Secret Bitcoin billionaires to renounce their US citizenship before cashing in? - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.harvard.edu/philg/2018/02/03/secret-bitcoin-billionaires-will-renounce-their-u-s-citizenship-before-cashing-in/ <comment><USER2> As an American expat my experience far more people are moving to the US for tax reasons than are moving away. Out of all the western democracies it's still one of the lowest taxable rates.

Most people surrendering citizenship aren't doing so to avoid taxes. They are doing so to avoid double taxation.

A Bitcoin billionaire is either paying the US 15-20% capital gains tax or France, for example, 45-50%. Either way, Caesar still gets his due.

<comment><USER3> Following countries allow you to cash out Bitcoin tax free, if you're an early holder: the UK, Ireland, Cyprus, Malta, Belgium, Netherlands, possibly Germany, Switzerland, Singapore, the UAE, Monaco, the Channel Islands, Andorra, Italy (if you pay a €100k levy), Portugal, Singapore, and I probably forgot another dozen countries. Pretty much half of Western Europe.

If you have the money, most of these countries offer great quality of life. If you're sitting on a $100m gain.. it's worth it. A change of scenery isn't always bad in life. Personally I would never voluntarily pay 20% on a massive gain if there is a legal way to avoid it.

I guess what this article is implying is, since the US treasury does not know of the existence of these Bitcoins, people can easily renounce (committing US tax fraud in the process) and cash in.

<comment><USER4> If I was sitting on a $100mm windfall, paying $20mm seems like a no brainer to be able to live in or at least visit the U.S., where presumably all of your friends and family live, without worrying about being arrested for tax fraud.

Not to mention the moral arguments in favor of paying the taxes you owe.

<comment><USER3> The only taxes you owe, are the ones you legally owe. Saving on taxes also doesn't mean you can't give back.

You can support promising artists, give grants to talented people, help people out who can't afford their medical bills, end up in a bad legal situation, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Bitcoin billionaires would just pay the taxes. $500 million and a lot of time is worth WAY more than $1 billion and time wasted dealing with crap. It's way more money than I would ever know what to do with, anyway. Life with $500 million and $1 billion would not be very different.

It's people with $100k of bitcoin that are more likely to want to go through troubles to not have to pay taxes. Because having $100k and $50k in the bank could be very different living situations.

<comment><USER3> This is just incorrect. There are generally two types of people; some hate taxes, and the higher the gain the bigger the incentive is to move abroad (this generally does not apply to Americans, as they are taxed globally). And then you have people who don't care and would pay the tax either way -- whether it's set at 10% or 35%.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think the "Bitcoin billionaire" is more of mythical figure than real people.

To be a Bitcoin billionaire, even a multimillionaire you had not only buy thousands of Bitcoin early on, you had to also:

\- Hold when it was valued at USD10 (it was a milestone that generated a lot of buzz that it was a peak value)

\- Hold when it was valued at USD100 (it was a milestone that generated a lot of buzz that it was a peak value)

\- Hold when it was valued at USD1000 (it was a milestone that generated a lot of buzz that it was a peak value)

\- Not lost the password of a negleticble amount of money stored as virtual currency that no one quite understood in a virtual wallet you are not sure where to keep.

\- Not be hacked in several ways, included in the biggest exchange of the early days

Is anyone guess how many people are left after all that. My guess is that I would count in one hand

<comment><USER7> I got bit by your #4 scenario, and I know I'm not the only one!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> As the link in the post says, there is an exit tax in place to prevent just this. One of the qualifying prongs to be subject to the tax is "Individuals with a net worth of US$2 million or more as of the expatriation date." That's not liquid net worth, or realized net worth, it's just plain old net worth. If you are subject to the tax, all your assets are deemed sold as of the date of expatriation as income tax on the phantom gains are owed.

Of course someone could hope to stay off the radar or move to a non- extradition country and try to thumb their nose at the USG, but there's a big difference between a loophole existing and the fact that enforcement isn't always perfect.

<comment><USER9> This is illusionary, as billions worth of bitcoin couldn't be cashed out at once. How do they take the potential for crash into account. Also, is intellectual property also taxed, like all the mssing

<comment><USER8> This tax provision is not designed to be friendly. It's designed to deter what the US considers bad behavior. You can disagree that it's bad behavior, you can call the law is unfair, immoral, unreasonable, illogical -- whatever. Arguing against those positions is not the point of the post I made.

My point was to point out that there isn't any loophole in U.S. that would allow a cryto billionaire to avoid capital gains taxes via the expedient of renouncing citizenship. People can try anyway and see what happens, but there's a non-zero risk that they'll be chased to the ends of the earth by the IRS and DOJ.

<comment><USER9> Well, at least they can't come later and claim the price increased twofold in the meantime.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Does there need to be even more documentation of tax avoidance and money laundering schemes for us to realize that no one is going to renounce their citizenship over taxes?

</comment><comment><USER11> It will depend on what the IRS considers to be the capital gain event.

Also, this:

> _His or her wealth is on a Post-It and nobody else knows about it. So the > person who was clever enough to buy bitcoin in 2010 renounces in 2018, > becomes a citizen of a country without income tax or one that doesn't tax > foreign holdings, and then starts cashing in without the U.S. government > ever becoming aware._

Is pretty much a description of tax evasion. Crimes don't get canceled when you renounce citizenship. And the evidence of this crime is public and immutable.

If you're in this position, congratulations! Now just suck it up and pay the capital gains, since 80% of Lots Of Money is better than 0% of Lots Of Money. Life as a free-and-clear gazillionaire is going to be better than life as a fugitive from a powerful, spiteful tax agency.

<comment><USER12> I am not a lawyer; I have no idea what the tax law says.

But if the tax law says the gain event is selling the asset, then there is absolutely nothing morally wrong with exploiting this tax loophole.

It's a travesty that it exists in the first place (as it was when Apple exploits Irish law), but the laws are written by the government that no individual can control. If the laws create a loophole, it's legal (obviously) and ethical to step through it.

<comment><USER11> We're talking about deliberately hiding wealth to avoid taxation. This is hardly loophole territory.

I'm Australian. I've lived in the US long enough now that I am treated as a US tax resident -- worldwide income, foreign assets, the whole shebang. I have to report _and pay capital gains tax_ on my compulsory retirement savings in Australia, which I cannot transfer here or withdraw, because of an oversight in the US-Australia tax treaty.

Yes, it's absurd. But even in the matter of a few hundred bucks it is not worth messing with the IRS. There is too much to lose.

You have to pick your battles. Trying to sneak past capital gains tax illegally is bitpenny wise and pound foolish. If you don't like the tax laws, do what everyone else has to do and get elbow-deep into the messy, uncomfortable and morally challenging world of representative democracy.

<comment><USER13> Actually as part of tax reform, US is moving to territorial system instead of world. It's probably the single biggest improvement and fix to come out of that bill.

<comment><USER11> That _is_ an improvement, I missed it in the hubbub about tax rates. But I expect it means I still have to report for the last tax year.

Either way, I'll report and pay whatever my agent says is correct.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> You have to not only acquire a visa to reside in a low tax jurisdiction but you also have to obtain citizenship in it first. You can't become stateless.

<comment><USER15> I'm not saying you are wrong, but something really annoys me when I here you can't become stateless. It's like saying you can't not have an owner.

<comment><USER16> Being stateless means that you are not allowed to reside anywhere without permission. While there are some drawbacks to having citizenship (depending on the country), there are no countries where it is worth your while to withdraw citizenship without having another to fall back on. All of the legal rights that most people take for granted disappear when you are not a citizen. And if you are arrested for any reason (or even no reason), nobody will come to your aide if you are stateless.

Having lived a good percentage of my adult life in countries where I do not have citizenship, it's something that I keep in mind -- I do not have the rights of a citizen. I only live here as a guest on the good graces of my host. Only international agreements with the country that I come from guarantees any due process of law in the case that there is trouble.

Having said that, I completely agree with you: it would be wonderful if countries would guarantee rights of people no matter their origin or political affiliations. We don't live in that kind of world, unfortunately.

<comment><USER15> I totally understand. It actually sounds a lot better when you say "you are not allowed to reside anywhere without permission."

It would be nice to be able to travel around the world without restrictions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> our plan is the MM2H Visa: [http://www.mm2h.gov.my/index.php/en/](http://www.mm2h.gov.my/index.php/en/)

It requires a large initial deposit and proof of funds, but all foreign- sourced income is tax free.

Malaysia is very centrally located in SEA, has great weather year round, very modern, great food.

<comment><USER18> I was considering it a few years back myself, but then I went and spent some time in Malaysia and couldn't fall in love with it. I ended up in Thailand and much prefer it here. I recommend spending some time in Malaysia before you take up the MM2H program.

<comment><USER17> We actually did Thailand first and are just about to leave Chiang Mai after spending a total of 2 years here. We have been to KL twice and Penang twice. We will be spending a couple months in Penang this summer and then a few months in Kuching to narrow down where we want to settle. So far have not found any deal breakers, and the Durian/fruit situation makes it VERY enticing.

Chiang Mai was top of the list for a while (we have done most of the rest of Thailand), but considering the Thai Elite Visa does not give good ROI and burning season makes the North awful for 3-4 months of the year, Thailand is no longer a top pick. Also we have kind of outgrown it at this point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Are there still Bitcoin billionaires after the 50%+ drop?</comment>


Thought process on the new haskell.org homepage - <AUTHOR> http://chrisdone.com/posts/haskell-lang

<comment><USER2> I absolutely love the mockup. And I agree with most of your analysis. I've felt the same way about the Haskell homepage for quite some time.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not the author of the article; chrisdone is: [https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=chrisdone](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=chrisdone)</comment></comment>


Immigrants Do a Great Job at Becoming Americans - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2017-11-21/immigrants-do-a-great-job-at-becoming-americans <comment><USER2> Not many are against immigrants or immigration in general, at least not in regards to the US. The issue is _Illegal_ immigration. You're supposed to come through the front door.

