Toshiba formally and finally exits laptop business - <AUTHOR> https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/07/toshiba_sells_last_dynabook_shares/ <comment><USER3> I worked for Toshiba America. The story is the CEO at the time told his underlings "I cannot report such earnings to our shareholders". His executives then went ahead and cooked the books.

Beyond that, Toshiba was a company in crisis. They announced all sorts of forward looking partnerships via press releases and had powerpoints about them, but allocated ZERO budget to implement them.

They ordered their existing units (seemingly hundreds of business units) to stay the course on obsolete and non-competitive products that were not generating revenue any longer.

Their cloud and "chip to cloud" plans were Potemkin villages, devoid of tech or investment.

Their PC division was non-competitive with flash storage, even though Toshiba's disk division INVENTED flash storage (and that was unpopular in that division--it went to market with much opposition, driven by ONE guy).

Toshiba basically played fortress Japan, where they made handshake deals with other moribund Keiretsu would just cross sell to each other.

They were being out innovated on all fronts, and were paralyzed to make the big changes, as the culture was one of never rocking the boat, and hanging on till retirement. The dream was to retire and perhaps be asked to consult back to the company.

The same thing was going on with the other firms there, like Sony et al. Disruption, the cloud, open source and innovation just destroyed a firm with an amazing historical legacy.

<comment><USER4> This is a really intriguing artefact of specific cultures. Clearly, there are benefits to 'Failure is Not Tolerated' cultures, it is interesting how people can pull rabbits out of hats when they have to.

That said, if they are up against a real wall, they will be pulling the rabbits out their rears (ie fraud) and it will be a problem.

But then you get a secondary effect: a kind of 'coverup cancer' which spreads through the social system, nobody willing to let it surface.

The European CEO of Japanese Olympus has a pretty intriguing story about this. Uncanny stuff about the depth of the fraud, like being in an episode of Twilight Zone.

The corruption is way, way more than just a few leaders - it's entire networks of systems and leaders, everyone covering for one another.

I suspect there are vast systematic hidden problems in Japan.

Germany has a little bit of this.

For some cultures, it's hard to understand the actual value of 'Chapter 11'. It's really an amazing bit of commercial policy that bankruptcy protection.

Someone needs to write a book on all the various ways we hide problems. The US Fed takes on Trillions of toxic assets. The Canadian economy prints money to new migrants buying homes as a form of 'spending the future now' in a giant Ponzi scheme. China makes up numbers willy nilly. Japanese hide it inside private networks. Etc..

<comment><USER5> The Carlos Ghosn case highlights some of the points you raise about the arbitrariness and closed-box nature of Japanese nativism.

I have worked for a Japanese client (big firm, I will not name them). I think it is a miracle that Japanese innovate at all. Their hierarchies are extra rigid, and promotions are more or less dependent on seniority. It was difficult to find any tech manager who was not around 60 years old. Peer-to- peer email from our firm to Japanese engineers was strictly forbidden. Except for the money involved, it was like a humorous game of Chinese whispers - <USER2> perfectly legitimate technical point raised will come back as completely illogical gibberish because it was been distorted by layers of management in between.

Engineers at my (Indian) firm in 2001 were saying that Sony's days are numbered, and Samsung will eat their lunch. I refused to believe it since South Korea had just gone through a major crisis. 20 years later, it is patently clear that they were understating the trend.

The often deserving worship of Japanese culture that many indulge in, leads to vast blind spots about Japan's cultural disadvantages.

<comment><USER6> Innovation happens at the individual level, and to that end, the Japanese are incredibly innovative. The person must then fight the hierarchies which farms the innovations from individuals who are undercompensated for their miraculous work. Same with the incredible craftsmen and artists. But if the hierarchy is bad, everyone loses.

The engineer would often then defect and seek a meritocracy where they are valued by their work and not seniority.

A quick lookup for the Flash inventor backs this. Fujio Masuoka is now CTO of a company in Singapore.

Shuji Nakamura, the inventory of the blue LED is the other primary example. He is now professor of Materials at the University of California, Santa Barbara, with 208 US patents and a Nobel prize. He was in the news a lot, and stirred up much needed debate in Japan regarding who owns the work of an employee.

But one counter example is Nintendo. Shigeru Miyamoto is the genius behind Super Mario, and him and his small team are responsible for so much of their hierarchy's success. Nintendo stands tall to this day.

Sony is a mixed bag, but their gaming division is still winning.

Korea is actually known to be incredibly similar to Japan, and according to one theory the only reason why Korea outpaced Japan is because the Japanese were too busy addicted to Pachinko. That may sound absurd, but not if you've seen how ubiquitous Pachinko is, and it's pure gambling with all the dangers of addiction and lives in shambles. Ironically, 80% of the parlors are owned by Japanese Koreans.

<comment><USER7> >Korea outpaced Japan is because the Japanese were too busy addicted to Pachinko.

Hello from Japan. When people from the Westernized world talk about Japan, I find it interesting to hear what everyone has to say. Some are true, some are ridiculous, some are "facts" people echo on forums. This in not true. This is ridiculous.

Do you think everyone is so addicted that we do nothing else? Do you understand that the addicted to pachinko is a small percentage and these people would be addicted to something else and be un-productive anyway?

Its not a matter of "people". Korean companies have outpaced Japanese companies, because Korean company are more global. And nice for them. But Pachinko has absolutely nothing to do with that.

<comment><USER8> Pachinko sound like Russian word "pochinka", which means "the process of repairing something".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Toshiba's legendary accounting fraud in PC division: [https://mobile.twitter.com/zapa/status/1218450189301628928/p...](https://mobile.twitter.com/zapa/status/1218450189301628928/photo/1)

Darker blue is operational profit and lighter blue is sales total in ¥100mil.(~$mil.)

Just like an oscillating power circuitry! Can't make this up and they couldn't have been more engineering oriented than this.

<comment><USER10> Can somebody expound a little more on what the fraud was?

Edit: I believe the tweet is referring to the 2015 accounting scandal (listed on wikipedia here[0]), more information on how it happened here[1].

From what I understand, the oscillations come from the fact that corporate leadership handed down profit targets for business unit presidents to meet, with the expectation that failure to meet them = you're fired. So the business unit presidents worked with accountants to fudge the numbers at the end of every quarter to meet the unrealistic targets. Then the numbers would revert back to reality at the start of the next quarter. Corporate leadership was only looking at end-of-quarter numbers so they just kept increasing the (already unrealistic) profit targets year after year? Or maybe they understood what was going on but liked the effect it was having on their stock options/bonuses/whatever, so they kept perpetuating the fraud? But then again, why allow profits to revert back to reality, why not fudge profits all the way to hide the oscillations?

My vote is on corporate leadership incompetence. When you have a dictatorship- like culture of strict obedience, you start having an information propagation problem. Your underlings will suppress information they know you won't like (because you'll punish them) and will only feed you the truth when convenient. They will also outright lie if they have to, to save themselves from your wrath.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba#2015_accounting_scanda...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba#2015_accounting_scandal)

[1] [https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/081315/toshi...](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/081315/toshibas- accounting-scandal-how-it-happened.asp)

<comment><USER11> Profits > Revenue

<comment><USER12> Yes, but where can we find a graph and explanation similar to that twitter post? Google Translate isn't really getting the implications across clearly for me.

Obviously Profit can't exceed Revenue, but how did they do this?

<comment><USER9> > It appears there were paper tradings at Toshiba subsidiary "Toshiba IT > Services" which reminds me the legendary Toshiba accounting fraud. The > legendary one that the waves compounded from excess manipulation, to the > point that the operational profit surpassed sales figures.

The tweet I quoted was about a newly discovered incident but the chart is from 2015. Sorry but that was the best link I could find at that time.

In that instance at P.C. sales in 2008-2015, IIRC, the employees were forced to "do challenges" to meet the predetermined goals by the end of fiscal year(31st March in Japan). But the target wasn't realistic and "challenges" became a synonym for various manipulation inside the corporate, from relabeling future sales to forging documents. That led to yearly pulse right at the end of FY and scheduled YoY growth on paper.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> That's too bad. I had toshiba laptop from 2008-2014 or 2015 or so. It was probably my longest lasting and hardest treated one. That thing carried me all through school, travelled to yellowstone and all around BC, was taken to camp sites and used during field work. I regularly threw it in a backpack with no case or anything packed in with a bunch of stuff and carried it well over a few hundred km over the years like that.

I'm still not sure exactly what's wrong with it. The original hard drive ended up with a corrupted MBR, then the replacement drive i put in ended up with the same thing within a day. I just ended up retiring it and getting a new one.

Though for a while though i was keeping that thing on life support by running a linux distro partitioned across 4 usb flash drives just so i could keep using it for a bit longer. I managed to recover everything off the drives that way too.

By comparison, the acer i replaced it with ended up needing a screen replacement within 2 years and that thing just pretty much hung out at home.

<comment><USER14> I got a ~$250 Toshiba in 2012 for college. I added a small SSD and 4GBs ram so maybe $350 total. A few years later I replaced the CD drive with a hard drive since the SSD filled up pretty quick. I still use it daily 8 years later.

My only complaint is the cheap plastic case has deteriorated so it's partially held together by tape now. I also had to replace the screen hinges a few years ago.

