Carbon nanotube based yarn can create muscle like actuators - <AUTHOR> http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-11/uota-wny110812.php

<comment><AUTHOR> Submitted for you budding roboticists out there. One of the cool technologies last entry was Nitinol wire, sometimes called 'muscle wire', which when heated would contract and when it cooled would return to its extended size. It is really cool stuff, but its _slow_. Heating it is pretty easy but cooling it less so.

These guys have created the same function using Paraffin wax inside carbon nano tubes. Paraffin has excellent thermal properties for this sort of application. And it responds much faster.

If successful this tech will lead to some very useful actuators and end effectors on robots where its impossible to put even the small motors the Swiss make.</comment>


Zero Downtime Release: Disruption-Free Load Balancing of Multi-Billion User Site [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.dropbox.com/s/g40kvbyxqhn4h72/fbr.pdf <comment><USER2> Not sure why this submission links to some Dropbox. The following submission links to the actual ACM reference.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24057842](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24057842)</comment>


Bacteria 'factories' churn out valuable chemicals - <AUTHOR> http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2014/12/bacteria-churn-out-valuable-chemicals/

<comment><USER2> This has been a tactic used for over 30 years now, but of course it's gotten a lot more sophisticated as of late.

Getting bacteria to do your dirty work is great for some stuff, necessary for others, but is definitely not going to be the dominant method of chemical production.

A few factors:

1\. Bacteria are typically pretty slow relative to industrial chemical processes and their speed can vary immensely depending on a lot of variables. This is by far the largest reason why more people don't use bacteria to produce chemicals.

2\. Bacteria take a lot of metabolic genetic engineering to do what you want them to do reliably, and can lose traits they are engineered for relatively easily due to natural selection against energetically inefficient (read: productive in this capacity) mutants.

3\. Any chemicals derived from bacteria still need to be isolated, combined, and purified in an industrial fashion before they are actually useful.

4\. Valuable chemicals which are extremely expensive to produce with traditional industrial methods (in particular, certain chiral molecules) can probably be produced more cheaply with a properly engineered bacteria.

As you can see, there are a lot of drawbacks, but #4 can be a colossal economic advantage for certain chemicals. In particular, recent FDA regulations have mandated uniformity amongst drug-grade chemicals, meaning that they must be purified in order to only contain one isomeric form rather than a mix. This is important because the different isomers of the same chemical may have different biological effects.

Isolating stereoisomers from each other is traditionally extremely expensive and slow, but a bacteria that could reliably produce the desired isomer would avoid this pitfall.

<comment><USER3> "This has been a tactic used for over _ed:3,000_ years now"

See fermintation.

Note: Yeast is not really the same thing as bacteria, but IMO the joke still stands. Also, Yogurt and cheese do use bacteria so really we have been using bacteria to convert lactose into lactic acid. Further lactic acid acts as a natural perservitive so we really where using bacteria as chemical factory's for ~7,500 to 10,000 years.

<comment><USER4> I was going to cite Cheese but the point is still valid. Bacteria, eating our leftovers and making our cheese since, well forever.</comment></comment></comment>


Think Your Credentials Are Ignored Because You're a Woman? It Could Be - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2017/05/22/529391023/think-your-credentials-are-ignored-because-youre-a-woman-it-could-be <comment><USER2> Personally I hope this doesn't get flagged on HN. Not because of any bias towards one or another side of the argument, but because for discussion's sake, this could be interesting.</comment>


Remind HN: Vote - <AUTHOR> For those of us living in the states who need to vote, I know it can be easy to get your head in the code and forget a lot of things, but today is election day. You're not asked to do a lot of things, but voting is one of them. Please try to find some time to get out and cast your ballot, no matter what your party or preferences. Remember that you don't vote to make a difference, you vote because it's your obligation to do so. <comment><USER2> In Australia voting is mandatory. If you're registered to vote and you don't you can get fined. If no one is registered to vote at your address you'll tend to get lots of mail about it (but ultimately, staying off the electoral roll isn't difficult).

I used to think this was a bad idea as it forced people to vote who didn't really care.

In recent years I've come around to the opposite point of view based pretty much entirely on how badly voluntary voting in the US works.

When voting is voluntary there is an incentive with certain groups to dissuade, discourage or simply make it difficult for others to vote. In US elections there have been cases of bribing homeless people to vote with cigarettes or alcohol. Getting into vote can be difficult with long lines.

In Australia pretty much all these problems go away because you have to vote and the AEC (Australian Elecotral Commission) has to provide enough capacity to do so so, unless you go in the first hour or two of the morning, you can typically be in and out in 5-10 minutes tops.

Politicians love an apathetic population. So by all means go out and vote.

<comment><USER3> I am Yank, Arab and Somali (I hold three passports) and I will soon be an Aussie, via marriage. I have spent a year in Australia. My feeling is that Aussies are not really as political as Americans.

American voting is under-informed and has low turn out, but at least the few percentage of electorate that vote actually _care_.

Aussies .. I am not sure if they don't care, or if they're just good at hiding their political views. It's far easier to speak to an American and learn about his/her political stances. Aussies are much more opaque, in my experience, and seem to be equally resentful of all politicians.

For all their bureaucracy, Aussies are far more anarchic and egalitarian than any other nation that I am familiar with, except maybe Somalis.

Australians, at least the ones in NSW that I have come to know, consider the government and politicians "a bunch of wankers". They're very pessimistic about the people they elect; which is both nice, and also harmful.

Having said that .. Aussie Aussie Aussie!

[Edit:

People should harden the fuck up and visit Australia; everyone should live there at least _once_. Just thinking about that place brings a smile to my face. They're a nation of good-natured jokers, thoroughly beautiful I tell ya. But be prepared to be bull-shat left and right; you will have a hard time if you're a self-righteous prick]

<comment><USER4> "you will have a hard time if you're a self-righteous prick"

So how come nobody has told those internet censor wankers that a joke's a joke, they've had their fun, and now it's time to get back in their box before they feel the back of your hand?

<comment><USER5> Because it's largely inaccurate and Australia is packed with self-righteous pricks, they're just self-righteous about things other than the author originally implied.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I vote and believe in voting, but this thread makes me think that most people haven't really thought through the philosophy behind voting. Those who feel that voting is an irrational sham are not going to care about your "obligation," and you come off looking like a laughably naive jerk in condemning them for failing to do their civic duty. Mandatory voting is disagreeable for the same reason mandatory anything is: it uses force to make people do what they don't want to do, which reeks of tyranny. And arguably, society would be better off if only the intelligent and informed voted, so encouraging voting amongst the masses is downright malicious.

If you're being practical and are just trying to get a certain politician elected or ballot measure passed, then requesting that people vote within a demographic that is likely to vote in a predictable way (Democratic on HN, I'm sure) is duplicitous. You pretend you don't care what party people vote for, but anyone can tell that a "Rock the Vote" campaign on MTV is intended to get youth Democrat votes, or that bussing in impoverished people is intended to get Democrat votes. Never is the idea why people should vote actually explained, but that doesn't stop them from shaming those who don't. Republicans tend to be a little more frank as to who you should vote for and why.

Which is why I say, vote Meg Whitman, because the State of California is broke and she is more likely to contain the spending. Vote to legalize marijuana because it's high time people stopped being sent to jail for smoking pot. And if you're thinking of voting otherwise, I encourage you to stay home. Because a vote is not a moral obligation. It's a serious political act that changes the structure of society, and I would rather my preferred changes happen than that they be as democratic as possible.

<comment><USER7> > Mandatory voting is disagreeable for the same reason mandatory anything is: > it uses force to make people do what they don't want to do, which reeks of > tyranny.

I very much disagree with this statement, which smacks of hyperbole. A citizen has certain responsibilities. It is not tyranny to expect that citizen to perform their responsibility. One of the responsibilities is jury duty and, I would argue, voting is another.

<comment><USER8> > I would argue, voting is another [responsibility].

What is your argument?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Please, do vote _if you understand the issues, and where the candidates stand._

But otherwise, please DO NOT VOTE. Just because an idea makes you feel warm and fuzzy doesn't make it right. There are plenty of things in this world that are counter-intuitive, and if you're relying only on your _beliefs_ , there's a good chance you'll get it wrong.

If you've never taken a class or read a book on economics, please don't vote. (I recommend _Economics in One Lesson_ , by Henry Hazlett [1])

If you've never taken a class or read a book on political philosophy, please don't vote. If you don't know the difference between natural law and utilitarianism, please don't vote. (I recommend reading J S Mill [2], or Locke [3], or Mises [4], or Hayek [5])

And if you don't believe me, then you should also read _The Myth of the Rational Voter_ , by Bryan Caplan [6]. He discusses not only why voters do vote irrationally, but also why it's rational for them to do so.

[1] [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Economics_in_...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Economics_in_One_Lesson)

[2] [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/John_Stuart_M...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill)

[3] <https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/John_locke>

[4] [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Ludwig_von_Mi...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Ludwig_von_Mises)

[5] [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Friedrich_Hay...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Friedrich_Hayek)

[6] [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/The_Myth_of_t...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/The_Myth_of_the_Rational_Voter%3A_Why_Democracies_Choose_Bad_Policies)

<comment><USER10> Seth Godin disagrees with you: [http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/11/voting- misun...](http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/11/voting- misunderstood.html)

Additionally, "if you understand the issues" is a vague, relative parameter. I know in the state of wisconsin I don't know 100% of the issues (and probably not even 50%, sadly. Been a busy year), but I know enough of what I like and dislike about the Governor and Senate battles to vote with confidence.

I think your argument is a mute point. It's either damned if we do, damned if we don't.