<comment><USER3> 1\. http so://news.vice.com/en_us/article/pa4mq7/the-us-keeps-mistakenly- deporting-its-own-citizens

US keeps mistakenly deporting its own citizens.

2\. Natural born citizens don't come in through the front door.

3\. Making immigration illegakt and then claiming to be anti illegal immigration isn't fooling anyone. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nativism_(politics)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nativism_\(politics\))

<comment><USER4> Over 1 million people legally immigrate annually. No other country comes close to this and it apparently still isn't open enough. What do you propose to improve things?

<comment><USER5> >Over 1 million people legally immigrate annually. What do you propose to improve things?

How about we _really_ punish people who benefit from this? That is, punish people who hire illegal immigrants with prison terms.

The only reason no other country comes close is that our country _allows that to happen_ on purpose by not going after people who benefit from it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Immigration has lots of economic benefits, and few economic costs. > Immigrants pay for native-born Americans' retirement, start companies, and > make the U.S. a desirable destination for investment, while not taking away > jobs or depressing wages of the native-born.

That's weird. Economists regularly find that more supply decreases prices, and that this holds true for the labor market as well. But of course, it's an opinion piece with no claim to be based on facts, knowledge of said facts, or anything other than "I feel like this is true".

For more science-based thoughts on the economy and immigration, maybe turn to politico instead of bloomberg: [https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/trump- clinto...](https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/trump-clinton- immigration-economy-unemployment-jobs-214216)

<comment><USER7> > That's weird. Economists regularly find that more supply decreases prices, > and that this holds true for the labor market as well.

You seem to be suggesting that immigrants aren't also consumers.

<comment><USER6> If you're talking about buying stuff at the grocery store: sure, but it's not a 1:1 offset. You don't need to hire an extra employee to serve an extra customer. Over all, more labor supply = lower wages. That's really not a wild theory, and I personally haven't heard anybody claim that it's not true, but would love to hear your take on it.

What typically is a response to realizing that is to try and regulate the labor market more so supply and demand don't set the price, i.e. minimum wage, fixed wages, or some other way of making the labor market work less like a market.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Assimilation, therefore, is really a process of integration -- many cultures > becoming one culture. E pluribus unum

This is 100% correct and it always makes me supremely uncomfortable when people champion "assimilation" as a goal. America isn't a Borg collective, and American exceptionalism would not exist in a monoculture.

</comment><comment><USER9> Americans born here had it happen to them. Immigrants actively seek it. The same thing applies to anything inherited, religions, food, music, operating systems, editors, etc.

</comment><comment><USER10> What does becoming American even mean? This country is such a mishmash of religion, politics, food, culture, etc. As an average white guy, I'm happy if you just speak English and maybe put up something at Christmas.

<comment><USER11> I've been thinking about this for a while. While the US is such a huge country, it's obviously hard to pinpoint an obvious "American culture", but even more so maybe the identity is so hard to track down because of its prevalence? During the last 100 years American culture's become so prevalent in the west ("globalism") that a lot of countries are very Americanised where popular culture, art and even businesses originate from the US.

I mean, I live in Eastern Europe and I'm currently watching an American TV series on Netflix while I'm writing this comment on my Apple MacBook with a podcast waiting for a listen later and there's a Sam Harris book on my bed. It's nothing like my heritage of what it means to be Hungarian, living in Transylvania. And yet you're sharing a lot of American identity with me.

It's just a thought I've been playing around with, but maybe that's why Americans have such a hard time finding their identity as Americans?

<comment><USER12> I think its just white Americans with that problem, other groups seem to have an identity. Why don't white Americans seem to have a culture? I think its an interesting question, I have various ideas, but nothing compelling.

<comment><USER13> Because white is an amalgamation of many different European cultures (Scottish,Irish,English,German...) that I think all diluted one another to the point that there is no specific culture piece that is universally white- american.

<comment><USER12> There used to be Little Italy and German parts of town and such, but they disappeared with suburban white flight.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I don't really get the point of restricting immigration at all. I mean, why not build a wall between Texas and Oklahoma? They have a different state government, different tax rates, different state laws, different government benefits. Makes just as much sense as a wall with Mexico. Huge numbers of people move from state to state without any authorization or notification, and nobody cares. The whole debate makes no sense. It should be a nonissue.

<comment><USER15> You need to read up on your history. There has been a lot of complaint about state to state migration too.</comment></comment>


Pony – High Performance Actor Programming - <AUTHOR> http://ponylang.org <comment><USER2> This language claims to be "capabilities-secure", which I assumed meant that it uses capability-based security and is an object-capability language. This got me excited -- my work on Sandstorm.io and Cap'n Proto uses capability- based security heavily, and a high-performance object-capability language would be awesome to have (the existing ones are mostly dynamically-typed and slow, though you can use capability-based design without using a capability- based language, as many programs and most OS's actually do to some extent).

Unfortunately, it turns out they have simply coopted the term to mean something completely different. According to the documentation: "Pony capabilities are completely new, no other language has them."[0]

Please think of a new word for this; don't redefine one (or a pair) that is widely-used already.

[0] [http://tutorial.ponylang.org/capabilities/introduction/](http://tutorial.ponylang.org/capabilities/introduction/)

<comment><USER3> Kenton, are you perchance familiar with the E language.

That was (is?) all about capabilities.

[http://erights.org/elang/index.html](http://erights.org/elang/index.html)

<comment><USER2> Yup. Cap'n Proto's RPC layer is based on E's network protocol, CapTP, except sitting on top of Cap'n Proto's serialization layer instead of Java serialization. E's designer, Mark Miller, is a friend and assisted me with the design.

<comment><USER4> That's great news that you know Mark! We have talked extensively with Mark about the design of Pony, and he agrees that it is indeed a capabilities type system, and that it is capabilities secure.

<comment><USER2> Hmm well if Mark Miller says Pony is capability-based then it must be. I apologize if I've misunderstood. I'm confused, though, by two things:

1\. Your documentation introducing capabilities specifically says: "Pony capabilities are completely new, no other language has them." If you really mean "capability" in Mark Miller's sense of the word, then this statement is incorrect. Many object-capability languages exist.

2\. What your documentation describes as "capabilities" looks to me like type qualifiers. The documentation says "A capability is a form of type qualifier and provides a lot more guarantees than const does!" But this doesn't sound anything like capabilities.

Is it possible that Pony is an object-capability language _but_ you are also using the word to refer to a different concept? If Pony is actually an object- cap language then that's excellent, and I even more so encourage you to rename the type qualifier concept to avoid the confusion!

FWIW, Sandstorm is very interested in adopting a high-performance ocap language, but would probably shy away from one which uses the word "capbaility" to mean something else, for fear of confusing developers.

<comment><USER4> Sandstorm looks extremely interesting. Very very extremely. If Pony could be useful at all to Sandstorm, please get in touch!

Sorry for the docs misunderstanding - I promise, bad docs not withstanding, we are using "capability" to mean exactly what you want us to mean :)

<comment><USER5> +1 to fixing the docs. It should not be hard to remove the one line, "Pony capabilities are completely new, no other language has them."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I found interesting what Rust's Graydon Hoare had to say about it:

"It's very similar to earlier versions of rust. In terms of actor local GC, language provided scheduling of actors, separated function and async invocation system, mixed structural and nominal types, and an overabundance of language supported reference qualifiers. I think they did a good job at it, certainly much better than I did, but I'd be nervous about the cognitive load of the reference qualifiers (capabilities). See this page for example, or the previous few in the tutorial. We had that sort of cognitive load on variables early on and people basically rejected the language because of it, as well as associated compositionality problems. The many years of design iteration had a lot do to with factoring that space into fewer, more essential and general qualifiers. Slow, tedious, world breaking refactoring work. I hope for pony's sake this doesn't happen to them too -- it looks really nice -- but that's my biggest worry for it."

[http://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/34rszb/pony_type_and_m...](http://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/34rszb/pony_type_and_memory_safe_language/cqxkmm8)

<comment><USER7> Indeed, the type system when explained in detail is not that simple. Nevertheless, we believe that it can be used without detailed knowledge.

In our experience, programmers can pick up the system fast (e.g. after a 2 hour discussion).

Similarly, programmers can easily write programs which type-check, even if they do not have a deep understanding of the type system (e.g. they need not memorise the table you mentioned). Type-checking is enough - given the guarantees by the type system, (data-race freedom and atomicity).

The use of defaults reduces the annotation burden - typically to only 10%-20% of locations which allow them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is incredibly cool. I read through the whole tutorial, and I love what I see, but I recommend putting some code samples on the front page.

Syntax may be less important than a language's features, but it isn't until the 4th page of the tutorial that I even have an inkling of what code in Pony looks like.

I'm excited to give this a try!

<comment><USER9> Yes you're right, we will put some code samples in earlier on. Thanks for the feedback.

<comment><USER10> What is your planned version 1.0 release date? What milestones are you facing in the release process? What will future support for the language look like?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "Among these, Pony is the only language that concurrently garbage collects actors."

I must not be understanding that claim correctly. Erlang does garbage collection on a per actor basis (at least that's my understanding). If the claim is that multiple actors can garbage collect simultaneously, then I guess that means Erlang only GCs one actor at a time. If so, why can't Erlang GC multiple actors at a time? It does full SMP for actor execution.

