The map of ideas how the universe appeared from nothing [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://immortality-roadmap.com/universeorigin7.pdf <comment><USER2> It's an overview, but not a particularly deep or accurate one. Good on you for starting to think about the big questions, but don't be so dismissive. Serious people with serious reasons have believed every one of these. Don't discount them until you know why they were believed.

<comment><USER3> It seems to be the classical first-grade-teacher mentality: "look at this shit people used to believe 1000 years ago, they were so stupid!".

But if and when you go there and read the work in which these old people said what they believed you got convinced -- and you barely know that you are convinced of the same points you in the past found ridiculous under the guidance of your primary teacher.

<comment><USER2> This is why I'm religious.

<comment><USER4> This is also why I'm agnostic.

Thousands of people of equal brilliance have come up with vastly different explanations for what appears to be the same thing. As a conclusion they must all be vastly overconfident.

<comment><USER5> I used to call myself an agnostic, but one day about 20 years back I sat myself down and asked, all bullshit and personal feelings aside, which narrative I thought was _really_ true - evolution/chemistry/physics or the invisible hand of spirits. Since then I call myself an atheist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My religious belief is based on several categories in this post - the universe is created by God's observation of it, as God's experience, and this universe exists [in comparison to God] as much as our own experience of our reflection is real. And God is the ultimate reality, and our reality is merely a reflection of Him/Her. I.e. By analogy, As a man observes himself in the mirror, a reflection is created.

And since all the intelligence and conciousness on Earth is part of this reality we experience, and Earth is such a small part of this reality, being more stars in the universe than sand on Earth, this reality is very intelligent and conscious. And this only illuminates and reflects the eternal and infinite power of God, the One, the most High.

<comment><USER7> If you travelled back in time to ancient Greece, what would say to people who described polytheism with great reverence and said they believe in Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades because they represent the ultimate truth?

<comment><USER3> The way Greeks treated their polytheism is very different from the fundamental Christian attitude towards God.

You should had predicted this if you were actually gave a sincere thought to the matter instead of just repeating this atheistic arguments.

<comment><USER7> I'm not repeating anyone else's arguments, the thought just came to mind.

Also, I didn't say anything about atheism.

Finally, I do give sincere thought to these matters and try not to ever be disrespectful of anyone's belief system. Sorry if you felt that way.

<comment><USER3> I know you think the thought just came to your mind, but it is so repeated that I think it came not from your pure experience and thinking.

I'm sorry if I offended (and keep offending) you, also.

Also, although you didn't say anything about atheism, you surely are an atheist, right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This will be an everlasting topic, as being inside this system we call a universe, prevents us from looking outside of it, and thus deriving the outer rules that drives it.

Universe, uni verse, one song.

<comment><USER9> This point of view is addressed in 6.3

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This really does suffer from a significant flaw... That the universe (as we're aware of it) came from "nothing".

Not to mention that we "know" what "nothing" is... we have no examples of "nothing". Not sure how we could really define it properly to begin with.

</comment><comment><USER11> I can't connect, and the Google cache is unreadable. Can anyone repost on a mirror?

</comment><comment><USER12> typo reserch

</comment><comment><USER13> Great scientists including Oppenheimer and Einstein drew inspiration from Hindu texts, the Vedas and Srimad Bhagvatam goes into very specific detail of how the Universe was created. They go into detail of how many Universes actually exist in the causal ocean, these are created and destroyed in an instant, but their lifetimes seem an eternity to us inside the Universe. i.e space time being curved and all that. Hindu texts went into this detail long before any other scientists "discovered it" and Aryabhatta a Hindu scientist also elaborated on this.

<comment><USER7> Putting quotes around Einstein discovering spacetime is insulting and totally incorrect.

Hindu cosmology is based on religion and supernatural concepts, it is not science. It's interesting that Hindu mythology included references to a multiverse and other concepts that sound similar to modern theories. It's also interesting that science fiction writers have foreshadowed future achievements, but Jules Verne is not a scientist.

A lot of scientists are inspired by fiction, that doesn't mean you start putting their accomplishments in quotes.

<comment><USER13> @WhitneyLand Sorry for insulting you with the truth lol!

The specific thing I am talking about is not based on supernatural concepts, as @DougN7 said, turns out half the Science that comes out has to be revised when they realise its not true.

There was a time when Scientists said in the 60s that smoking was good for you, then there were the Harvard Scientists that were bought out to say that sugar has no effect on our weight. Now tell me, if such great scientists can get it wrong, how can you be insulted?

Comparing ideas that great scientists read up on as fiction is insulting to both their theories and you're only fooling people.

<comment><USER7> >thing I am talking about is not based on supernatural concepts

Please cite evidence that Hindu cosmology is falsifiable. If it's not falsifiable it's supernatural.

Science doesn't always have to be right, it just has to be willing to be proven wrong. That's how it's supposed to work.

>that great scientists read up on as fiction is insulting

Read a little history, this happens all the time.

<comment><USER13> "Science doesn't always have to be right, it just has to be willing to be proven wrong. That's how it's supposed to work."

That my friend is the ultimate cop out clause, its like saying "oh we can bash religion for when its wrong but you cant bash science".</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Lambda School is SV big bet on reinventing education but students say is a cult - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/lambda-school-coding-bootcamp-y-combinator-cult-2019-10 <comment><USER2> >> _" then locks them into an intensive program that ultimately leaves them on the hook to pay back thousands of dollars in their future wages."_

So like any other student loan? Lambda school is offering an alternative to help those who don't have funds or can't qualify otherwise. Nobody is forced into it but of course it's not free.

>> _" when a white male student wore a Mexican sombrero to a presentation in front of the class."_

What? That's not racist nor even a problem in the slightest. People who bring up these kind of perceived faults will usually find offense in anything they can and are better removed from the program for the sake of everyone else who's actually there to learn.

Complaints like these make it clear this is a targeted hit piece with anecdotes rather than a hard-hitting investigation.

<comment><USER3> Spot on. If anything, it makes me much more supportive of what is Lambda doing.

Shortage of good SWE will always be there, so I'm pretty happy it's Lambda making money of this with actual results rather than leaving it expensive universities who don't deliver.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > According to the Council on Integrity in Results Reporting, 60.9% of Lambda > School students were employed 90 days after graduation, going up to 85.9% > within 180 days. Graduates earn a median annual base salary of $60,000, > according to that same study — although a Lambda School spokesperson puts > that figure at $70,000, and notes that many graduates are in rural areas > where average pay is lower.

This is one of the only paragraphs of the article with data rather than anecdotes. The article only focuses on students with negative experiences, but if this data is correct, it looks like Lambda School is objectively successful, and I bet only a small fraction of its students regret attending.

<comment><USER5> Unclear if these figures account for students that dropped out...I'm guessing no. Per the ISA terms you owe 40% of the ISA after 5 weeks of the 36 week course (<14% complete).

My issue is the incentive that would create to enroll students you in admissions know would likely not complete the program, and then still collect 40% of the value of the ISA.

It becomes a Survivor-esque learning environment where a significant number of students might be dropping out and you're left with a much smaller number of students who do graduate.

<comment><USER4> Graduation rate would be a good figure to publish on their site. I searched for it out of curiosity, and according to the CEO they have ~85% graduation rate.

[https://twitter.com/Austen/status/1140636581679624192](https://twitter.com/Austen/status/1140636581679624192)

<comment><USER4> That said, .15 + (.85 * .15) = 0.2775, the proportion of the student body who either didn't graduate or didn't find a job within 180 days of graduating. So there is a significant fraction who might regret attending the program. But it still compares well with universities.

<comment><USER6> Which isn't the right point of comparison. How does it compare with University CS departments?

<comment><USER5> Usually a big component to these programs are weekly exams to make sure you're on track. I've looked into some of the local ones and usually if you fail a few you will be dismissed from the program.

85% means little if Lambda has a low bar to dismissing students that are struggling and not keeping up with the material.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think it would be tough to comment on any of this without having gone through the program myself, though I do wish there was an "undercover" senior software engineer who would sign up for the part time program and do maybe a month or more of the curriculum and write about it.

Knowing nothing else about the program the biggest red flag For me is that you owe 40% of the ISA after only 5 weeks of the 9 month program (e.g. less than 14% complete). That seems really excessive, and would seem like it would drive employees to "accept" students even if they knew there was minimal chance they'd be able to complete the entire program.

<comment><USER7> The ISA is highly restricted though.

Only kicks in if you're employed in a _software_ job making more than 50k/yr.

ISA stops after repayment or ten years whichever happens first.

My favorite part of it is the ISA structure, it aligns the incentives between the school and the students. Universities don't have skin in the game, charge outrageous tuition fees and provide primarily signaling (even in the best cases). If Universities had to switch to an ISA model we'd see which ones were actually valuable - if they'd even be capable of adapting.

<comment><USER5> Doesn't matter in my opinion. 40% after 5 weeks is a joke. If the student felt the need to drop out due to any reason so early and then ended up either completing another program or becoming self-taught and then finding a job it is silly that Lambda would still collect up to $12k from the student for very little value.

If Lambda were extremely confident in their program and who they select they would at least move it up to 25% of the curriculum complete, not 14%, or lower the 40% to something actually proportional to the time spent in the program.

<comment><USER8> _40% after 5 weeks is a joke._

This makes sense to me if their capacity to admit students for a particular class is fixed. If someone starts the class and later drops out, they can't be replaced. So once you have started the program, Lambda School is paying for your instructor for the whole class no matter what.

Don't you still have to pay for the whole semester if you drop out of a regular university after 5 weeks?

<comment><USER5> If I drop out of college in a given quarter, I only owe tuition for that quarter. This is like dropping out my first quarter in college and owing my university 5 quarters of tuition.

It's an online course. There's minimal cost to adding one person in a massive Zoom session.

<comment><USER9> 9 months is 3 quarters, so it seems more like they are charging 1.2 quarters if you drop out after 5 weeks.