<comment><USER11> Well, hopefully you're voting for Feingold. That guy's been one of the best senators of the last 20 years, honest, doesn't take any lobbyist money and a fiscal conservative, too, but he's in danger of losing to a guy who's entire platform is "I'm not a socialist" (Feingold isn't either).

<comment><USER12> No one has brought up socialism in this campaign at all. Ron Johnson has run a specific, issue oriented campaign. His major focus is stopping the run away spending of the Obama agenda. He entered the race when Obamacare passed, because he felt that was the last straw.

Feingold on the other hand is standing by his vote for Obamacare. I haven't forgotten the disdainful smirk on his face when he addressed his enraged constituents at last years' health care town hall meetings, and I don't think my fellow Wisconsinites have either.

This election is all about consequences for those who ignored the will of the people, and Russ Feingold is chief among them.

<comment><USER11> Where were you guys when Medicare Part D passed?

It's way worse for the deficit, and was a way bigger spending bill.

Oh, wait, that was a Republican.. I get it..

This is how Rome fell - if beating your domestic enemies is more important to you than improving the country, you are hurting the country.

<comment><USER13> _Where were you guys when Medicare Part D passed?_

Libertarians were loudly protesting. To no effect of course, because Republicans were behind their guy and Democrats were primarily complaining that it wasn't expensive enough.

 _if beating your domestic enemies is more important to you than improving the country, you are hurting the country._

I agree completely. Please mention that to the President if you run into him: <http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69929420101101>

<comment><USER11> No, democrats were primarily complaining that it was outrageously expensive, budget busting, and didn't even do any good because all of the money went straight to the drug companies (see my above comments on lobbyists).

RE: Obama, you must be kidding. The man is a born compromiser, the problem is that Republicans haven't been willing to compromise on anything. They voted against their own deficit commission, for crying out loud, after Obama decided to support it.

<comment><USER12> Blaming the Republicans doesn't make any sense. Democrats have the votes to do whatever they want to do, which is why it's so easy this year to hold incumbents accountable.

<comment><USER14> No, they don't? The Republicans have used filibuster as a threat at an unprecedented level. The Senate has only nominally been in the Democrats' control.

EDIT: Punctuation

<comment><USER12> Until Scott Brown's election last year, the Democrats could have ended any filibuster attempt immediately. Democrats had a free run for a year. For the a year and a half now, the public has been screaming for them to stop. Brown's election was the first shot across the bow, but the Democrats paid no heed.

<comment><USER14> It's been a traditional courtsey in the Senate for the party in power not to shove through votes often, in respect that in the future they would eventually be the minority party, and occasionally need to filibuster as well. The possibility of removing the ability to filibuster has been discussed, but not undertaken for this reason.

By filibustering so often, the Republicans are showing that this is no longer the custom. Which is fine; I think it's a silly custom, and we'd benefit as a nation if blocking legislation like that were impossible. But it is absolutely a break from common procedure.

<comment><USER9> I think your memory is fuzzy. For example, under GWB, the Democrat's use of the filibuster was also frequent and controversial. There were judicial appointments that went unfilled for years because the Dem's refused to discuss them.

(as much as it pains me to defend the GOP)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If you have an obligation to vote, then it's an obligation to make an informed vote. If you haven't attempted to evaluate your decision carefully and can't make an informed vote, please don't vote.

Informed voting > not voting > uninformed voting

Greg Mankiw has a column on this: [http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2006/11/election-day- approach...](http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2006/11/election-day- approaches.html)

<comment><USER15> > _"Informed voting > not voting > uninformed voting"_

The idea that "the uninformed" should not vote is contrary to universal suffrage and has a long history of use for disenfranchisement. "Uninformed voting" is in the eye of the beholder (working definition: uninformed voters are those who both disagree with me and are outside my social group).

One person's criteria for being informed may be awareness of specific proposals for complex policies, while another's might be the candidate's up or down stance on a single issue, and for another it might be party affiliation (noted on the ballot in most US jurisdictions).

Conversely, a person can be highly informed and vote in a way which damages the community at large, e.g. a person may vote to reduce educational funding thereby lowering their taxes with the intent of using the savings to fund the production of child pornography.

Today, vote as well as you are able.

<comment><USER16> The argument is not that the uninformed should be disenfranchised or in any way prohibited from voting. They should be allowed to vote.

But, if someone has enough self-knowledge to recognize that they are relatively uninformed, on a single issue or the ballot as a whole, they should abstain from voting on those portions of the ballot. By doing so, they delegate the decision to more-informed people.

The _option_ to vote if they are later agitated or informed remains important -- but it doesn't have to exercised every time to serve its purpose of defending their interests.

People moved to vote at the last minute by a speech about their 'obligation', and deciding based on a few fleeting impressions from the last wave of rhetoric, make the process more random and superficial. They are the people most affected by negative ads, or simpleminded sloganeering.

<comment><USER15> The idea of a government based on delegation of authority to the most informed has its roots in antiquity. And although HN may be the first community to actually governed by a philosopher-king, its ability to scale has not been successfully demonstrated.

The problem as I see it, is that believing oneself to be "relatively uninformed" does not make a person relatively uninformed (it may in fact lead them to actively acquire more information - i.e why Severs believes he is below average). Conversely, believing oneself to be well informed does not make one well informed, and may alas lead a person to stop seeking relevant information.

Indeed it would not surprise me if the people most affected by "simpleminded sloganeering" tend to believe they are well informed.

The problem with "people should" in a political context is that it can quickly become "people must" backed with the force of government, and any implementation of: _"Informed voting > not voting > uninformed voting"_ requires disenfranchisement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> If you don't vote, you have no right to complain about the next set of assholes.

Here in the UK, the British National Party (a far-right fringe party) got two seats in the last European Parliament elections simply because turnout had fallen so low for the main parties. A lot of people are rightly ashamed at not bothering to vote. The only people who benefit from apathy are extremists and demagogues who can reliably rally support. A moderate political environment depends upon people motivating themselves to vote for boring candidates.

<comment><USER18> No action removes your right to complain. Many people may have their own legitimate reasons not to vote.

That said, those who don't must understand the implications of their actions (like the example you give).

<comment><USER19> David Foster Wallace said better than I: "If you are bored and disgusted by politics and don't bother to vote, you are in effect voting for the entrenched Establishments of the two major parties, who please rest assured are not dumb, and who are keenly aware that it is in their interests to keep you disgusted and bored and cynical and to give you every possible psychological reason to stay at home doing one-hitters and watching MTV on primary day. By all means stay home if you want, but don't bullshit yourself that you're not voting. In reality, there is no such thing as not voting: you either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and tacitly doubling the value of some Diehard's vote."

<comment><USER20> Eloquent and wrong. Voting for anything other than one of the two entrenched parties is usually a waste of time and gasoline. There is no cabal of evil masterminds responsible for cynicism and apathy - it's an emergent property of the rules of the game.

If you can join forces with like-minded citizens in support an idea that you believe in, as part of a movement that could change national policies for the better, then please do so. If you believe doing so has a reasonable chance of making the world a better place, then maybe you even have a moral obligation to do so. But just voting out of some misplaced sense of civic duty is stupid.

<comment><USER18> One thing I don't like about the moral «obligation» to vote is that to many people, casting a ballot is all the political action they can consider. Politics seems reduced to elect one of the two big parties. It seems that the alternative is, either to vote or to not make any political action.

The truth is that many people are politically active independently of wether they vote or not.

<comment><USER21> _One thing I don't like about the moral «obligation» to vote is that to many people, casting a ballot is all the political action they can consider. Politics seems reduced to elect one of the two big parties. It seems that the alternative is, either to vote or to not make any political action._

While others believe in voting, I believe in entrepreneurship for the sake of eroding politics.

I have deep philosophical problems with governments and politics in general. That's not likely to change.

However, I am not a cynical person. I believe I could change and undermine the influences of governments and introduce voluntary and non-coercive form of organizations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I don't know how laws and culture are in the USA, but in my country (Italy) vote is not an obligation. Vote is a right, and a hard earned one. It is also considered a civil duty. But never an obligation.

The choice not to vote is also an expression of one's idea: that he does not believe in any of the politicians, or in the system as a whole. Lack of votes is also a measure on how much people believe in politicians. Italy has never been so corrupted in the past (transversally, in every party) as it is now, and this is reflected in the fact that the percentage of people who did not vote at the last elections was the highest one.

<comment><USER23> > Italy has never been so corrupted in the past (transversally, in every > party) as it is now

Are you sure? Did you forget the fall of all the "traditional" political parties 15 years ago or so, and the first rise of Berlusconi?

<comment><USER22> I do not forget it. There could be a political debate on how Berlusconi went into politics just to perpetuate the previous system, but this is not the right place.

Looking at the Transparency International chart you can find Italy at the 67th place, under highly corrupted african countries:

[http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/...](http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2010/results)

Looking at the historical data you can see Italy going down the chart, from position 29 in 2001 to 67 today:

[http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/...](http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2001)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I once heard a story. It may be a cliche, it may be an old, tired, worn-out tale, but it marked my thinking.

A village was planning a feast. All of the residents were asked to bring a bottle of wine, each of which would be mixed together in a large vat for everyone to partake of. One of the residents reasoned that a single bottle wouldn't make a difference, and so brought a bottle of water instead. When it came time to distribute from the vat of wine at the feast, it turned out the vat was entirely full of water, as all of the residents had come to the same conclusion.

For nearly every practical purpose in our United States general elections, a single vote does indeed not make a difference. But a thousand votes might make a difference, and if those thousand people were all persuaded that their single vote wouldn't make a difference, and then didn't vote, then the difference would not be made.

<comment><USER25> Find an election for a significant, contested office that gets no votes, and we can worry about this parable.