<comment><USER3> > If so, why can't Erlang GC multiple actors at a time? It does full SMP for > actor execution.

It does. The article is incorrect. Erlang has a fully concurrent garbage collector among actors. One actor's GC running on one CPU scheduler will not interfere with execution of actors running in other CPU schedulers.

<comment><USER4> There's a difference between GC'ing the memory reachable from an actor and GC'ing the actors themselves. Erlang requires a "poison pill" message to kill actors.

The research paper is here:

[http://ponylang.org/papers/opsla237-clebsch.pdf](http://ponylang.org/papers/opsla237-clebsch.pdf)

<comment><USER12> Also, looking at the white paper I see really weird numbers.

This section in particular: Benchmarks and preliminary comparisons with Erlang, Scala, Akka, and libccpa Table1 & Table2

It seems that you have the exact same numbers for Erlang and Scala in table2, this is very hard to believe. You either accidentally put down the same number twice or you measured the performance of your benchmarking tool, otherwise it is extremely unlikely that two entirely different systems give the the same exact measurement. Similar story in table1. maybe I am missing something terribly obvious but this looks off to me.

<comment><USER13> >It seems that you have the exact same numbers for Erlang and Scala in table2, this is very hard to believe.

The numbers are taken from another source and it seems they didn't have the exact numbers, hence the ~9s figure which is then used to calculate 333,333. They seem to have gotten the numbers by looking up the graphs on this page:

[http://libcppa.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/benchmark](http://libcppa.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/benchmark)

Makes me wonder how precise you could be at getting the numbers from just the graphs. Pixel precision at 800x600 is probably not too bad.

<comment><USER14> I am not an expert in benchmarking, so maybe I'm missing something. But how is that not crazy?

If I were looking to compare two things, I would run all the benchmarks on a single machine under my control. I might look at previously published reports to make sure I was getting comparable numbers. But there is no way I would publish a comparison that I merely _hoped_ was apples to apples. I've just had too many benchmarks depend on subtle issues, ones that I had presumed were irrelevant.

<comment><USER15> The benchmarks reported on the web page ([http://ponylang.org](http://ponylang.org)) and also reported at [http://ponylang.org/papers/fast-cheap.pdf](http://ponylang.org/papers/fast- cheap.pdf) are more recent, and for these the code was run for different languages, and on one machine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> From the benchmark results, this is not much faster than Erlang. Also the graphs only cover 12 cores, while it claims that "Applications can run on a virtually infinite processor count and on arbitrarily large clusters". I would love to see how it scales on thousands of cores.

<comment><USER7> We will have more benchmarks soon. Pony is between 2 and 3 times faster than Erlang on these benchmarks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> It looks good, but is language alone enough these days? Reminds me of Axum C# research dialect. Microsoft decided to implement it as a framework in the end - Orleans. So did Scala. And wouldn't F# + Akka.NET be just as safe?

<comment><USER7> In Akka, message arguments have to be immutable objects - similarly for Erlang; Pony can pass isolated references which can be mutated and passed on, while still being data-race free. Scala is based on Java, and thus it is not data-race free - unless the program has been crafted very carefully.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> How does the "your concurrent program can never have data races" claim go along with Actor model indeterminism and message interleaving?

<comment><USER4> Data races are a subset of all race conditions. We don't claim that it's impossible to wait on a network message that never arrives, of course!

However, Pony makes a messaging order guarantee that's much stronger than is typical for the actor model. It guarantees causal messaging. That is, any message that is a "cause" of another message (i.e. was sent or received by an actor prior to the message in question) is guaranteed to arrive before the "effect" if they have the same destination.

That guarantee is achieved with no runtime cost, which is pretty fun.

Pony still allows unbounded non-determinism, of course, but causal messaging gives a very comfortable guarantee to the programmer.

<comment><USER16> Any research paper or documentation on "That guarantee is achieved with no runtime cost"?

<comment><USER19> Especially if they're trying to include distribution (per a comment elsewhere). Pretty sure you can't have linearalizable messages between nodes without additional runtime cost compared to the non-linearalized case.

<comment><USER20> Distribution probably (almost definitely) kills the runtime cost, I can't imagine how it couldn't. I'm much more interested in the causality guarantee in the context of the distributed systems.

<comment><USER19> Oh, agreed. But it's doable, provided you don't mind losing availability (which is...an interesting choice for a programming language), and you don't mind the runtime cost.

But I agree, exactly what guarantees they're trying to provide (and is it opt in?) is an interesting question.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> There is no documentation yet for calling C libraries or calling Pony from C. Does anyone have resources on how to do this?

<comment><USER4> Sorry about that, we'll get more docs up as soon as we can.

For now, check out some of the included packages, like net/ssl. That calls C extensively (libressl, or openssl if you like). Or regex, which uses PCRE2.

<comment><USER22> Quick link for anyone that is curious, as I was: [https://github.com/CausalityLtd/ponyc/blob/master/packages/n...](https://github.com/CausalityLtd/ponyc/blob/master/packages/net/ssl/ssl.pony)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I couldn't find any information about the authors of this language. It seems like a fairly accomplished yet complex project, so it would be quite good to know who are the people working on it.

<comment><USER15> [http://www.causality.io/#team](http://www.causality.io/#team)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Looks very promising, hopefully there will be a strong community around it, imho communities make or break a language or a framework no matter how good the syntax or the features are.

</comment><comment><USER25> An unusual little feature is that assignment returns the old value of the target, e.g. a = b returns the old value of a, so that a = b = a just swaps the contents of a and b.

</comment><comment><USER3> From benchmarks. I see this label: "Erlang OTP 6.1"

Anyone know what version 6.1 is refering to? Latest Erlang OTP version is 17.5. Version 11 was released sometimes 10 years ago.

<comment><USER12> I think he is mixing up OTP with erts...

Erlang/OTP 17 [erts-6.4]

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Click commercial support. It goes to a parked domain page.

<comment><USER15> We are just emerging from stealth mode... sorry. The web site is up and running now (modulo DNS update)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I am goind to sound very stupid: Under [http://tutorial.ponylang.org/getting- started/installation/](http://tutorial.ponylang.org/getting- started/installation/) I just cannot find something to click on, download and install it, even though the site really looks as if that was the case.

What the hell am I missing?

<comment><USER28> Insallations instructions will be available today.

<comment><USER27> Any updates on the windows installer.?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> From the philosophy page: [https://github.com/CausalityLtd/ponyc/wiki/Philosophy](https://github.com/CausalityLtd/ponyc/wiki/Philosophy)

      > No loadable code. Everything is known to the compiler.

What does "loadable" mean here? Does it imply no dynamic linking?

<comment><USER28> No. Dynamic linking is possible, for example with C libraries. 'No loadable code' means that a programs code is not modified during runtime, nor extended with new code (for example like java applets or RMI applications). We have been looking into hot code loading though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> "The language doesn't even have the concept of null!" <-> is_null [1]

[1]: [https://github.com/CausalityLtd/ponyc/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&...](https://github.com/CausalityLtd/ponyc/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is_null)

Also, your 3-clause BSD license only has two clauses.

<comment><USER8> It's also worth noting that the language does have a None primitive, but the distinction from nil or null is that the concept of "nothing" is wrapped in it's own type entirely. This means that it would be a type violation for a method of return type String to ever return a None. Instead, a method that you expect to return a String or a None would need to have a union return type of (None | String).

It's analogous to Maybe, in Haskell.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I'm guessing the capabilities correspond to polarized substructural types plus additional structure for who can read/write to a given area of memory ([http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~fp/papers/fossacs15.pdf](http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~fp/papers/fossacs15.pdf)). i.e.: iso = linear, val = affine, ref = unrestricted, box = readable, trn = readable/writeable, tag = uniqueness?

Capability defaulting seems a little dangerous (not that it's not type safe, but it having such information be implicit seems like a good way to encourage people to forget about it; on the other hand, if the compiler is good enough about warning people it shouldn't be a problem).

I'm not sure subtyping is worthwhile for this language (since it complicates the type system without much of a gain wrt constrained polymorphism).

</comment><comment><USER32> Can you put up some example applications? The tutorial only has code snippets. I don't want to look at individual features in isolation, I want to get a feel for how one solves problems in the language.

<comment><USER28> Yes we are working on this. In the meantime, [https://github.com/CausalityLtd/ponyc/tree/master/examples](https://github.com/CausalityLtd/ponyc/tree/master/examples) might be a good start!

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> This looks awesome! Two questions:

1\. How does process failure and recovery work?

2\. Are there any plans to add binary patterns? That's one thing I'm sure I'd miss from Erlang if I wanted to write a server in this language.

<comment><USER4> 1\. Because Pony is both type and exception safe, actors (the Pony equivalent of an Erlang process) don't fail in the catastrophic sense. Right now, if an actor wants to report that it can't go on to some other actor, it just sends out messages. Obviously, we are big fans of Erlang, and big fans of the Erlang supervisor pattern, so we'll be writing a Pony package that puts a nice interface around this.

2\. Yes! Pony has first class pattern matching already (along with algebraic data types, i.e. tuple types, union types, and intersection types, to make pattern matching really useful). It allows matching both on type and on standard or programmer defined structural equality. As I mentioned, we're big Erlang fans, so we definitely won't ignore stuff like this.

<comment><USER34> "actors don't fail in the catastrophic sense"

Bonus: if this language thing doesn't work out you can just pivot to selling the unlimited-resource and failure-free hardware and operating system you've invented...