<comment><USER5> A four year university is 12 quarters. 40% of the total quarters is about 5 quarters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I know one current student of Lambda. I kind of disagree with much of what is said in the article. The student and family are very grateful for the opportunity. My only concern is that, in their website they could be more specific as to the fact that you need to already have some of the skills. There's just not enough time for beginners. To their credit, they give plenty of opportunities and alternatives for the ones that get behind. It just going to take more time than anticipated.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm confused by this article's complaint that the instruction was so poor that it requires students to "self-teach", and use materials outside of the coursework to learn.

In my experience, and sufficiently technical topic will require a ton of self- teaching. Should LS be expected to teach computer science in a way that prevents their students from ever having to use Stack Overflow? If that is the case, they are not preparing their students for solving problems in the real world, where there are no clear answers. (except the ones you find on Stack Overflow.)

<comment><USER11> FWIW I went to college long before Stack Overflow and it was definitely possible for them to teach CS without the Internet. Obviously teaching techniques should adapt but that's not an excuse for lazy teaching.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I am married to a current lambda program student. I also regularly interview and hire developers which I believe gives me a good sense of what the market wants.

Lambda is a good program with meaningful room for improvement. I'm excited for where they'll be in a few more iterations and believe that they are worth it today.

</comment><comment><USER13> > However, current and former students say that they've been disappointed that > Lambda School's teaching staff isn't diverse, in turn: most of the school's > instructors are male or are not from underrepresented groups.

Is this like all the eggs being angry there's no chickens yet? Where do you think qualified teachers are going to come from, if not the existing pool of professionals?

</comment><comment><USER14> This reminds me a lot of Teach For America, a program I was a part of. It has very similar complaints, and very similar defenses. The truth is, there's a lot of truth to go around. Teach For America is not perfect. It's not for everyone. There's a lot of hype on the outside and Kool-Aid to go around on the inside. It inarguably has done harm to some people.

But for a lot of people, it works as designed. And I know a lot of people who did become great teachers.

My own story is somewhere in the middle [1]. It changed my life immeasurably, even if I never became a great teacher.

My guess is that the same broad spectrum of real stories and real outcomes is true of Lambda School.

[1] [https://acjay.com/a-former-teachers-story/](https://acjay.com/a-former- teachers-story/), if you care to read about it

</comment><comment><USER15> "If you're keeping up, you either already had a foundation or you're self- teaching. The actual school is not effective at teaching. People are going outside to get what they need."

That sounds like a lot of technical education.

More than maybe any other discipline, classes have such a wide curve of expertise, they become almost impossible to teach to everyone at once.

On the need for outside study, I guess I've heard similar things about, of all things, tough music schools. You just end up in a race to see who can practice every waking hour.

Maybe there's an analogy there. We talk about computer science in terms of concepts and problem solving, but undersell how much muscle memory is involved. There is a ton of training your brain to reflexively handle certain common problems.

</comment><comment><USER16> [https://outline.com/fSVvSB](https://outline.com/fSVvSB)

<comment><USER17> Reader view worked for me! (FF/iOS)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I read feedback about any bootcamp or any CS program with the background understanding that there must necessarily be loads of dissatisfied customers, people who can't handle CS or software development. It is illuminating to poke through the article to the source material.

<comment><USER19> In my experience (went to a bootcamp 5 years ago, taught at a few since) bootcamps are amazing for people who have the drive and interest, and ideally some prior knowledge. They give you a place to meet like minded people, and really focus on learning/implementing your knowledge. The quality of the education is generally less important than the quality of the people. People who are just expecting to get a quick job and don't actually give a shit about the internet and programming should not be in bootcamps, but often are, and are probably the source of most negative feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The data is consistent with most other bootcamps, though. There is a standard for reporting student outcomes here: [https://cirr.org/data](https://cirr.org/data)

Hack Reactor, now Galvanize, was one of the founding organizations of the CIRR, circa 2014: [https://www.hackreactor.com/blog/tag/student+outcomes](https://www.hackreactor.com/blog/tag/student+outcomes)

</comment><comment><USER21> I can't fathom why someone would go to a school that takes 17% of your paycheck for 2 years. I went to Western Governors University to get my undergrad, it costed 6k for 2 terms and I breezed through and got a paper that will help me for life, and I'm planning on heading to Georgia Tech for a Masters. There are better options out there, there is no need to go to a shady school such as this, even if they promise 0 tuition up-front. Additionally, as tech companies become more lax on their degree requirements, there is less and less value you gain from having a degree in Silicon Valley versus spending a few months grinding leetcode, which definitely pays off.

On a side note: it took literally 1 minute to hide the modal window and find the div containing the actual content and expand it, and turn the overflow back on. Did they design it this way on purpose? Otherwise, I think they have to find some new UI developers..

<comment><USER7> There are huge advantages to the way Lambda School is structured compared to other American universities.

I've written about this in more depth [1], but while ability is evenly distributed, opportunity is not - and aligning the incentives of the students with the institution is a much better model.

If your choice is risking 100k up front for a college education that doesn't guarantee a good job (and has non-defaultable loans) or paying 30k only if you end up with a software job making more than 50k a year it'll be an easy choice for most people.

[1] [http://zalberico.com/essay/2019/04/08/lambda- school.html](http://zalberico.com/essay/2019/04/08/lambda-school.html)

<comment><USER22> College education doesn't cost $100k. In-state tuition at a public university in California is $15k. You can save money by going to a community college and transferring. With $30k you could do two years at community college and transfer UCLA to get your final degree and that doesn't include financial aid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> There does appear to be a contingent of Lambda students that have had a poor experience. IIRC they were mostly related to a certain set of instructors.

I guess this is the issue of a popular startup - you get everyone talking about you, good and bad. Every startup has the problems listed in this article. It's pretty much the reality of startup life. But Lambda gets the microscope treatment.

In the end, though, it'll make them better for it. It's still interesting to note that this type of criticism will _never_ exist of any education system. Public dialogue here is good!

<comment><USER5> In fairness, the only reason I know about Lambda is because the founder, some employees, and some of their VCs are really active on Twitter and write incessantly about it in a "too good to be true" way.

Literally a few weeks ago their Chief of Staff wrote "if you don't believe Lambda School is a $100B company then you don't understand American History." Really?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Honestly I don't understand the complaints.. For almost any technical career you will need to do some form of self study.. Also this program is aiming to compete with 4 year comp sci students. So yes you're going to need to grind to make up in <1 year what took someone 4.

However I do think they could do better with diversity.

</comment><comment><USER25> Thinkful has been doing what Lambda is for the past decade. What makes Lambda different from the rest of bootcamps, absolutely noting.

Not to mention Austen Allred always came off like a snake oil salesmen.

</comment><comment><USER26> Why does hacker news allow paywalled content?

</comment><comment><USER27> Yet another PR story from Lambda School spun as news on HN.

Fake news.

<comment><USER28> The story is obviously negative toward Lambda School. With PR like that who needs hit pieces?</comment></comment>


Show HN: Metagration: PostgreSQL Migrator in PostgreSQL - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/michelp/metagration <comment><USER2> Very interesting. Can you recommend any other similar projects or any related articles you're aware of so I can learn more about this approach - I'm interesting in exploring it more!

<comment><AUTHOR> There are many database migration tools, more than I can remember. This isn't a replacement for tools that need to migrate a lot of different heterogeneous sources, it is for PostgreSQL only. I don't know of any others taking this approach but it has been very useful for me so far.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Reference book for the Ethereum protocol? - <AUTHOR> Just read Mastering Bitcoin 2nd ed. and looking for something similar for Ethereum — something to get a good overview of the protocol and relationship between different the actors. Many thanks! <comment><USER2> Mastering Ethereum is coming out Feb 2018</comment>


Show HN: Check if you added licenses to your GitHub repos - k-nut https://license-check.k-nut.eu <comment><AUTHOR> Awesome. I made a CLI tool (lisense)[1] to add licenses to repositories when you are developing them.

[1] [https://github.com/pravj/lisense](https://github.com/pravj/lisense)

</comment><comment><USER2> Neat. I built a similar tool four years ago [http://dschep.github.io/license- checker/](http://dschep.github.io/license-checker/)

Edit: hah, just went to your repo, I see you already found it :)</comment>


% followers vs % countries with .ge. 1 follower: power law - <AUTHOR> http://twitpic.com/662sbe

<comment><AUTHOR> This is from @republicofmath on Twitter, the data comes from <http://twocation.com></comment>


WTF Is Calico, And Why Does Google Think It Can Defy Aging? - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/19/wtf-is-calico-and-why-does-google-think-its-mysterious-new-company-can-defy-aging/

<comment><USER2> It's nice to see some big names focusing on anti-aging research. It seems obvious that anti-aging research is a good idea, but surprisingly few people are actually pursuing it.

This video ([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pm-5s__aZE0](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pm-5s__aZE0)) has an interesting debate about whether immortality would be a good thing. I'm still uncertain about this; but I think it's fairly straightforward that our healthspans have not yet reached optimal length. Heck, we currently spend the first 20-30% of our lives just getting the ball rolling.</comment>


SSH Can Do That? Productivity Tips for Working with Remote Servers - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.perl.org/users/smylers/2011/08/ssh-productivity-tips.html <comment><USER2> This is a decent list of SSH's abilities from 2011 when the latest version of OpenSSH was 5.9. There have been quite a few additions and improvements since then.

I would love to see a similar article which is aims to be up to date with useful and good practices.

Anyone know of such a resource?</comment>


"12 years ago today, I finished writing Hacker News" - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1049723540902215681 <comment><USER2> And 10 years ago we were having fun with Paul's "Arc Challenge" (HN is/was written in Arc): [http://blog.jgc.org/2008/02/arc-challenge- explained.html](http://blog.jgc.org/2008/02/arc-challenge-explained.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> Something that we, our concentration, CPU time, batteries and our bandwidth bills are thankful for :-)

</comment><comment><USER4> I love HN due to its simplicity. Their login page isn't styled much and I love it. It's fast and UX is to the point.