<comment><USER24> It doesn't have to be an election with no votes. Just an election whose outcome could be changed by the votes of people who believe their votes don't matter. An election with 5500 votes for A and 5000 for B could be turned with 1000 more votes for B.

<comment><USER25> _waves goodbye to the goalposts as they fly off_

Why would those 1000 votes all be for B? They could be for A. They could be evenly split between them. Most likely, they'd be proportionally split similarly to the original vote.

You're looking at partisans' rhetoric used to motivate their supporters and mistaking it for logic.

<comment><USER24> If they are all for A, or split evenly between them, or proportionally split similar to the original vote, then these additional votes would change nothing. If they all (or enough of them) are for B, then they could change the outcome.

Knowing nothing else, there's really no way to say for sure what would happen, but if they don't vote, then they certainly will not change the outcome.

<comment><USER25> And you can always hold out faith that they'll vote the way you want them to.

Which is what you can see in the comments of this thread: hope that if more people voted, things would shift more left-wing, more right-wing, more centrist, etc.

Pure wishful thinking, nothing more.

(And the opposite side of the coin is shown by people bridling at suggestions that _fewer_ people should vote and identifying such arguments as covert attempts to undermine their preferred political team...)

<comment><USER24> I guess I don't understand what you're claiming. In the above example discussion, I was claiming that if an extra 1000 people who wouldn't have voted went ahead and did vote, then, depending on how they voted, either their extra votes would make a difference, or they would not make a difference. There is a possibility either way (even if the possibility of making a difference is smaller).

On those grounds, I do not see voting as a pointless, worthless activity; your vote added to the votes of others might be the deciding factor in who gets elected.

The bigger picture is, does it matter who gets elected? As you bring out in another thread, most of the major candidates "opposing" each other are actually very similar in what they stand for. Voting one in or the other probably won't make a huge difference. I guess if you want to claim that no matter if we vote or not, the government isn't going to be much different, that's probably fair.

To make more of an impact than voting, citizens may need to get involved as candidates and really try to change things, but in order for that to work, people would need to vote for them, which means, people would need to vote, rather than not vote.

So I guess, to be clear, I claim that your vote, along with the votes of others, can effect the outcome of the election. The outcome of the election may or may not effect the outcome of the government, but that's another matter entirely.

I for one am open to hearing suggestions on what we can do to improve the government beyond voting, or running for office (success at which requires people to vote).

<comment><USER25> I'm open to such suggestions, too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> > Remember that you don't vote to make a difference, you vote because it's > your obligation to do so.

Really? Its my obligation to help the rest of the people pretend we live in a democracy?

<comment><USER27> If more people voted, if fewer people like you held an attitude like that, then you wouldn't have to pretend.

<comment> mkr-hn If 100% of eligible people voted, it still wouldn't be a pure democracy. It's not how the system is designed.

Our system is built on the assumption that most people don't have the time or capacity to understand all the issues, so we elect people to do the understanding for us.

<comment><USER27> I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. It seems like you're saying that to be a democracy it must be that everyone has a say/vote in every decision made about every issue. Is that right?

<comment> mkr-hn I'm saying that more people voting won't change the choice of representatives. If people are voting for the same ineffectual or destructive candidates, it makes no difference whether turnout is 300 million or 100 million.

The solution isn't to get more people voting. It's to run better candidates.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I won't be voting. I am a libertarian so my vote doesn't matter anyway. Plus I feel that not voting sends a stronger signal about how I feel about our system of government. If more people don't vote it will be harder for them to pretend they have a mandate to raise taxes, give money to the banks, and start wars. The government is long beyond saving.

If you vote you take some responsibility for the next war, the next bombing, the next threat to Iran, etc. I want no part in putting more blood on my hands.

I realize most of you think it matters but think about this: when does your one vote ever matter? Has your vote ever decided anything? Have you ever been proud of all the actions of who you voted for?

Instead of voting you are better off creating value in society by doing what many of you do already: create something that improves someone's life.

<comment><USER29> If you are a Libertarian, you should find and write-in your candidates, not stay home. If there is no known candidate, you should write in "Libertarian", if there is a space to do so. And if there is no Libertarian on the ballot, you should learn as much as you can about the candidates and vote for the ones that best match your set of values. Odds are that you lean either more towards the liberal social values side or the conservative fiscal values side, so there may be a Democrat, Independent, or Republican that leans similarly here and there that you could vote for.

<comment><USER28> I consider what you're describing to the equivalent of not voting anyway. There isn't a candidate in my state who I could feel good about voting for. I consider not voting to be a louder act of protest than voting for someone I half or quarter like.

<comment><USER30> How can your non-vote be a louder act of protest if it can't be distinguished from an apathetic non-vote?

<comment><USER28> I consider those "apathetic" non-votes to be louder than voting as well. I don't mind being lumped in with those people who just can't be bothered to care. I sympathize with them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Of 16,000 congressional elections over the last 100 years only one was decided by a single vote. So in some sense your vote doesn't matter, in that if you didn't vote the result would likely be the same.

But one way every vote contributes is increasing voter turnout. Although your contribution is small, it always counts, no matter who you vote for. Mid-term elections have been averaging 37% voter turnout. As turnout gets smaller election results can drift _arbitrarily_ far away from what the whole population wants, because only a subset is deciding. Corruption and manipulation become easier. High voter turnout is really really important to making the the election a legitimate process.

I wrote about this recently: <http://www.kmeme.com/2010/10/why-you-should- vote.html>

A thread with other suggestions why voting might be rational: [http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/2z6/why_should_you_vote...](http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/2z6/why_should_you_vote/)

<comment><USER32> > _High voter turnout is really really important to making the the election a > legitimate process._

This is exactly why I am _not_ voting; I'd rather not contribute to the illusion of legitimacy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> To say that most elections aren't decided by a single vote, and thus your vote doesn't matter; is like saying that no one goes bankrupt over a single dollar, so single dollars don't matter.

If you agree that single dollars don't matter, send your extra ones to me please....

<comment><USER34> Anyone who could possibly trot out the "a single vote doesn't matter, so whatevs" argument is either ignorant or hasn't been paying attention to the numerous high-profile extremely close elections in the last several years (2000 presidential election, 2008 Minnesota Senate race).

<comment><USER25> In reality, those are considered remarkable because elections that are so close are extremely _rare_.

<comment><USER34> Many local elections can be very close.

Regardless, if you don't want to vote, that's fine. That just gives my vote more weight.

<comment><USER25> So, the national elections you cited were not honest examples, gotcha.

But yes, that it does give you "more weight". You can vote for Team Red or Team Blue and convince yourself either that the centrists who get elected are awesome and _terribly_ supportive of the things you want - or that the remarkably similar centrists who got elected are crazy extremists who will destroy America.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> _Remember that you don't vote to make a difference, you vote because it's your obligation to do so._

That's crap. Why should I feel obligated to do something that has no affect on anything?

(I'm not saying that's definitively the case, but your statement implies that you should vote even if your vote doesn't matter. Why?)

<comment><USER36> _I'm not saying that's definitively the case_

It is definitely the case. In the rare instance when the vote is decided by one, rest assured a judge, and not the one, will settle the actual result. Voting is an absolutely pointless pyschological approval of two candidates, neither of whom was chosen democratically.

If anyone is actually interested in influencing policy, which is the whole point, get out your checkbook. Or, if you have a lot of time, get involved in the machinery of politics.

<comment><USER37> Local elections are very democratic. It's winner take all. None of this electoral college non-sense. The best opportunity an individual has to influence elections is to vote in the primaries but few people bother to show up. You'll have the choice of a dozen candidates or more -- most of whom have a very legitimate shot at getting the nomination. It's common for primaries to be decided by only a couple hundred votes because so few people show up to vote. For the general election you have less choices but, at the local level, it's still winner takes all democracy. There are always third parties and/or write-ins if you don't want to vote for the two major parties. In many places we have referendums or propositions on the ballot which offer the most direct form of democracy

The argument people make about their votes 'not counting' is like an individual choosing not to join the basketball team because they might not hit the winning shot. Every point counts. I don't understand the extreme egotism that people would opt not to participate unless they get to cast the deciding vote. Talk about un-democratic? Some people want their votes to be more than equal apparently. It goes back to people complaining about the two party system and doing absolutely nothing to help third parties.

<comment><USER25> It's the "extreme egotism" that involves not being interested in giving your team points just because you keep barking at me that I'm "obligated" to do so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> personally I don't vote for 3 reasons:

1\. my vote doesn't matter. I live in a 100% blue state, it'll go Democrat no matter what. So whether I decide to vote democrat or republican or green, my vote really won't matter. + the redestricting is always aimed at propping up small states. Why does California and Delaware both get 2 senators?

2\. the system is broken, there are no good politicians. There is no incentive for them to tell the truth or stick to campaign promises, so they don't.

3\. it's too much of a hassle. If we can have a day off for Columbus day, I don't see why we can't have a day off for something as important as voting. And why does it have to be a day? Make it a 3 day weekend, so everyone gets a chance to vote. And voting should be easier, I don't see why I can't vote online...sure there might be some fraud, but surely it's possible to limit that, using a centralized voting website.

<comment><USER39> > Why does California and Delaware both get 2 senators?

Slightly off topic, but I'll bite: Because democracy is much more about protecting minorities than ensuring the majority is in charge. If Delaware and other small states were only ever represented on the federal level in proportion to their population, only issues that Texas and California cares about would ever be taken up.

<comment><USER38> the problem I have is that it's never a single state getting proportion. They always band together. So California with millions of voters become insignificant, when 10 states with combined total of 500,000 voters band together.

That's why we have more subsidies for corn production than science research.

