I think I know what you mean.

Have you read "The Book of the New Sun" by Gene Wolfe? It is really _really_ good.

<comment><USER16> It would be difficult to do Wolfe justice in a film? Maybe something self- contained like _Pirate Freedom_ or _The Fifth Head of Cerberus_ , but everything in the "Solar Cycle" has such bizarre complications and connections to everything else that a movie couldn't avoid making many cruel cuts.

<comment><USER15> Yeah, I agree with you.

But I dream about making a graphic novel out of New Sun...

Wolfe's work is very literary, for lack of a better word. ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I do something similar. I pay writers to write me sci-fi and fantasy stories based on my prompts! It allows me to read what I want to read!

<comment><USER18> Seems like it would put you in a position to publish a, say, quarterly collection of the results. Combine that with a Patreon or something similar if other people enjoy the stories that come from the prompts, and you might break even while still getting the stories you like :) Seems like most short story publishers run in a deficit so if you're accepting that from the start you're in a better position than most.

<comment><USER17> I'm actually contemplating doing this. I am a technical person with no time or energy on my hands to build shit in my personal time. So I'm putting together an RFQ for someone to build the site to automate a weekly writing competition with amazon gift cards for prizes. So I was thinking a semi-monthly issue of 8-10 of the top rated stories with royalties (if any sales) to the writers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Interesting they mention and get quotes from the author of the Three Body Problem series. I just finished reading that series, and the whole time I had the feeling that it was written more to convince people of something than to actually entertain the reader.

The ideas in the books were pretty amazing, unique, and imaginative; but the story and writing itself was quite sub-par.

edit: I listened (audio books) to the English versions. I thought the translation was excellent. I don't want to spoil anything, but the author has a very dark vision of mankind and kept having his characters ostracized to the extreme which got old pretty quick. I didn't feel like the books were missing anything descriptive from lack of translation.

<comment><USER20> Did you read it in the original Chinese, or the English translation? I haven't read either, but it's possible that the English version misses a lot of nuance from the original version.

(It's also quite possible the original is crap, and the translation is doing a very adequate job.)

<comment><USER21> I actually thought the translator did a pretty good job (not to say that I can read Chinese or do a direct comparison). My only complaint was that I wish they'd westernized the names--they all sound too similar to my American ears.

<comment><USER22> I felt the translation felt very awkward at times. Just scanning some articles about Ken Liu, it was his decision to try and stick to the original literary style, I think a lot of it came from that.

In a lot of ways I liked it because the entire thinking behind the book was a different cultural thinking.

But the resulting style is definitely a bit awkward in English and sometimes it was a little bit of a slog.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Wasn't there something about Clancy being working with the CIA to massage their image?

Military and intelligence and politics have always manipulated media...

Also, recall "Americans army" was being ostensibly used as a recruiting/psyche-molding tool...

\---

Finally: look at cyberpunk, and the top five writers in that category, as well as anime (ghost in the shell, etc) which have in-formed modern reality with all the millions of tech-workers from around the globe have worked since their childhoods to create aspects of those worlds into current reality...

Is the totalitarian police-surveillance state an emergent feature of such a reality?

All crazy military capability comes from able-minded imaginations saying "wouldn't it be cool if..." without the discernment of the far-reaching implications...

<comment><USER24> There's a big difference between paying for speculative fiction about your own industry as a form of long-term brainstorming (what the article is about) and paying authors to publicly produce works that further your political agendas.

As I understand it, the works discussed in the article aren't published in the traditional manner, and are for the use of those who commissioned them.

<comment><USER23> There may be a difference - but they are in the same mental theatre, regardless... plus don't you think they'd be at least a bit specific about the direction they are interested in the speculation heading???

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Microsoft had released Future Visions Sci-fi series after inviting several sci-fi authors to their research labs - New Link - [https://news.microsoft.com/features/future-visions- anthology...](https://news.microsoft.com/features/future-visions-anthology- brings-together-science-fiction-and-science-fact/)

The book itself can be downloaded at [https://news.microsoft.com/futurevisions/](https://news.microsoft.com/futurevisions/)

</comment><comment><USER26> This is actually part of the plot of the movie (Three Days of the Condor) and book (Six days of the Condor). The protagonist works at a CIA site where they read basically everything released and break down the plots to see if it has any strategic value and/or state secrets.

If I had to guess, this still goes on at the state level, but this article is about making this sort of data (minus the state secrets awareness) available to the corporations able to afford it.

I'd also say that I think this might be an amusing reversal of the old mantra: Ideas have no intrinsic value. This business is pretty much about the expression of ideas. Maybe they have value because they are writing them down and marketing them.

<comment><USER27> Yeah this reminds me a lot of Michael Crichton's Sphere, which starts with a professor, funded by the military, who was tapped to analyze in great detail how to deal with first contact with aliens.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I posted something similar on HN nearly a year ago: [https://www.fastcompany.com/3063187/scifutures-probes- your-c...](https://www.fastcompany.com/3063187/scifutures-probes-your- companys-dystopian-nightmares-and-dreams-up-solutions)

It's a nice complement to this New Yorker article :-)

<comment><USER29> It's a more detailed article. I've only done a couple of stories for SciFutures. The topics are interesting. Unfortunately we usually don't get to see what other writers wrote.

<comment><USER28> Out of curiosity, did you have any published writing prior to working with/for SciFutures? I'm quite interested in contributing...

<comment><USER29> Yes. I had a previously published sci-fi story that won an award. You'll have to be eligible for SFWA membership with at least one pro sale.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> "How I used Microsoft Cloud 365 to escape Darth Vader and blow up the Death Star! Uplinking R2D2 was totally seamless."

<comment><USER31> rebels use Teams

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Reminds me of a quote from Alan Kay: "A change in perspective is worth 80 IQ points."