I usually visit hn.algolia.com as staring page but it feels flawless with HN.

Please don't mess it up like digg.com

</comment><comment><USER5> This is something I have extremely mixed feelings about.

On the one hand, HN has enabled so many of us to learn about startups, and has leveled us up in our careers in so many ways.

On the other hand, HN is a bastion of toxicity, is extremely uninclusive, and so all this learning is only available to people willing to lurk in the cesspool.

<comment><USER6> Inclusivity could certainly be worked on. However, I feel like it is being worked on and I don't actually find it a _bastion of toxicity._ (I know of a forum I see that way. It isn't HN.)

<comment><USER5> I can't argue with your experiences, but I've heard from many people (overwhelmingly women), that they hate this place and no longer visit.

<comment><USER6> I appear to be the highest ranked woman here. My old handle, Mz, was briefly on the leaderboard.

Posting as openly female here has always been challenging. It's better than it used to be. Among other things, I see more women with more than 2k karma than I used to.

There is still room for improvement. My feeling is that YC is remarkably inclusive without really making a big deal out of it. My feeling is the HN mods are interested in making HN more inclusive.

I do realize there are significant challenges. I don't think it is due to HN being a _bastion of toxicity._</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Should I learn Bootstrap 3 or 4 at this moment? - <AUTHOR> I noticed Bootstrap 4 has not been released yet. Is it close to being released or should I still learn and use Bootstrap 3 at this moment? <comment><USER2> Learning Bootstrap 3 or 4 should take you very little time, I would suggest you don't learn either of them, but instead take the time to learn CSS (I am of course assuming you are not already a CSS wiz).

You can look at the source of Bootstrap to see how they accomplished certain things if you'd like, but if you're doing anything more than prototyping (and even then), I feel there is very little benefit to using Bootstrap these days.

Once I was told to ignore Bootstrap and just create my css myself (using Sass or CSS Modules) I find I'm making the same recommendations to others. It doesn't take long and you'll have a much better idea of what is happening on your page.

Your html and css should end up being much smaller as well.

<comment><USER3> Yes and at the same time all devs should learn assembly so they have a better idea what's going on with their program.

<comment><USER4> My advice is to always understand the layer below what you're working with.

Learning assembly is worthwhile if you're programming in C.

Learning CSS is worthwhile if you're designing websites using Bootstrap.

Perhaps even more importantly though, CSS, JavaScript, and HTML have a longevity that's tremendously longer than any given framework. My understanding of these technologies from 15 years ago remains relevant today, and although there's been a lot of new features added, I can build upon that knowledge to incrementally learn new things. And I'm confident that in another 15 years from now, knowledge of these web technologies that underpin all the frameworks will _still_ be relevant. The same can't be said of Bootstrap 4.

<comment><USER5> Agreed. The biggest thing I look for when interviewing new developers isn't "how much do you know about X framework", it's "could you implement all of that without the framework?". Knowing bootstrap won't do you that much good if you don't understand how/why it does what it does. Similarly, I demand that Java developers are able to describe the underlying 'how' of Spring, rather than regurgitating tutorials from the Internet.

<comment><USER3> I interview developers also. I don't expect _developers_ to be great designers. I expect them to know the basics of CSS and how selectors work, but that's about it. I'm fine if they aren't advanced CSS whizzes. I do expect them to know JavaScript including how prototypes work, scoping, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'll actually answer your question.

I've been using Bootstrap 4, since it's already stable and will come out in a few months anyway, so I won't have to upgrade anytime soon.

If you use libraries that depend on Bootstrap, you might want to check compatibility. I was using Bootswatch and the developer didn't upgrade the code to Bootstrap 4 until a few weeks ago. Other than that, I see no reason not to use the latest version.

I'm surprised by all the comments saying that you don't have to learn Bootstrap but you can just look up the components every time you need to use them, suggesting you use Skeleton, or that if you use Bootstrap you don't want to learn/know CSS. Nonsense.

<comment><USER7> There's also an other reason to go with the "almost released" one when starting a new project: bootstrap has been historically painful to migrate.

Upgrading major bootstrap version means changing class names in whole codebase (like the classes for grid system), changing html code for some components which have been updated, and having to remove other components altogether and go with your own sauce because components were removed.

This has been the case for all previous major bumps, and there is no sign of it being any different this time, so better save a migration and go straight with bs-4.

<comment><USER6> Definitely.

The other day I was looking at Bootstrap 3 documentation by mistake instead of Bootstrap 4 and it was completely different, with some components missing altogether.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Do people really "learn" Bootstrap?

I've been using the version 1, 2 and 3 and I've never felt like I needed to learn it. Usually I just open the doc when I need to use something.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, people are saying, "No, learn CSS!" but isn't CSS exceedingly simple?

Why can't I just use Bootstrap because I don't feel like _designing_ an app, and Bootstrap is the fastest way to get a consistent layout on web and mobile? What's it got to do with learning at all?

<comment><USER10> > _" No, learn CSS!" but isn't CSS exceedingly simple?_

No, it's not. I don't want to start a CSS flame war, but at least for layout / positioning I struggle every single time with CSS, especially on sites with dynamic content. CSS is my least favorite part of the web development stack by far.

<comment><USER11> Why not to use Flexbox then? [http://caniuse.com/#feat=flexbox](http://caniuse.com/#feat=flexbox)

<comment><USER12> You cannot use Flexbox if you are targeting the enterprise market, since they are often stuck on old versions of IE due to slow moving and draconian IT departments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Everyone opting for "do your own CSS" and not using a framework, is absolutely a horrible idea. You will not be the only one writing CSS for long term for your app I assume, any new member will find it extremely difficult where to modify following some good standards. They might miss a lot of things or overdo things perhaps.

Regarding learning BS3 or BS4, I'd opt for BS4. All you have to know what things BS4 provide and use them appropriately. Not to mention, some fairly good CSS knowledge is also a pre-requisite. One of the themes we recently used is startUI (google for it). It's on BS4 and the components were easy to integrate in apps.

</comment><comment><USER14> On a serious note, I believe the befitting proverbial advice is, "Give a Man a Fish, and You Feed Him for a Day. Teach a Man To Fish, and You Feed Him for a Lifetime."

You said "learning", so I'd still suggest learning the actual CSS. Of course, when you become a bit comfortable with it, you'd have already learned Bootstrap.

Here is how I'd for;

\- Use Bootstrap 4 or even 3 to learn your CSS. Use it, go through the source codes and learn from there. \- Keep doing CSS (feel free to try other frameworks too) and you should be on your way.

The analogy I can find is that quite a lot of people "learned" jQuery. Then, they figured out that it is, well, JavaScript. They got intrigued, went backward and learned JavaScript. Many enterprising developers advance and 'learn' other frameworks too.

I used to be in the camp where my take was, "learn the actual raw CSS and JavaScript - that's the way to learn." But my experience dealing with juniors, and new developers is that not everyone can just learn something. In fact, a lot of people do not know how to learn things the right way. They need to first learn to learn new things.

So, take it easy on yourself, start with something you can start off (and produce something you're proud of) and begin learning real CSS in the process.

Well, my team specialize mostly in fixing projects shoved down by developers using Bootstrap, where the enterprises needed to go to market quickly. Once they reach critical bloat-stage, we go in to clean-up, make the sites 10-30 times faster by removing all of Bootstrap and other frameworks and staying really lean (use a minimal framework or a very low footprint one.) We, sometimes, end up developing the "Bootstraps" for these companies.

<comment><USER6> How do you know he doesn't know CSS already?

Why preaching about learning CSS while he's just asking about Bootstrap 3 vs. Bootstrap 4?

<comment><USER14> Ah! My bad. My assumption is that if someone is asking if s/he should learn Bootstrap 3 or 4, s/he might still be trying to figure out what to learn to get to the next step in HTML/CSS/JS development.

If s/he is already proficient with CSS, s/he might not be asking that question.

I might have extrapolated this thing a bit, haven't I!

<comment><USER6> I don't know, I know CSS extremely well, but I use Bootstrap on a daily basis.

You save a lot of time, other coders can potentially be able to see what you did in your code right away and work on the project without a problem, there are hundreds of themes available, etc. etc.

I'm paid to build useful features, not reinvent the wheel.

:-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It depends on what you want to optimize for. If you're starting a startup and you anticipate having a dedicated design team, I think you're better off making your markup match your domain and hand-rolling the CSS instead of using a framework like Bootstrap. This is the ideal approach IMO because it lets you much more effectively keep the styling out of the markup and in the stylesheets. CSS frameworks _by definition_ require you to put styling in your markup.

But if you're just trying to bang out a small project quickly and have it look nice without needing to muck with CSS too much, then a framework can be very useful. These days I prefer Semantic UI over Bootstrap:

[http://semantic-ui.com/](http://semantic-ui.com/)

<comment><USER16> > CSS frameworks by definition require you to put styling in your markup.

How do mixin-based CSS frameworks require you to put styling in your markup?

<comment><USER15> Oh, I might not be aware of that type of CSS framework. Can you point me to some examples? I was thinking of frameworks like Bootstrap and Semantic UI.

<comment><USER17> FYI: [https://coderwall.com/p/wixovg/bootstrap-without-all-the- deb...](https://coderwall.com/p/wixovg/bootstrap-without-all-the-debt)

I.e., used properly, Bootstrap itself is "that type of CSS framework".

<comment><USER15> Thanks! That's fantastic. CSS frameworks should talk about this idea more!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It doesn't matter. Because no matter what tech you use in the web app space, it will all be obsolete in a year or two. Your apps will never be done, because the sand will shift underneath them. You'll need to continually update them to keep them working, or abandon them.