Snark aside, a system that _always_ assumes "clean shutdown" is going to massively simpler to design. It's also going to be unusable in real-world environments.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Sounds interesting. I like that algebra types are available in an OO Language.

[http://tutorial.ponylang.org/capabilities/introduction/](http://tutorial.ponylang.org/capabilities/introduction/) is the best concise description why concurrency is hard I read until now.

<comment><USER28> Thank you! :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Stopped being interested after reading "It's deadlock free!", "because Pony has no locks at all"... yeah but actor X waiting for actor Y which waits for actor X is a deadlock. It's not a matter of lock primitives, it's a matter of software. (yes, x-comment from reddit)

<comment><USER28> No. If actor X is waiting for actor Y and Y for X and neither of the two has messages to process, they are potentially subject to GC.

The question is, what does X is waiting for Y mean? 'Waiting' would imply that there are language constructs to actually wait. Pony doesn't have that. An actor that is blocked (i.e. has no messages) and that satisfies necessary RC invariants will be collected.

<comment><USER36> So I haven't seen yet in the website a code sample showing how a simple ping- pong actors would communicate, so I can't even test quickly if this is possible with the language.

If the program can implement a lock between the two actors, then your language is not deadlock free. Even a loop by checking if some variable has changed by the other actor (if possible in this language, I still don't even know by the deep lack of examples), and the other actor doing the same thing, that can be claimed as deadlock.

<comment><USER37> The lack of actor examples in the documentation for an actor-based language is really surprising.

Anyway, there is only a send construct (essentially a remote procedure call that returns no value) but no receive construct. Here's an example of passing data in a ring: [https://github.com/CausalityLtd/ponyc/blob/master/examples/r...](https://github.com/CausalityLtd/ponyc/blob/master/examples/ring/main.pony)

As there is no blocking receive, no immediate way of breaking this came to my mind, although I had the same initial thought.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I didn't see it from going through your website, but may I ask why it's called "Pony"?

<comment><USER28> [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=I%20want%20a%...](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=I%20want%20a%20pony)

:)

<comment><USER28> [http://blog.codinghorror.com/and-a-pony/](http://blog.codinghorror.com/and-a- pony/)

<comment><USER39> Not the only meaning though - people in the UK (especially some parts) may have different reaction: [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Pony&defid=92...](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Pony&defid=92721) :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Looks very interesting. Any examples of Erlang-style distributed actors?

<comment><USER28> We have been working on distribution support. We should get it into the runtime soon!

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I'm not seeing anyone here answering the important question: What makes Pony different from other languages?

<comment><USER7> Actor based; type safe; data-race free; copy-less message passing; easy to write fast programs; non-null types; algebraic data types; ...

Is there a specific language you would like to compare with?

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> After reading the doc, I am curious if the language has type constructor/support higher kinder type.

</comment><comment><USER43> I saw there are no ends in function and class definitions used, are they optional in if and for too?

<comment><USER44> I don't think so. The language is (almost) whitespace insensitive so the only way to know where a certain control statement terminates is by having the `end` token.

It is unnecessary on the top-level though, since the top-level expression will end where the next one begins. Which means you probably can't have nested class/function definitions.

This technique is not new and is used in OCaml, for example.

<comment><USER9> This is correct, classes and functions are not dependent on indentation, they just don't need an end. And yes, there are no nested classes and functions (other than in object literals).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Interesting language. The "philosophy" wiki page is worth reading: [https://github.com/CausalityLtd/ponyc/wiki/Philosophy](https://github.com/CausalityLtd/ponyc/wiki/Philosophy)</comment>


Inspiring Concern for Others and the Common Good Through College Admissions - <AUTHOR> http://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/16/01/turning-tide-inspiring-concern-others-and-common-good-through-college-admissions <comment><USER2> _Many endorsers have already committed to implementing changes consistent with the report recommendations – from revised essay questions and marketing materials, to the development of entirely new recruitment, scholarship and high school programs focused on community engagement and caring for others.... "We don't want students who do things just because they think they have to in order to get into college"_

This is sort of an impossible goal. If you put something on the college application, and judge students by it, then you are certain to be selecting students who are doing that activity just in order to get into college.

At this point, I think it may simply be better to use a lottery to fill slots at the most selective colleges. Set a bar at 1400SAT, top 10% of class, and one significant extracurricular. Then award students additional points for slightly higher SAT or better class rank or more exceptional extracurricular. Do a lottery, with your chances weighted by total points.[1]

Top-ten schools are recruiting from a pool of over a billion people, that means that among the top 1% of that pool there are 100,000 students each year. Distinguishing among that top 1% is nigh impossible, and if you try to do it based on any measuring stick, you will just set off a red queen race. Asking for people to show that they contribute to the community on the application is not a recipe for producing people who can successfully contribute to their communities. It is a recipe for producing people who can create the appearance of contributing to the community. The two are very different.

[1] I'm sure this policy would have to be slightly more complicated when taking into account the needs of recruiting a competitive football team, or in rewarding the biggest donors. But overall, I think this kind of plan would work for filling most of the slots in college class.

<comment><USER3> I think you under-estimate the people in college admissions offices. It's not that difficult to distinguish an apple-polisher from someone who was being a real high school kid.

If I were interviewing I'd ask "Did you go fishing with your friends?" If the answer is "Who has time, and do you mean my LinkedIn connections?" you know there's a problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I did interviewing for my alma mater for a few years, but I don't anymore. Some of these "public service" things I used as a negative signal. If the student started talking about the week they spent in Honduras building houses and how it changed his life, or how much of a difference she made by starting a recycling club for example. All of that seemed cynically calculated for exactly the purpose it was being deployed for. What really impressed me were the one or two kids I interviewed that had worked real jobs -- not internships.

I don't know about other interviewers or the professional admissions staff, but that was my impression.

</comment><comment><USER5> An admirable effort sure, but I can't help but feel it's empty words. The careful avoidance of any mention of techniques for evaluation is the most damning evidence. The reason the battery of achievement based metrics have become a defacto standard is they are comparable. Every student taking an AP is taking a known test, and receiving a known score.

"Community involvement" in contrast is much more vague. It's hard to put a marker on the relative impact of various activities. Do you discount things if it's organized by a third party (ie the community services most prep schools already require for graduations)? How do you account for the economic factor? It's a lot easier to be involved in your community if you aren't working to assist your struggling family. But at the same time, do you reject a more qualified candidate purely because they come from greater privilege?

Simple market forces are going to force the achievement race simply because spots are so limited yet have such a drastic effect on life trajectory.

</comment><comment><USER6> > "Admissions deans are stepping up collectively to underscore the importance > of meaningful engagement in communities and greater equity for economically > diverse students."

What in the world does community engagement have to do with a student's ability to succeed? I did absolutely jack squat in terms of extra curriculars and community service in high school because I was busy working to support myself and my family.

> ""Turing the Tide offers recommendations to tackle both of these issues > simultaneously by promoting the quality of academic engagement over the > quantity of achievements in college admissions."

Who determines what is quality of a particular activity? How is it measured? How are they compared against each other? These are entirely subjective concepts that exist only in the heads of the admissions staff and should not be used to evaluate anything. There is no way to test it, there is no way to verify or reproduce results, it's entirely hand wavy undeterminable hoo hah.

> "We don't want students who do things just because they think they have to > in order to get into college. To the contrary: we want students who lead > balanced lives, who pursue their interests with energy and enthusiasm, and > who work cooperatively with others, all of which will help them be > successful in and after college,"

The goal is good, but now those students you don't want to pressure are now going to have to figure out not just how to work in all their community crap into their already burdened schedules, but to make sure they choose community crap that suits the expectations of the admissions people they're targeting as to their demographics? How are they supposed to prepare for this?

And for that matter, what on Earth makes community outreach so important as to even determine whether you get into college? Why don't we stick to the things we can actually measure, like test scores and grades, taking into account the off-campus workload of the pupil?</comment>


What's in a product name? - <AUTHOR> http://www.igorinternational.com/press/sacbee-memorable-product-names.php

<comment><USER2> Fine. Now what do I name my startup?</comment>


IBM acquires (web analytics company) Coremetrics - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunchit.com/2010/06/15/ibm-buys-web-analytics-software-maker-coremetrics/

<comment><USER2> The number of independent Web analytics vendors is getting smaller... wonder when Webtrends gets bought... or when the acquisition of the european vendors begins...

<comment><AUTHOR> There is also Unica in the market. GA is eating up the segment like a hungry monster. It has over 2/3rd of all web analytics market share. And since it is free, I think it is a good idea for web analytics vendors to sell out.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What skills can a someone develop to become a great hacker? - <AUTHOR>

I'm developing educational materials on teaching people how to become the best hacker that they can be and I'm interested in what you think are the critical qualities of a great hacker. <comment><USER2> Cheesy. But don't give up.

Great coders will run into walls all the time. One of my favorite quotes is one by Randy Pausch (author of Last Lecture): "I believe brick walls are there for a reason. They're not there to keep us out. They are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something."

Keep that in mind when you're hacking, as you are bound to run into problems. Just roll and keep persevering.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't think I'm a great hacker so I'll pass on answering the question myself and point you to some other resources.

\- <http://norvig.com/21-days.html> \- <http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker- howto.html> \- <http://paulgraham.com/gh.html> (More Than Money)

</comment><comment><USER4> A truly great hacker will have enough facility with abstraction and clarity that his code will be understandable by others, including himself 6 months later.

He'll program in such a way that he can debug the hard bugs.

</comment><comment><USER5> Being curious.