But compared to the Acer before it (2008 bad Nvidia GPU) and my wife's trash HP laptop the Toshiba has been worth every penny.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> My father had a computer store that sold Taiwanese desktop clones and Toshiba laptops in the late 80s. The article says that Toshiba were manufacturing laptops from 1985. I'm pretty sure we were selling them in 1987 so I didn't realise quite how close to the start we were. They were very good laptops at the time - their only real competitor was the Compaq laptop range and I'd argue that the Toshibas were better, although I'm obviously biased.

Just looking now at wikipedia, I'm sure that we sold the T1000 [1] and T1200 [2] but I'm not sure if we ever sold the T1100 [3] (their first model). We also sold the T3100 [4] which had a gas plasma screen that was quite a wondrous thing at the time. It was also _very_ expensive. They were mostly bought by higher level executives as a status symbol. My father kept one for personal use too.

It was a very profitable business to be in at the time - margins were high, unlike the razor-thin margins of today. But my dad didn't capitalise on it as well as he should have. He overpaid his sales staff when they really weren't having to make much of an effort to sell such a hot item. And he didn't pay enough attention to the accounts so that when the recession of the early 90s arrived and government departments stopped buying he hit a cashflow problem and the company went bust. But there were a few good years before that and I still remember the Toshiba laptops of that time quite fondly.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba_T1000](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba_T1000)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba_T1200](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba_T1200)

[3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba_T1100](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba_T1100)

[4] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba_T3100](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba_T3100)

<comment><USER16> Wasn't there a US import ban on Toshiba products for a few years back in the 80s, apparently because they sold parts to the Soviet Union?

<comment><USER17> Part of Toshiba was banned from selling into the US for two years at the end of the 80's for selling machines to the USSR which were used to make quiet propellers for submarines. [https://apnews.com/aad45a6f2de8d599d97242394be65923](https://apnews.com/aad45a6f2de8d599d97242394be65923)

This response by the US would have hurt both Japan and the US, while not so much affecting the USSR who already had their quiet propellers. It probably did hurt US consumers, but it didn't end up hurting the US government which ignored its own ban! [https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1988/12/15/t...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1988/12/15/toshiba- machine-exporting-to-us-months-after-bans-signing/cdede8cf- cb12-49c0-a197-4cea3cd9c6a2/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Their "I checked my notebook" commercials in the 90's are memorable:

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

No company would even joke about behaving like that on an airplane today.

</comment><comment><USER19> Wait. They sold the business to sharp, which renamed it Dynabook. so this isn't entirely new. (Sharp just recently acquired the remaining 19% of Toshiba's notebook company it didn't already own.)

<comment><USER20> Sharp is also largely owned by Foxconn, so they probably have some advantages with production/assembly costs from that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I had a Toshiba Chromebook for a little while and it was fantastic, a machine focused around meeting all the hardware needs to be "good enough" at a reasonable price. It had a great 1080p display, good performance, a good keyboard and great build. All under $300. Oh well. Such is life.

<comment><USER22> Agreed, the Toshiba Chromebook 2 is nice, 4GB RAM, good keyboard, beautiful screen. But the web has become so slow and bloated, it's not very usable anymore. It now works as dedicated recipe terminal in the kitchen. It is still getting ChromeOS updates, until next year I think.

<comment><USER23> I still rock a TCB 2 - the earlier version with only 2GB RAM. I still find it eminently usable and often have 10+ tabs open(1). It hasn't missed a beat since May 2015 although perhaps recently I've started noticing a bit of slowness here and there but nothing major. I'm still using it every day as a bedside laptop; I'll be very sorry to let it go when the time comes.

(1) I use it primarily for light browsing, email and YouTube, so it doesn't do any heavy lifting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Who else was hacking on a Toshiba Satellite in the 90s?

<comment><USER25> Haha. My first ever non-antique laptop was a Toshiba Satellite Pro circa 2000. Bought it from some dodgy central Eurasian fellows out of the back of a car. One of said fellows is apparently now running some major blockchain thought leader scammery. People don't change their colours.

Prior to that I acquired this guy donated through the local 2600 chapter [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Epson-l3s-and- psu.jpg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Epson-l3s-and-psu.jpg) and submitted an nmap fingerprint for its DOS-based, parallel-port driven TCP/IP stack! Good times.

<comment><USER26> > Bought it from some dodgy central Eurasian fellows out of the back of a > car... people don't change their colours.

And... what dodgy things are _you_ currently involved in?? I'm guessing you never paid for your RAR license either. /s

<comment><USER25> One of the oddities of China where I've been for ~20 years is that rar is still super popular. Never figured that one out. I guess the warez OS images bundled it years ago and it became a thing for 1.4 billion people. How's that for a marketing channel?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The most impressive laptop I ever owned was a Libretto. It was more than a decade before another laptop came around that gave that same feeling (the Macbook Air).

<comment><USER28> Toshiba also had their thin and light (portége z820 iirc) way before slot of other competitors (the only real competitor was the hp folio 13 iirc).

<comment><USER27> Ah, and I forgot to mention the Compaq Aero and the Sony Vaio. I did own the former, not the latter.

That was the first computer I owned that earned itself back inside of a month.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Toshiba was fucking HUGE in the 1990s. I had a couple back in those days. They were good machines for the time.

Then IBM became king with the ThinkPad.

<comment><USER30> At least personally, I always considered Toshiba laptops to be the bottom of the barrel in terms of quality. I don't recall a time when thinkpad (at least before Lenovo bought them) could have been considered inferior?

<comment><USER31> They were quite good in the early to mid 90's but by 2000 and onward they were pretty bad as far as quality. I worked in a computer store that did also did repair and there were a few problems you'd always see on Toshibas: power button failure (ribbon cable on the inside would get damaged or just come loose) and power connector failures (the barrel connector would come unsoldered on the inside).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> It's a shame because they made such outstanding products at one time. I was given a Toshiba laptop as I headed off to college in 1995, and it _still boots_ (to Windows 3.11) 25 years later.

<comment><USER33> 100%. My first business was buying/refurbishing/selling used laptops. I bought/sold tens of thousands. Toshiba was by far the best. IBM was 2nd. Now they're both gone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> The only things I liked about my early 2000s Toshiba laptop were the physical volume control knob and manual wifi switch. Software controlled volume seemed so stupid in comparison. I still think laptops should have both if these switches as well as a physical camera and microphone switch. You can't ( realistically) hack past an air gap.

</comment><comment><USER35> The Toshiba T1000 was the first portable computer I ever used, touched, or saw. It was a miracle: LCD screen, battery power, real keyboard. It felt like something snatched from a time traveler. (Except it booted from MS-DOS 2.1 hard-coded in ROM. I had to boot DOS 3.2 from a floppy.)

</comment><comment><USER36> Real shame. Toshiba always had the best value for low-cost laptops.

</comment><comment><USER37> There was a time when the Toshiba laptops were the top priority for laptops and it is strange how the turntables.

</comment><comment><USER38> I have a Toshiba Portege R500 in a cupboard somewhere. It was a very impressive machine. It's extremely light at less than a kg (particularly compared to others at the time). It has an SSD (albeit on some weird interface). The keyboard is also rather nice. The most interesting part is the transflective screen which works in direct sunlight. One nice point was that Toshiba repaired it free of charge when the screen broken off due to a korfball incident.

It's a shame they've exited when they used to have such innovative machines.

</comment><comment><USER39> My first ever laptop, and in fact first ever computer that I did not share with someone else was a Toshiba Satellite A100 that I purchased when I was 22. I actually needed it for a job I got (not having a computer provided was in hindsight a bad sign) and the company was so bad I left in 3 months. The Toshiba was a decent laptop though until 3 years later I switch to a Macbook, and have had Macbooks since. It seems many other people followed that same path so sad as it is, it's not a surprise.

</comment><comment> W-Stool My first laptop was a Toshiba T1000 around 1987. I thought I was quite the high roller traveling around with that thing. MSDOS and a 640x200 display - those were the days.

</comment><comment><USER40> My first laptop was a Toshiba T3100e from the late 1980s. It still works!

I remember the fun I had playing games, learning to program in basic, and writing reports with WordPerfect 4.2.

</comment><comment><USER41> I loved my ~2008 Toshiba Satellite. Rest in peace, old friend.

<comment><USER42> Mine's still in service (as a stationary machine for video comsumption.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I don't understand the wild leap of logic other comments in this thread are making where "Company X does fraud" becomes "Japanese work culture leads to fraud". You could easily make similar shoddy arguments with any country but it seems HN seems intent on only wheeling out the "tHeIR cUlTuRe Is bAd" argument when nobody from that culture is around to defend it.

</comment><comment><USER44> First laptop I ever used (or saw for that matter) was a Toshiba T1200. That thing must have weighed 10lbs, but it was a marvel at the time.

</comment><comment><USER45> I really loved the Toshiba Radius 12 I had several years ago, with a 2160p display. It very much kicked ass at gaming, too.

Toshiba had potential.

</comment><comment><USER46> How the world changes.

I reckon all the laptops I was exposed to in the early-mid 90s through school and my father's work were Toshibas, to the point where I may even have thought Toshiba was the only company that made laptops.

Seeing this news today, my reaction is "Toshiba still makes laptops?"

</comment><comment><USER47> My first work laptop was a Toshiba. We went through so much together that I nicknamed it R2D2.

<comment><USER48> Lol, mine is simply nicknamed "Toto", which here in France is the equivalent of "foo" and also a naughty child character in jokes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> I remember Toshiba AC100 back in 2011 (afair) with tegra cpu and 3G modem weighting about 800 grams. Originally shipped with Android without marketplace, became more or less usable after installing Ubuntu on it.