</comment><comment><USER33> If you want to read a concrete example rather than the generic relevant novels mentioned in the article the Directorate of Land Strategic Concepts, National Defence Canada, commissioned Karl Schroeder [1] in 2005 to write an SF novel to help explore them future doctrine and concepts. PDF is available at [2]. He wrote a second (post 2010) but I don't have the reference now (a 'friend' never returned it). I recall that it involved a CAF unit operating in a trans- national mega city (somewhere in Asia) having to subvert the all pervasive city AR so that they could complete their mission. I was impressed!

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

[2] [http://www.kschroeder.com/foresight-consulting/crisis-in- zef...](http://www.kschroeder.com/foresight-consulting/crisis-in-zefra/Crisis- in-Zefra-e.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER34> Visualizing and communicating how things will be used is very powerful and important.

My memory may be faulty, but I think it's Alan Cooper's "About Face" that basically advised not just describing the interface and how it'll be used, but how Bob the 73 year old luddite who hates all computers is going to interact with it (context in flight movie systems). Creating characters and having them interact with technology that doesn't exist yet is what SF writers DO.

<comment><USER35> I have a copy of About Face on my desk that I keep meaning to read, but I have read Alan Cooper's "The Inmates Are Running The Asylum" which definitely discusses an in-flight entertainment system to be used by, amongst others, an elderly gentleman who really has got better things to do than burrow through menus and directories to find a movie to watch. Could you be thinking of that? Maybe they both used that example (although I think for Cooper, it was personal history rather than example).

<comment><USER36> I had an online discussion with him about that inflight entertainment system. I suggested just putting a channel selector knob on the thing. Flip through the movie posters, and if you stay on-channel for a few seconds, the movie starts. Then it turns out it has pay-per-view channels and has to have a whole payment interface, something he doesn't mention in the book.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Kinda funny to think that maybe, just maybe, the social network was sponsored by Google or Twitter as an attempt to make the competing platform less desirable.

</comment><comment><USER38> Last days the defcon issue, and this week for some particular reason we have a few similar articles here and there talking about how fabulous and great would be for a 'good nerd' to work for the military, government, etc...

Can we spot a pattern here? PR damage control?

<comment><USER39> I used to take some employees to Defcon. Though, technically, I had no _good_ reason to go, personally. I just thought it was neat.

Anyhow, two games we used to play:

 _Spot the Fed._

 _Name That Influence._

The first was to see who looked like, and acted like, a federal agent. We'd sometimes do some work to confirm it, but we usually discussed it at the bar.

The second was trickier, and often just conjecture - again, over drinks. Who paid for the research, what did they say, what did they not say, and what does it imply?

We weren't the only ones to play these games. I'm going to guess they're still playing them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> "Sweet Tooth" Ian McEwan: CIA, MI5 and MI6 are sponsoring many writers, such as some companies sponsor open source devs

<comment><USER41> the intelligence community has had a very long history of writing fiction novels as ways to communicate some of their realities. see john le carre

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> From the article: >> Companies that market directly to >> A.I. software, rather than to humans, >> might gain a competitive advantage."

I don't know why, but this is really disturbing.

"Hey Siri, find me a widget"

"I've found three locations with widget in your area. Would you like me t... WHOA! Check out the bytes on that ad!"

</comment><comment><USER43> This is part of the plot by Armada by Ernest Client (which was also heavily influenced by Ender's Game)

<comment><USER44> Also Footfall by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. It even has a Robert Heinlein cameo.

<comment><USER45> That's such a great book, seems like also influenced the movie Independence Day, I don't have a source for that though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Funny (alternate) facts :

\- Amiga is behind the novel "Ready Player One" (so they will make a craaaazy comeback)

\- Trump paid GRRM for ASOF&I (so the people enjoy the mix of politics and mental illness)

\- Hollywood is highly connected with cigarette manufacturers, liquor manufacturers and (of course) the US army.

</comment><comment><USER47> Back in the late 80's, I ran across a statistic that just the amount amount the military spent supporting its _bands_ was as large as the entire budget for NPR. I think this is also covered in _Manufacturing Consent_. I remember flipping channels as a grade schooler and running across US military propaganda on the nearest independent TV station. (Which is now Fox, unfortunately. Sad, because this is the station that introduced me to anime.) That stuff gave me nightmares! An 80's era Soviet land assault is basically some nightmare perfection of the Blitzkreig. The whole horizon turns black and rolls at you like a wave, as rank after rank of smoke generating tanks charges you at high speed.

</comment><comment><USER48> Interesting read, somewhat related:

A 19th-Century Vision of the Year 2000

[https://publicdomainreview.org/collections/france-in-the- yea...](https://publicdomainreview.org/collections/france-in-the- year-2000-1899-1910/)

</comment><comment><USER49> My wife watches police "procedural" stories (Law & Order, CSI, NCIS, etc.). I've long thought that some of their plot lines would make for interesting "what if" training cases for real cops.

<comment><USER50> Aren't something approaching 100% of those stories pulled from the headlines? (Not disagreeing with you that they would also make good training cases.)

<comment><USER51> I don't know about 100%, but it is quite a common thing. That said, even if you make a crime/situation/scenario up entirely, there is a good chance it has happened somewhere.

Case studies of actual investigations - what worked, what didn't, what the big break was, etc - are not uncommon in law enforcement academies and training.

When you watch stuff like CSI and Law & Order, their criminal investigation stuff is often about as accurate as their high tech and computer science stuff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Hey, the article mentions HN-favorite Ken Liu, author of the Three-Body Problem.

<comment><USER53> Ken is the translator (but a writer of other things), Liu Cixin is the author.

<comment><USER54> Ken is a great writer in his own right though; The Paper Menagerie might be my favorite book.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Not terribly surprising. People forget that Neuromancer was a commission.

<comment><USER7> Eh? I thought it was commissioned by a book publisher, which is pretty different - they're buying it as a product, but these companies seem to be hiring authors as consultants. Or am I missing some interesting history on _Neuromancer_?