I'm sorry, but 10 states in the boonies with no people, should not be able to dictate policy to California. Crap like that is exactly why California ends up subsidizing half the red states, who then turn around and vilify it every chance they get.

<comment><USER40> Well, as a resident of one of the red states that has our budget under control (ND - surplus), I don't think California's problems are of our doing. Unions in California shouldn't dictate policy to other states (and it looks like the other states are going to foot CA's bill).

If we didn't have the current system, only about 20 cities would be campaigned in for the Presidency. Also, given the bill a NY Rep tried to pass a couple of years ago, we wouldn't be growing any crops in this country (eco bill - massive urban support). The House is where population matters and is the origin of every budget. The House is where the population is considered and the Senate is for state considerations.

<comment><USER38> Funny you should say that since North Dakota is the second biggest leech in this country.

You guys get $2.03 for every dollar you send. (2nd highest in the nation after DC)

California could balance it's budgets too, if it got double what it paid in federal taxes every year.

<comment><USER40> Your source? If you count defense spending (CA didn't want the ICBM silos), 2 air force bases, and interstate highway, yeah. We are on the border, have a low population, and are a truck route (I94 and Hwy2). Having 600,000 people will skew a lot of stats. Counting the reservations in that number might be a little deceptive. Also, do we count the ongoing flooding? If the gov would clear an outlet or just let us move a couple of towns, we could probably cut the bill pretty nicely.

<comment><USER41> <http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/22685.html>

shows it to not be #2 but close to the top.

And I think the point is still valid that CA could balance their budget if we had that nice ratio.

<comment><USER40> That source doesn't have figures after 2005 and doesn't break it down by area. The skew is the population figure versus infrastructure and defense. I would imagine that the continued flooding will change the figure also.

California needs to get ahold of its pensions, no one can fix that but themselves.

<comment><USER41> I agree about the pensions. 100%. My point was about the comparison between ND and CA.

<comment><USER40> My point is the comparison based on this one stat is pretty invalid due to population differences and basic moneys allocated to infrastructure and military by the federal government (I also bet they count the 4 reservations in the ND number which adds to the skew).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Starship Troopers: "No. Something given has no basis in value. When you vote, you are exercising political authority, you're using force. And force my friends is violence. The supreme authority from which all other authorities are derived."

Voting is so badass.

<comment><USER25> What struck me as funny in that line is that it's essentially a re-purposed bit of anarchist rhetoric...

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> If you vote for a losing candidate, then you can complain that your voice has not been heard.

If you vote for a winning candidate, then you can complain when they break their promises.

If you don't vote, you have nothing to complain about but your own laziness.

<comment><USER44> What if you disagree with the system of giving everyone a vote being a valid way to decide things?

<comment><USER45> Go and build your own country. With blackjack! And hookers!

<comment><USER29> Sounds like Nevada.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> No.

There are no close races where I care about the outcome in my district. There are no initiatives I care to support or oppose.

I have fairly equal and tremendous disgust for both of the majority parties. On the issues I care about, I've bashed my head against reality enough to learn that the parties are indistinguishable in practice. I'm not going to trot down to the polls to give anyone a little thrill of excitement that they've gotten another vote for their preferred team.

Nor am I going to throw one of a handful of symbolic votes for a minority- party candidate for any office. The mainstream takes no notice of or interest in "third party" results, and any other interpretation of the supposed value of a symbolic vote is essentially an argument for _magic_.

I am not superstitious.

As for mandatory voting: _Fuck you_. I am not your mule; carry your own damn partisan water.

</comment><comment><USER46> I'm not going to vote. It's not rational. It's a lot of effort and my vote is proportionately very small and therefore can have no effect.

EDIT: Whoever downvoted this, YOU are the reason that HN is going to pot. You may not _like_ that I am not voting, but instead why don't you instead respond telling me why I'm wrong?

<comment><USER47> Rational Choice Theory says you are right, but it can't explain why people vote nonetheless, even though the perceived cost is so high for the small actual gain.

Some people seem to get value out of voting itself, regardless of the outcome, which is bad news for a rational choice theory only looking at the value of the outcomes and not the inherent value of the choice itself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Is there anything particularly worth voting for in this election?

I tend to not bother voting for issues that don't concern me. And frankly, the vast majority of issues that people get all excited about don't bother me one way or another.

I'm happy to pay a little more or a little less tax on various things, see schools built in one area and prisons not built in another. Go nuts with it all, and if it really effects your happiness I'm fine with letting you make little changes to the world around me.

Until you come up with something I find important, I'd prefer not to concern myself with it.

<comment><USER49> So you claim that there is nothing of interest in the topics that are voted on. How do you know that if you don't concern yourself with them?

You can either be ignorant or informed. Not both at the same time. Claiming that everything is boring by way of being ignorant of everything is dishonest.

I am not saying that current affairs are interesting, but I would prefer people to be honestly ignorant to simply being arrogant.

<comment><USER48> How about this: Of the topics being voted on that people have gone out of their way to promote, or that the media have covered, none of them struck my curiosity to the point where I feel compelled to dig further into them.

I asked here, on the off chance that somebody has one that they think the HN audience might care about.

<comment><USER50> Congress votes on the budget, and all new laws or modifications to existing laws. You don't care if any of that gets effed up in ways you don't agree with?

<comment><USER25> Plenty.

The delusion that anyone is actually voting between "person who won't eff things up" and "person who will eff things up" is not useful, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> For those of you looking to do some last minute research before voting today, my web app provides candidate information along with information on the positions each candidate supports or opposes: <http://elect.io>

<comment><USER52> Cool and easy to use. We actually worked on something similar where we ask your position on causes and show the grades according to policies: <http://www.votereports.org>

<comment><USER51> I saw your site mentioned on HN a few weeks ago and checked it out then.. I think it's great.. the design and user experience is especially well done!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Don't vote, it only encourages them.

<comment><USER52> Doesn't sound smart to me.

<comment><USER25> Let's get meta and go by the votes...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Uneducated voters who vote just because people tell them to piss me off more than people who just plain don't vote.

Politicians in our country are worse than salesmen. That's why we have such little voter turnout, not because people don't feel obligated.

</comment><comment><USER55> In a perfect system, I would like to see voting require a license. People require a driver's license because uneducated drivers can harm others. Uneducated voters can cause similar harm to others.

Taken to the extreme, you could have a direct democracy where individuals vote directly for proposed bills, bypassing the (usually vested) middleman. Voters would have to pass some competency exam on the subject of the bill before being allowed to cast a vote. In other words, you can't vote on internet regulation if you don't know how to access a web page.

The reason there will never be a license to vote is because you transfer an immense about of power to those who create the exams. Influence the exams and you decide the election. In addition, by putting up barriers towards voting, you decrease overall participation in the election, possibly alienating the general population.

Perhaps a better, more realistic option is to move towards direct democracy while simultaneously improving as much as possible education.

<comment><USER56> we had this system in the past; it was incredibly racist.

read some history, chap.

<comment><USER8> rrc didn't deserve your condescending reply. Many policies were once implemented in a racist way. That isn't an argument against implementing them in a non-racist way. If you want to argue that the next implementation of voter tests will also be racist, you have not made the case.

<comment><USER56> I'm sorry you consider my reply to be condescending, as that is not my intention. I however find it discouraging when people refuse to learn from history's lessons.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> In this case, I have no dogs in the race. I'm registered in a different county from where I now live and it is too late to register in this one. I am not interested in any of the local issues in the other county and I am uninterested in any of the statewide candidates. For me, in this circumstance, a vote would be like a ritual selection of the best sounding name or the most obscure ballot or something. That is not the sort of voting that is good for anyone.

When I used to work on campaigns for a third party, the most annoying thing was the fact that there is a lot of inertia from people who have no idea who any of the candidates are ritually voting a party line. In NY, where I lived, there was even a special lever that marked the whole party row, to enable reduced thinking.

Another comment here says that politicians love an apathetic population. More correctly, they like apathetic populations that vote consistently.

</comment><comment><USER58> I moved back to my native USA from Australia about a year ago, after living there for 6 years. I also spent two years in the UK in the 90s. Some contrasts were interesting.

Majority rules in Australia and the UK. In the parlimentary system, the potential for gridlock is far less (Yes, the Aussie Senate does slow some things down.) However, the major candidates _do_ have to say some specific things in order to get elected--because they then go and pass them into law. Look at what the UK is doing to their budget. Couldn't happen here. In the US, gridlock is so endemic elections are much more about personality and/or voter disgust.

Mandatory voting in Australia. A good thing I think. A lot of American politics seems to be about convincing you to stay home because your candidate is a louse. In the USA, you could have Ghandi running against Mandela and there would still be mudslinging and scandal mongering.

</comment><comment><USER59> I just don't think telling everyone to vote does any service to our/a country. Tell people to learn about the issues. Tell people to research the candidates. Then they will vote, and it won't be for the person on the sign they saw while driving to the polling place.

</comment><comment><USER60> I decided not to post this to HN as a topic, even though it is non-partisan and I support the message. But since there is already this "vote" thread, I offer your this perspective and perhaps motivation:

[2008] Craig Ferguson: If you don't vote, you're a moron

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdRVQ4xwwmQ#t=06m25s>

The above link "cuts to the chase"; however, the entire monologue is worth watching (more commentary on the campaigning, including its hypocrisy).

</comment><comment><USER61> Here in Denmark the participation of the electorate in general elections normally lies above 85%.

You receive your voting voucher thing by mail 2-3 weeks before the election.

</comment><comment><USER62> Yes on 19 in Cali!!

<comment><USER25> This, I would vote for.