<comment><USER4> I think it's better to ignore the world of framework hype and just code to the browser APIs as described by the standards. You can basically guarantee that your site will still work ten years from now and that your knowledge will still be relevant (though you'll need to keep up to date with new features e.g. flexbox).

I personally find it _more_ work to learn frameworks and deal with the leaky abstractions inherent in them than to work with the browser directly. Especially when I hit a case where I want to do something that the framework authors didn't cater for and I end up having to go down to the browser APIs to implement it anyway.

In the short term, it's a bigger investment to learn the underlying technologies, but in the long term it pays off big time, since you don't end up being stuck with something that sounded great two years ago when you started your project but is no longer maintained.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The answer you want is to use Bootstrap 3. The reason is that you are new and tutorials will be written for that version. Although generally speaking I would start with 4, you also don't want to burn out on stupid unfinished/incomplete work. Don't burn out when you are just starting!

</comment><comment><USER20> What browsers do you need to support? Version #4 dropped support for IE9. If IE is important for your business then version #3 is currently the better option.

Now, learning bootstrap is not too bad. All you need to donis figure out how it defines the layout grid, how it handles margins, padding, and gutters, and how to use different classes to make the site responsive. Should take a couple of days. Ping me if you need help. :)

</comment><comment><USER21> Go ahead and start using Bootstrap 4, I've been using it in production and it's quite useful.

<comment><USER22> I'm also using Bootstrap 4a5 without issues on a small site that I initially upgraded from Bootstrap 3 mostly out of curiosity, and then pushed live when I didn't discover any major issues.

Since it's a "major rewrite of almost the entire project"[1], I can't recommend that new Bootstrap users invest any time in Bootstrap 3.

[1] [https://v4-alpha.getbootstrap.com/migration/](https://v4-alpha.getbootstrap.com/migration/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I've used BS2 and 3 in the past, and wouldn't recommend bootstrap at all these days. You're better off with something like Bourbon which is much more modular and lightweight and doesn't force you into a certain "way" and eventually down the "override everything" rabbithole.

</comment><comment><USER24> I started using bootstrap from Bootstrap 1 and it was not difficult to start using 2 or 3 - the basic conceptual framework remains almost the same and most of the implementation anyway requires the Bootstrap documentation open on the side for reference.

However, I would recommend to move away from Bootstrap to Material design for example, I feel (after using both) Material design is more well though framework and it also has bindings with Angular (that is if you are building angular apps) through [angular- material]([https://material.angularjs.org/latest/](https://material.angularjs.org/latest/)). There is also standalone framework [getmdl.io]([https://getmdl.io/started](https://getmdl.io/started))

Then there is a very detail documentation on how to think like [Material design]([https://material.google.com/](https://material.google.com/)) way by Google . Checkout the components section from the menu, it is really nice they way explain the theory behind why each component the way it is

</comment><comment><USER25> I'd start with 3 then migrate to 4. Also, learn Flexbox as it will be enabled by default in BS4. FlexboxFroggy.com is a nice introduction. There's one more breakpoint in BS4. The css class to make images responsive has changed for the third time in 3 releases. Other than that, basically the same. I've been toying with it.

</comment><comment><USER26> I do a lot of front-end development these days, but I still feel that my CSS skills are weak. CSS is (for whatever reason) hard for me. Does anybody have any CSS learning resources that have exercises? There's plenty of books out there, but I really need a guided, hands-on learning experience.

</comment><comment><USER27> You don't learn Bootstrap. You learn CSS and HTML and you just use Bootstrap.

</comment><comment><USER28> I can't help but ask a bigger picture question: "What are you trying to do or what is your end goal"?

If you are trying to roll out some new software for a startup or project and you want it to look good and semi unique then I recommend just buying a theme with all the necessary components (dashboard, graphs, whatever) you need. Themes are pretty cheap these days. Usually one of these themes has picked some sort of "foundation" library and you can then learn that.

Basically force yourself to pick by necessity and not what the "future" should be...

</comment><comment><USER29> To answer this question, I'm more interested in how do you learn it first.

All these frameworks are just COPY & PASTE the pre-made code. For example, you wanna button in that style: [http://v4-alpha.getbootstrap.com/components/buttons/](http://v4-alpha.getbootstrap.com/components/buttons/)

Copy that code and paste into your HTML. Whatever v3 or v4 are the same way.

If your learning way is memorizing the code without checking the document each time, then I'd say v3.

<comment><USER6> Copying and pasting wouldn't work, because many times you need to customize things.

Also, what a nightmare would be to look it up every time you need to use a component!

Of course learning it means to learn components by heart, just like you don't look up built-in functions every time when you use a programming language.

<comment><USER29> Is it just me? I don't recite the built-in functions (intentionally) before I code. I will look into doc when I want to find a shortcut. It's very efficiently.

Take Bootstrap as an example, I open the following doc: [http://v4-alpha.getbootstrap.com/components/alerts/](http://v4-alpha.getbootstrap.com/components/alerts/)

If I want a Modal, I will check Modal doc (accurately, I jump to CODE PATTERN and copy it, not starting to read doc explanation.) and use it. After few times, you will memorize the basic by heart. (understands the basic, then you can create your snippets or something. Myself, I still open the doc to see the visual examples. Anyway, I coded with a lot of frameworks in different projects at the same time, not just bound to Bootstrap. You need to find your best workflow yourself)

EDITED: "customize things" seems not suitable to the questioner at the moment. If he understands basic CSS, he may not ask this question. :)

<comment><USER6> I don't know if it's just you, but if I had to do that I would take about 10 times a long as I take right now to build something.

It's much easier to memorize them in my opinion.

<comment><USER29> What things do you actual memorize? All structures code and classes and JS methods & events?

<comment><USER6> Yup. All of that, so that I can code a component from scratch without looking at the docs.

It also comes from practice, if you use Bootstrap often you'll just memorize the components after a while.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> If you have time, force yourself to do a small project with both. Whichever feels more natural to you is probably the route you should take.

Personally, I would be hesitant to go with v4 because of losing support for older IE browsers HOWEVER v4 is built on flexbox, so it should _in theory_ be a little bit more of a sane implementation.

I would do some more research on what are the differences, it seems like with v4, they are making the API a little bit more simpler, but I haven't dived into it yet.

</comment><comment><USER31> I think it would be valuable to you to give HN a little more insight to your particular set of skills and your purpose.

I say this because I personally have dived head first into using a CSS framework without first fully understanding a few key CSS fundamentals. This made front-end work very hacky and involved a lot of trial and error.

Further along the line I've also been burned once or twice by adopting a CSS framework, only to have breaking changes from future updates.

So really it depends on your situation, whatever it may be.

</comment><comment><USER32> I've been using 4 for production. Pretty much the same thing.

</comment><comment><USER33> Another vote for "Consider alternatives".

I happen to like Semantic UI a lot, but you can also consider something smaller and less proscriptive than Bootstrap, like Skeleton or UIkit.

</comment><comment><USER34> We had the same thought over a year ago. We choose Bootstrap 4 but it was a big headache because the Javascript plugins were and still are quite busted. I would choose BS3.

</comment><comment><USER35> you can learn it within 1-2 hours, start with B4. If you want to lean more check the source code if it's css. Also check [http://semantic- ui.com/](http://semantic-ui.com/) , it has more widgets and styles. follow UI/UX trends to see how things can be organize in different ways, Pinterest might help you to find/follow more designs.

</comment><comment><USER36> Take a look at Bulma[1]. I prefer its simplicity and flexbox first approach.

[http://bulma.io/](http://bulma.io/)

<comment><USER37> Bootstrap 4 is Flexbox only.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Given that they've been working on 4 for so long, I'd learn 3 now since it works and the migrate to 4 when it's ready. And for the record, I'm tired of everyone bashing Bootstrap. I'm using it for a production site and I love it. I'm a one-man shop and I need to earn revenue now. I can't afford to spend the next six months learning the quirks of CSS and its crummy layout techniques. Bootstrap has allowed me to create a responsive website that works well across all devices. It also looks much more professional than what I could have done on my own, not to mention the fact that my site looks much better than those of my competitors. I'm grateful that Bootstrap is around.

<comment><USER39> +1. Bootstrap has helped me immensely for many of the same reasons. What is your app or site?

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I'd learn Bootstrap 3 and then just migrate over to B4 later (if at all). The key is to learn the concepts... and those won't change much even if some details do. I'm following this approach with Easele ([https://www.easele.com/](https://www.easele.com/)).

</comment><comment><USER40> If you don't know the differences between versions 3 or 4 yet... My recommendation would be to start with bootstrap 4. You'll learn the downsides by the requirements of your project... maybe this is the hard way but that's the way to learn... Facing problems...

</comment><comment><USER41> If you don't plan to support IE9 then by all means use Bootstrap 4. But keep in mind that Bootstrap (or any CSS framework) are not a perfect solution for not learning CSS. Sooner or later you will need to modify bootstrap or create your own styles.

<comment><USER6> How do you know he plans to not learn CSS, or he doesn't know it already?

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> The differences are not that big to make a difference in "learning".

If your question was should I _use_ 3 or 4, then my answer would be, depends on your project.

But for learning, the version doesn't make much of a difference as the general principles are the same.

</comment><comment><USER43> The question I'd ask myself is are there any features of 4 you really need right now? If not use 3, as it is more production ready. Using 4 right now you are potentially walking into a minefield. You might make it through ok but you might not.

</comment><comment><USER44> Ditch both. Learn CSS fundamentals and for a good framework, head for Semantic UI

</comment><comment><USER45> Bootstrap 4 with Flexbox! Because thats the future :) I'm using it on a production site; [https://www.maplenest.com](https://www.maplenest.com) and its fairly stable.

<comment><USER46> Just a note - the top left MapleNest logo looks pixelated/blurry on a retina screen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> When you start on an old technology you instantly incur a learning debt.

i.e. you will have to learn the new thing at some time in the future so may as well not incur that debt and go straight to the future.