They really could win a niche of ultraportable laptops.

</comment><comment><USER50> Almost 2 decades ago my daily driver was a Toshiba Portege running redhat. My first post college laptop. Despite the effort of required to get it running, it served me well and had great design for its day.

</comment><comment><USER51> I had a Toshiba laptop that weighed 80 pounds, a quarter of that was the power adapter and an external drive. The backpack I carried it in could fit a folded yurt. It permanently altered my gait. Good times.

</comment><comment><USER52> Funny. The first laptop I saw was my dad's clunky old Portege (from the '90s?). Tried to bring it back to life the other day but it looks like the disk is dead and I didn't care _that_ much.

</comment><comment><USER53> My dad had a Toshiba back in the day and I thought it was the coolest laptop in existence. I now have had a Macbook for the past 7 years, but I have nothing bad to say about Toshiba laptops.

</comment><comment><USER54> The toughbooks were iconic

<comment><USER55> I thought Toughbooks are made by Panasonic? Did they buy the brand from Toshiba at some point?

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> :( [https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/582967-doge](https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/582967-doge)

</comment><comment><USER57> My one and only windows pc was a toshiba laptop, the thing overheated so much that the exhaust grill plastic cracked and broke off leaving a side of the laptop exposed.

</comment><comment><USER58> I always lusted after a T3100. God, that was an amazing machine.

</comment><comment><USER59> I had several generations of Qosmio laptops and they were exceptionally good high performance machines. A bit pricey but for the use I gave them a great value.

</comment><comment><USER11> SO, even the Japanese now prefer less boring styled laptops?

<comment><USER60> Panasonic still make Let's Note, so I guess not.

<comment><USER11> Let's Note 10 incher is by far not boring, or cheap styled. It's a status product in Japan. Almost like Iphone, but 1 decade before it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> My first laptop was a Toshiba around 2003. It was pretty great at the time, but laughably heavy and clunky by today's standards (I still have it for some reason...)

RIP

</comment><comment><USER42> I still have an old ca. 2008 Toshiba Satellite laptop running as a sort of media centre for the exercise room. My first laptop.

</comment><comment><USER62> My first laptop was a Toshiba 205CDS. Loved it. Bought Toshiba for years until I finally saw the light and moved to Thinkpads.

<comment><USER63> best deal is to buy pre-owned think pads for 1/4th the msrp.

<comment><USER64> Or well below. I bought a T41 on eBay for $150 around 2009 and it finally bit the dust last year.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> End of an era, I guess. My first ever computer was a Toshiba T1910 in the mid 90s. Monochrome, Running windows 3.1.

</comment><comment><USER66> I think I still might have my old Toshiba laptop somewhere. Installed Debian on it via ZMODEM. Good times.

</comment><comment><USER67> Not that with Toshiba it was necessarily the case, but are there any Made in Japan laptops left on the market?

<comment><USER68> I think Vaio, Fujitsu, Panasonic.

<comment><USER69> But are they actually made in Japan, or are they just Japanese companies that farm the manufacturing out to China, like everyone else?

The last time I was in Yodobashi Camera, I had a hard time finding _any_ electronics that were actually made in Japan. I even asked the staff about it.

<comment><USER70> NEC and Fujitsu was famost PC manufacturer in Japan but they are acquired by Lenovo (partially). But they are still building some PCs (mainly Laptop) in Japan and selling. I don't know whether they are exported. Some ThinkPads are also made on NEC fabs in Japan.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> Toshiba protege m400 tablets were a god damn nightmare and forever tarnished the brand for me.

</comment><comment><USER72> Wild, I remember when I lived in Morocco, Toshiba laptops were all that I saw.

</comment><comment><USER73> We had a Trashiba system 20 years ago. The case was impossible to open.

</comment><comment><USER74> End of an era, their laptops used to be everywhere.

</comment><comment><USER75> Reminds me of When sony quit</comment>


Tripling Down Against USA Conference Hosting - <AUTHOR> http://robert.ocallahan.org/2017/01/tripling-down-against-conference.html <comment><USER2> The part about an initiative to look up visitors phones and social media is BS. This measure was introduced in June last year when the president wasn't Trump. Went into effect in December, when Trump already won but had no authority. One random link from google: [http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/foreign-travelers- soci...](http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/foreign-travelers-social- media-232930)

<comment><USER3> Virtually all of what Trump is being called out on has been consistent bipartisan policy, or at the least supported consistently by recent Republican administrations and by every Republican primary candidate, all of whom were openly racist, xenophobic and anti-science. I think it's a good thing. Finally an ugly, stupid face on ugly, stupid policies.

<comment><USER4> _all of whom were openly racist, xenophobic_

Thank you for taking the first step at bringing both sides together! If we can just convince one side they are wrong and frankly evil, we can start the healing process.

<comment><USER5> I actually think we suffer from false equivalency in the US. The two parties are radically different, the rhetoric is radically different. It's not that we suffer from a lack of consensus, it's that the right in the US has swerved sharply right, while the left has meandered a little left lately (but rightward across a ~30 year time span).

The first source I could find, it's not universally agreed upon, but here:

[http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/06/yes- pola...](http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/06/yes-polarization- is-asymmetric-and-conservatives-are-worse/373044/)

It's really easy to try to be bipartisan and blame both sides, but the Republican party has been changing rapidly. You could argue the Democrats haven't been changing fast enough... but whatever is going on, it's not symmetrical.

<comment><USER6> The irony of your comment is that while you might well be right about the trends, by global political standards the two main parties in the US are barely distinguishable, except for a few clear dividing lines like guns or abortion.

<comment><USER7> I think that's the point.

I'm going to make a derisive comparison: A parent trying to cooperate with their child (if they can't assert dominance) will in many cases resort to move closer to the childs position, like getting them a candy as a reward if they put their shoes on. It doesn't matter much if the parent is in the right, if there is no way to convince the other party. Then diplomacy on your part is the last resort.

I'm not saying this is the right thing to do, but it does make logical sense.

If the GOP relentlessly moves to the right, and refuses to be bipartisan on anything (even something as basic and frankly obvious as public healthcare), then you're forced to move to the best they can agree on, as someone mentioned earlier: romneycare. I'm in no way knocking the core ideals of: less government spending, sane tax legislation, less hurdles to start a business, more freedom over what to put in your body, etc. But that's not what any of the GOP brass is about, at least not anymore.

It's fucked, but somehow tens of millions of people keep voting to fuck themselves, on basically all issues other than gun control and abortions. As a non-native, it's beyond baffling. But I guess Republican Jesus loves guns, female subservience and anarcho-capitalism.

<comment><USER5> As a native, it's baffling. I think the only explanation is the breakdown between input and output; when spin and now outright confabulation carry more weight than facts, people can easily be swayed to vote against their own self interest.

Basically, Fox News created the Tea Party. Which in turn helped the rise of Breitbart and other, even more insane outlets. It's a howling echo chamber of lies, whose fuel is hate and ultimate outcome is more inequality... which is perhaps the real motive underneath it all.

So that's a series of guesses, but yeah, still baffling.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think one good criterion (among others) for deciding in what country to hold a conference is the number of countries whose citizen can enter without visa. There's a list on Wikipedia that you can sort by that criterion [1].

For the USA, it's 42 (what else). Canada, 52. For Schengen area (most of EU), 92. Hong Kong, 148, Indonesia, Cambodia even more. China only 12.

So, South East Asia or Europe seem reasonable on that score.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travel_visa#Visa_policies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travel_visa#Visa_policies)

<comment><USER5> Self-centered American here, but wouldn't it make sense to weight it by population, or even population of likely attendees? Not clear why, say, Suriname (to pick a country out of a hat) should rank equally with Japan.

That said, I think the point of your post (and the original post) is just to call out how ridiculous and sad the US's sudden policy swerve is. I hate how often the US compares unfavorably with the rest of the developed world on all sorts of indices; we're so strange. Strangely illiberal, even before November. (I mean 'illiberal' in the political theory sense of the word, not left/right political sense of the word.)

<comment><USER6> _That said, I think the point of your post (and the original post) is just to call out how ridiculous and sad the US 's sudden policy swerve is._

One of the most alarming things about this whole issue is that it's taken this long for "normal people" to realise something is wrong and do something about it.

We're seeing mass protests now, when large numbers of people are literally being held in handcuffs for extended periods despite obviously doing nothing wrong. However, it's not as if border security at the US (and, to be fair, here in the UK and in various other countries) hadn't completely lost the plot already before Trump arrived.

Then again, I have long said things would have to get worse before they got better. Let's hope that at least we have now reached that point and ordinary people start questioning the whole way we look at security again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I fear this is the warning shot across the bow of those tech executives who supported this president. First, they come for your conferences. Then, your H1B visa-holding employees. Then...?

Innovation thrives on freedom. Freedom of expression, freedom of movement, freedom of markets. And tech, in its best form, is about freedom, rather than market-capture and rent-seeking. Needless to say, none of these recent developments are good.

<comment><USER9> Innovation thrives on the rule of law, independent courts and neutral arbiters of contracts, habeas corpus and due process, the right to a lawyer, and the right to uncoerced testimony.