I'm not in CA, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> If the US truly believes that voting is important, why don't they make election day a national holiday so the voters don't have to worry about possibly conflicting work schedules keeping them from the polls? It's only 1 day, and it happens once every 2 years. Employers can't spare that?

</comment><comment><USER64> > _...no matter what your party or preferences._

I think this should be something _all_ people hold true, no matter how corrupt our politicians have or will become.

</comment><comment><USER65> I am not old enough to vote yet, but I did spend 15 hours today as an election judge. While I felt that there was a decent turnout for our precinct, I did not see as many young people as I expected. There were a lot of elderly people that showed up, including some that had so much trouble completing the ballot that they may have been better off with an absentee ballot. I saw a few first- time/young voters, but I just don't think many of them feel this election is important because it is not a presidential election.

Get out there and vote next time, kids.

</comment><comment><USER66> Google has a really good tool out right now to find your polling place:

<http://maps.google.com/vote>

</comment><comment><USER67> it's an obligation and it's a right, isn't it?

"Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote." - George Nathan

<comment><USER68> Far, far more bad officials were elected by good citizens who _did_ vote.

<comment><USER25> I'm pretty sure _all_ of them were, in fact...

<comment><USER68> I'm sure a lot of bad politicians were elected by stupid or evil voters (i.e. bad citizens).

<comment><USER25> Prove it.

Wait, you can't - you can't even identify the "stupid" or "evil" voters except by circularly defining them as "people who voted for bad politicians". For that matter, you can't identify the "good" ones except for "the ones who voted for good politicians".

<comment><USER68> I'm not making a circular definition at all. I'm just saying that bad politicians can be elected by good people (who are naive or deceived), but they can also be elected by bad people (who agree with the bad politician's bad aims, for instance).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I love being from a "contended" state. My proud state of Virginia, home sweet home!

<comment><USER25> What's so great about that, anyway?

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> Here in California you get a free Starbucks coffee for voting.

</comment><comment><USER70> [insert witty comment about down-voting at the polls here.]

</comment><comment><USER71> Related thread: Ask HN: Election Day tomorrow, what do geeks think of the Tea Party?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1856675></comment>


Diagram as Code for prototyping cloud system architectures - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mingrammer/diagrams <comment><USER2> The entire contemporary devops process is awfully convoluted. In fact, I've heard DevOps people call themselves "yaml engineers". Often in your docker compose there is some stupid error, there are 3 versions of Docker compose files, there are 7 ways to do something, Docker CLI manual can be printed in 1000 pages and we've created extremely bloated (despite of caching whatever) CI/CD. For what? Dependencies? Let's download 4.5 GB of images because my app needs to be reproduceable.

I tried reading about Kubernetes. Holyshit what a monster we've created. I am sure there is going to be an orchestrator abstraction for multiple Kubernetes clusters. And then we have environment variables, secrets, access keys, a bazillion different parameters that need to trickle down from Gitlab CI settings all the way to the app through many layers.

Good lord. All engineers should be ashamed of this mess. We've forgotten how to build simple, beautiful, lean and parsimonious software. Instead of writing logic, I am configurating things all day.

Let there be a day where there is some deep compiler problem and this entire house of cards comes crashing down because your DevOps team ain't gonna know what happened down in lower abstraction layers. But, let's shit on the F-35 program everytime there is a Lockheed article on HN. Because surely, software engineers are the smart bunch ya. I know, I am unreasonably obtuse here, but jeez, no one complains about today's deployment process,... its apparently accepted without a question.

<comment><USER3> Multi-zone reproducible HA environments are complex. Who'da thunk it?

<comment><USER4> Multi-zone?

<comment><USER3> Geographically disparate datacenters

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I started doing diagrams from code and don't want to go back to dragging things with a mouse again. VSCode plantuml gives live feedback. I started using this for c4 diagrams [https://github.com/RicardoNiepel/C4-PlantUML](https://github.com/RicardoNiepel/C4-PlantUML)

</comment><comment><USER6> That's really cool to have the charts generated as code. Very concise way to specify things, and with all the power of graphviz behind the scenes.

Another tool in that space is [https://cloudcraft.co/](https://cloudcraft.co/) although only for AWS, and you have to manually do the diagram layout.

</comment><comment><USER7> I've used asciidoctor with it's diagram plugin ([https://asciidoctor.org/docs/asciidoctor- diagram/](https://asciidoctor.org/docs/asciidoctor-diagram/)) internally on memos/draft documentation, which that gives us an ability to actually just check in the asciidoc with diagram source into git. Then we use merge requests for a real review process. Then, I just usually just export to pdf or word for broader sharing among the masses. (Amazing how this usually gets far more attention than Confluence, etc)

Main benefit is that most of these kinds of CLI diagram tools have much longer lives than any GUI-based diagram software I've used.

But even just having a separate "diagram source" file where you just check in an image is still nice. Then you don't have to bother with wondering who has access to the tools, etc.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is a great idea. I'm not sure about the other major cloud providers, but AWS has the AWS CDK which allows you to use TypeScript, Python, Java, and .NET to create your cloud infrastructure via code. The ability to generate cloud diagrams from AWS CDK code would definitely would be awesome. Hopefully, your work gains transaction, then I can envision other devs writing adapter code for your project.

<comment><USER9> I have a script that we call when generating cloudformation templates to generate a dot graph

Cfn2dot source [https://github.com/tobiipro/support- firecloud/blob/master/bi...](https://github.com/tobiipro/support- firecloud/blob/master/bin/aws-cfn2dot)

Used like this [https://github.com/tobiipro/support- firecloud/blob/master/re...](https://github.com/tobiipro/support- firecloud/blob/master/repo/cfn/inc.mk)

One problem is that you need meta-data to give weights to different resources so that you highlight a lambda resource and not there associated cloudwatch loggroup resource, and its iam role, and iam policy, and its permission resource, etc

The other problem is the graph itself shows how the cloudformation resources depend on one another, not how your data/execution pipeline flows.

So you need to do it manually or maybe try to add lots of meta-data to the types of resources.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wish it was an extension to plantuml instead.

</comment><comment><USER11> Finally related topic! I've been meaning to ask, is there any tool (or a suite of tools) that can be used to visualize network along with real-time health status of each nodes? Imagine you have a web server, API server and DB server, lined up left to right, each connected with a line. Each of them has green dot, and when they're down, the dot changes color to red.

The diagram can be manually laid out, but the "health indicator" must be updated automatically.

<comment><USER12> We have customers doing this with yFiles. But that's a generic graph drawing and layout library, so getting from your network topology to a graph structure and getting health events is not something the library helps with. You'd get automatic layout, however, and colored dots are on the trivial side for a visualization.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> DOT notation is simple, and works great for generating diagrams.

</comment><comment><USER14> Another one if you like dot-esque notation and pretty output out the gate is [https://mermaid-js.github.io/mermaid/#/](https://mermaid- js.github.io/mermaid/#/).

</comment><comment><USER15> o man I was just looking for a way to not pay for LucidChart. I also refuse to use PowerPoint

<comment><USER16> draw.io is a solid option as well

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> "as code" because it's version controlled? Is it also executable in any sense?

<comment><AUTHOR> No, this just generates diagrams from code. I think it is a pretty neat idea for those who don't like drawo.io or Visio style charts.

<comment><USER18> The code is really just a pythonized version of the dot format. The real innovation is the fancy-looking icons. When using graphviz directly we have to futz around with images in the filesystem alongside the dot file, in order to avoid simple boxes.

<comment><USER19> > The code is really just a pythonized version of the dot format.

Not exactly. By utilizing Python as a base language you gain access to control structures as `for` loops, `if`-s and functions. It can make your diagram script much more powerful and/or more complicated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's interesting that PlantUML wasn't mentioned... there are cloud icons for it as well

<comment><USER12> The icons are Amazon's own ones. You can use them with any tool.</comment></comment>


What is the correct user experience for DNSSEC in a web browser? - <AUTHOR> http://www.internetsociety.org/deploy360/blog/2012/01/what-is-the-correct-user-experience-for-dnssec-in-a-web-browser/

<comment><USER2> It strikes me that even the problems that DNSSEC and SSL certificates are supposed to solve haven't yet been defined clearly.

From how I understand the technologies (and correct me if I'm wrong), DNSSEC basically says "the server you are talking to is run by the legitimate owner of the domain, as far as the DNS itself is concerned". SSL certificates say "one organization out of a more or less random collection of hundreds of organizations says that the server you are talking to is run by the legitimate owner of the domain".

In reality, the question that interests me most, most of the time is this: Is the server that I am talking to still being controlled by the same person or organization who controlled it when I talked to it the last time?

If the answer is yes, I will be happy to continue talking to it. If the answer is no, I have a problem that simply cannot be solved easily and automatically.

I feel that this is much closer to how we intuitively understand trust. When we meet somebody the first time, we are sceptical and not trusting too much, though obviously this is influenced by a lot of cultural heuristics. Over time, we simply know how much we trust the people we know, and our biological face recognition is usually good enough that we cannot be tricked. The main task for the browser should be to provide a similar assurance that we cannot be tricked when it comes to servers.

There is the separate problem of establishing trust the first time I visit a server. But how I want to deal with this situation depends entirely on the kind of trust I'm dealing with.

Am I looking at an online store where I might leave some money? In that case, I'd really like some stamp of approval from an independent customer protection association - what security does a random CA provide, given how many root CAs are typically installed by default?

Am I looking at my new bank's online banking interface for the first time? In that case, couldn't the bank just give me a throwaway USB key which contains a fingerprint that I can use to establish trust?

Am I looking at the site of someone I met in real life? Couldn't we exchange fingerprints similar to GPG key signing?