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Based on the article about Neil Stephenson that was posted here not long ago I'd been thinking along these lines, didn't realize someone already made a business out of it. Interesting.

<comment><USER57> Neal Stephenson is working at Magic Leap (an augmented reality company) now. I think it actually makes a lot of sense. If a product manager's main job is to define product vision, this guy has a 25 year head start thinking about it!

<comment><USER56> Yup, mentioned in the article I referenced and linked below. Sounds like he got a lot of offers but ML finally made him one that made sense.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> The US Army Lab has solicited sci-fi stories and awarded grants to build the tech they describe.

<comment><USER59> The Marines have hired historians to write manuals on how their great works.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Anyone read Ghost Fleet? It wasn't commissioned, as far as I'm aware, but it so spooked the Pentagon they hired the authors as consultants.

</comment><comment><USER61> Finally some good work for writers! But seriously artists have been kept alive by the state for millennia, no shock here

</comment><comment><USER62> Did no one else immediately think about the plot to Watchmen (the graphic novel, not movie)?

</comment><comment><USER63> This is the worst story I've read all week. Capitalism is destroying our culture.

<comment><USER64> What's bad about this?

<comment><USER65> You can use sci-fi novels as a way to normalise actions. Take drone warfare for example. If we actually thought about what that meant, it's pretty terrifying, but we've been conditioned by our media to find it fairly ordinary.

<comment><USER66> Terrifying is ordinary tho; just look at every other living creature ever.

<comment><USER67> Terrifying is _you_ seeing your mother being bombed to shreds, not you handwaving it away with some generalized blah. Terrifying is actually _you_ being in a concentration camp, not others being in a concentration camp while you say "oh well, just like anything else". For a story about sci-fi, there's a lot of professed lovers of it who would make someone like Isaac Asimov or Frank Herbert outright _puke_. You have no imagination, you have no guts, you have no sense of your own responsibility. You're someone great people write about, not for. Take it personal, but divide it up by dozens of people in this thread, all of whom warrant no more words than these.

<comment><USER66> Your reply imputed beliefs to me that I don't hold. I wasn't handwaving anything away. I was pointing out that, especially for non-humans, life already is terrifying and that, e.g. drone warfare, isn't more terrifying than say any other kind of warfare, of which there are numerous instances occurring now and that the idea that "if we actually thought about what that meant, it's pretty terrifying" isn't _obviously_ correct.

I, or anyone else, can't be terrified of seeing an animal eaten alive by another?

Anything short of witnessing someone die in a bomb blast isn't 'terrifying'?

What I did _not_ write that you claim I did – "oh well, just like anything else" – seems like something you're pushing in your reply. Are you not claiming that drone warfare is terrifying, just as much as "seeing your mother being bombed to shreds" or of "being in a concentration camp". My comment that "terrifying is ordinary" was _because_ of, e.g. concentration camps, i.e. drone warfare isn't any _more_ terrifying than lots of other terrifying things and that because of those facts, living in a state of constant terror is defeat.

How do you even presume to know what I've personally witnessed?

> For a story about sci-fi, there's a lot of professed lovers of it who would > make someone like Isaac Asimov or Frank Herbert outright _puke_. You have no > imagination, you have no guts, you have no sense of your own responsibility. > You're someone great people write about, not for. Take it personal, but > divide it up by dozens of people in this thread, all of whom warrant no more > words than these.

Fuck you too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> There was a rash of initiatives of this kind after 9/11 as well.

</comment><comment><USER69> I wonder if Neal Stephenson gets paid to do this. He's predicted parts of where we're headed with Diamond Age and Snow crash.

</comment><comment><USER70> Congrats. The .mil & .biz folks have been acknowledged in what has been implicit in every advancement I've seen in the last 40 years. sci-fi pop fiction postulation and conjecture based on the science community brain trust. Most of these guys were consultants or engineers anyway and empowered to write. There are iconoclasts like Ellison and the visionaries but the hard science guys always get paid for their visions.

<comment><USER71> IMO, Science fiction is less about new ideas as it is spreading those ideas to a wider audience. The average NASA scientist may come up with an interesting idea, but unless it's directly relevant within a decade few people are going to hear about it.

<comment><USER70> Edited original to provide idea ancestry.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> The author of this novel works at Magic Leap: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash)

</comment><comment><USER73> I wonder what the annual revenues are. I'm skeptical.

</comment><comment><USER74> And destroyed the Greek economy. Which speaks volumes about his competence as an economist.

<comment><USER75> Someone clueless speaking confidently is always a joy to read.

<comment><USER74> Well I happen to live in Greece so I witnessed first hand the results of his reign. You probably have no idea how it is to live in a country that has capital controls so let me enlighten you. The first months, until the system was somewhat stabilized, in order to pay for servers and such we had to ask for favors from Greeks who lived abroad. Imagine having half a dozen servers to pay and not knowing if you will manage to find someone/someway to send money abroad.

So yes, the guy was a fucking disaster. But you have the luxury to judge him without living the consequences of his actions and for that I can't blame you.

<comment><USER76> Being directly affected by a situation should absolutely not be a point for being more knowledgeable on it. Emotional appeal is the refuge of the ignorant.

<comment><USER74> Capital controls are real dude, they're not a figment of my imagination. Try operating an online business while you can't transfer funds abroad and then we can talk about sentimentalism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> i'd kill for opportunities like this.

but maybe we have to make our own opportunities, so: how about a startup that provides science fiction writing thought leadership as a service?

dibs on founder</comment>


Ask HN: Is My Google Analytics Tracking Code Private? - <AUTHOR>

Is there anyway a novice or expert could figure out who I am based on my Google Analytics tracking code?<p>I've searched around and delved into the GA documentation, but haven't found anything that references the tracking codes privacy. <comment><USER2> Hi. If I can see your GA tracking code on a website, and I then go and check WHOIS and see who owns the site with that GA tracking code, there's a chance that if I see that GA tracking code somewhere else I could figure out that it's you. But I guess I'd really have to be looking, almost stalking you!