Consider Jethro Tull, the farmer. In 1700 he was 26 and he was taking over the family farm. He hired some local hands to seed the fields that spring. As had happened for thousands of years, the workers took bags of seed and cast handfuls on the ground. Jethro Tull became angry, because there were patches of ground that had too much seed, and other patches of ground that had too little seed. He went over to the workers and asked them to be more careful. But they proceeded as before. Tull became more angry, and went to speak with them again. But they still ignored him, and kept doing their work in the traditional manner, as they had since they were children, and as had their parents before them, and their parents before that. Tull was in a rage, but saw he could not change how the workers did their work. Instead, he decided to build a machine that would plant seeds at regular intervals. This was the beginning of the Agricultural Revolution.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jethro_Tull_(agriculturist)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jethro_Tull_\(agriculturist\))

But now ask, why did this happen in 1700, and not in 1680 or 1660 or 1500, for that matter? Was Tull simply smarter than any farmer that had ever lived before that time? Or was their a new legal system on his side?

In the time of Tull's father, England was still burning witches. The last great spasm of irrational fear and witch burning swept over Britain in the mid 1600s. But then Britain passed the Bill Of Rights, in 1688. Now everyone had the right to a fair trial, and a right to a lawyer, and no one could be tortured into confessing to a crime, such as witchcraft. And Tull belonged to the first generation of entrepreneurs in history knowing that they could depend on the rule of law -- the government could not take arbitrary action against him, but was constrained by its own processes. Therefore Tull could shatter tradition, and do completely new things, without the threat of being burned as a witch.

I could cite an endless number of examples. Galileo made brilliant discoveries in an illiberal nation, and was put under house arrest, Newtown made discoveries in a nation of laws, and he became a national hero. Simply knowing that laws will be enforced fairly defeats a lot of the kinds of evil scheming that spring up under authoritarian regimes.

"Freedom" is an empty word. When talking about the kinds of environments that cultivate innovation, it's best to try to be specific about that environment. History teach us the raw ingredients: the rule of law, fair and independent courts, habeas corpus and due process, the right to a lawyer, the right to uncoerced testimony.

<comment><USER10> That would be a compelling line of reasoning if Jethro Tull had actually invented the seed drill, but he didn't. He perfected the design but the device had been around Europe for 150 years before Tull's version, and in China for 2000 years before that. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seed_drill](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seed_drill)

<comment><USER9> The same argument applies even more strongly. If a technology is known, but fails to come into widespread use until there is a legal system that protects people from persecution, then the new legal system clearly played a large role in emancipating that technology from obscurity.

Do I need to list every example? I was assuming they were well known.

Consider what France lost by driving out the Huguenots. Consider what England gained by offering protection to the Jews.

Consider this famous summary by Voltaire:

"Although the Episcopalian and the Presbyterian are the two main sects in Great Britain, all others are welcome there and live pretty comfortably together, though most of their preachers detest one another almost as cordially as a Jansenist damns a Jesuit. Go into the Exchange in London, that place more venerable than many a court, and you will see representatives of all the nations assembled there for the profit of mankind. There the Jew, the Mahometan, and the Christian deal with one another as if they were of the same religion and reserve the name of infidel for those who go bankrupt. There the Presbyterian trusts the Anabaptist, and the Church of England man accepts the promise of the Quaker. On leaving these peaceable and free assemblies, some go to the synagogue, others in search of a drink; this man is on the way to be baptized in a great tub in the name of the Father, by the Son, to the Holy Ghost; that man is having the foreskin of his son cut off, and a Hebraic formula mumbled over the child that he himself can make nothing of; these others are going to their church to await the inspiration of God with their hats on; and all are satisfied."

That such a great market could come into existence was thanks to the legal system set up in Britain during its revolutionary period, which ended with the passage of the Bill Of Rights that gave most British citizens the basic rights we nowadays assume.

Also consider what Britain lost, 90 years later, when Parliament suddenly asserted that the Bill Of Rights was not a universal set of human rights, but a specific set of liberties given to people living in the British Isles, but not applying to the Colonies of North America. The people living in the Colonies of North America were so outraged by this that they rebelled against British rule and broke ties with the British government.

<comment><USER11> > Do I need to list every example? I was assuming they were well known.

That's not an argument, that's snark. I agree with onion2k that you do not provide a compelling line of reasoning. You provide a just-so _narrative_ but not a line of reasoning. Sure those events may have happened in chronological order but that does not in any way imply causation.

Innovation and invention have both preceded and post-dated any notionally enlightened legal landscape.

Also, the dire situation for Catholics and the existence of discriminatory laws on the books within the British Isles puts paid to Voltaire's chummy story of a motley crew worshipping before the altar of Mammon, likewise the Bill of Rights.

You paint a good picture but I remain unconvinced.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Just the first ripples against the shore of what I expect to be a tsunami of unexpected consequences.

Seems like a golden opportunity for another country to step up and become the "conference center of the world". I'd LOL extra hard if it turned out to be Mexico.

<comment><USER13> _Seems like a golden opportunity for another country to step up and become the "conference center of the world". I'd LOL extra hard if it turned out to be Mexico._

Can I suggest Canada for this purpose? We're a cheaper conference destination than the USA, Europe, or Japan; have a fluently English-speaking population anywhere conferences would be held (most people in Montreal are bilingual); have good infrastructure; and most international visitors to the USA _already fly over Canada anyway_.

This would be unfortunate for conference attendees from Central and South America, but they're far outnumbered by the conference attendees from Europe and Asia.

<comment><USER14> Canada can require you to give up your phone password when entering. As far as I heard, the US does not require that (but can confiscate your phone). Is there possibly another country that doesn't require it?

<comment><USER15> Kidding? Ref please?

<comment><USER16> There's this show about the Canadian border services and they regularly go through people's phones: 'Border Security'

<comment><USER17> And computers too, some French guy was caught with "anime porn" on his hard drive at the border, went to prison for a few month.

<comment><USER18> Canadian customs once searched my brother's laptop at the border, in his presence, and their method was as trivial as doing a Windows file search for "boy" and "girl".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is a great opportunity for Canadian, Australian and top European universities to step up their game.

Some universities in these regions have solid reputations but lacked the star- power of top US univs. Hosting a few ACM conferences will shoot them on top of global map.

Just checked, ACM is already on it: [https://www.acm.org/conferences](https://www.acm.org/conferences)

<comment><USER20> Do universities that don't have to rely on the money they get form international students have the same incentives as US universities?

From what I read that's a major consideration for US universities why they want to attract foreign students. For German universities that would only be of marginal concern, even if/when they take some money from foreign students it's just pocket change and not nearly enough to finance the institution to a substantial extend. Sure they still have an incentive, but it's much less and not monetary.

I think, that's what I get from what I've been reading in comments over the years.

<comment> jon-wood At least in the UK international students are a big chunk of a decent university's income. Tuition fees for UK residents are capped, while there's no limit to how much a good university can charge Russian oligarchs to educate their children.

There are some issues around that, specifically with business departments being disproportionately well funded, but it does mean that other departments also have more money to work with than they would otherwise.

<comment><USER20> I know that the UK situation for tuition is comparable to the one in the US. My points is about universities in countries that don't have that financial incentive and pressure. The UK is just one small somewhat "special" country in Europe.

The difference between European countries can be quite high ([http://www.mastersportal.eu/articles/405/tuition-fees-at- uni...](http://www.mastersportal.eu/articles/405/tuition-fees-at-universities- in-europe-overview-and-comparison.html)), so my comment wasn't about any one in particular. When I look at just Germany even within the same country there is a lot of variation depending on the university and the particular program. But in general universities in many European countries don't rely on income from foreign students to the extend that US universities seem to do.

<comment><USER21> "I know that the UK situation for tuition is comparable to the one in the US"

The rules around university tuition do differ quite a bit depending on where you are in the UK.

e.g. Scottish students or students from the EU outside of the rest of the UK do not pay fees at Scottish universities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm a bit amazed by the panic here on HN about the blocked Visa's. I mean, I do agree that the initiative is retarded, but it's not like under Obama residents from Iran or Sudan could get in an out of the USA whenever they wanted.

In my last job in the Netherlands I had an Iranian colleague who tried for seven years in a row to get a Visum to go to the USA, without success. The situation was already very difficult under Obama, Trump's recent initiative is not as big a change as some make it appear.

<comment><USER23> Situation A: it's hard for me to get a VISA.

Situation B: I have been a permanent resident for years, own a house and a cat, my family are citizens, I went to Europe for a few days and now the border authorities detain me and want to send me to Iran.

How big does it have to be?

<comment><USER24> Horrible as B is, it's even worse than that:

> Even though they were ignorant of the termination [of their visas while in > transit], they were still charged with violating U.S. immigration law and > given a five-year ban to future admission.

[https://theintercept.com/2017/01/29/trumps-muslim-ban- trigge...](https://theintercept.com/2017/01/29/trumps-muslim-ban-triggers- chaos-heartbreak-and-resistance/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The funny story is after friday's EO this is a case of "damned if you do, damned if you don't": if you hold the conference in the US, people with links to banned countries can not attend (and anyone arab-looking will get hassled), if you hold it outside US residents with links to banned countries can not attend either as there's a significant chance they would not be able to return.

I suspect the latter population is much smaller than the former, but still a shit situation for a conference organiser, no matter how you do it you will effectively prevent a fraction of possible attendees out, unless you have your conf' right on a border I guess but I doubt that's really possible.

What is the "border status" of Puerto Rico, could that be an option? Or maybe a nearby carribean island which US residents could reach by board from Puerto Rico without hassle going back?

<comment><USER26> You're right that it's an unpleasant situation to be in, but I think it's a fairly easy decision. One option excludes attendees, condones racist border policies, and brings business to the US, the other option does not condone the policies, makes it clear that inclusivity matters to the conference organisers, and to a small extent, boycotts US business.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Australia and New Zealand.