Am I looking at some random guy's blog or forum? In that case, what trust do I need to establish in the first place? The only thing I would be looking for is what I mentioned above: that when I visit the site the next time, I can be assured that I am still talking to the same organization, so that passwords cannot be stolen.

None of this is easily done today, but it should be possible to come up with a good UI for it. Of course, that's me. How to explain that to a person who would rather not think about these issues at all is another question. Perhaps that's one of those cases where, like with driving, the real solution is to fix the education system.

<comment><USER3> You mean, basically, the SSH way of doing things.

No one bothers signing the public key of the SSH server you're trying to connect to by a CA; your client just says "this is the first time you're connecting to xxxx, do you accept?" but the next time you try to connect and you get a mismatch, all kinds of warnings and hell break loose if the key doesn't match the one in the cache.

Makes sense to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> These guys did a plugin for IE and a few mobile apps to validate DNSSEC...

<http://cs.mty.itesm.mx/dnssecmx/></comment>


Imgp: Superfast multi-core batch image resizer and rotator. Go crunch 'em - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/jarun/imgp <comment><AUTHOR> Features

\- resize by percentage or resolution

\- rotate clockwise by specified angle

\- adaptive resize considering orientation

\- brute force to a resolution

\- optimize images to save more space

\- convert PNG to JPEG

\- erase exif metadata

\- force smaller to larger resize

\- process directories recursively

\- overwrite source image option

\- completion scripts for bash, fish, zsh

\- minimal dependencies

Demo: [https://asciinema.org/a/e5qa0mipgg23v70hdn6i99b8q](https://asciinema.org/a/e5qa0mipgg23v70hdn6i99b8q)</comment>


Practical prevention of web shenanigans with Content Security Policy - <AUTHOR> https://certsimple.com/blog/csp-shenanigans

<comment><AUTHOR> Author here. If you haven't had the time to read the article, it isn't a CSP howto. Rather it's about the steps taken to implement CSP in enforcing mode on a production app:

\- dealing with third party libraries

\- replacing common unsafe techniques with better ones

\- handling violation messages moe efficiently.

There's also a small library with an implementation of policies for a bunch of common third part JS libraries, which should save a bunch of research.

I hope you find it useful.

</comment><comment><USER2> Good read, didn't expect CSP to be that necessary at first :D</comment>


SoftBank's Vision Fund Is a Graveyard of Broken Tech Startups - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bjwkz5/softbanks-vision-fund-is-a-graveyard-of-broken-tech-startups <comment><USER2> The linked article about OYO's financials specifically show how they've been reducing losses YoY while increasing growing top line revenue. If anything, OYO rooms is the perfect example of the VF working.</comment>


How to covertly toss an apartment, Stasi style - <AUTHOR> https://boingboing.net/2017/07/01/witchhunting-in-the-gdr.html <comment><AUTHOR> Interesting to see how in 1984 you could get arrested based off of a few poems and an appointment - stuff that today is readily available in a compromised Google/Exchange account...

Really brings home Snowden's comment about "Turn-key tyranny".</comment>


How Software Developers Use Twitter - <AUTHOR> http://to.leif.me/how-software-developers-use-twitter

<comment><USER2> Congratulations on the completed study, Leif!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Really nice work! Helps me a lot in my research.

</comment><comment><USER4> Cool! Been waiting for this report to come out.

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome, thanks for your interest! :)</comment></comment>


Show HN: My weekend project - Common API for Javascript Engines - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/udp/CAJE

<comment><USER2> I've tried to do this to some extent to prevent native code hooked up to the embedded engine from being tied to one implementation, but it doesn't work very well in practice. Speaking for Spidermonkey, there are many, many functions which exist in jsapi.h which will not translate well to some common wrapper but will be very common in embedded use when performance is a concern. There are many flavors of strings and functions to create them / manipulate them because they all have slightly different semantics. Why copy a string when you can pass ownership of it to the engine? Are you supplying UTF-16 or ASCII null-terminated strings? GC issues are another area where engine- specific APIs are needed. You might need to add GC tracing into your class, or manually root values that are stored in the heap, or a number of other things. This could be useful for some very simple situations (such as just creating a shell that can execute JS in either environment with a command line switch).

For example, in the source you use JS_AddValueRoot/JS_RemoveValueRoot, which will bog down performance if the app purposely wants to keep values on the stack to avoid having to call into the engine to manage roots. CAJE::MozValueRef::AsString() always allocates memory and potentially flattens the string and copies it every time the method is called. You might want to simply peek at the bytes without allocating a copy. All of these things will add up over time and you'd basically wind up with disjoint features again and a large subset of what is already in jsapi.h.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm, I understand where you're coming from, but I'd argue that many applications embedding Javascript engines - particularly libraries trying to provide JS bindings - won't need anything more complicated than simple script/function/value manipulation (or at least, nothing that can't be wrapped into something high-level and engine agnostic).

It's true that some of the current APIs are implemented in a clunky way, but I'm quite confident there are better ways to do things while still maintaining support for both engines.

<comment><USER2> For simple things it might work, but if a library wrapper was written using your wrapper instead of the native API then there is a good chance it will not be as performance optimized if it was simply using the engine API. That could mean that the work put into that binding would have to be forked / duplicated to create a lower-level binding that could take advantages of some of the engine APIs you don't wrap in the common interface.

<comment><AUTHOR> Understood, but I'm not ready to give up on this just yet :-)

I know you think this is a futile effort, but I'd welcome any improvements from someone who knows more about the engine internals than I do. I'm currently working out what I can do instead of rooting every ValueRef.

<comment><USER2> For the rooting, you can't know if someone is storing you on the stack unless you get hack-y[1]. So you'd have to assume the opposite, that the caller is storing you on the stack and give them something like .root() to call if they are not.

[1] In the end, the way stack-scanning GC works is that it has OS-specific code (see jsnativestack.cpp[2] in SM) to get the highest stack address (stack grows down in all the archs you care about). Then since you know someone is calling into your constructor, you can declare a variable on the stack and get its address to find out the current stack pointer. If 'this' is between the current stack pointer and the stack base, you are on the stack and do not need to root yourself.[3]

[2] [http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla- central/file/a1b89b4913ca/js/s...](http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla- central/file/a1b89b4913ca/js/src/jsnativestack.cpp)

[3] I coded an example up to show you (it uses an OSX-specific pthread API to get the stack base -- see the SM code for other platforms) <http://pastebin.com/dVDGWJP5>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Can't help but think:

<http://xkcd.com/927/>

<comment><AUTHOR> True, but this is more of a convenience wrapper than a standard.

It can happily wrap existing contexts, so it means that eg. one set of function bindings can be used with both V8 and TraceMonkey (even _without_ the embedding application using the CAJE API, only the bindings).

<comment><USER3> Reminds me of this:

<http://www.adrianboeing.com/pal/>

Great in theory, but not worth the effort, so very low rate of adoption.</comment></comment></comment>


Fun with nuclear game theory - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2009/09/fun_with_nuclear_game_theory.cfm

<comment><USER2> Russian nuclear brinkmanship logic: If you knew we could do it, then you wouldn't cause it to happen. But you don't know we can because if you knew it then you could stop us from doing it. But we know we can, so we won't cause you to cause us to do it, because that would be bad.</comment>


Pineapple Fund: Donating $86M of Bitcoins to Charity - <AUTHOR> https://pineapplefund.org/ <comment><USER3> Watsi cofounder here. We're extremely grateful for this support. It's going to enable us to help a lot of patients access healthcare. I also think it's great for the crypto community as a whole. Thank you, Pineapple!

<comment><USER4> Do you immediately convert to USD (or whatever currency) and spend, or do you hold as an investment?

<comment><USER5> Holding for a charitable organization would not be an investment, but speculation, and would be irresponsible, in my humble opinion (because you're gambling with donations). The people who choose to donate should get full value from their donation. So, until one can buy goods with bitcoin and pay omes employees with it, holding it when you have an obligation to buy something with it amounts to speculation.

<comment><USER6> You can do all of these things already. In Europe at least. I have a TenX debit card that I can use everywhere VISA is accepted! Bought iphone and car with it

<comment><USER7> That's not spending BTC on something, that's selling BTC then buying things in your local currency.

Until prices are regularly set (and stable) in BTC, holding 80+M in BTC is a huge risk.

<comment><USER6> But I don't have to go through coinbase or whatever in order to buy it. I can hold Bitcoin, and if I feel like I want to buy something I can do so.

If I order something with my CC in the US, prices are also denoted in dollars. But it withdraws from my Euro account with respect to a specific conversion rate.

<comment><USER7> You're holding BTC, then selling to get dollars and buying in dollars, effectively.

> If I order something with my CC in the US, prices are also denoted in > dollars. But it withdraws from my Euro account with respect to a specific > conversion rate.

Yes, and here you're holding Euros and selling them to buy dollars to buy items.

Similarly, if you were mostly doing business in the US, picking a different fiat currency to hold your money in would be a risk and that risk would increase the more volatile the exchange rate is.

The key point here is that until the prices you're paying are stable values in BTC, there's significant risk in holding a currency different to what your contracts are in. If I have $10,000 dollars and have a contract that requires me to pay out $5,000 dollars next year I know I have enough. If I have 0.5 BTC and the same contract then I do not know if I have enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> To the person running this, if you really want to remain anonymous, be careful not to write too much. You can be outed by textual stylometrics.

<comment><USER9> If someone determines my identity through textual stylometics, finds me, manages to get me to reveal how to get my bitcoin, and then kills me I won't even be mad. Just impressed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think this is one of the greatest example of effective altruism, the world has seen to date. As a student of this subject, I would like to suggest a minor improvement in this project, an image of pineapple for the favicon.