</comment><comment><USER6> Persistant. Passionate about his/her chosen craft.

<comment><USER7> Definitely this!

I'm passionate about becoming a great hacker and I'm regularly trying to improve my skills in both hardware and software hacking (20/80 split at the moment).

My main issue is that I require a lot of structure in terms of the way that I learn, to deal with this I've borrowed "Programming Interview Explained" [ [http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Interviews-Exposed- Secrets...](http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Interviews-Exposed-Secrets- Landing/dp/0471383562) ] from a friend. It's a fairly short book but outlines what knowledge would be requisite for getting a job at Microsoft back in the early 2000s.

I'm going through the book and finding out what knowledge areas are currently lacking and supplementing them with books which are considered to be good for that specific subset of computing. E.g. I found out I was terrible at bit manipulation, so I've bought "Hacker's Delight" [ <http://www.hackersdelight.org/> ], which is helping in both my software knowledge and hardware knowledge.

I figure that this method of learning will likely take me over a year if I limit the supplementing books to just 1 or 2 at most. After that I can go through it again, covering all of the topics that I thought I knew well enough to make sure my knowledge is all up to scratch.

TL;DR Persistance is key if you want to gain domain knowledge in your field. I'm taking a backwards approach and using a book to define my learning path.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Become a hacker:

1) Don't accept the status quo, when you see/imagine a better way.

Become a good hacker:

2) Exercise discretion and consideration. Assume you might (will) break stuff -- important stuff -- and design with adequate defenses in mind and demonstrated.

Next step?

3) Recognize where and how much risk is present. Don't over-engineer where the cost/benefit leaves it unwarranted or where it is outright counter-productive.

You're going to make mistakes at each step. It's a learning process.

</comment><comment><USER9> have fun

</comment><comment><USER10> Smoke 3 packs a day. You'll be hacking in no time.</comment>


World map resized by ccTLDs shows tiny US and huge mystery island - <AUTHOR> http://www.nominet.uk/mapping-the-online-world/ <comment><USER2> It would be nice to see the area of the world for.com, as a reference.</comment>


The Bitcoin Crypto-Currency Mystery Reopened (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/1785445/bitcoin-crypto-currency-mystery-reopened

<comment><USER2> I do not think it is unbelievable that a cryptographer would not have heard of Bitcoin. Bitcoin is just not that interesting to cryptography researchers or professionals; there is a polynomial time attack (for a vague notion of what it means to attack Bitcoin), no security definition, and a requirement that the honest parties scale their work with the work done by the attacker. It is almost certainly not the case that Bitcoin was created by an expert cryptographer or by a team of experts; one need not look any further than the original Bitcoin paper to see why (no references to previous work on digital cash? no reference to security multiparty computation? an expert cryptographer would most likely have mentioned at least some related work).

<comment><USER3> > _requirement that the honest parties scale their work with the work done by > the attacker_

You're always repeating this as if it's an indictment. But you're applying the cryptography standard (comfortable asymptotic complexity results) to a _coordination_ problem. If you aren't willing to use trusted (untrustable :P) third parties, something else has to define authority. And control of this will always be a struggle between competing groups, whether it's minor disagreements on protocol, or full fledged slash-and-burn attackers.

(And I say this as someone who thinks Bitcoin is an unfortunate distraction).

<comment><USER2> What you are saying is _not_ true. It is possible in other settings to create fully decentralized protocols that are secure even if all but one of the parties is malicious (i.e. the attacker can control all but one of the parties in the system). Those protocols are secure in the cryptographic sense: the attacker's effort grows exponentially with the work done by the honest parties (even if there is only one honest party).

The issue with Bitcoin is not a coordination problem. Sure there is a team of developers who act as a central authority in Bitcoin, but that's irrelevant; some other person can implement Bitcoin. The problem is _fundamental_ and _inherent_ in Bitcoin's design. Ignoring the poorly formed notion of "security" in Bitcoin, at a high level the work needed to attack Bitcoin scales linearly with the work needed to run Bitcoin, _regardless_ of the implementation details. That is not a coordination problem, it is a fundamental problem in the design of Bitcoin.

<comment><USER3> I'm using coordination problem in purely technical protocols sense.

Can you be specific about which other decentralized protocols you're referring to?

I agree that many protocols fit your description, but I can't see how any of them could be both partition-tolerant and prevent conflicting transactions (double spends in this case). It seems like partitions lead to honest disagreements about what happened first, and these are indistinguishable from an attacker. To reconcile these disagreements, we need some majority-metric so both sides can agree which one wins out.

<comment><USER2> "Can you be specific about which other decentralized protocols you're referring to?"

Well, let's just take this (random Google result) as an example:

[http://groups.csail.mit.edu/cis/pubs/shafi/2002-disc.pdf](http://groups.csail.mit.edu/cis/pubs/shafi/2002-disc.pdf)

There you have a protocol that can tolerate honest parties aborting and can tolerate a malicious majority. Partitioning is a slightly different problem than aborting, of course, but that is beside the point. My point was that there is nothing inherent in secure computation that requires you to allow polynomial time attacks or even to require an honest majority. It is hard to excuse a system that is supposed to be based on cryptography that fails to provide anything remotely close to the security we expect out of cryptosystems.

Really there is a deeper problem here, which is the lack of a well-formed security definition for Bitcoin. You use terms like "double spending" but those terms are very poorly defined for Bitcoin; I would go further and say that there may not even be such a definition, given that there is nothing wrong with a Bitcoin user spending more money than they receive (due to "mining"). It is impossible to apply the security definitions of other digital cash systems, which invoke a bank. Underlying all this is the lack of a definition of money; Bitcoin dispenses with economic theory but fails to provide a satisfactory replacement.

<comment><USER3> (Disclaimer: I'll admit to not having the best understanding of the applicability of secure MPC. For instance, seeing things about parallel composability, I have a hard time fathoming how multiple instances of something _couldn 't_ be secure in parallel. So I can only conclude the papers are written from a much different perspective than I have.)

> _there is nothing inherent in secure computation that requires you to allow > polynomial time attacks or even to require an honest majority_

But, that paper comes right out and says: " _On the other hand, as we have mentioned, in the range of t [malicious parties] ≥ n /2 [half of total parties] the definitions of secure computation do not imply Byzantine agreement._"

In order to have a currency (fungibility), we need widespread agreement as to what constitutes value. Several nodes saying a transaction is good aren't enough - all nodes must agree. The hard part is achieving quorum of the majority of nodes, after which the remaining nodes acquiesce and follow (even if they vehemently disagree! that is, assuming they want to keep transacting with everyone else. also notice we've left out any judgement of honesty)

But also, what constitutes a "node"? If we aren't going to have a trusted party handing out limited identities, we need some non-forgeable ability. Bitcoin uses computing power measured in SHA2s. If you compute twice the hashes, you count as twice the nodes for purposes of quorum. You're free to explore a different system for avoiding Sybil attacks, but it's still going to come out as a one-to-one balance between "honest" and "dishonest" nodes.

<comment><USER2> "For instance, seeing things about parallel composability, I have a hard time fathoming how multiple instances of something couldn't be secure in parallel."

A good, intuitive example is this: I personally cannot win against a Chess grandmaster or even play to a draw; if I play two games in sequence, I will lose both times. However, I can guarantee that I can either win a game or draw two games if I am allowed to play two grandmasters simultaneously, one as white and one as black. I can simply copy the moves from one board to the other, and each grandmaster will be forced to play against another grandmaster (but they will be playing against me, and I can claim to win half the games I play against grandmasters -- much better than I can do I my own!).

"In order to have a currency (fungibility), we need widespread agreement as to what constitutes value."

At a basic level, what we really need is a definition of _validity_ for our money. In the case of gold as currency, for example, validity is defined in terms of chemistry -- weights of a particular element are valid as money. For fiat currencies validity is defined via the law, by a government. In the digital cash systems developed by the cryptography research community, money is valid if the bank will accept it for deposit.

The problem with Bitcoin is that validity is not well-defined and can change without warning. There is a vague notion that money is valid if everyone agrees that it is valid, but that agreement can be invalidated by a single party that happened to have done a lot of computation. Security in Bitcoin is equally vague -- you use terms like "double spending," but what does that even mean (rigorously)?

"If we aren't going to have a trusted party handing out limited identities,"

It is worth mentioning that in _online_ digital cash protocols (like Chaum's), there is no need for an authority on identities, or even for identities. The withdrawal protocol involves blind signatures, without a need for identities, and the bank could simply accept a cash payment for the digital cash. The payment protocol requires that the merchant verify the validity of the tokens with the bank, but rather than deposit, the bank could engage in a withdrawal protocol with the merchant trading the deposited tokens for withdrawn tokens, allowing the merchant to spend the money further. Sure, it sucks to have to be connected to a payment processor, but that is not much worse than being connected to the Bitcoin network, or to a Bitcoin exchange.

"If you compute twice the hashes, you count as twice the nodes for purposes of quorum"

More important: if you can compute hashes twice as fast, you get twice as much of a vote. If you can compute hashes asymptotically faster, your power in the network will keep increasing. There is no reason that you cannot compute SHA2 hashes asymptotically faster than I can -- nothing about the security of a hash function requires that all implementations have identical running times.

There's the rub, in a nutshell: you are relying on the inability of the adversary to compute lots of hashes, but simultaneously demanding that the honest parties compute lots of hashes.

<comment><USER3> Ah, that is a great illustration of parallel instances. It seems like it's mostly of theoretical relevance for parties of differing computational abilities, which is why I had a hard time grokking it. But it'd definitely come into play say if one ran two instances with the same RSA group.