</comment><comment><USER3> The tracking code will usually be in the source of the page you've used it on.

var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker('UA-XXXXXXX-Y')

It's not going to be very private.

<comment><AUTHOR> I understand the code it publicly viewable. I want to know if it's possible to connect the UA code to the Google account that it belongs to?

<comment><USER4> If you really care about it you can setup throwaway accounts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Yes. People use Blekko on GA and AdSense code to find who owns networks of sites.

The solution is to use a different throw-away account for each site.

</comment><comment><USER6> I don't understand the question. A tracking code is definitively linked to a particular website. It is not linked to a person. Am I missing something?</comment>


Greyp: bicycle when you want it, a motorcycle when you need it - <AUTHOR> http://www.greyp-bikes.com/ <comment><USER2> Poor choice as a bike and poor choice as a motorcycle, yet looks like a nice means of commuting through town provided it's legal to use bicycle paths with that thing in your country, otherwise it's just an electrical moped. Too bad the price will probably be ridiculous and it will end up as the next segway.

If it manages to get actual demand around the world, they are probably to face regulatory nightmares regarding speed. F.ex. in Poland 65 km/h disqualifies it from the moped category (< 45 km/h), and the mopeds themselves aren't allowed on bike lanes anyway, so it'd be just a less comfortable less powerful electric scooter.

<comment><USER3> I am assuming you are in the EU and you know more about the laws there.

Did you read this bit from the site?

 _Driving modes - Most EU countries consider two-wheeled electric vehicles as motorcycles if they can reach a speed in excess of 25 km /h and have more than 250 W of power. The G-12 has a special mode to comply with the regulations for road vehicles – which limits the speed and power. Still, the top-speed is just a tap on the touch-screen away when you need it._

Doesn't that place it under the "bicycle" category? Or are they skirting the issue and the authorities will not likely deem it that way regardless what "mode" you put it?

<comment><USER2> I'd have to dig into the subject and I can't speak for the whole EU. In my country, by definition, a bicycle can't be powered only by an engine. Electric bikes are bicycles when their electrical engine is powered by pedalling, how weird wouldn't that sound. The electrical engine can't be more than 250W and needs to power off over 25km/h. Not sure the 'modes' would count, IANAL. (But keep in mind Poland is a beaurocratic hell and our laws regarding even normal bicycles are an evil clusterfuck, as an example we have 4k people locked up for bicycle DUI and only 1k more for DUI in a car, and during the last policies update blinking headlights and reflective tires were banned - in the name of safety of'koz.) It may work differently in other countries. F.ex. in Poland you can make a motorbike license and jump on a Hayabusa, Germans have graded licences based on power so noobs don't kill themselves on the first day, etc. Most unified laws among the EU concern trade, not issues like road safety.

<comment><USER4> Bicycle DUI really, wow...

In Belgium they throw money and campaings at getting people not to drive cars under influence. I wouldn't say "take your bike" is the official stance, but certainly the most popular alternative.

I've never heard of anyone being stopped to check alcohol levels on their bike.

<comment><USER2> The reason is it falls under the same law - cars, bikes, forklifts, tractors, etc. Basically: alcohol == walk. The curious thing is, you lose your driver's license for bike DUI. If not for an accident, people get canned usually for recidivism, first senteces are suspended. I've been stopped for a breathalyzer once, in the middle of the night, on an empty bike path in Warsaw.

Well, Belgium, heh, we are a bit different when it comes to bike infrastructure and roads in general. A lot of traffic goes through local roads, small towns and villages often lack means of transport in the evening, and people drink a lot - figure out the rest. A drunk biker _can_ be a danger to himself and the drivers, but there are enough laws to punish somebody for behaving dangerously on the road, no need to get nazi on everybody who's been for a few in a pub. Well, it's ridiculous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I love this as a commuting solution, hate it as a mountain bike. The last thing we need is some yahoo able to lay down more power than they can pedal and erode the trails. You want to use a trail, pedal up, or go to a downhill park where they have the resources to build on the trails to take that kind of abuse.

Same with the danger of using this sort of 'bike' on bike paths or crowded urban areas. I think their promo video is demonstrating that they are just asking for trouble.

Hopefully greyp, figures out the damage they could be doing to their brand and goes the commuter route.

I think the market for a powerful/fast power assisted commuter bike is big enough. Why go after the small urban rider and lazy ignorant downhiller markets?

</comment><comment><USER6> It weighs _108_ pounds. That is ridiculously heavy and I could never imagine climbing any hills with this thing without using the assistance.

<comment><USER7> Exactly. This is an underpowered motorbike with a pedal-powered assist, which, due to some regulatory grey areas is likely legal for use on bike paths. As an _actual_ bicycle commuter I don't approve.

<comment><USER8> Pedal-powered assist? Those pedals are probably purely cosmetic at that weight.

I'd love to see someone try to get that thing moving from a standstill using just the pedals.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As an avid hot rodder and restorer of vintage 70's mopeds, the tag line lead me to believe someone had brought back a true moped to the market.

For those in California, in street mode this would be classified as a "motorized bicycle" if it went under 20mph. If it went over 20 and below 30 ( as it does in speed mode) it would require registration and a "M2" Moped Motorcycle license. Over 30 would equal a "motor driven cycle" and would essentially be a small motorcycle and would require plating, registration and an M1.

[http://www.myronsmopeds.com/wp- content/uploads/2011/08/Laws-...](http://www.myronsmopeds.com/wp- content/uploads/2011/08/Laws-Classification-of-Motor-Bikes.jpg)

<comment><USER10> Seems you no longer think so? Why not?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Yikes, what a terrible name for this thing. How do you pronounce it? Lets break it down:

Option 1: "Gr-II-P" .. gripe. Yeah, I ride my gripe around.