That way if the world ends while you're away you'll be able to read about it in the morning

</comment><comment><USER28> Wouldn't hosting in the US still make the most practical sense because it has by far the most software developers, and the middle Eastern countries involved don't really contain many at all?

I don't like the EO, but doesn't this just ignore reality?

<comment><USER29> Just like all of these heated political posts today and lately, yes, it does ignore reality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> The EO is cruel and irrational and is something I'm firmly against. It makes sense to not host your conference in the USA for moral reasons.

But, on the other hand, a lot of Americans don't have passports or their employment contracts will only reimburse a number of domestic (non- international) conferences a year. The set of those people who would be excluded probably exceeds the set of attendees from the 7 countries in question. So I'm not convinced it makes sense to do this just from a conference attendance standpoint.

<comment><USER31> > a lot of Americans don't have passports [...] set of people who would be > excluded

Let's keep it real: The contributors to a global science conference are unlikely to be people who don't have passports - and in case that happens, getting passports in the US is as easy as filling in a form and driving down to the local post office.

Whereas even getting a business travel visa to the US is a month-long bureaucratic nightmare for 80% of the world's population (basically everyone bar EU, Japan, Korea and AU/NZ/CA).

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I'm voting for Amsterdam. My fav conference of the year is Django under the Hood. The Dutch are supernice and the restaurant scene fabulous.

<comment><USER33> Schiphol has a very bad reputation for its security theater, either.

<comment><USER32> I don't know if it's a different experience for people traveling from outside Schengen but the comparison between JFK and Schiphol is stark. Schiphol is friendly in comparison.

<comment><USER33> That's quite telling for JFK...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Every country should have their own primary tech conference, in a de- globalizing world. It's pretty clear. The return of nation state sovereignty and de-globalization is on the rise from the brexit, trump, le pen, modi, duarte, putin are all anti-globalists.

</comment><comment><USER35> This isn't some abstract thing, it already affects participation of key people _right now_ ([1]). Tragedy is, the chair/hoster of eg. the Balisage conference (what [1] is about) is as much opposed against Trump policies as could be (eg. [2] which is really devastating). This doesn't look well for US cloud ventures, at all.

[1]: [http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml- dev/201701/maillist.html](http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml- dev/201701/maillist.html)

[2]: [https://norman.walsh.name/](https://norman.walsh.name/)

</comment><comment><USER36> Im heading to a US security conference in a couple weeks. I really dont want to go but have to meet with a client there. If i am given any guff at the boarder im going to tell that client why we can no longer do business.

</comment><comment><USER37> So... It's impossible to just hold two conferences? One in the States and one outside? Call me unreasonable, but it seems like then you could just go to the one that's safe for you.

</comment><comment><USER38> Side note: Could the mods remove "?m=1" from the URL? On a mobile device, the URL without that GET parameter redirects to the URL with that parameter to show the mobile site. On a non-mobile device, the URL with the parameter looks rather different from the URL without the parameter.

</comment><comment><USER39> Do we need conferences at all?

<comment><USER20> Define "need". Do you need to breathe? Only if you think you need to live, and the only reason you want to live is that you are wired that way (selection bias, all those who didn't care enough have been removed). Life isn't something objective, you can just decide on what's important to you, as long as it doesn't interfere with your ability to go on living it does not matter. Some people like cats, some people like ice cream. Some people like to talk to other people in their field in person and go to conferences or far-away meetings. Some people go far away for no reason at all (vacation)!

<comment><USER39> Need as in "do they offer worthwhile value", which I'm sure anyone not being overly pedantic would assume.

You don't gain anything by seeing a live talk that you wouldn't on YouTube for instance. It's weird that so many of us work from home but insist on traveling to see a stage show.

<comment><USER40> The value of conferences isn't in sitting through talks. Depending on whether or not you need conferences depends on how much you value networking. If you want to network, then yes, conferences are hugely valuable.

<comment><USER41> Not just networking. Actually talking to the guy who wrote that interesting paper gives so much more than just watching the guy talk about his paper.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> He loses all credibility by boastfully declaring himself "christian." He is guilty of the same elitism he decries the u.s. policy for.

<comment><USER43> Give him the benefit of the doubt. It's something he's proud of and wants to be identified with. Besides, it's not even in the post itself. I don't see at all that this is some kind of declaration of elitism, any more than the "Hacker" and "Repatriated Kiwi" are. I could interpret those uncharitably as well, but would consider it crass to do so, particularly without knowing more about him.</comment></comment>


Ad-blocking community finds workaround to Facebook - <AUTHOR> https://adblockplus.org/blog/fb-reblock-ad-blocking-community-finds-workaround-to-facebook <comment><USER2> I sometimes advertise on Facebook as well. It's good to see which pictures work and which do not.

However, I don't like that Facebook is showing/pushing my ads to people that do not want to see them. That's not good for ROI.

I don't think I will ever use it on a large scale for that reason.

<comment> angry-hacker In addition, people who use AdBlock have tracking pixels, often different analytics systems, also blocked. For you, as an advertiser, they go into a black hole. Even if they convert.

I wonder how Facebook thinks it can fix this problem besides telling trust our stats. It's actually beneficial to advertisers if both FB and your landing page are adblocked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Short term practically, Facebook should just pay the AdBlockPlus "we've determined your ads are non-intrusive" ransom.

However morally an arms race seems to be the best mechanism to stop users ripping off ad-supported content. Ultimately ABP and similar software's main effect will be to ensure that ads look more like other content, come from the same CDNs, share similar URLs, etc, which is probably the opposite of what the rippers want. FB is better funded than ABP (for now anyway) so they can probably win that race.

At this point ABP will have to use natural language processing rather than DOM manipulation to actually determine what content is an ad.

<comment><USER4> The ABP's "we've determined your ads are non-intrusive" ransom doesn't work that straight forward and even if ABP added FB to the list, the EasyList isn't the only ad blocking list there is.</comment></comment>


Aaron Shapiro: 10 Hot Startups to Watch - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-shapiro/10-hot-startups-to-watch_b_716496.html <comment><USER2> A reprint of a rewrite of a TechCrunch write up post. To add to the uselessness it should have been a 10-click slideshow of logos.</comment>


The Royal Canadian Mint just announced a new alternative to BitCoin - <AUTHOR> http://developer.mintchipchallenge.com/ <comment><USER2> This is a big step backwards from the security of Bitcoin. All someone has to do is break open the hardware and extract its key (or take its key with a side-channel attack) and they can double-spend money. That's problem one. Bitcoin's entire byzantine protocol exists entirely to solve the double-spend problem, and it works, while this doesn't.

Every MintChip has an ID, and every transaction is logged on both the sending and receiving device with the ID of the other device. This means that if someone takes your chip, they get a complete record of every transaction you've ever made. In other words, it's not anonymous at all. That's problem two. Bitcoin solves this by encouraging users to generate a new address/private key for every incoming transaction, so that matching up addresses to people is hard.

It's tied to single physical devices which can be lost or damaged. This makes them unsuitable for storing savings. Bitcoin wallets, on the other hand, can be backed up securely.

Both MintChip and Bitcoin can be stolen if the attached device is compromised. Bitcoin is designed in a way that makes it possible to fix that, and developers are working on a fix: multi-signature transactions (so you have several computers, or a computer and a phone, and all of them must agree to any outgoing transaction). MintChip, however, cannot solve this problem in any way except with chargebacks, and the documentation given so far indicates that they aren't supporting that.

<comment><USER3> The largest problem with Bitcoin has always been how insecure peoples computers are. WoW accounts where only worth a few dollars and yet account hacking was incredibly common unless you used a physical authenticator tied to your account. Thus, to securely use Bitcoin you really need a third party either a 'bank' or a vary secure device.

PS: Banking websites have their own issues. But because they tend to use multitiple forms of authentication the are significantly harder to break into on the client side.

<comment><USER4> That's not really true. You can store Bitcoin keys on paper with QR codes (or even just in your brain), and sign transactions on devices that have never touched the internet and never will. It's just the infrastructure that hasn't been built yet, but there is a lot of development going on to enable the average user to utilize these possibilities. That's not even mentioning multi- signature transaction support.

<comment><USER3> I don't mean to suggest that Bitcoin can't adapt. Just that most of the advantages it has over physical / digital cash or credit disappears once you add such things. Once you have a bank or physical device governments will get into the game and start regulating with the express goal of eliminating anonymity for large transactions.

<comment><USER4> "... most of the advantages it has over physical / digital cash or credit disappears once you add such things. Once you have a ... physical device governments will get into the game and start regulating"

Not sure what you mean. By 'device' I didn't mean some special hardware developed by some special company, where the government can then regulate that industry. I just meant any computer. I'm saying that signing a transaction can be done offline on devices that are never connected to the Internet, such as an old laptop, or yes even a special device. There's no fundamental requirement to have the keys on your virus-ridden home PC at any time. This doesn't remove any of Bitcoin's advantages from what I can see.

And multi-signature transactions will allow for multi-factor authentication at a protocol level.

<comment><USER3> That's significantly worse from a user perspective than giving Amazon a credit card number to enable one click checkout or downloading a book from my kindle. It's true you could do anonymous transactions online, but while it's better than mailing people cash it's something of an edge case and I could also buy a Visa gift card and get the same sort of anonymity. Again, I like Bitcoin, but the problem IMO is how to make it both as convenient as a credit card and secure.