> _in online digital cash protocols (like Chaum 's), there is no need for an > authority on identities, or even for identities_

Actually there is, but that requirement is _concentrated_ in the bank, which all users have to trust to steward the currency's value. While it's theoretically possible to bootstrap a trustable identity, there's little incentive to trust one party against whom you have no recourse, so adoption requires a real-world identity. These systems would be in widespread use if any government preserved individual rights. Alas.

> _The problem with Bitcoin is that validity is not well-defined and can > change without warning_

So can Chaum's system. Three words: bank shuts down. The protocol instance is fine, but all real-world balances become invalid. In general, it feels like you're reacting to a lack of guarantees that are usually provided by the _assumptions_ of existing systems, and that your definitions preclude the novel and necessary parts of Bitcoin.

If there were only one exchange, we would say validity is whatever it accepts (which would hopefully be well-defined and non-repudiable. yes, Bitcoin would make an absolutely terrible single-issuer protocol). But once you talk about multiple exchanges, the definition must become fluid. If exchange A calls coins stolen and refuses to exchange them, exchange B will still exchange them because it hasn't become aware of this yet, and less-reputable exchange C will exchange them at a 50% discount, are they "valid" ?

The reliance on hashing is another fallout from deconcentrating authority. I can think of a few other ways to remove trusted authorities, but they'd be equally disconcerting. This does line up with research, see [https://gnunet.org/sites/default/files/Tech%20Report%20-%20A...](https://gnunet.org/sites/default/files/Tech%20Report%20-%20A%20Survey%20of%20Solutions%20to%20the%20Sybil%20Attack.pdf)

<comment><USER2> "Three words: bank shuts down"

It is not as though cryptographers gave no thought at all to the single point of failure in digital cash:

[http://cs.brown.edu/~anna/papers/lr98.ps](http://cs.brown.edu/~anna/papers/lr98.ps)

You can set things up so that it would take the failure of the entire banking system to destroy your cash, which is not different than the failure of all Bitcoin exchanges. This is still neatly aligned with the modern understanding of fiat currency; you can have multiple banks that are responsible for issuing currency and accepting deposits.

It is also important to recognize that while a bank failure would be fatal to a digital cash system, a "51% attack" on Bitcoin would not be fatal to Bitcoin (the system allows such attacks as part of its design). The attack could be selective, it could be disguised as a "block chain fork," etc. Equally important is that the "51% attack" can be performed by any party -- it requires no secret knowledge or special privileges. As bad as a single point of failure may sound, the bank is a clear point of failure and it is not unreasonable to imagine taking special precautions to protect the bank from failure (or to reimburse the bank's customers e.g. FDIC). No special measures can protect Bitcoin users from one party doing a lot of computation and invalidating / reversing / denying transactions, something that is _inherent_ in the design of Bitcoin.

"Actually there is, but that requirement is concentrated in the bank, which all users have to trust to steward the currency's value"

I had said _identity_ authority, not _currency_ authority. Look at Chaum's online protocol again, and find the place where an authority on identities is required. The bank is the only party in the system that requires a signing key.

Offline protocols are different, but that is beyond the scope of any conversation about Bitcoin. Bitcoin is an inherently online protocol: every transaction requires a connection to the Bitcoin network.

"your definitions preclude the novel and necessary parts of Bitcoin"

I think you have that backwards. Chartalism and modern monetary theory (which forms the basis for fiat money) predate Bitcoin by decades. The security definitions used in provably secure digital cash systems predate Bitcoin as well. Bitcoin's own design makes it incompatible with those previous definitions.

There is nothing wrong with rejecting the existing definitions if you find that they fail to capture some important property, but if you choose that route you need to present a novel definition. That is exactly what you see in the work on offline digital cash: the security definition used for online protocols is too restrictive, so a different definition is used (i.e. it is possible to cheat but the identity of a cheater must be revealed). Unfortunately the Bitcoin community has yet to present a novel security definition or a novel definition of money, or at least they have failed to present satisfactory definitions. Again, _what_ is the definition of "valid" money in Bitcoin? What is the definition of "security" for Bitcoin?

"If exchange A calls coins stolen and refuses to exchange them, exchange B will still exchange them because it hasn't become aware of this yet, and less- reputable exchange C will exchange them at a 50% discount, are they "valid" ?"

This is a case-in-point. There is no definition of "validity" for Bitcoin money, so there is no answer to that question. I am not saying it is easy to formulate a good definition. What I am saying is that such a definition is _necessary_ , at least as far as cryptography is concerned.

<comment><USER3> > _I had said identity authority, not currency authority. Look at Chaum 's > online protocol again, and find the place where an authority on identities > is required. The bank is the only party in the system that requires a > signing key._

Yes, but something has to instill faith in that bank. This is real-world identity in a rule of law jurisdiction, which is why they used the word "bank". "Banks" can't have their only point of contact be an onion address.

> .. _you can have multiple banks that are responsible .. or to reimburse the > bank 's customers e.g. FDIC_

You're missing that all of these systems rely on the incumbent identity providers (governments) to not shut down the banks. "Group signatures" only obfuscate this problem, the signers still _cannot be anonymous_ , lest you're back in Sybil attack territory.

> _you need to present a novel definition ... What I am saying is that such a > definition is necessary, at least as far as cryptography is concerned_

First, most of the definitions you want for don't globally exist because we've given up the assumption of global consistency. The answer to my hypothetical ABC example is "no" if you are deciding to accept the coin, and "how fast can you spend it" if you already have it. Each node's view of the world is quite simplistic - the emergent system behavior is the important part. And IIRC the paper does analyze as-coded transaction validity, and of course comes out with a probabilistic answer.

More importantly, stop talking about "cryptography". Do you have reason to believe that ECDSA signatures or SHA2 proofs of work are broken? These are the only cryptographic parts of Bitcoin, and there is nothing novel about them. The novelty is a stochastic solution to Byzantine agreement, which is a protocols problem. I keep mentioning this, and you keep blowing right past it to harp on transaction properties that only make sense in the context of well- defined authority.

<comment><USER2> I think the problem here is that you are trying to decouple money from the government. If you have a definition of money and an economic theory that allows for such a system, that is fine. Do you have such a definition or theory, and are you willing to share it?

"most of the definitions you want for don't globally exist because we've given up the assumption of global consistency"

You might have, but for currency to work there needs to be consistency across the entire market (not necessarily _all_ markets, of course; currency exchanges exist mainly to allow people to move between markets). One of the most important functions of money is _as a medium of exchange_ , which requires an agreement across the entire market about what constitutes valid money.

"More importantly, stop talking about "cryptography"."

Why should I? Digital cash is a cryptography problem. Secure multiparty computation is a major field of study in cryptography; Silvio Micali and Shafi Goldwasser, the pair who recently won a Turing award for their work on defining public key cryptography, also happen to have done _extensive_ SMC work over their respective careers. Cryptographic solutions to the Byzantine Generals problem have been presented many times over the past 20 years. No matter how you try to describe Bitcoin, it absolutely is a cryptosystem and cryptography absolutely is relevant to the conversation.

Furthermore it is dead wrong to think that the security of a signature system or a hash function is the whole story. Unless you can rigorously prove that the security of ECDSA and SHA256 imply the security of Bitcoin (whatever the rigorous definition of security would be for Bitcoin), there is no point in saying that ECDSA and SHA256 are secure. Nobody is calling their security into question here. Bitcoin can be insecure in the cryptographic sense even if ECDSA and SHA256 are secure, unless you think that Bitcoin is a signature system or a hash function.

"you keep blowing right past it"

What I keep doing is _asking for definitions_. You have ignored or avoided the question over and over again here. To be clear, I am asking you to _give a rigorous definition of the security property_ you want to achieve. That can and should be given as a corollary to a definition of money, since you are not using the definitions economists are familiar with. If Bitcoin is nothing more than a solution to the Byzantine agreement problem, then I see no reason to continue talking about money -- unless you can define money in terms of Byzantine agreement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Before you write this off as old news, it features a lengthy update from May 2013.

<comment><USER5> Sorry but where is the update? I just see a correction about a LinkedIn profile.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh good pick-up. Only the correction was May 2013. But no update, i.e. no new information that refutes this hypothesis, is if anything an indicator that this isn't "old news" and is a promising hypothesis that has yet to gain currency (pardon the pun).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why would the creator want to remain anonymous?</comment>


Europe's heat wave moves north - <AUTHOR> https://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2019/08/europe-heat-wave-moves-north/ <comment><USER2> Only yesterday I had a "discussion" with someone online who was trying to explain to me that climate change is fake concept made to charge more money for everything through environmental regulations. I kept sending him more and more data proving that no, we really really are screwed, but eventually I just got called an eco-cuck(whatever that even means) who believes made up research. And no, this was not the first time I had a similar conversation with people.

I don't know, I just don't have a strength to do this anymore. Humanity is clearly in danger and yet there is a very vocal minority that keeps pretending none of this is happening and actively attacks anyone who says otherwise. I just feel like giving up on even trying anymore.

<comment><USER3> _Humanity is clearly in danger and yet there is a very vocal minority that keeps pretending none of this is happening_

You'll get cranks and opponents on everything. The real problem is the overwhelming majority of people who think _" OK, sure, bad stuff is happening, but what impact do my simple efforts make to improve it? Meh."_

Platitudes about how the world will be destroyed will not sway those people to act en masse - there needs to be some other element to it, but what? (I personally lean towards the eventual technological solutions, since technology has dug us out of many a hole before.)