<comment><USER48> When you start on a new technology, you have to endure the breaking changes, lack of community support, and lack of skilled operators.

You also burn one of your technology chits. You get just a few as a startup. Selecting all bleeding edge technology could kill you. Would love to know where I read that. :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> If you don't know either, the "learn Bootstrap" thing will be a much bigger deal than whether you learn 3 or 4.

This is doubly true if you don't know CSS in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER50> I'd recommend you to learn BS3 as there are more tutorials available.

You can always switch to BS4. BS3 is not something that's getting _obsolete_.

</comment><comment><USER51> I doubt there will be much changed in terms of core functionality and use, so yes just go ahead and learn whatever is available currently.

</comment><comment><USER52> Bootstrap 5 Will be Best to learn in the future.

</comment><comment><USER53> Learn html and css by using tachyons. tachyons.io

</comment><comment><USER54> Learn both, it's not rocket surgery.

</comment><comment><USER55> I am in Production with 4. No problem.

</comment><comment><USER56> You could have learned either in the time you spent asking this question and reading the responses

</comment><comment><USER57> What's Bootstrap?

</comment><comment><USER58> FWIW I'd never use either on a production site. But for a quick-and-dirty internal site or to just play around with, I can't think of any reason not to use 4.

<comment><USER59> Please elaborate why you don't use them on a production site. It will be really helpful.

<comment><USER60> BS is ridiculously bloated.

<comment><USER6> You should take a look at Semantic UI if you want bloated.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Petrol and diesel car sales ban brought forward to 2035 - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-51366123 <comment><USER2> I've no idea how they'd even begin to create the infrastructure to support a large amount of electric cars. In a typical street of terraced houses in the UK, there are no driveways - In fact, 32% of the population rely on on-street parking. You park on the road. How are you supposed to charge your vehicle? Is the plan to line streets with unsightly charging points?

<comment><USER3> On-street charging is already available though a fair number of ubitricity charging points, who install 5kW sockets in lamp posts and bollards. They're basically invisible – there are a bunch of them in my area in London that I didn't even know about until I was specifically researching.

<comment><USER4> This depends on the borough.

My London borough (Haringey) does not do this and only use the Source network for which my home is equidistant to several... being more than 1km from all of them. No letters or pleas, or offers from myself to fund installation of lamp post charges in line with govt grants have been successful.

I'm going to be purchasing another fossil fuel vehicle as it's clear that electric won't work for me unless I can get the distance to a charger below 100m.

Oh... and charging from the property by running a cable over or across a path is apparently against the law: "Highways Act 1980, it is illegal for any person to place or run a cable or wire along or across any part of a public highway. So running a charging cable across a footway is not permitted" (excerpt from council reply to my enquiries).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If I had just one wish about this legislation it would be that a standards body was created to limit the number of form factors that can be used for batteries. Being able to buy a car and know that you'll be able to change the battery in 10 years time with a compatible unit (possibly even with better capacity) would take much of the anxiety out of the electric car transition.

</comment><comment><USER6> Excellent news. I wish the EU would follow suit. Does anyone know how it is in the UK wrt heating with fossil fuels? Is there a ban on the horizon there too?

<comment><USER7> For heating it makes the most sense to use gas and put subsidies into insulation.

In The Netherlands we are - for some boneheaded reason - killing gas and replacing it with burning wood. With the subsidy spent on that we could insulate every building in the country to a high level and have a massive war chest left over to further build out EV infrastructure.

<comment><USER8> Meanwhile in the UK... about 10 years ago I bought a wood burning stove that was built to meet UK clean air regulations. I have a friend with a wood, so I thought I would do my bit for CO2 emissions Unfortunately, currently particulate pollution is enemy number 1, so wood burning stoves get you tutted at.

<comment><USER9> "More or Less" on BBC Radio 4 did an investigation of the supposed particulate pollution from wood burners. Basically, although data is thin (and misused by HM Gov), if you have a modern stove and properly dried wood you won't be a particulate polluter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Hopefully this commitment won't go the way of other long term targets, like the 2020 budget surplus plan...

</comment><comment><USER11> There's no mention of one of the worst culprits, buses with diesel engines. Plus, outside of rush-hour they're driving around virtually empty.

<comment><USER12> I know this is London only but they are changing over. I think generally the busses have a ten year life and more will be changing as time goes on.

"London's electric bus fleet becomes the largest in Europe" [https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press- releases/2019/septem...](https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press- releases/2019/september/london-s-electric-bus-fleet-becomes-the-largest-in- europe)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Investment in the UK car industry has plumetted since the referendum was called.[1] When the current government came into power I imagined they would do whatever they could to rescue that situation. Now I'm wondering if they have come to the conclusion that it can't be saved. I couldn't imagine them making decisions like this otherwise.

[1] [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-49170387](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-49170387)

<comment><USER14> That's a highly cynical view. On the one hand, Nissan are reportedly considering ramping up production in the UK [1]; on the other, the UK government no doubt realises that there is considerable economical potential in green energy.

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/feb/03/nissan- eu-u...](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/feb/03/nissan-eu-uk-hard- brexit)

<comment><USER15> Makes sense that a few of the companies would do that — from what I've been hearing, the problem with cars in particular is post-customs-union cross- border manufacturing playing badly with rules of origin and just-in-time manufacturing, so I am expecting spring like 75% shutting down U.K. factories and 25% expanding U.K. factories at the same time and for the same reasons.

> That's a highly cynical view.

The current UK government is full of people who have repeatedly demonstrated that they don't know how the UK government functions. The cynicism is deserved.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is not necessarily good. There is not enough lithium on earth to replace all UK cars with electric ones. Worse still, the lithium that does exist would require violence to extract profitably, as we've recently seen with the US- backed fascist coup in Bolivia.

We need to seriously consider biofuels instead. Biodiesel in modern engines in particular is very efficient.

[https://medium.com/@Grossmanite/the-green-new-deal-is- specie...](https://medium.com/@Grossmanite/the-green-new-deal-is-species- suicide-only-a-hemp-based-industrial-revolution-can-save-earths-f9c3dc29c4e3)

<comment><USER15> Worldwide mineral reserves of Lithium: 16 million tons

Worldwide lithium dissolved in seawater: 230 billion tons

80g lithium/kWh battery * 100kWh batteries/car * 32 million cars in the UK = 260 kT

80g lithium/kWh battery * 100kWh batteries/car * 1 billion cars in the world = 8 million tons

<comment><USER17> So? There's about $544 billion dollars worth of gold dissolved in seawater, but it's completely impractical to extract it.

<comment><USER15> Known land reserves alone are twice what we need for every car on the planet.

The ocean reserves are for illustration because the person I was replying to claimed there wasn't enough on the entire planet for the U.K. alone.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Asteroid mining by Planetary Resources - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/new_scientist/2012/08/asteroid_mining_by_planetary_resources_google_billionaires_are_backing_an_outlandish_venture_.single.html <comment><USER2> The technology to discover and retrieve minerals from asteroids is likely to be simpler than resolving politics and economics of it:

In order to sell the minerals, there must be a way to attain ownership.

How does one come to own an asteroid, or the minerals it contains?

A land grab under a single government is manageable. When there are 200 sovereign states, who decides which asteroids are owned by whom? First to discover? First to land? First to return minerals? Passed though a parsec I have rights to? Or perhaps you don't own the minerals until you cross low- earth orbit with them in your possession. Sign me up as an asteroid pirate.

If a company does attain ownership of an asteroid, can they sell the asteroid before ever landing on it? Will asteroid futures be traded on the CME?

If an asteroid is found to contain 100 tons of palladium, what happens to the palladium market? (Cha-ching! I hold put options on Pd!)

Ya, far more interesting....

Wired started a dialog with: [http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/05/opinion- asteroid-m...](http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/05/opinion-asteroid- mining/)

Discussed ownership, but there is no answer.

The Economist touched on it: "The most important members of the team, then, may not be the entrepreneurs and venture capitalists who put up the drive and the money, nor the engineers who build the hardware that makes it all possible, but the economists who try to work out the effect on the price of platinum when a mountain of the stuff arrives from outer space."

<http://www.economist.com/node/21553419>

<comment><USER3> You've clearly not played EVE Online. This sounds like a joke, but it's probably the closest thing out there to an example of what the future will be like if mining of asteroids becomes insanely lucrative (and technology advances fast enough for us to even witness it).

Someone who's played EVE for a significant amount of time (it's been years since I've touched any game) could probably answer everything above.

This is all to say that we'll of course fight over it.

<comment><USER2> Haven't played it, to my regret.

Seems like, loosely speaking, chasing down sunken treasure, or possibly wildcatting for oil can offer precedent in some form. The notion of 'international waters' perhaps can apply to space. However, someone, sometime owned the treasure that was lost and may lay claim to it.

My real question is, apparently, nations can not claim ownership of asteroids. But they will have to mutually define the legal ways any citizen or corporation on Earth can acquire ownership. What is the most likely method, once they all agree on it?

Planetary Resources is at the same time forcing the issue by proceeding with their endeavor, and, making a pretty big bet that when the laws are in place, they will have legally acquired their booty.

<comment><USER4> I don't see the problem. If you mine it, it's yours.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Two Barclays commodities analysts produced a gleefully scathing research note on this project, and the Financial Times concluded that "The space mining talk amounts, however, to no more than hot air and gobbledegook", all based on laughably inadequate points of comparison. For example:

"Their calculations were based on Nasa's forthcoming OSIRIS-REx mission, which aims to launch a probe in 2016 to pluck samples from an asteroid called 1999 RQ36 and bring them to Earth.

Nasa hopes it will be home by 2023, with a couple of ounces of dirt. By then, the cost will have reached $1bn – made up of $800m for the vehicle, plus another $200m for the rocket launch.