PS: Your also describing an adhock solution. As soon as you want to mass produce them to allow significant and convenient adoption you get into regulation issues. And by 'device' I am including just the software to manage your account from a cheap netbook.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In the spirit of "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof", has anyone verified this?

Problems:

1) No mention on the Royal Mint website that I can see. News releases seem to normally be on [http://www.mint.ca/store/mint/about-the-mint/news- releases-7...](http://www.mint.ca/store/mint/about-the-mint/news- releases-700002)

2) Whois should probably point to Royal Mint, not this person's house, and not to a hotmail address.

Administrative Contact: Zaykova, Vessela email@example.com

Address: 131 Camelia Ave, Ottawa, Ontario, K1K 2X5 This is a suburb. Streetview: <http://bit.ly/HMFiMB>

3) Domain is registered through GoDaddy, which IMHO is a bad sign... like having a hotmail address ;)

4) Site T&C say the site is operated by ChallengePost.

ChallengePost has been listed on techcrunch: <http://www.crunchbase.com/company/challengepost>

ChallengePost.com has their domain registered through GoDaddy though, so perhaps I'm wrong about that signal :)

5) No mention on the ChallengePost blog at <http://blog.challengepost.com/>

6) Vessela Zaykova does apparently work for the Royal mint though, according to <http://ca.linkedin.com/in/vessela>

So - very interesting news, an inadvertent early leak, or very elaborate hoax?

Oskar

<comment><USER6> I am CEO of ChallengePost and this challenge is real: <http://mintchipchallenge.com> <http://challengepost.com/discover>

Note how excited we are that the winners receive gold bars. -Brandon

<comment><USER7> Why is there no public announcement of this? Why does the actual Canadian Mint website have no links or mentions of this project? Why are there goats and wheat on your webpage? What is this for, some digitally enabled 19th century version of Canada? What kind of goofy hoax is this?

<comment><USER6> Back in the day, people used goats for currency. Then it became wheat, then coins, then... you get the picture.

The Mint will be issuing a press release momentarily.

<comment><USER8> The ancient Irish used slave girls

[http://books.google.com/books?id=GYhajCQU8XIC&lpg=PT345&...](http://books.google.com/books?id=GYhajCQU8XIC&lpg=PT345&pg=PT281)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The MintChip is _not even comparable_ to Bitcoin: it's not decentralized; it's not resistant to a Byzantine Generals-type attack; the supply of coin is not fixed; security is implemented via "tamper-proof" (ha-ha) hardware... the whole scheme looks rather hackable. IMO it's not a real alternative to Bitcoin.

This strikes me as an attempt by the Royal Canadian Mint to disintermediate credit card companies by offering a new, low-cost, "irrevocable," centrally- controlled payment system.

<comment><USER10> > This strikes me as an attempt by the Royal Canadian Mint to disintermediate > credit card companies by offering a new, low-cost, "irrevocable," centrally- > controlled payment system.

This seems to be exactly what they're doing. From the Developer Guide, Background page: "The emerging digital economy must be able to accommodate small-value transactions, such as micro transactions (under $10) and nano- transactions (under $1). The Mint hopes that software developers and entrepreneurs will use MintChip to ignite trade and commerce for these very- low-value markets."

The title of this post equates MintChip to BitCoin, but the two appear to have significantly different goals. MintChip may end up being the digital equivalent of pocket change.

<comment><USER11> Smartcard wallets for small transactions have been tried ages ago and failed, like this:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton_(bank_card)>

Having used this myself, the problems were numerous. First of all, it's effectively a new currency, so you have to explicitly convert your cash money into this form. This sucks. But because it's meant for small purchases, you'll only ever have pocket change on there, which means your balance runs out all the time. The card doesn't display its value, so you risk looking like an idiot and pissing off every customer behind you when they see you tried to pay the 'fancy way' and failed.

Of course, today things are different, and the web is hugely important, and most of us carry smartphones. But do you really want your ability to use money to be tied to your phone's flakey battery?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Edit: The headline is really misleading (and subsequent comparison to bitcoin). A much better analogy is that this is paypal with hardware tokens capable of completing transfers offline. You are transferring canadian dollars.

From a 2-minute introduction this looks like it's based on trusted computing in offline situations, since you don't need cloud acceptance of a transacation ala bitcoin.

If that's the case, there's nothing making this unhackable.

I wonder what's the timeframe before we see a illicit "client" that creates value transactions without deducting from the user's balance. There will certainly be a huge effort to create such a thing.

update as I read more: It's optionally an SD card or a USB stick. clever way to interface to most every existing phone/laptop!

</comment><comment><USER13> "Trusted" hardware for a _monetary system_ in 2012 ? (Did the Yes Men create this site for April Fools?)

With the backing of a bank, it's possible to be anonymous, offline, _and_ prevent double spends with standard user-trustable computation - really, I kid you not.

[http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.46.4...](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.46.4776)

<comment><USER14> You wouldn't happen to have a short summary handy, would you? That's more math notation than I have time for at the moment.

<comment><USER13> It's been a while, but IIRC:

It relies on having a third party that's trusted to be a reliable provider for value and knowing customers identities to punish double spenders (a Bank). (You can give up this requirement if you want to give up one of the other qualities I mentioned above, but those are different papers ;)

1\. An account holder looking to spend creates a coin through a mutual process with the bank, which debits their account. The bank is unaware of the identity of the coin, but knows that it conforms to certain properties.

2\. The coin is comprised of multiple parts P_1 - P_n, each of which has two pieces, P_i_1 and P_i_2. The account identity is encoded in the coin such that it is recoverable if and only if one has _both_ P_i_1 and P_i_2 for any _i_.

3\. To spend, for all _i_ , a merchant requests _either_ P_i_1 _or_ P_i_2. (most likely based on the merchant's identity).

4\. The merchant eventually turns these coin parts over to the bank, which credits their account. If the bank sees multiple spends of the same coin, only then can it put two corresponding pieces together and deduce the account holder's identity.

There are of course many details that force the parties to behave honestly at every step. The paper is somewhat old and I have no idea of further work (I'm not especially interested in protocols that require a bank or user identities). Main point being that if you _do_ have a bank, designing protocols becomes much easier (Simple blind-signature tokens, for instance. These are anonymous but require online transactions).

<comment><USER14> Sounds like it can only catch some % of double-spends, which might be good enough (assuming the coins are small enough, odds of missing anything important are tiny).

Now I'm interested in how step 1 is accomplished, but that's probably too involved for a comment - I have the paper, I'll see if I can figure it out.

Thanks! That was very helpful. A quick skim of the paper backs up what I could find, so it looks like you remembered well enough :)

<comment><USER13> I believe the paper specifies the challenge from the merchant as possibly random or based on the merchant's identity. Random most likely means that _n_ becomes a bit-security parameter that has to become reasonably large so the chance of collision is extremely low (as I think the spender can always walk away after receiving the challenge).

I think setting n = log_2(maximumNumberOfMerchants) and hardcoding which merchants ask for which pieces is a straightforward way of preventing all unpunished double spends while keeping _n_ relatively small. BTW, with general progress of zero-knowledge techniques I'd be surprised if there weren't a more modern and concise paper in the same vein.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> [http://developer.mintchipchallenge.com/devguide/differentiat...](http://developer.mintchipchallenge.com/devguide/differentiators.html)

So current hardware solutions like visa and debit are secure because they use a trusted 3rd party. And not anonymous.

Bitcoin traded trusted 3rd party for trusted cloud (its p2p nature) and so was still not really anon if you put in any effort.

This is supposed to be 3rd party-less, fully anon. So thats a lot of trust in the hardware. It does seem uniquely vulnerable in ways we haven't before seen with visa and debit or bitcoin.

<comment><USER12> I believe the target for strictly-hardware transactions is to keep them low- monetary value. For example a digital replacement for the $10 you keep in your wallet to buy lunch from a hot dog vendor.

Not saying the potential for a hardware exploit resulting in a money tree isn't there...

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> And a software dev challenge to go with it where you can win $50K in gold bars. <http://mintchipchallenge.com>

<comment><USER16> Also of note: according to the rules, it's open to Americans as well as Canadians:

<http://mintchipchallenge.com/rules>

<comment><USER5> It's also open to corporations in the same locations from a quick glance on my side.

My guess is that us foreigners could register a company in Delaware etc, and compete.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> when did the Royal Canadian Mint become innovative? drop the penny. start bitcoin 2. go canada!

<comment><USER18> Switching to polymer notes, too. Someone needs to investigate these happenings!

<comment><USER19> Our plastic monopoly money is the bees knees.

But in all seriousness, if MintChip is for real and doesn't get hacked, and if I can finally say good bye to the penny (which I have already been getting rid of for over 2 years) then I'll have to admit that the Mint is probably more innovative than any other government entity up here. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Is that…a stock photo of code?

        /**
         * Creates a new demo.
         * @param o The object to demo
         */
        public Demo(Object o) {
            this.o = o;
            String s = CONSTANT;
            int i = 1;
        }

That aside, this is basically a good idea with laughably poor execution. Other comments have addressed that it's centralised and non-anonymous, can be double-spent, is not fault-tolerant, and (perhaps worst of all) is a fiat currency without fixed supply. There could indeed be a superior alternative to Bitcoin, just waiting to make the leap into the mainstream—but this is not it.

<comment><USER12> It's a new digital means to transfer canadian dollars. It's not a new currency.