Option 2: "Gr-AY-p" .. yeah, I'm gonna just get on the grape.

Option 3: "Gr-EE-p" .. just gonna 'greep' (creep) around the streets, yo..

Option 4: "Gr-E-p" .. okay, this might just work for me. ;)

Option 5: "Grey-P" .. My pee is grey, my pee is grey!

Seriously, greyp-bikes folks, please re-consider your awful, awful brand statement.

</comment><comment><USER12> "Greyp, where guys can rough it up in the woods and girls don't have to pedal home from work."

Edit: In all seriousness, that video was a complete disgrace.

</comment><comment><USER13> The "Bomber" electric bike by Stealth Electric Bike offers a lot more speed: [http://www.stealthelectricbikes.com.au/bomber.html](http://www.stealthelectricbikes.com.au/bomber.html)

</comment><comment><USER14> Spoken by someone who truly has never ridden a motorcycle before.

</comment><comment><USER15> Whenever I see beige in a product colour scheme, I am reminded of a friend's statement: Beige isn't a colour, it's a lifestyle.

</comment><comment><USER16> I was expecting a command line tool.

</comment><comment><USER17> So is it legal to ride this on sidewalks and bike-lanes?</comment>


New Personal, Peer-to-Peer Web Application Platform - <AUTHOR> http://www.codelathe.com/blog/index.php/2009/02/05/tonido-platform-how-it-works/

<comment><USER2> I really like this idea. I want something like this to really take off. I've thought about decentralized services like this, but you've gone and done it!

Some ideas I've had in the past:

* Use the cloud against itself, as a cheap unreliable cache (which is all its really good for) full of encrypted secure user data.

* Make it as easy as possible to import contacts, email, and other data from GMail, Facebook, etc. Make it easy to invite contacts from these existing applications. You might even create apps for these services that enable secure Tonido integration.

* Provide blogging, microblogging, friends & contacts, etc. A p2p facebook. Use "the cloud" to handle spikes in traffic. How do to this securely? There's gotta be way.

* Leverage something like the Dining Cryptographer's protocol to provide completely uncontrollable darknets!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot. your suggestions are gems. We are thinking along those lines. We need to connect with existing ecosystems to provide value to the users. Thats critical.

What do you think about having your own personal web applications running in a virtual instance?

<comment><USER2> I think whether these web apps run on my desktop, or sync/migrate to a virtual instance, should be completely transparent to me as a user. I assume a virtual instance would be necessary to keep continuity when accessing through mobile devices.

<comment><AUTHOR> We do provide a dynamic dns for users. You can access your tonido instance by typing <http://cmars232.tonidoid.com/>. So if you are running tonido in your laptop or home server you can still access tonido apps from mobile devices.

Virtual instance can bring whole lot of other benefits like upload bandwidth and stable internet connection etc..

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> Is there an SDK available?

<comment><USER3> We are readying the SDK now for public release in a couple of months. But if you are interested, we can work to get you a private build. Please let us know.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Tonido offers personal web applications that run from your desktop without relying on 3rd party servers.Our business strategy is to position Tonido as an alternative to online services(cloud) and emphasize privacy, control of data and online freedom etc. We believe in it too. Is it a right strategy to become a purple cow and get traction among subset of internet users? If you think we are wrong what are the alternative strategies that we can employ? Enlighten us.</comment>


10x more selective - <AUTHOR> http://yosefk.com/blog/10x-more-selective.html <comment><USER2> That's awesome! He puts into words something that I've been trying to explain for years.

I'm leaving the military and a big part of it is the "can do attitude" or "loyalty before cleverness." Basically, because the chain of command cannot be subverted (for lots of good reasons) we end up doing a ton of work that just gets thrown away.

To simplify, Yossi says that the way to be 10x is to learn how and when to tell your management you're not going to do the thing. That's not only not an option in the military, it's literally illegal. We end up doing way too much stuff that gets abandoned and we regularly do useless work specifically because it emphasizes the point that we have to come to terms with doing useless work (to develop and prove loyalty).</comment>


Ask HN: What is the best VPN provider? - <AUTHOR> After the post by Bryan Krebs I started investigation what would be the VPN used by him.<p>The list suggested by him https://thatoneprivacysite.net/simple-vpn-comparison-chart/ has some interesting points. What do you think he is using? Also, what are you using and why? <comment><USER2> [https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/](https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/) works for me

</comment><comment><USER3> I am partial to blackvpn.com. Cheap and they don't store logs. I did a couple armchair speed tests through a couple of their locations vs my baseline internet connection:

      NO VPN enabled
      http://beta.speedtest.net/result/6168457639
      PING 17 ms
      DOWNLOAD 195.94 Mbps
      UPLOAD 23.60 Mbps

      BlackVPN through Canada
      http://beta.speedtest.net/result/6168460690
      PING 53 ms
      DOWNLOAD 151.71 Mbps
      UPLOAD 16.48 Mbps

      BlackVPN through Brazil
      http://beta.speedtest.net/result/6168447144
      PING 160 ms
      DOWNLOAD 186.43 Mbps
      UPLOAD 10.21 Mbps

      BlackVPN through Switzerland
      http://beta.speedtest.net/result/6168451606
      PING 263 ms
      DOWNLOAD 19.93 Mbps
      UPLOAD 5.60 Mbps

<comment><USER4> With respect, I would advise using other speed testing sites. Speedtest.net is well-known to be optimized by most ISPs, and so doesn't really give you accurate results.

Fast.com is provided by Netflix, and you use their actual CDN to download a part of a freely available movie, and so you get a really good estimate of what kinds of download speeds you can see from them.

The other one I like is from dslreports.com -- it uses only HTML5 instead of flash, and they adaptively test your bandwidth from multiple simultaneous server sites, with adaptive multi-streaming.