[http://www.favicon.cc/?action=search&keywords=pineapple](http://www.favicon.cc/?action=search&keywords=pineapple)

<comment><USER11> Who is going to be the first to submit the Pull Request? :)

[https://github.com/PineappleFund/pineapplefund.github.io](https://github.com/PineappleFund/pineapplefund.github.io)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> People spend their entire lives focused on wealth accumulation.

Bitcoin has endowed many people with financial means in a way completely orthogonal to their day-to-day work. Say what you will about bubbles, but this "fund manager's" perspective is healthy check on reality.

<comment><USER13> While true, as someone with a number of friends just now "getting into" bitcoin, I find the zero sum aspect of it troubling. Assuming a crash/correction is coming, most of the wealth that accrued to the early adopters will be at the expense of these later, less-informed "investors" who bought in thinking it was a no fail quick buck.

<comment><USER14> That's how markets work. Early adopters take risks that pay off when late- comers try to bet on a proven winner.

<comment><USER15> no, it is not how normal markets work. a stock, bond, real estate "generates income". that's why it has value. bitcoin does not.

<comment><USER16> A) Bitoin is not a stock, it's a currency. It'ss value lies in its utility.

B) There are (a lot of) stocks that do not pay dividends and never will. There are a lot of stocks that were issued by companies that never made a profit. Both of those categories are traded with a value above zero, how do you explain that?

<comment><USER17> Bitcoin has absolutely no utility as a currency. Look at the current mempool [0] to see why.

People then switch to arguing that it's a great store of value. Given its volatility this makes no sense.

[0]: [https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#24h](https://jochen- hoenicke.de/queue/#24h)

<comment><USER16> To clarify: Bitcoin is deeply flawed, and I agree with you that _Bitcoin_ is probably worth less than many people speculate it is worth (but not zero).

 _Cryptocurrencies_ in general have a lot of utility and solve real problems.

<comment><USER18> And yet they introduce a lot of new problems too - problems that have been solved by traditional currencies a while ago. Problems like exchange security and protection to citizens. If my bank goes bankrupt for whatever reason, the government has an insurance for up to 100K for me. When mtgox went down, everyone lost their money.

<comment><USER19> I'm not sure I agree here. Those are definitely real issues that you've highlighted, but they're not because of crypto currency.

There's no reason that a crypto-exchange cannot be as secure as a bank (or more), and that governments cannot insure crypto deposits up to some value. Those are purely problems for regulators/governments, which have been relatively slow to adapt legislation.

The problems you highlight are real, and can be good reasons to favour traditional currencies, but they're also easy problems to solve - the thinking has already been done once for traditional currencies and the solutions for crypto are mostly identical.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Apparently the Pineapple Fund has also donated $50.000 to the OpenBSD Foundation: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/7jj0oa/im_donating...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/7jj0oa/im_donating_5057_btc_to_charitable_causes/dr6q6tj/?context=3)

<comment><USER18> I thought the Pineapple Fund donated bitcoin, not dollars?

Same criticism to the headline of this thing - it's an X amount of bitcoin, not a dollar amount which will be outdated within the hour.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> It's hard to sell large amounts of bitcoin. Most banks, when they see an incoming wire transfer for $10M marked "bitcoin" will run a mile and close down your account.

Hopefully by 'donating' it to these charities, who will probably choose to sell slowly over time or hold it, that alleviates the problem.

<comment><USER22> HSBC literally told drug cartels how to alter forms in order to bypass security scans done to detect money laundering.

It's safe to assume that not all banks are as altruistic as one would hope.

<comment><USER23> [https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jul/11/hsbc-us- mon...](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jul/11/hsbc-us-money- laundering-george-osborne-report)

[https://financialservices.house.gov/uploadedfiles/07072016_o...](https://financialservices.house.gov/uploadedfiles/07072016_oi_tbtj_sr.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Dear Rich Pineapple:

Congrats on your huge BTC surplus!

To make the biggest difference, consider looking into _Effective Altruism_ [1] (an idea, not a charity) if you haven't already. Their motto is "using reason and evidence to do the most good".

Perhaps do away with the charity proposal form, and instead choose one or several of the most effective charities as ranked by GiveWell.org[2] (who do rigorous effectiveness analysis). OpenPhilanthropy[3] is a charity that takes the EA perspective.

Unfortunately, seemingly worthy charities are often _orders of magnitude_ less effective than the few most effective causes. Charity evaluators like GiveWell help us find the gems that can leverage our money many times more effectively.

For more info about Effective Altruism, listen to Tim Ferriss[4] and Sam Harris[5] interview the co-founder of Effective Altruism, check out this NYT piece[6], or read Doing Good Better[7].

[1] [https://www.effectivealtruism.org/](https://www.effectivealtruism.org/)

[2] [https://www.givewell.org/](https://www.givewell.org/)

[3] [https://www.openphilanthropy.org/](https://www.openphilanthropy.org/)

[4] [http://tim.blog/2015/11/22/will- macaskill/](http://tim.blog/2015/11/22/will-macaskill/)

[5] [https://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/being-good-and- doing-...](https://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/being-good-and-doing-good)

[6] [https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/upshot/effective- altruism...](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/upshot/effective-altruism- where-charity-and-rationality-meet.html?_r=0)

[7] [https://www.amazon.com/Doing-Good-Better-Effective- Altruism/...](https://www.amazon.com/Doing-Good-Better-Effective- Altruism/dp/1592409660/)

<comment><USER25> I think he needs charities that are willing to take BTC.

<comment><USER26> Bitpay will act as a middleman for charities.

<comment><USER25> I suspect you're handing over a lot of vig to Bitpay these days given the volatility in BTC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> An individual whose BTC holdings (that they are willing to give away) are worth almost 100 million. Mind blown...

<comment><USER28> Back in early 2011 when I started looking at Bitcoin, they were worth 0.70 each. I talked to people who had 100,000 BTC that they'd mined in the early days on their CPU. For kicks. Some of them are still holding it.

<comment><USER29> Wait, you're trying to tell me you knew people who were paper (ledger?) billionaires and were willing to disclose that? Nuts

<comment><USER28> They were not billionaires when the price was 0.70

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Congrats on your fortune. This is a very honorable thing to do.

But my real question is: How on earth did you manage to resist selling your holdings for such a long time after you crossed the $1MM mark? That's some superhuman level of self control.

<comment><USER31> It's pretty much in the (sub)title of the page: "Because once you have enough money, money doesn't matter."

<comment><USER30> Yes but you can only really "have enough" once you've cashed out into a medium that has a negligible risk of being worth nothing. It still takes major cojones to leave that much in BTC for so long, thus my kudos

<comment><USER31> You can cash out half when it's enough and let the other half grow thousand times or go to 0 without caring.

I have no idea if that happened here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> What are the tax implications for something like this? I assume some or all of the donation itself could be a write off, but isn't he subject to income tax on the initial gains?

</comment><comment><USER33> At least one important thing will happen as a result of this person's effort. Probably many great things no one expected.

The world needs a lot more people like this. The example being set here should be emulated by many others.

</comment><comment><USER34> I hope that the charity looks to sell or hedge some of this....

<comment><USER35> Well, now that we have a futures market...

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> The brilliance of this is not just that he's donating to charity which is great of course but that he managed to hold for so long.

</comment><comment><USER37> hello, I have a problem few months ago I had an accident because of drivers of trucks, and I had surgery on the spine, but the doctors say we need to do the surgery but I have no money to pay for operations, 75000 $ [https://goo.gl/g7bj5U](https://goo.gl/g7bj5U) and can not decide -- [https://prnt.sc/hn57gv-](https://prnt.sc/hn57gv-), I got into an accident and after operations could not walk, and I asked the doctors to have an operation again on a spine that I would go as before, but the doctors require 75,000 dollars that is 5 btc ,this my video and photos before the crashes [https://youtu.be/ZtWKigANVxs](https://youtu.be/ZtWKigANVxs) \-- [https://prnt.sc/hn5g6w--](https://prnt.sc/hn5g6w--) [https://prnt.sc/hn5ge0-- https://prnt.sc/hn5hfe](https://prnt.sc/hn5ge0--https://prnt.sc/hn5hfe) ,,, I have no hope left but found you and now I have the last hope or God sent you to Christmas, sorry if you do not understand me, I used the translator google, I muslim in Kazakhstan live, help if can, and if you do not want to help at least answer me to me luysta, I'm waiting for your answer, thank you good people and good luck in your life and your children, thank you bitcoin address 18Fgt1N2oePgtBaD5s7B8mjXUkCpyshjRZ

</comment><comment><USER38> I love that its anonymous and simple and the donations are transparent. Does anyone by chance know if there are restrictions on charities receiving anonymous bitcoin donations?

</comment><comment><USER39> Can someone explain this to me? Where did this BTC come from? There was a single deposit on 12/8 of like 5k BTC. Since then there have been withdrawls from that address.

[https://bitinfocharts.com/bitcoin/address/3P3QsMVK89JBNqZQv5...](https://bitinfocharts.com/bitcoin/address/3P3QsMVK89JBNqZQv5zMAKG8FK3kJM4rjt)

<comment><USER40> I'm not sure I understand your question, but there are multiple addresses for the 5K btc transaction to that address.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> The Free Software Foundation needs some donations right now. I hope they get a little help.

</comment><comment><USER42> This is so inspiring. Thank you.

</comment><comment><USER43> I'm curious - is this making charitable donations in lieu of taxes on the gains?

<comment><USER44> I think you should do a little research on how cap gains taxes interact with charity, it's not how you think.

<comment><USER43> Do you know differently or it's different in your area - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15919075](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15919075) ?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Speaking of charities, are most of them transparent and accountable with the funds they receive? I'd like to see a ledger of where every cent given to charity was used / spent.