Pretty much everything after that java snippet is incorrect in your post.

<comment><USER20> I know it's not a new currency. The post title reads "…a new alternative to BitCoin", which MintChip is not. It's more like Google Wallet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> DanI-S This is interesting, although the dependency on hardware seems to open a large can of worms. Judging by the security overview[1], ensuring security of the hardware will be a complex and ongoing task. Bitcoin's use of p2p here saves a lot of fucking around, and cuts out a lot of middlemen.

I wish there were a middle ground - institutionally backed bitcoin. I suppose there will be, once all the mining is done and ownership becomes consolidated.

[1][http://developer.mintchipchallenge.com/devguide/ecosystem.ht...](http://developer.mintchipchallenge.com/devguide/ecosystem.html)

<comment><USER21> >I wish there were a middle ground - institutionally backed bitcoin.

You could realistically do something almost as good as that without any reliance on either bitcoin or trusted computing, if you have a central authority. It actually seems pretty simple: You create a website where people can put in a credit card numbers and exchange money for secret (1000+ bit) numbers. The server keeps track of how much money is associated with each number. If you have a secret number, you can then go back and trade it back for money, or you can (anonymously) trade it for a different secret number -- which permanently invalidates the old one and assigns its value to the new one.

This way when you want to spend money, you just disclose a secret number worth the value of the transaction in question to the payee, who immediately exchanges it for a new number that the payer doesn't know, and is thereby the only one who can subsequently trade it back in for government currency. (Of course, in the common case they just re-spend it in the same way as digital cash rather than redeeming it for government currency.) Make it so that you can specify values (i.e. trade in a $5 number for a $4.50 number and a $.50 number) and you create a situation where anyone can sell anything and receive a number as payment, and then buy something else and spend the number as currency, all while neither of the other parties or the payment processor have any idea who you are.

Add to this the availability of VPN accounts that assign all users to a single public IP, so that users can route their SSL-encrypted transactions through an IP shared by thousands of others who do the same and thereby prevent the transaction processing server from associating transactions with IP addresses, and you have digital anonymous cash.

The main disadvantage is that the secret numbers are exactly like cash, i.e. if someone gets hold of them then they've stolen your money, it's gone, and there is nothing you can do. But that's how cash works. And I kind of wish someone would implement something like this -- I mean think about all the money you could make just by holding the currency people pay you for the numbers in low risk securities between when someone pays for one and when (if ever) it eventually gets redeemed for government currency.

<comment><USER22> UKash works like that. I don't know implementation details, but you get a number that has some sum of money associated with it and you give that number to the other party and they give you back a new number with change.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Oh, Canada. Seeing stuff like this is exciting. Seems to be lining up along side the alley of NFC.

</comment><comment><USER24> I have a theory, newly formed. And this seems the best place to share it, because this motley collection of minds generally knows their stuff and won't hesitate to tell me I'm wrong. :)

The only two meaningful categories of currency are "large" and "small". Large currency is cash, coins. It can be manipulated with the hand, verified by the eye. "Small currency" is expressed as microscopic state, and requires complex tools to observe, verify, etc. Both bitcoin and mintchip are microscopic currency. Computers function, then, first and foremost, as a kind of microscope.

My theory is that small currency is only as secure as the microscope used. And 'microscopes' expressed on computers are themselves expressed 'in the small', requiring other microscopes to verify, which can in turn be subverted. It's subvertable microscopes all the way down.

What is the solution then? You need a cheap, 'trusted' microscope/small wallet from a single source. It needs to be cheap so that it can be replaced frequently (lost or stolen). It needs to be from a single source because if trust is ever broken you need to get it from a different trusted source.

Also, it would be smart to limit the amount on a single device to being less than or equal to the cost of physically defeating the device.

Mind you, the MintChip "microscope" is incomplete: it requires a host system to do user interaction. Which, in my view, will always be the primary weakness of any small currency. All you need to do is write a dummy program to fool a user into believing they received the money, and you've won. And that's trivially easy.

<comment><USER25> > _I have a theory, newly formed. And this seems the best place to share it, > because this motley collection of minds generally knows their stuff and > won't hesitate to tell me I'm wrong. :)_

That would be correct.

> _The only two meaningful categories of currency are "large" and "small". > Large currency is cash, coins. It can be manipulated with the hand, verified > by the eye. "Small currency" is expressed as microscopic state, and requires > complex tools to observe, verify, etc. Both bitcoin and mintchip are > microscopic currency. Computers function, then, first and foremost, as a > kind of microscope._

What are you even saying? I saw where you were going and then you took a swerve left at the last second. How does storing state in a microscopic state turn a computer into a microscope? I assure you that no computer hardware works by looking at stored state with a lens and using computer vision algorithms to determine the state of the device.

> _My theory is that small currency is only as secure as the microscope used. > And 'microscopes' expressed on computers are themselves expressed 'in the > small', requiring other microscopes to verify, which can in turn be > subverted. It's subvertable microscopes all the way down._

A pet peeve of mine is calling such guesses "theories" at this point the proper term is "hypothesis". At any rate this is what cryptography is for. No amount of "subversion" is going to break checksums and hashes. (In a way that wouldn't set off serious red flags to users.) (Though turning them into a usable monetary system is left as an exercise for the reader.)

> _What is the solution then? You need a cheap, 'trusted' microscope/small > wallet from a single source. It needs to be cheap so that it can be replaced > frequently (lost or stolen). It needs to be from a single source because if > trust is ever broken you need to get it from a different trusted source._

It needs to _not_ be from a single source you mean? If not then that sentence makes no sense. As it turns out; hardware bugs are actually harder to find than software ones. It would be better to use general hardware if only because you'd be less likely to find an intentional Trojan horse for bit-coin or similar in it.

> _Also, it would be smart to limit the amount on a single device to being > less than or equal to the cost of physically defeating the device._

So about the cost of a 5$ walmart screwdriver? A 50$ Blowtorch? It would end up being too low and you know it. It'd be better to just do an arbitrary limit like 500$ and call it done.

> _Mind you, the MintChip "microscope" is incomplete: it requires a host > system to do user interaction. Which, in my view, will always be the primary > weakness of any small currency. All you need to do is write a dummy program > to fool a user into believing they received the money, and you've won. And > that's trivially easy._

Man in the middle attacks were something that certificates were _supposed_ to solve; but didn't.

It'll be interesting to see how this all plays out.

<comment><USER24> _> How does storing state in a microscopic state turn a computer into a microscope? I assure you that no computer hardware works by looking at stored state with a lens and using computer vision algorithms to determine the state of the device._

Oh sorry. It's a somewhat strange concept I admit, but it's served me well. There are a couple of ways to motivate it. Let us say that a computer has 4G of memory (roughly 10^10 bits). That is a vast amount of data. If that were to be printed out into a sheet of paper, with each bit a dot about what the naked human eye can see (call it .1 mm square) then it would be a sheet about 10 square meters (10^5 * 10^-4m = 10m^2).

The actual size of a 4G RAM chip is more like 1mm^2. This is a reduction factor of 10,000.

Let us say that a physical screen operates at the density of our original printout . This implies that the software sitting between the display and main memory is essentially functioning as a microscope, making visible to the naked eye a sheet of paper that is 10,000x smaller than we can see.

But if we consider _information_ rather than data, the magnification is an order-of-magnitude higher, at least. (A screenful of characters 10px on each side requires 100bits, whereas the codepoint takes around 8bits.) And of course if we consider hard-drives rather than main memory, realize that a TB is roughly 1000x main memory, or 1000 sheets of paper, each 10 meters square (about 310 square meters).

<comment><USER25> >Oh sorry. It's a somewhat strange concept I admit, but it's served me well...(What follows is a brilliant analogy where I was expecting total insanity.)

You know. I think I'm going to use that in the future. Thanks.

<comment><USER24> _> (What follows is a brilliant analogy where I was expecting total insanity.) You know. I think I'm going to use that in the future. Thanks._

Thanks! I hope you can revisit what I said in the grandparent post with this in mind. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Good timing for this type of official initiative. Makes me wonder if this could lead to a Consortium of World Mints to share the same vision and cost and arrange a trusted network of Backers and Brokers. Or if this will be the new Space Race with countries competing on the tech and implementation and quality of network participants etc. Could be a mess like many standards based efforts. Then there is the issue of the patents that RCM has and how that plays into the global evolution of this effort. It may end up just being a Canadian solution for Canadian Currency.

Though BitCoin is related, I don't see a a reason to inject it into this particular thread. BitCoin is its own beast with different goals... in fact... opposite goals (while using some similar technologies). BitCoin is happy as the backbone of an edge economy and not a competing system with centralised solutions like MintChip (which has decentralised aspects as well but not the core foundation).

</comment><comment><USER27> They didn't create an alternative, they just built the "last mile" for Bitcoin usage. A government backed anonymous currency that will most likely be accepted throughout canada and hopefully the world, that can be freely exchanged with bitcoin in a short amount of time. Anyone will be able to build an exchange.

MintChip = checking account, Bitcoin = savings account

</comment><comment><USER28> Maybe it's just me but I feel that a Royal (Canadian) crypto-currency won't find widespread adoption among cyberpunks.

<comment><USER29> I don't think it will but perhaps not for the reason you apparently think. The details are scarce but the crypto doesn't look interesting. The idea of trusted hardware has been around for a long time. I think most cyberpunks don't trust it, probably for good reason. BTW, looks like they use SHA-1. Really? In 2012 you design a system and use SHA-1?