You can't make a reasonable conclusion if you don't have reasonable data to work from, and with Speedtest.net you can't trust any of their results.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> PrivateInternetAccess. Lives up to the hype. Inexpensive; I picked up two years for $40. On my 250Mbps/15Mbps pipe I usually can pull down 200Mbps and push 10Mbps up.

</comment><comment><USER6> NordVPN ([https://nordvpn.com/](https://nordvpn.com/)). Panama, doesn't store logs, plenty of servers around the world. Works with the majority of devices out there. Accepts bitcoin. Checks pretty much all the boxes.

Also recommended on [https://privacytoolsio.github.io/privacytools.io/](https://privacytoolsio.github.io/privacytools.io/).

<comment><USER7> This is the only one I've tried (and I'm currently subscribed) but one thing I've been disappointed by is the speed. I know this is something to be aware of when using any VPN so I am not sure how bad NordVPN is in comparison to others, it may actually not be worse than others, I haven't had to time to compare.

<comment><USER6> I actually tried TrustZone as well and it was worse, at least for Germany. With NordVPN, I'm seeing speeds at about 60-70% of the original - which is a lot less granted, but it works fine for my day to day stuff like browsing or netflix.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> [https://www.mullvad.net/](https://www.mullvad.net/) seems like a great option, anyone tried it?

<comment><USER8> Using it since a couple of years. They never seem to be the bottleneck, but it is hard to test since I am too cheap to get anything else than the lowest bandwidth (30/30). I get 2.2MB/s down and a bit less up, which is about the same as I get without VPN.

The app is nice (at least on Linux), but for environments where it doesn't work they provide openvpn files.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've used a bunch of small-scale providers because their servers aren't as hogged as the big guys out there (looking at you, IPVanish!) I found Hotspotshield and PureVPN mentioned on this list: [https://www.bestvpnprovider.com](https://www.bestvpnprovider.com) to be somewhere between serivceable to trustworthy in this regard.

</comment><comment><USER10> I like IVPN. Based in Gibraltar, excellent bandwidth, plenty of servers, accepts Bitcoin, uses OpenVPN.

<comment><USER11> Url is [https://www.ivpn.net](https://www.ivpn.net)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Freedome ([https://www.f-secure.com/en/web/home_global/freedome](https://www.f-secure.com/en/web/home_global/freedome)) is my go to

</comment><comment><USER13> AirVPN is pretty good. Modern crypto and uses OpenNIC DNS servers. You can lock the connection so it doesn't do IPv6 leaks and such. Clients are open source.

</comment><comment><USER14> [https://www.tunnelbear.com/](https://www.tunnelbear.com/) has been great for me

</comment><comment><USER15> I use Mullvad personally

<comment><AUTHOR> How long have you used it? What are the average/max speeds you get? Have you used any other before? How do they compare?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've had good experiences with Azire.</comment>


I'd pay you $500,000 a year but you can't do the work - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/01/id-pay-you-500000-a-year-but-you-cant-do-the-work.html <comment><USER2> _" The last three perfect candidates took jobs at Google and Facebook instead of coming to work for us. Not a big surprise."_

This would kind of emply that those candidates turned down $500K a year to work for Google or Facebook. That would be a _big_ surprise to me. It seems more likely that he didn't offer them as much as they could get elsewhere i.e. The market price.

</comment><comment><USER3> Everyone wants to buy great engineers, nobody wants to make them.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is a dup: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14246760](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14246760)</comment>


Game of Checkins: Mayorships + Google Earth = your own Game of Thrones intro - <AUTHOR> http://gameofcheckins.com

<comment><AUTHOR> This was a quick project I cooked up. Amazed at how much 3D geometry is made available in Google Earth.</comment>


Show HN: Developer resume generator - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Alexander-0x80/resume-bandit

<comment><USER2> Very torn as to whether star rankings, or any type of ranking, are helpful or not.

What does 1 star mean? Never used that language before? once twice?

What's 5 star? Expert? Would the inventor of a language get 5 stars? Then it doesn't seem likely you can have anything a 5 star..

It's just so subjective what it means to the person. I feel the smarter folks will actually tend to under-rank themselves because they are so aware of the things they don't know.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you're 5 stars at "Amazon services", run this generator and hit me up with the output. :-)</comment>


SVG Path Strings - <AUTHOR> http://roadtolarissa.com/blog/2015/02/22/svg-path-strings/ <comment><USER2> I have never understood why, when it comes to the <path> element, the entire definition of the path is shoved into one plain text attribute with its own specification language. Why couldn't there have been special nodes like <curve> <move> etc so that the path can be processed using standard DOM traversal? As it is, anyone using paths in a programmatic way will invariably end up writing error-prone parsing and composing logic to modify the `d` attribute.

What am I missing? This seems like a major area for improvement.

<comment><USER3> I quite like it. And actually, if you think about it - they're semantically different. In one case you're dealing if a set of different elements, in another you have the definition of a single shape.

More than that though, I work with large svgs and if there were dom nodes for all of the components, nothing would be able to render them :)

<comment><USER2> > In one case you're dealing if a set of different elements, in another you > have the definition of a single shape.

Sure, but this is just restating the problem so that the mental model fits the facts. However you rationalize it, you're forced to deal with the situation that you need your own parsing logic to work with SVGs. That's supposed to be the problem that the choice of XML solves.

Apart from that, the contents of the `d` element are describing individual components -- lines, curves, arcs -- which combine to compose one path. It's not necessarily the case that they need to be treated as one elemental shape, any more than the children of the <g> element are not considered to be indivisibly part of a whole, but rather as individually manipulable components which are organized by the <g> into groups/layers.

Why couldn't <path> be a similar principle of organization?

<comment><USER3> I guess I come at it from the point of view of the DOM, where a single shape as a DOM node that can be styled makes the most sense. If you had a path with child nodes as real DOM nodes things would get weird, because how do things like contradicting fill styles work?