<comment><USER46> Not that it's not a noble objective. But the accountability stuff costs money which could otherwise be spent on the core purpose.

<comment><USER47> This. I run a small non-profit. We would love to be hyper-transparent, but there are three of us working full time just to do the work that donors are supporting. We'd need to spend a lot of time and effort to release and contextualize all of that information, make sure it's current, and respond to the inevitable feedback and conversation that would be generated from releasing that information. Everything that sounds like it would be quick and easy, well, isn't.

<comment><USER48> If your non-profit needs any help with any of the software side (that can be made open source) let me know and I'd be happy to see how I can help.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> You need to Support CopperheadOS. It's something really important for freedom and safety

</comment><comment><USER50> This seems so fake. If its too good to be true...

<comment><USER51> The address checks out: [https://blockchain.info/address/3P3QsMVK89JBNqZQv5zMAKG8FK3k...](https://blockchain.info/address/3P3QsMVK89JBNqZQv5zMAKG8FK3kJM4rjt)

<comment><USER52> And a NULL transaction to/from that address encoded the string "pineapplefund.org"

[https://live.blockcypher.com/btc/tx/c44ad5f83ddc84d08967c765...](https://live.blockcypher.com/btc/tx/c44ad5f83ddc84d08967c7652311f0a23aafa8e54d7db0911a2c7b5bc20ff988/)

<comment><USER53> That transaction cost 20€. Ouch.

<comment><USER18> Spare change if you've got $100 million to throw around. Or whatever the current btc price is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Wow is this for real?

</comment><comment><USER55> Does anyone know people who are absurdly wealthy in BTC but only average (i.e software eng)?

What's their game plan ?

<comment><USER56> A couple of the folks I know are just HODLing until BTC hits $150,000. Most of them bought Bitcoin when it was a couple of $, haven't bought Bitcoin since and are just waiting it out to see what happens.

<comment><USER57> Why $150,000 exactly? Because of what the market cap will be then?

<comment><USER58> Yeah, more or less. Basically if Bitcoin is ever going to get to the same market cap of the stock market or the gold market, it's going to have to get up to a certain price, and there are quite a few people that are fairly confident it will get there. It's gone up well over 10x just this year alone, it's not too crazy to believe that it could go up another 10x in the next 1-5 years (I would have said 5-10 years six months ago).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> It'd be nice if some of the money were used to make it easier for charities to convert to cash as quickly as possible. Bitcoin pointlessly consumes so much dirty energy, I imagine many environmental charities see bitcoin akin to blood money.

<comment><USER60> This meme needs to die. Keeping the lights on tens of thousands of banks and keeping hundred of thousands of servers running transaction processing cost a lot of electricity too. Efforts are underway to get rid of dirty energy because the costs of renewable and battery storage are so much cheaper that this is a non-issue.

<comment><USER61> Give me a fucking break. The "traditional financial world" processes tens if not hundreds of thousands of transactions per second worldwide. Bitcoin processes no more than 4 per second. On a per-transaction basis, you could be insane to argue that Bitcoin is anything other than an environmental disaster.

Worse, Bitcoin's energy consumption scales based on the price of bitcoin, not on transaction volume. The more USD each bitcoin is worth, the more miners will spend on energy to get that sweet, sweet block reward.

So it isn't a "meme" and Bitcoin's proponents would do well to concede that "yeah, bitcoin pisses away a lot of electricity--sorry about that...".

<comment><USER62> Supply and demand. If you want mining to reduce emissions, increase the cost of energy. Bitcoin will remain unaffected. Don't blame bitcoin because of the cost of energy. Blame the energy producers for selling it to miners at that price.

<comment><USER63> Why not blame both?

<comment><USER62> Because one is to blame and the other is not.

<comment><USER63> That's tautological. Implicit in the question is a request for an explanation of why both are not to blame. If you don't believe Bitcoin has an _enabling_ or _encouraging_ effect on activity that is bad for the environment, why is that? Why is it more appropriate to shift blame entirely on the energy provider instead of the very energy inefficient process?

Do you also suppose that we should reduce vehicle emissions by increasing the cost of gasoline? Why isn't it fair to blame vehicles that run on gasoline and vehicles which are particularly inefficient at running on gasoline?

<comment><USER62> > That's tautological.

No it's not. I'm saying you can fix the problem by modifying one constraint. Fix the cost of energy, and you fix your problem with energy wastage. It will make absolutely zero difference to bitcoin what the price of energy is. If energy is more expensive, mining will reduce, and bitcoin difficulty resets to the lower mining hashrate.

> Do you also suppose that we should reduce vehicle emissions by increasing > the cost of gasoline?

Of course. It's ludicrous to think otherwise.

<comment><USER61> What a cop out. So we have to increase energy prices so a bunch of greedy scammers can waste energy speculating on hot air?

Again. Give me a break...

<comment><USER62> You can do with your money what you like. There's a word for that : freedom.

<comment><USER64> Of course you can, but that doesn't make it not environmentally unfriendly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> I believe the Gates Foundation has already put an enormous amount of thinking and research into determining the most effective use of a large amount of funds to improve the overall state of the world. My opinion is that you would probably rationally be better off investing that money or building a corporation to try and turn it into billions and then donate that to Gates.

<comment><USER66> The donation to Watsi will provide life-changing surgeries in the near future, and will potentially save hundreds or thousands of lives. You might be able to do more good in the future with a larger sum of money, but if you made this choice, you are condemning the smaller group of people to suffering and death. If you met with the smaller group of people and learned all of their names and faces, you probably wouldn't want to let them die. If you could somehow travel to the future and meet with the larger group of people, you might decide to sacrifice the smaller group in order to save millions of lives instead of hundreds. You could also try to find a balance between the two extremes. I guess this is a variation of the Trolley problem [1].

However, there's a few additional variables that are very important.

1\. The price of Bitcoin may fall dramatically, or your business and investments might fail. Now you can't help anyone.

2\. By saving the smaller group of people, you will alter the course of history. Some of the people in the larger group might never experience the disease or accident that required medical intervention. Some of them will never even be born.

I think it's better to choose the predictable outcome that is guaranteed to ease suffering, instead of gambling with people's lives.

P.S. I just finished watching the first episode of 11.22.63 [2] a few minutes ago. (It was incredibly good!)

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

[2] [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2879552/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2879552/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> This looks sketchy as hell. No personal information attached at all and the domain has who-is protection. How do we know this is legit?

(Edit: nvm, misinterpreted the website)

<comment><USER68> It does irrefutably link a very large amount of bitcoins with the site.

[https://live.blockcypher.com/btc/tx/c44ad5f83ddc84d08967c765...](https://live.blockcypher.com/btc/tx/c44ad5f83ddc84d08967c7652311f0a23aafa8e54d7db0911a2c7b5bc20ff988/)

<comment><USER52> He also links to a couple of completed donations. The first is a transfer of of 64.77BTC (approx $1M) to address 1AttfyuVVVpsJ6FzBcJMqkFrPRzFiQoRb6 which is definitely Watsi's BTC address:

[https://twitter.com/watsi/status/938241988121583616](https://twitter.com/watsi/status/938241988121583616)

I'm having a bit of trouble connecting this transfer back to address 3P3QsMVK89JBNqZQv5zMAKG8FK3kJM4rjt which currently holds the coins that he says will be donated. If true this should be possible though...

EDIT: Oh wait, here is the connection:

[https://blockchain.info/tx/d290acbfa7c619ad4215537ae83bfe165...](https://blockchain.info/tx/d290acbfa7c619ad4215537ae83bfe165902b1c232fda1a360edaf1428acd80a)

I have to say, I'm generally pretty skeptical of stuff like this but there is evidence here that this is legit.

EDIT2: They also encoded "pineapplefund.org" in a NULL transaction. Even more reason to believe.

[https://live.blockcypher.com/btc/tx/c44ad5f83ddc84d08967c765...](https://live.blockcypher.com/btc/tx/c44ad5f83ddc84d08967c7652311f0a23aafa8e54d7db0911a2c7b5bc20ff988/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> I think a clearer—or at least a less click-baity—title would be something like:

Pineapple Fund: Donating $86 million USD in/through BTC to charity.

I think the current one makes it sound like they are donating 86M BTC. I know that's above the theoretical maximum, but that's not the point.

<comment><USER70> It clearly has $ in the HN post, and the actual site.

And you even know thats above the maximum so your concerns should have been disregarded as erroneous stimuli as the rest of our brains are already programmed to do.

<comment><USER71> He just wanted to show off that he knew the "theoretical maximum" amount of Bitcoins.

<comment><USER72> Enough of the ad homenium

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> I'd love to know what the Electronic Frontier Foundation does exactly with millions and millions of dollars in donations. Based on Wikipedia it awards money to rich people with powerful computers for finding new prime numbers. But it seems to me the other charities are much more deserving.

<comment><USER74> There are three general buckets of work that EFF does. All three are focussed on protecting user's online rights to free speech, security, and privacy - <USER2> each achieves that result in a different way:

* Legal: Taking on precedent-setting cases (e.g. establishing code as a form of speech, overturning Betamax Doctrine, challenging censorship laws). Full list is here: [https://www.eff.org/victories](https://www.eff.org/victories)

* Technology: Helping launch projects like LetsEncrypt (now its own org), Privacy Badger, Certbot, Panopticlick, Democracy.io, HTTPS Everywhere.

* Advocacy/activism: Pushing state & federal legislatures in the US and around the world to pass laws that protect user's rights, and not to pass laws that would harm them. Also to push regulatory bodies (e.g. FCC) similarly.

(I'm a Tech Fellow at EFF but not speaking for the org in any capacity)</comment></comment>