<comment><USER4> I am sorry, but believing in a magic technological breakthrough at this stage is just another form of denial, and another version of "but what impact do I make. Meh, I'll just sit and wait for the technological solution".

<comment><USER3> No, denial is asserting that something is not happening or does not exist. I posit that the majority of the world is broadly _inactive_ over climate change but acknowledges and observes its effects.

I do broadly think that only a technological or government-driven solution is viable, however, because unless _everyone_ does something significant, the needle won't move, and everyone _won 't_ do something significant without being forced or radically assisted.

<comment><USER4> I do agree with you. The question is how do we get there. The government won't act by itself. It won't act unless we the people demand it. What gives me hope is that we might not need to wait for the majority vote. Apparently it only takes 3.5% of the population to get serious about something to effect change - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJSehRlU34w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJSehRlU34w)

So, let's get out of our technology bubble, away from keyboard, and let's go do something.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'll probably get downvoted to the ground but somebody needs to say it. The problem is not with climate change deniers. Most people agree that climate change is happening. That's hard to deny when it's all around you. The million dollar question is whether and to what degree is human-made. And that's where science messed up big time. It is scientific bodies that have chipped away their credibility with their malpractices. Reproducibility crisis and flu- scares just to mention a few that come to mind. So - given that the authoritative voices in the matter seem all too often not to practice science but rather a variant of "research" with a lot of strings attached - then it is no wonder that people choose to not trust them at all. Enter hard-core climate change deniers, anti-vaccination and what have you.

<comment><USER6> Million dollar question to whom? Randoms in the street and darker corners of the net perhaps, but as far as the science is concerned, it's settled. The most quickly accessible page I know:

[https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-whats-warming-the- wo...](https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-whats-warming-the-world/)

More data, and reference to IPCC, who consistently err on the conservative side, over the years:

[https://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/science-and- impacts/sc...](https://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/science-and- impacts/science/human-contribution-to-gw-faq.html)

[https://climate.nasa.gov/causes/](https://climate.nasa.gov/causes/)

So where is the controversy?

<comment><USER5> I'm being very specific in what has gone wrong and it has nothing to do with the climate. Hitting me with a ton of links that have nothing to do with my main argument is irrelevant. Downvoting also does nothing more than proving my point further. Science is little more than another papacy to the eyes of many and public discourse is slightly better than a Mad-Max pit. Under these conditions I regret that I even bothered. Good luck resolving this.

<comment><USER7> > I'm being very specific in what has gone wrong and it has nothing to do with > the climate

I don't see any argument or proof there apart of "scientists lie"

<comment><USER5> ...scientific bodies that have chipped away their credibility...

I don't understand why it is so hard to get my message across. Perhaps it's my English (not a native speaker) or maybe the crowd in here finds it very hard to look the sorry state of science atm mostly because they feel invested in it one way or another.

<comment><USER7> > ..scientific bodies that have chipped away their credibility...

How? Examples</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Parable by James Thurber (1939) as Relevant Today as It was Back Then [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/thurberlastflower.pdf <comment><USER2> Please don't rewrite HN titles to editorialize. This is in the guidelines: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).</comment>


Mistrust of a Coronavirus Vaccine Could Imperil Widespread Immunity - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/18/health/coronavirus-anti-vaccine.html <comment><USER2> There are lessons to be learned from the 1976 Swine Flu vaccine: [https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/12/1/05-1007_article](https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/12/1/05-1007_article)

If it turns out that there are side effects that weren't discovered due to rushed testing the fallout will be ugly, no one is going to trust public officials in anything. We had a preview with the dengue vaccine on the Phillippines: [https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/04/dengue-vaccine- fiasc...](https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/04/dengue-vaccine-fiasco-leads- criminal-charges-researcher-philippines)

<comment><AUTHOR> And, arguably, Lymerix. Although the situation with that is... complicated.

The Dengue vaccine is still on the market in various places including the US AFAIK for certain demographics/prior exposure. Some tradeoffs are worth it. It's almost a given that any near-term vaccine almost certainly _hasn 't_ been adequately tested by historical standards, "we" (or at least the government) will accept side effects at a level that wouldn't normally be considered acceptable, and both private and public institutions will require vaccination to fully participate in society.

<comment><USER2> Lymerix is a good comparison. There were justified concerns about the vaccine provoking an autoimmune reaction in some patients, and meanwhile tick bites can be prevented through simple actions - cover arms and legs, stay out of long grass, use insect repellent. It's difficult to argue for a vaccine when other measures work equally well and pose less risk.

Meanwhile the first world has reduced the spread of coronavirus through public health interventions but America can't follow.

<comment><AUTHOR> There are some analogs but they may be different than you think.

>meanwhile tick bites can be prevented

I'm careful but I (normally) do a fair bit of hiking and live on a large property surrounded by fields. I am careful but I still find ticks on myself every now and then and am bitten from time to time.

One can certainly be careful about reducing virus contact at the cost of considerable inconvenience. But there's a lot of evidence that new outbreaks are still flaring up in many places and that _many_ locales end up going through a rough patch sooner or later. So I'm not sure it's fair to say that if everyone just took some basic precautions and otherwise carried on as usual, we'd be just fine even without a (potentially somewhat risky) vaccine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is the Surgeon General of the United States on 2020-02-29:

"Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS!

They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can't get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk! [http://bit.ly/37Ay6Cm"](http://bit.ly/37Ay6Cm")

I don't trust anything the USA government says anymore, and will not get any Covid vaccine in the USA.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Assuming a vaccine _does_ get developed, this could get very ugly because schools and companies will require it. As they probably should, depending on the circumstances, but it will likely create a large class of people/families who are faced with what is (to them) an intolerable choice.</comment>


Ask HN: Is it unethical to monetize open source software with a "pro" version? - rlv-dan I am thinking about monetizing my open source software (GPL3). These are windows utilities, so typical open source monetization schemes (paid support, commercial hosting, etc) are not suitable. The only way I can think of is to have a pro version with additional features. The "pro" version would be proprietary. Pro features would also be quite specific (i.e. the free version would support most use cases). But I'm not sure this is ethical? (As a side note - if I can earn money from this I might be able to quit my job and devote more time to open source development...) <comment><AUTHOR> FWIW it seems fair to me: as long as the existing versions stay under GPL3, you're not stopping people from extending your utilities, you're charging for your implementation of those particular features.

Elastic [1] and Gitlab [2] both operate with a similar model of offering free, open source versions of their software with additional paid-for enterprise features.

[1] [https://www.elastic.co/blog/doubling-down-on- open](https://www.elastic.co/blog/doubling-down-on-open)

[2] [https://about.gitlab.com/install/ce-or- ee/](https://about.gitlab.com/install/ce-or-ee/)

</comment><comment><USER2> No, that is not unethical at all.

Don't get me wrong, sometimes it can get hate or complaints from the community, but at the end of the day, a lot of amazing open source software wouldn't be available today if they weren't able to be monetized in some way.

A lot of times, open source software wouldn't be able to get actively developed, be able to afford security audits, quickly patch bugs, etc. without a paid person/group working on it, and there's nothing wrong with that.

It is up to you, however, to decide how you'd like to raise funds. Some projects (iRedMail) provide a "Pro" version, others offer advanced support/installation (Canonical), and even others just look for donations. If you're curious about how to proceed, I recommend checking out [https://opencollective.com/discover](https://opencollective.com/discover) for great examples.</comment>


China cracks down on funeral strippers - <AUTHOR> https://nypost.com/2018/02/21/china-cracks-down-on-funeral-strippers/ <comment><USER2> While a bit sleazy on the surface, the point of a funeral is (at least partly,) a celebration of life.

It would be interesting to compare and contrast the american "biker funeral", which I can attest, can also feature such culturally unusual entertainment.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is without a doubt the weirdest article I've read today. That does it, I've had enough internet for today.</comment>


A year of PC gaming with a standing desk - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcgamer.com/a-year-of-pc-gaming-with-a-standing-desk/ <comment><USER2> virtuix.com, and oculus rift.</comment>


Software Development Dogma That Needs to Die - <AUTHOR> http://thinkfaster.co/2015/11/software-development-dogma-that-needs-to-die/ <comment><USER2> I think hating the tools is timeless.</comment>


Show HN: Corbie – Random lessons on general knowledge delivered via email daily - <AUTHOR> http://www.thecorbie.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi there, thanks for checking out our new product, Corbie. We've been building it for the past couple months, and we're excited to share it with the world.

Corbie was created out of a need and desire for personal growth, and for valuable and convenient learning. We always believed being a lifelong learner was important. Yet, perhaps you've also found that until know it's hard to know where to start, stay consistent, and learn in a fun and effective way.

Corbie is designed to solve all of this.

It helps you get smarter with 5-minute emails teaching you about arts, history, and science each morning. The lessons are random, so you may learn about almost everything. We think that it's the ideal way for busy people to master being lifelong learners!

We'd love for you to try Corbie out and let us know what you think.</comment>


A sexy, secure visualization of password field input - <AUTHOR> http://foxxtrot.github.com/Chroma-Hash/

<comment><USER2> This is

* Not particularly sexy (it's 3 colored bars)

* Not particularly secure (it reveals information about your password that drastically reduces a brute-force search)

* Extremely confusing to users

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> My question is, why not just get rid of password confirmations altogether, or at least make them an optional feature for security conscious users.