As I said in my other reply though, I'm just splitting hairs really.

As a user I think being able to specify the shape by just using the single d attribute is nice. Maybe because it invokes warm childhood memories of using turtle graphics back in the 80s :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Am I missing some sort of mathematical simplicity in the elliptical arc specification, because it looks like an absolute mess; surely there must be some mechanism that allows you to specify an elliptical arc between two points using tangent definitions, bezier-style. As it is, there's a real mess there where rotating the end point around the start point, you have to rotate the elliptical axis in the opposite direction to maintain the same curve.

It looks like its one optimal scenario is in creating a rounded corner, which I guess is the common use case - but the unpredictability of how the curve changes if you move the end points without adjusting the corner radii seems to be a significant downside.

<comment><AUTHOR> The implementations notes list another potential specification[1]. I'm guessing it was avoided because it wouldn't follow the pattern of ending each command with the new coordinates of the pen.

They were definitely considering the rounded corners use case; the details of drawing a rect element with a path[2] make arcs sound much easier to use than they actually are most of the time.

[1][http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG/implnote.html#ArcParameterizationAl...](http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG/implnote.html#ArcParameterizationAlternatives)

[2][http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG/shapes.html#RectElement](http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG/shapes.html#RectElement)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm getting some real Baader-Meinhof here. I just started making SVG path animations at work and just checked them into mainline today.

I like the look of this tutorial, and I hope you make some more in-depth ones. Piling through W3C specs is no fun, and I could really use some good tutorials for when I need to get co-workers up to speed on SVG.

<comment><USER6> For anyone else thinking, "Uh, wasn't Baader-Meinhof a pretty decent German film from a few years back?", this might help you: [http://www.damninteresting.com/the-baader-meinhof- phenomenon...](http://www.damninteresting.com/the-baader-meinhof-phenomenon/)

<comment><USER4> For anyone else thinking, "Uh, wasn't Baader-Meinhof a far-left German terrorist organization from the early 1970s?", this might help you: [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0765432/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0765432/)

<comment><USER6> Well, you'd think anyone who'd seen the film and thought it was decent would remember it was a far-left German terrorist organisation! I feel like we may have digressed.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you keep your mind sharp? - <AUTHOR> Since HN is a community of individuals who mostly like to keep learning, how do you maintain that discipline? After graduating a few years ago, I feel as if I forgot all of the math I studied and know it would be more difficult to learn it again. What are some of the best ways you have found that help you stay fresh? <comment><USER2> I don't do much programming these days so I started working through the problems on Project Euler.

[https://projecteuler.net](https://projecteuler.net)

<comment><USER3> Do you know of any resources that discusses the mathematics behind the problems in depth? I've found a mishmash but nothing official or consistently well reasoned/discussed.</comment></comment>


On chamas, Satoshi Nakamoto and the next generation of Crypto innovators - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@chamapesa/on-chamas-satoshi-nakamoto-and-the-next-generation-of-crypto-innovators-7b5a3f325f18 <comment><AUTHOR> From Ian Grigg's latest blog post:

> Such a chama was Satoshi Nakamoto. It's apparent from what is now publicly > known that the famous team worked in both excessive secrecy but very high > trust. This handful of professionals from the Internet security field > contributed jointly and separately to code, keys, design, vision, business, > documentation, communications and opsec. As a common enterprise with a > shared goal, enveloped in a dangerous environment, the Satoshi Nakamotii, > various, faced more or less the same challenges that the members of any > chama would face in Kibera: work in secret, protect the assets or be robbed > and destroyed. Stay close to the vision, stay the long path, and in perhaps > the ultimate irony, don't allow personalities to be swayed by success.

> You don't have to believe me that Satoshi Nakamoto was a chama — and the > surviving members may also be bemused and disagreeable. I care little for > their bemusement or your disbelief, as being bemused and disagreeable is > just evidence of a twitter handle or a reddit post and most people out there > are incapable of dealing with that simple scientific logic: absence of > evidence is not evidence of absence.

For reference, the same author posted in May 2016:

"SATOSHI IS DEAD - LONG LIVE SATOSHI - TEAM LEADER COMES OUT"

[http://financialcryptography.com/mt/archives/001593.html](http://financialcryptography.com/mt/archives/001593.html)</comment>


Questions for OpenAI - <AUTHOR> I'm talking with Greg Brockman, Co-Founder and CTO of OpenAI this week on the Artificial Intelligence podcast: https://lexfridman.com/ai/<p>Let me know if you have questions for him or what topics you would like to see covered. <comment><USER3> Thanks for doing this. I have a few questions:

1\. How does OpenAI incubate ideas? - are there broader themes (woven into an x-year roadmap) from which projects are born? Or are the projects driven by individuals' area of interest rather than company-wide themes/roadmaps - <USER2> is also probably a big difference between university and corporate research labs.

2\. Can you shed light on the computational nature of AI problems OpenAI is working on? And what kind of computer architectures are being investigated to tackle the problems, by OpenAI or the broader AI community?

3\. Where is the field of AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) headed? In particular,

a) What would be the first areas for AGI research and commercialization - Video Games, Robotics, etc.?

b) Does the community think that the current set of tools - Deep Learning, Evolutionary Computing, etc. (with some further advancements) - can produce AGI or are these tools a unit step in the many step journey towards AGI?

c) How important is the collaboration of the neuroscience and computer science communities towards the advancement of AGI?

d) Is brain simulation/emulation a promising approach to AGI?

</comment><comment><USER4> What does he think is going to happen when the robots take over?</comment>


Left for dead: the mysterious disease killing thousands in Central America - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2014/2/7/5389084/chronic-kidney-disease-sugar-cane-workers-central-america

<comment><USER2> What if this is caused by consuming too much sugar? After all it seems to target sugar field workers.