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> So they want people to build apps using mintchips? Essentially Stripe/Paypal/Dwolla using this tech? I'm kind of confused by this.

The only differentiating factor here is the currency is "mintchips". How much more creative can you get with a checkout when we are only changing the "backing" of the numbers that are moving around?

<comment><USER19> I was concerned when they mentioned a criteria for judgment was originality of the idea... What can be done with online transactions that hasn't already been done?

I suppose an app that allowed offline transactions would fit that bill, the only problem being that your app would be offline.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Why must the article use this headline when the article explicitly says that it isn't actually anything like Bitcoin:

"Bitcoin offers currency from a decentralized source, whereas RCM's solution is from a centralized authority."

</comment><comment><USER32> From: [http://developer.mintchipchallenge.com/devguide/evolution.ht...](http://developer.mintchipchallenge.com/devguide/evolution.html)

 _Unburdened by the need for a proprietary network, MintChip offers a cost effective solution to consumers and merchants and enables easy person-to- person payments._

So, it looks like, this is the government's attempt to compete with Interac. The site claims it's a replacement for cash, but the last time I used cash was maybe two weeks ago to pay for a coffee. And I know some people who use a prepaid card to buy coffee.

</comment><comment><USER33> Somebody submitted a patent application[1] about a year ago in Europe for a very similar system called fairCASH[2]

[1] [http://faircash.org/fileadmin/dateien/fairCASH_Patent_Applic...](http://faircash.org/fileadmin/dateien/fairCASH_Patent_Application.pdf)

[2] <http://faircash.org/>

</comment><comment><USER34> I don't see any point behind an offline electronic cash system; they barely made sense in the 1990s, and once there was ubiquitous Internet, made even less sense.

They only make sense for transit (or other one-way systems, not peer to peer), and there, providing Internet at the point of sale is easy.

</comment><comment><USER33> One of the judges for the "challenge" is David Birch. He recently spoke at a Bitcoin conference: [http://bitcoinmedia.com/eurobit-david-birch-next- generation-...](http://bitcoinmedia.com/eurobit-david-birch-next-generation- money/)

</comment><comment><USER35> Are there any details on how the supply of this new currency is going to be controlled? I'm all for innovation in payments and currency, but isn't there the same risk as with all fiat money - that a central body can debase the currency at will?

<comment><USER36> It isn't a new currency, I don't think. Looks like balances and transactions will be CADs, USDs, EURs, etc.,

If the issuer claims to have backing for the currency then for each CAD issued on a MintChip there would be a CAD in a bank somewhere. Same for USDs.

Since the mint can buy BTCs to issue as well, no reason MintChips can't be used for Bitcoin commerce as well.

[http://developer.mintchipchallenge.com/api/java/ca/mint/mint...](http://developer.mintchipchallenge.com/api/java/ca/mint/mintchip/contract/CurrencyCode.html#CurrencyCode\(int\))

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Why don't they just create a new bitcoin blockchain and have every new 'goldbit' bitcoin backed by a physical gold coin? Someone should do this. So somewhere is vault filled with gold coins that people have used to buy their goldbits.

</comment><comment><USER38> [Loose] change is good, this is better. Apparently, pennies weren't good enough for the Royal Canadian Mint either. Incidentally, after the crash of 2008, Joseph Stiglitz wrote that "change ... has no inherent value."

</comment><comment><USER39> It's interesting and I think there's tantalizing hints in there that they may have learned from BitCoin, but there doesn't seem to be enough detail in there to analyze it. Anyone know of some?

<comment><USER40> It sounds more like a clone of Mondex from the 90s. <http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.08/eword.html>

<comment><USER41> agreed. my second job in the industry was writing a complete (back + front- end) system for mondex (and beenz...).

[google] this was us! [http://www.mail- firstname.lastname@example.com/msg00993.htm...](http://www.mail- email@example.com/msg00993.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Does anyone know what they mean in the Javascript API docs when they mention that it's only supported by Microsoft Windows with Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 or higher?

</comment><comment><USER43> I could never put my trust into an entire online currency if it wasn't open- source. Does anyone else worry about this as well?

</comment><comment><USER44> <http://mintchipchallenge.com/index.php>

The 404 page is horrifying.

<comment><USER45> It's the standard ChallengePost 404 page. What's wrong with it?

<comment><USER44> Finding a website about The Royal Canadian Mint that has a crappy unicorn made with Paint as its 404 page makes it look like a huge hoax.

<comment><USER46> It's a web site _about_ the Mint, not a web site _by_ the Mint.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Cash is anonymous. For any digital equivalent, I think this would be a key requirement to have.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The most confusing part of the site is that it's not clear how they turn goats into MintChips.

<comment><USER6> Back in the day people used goats for currency. Then wheat, coins, etc. Simple timeline.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> I wonder if it has Linux support. If not, that's my submission to the competition.

</comment><comment><USER49> Any scheme that makes it easier to further inflate the money supply(=debt), especially one like this that avoids even the minimal inconvenience of printing cash, is sure to be welcomed and promoted by the banksters.

</comment><comment><USER50> License fail. Read it. It's ridiculous.

</comment><comment><USER51>
      MintChip value can be stored and moved quickly and
      easily [...] by physically tapping devices together

Ugh.

</comment><comment><USER52> tl;dr please - is it anonymous?

<comment><USER53> I don't think so, obscure but not anonymous.

Here: [http://developer.mintchipchallenge.com/devguide/developing/c...](http://developer.mintchipchallenge.com/devguide/developing/common/mintchip- messages.html)

Each transfer message has both the Sender and Receiver encoded within it. These are opaque but generated by your mintchip provider.

Looking here: [http://developer.mintchipchallenge.com/devguide/ecosystem.ht...](http://developer.mintchipchallenge.com/devguide/ecosystem.html)

Suggests that your provider ("trusted broker") creates your mintchip ids. It might be possible to associate many keys to your physical person but I believe all of them could be traced back with the co-operation of the providers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> the EVE online denizens are going to have a field day w/ this...

</comment><comment><USER55> Why not use BitCoin?

<comment><USER56> BitCoin's fluctuating popularity has made it's value extremely unstable, making it unsuitable for use as money. Money has to be a stable unit of account as well as a predictable store of value, characteristics BitCoin doesn't have.

Basically, BitCoin for the time being is an interesting asset/investment, but not a very good cash replacement.

<comment><USER57> The best current use case is _transferring money_. Assuming bitcoin is relatively stable hour to hour (which I think it is) and both sender and receiver have access to an exchange that will convert bitcoins to their local currency, it can be effectively used to avoid large bank charges.

As long as the sender converts their money just prior to paying and the receiver converts back to local currency soon afterwards, there should be no problems.

I guess the big assumption here is both parties have access to a reliable exchange that can easily handle the volume of currency being transferred.

<comment><USER40> So you've just replaced traditional fees with _two_ exchange fees.

<comment><USER58> But with each exchange fee only 0.65% (MtGox's highest rate), 1.3% is competitive with many other transfer methods.

<comment><USER40> Now add the fee to get money into the exchange and another fee to get money out.

<comment><USER59> $0.25 per transaction using dwolla. Roughly $5 to use SEPA. or worst case $15 bank transfer.

Compare that to the fees charged by Western Union or Money Bookers or credit card companies.. You're looking at $30 minimum + 6%-12%

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> As tech founder / owner of a Bitcoin casino, <https://StrikeSapphire.com>, I think this is great. If it's real. And if the Royal Mint doesn't stick their nose into how we change cash. And if our users can remain more-or-less anonymous, and transactions can stay free, and we can change it out without paying a rake to the Canadian government, and there's no risk of double- spending or chargeback or backdoors in the client that let one government or another come in and raid your funds when it suits their interests.

Nothing on their website gives me confidence that any of those issues have been addressed, or will be. And in truth, the idea that a national government would open up an unmonitored currency for System-D sounds just-William-Gibson- enough to be plausible, and just too Neal Stephenson to not deserve a rimshot.

What's a lot more likely is that this is a big-ass trojan horse for the media to make sweet love to for the next few months while castigating Bitcoin for supposed flaws, and eventually deeming it "unsafe", followed by "illegal", for the general population. It's a PR stunt to compete with BTC in the eyes of a non-technical public. And it'll probably work - for a non-technical public.

But the flaws in a system like this will likely become apparent much more quickly than, say, the flaws in the Federal Reserve system did. Nothing with a backdoor, closed code or centralized "trusted distributors" stays safe for long these days. I really had to laugh when I saw their nifty graphic over here: [http://developer.mintchipchallenge.com/devguide/ecosystem.ht...](http://developer.mintchipchallenge.com/devguide/ecosystem.html)

But we're not biased. Hell, we'll start accepting the junk if it's as good as they say. Let the best currency win.

</comment><comment><USER61> I would just use cash.

</comment><comment><USER62> Accept the challenge! <http://mintchipchallenge.com/></comment>


Is This the Death Rattle of Mail-Order Meal Kits? - <AUTHOR> https://www.eater.com/2019/2/26/18239767 <comment><USER2> I'm surprised this hasn't happened already. mail-order meal kit companies are not profitable. All of them have been burning through cash from the beginning.

<comment><USER3> But you can say the same for tons of other hot companies as well - Uber/Lyft, WeWork, etc. I think the difference is that mail-order meal kit companies don't really have a theoretical path to profitability that I've seen in a real way. They might have a place as niche players with a relatively small user base, but that can't sustain the cash burn they run.</comment></comment>