<comment><USER3> Password confirmations aren't really there for security. More as a sanity check to make sure the user hasn't accidentally typed their password incorrectly.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, I mean the starred out password fields. Why have them in the first place? Why not just have a password field that acts like any other text field, showing you what you've typed. Seeing this elaborate color based password match plugin kind of speaks to the absurdity of it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Previous discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=729556>

</comment><comment><USER5> that looks great</comment>


Perspective on Who's Seeing What Online in 2011 - <AUTHOR> http://www.apeconmyth.com/2011/04/you-aint-seen-nothing-yet/

<comment><USER2> Very nice.

</comment><comment><USER3> excellent!</comment>


A blueprint for DevOps success:How Rosetta Stone implemented continuous delivery - <AUTHOR> https://insights.hpe.com/content/hpe-nxt/en/articles/2017/09/a-blueprint-for-devops-success-how-rosetta-stone-implemented-continuous-delivery.html <comment><AUTHOR> Speak DevOps to me: Tips & Tricks. How Rosetta Stone does continuous delivery</comment>


Hitlist's new premium service puts a travel agent in your pocket - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/hitlists-new-premium-service-puts-a-travel-agent-in-your-pocket/ <comment><USER2> Hi there, I'm the founder - open to any feedback/AMA!</comment>


How Large Are Global Energy Subsidies? [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2015/wp15105.pdf

<comment><USER2> tl;dr:

"Coal [...] is the biggest source of post-tax subsidies, amounting to 3.0 percent of global GDP in 2011 and rising to 3.9 percent in 2015. [...] Petroleum is the next most heavily subsidized product, [...] remaining at 1.8 percent of global GDP in 2015 despite declining petroleum prices. This is followed by natural gas, [which] is only about one-third of that for petroleum. Last is electricity, for which the projected post-tax subsidy declines to just 0.2 percent of global GDP in 2015."

Solar, wind, etc. are presumably subsets of the electricity subsidies, and are so negligible as to not warrant a single mention in this report.

</comment><comment><USER3> So basically post tax subsidies are anything they can throw in there to make the fuel source look worse than another? That and they want to clump together all users of particular energy types so as to eliminate areas of the world where such imbalances don't exist, or don't exist at the severity they desired for their report.

The gist of this report is that consumers are underpaying for power and that if only people paid more taxes on energy there would magically be more money for health, welfare, and education.

Just ignore the post production subsidy values, its as real as unicorns and the Easter bunny. The odd part is many of the costs they are trying to attribute to post taxes mostly occur in the developing world for who are least capable of paying for it. As in, the "West" has extensive controls over pollution from coal and petroleum but that is not the case elsewhere.

<comment><USER4> Your comment is not even coherent.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to learn how to design printed circuit boards? - <AUTHOR> Any suggestions for where to start, what to learn, how to come up to speed? <comment><USER2> Chris Gammel is co-host of an electronics podcast called The Amp Hour. The podcast isn't instructional, more for context and discussion, but Chris also offers an online course that takes you through the entire process of PCB design. I'd peruse the podcast episodes, checkout the forum, and consider the course.

[https://theamphour.com/](https://theamphour.com/)

[https://contextualelectronics.com/](https://contextualelectronics.com/)</comment>


Introducing the Product Hacks blog series. First up, logins - <AUTHOR> https://arcweb.co/2014/11/12/introducing-the-arcweb-product-hacks-series/

<comment><AUTHOR> Can anybody guess the product used in this blog post? It was newsworthy recently.</comment>


JPG Internet - <AUTHOR> http://www.jpginternet.org/ <comment> guard-of-terra This reminds me of the oldschool days when you only had e-mail but no internet and you would talk to email bot requesting web pages which were sent to you via e-mail.

</comment><comment><USER2> Looking at that page, I can't help but feel I'm being brainwashed into a cult or something.

<comment><USER3> I can see how you'd feel vulnerable to that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Clever hack! Reminiscent of RMS: "I fetch web pages from other sites by sending mail to a program (see git://git.gnu.org/womb/hacks.git) that fetches them, much like wget, and then mails them back to me"

\- [https://stallman.org/stallman- computing.html](https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html)

<comment><USER5> Doing this means that you have your own Wayback Machine, just index your mail archive. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Damn, this reminds me of having to do FTP-via-email (or asking for FREQs on FidoNet) 20 years ago...

</comment><comment><USER7> I had almost the same idea. Here there is something called facebook zero which is available at 0.facebook.com, it's facebook without images but it is free for T-Mobile users.

There would be a possibility to do some browsing if a user sends a query message to a page/other user-bot which then downloads the information and responds in a fb text message. Like that google sms feature.

Fortunately I have internet on my phone so this is not really a need anymore :)

</comment><comment><USER8> An odd but very intriguing idea :)

</comment><comment><USER9> I wrote a VPN-over-Facebook tunnel a week or two ago with basically the same motivation. Stupid and slow as hell, but I still want to try it out with the $12 data plan sometime.

</comment><comment><USER10> Clever idea. The best would be making the same kind of bot for private messages, and open-source it so people can deploy their own "proxys" on Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER11> It's a really clever idea, but something about "JPG Internet: Get your FREE JPG" made me think it was a joke at first.

</comment><comment><USER12> just awesome! "maybe" helpful to some and at the same time it's satirical and funny. This just made my day :)

</comment><comment><USER13> I predict the Facebook page will get shut down for displaying porn in the next day or so. Neat idea, though.

</comment><comment><USER14> Indeed, if the Internet were a JPEG, we could just put it in our pocket and carry it around...

</comment><comment><USER15> What happens if you post a link to some endless scrolling website?

<comment><USER16> Blindly assuming that it operates using the simplest thing that could possibly work, it's just capturing the viewport a few seconds after the page is "done" rendering. It would likely only show whatever content is loaded without scrolling.

I'm not about to go confirm this myself, as, well, Facebook.</comment></comment>


Show HN: A 60 second meditation tool to help clear your mind - <AUTHOR> http://www.pixelthoughts.co

<comment><USER2> Doesn't work without a real concern to start out with. I was bothered by the 'mach bands' and unexpected background music. Then I couldn't click to type in the box (Safari 8.0.5/10.10.3). Good thing I wasn't stressed going in.

</comment><comment><USER3> The evolutionary costs of being an intelligent animal.

Dogs and other semi-intelligent creatures live a much simpler and happier life. I often hear friends say they want to be dogs :D

</comment><comment><USER4> I feel calmer already. Tell us about it on [http://glitchclub.com](http://glitchclub.com) !

</comment><comment><USER5> The feeling of insignificance actually made me really depressed.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm a skeptic for the most part.

However, this worked for me. Thank you.

Sometimes problems seem so big until you consider how small they really are.

</comment><comment><USER7> I've never been moved to tears by an example of webprogramming before.

<comment><USER8> If you haven't, and if you don't mind more interactive web games, I would recommend you to play Loved [1] by Alexander Ocias.

[1] [http://www.alexanderocias.com/loved.php](http://www.alexanderocias.com/loved.php)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> this is really cool. I'm moving right now so I put "moving" in the bubble and really felt the stress go away. really soothing music and great positive reinforcements.

</comment><comment><USER10> I really love the idea and the execution.

</comment><comment><USER11> Very nice!

</comment><comment><USER12> Well done!</comment>


The A.C.L.U. Needs to Rethink Free Speech [opinion] - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/17/opinion/aclu-first-amendment-trump-charlottesville.html?action=click&contentCollection=U.S.&module=Trending&version=Full&region=Marginalia&pgtype=article <comment><USER2> >"For marginalized communities, the power of expression is impoverished for reasons that have little to do with the First Amendment."

So why are we talking about the First Amendment then? Let's address the real problems affecting marginalized communities.</comment>


Quickjack - clickjacking and slicing made easy - <AUTHOR> http://samy.pl/quickjack/ <comment><USER2> I tried to copy and paste the URL for the example Facebook clickjacking, and couldn't figure out why it was failing. And then I thanked myself for having installed NoScript.</comment>


RockMelt: Web browser pioneer backs new way to surf Net - <AUTHOR> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40062785/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/

<comment><USER2> My first impression is that it doesn't seem _that_ new or different. It looks like Google Chrome with social dingleberries on the sides.

<comment><AUTHOR> And it is kinda distractive too! I can't handle that many notifications popping up every second I am trying to focus. It's good if you are a social media junkie though.

<comment><USER2> I'm also hoping it doesn't become yet another browser with quirks and idiosyncrasies that devours web developer time.

That said, I doubt it catches on inside corporations because corporations wouldn't want to encourage their employees to waste time updating their Facebook and Twitter accounts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Gruber said it best:

<http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/11/07/rockmelt>

</comment><comment><USER4> It's basically Chromium with a double sidebar extension system, I wouldn't call it a whole new browser. Most of the video shows how cool web apps are... The chat system is nice though, with dragging and dropping.

</comment><comment><USER5> Isn't this like that Flock "social browser" that popped up a few years ago? That didn't really catch on. Perhaps ahead of it's time?

<comment><USER6> Looks like another Flock to me.

There are a bunch of social collaborators/aggregators coming out and this is one of the few I've seen that is a desktop app.

I think the only advantage is taking being able to cache data locally.</comment></comment>


WikiLeaks threatens to publish Twitter users' personal info - <AUTHOR> http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2017/01/06/wikileaks-threatens-publish-twitter-users-personal-info/96254138/ <comment><AUTHOR> The twitter account has now been taken down. Maybe it was hacked in the first place?

EDIT: Original tweet that started it all. [https://twitter.com/WLTaskForce/status/817431533183238144](https://twitter.com/WLTaskForce/status/817431533183238144)

<comment><USER2> That link now yields "Page does not exist".

Any archive?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Was WLTaskForce an official WL account? I thought it was some other group, and not wikileaks.</comment>