Since that outlay will return just a couple of ounces of material, Barclays says it could use it as a baseline to estimate break-even prices for asteroid mining. Using the metrics proposed by Barclays, the Financial Times commodities team estimates that copper prices would need to rocket from today's $3.81 an ounce to $476m for a similarly funded space mining project to cover its costs.

Clearly, it does not look like base metals from space are likely to provide a good return on capital.

So what about precious metals? Gold trades at $1,665 a troy ounce, setting a price of $518m a troy ounce for space-gold to break even."

"Asteroid mining is for space cadets", The FT, April 30, 2012 - [http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/9387fdc4-9081-11e1-8adc-00144...](http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/9387fdc4-9081-11e1-8adc-00144feab49a.html)

Astonishing that anyone can take this seriously as a baseline. You don't become a commodities analyst for being able to include flexibility and imagination in your analytical capability.

<comment><USER6> You'd have to be pretty dumb to bring copper back the surface. It would be far more valuable in orbit around Earth.

Also NASA isn't, ah, the best example of a cost conscious and frugal organization. They probably don't make a good baseline for the expense of these trips.

Planetary Resources still may never come close to turning a profit, but it's possible you're dismissing them a little too quickly.

<comment><USER7> Actually with his sloppy writing, I couldn't decide if he was dismissing Planetary Resources or Barclay's and the FT.

<comment><USER6> Ah, sorry bfe, I misunderstood your post. I agree with you in disagreeing with Barclays, if that makes sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> As a side project, I've been working on a site, <http://asterank.com>, that attempts to rank asteroids by their economic potential. These calculations take into account things like the energetic cost of reaching and extracting material from an asteroid. Open to any feedback or pointers.

<comment><USER9> That is an awesome project. Keep it up!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> "Our telescopes, which we call the Arkyd 100 spacecraft, are cubes half-a- meter on a side and will cost around $1 million each, though the first one, of course, will cost much more."

I seriously find this mind-blowing. $1 million for a telescope _launched into space_ sounds ridiculously cheap to me.

<comment><USER11> At $10k/kg to orbit I'd guess these will have to weigh less than 100 kg. Some articles report they will be 20 kg each: [http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/06/20/12326161-aster...](http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/06/20/12326161-asteroid- hunting-venture-wants-you-to-suggest-crowdfunding-projects?lite)

<comment><USER12> SpaceX can launch it's Falcon 9 for half that cost right now. They can probably get down to $1000 per kilogram with more work and/or the Falcon 9 Heavy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Uh oh...

"PM: You've suggested an asteroid could be brought closer to the Earth to make it easier to mine. Is that really feasible? EA: It is. One of the ways that we could do that is simply to turn the water on an asteroid into rocket fuel and burn it in a thruster that nudges its trajectory. Split water into hydrogen and oxygen, and you get the same fuels that launch space shuttles. Some asteroids are 20 percent water, and that amount would let you move the thing anywhere in the solar system."

Wtf? EA just suggested a perpetual motion machine. He suggests using energy to hydrolyze water, but then de-hydrolyzing the water to get energy. He's making it sound like more energy will come out than went in (allowing propulsion), when really it would be == at best, and really < because of inefficiency. The only way his concept of storing the energy is even slightly useful is if you were to spend years and years collecting solar energy and storing it as H2 + O2 to burn later in one quick burst. But that's _you_ storing the energy over a long long time, and getting back less than you put in.

<comment><USER14> I think he's not de-hydrolyzing water to get energy per se, but to generate thrust.

Say, you've got a nuclear reactor (or whatever else is more practical) on an asteroid. You cannot use the energy from the reactor to propel the rock, you need to generate thrust. So you take water, you split hydrogen & oxygen, you burn it, you get thrust.

<comment><USER15> If you're already bringing a nuclear reactor into space, you could use it to heat up the hydrogen and use it as propellant directly, for more efficient travel. (In situations where you need bursts of high thrust and are willing to sacrifice efficiency, you can also go with a hybrid system that uses both nuclear heat and combustion.)

Oh, and fun safety fact: a nuclear reactor isn't actually particularly radioactive until it's turned on. If you launch it out of Earth's orbit before turning it on, you're sitting pretty.

<comment> Tuna-Fish Also, assuming a lot of electricity, some form of ion engines would likely be (much) more efficient than heating.

Also, nuclear reactors aren't the ideal way to make electricity in space. Proper nuclear reactors work as heaters for a heat engine, and heat sinks are proportionally much more expensive in space than on earth.

However, solar power is much more efficient. You get 100% efficiency all the time, and it's 30% better in space (near Earth) than it is down here at best. Also, since no structure has to carry any significant weight, you can build things like a flexible paper-thin sheet of solar cells printed on plastic that is spun about it's axis to keep it deployed and spread out.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Bitcoin rises from $14 to $40 in two months - <AUTHOR> http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg60zig6-hourztgSzm1g10zm2g25 <comment><USER2> What is the price of tulip bulbs in the Netherlands these days? What have been the ups and downs in that commodity over the years?

<comment><AUTHOR> I've posted that on HN because Bitcoin is not just some commodity, but a useful technology that allows you to do many interesting things besides payments. See [http://blog.oleganza.com/post/42262765318/direct-use- value-o...](http://blog.oleganza.com/post/42262765318/direct-use-value-of- bitcoin)

<comment><USER3> If I recall correctly, tulip bulbs are a useful technology that allow you to create beautiful flower gardens.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If it ever becomes successful, we will marvel that individuals could ever afford a bitcoin. 21 million is a tiny number for a currency when compared to $40 trillion in global currency ($6000 per person).

~$1.25 billion spend on Cyber Monday ~$8 billion are traded for oil every day ~$150 billion NYSE daily

If bitcoin became the trusted currency for any of these activities what would it be worth?

If bitcoin became the global currency we all get 0.003 each, making the upper limit on a bitcoin around $1->2m depending on inflation.

Of course wars will be fought before bitcoin becomes a global currency. I'm also not sure that people really want an inflation proof currency. But it is fun to speculate.

<comment><USER5> This is the fundamental characteristic of bitcoin that puzzles me. Most currencies are inflationary, which in low doses is a good thing: it disincentivizes keeping the money under the mattress, maintaining a healthy flow of currency. Bitcoin is by design deflationary: it's value increases over time.

Deflation is destructive to the economy, so if bitcoin is deflationary by design, it can't ever be a primary currency, and thus it's expansion in usage is constrained from the get go.

Now, if you assume the market is smart, then there must be some other motive, other than usage, for appreciation. I suspect an artificial bubble.

<comment><USER6> "This is the fundamental characteristic of bitcoin that puzzles me. Most currencies are inflationary, which in low doses is a good thing: it disincentivizes keeping the money under the mattress, maintaining a healthy flow of currency. Bitcoin is by design deflationary: it's value increases over time."

Thank you for this. I constantly try to explain this to bitcoin fanatics and they don't get it.

<comment><USER7> No one is disputing that Bitcoin is deflationary.

What's less clear is how damaging that actually is. If you are looking for a way to preserve value, then being deflationary might even be beneficial. There are plenty of things that are deflationary (i.e. limited in supply), such as gold, stocks of a growing company, or real estate in Manhatten. Does that make these things worthless?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> All else being equal, the more people who use Bitcoin (whether as a store of value or medium of exchange), the greater the demand for it -- and therefore the higher its price, because the supply is fixed asymptotically at 21 million bitcoins.

In the long run, Bitcoin's price will be positively correlated with adoption.[1]

\--

[1] My thoughts on this haven't changed over the past two years: [http://cs702.wordpress.com/2011/05/29/on-the-potential- adopt...](http://cs702.wordpress.com/2011/05/29/on-the-potential-adoption-and- price-appreciation-of-bitcoin-in-the-long-run/)

<comment><USER9> People will want to have it as an asset, not as a usable currency. Appreciating currencies are disastrous for any economy stuck with them, which is why we're no longer on the gold standard.

<comment><USER10> The gold standard worked in the US for about 170 years, which is part of why the US became the wealthiest nation in history: it had an extraordinarily trusted currency (green back = good as gold). Gold was worth $19 to $35 for 100+ years, and it worked, America had no problem growing dramatically.

The US economy also had no problem growing fast during the 1990s, when the US Dollar was strong and had appreciated extremely strongly against gold over a 20 year period ($600 in 1980, to $270 in 2001).

China also dramatically counters this notion. The Yuan has appreciated significantly (for a currency) over the last decade, while they've simultaneously gotten far wealthier.

The disaster has been what has happened to our money since 1971 (specifically the 1970s and since 2001). The real cost of goods has gone parabolic.

1964, 5 silver quarters (90% silver, 10% copper) for a $1.25 minimum wage, now worth $25.90 ($5.18 each). That's pure destruction via inflation.

And that's not even getting into how the Fed + Congress funds insanity like endless war because there is no gold standard restricting their spending habits.

<comment><USER11> _China also dramatically counters this notion. The Yuan has appreciated significantly (for a currency) over the last decade, while they've simultaneously gotten far wealthier._

Real world calling. China pegs the Yuan at 6.22 Y / $1. It's appreciated by something like 3 cents over the last decade.

How do they do this? They _continually buy dollars with Yuan_. Increase the supply of Yuan, decrease the supply of dollars. They can't stop, or the Yuan appreciates, devaluing the dollars they already hold and, more importantly, hurting their exports.

This is why you're seeing the federal government borrow money for 0.1% interest, and why there's been almost-zero inflation despite deficts and quantitative easing.

<comment><USER10> Yes, real world calling.

The Yuan is not pegged to the dollar. The dollar peg was lifted in 2005.

What you mean is, it has appreciated by 15% over just the last 5 years. That's a significant value increase.

There has been dramatic inflation. Which is why a normal price for oil, despite plenty of supply, is now $85 to $90. Also why gold is now $1500 as normal. And also why grocery prices are at all time highs. And why housing prices, even in the supposedly destroyed markets, are up 50% to 100% over 15 years - drastic by any historical norm, particularly so in an economy with 14% real unemployment.