Of course it could also be pesticide residues but what if consuming too much sugar makes things worse? What if sugar is actually POISONOUS?

That would explain why my field medecine guide suggests putting sugar in a wound to prevent infection. Sugar kills the bacteria. Sugar kills?</comment>


How many Bitcoins does it cost to maintain the Bitcoin network? - <AUTHOR> http://letstalkbitcoin.com/blog/post/how-many-bitcoins-does-it-cost-to-maintain-the-bitcoin-network

<comment><USER2> All of them. Literally. All Bitcoins were created via segniorage. However many billion dollars of market cap as it exists today is the present value of payment for past work in securing the future of the blockchain. The market value [+] doesn't come from nowhere - it's a transaction fee paid by later adopters to earlier adopters for the privilege of being able to transact on their blockchain.

If future prospective adoptees believe that fee is too high, well, it can get renegotiated down in a hurry, and will be.

[+] Slight mangling of terms here, since market value is number of coins times last trade price, and that won't correspond to the sum of all dollar- denominated capital inflows into Bitcoin.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Let us be quite clear: if Bitcoin was a cheaper or more efficient transaction method, for-profit organizations such as large payment processors would have forked it long ago and would likely already be using it internally in order to shore up their margins."

This is quite a presumptuous lede. Bitcoin itself has only really been around for 5 years, and of that only entered the public consciousness for about 2. Large payments companies are like all large companies; they tend to be slow, bureaucratic and have to deal with internal politics to get anything done. On top of this, Bitcoin solved a long standing problem in computer science that many people believed was not solvable (Satoshi's original post on the cypherpunk list received a lot of skepticism when it was first posted). No large company would have precipitously risked their entire technology stack on something so unproven. Even Gavin Andresen is careful to say Bitcoin is still "in beta". And only now are some large companies starting to accept bitcoin _in payment_ , which is a much weaker step than replacing their internal payment infrastructure. This stuff takes _time_ , and this cycle of optimism and pessimism seems to repeat itself with every revolutionary technology:

T1. New technology X is going to change everything and the world will be amazing!

T2 (only short while after T1). Nothing has changed, the world is still the same, X is a failure.

...

TN: Whoa, we use X a lot now.

</comment><comment><USER4>
      > if Bitcoin was a cheaper or more efficient transaction method,
      > for-profit organizations such as large payment processors would have
      > forked it long ago and would likely already be using it internally in
      > order to shore up their margins.

This guy is clueless. The whole point of bitcoin is that it appeals to people who want a decentralized medium of exchange. It's basically useless to large payment processors.

<comment><USER5> I don't think he is clueless, I think he is trying to make a point.

Some people have internalized the message "Bitcoin is good". They then draw inaccurate conclusions from this message. Things like "Bitcoin is anonymous... more so than cash!" (This is not true. Bitcoin is pseudonymous, but transactions are very public and it offers LESS anonymity than cash.)

Some people have drawn the conclusion "Bitcoin is cheap... cheaper than the standard ways that a bank manages their balances." This is also false. Bitcoin actually requires significantly more computation (and thus cost) than simply keeping a single centralized ledger -- exactly why and how is what the article explains.

What Bitcoin DOES have going for it over the centralized ledger is that it does not require trust in any individual participant in the system. Depending on your goals, that may well be valuable enough to be willing to put up with a large multiplier on your transaction costs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The guy doesn't grasp the basic premise of PoW schemes. Yes, it costs close to a Bitcoin to make a Bitcoin. That Bitcoin, once created, is a REUSABLE PROOF OF WORK.

<comment><USER7> The real question is: how much does it _really_ cost to clear a transaction? And how much of that cost is being hidden via being subsidized through a speculative mining frenzy? What happens to real-world TX costs when mining isn't a hot thing anymore?

<comment><USER8> _The real question is: how much does it really cost to clear a transaction?_

Anywhere from a fraction of a cent to millions of dollars. Bitcoin transactions don't have a fixed cost, it depends on how many people are mining. More miners => increased difficult => higher costs.

<comment><USER9> There is an intrinsic cost associated with hashing and rehashing the blockchain to secure the transaction. In terms of cpu time, electricity, etc.

<comment><USER8> Yes, but if there were no more miners, you could process all transactions on a single cheap laptop, which probably costs less than $1/day to run.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've been saying this for over a year now -- BitCoin will not succeed because it simply cannot offer competitive transaction fees. Merchants are upset enough by the ~3% they're paying to VISA or AmEx on every swipe, they're not going to move to a system that costs $30.

<comment><USER8> That's not the true cost of accept VISA, since every time there's a chargeback, the merchant is also the one who pays the bill, not only with lost merchandising, time, etc but potentially fees (e.g. Stripe charges $15 per chargeback).

<comment><USER10> Sure, but chargeback rates are low enough (somewhere between 0.2% and 0.4% of revenue for online merchants, much much lower for brick-and-mortar) that it's inconsequential when comparing it to flat rate $30. Additionally, 3% is about as high as VISA rates go -- WalMart, McDonalds, and the rest pay lower.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Increased centralisation, due to economies of scale for miners, is bad. Peercoin offers a reward for operating a node (provided you have a balance of Peercoins), due to its proof-of stake (POS) hybrid mining scheme. Bitcoin's reward for operating a full node is having access to the network, but you don't have any say in what transactions are confirmed unless you run a miner.

Peercoin seems better from this point of view, because it provides a method to reward decentralisation. Economically, I have no idea. The POS blocks pay you a % of your balance, inflating the currency, but at a much smaller energy usage ( a fraction of one cpu)

</comment><comment><USER12> A more practical question would be how large are the CO2 emissions of maintaining Bitcoin network.</comment>


How to Secretly Record Videos on Android - <AUTHOR> http://drippler.com/drip/how-secretly-record-videos-android <comment><USER2> does anybody know why Secret Video Recorder needs Identity and SMS access?</comment>