The Federal Government is borrowing at near zero because the global reserve currency is temporarily the US Dollar, and the Fed is buying about 85% to 90% of all new US Government debt because nobody else wants to touch it as they know the disaster that is coming. If you think borrowing rates for the US Govt. are going to stay this cheap for the next two decades, I'll take you up on that bet.

<comment><USER11> The RMB was 'depegged' as a press release but is only allowed to float in a narrow range of 0.3%. (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renminbi#Managed_float>). Most of the increase in value from 2005 was a command decision from the CCP, not a result of market float.

At any rate, 15% over 5 years is less than 3% inflation. That's low inflation.

I don't think borrowing rates will stay this cheap over the next 2 decades because eventually the private sector will catch up to all the public jobs we've been shedding under socialist obama and GDP growth will resume, creating inflationary pressure again. But for now, and while we're either losing or barely holding even on employment over the next year or so, the interest rates will stay low. The second they touch 3% or 5% (normal inflation range), the fed can start jacking up their interest rate to compensate.

In short: It's ok, our currency is not going to collapse.

<comment><USER10> I agree the USD is not going to collapse. It's going to continue to devalue at an accelerating pace, as it becomes increasingly less of a global reserve standard.

Interest rates on US debt will climb from here forward.

The Fed will increase its rate of debt monetization as the US economy flails, likely from $85 billion per month up above $125 billion per month in the coming year.

The Fed will also never be able to actually unwind its portfolio, as Bernanke has begun admitting.

The dollar will have a severe crisis of confidence over the next decade, but it won't collapse.

<comment><USER11> Of course interest rates will climb -- what else are they going to do from 0.1%?

People have been making your predictions since January 2009. When's it going to start?

My prediction is specifically that inflation won't start until growth starts, at which point it's really much less dire than the picture you're painting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> My speculations of the current growth:

1) Halving of supply. Block rewards halved end of 2012. 2) SatoshiDice continues to become more popular. 3) Big names supporting it: Reddit, Mega, Namecheap. 4) Along with the above that would bring about a general rise in prices, is the speculators that will try to game it.

My bet is there will be a correction again soon.

</comment><comment><USER13> I sold at $22 thinking the bubble was going to burst soon. Damnit.

There's an understanding that a few big players have a lot of the total amount of bitcoins in circulation. This price must be extremely tempting for them to sell at. That could cause a crash like last time. I would be careful of buying at the current price.

<comment><USER14> There's also a lot of early bitcoin that has been lost entirely, which probably skews the market a little bit.

<comment><USER15> I feel like I should go on my old laptop and dig up my ~0.5 bitcoins.

I wonder just how many bitcoins have been permanently lost already.

<comment><USER14> Early in the blockchain there are thousands of addresses with a single 50BTC block reward in them. Presumably people downloaded the client, mined a block and got bored. At that time you could only mine using Bitcoin-QT, which reuses the same addresses for each block reward. Most, if not all coins mined in this way are lost forever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm trying to get perspective on the size of the bitcoin economy.

As far as I can tell, there are 10.86m Bitcoins in existence at the current market rate $40.05. [1] That means there are almost $430m in "circulation".

According to the federal reserve 1.17trillion USD currency is in circulation. [2]

USD: $1,170,000,000.00

BTC: $0,000,430,000.00

0.0367%

Not a perfect comparison, I realize that. It is more of a rough estimate.

[1] <http://www.bitcoincharts.com>

[2] <http://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12773.htm>

</comment><comment><USER17> So when can we expect it to be $2 again this time? June? Maybe July? I think the last 90% drop only took about three months[1], so I'm gonna put my money on late June for this one. And by _"put my money on"_ I really just mean _"post this comment so I can quote it in June"_.

[1] [http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/oct/18/bitcoin- val...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/oct/18/bitcoin-value-crash- cryptocurrency)

<comment><USER18> In other words: you are not willing to put your money on anything; you just want to post baseless predictions so you can gloat later on the off-chance that you're right.

If you actually believed the Bitcoin market will crash in June, you would be buying futures or put options right now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've been following it since it was at $7 saying, this won't go up from $10. Then a bit more...a bit more. Now is in $40 and I'm kicking my head against the wall.

Surely this time, it won't go up again, right? ;)

<comment><USER20> Same here. I've been following it but have always talked myself out of throwing money into it. Guess I'll just make money the old fashion way. Curious what this guy [1] is thinking right now.

[1] [http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/18f3pd/i_have_my_en...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/18f3pd/i_have_my_entire_retirement_and_savings_invested/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Other noteworthy charts:

Number of bitcoin transactions go from 40,000 to 57,000 per day in 2 months. And from 6,000 to 57,000 in 1 year: <http://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions>

The trade vs transaction volume remains relatively stable: <http://blockchain.info/charts/tx-trade-ratio> (Lower the number = fewer people hoarding.)

</comment><comment><USER7> By the end of the year, it will either be at 400 or back to 4. Interesting bet.

</comment><comment><USER22> And it went from $35 to $40 in the last 24 hours.

</comment><comment><USER23> I don't know enough about economics to judge, but is this growth sustainable and how high can it go?

<comment><USER24> In theory it can go 2-4 orders of magnitude higher. The value of all bitcoin now is about the value of a dozen tons of gold, or about 1% of the gold backing SPDR. Bitcoin is still minor-league, but it's knocking on the door of being significant. It will be interesting to see if any major governments freak out about bitcoin, or if any governments embrace it for, say, selling oil.

<comment><USER25> It's just a commodity, why would Governments freak out about a commodity?

Whether or not bitcoins are currently in a commodity bubble or not is speculation, but bitcoins are no more a currency than Iron, Gold or Tulips are.

In theory commodities can go to very high heights indeed.

<comment><USER26> "There are people on many sides who want Bitcoin to fail, and who will do anything to stop it from growing. The banks hate it, because it will disintermediate and replace their business. The Statists dont like it because it will defund their socialist dreams. The gold bugs loathe it because it is not gold. Keynesian journalists bristle at the fact that the money supply in Bitcoin is limited, and dream of seeing it destroyed."

Very interesting read[1] nonetheless.

[1] [http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2875465&cid=40120...](http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2875465&cid=40120145)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I expect a correction soon, as It happened last year. I wouldnt invest now any dollar.

<comment><USER28> I would expect the same, but I'm not in any way an economist so I'll wait and see. I also think that after the correction the price will rise again anyway.

<comment><USER29> i think you are right, past corrections have been cause dby someone dumping between 100k and 200k btc, i dont think there are many early players left with that amount of BTC that they would dump any time soon.Even if they did this would not move the market as much as it would have in the past, perhaps dropping the price by $10-$15 on a day like today, which would not take long to correct upwards again. It is not likely to start a panic driven sell off instead people will buy in at the lower price cuaing it to gain again.

<comment><USER30> the big sellers on the silk roads will have that kind of volume to dump if they've been hoarding it.

<comment><USER29> perhaps but most, if not all, will be selling it almost immediately as they need to re-stock, these people use BTC to facilitate their dealing it is not an investment for them. Plus moving the market takes approx 100,000 BTC, that is about $5m, no vendor is going to be selling drugs if they have that much in BTC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Bitcoin threads are always the most interesting, due to the extremity of the positions conveyed. Why cant people see this as it is? A cryptocurrency that is illiquid due to volume, and subject to the ups and downs of hype.

</comment><comment><USER32> [http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.dk/2011/04/on- monet...](http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.dk/2011/04/on-monetary- restandardization.html)

Finally, we examine a new contender - the mysterious and awesome Bitcoin.

I'll be frank with you, dear reader. When I came up with the MoMT, my first thought was: how can I, Mencius Moldbug, make some damned money from this? As system software is my first love, it was not that hard to think of an answer. In some ways Bitcoin is actually much better designed than my design, which was not distributed. The use of Lamport hash chaining is particularly elegant. I did not wind up building my design, however, because I sensed a problem. Bitcoin has the same problem, but worse.

But the basic economic design is the same: an artificial currency of limited supply. What is the currency backed by? Nothing but speculation and hot air. Note that this (contrary to its exponents' claims) violates Mises' classical "regression theorem." MoMT has no problem with an unbacked monetary candidate, because the required epsilon can be provided simply by the probability that the monetary system is adopted.

If Bitcoin becomes the new global monetary system, one bitcoin purchased today (for 90 cents, last time I checked) will make you a very wealthy individual. You are essentially buying Manhattan for a quarter. There are only 21 million bitcoins (including those not yet minted). (In my design, this was a far more elegant 2^64, with quantities in exponential notation. Just sayin'.) Mapped to $100 trillion of global money, to pull a random number out of the air, you become a millionaire. Wow!

So even if the probability of Bitcoin succeeding is epsilon, a million to one, it's still worthwhile for anyone to buy at least a few bitcoins now. The currency thus derives an initial value from this probability, and boots itself into existence from pure worthlessness - becoming a viable repository of savings. If a very strange, dangerous and unstable one.

I think the probability of Bitcoin succeeding is very low. I would not put it at a million to one, though, so I recommend that you go out and buy a few bitcoins if you have the technical chops. My financial advice is to not buy more than ten, which should be F-U money if Bitcoin wins. Or, of course, you can invest in those alpaca socks.

Here is the problem with Bitcoin: the tank, I think, will pop. This is not due to any technical fault in Bitcoin's algorithms or economics. It is due to a political fault in our society, which is that we're governed by dumb people.

Because we're governed by dumb people, here is what I think will happen with Bitcoin. Stage 1: Bitcoin does not exist. Stage 2: Bitcoin exists, but is worthless. Stage 3: Bitcoin exists, and is used by strange and desperate weirdos and geeks. Stage 4: Bitcoin is used by Slashdot readers, perhaps slightly less desperate. (You are here.) Stage 5: Bitcoin is used by criminals. Stage 6: All Bitcoin exchanges are shut down by USG. Stage 7: Bitcoin exists, but is worthless. Stage 8: Bitcoin does not exist.

At least on the surface, Bitcoin exchanges violate the critical know-your- customer rule which USG enforces on all money-transfer businesses. As a money- transfer business, you are essentially an agent of the government - a spy. To a regulator, Bitcoin seems like a way to transfer arbitrary quantities of money anonymously. This is a nonstarter, and the regulator knows exactly whose necks he has to squeeze - the spies who are not doing their jobs.

He cannot shut down Bitcoin itself. He can trivially shut down Bitcoin-dollar exchanges, or even Bitcoin-gold exchanges. Probably seizing all their dollars, etc. He probably can't seize their bitcoins, but it doesn't really matter.

To save in a currency is to place your trust in that currency. If you put energy into this great collective battery, you have to be able to get it back out. If that trust can be convincingly damaged, the currency has no chance. If people lose money in bitcoins, the currency can never recover. No one will ever again exchange it for dollars, or even alpaca socks. It will be dead. Its chances, now and forever, will be zero - not even epsilon.

If Bitcoin was centralized - sacrificing all real coolness - it could deal with this problem, perhaps, by applying KYC to all dollar transactions. But Bitcoin is not centralized, so there is no way the development team can prevent exchanges from operating. These exchanges are obvious targets for numerous predatory authorities. When they are destroyed, the currency dies.

What is Bitcoin's only chance? Perhaps that Bitcoin is not really anonymous. In fact, it is anything but. All transactions, though pseudonymous (named by a random key), are public and can be tracked by anyone, including said authorities. There is no financial secrecy in Bitcoin - it's a completely transparent system.

Which means that, if money launderers try to launder money through Bitcoin, they are actually doing the authorities a massive favor. It is very easy to track dirty bitcoins. If you know Pablo, a drug dealer, is using Bitcoin address X, you can download the entire graph of parties that X trades with, and roll up Pablo's whole network. Instead of shutting down the real-money exchanges, you can secretly force them to send you their entire customer database. That way, the terrorists, drug dealers, etc, are not hiding their transactions at all - they are sharing their most intimate details with the government. Heck, the DEA probably understands Pablo's finances better than Pablo's own people. That's what he gets for using Bitcoin.

But, as I said, we are governed by dumb people. Or, worse, committees of smart people. Therefore, I reiterate my target price on bitcoins: epsilon. Nonetheless, it probably wouldn't kill you to go buy five or ten - not that this is financial advice.

<comment><USER33> I thought the point of laundering was that yes, you can see where every individual bitcoin goes, but that when you put it through a "washing" service it then goes to people who are completely unrelated to whatever Pablo was doing. And Pablo gets money that was completely unrelated to what he was doing, probably at another account.

<comment><USER34> Indeed. The crucial questions are:

a) Can the washing services "mix up" owners' address well enough that you can plausibly say, "I got money that was in a drug deal? Wow, only six thousand other people did too!" (I think they can.)

b) If a) is true, will it be plausible to ban washing services? They're pretty much the definition of money laundering, so the legal case is a lot more airtight.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I'm confused how a bitcoin bug fix or protocol fix would get implemented? Isn't it a distributed system, so everyone mining coins would have to agree at once?

<comment><USER36> It requires more than 50% of the network to agree.

Those who don't will live in their own little fork.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I wonder how much of this growth is driven by Silk Road - would be interesting to see some figure analysis if Silk Road makes any available

<comment><USER38> <http://arxiv.org/abs/1207.7139>

Based on this analysis, not much. But then again, the estimation methods in the paper are not very good IMHO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Is it possible to short bitcoins?

</comment><comment><USER6> the muppets are gonna get burned, again. only a matter of time.

</comment><comment><USER40> damn, I missed out on being a successful arbitrageur

</comment><comment><USER41> But how will the Federal Reserve be able to allocate new blocks of bit coins to give to one of the 12 federal reserve banks so we can fund more trillion dollar packages of spending borrowed money if all they can do is try to acquire bitcoins from other people who have them?

In theory, would inflation be impossible with bitcoin provided that the number of humans who are willing to exchange labour for coins always increase?

<comment><USER42> You mean how will a central authority with the economic stability of the country as its central aim be able to help provide that stability?

Yeah, not so much. Which is a shame because that's a feature of the current monetary systems that I like.

<comment><USER43> I don't think that is currently the central aim of the Federal Reserve, if it ever was.

<comment><USER42> Wikipedia's page on the Federal Reserve, particularly the section on 'Purpose' would seem to disagree with you. But it is only wikipedia and may well be inaccurate.

<comment><USER41> Which means, if bitcoins were to 100% replace US Dollar today, the US Government would have to immediately default on the treasury.

I get the sinking feeling that when Bitcoin takes off for it to make any kind of fractional dent in society, it's going to be squished like a bug. After having been linked to WMD's and terrorism.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Programming a Problem-Oriented-Language by Charles H. Moore - <AUTHOR> http://colorforth.com/POL.htm

<comment><USER2> First book about FORTH programming language is available online now.</comment>


How we coupled product innovation with mass manufacturing - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/moo-paper/how-moo-coupled-product-innovation-with-mass-manufacturing-e582cee43b63 <comment><USER2> Any plans to open source the code for the pico projector highligher? That sounds like something others would be interested in having too.

<comment><USER3> So its actually a very basic setup. I used pygame to output to the framebuffer device on the Banana Pi, and created a very simple controller class to run the drawing thread.

Its about 300 lines for the projector management class, with some internal state machine logic, and a number of draw calls using pygame.draw.circle(). Calibration offsets are stored in a config file to allow for variations between each physical device made up.

Using a python thread to make the draw calls can occasionally go wrong and the Banana Pi gets stuck, but that's sufficiently rare enough that you can just reboot to solve the issue in the factory.</comment></comment>


Google Drive Gets a Jump on Dropbox - <AUTHOR> http://pandodaily.com/2012/07/26/in-battle-for-your-files-google-drive-gets-a-jump-on-dropbox/

<comment><USER2> I thought the article was crap

> We should be careful not to draw too strong a conclusion from such a small > sample

But they go ahead and do that anyway

> It is early days for both Google Drive and Dropbox

Early days for a company that has been around since about 2007?

</comment><comment><USER3> I actually want to like Google Drive. It's cheaper and the pricing is clearer, and the sharing works much better than Dropbox's weird "access to shared folders counts against your quota" policy. But the experience kind of sucks. No linux client is a killer straight off (there is a free software "grive" utility which can do on-demand syncing, and it works well enough). The tie-in with docs means that every time I drop a PDF into it the Android app it prompt me to convert it to a Google doc (seriously?).

</comment><comment><USER4> The operative question here is whether Google is taking Dropbox users, or introducing new users to cloud storage. Assuming Dropbox is still growing, having another player holding the hands of new users might actually be beneficial for Dropbox, because it's easier to get people to switch services for something they're already doing than to get them to do something new.

</comment><comment><USER5> The real question is: does Dropbox need to compete with Google?

To me, Dropbox does everything I need it to do. It's great as a backup in case I lose my local copy, it's fast, it's well-priced, I still have tons of storage left on my account...

I don't need it to become anything other than what it is in some stupid pissing contest with Google.

<comment><USER6> I agree that this is the real question. As a commenter in the original article pointed out, Dropbox is a stand alone product and Google Drive is a feature (much like iCloud).

I may be old fashioned but I prefer applications like Dropbox that focus on doing one thing well. I feel Dropbox still does cross platform sync the best.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Attachments.me co-founder and CEO Jesse Miller says that since the company > added Google's service on June 12, it has consistently seen 50 percent more > Drive accounts added per day than Dropbox.

Translation: New service growing faster than older established service.

Nearly all of the quotes point to this same truth.

<comment><USER8> Exactly. Most of these examples seem to be "we've had Dropbox support for a while, and we added Google Drive and more people are setting it up"; my interpretation is "Dropbox users have already configured their accounts".

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It would be awesome to have a productivity tool start up today with both and see who "wins". My guess is it would be Dropbox.</comment>


Meeting Technical Cofounders in SF? - <AUTHOR> Hey guys - I will be in San Francisco between Aug 22 - Aug 24 and was wondering if I could meet technical cofounders who are interested in building the following tourism mobile app:
What is Tropoo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4SJHPOrk_g
How it works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aawxqetbyss
Drop me an email at: firstname.lastname@example.com
Cheers!! <comment><AUTHOR> test</comment>


Philip Greenspun: It's not just programmers who can inflate their LOC counts - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2008/04/21/

<comment><USER2> Performance targets can be a double-edged sword. When the Blair government introduced performance targets for the public service, it resulted in a mixture of improvement and unintended consequences (ie. gaming of targets).

Manipulation of targets in the case of hospitals, from the BBC: <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4721174.stm>

So as Greenspun says, the selection of targets that are difficult to game is pretty important.

</comment><comment><USER3> "The Board at Merrill Lynch Enronized their company by promising to pay Stan O'Neal roughly $50 million per year if he made some numbers look good. One of the numbers that they wanted to see improved was Return on Equity. O'Neal managed to improve it by using the company's cash to buy back stock. By reducing the amount of equity in the firm, whatever profit they managed to earn in a given year would be a larger percentage of the remaining equity. Unfortunately, for a company that faces risk, reducing the cash supply inevitably means courting disaster."

You get what you pay for! Isn't life great?!

</comment><comment><USER4> Reminds me of that old Joel on Software article on incentive pay <http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000070.html>

</comment><comment><USER5> "The stats are clean." -- Cedric Daniels</comment>


New Hacking Tools Pose Bigger Threats to Wi-Fi Users - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/17/technology/personaltech/17basics.html?src=twr <comment><USER2> There is so much bullsh*t in that post that its almost laughable!</comment>