The Volkswagen Group is using IE6 as standard for displaying web pages - <AUTHOR> http://www.vwgroupsupply.com/b2b/vwb2b_folder/supply2public/en/die_plattform/sicherheit_und_technik.html <comment><USER2> One time a few years ago I was contracted to redesign a large Mercedes dealership's website.

They recommended IE6 too but the main issue wasn't what the user saw when visiting the page, it was the supplier CMS used to administrate it. This was enforced by Mercedes themselves, so all dealerships had to use it.

It was custom, and, this is no exaggeration, _impossible_ to use. There was probably a 600 page manual, caked in dust in some forgotten supply cupboard, detailing what exactly you had to do after you'd managed the Herculean task of logging in.

Editing a simple block of text required 'unlocking' it, which would for some reason lock other elements. And then when you did change the text it might not have let you save it anyway, providing plenty of incomprehensible error messages.

I must have put a mental block on the rest because I quit after just a day of figuring it out, but my guess is that pages like that still exist because no bugger can figure out how to edit them.

I'd be surprised if VW didn't use the same or a similar CMS themselves.

<comment><USER3> This sounds like the most common reaction to users accidentally causing errors in data: lock everything down and only allow a very specific operation, and complain loudly and specifically (i.e., incomprehensibly) if they get out of line, in order to protect the data. Did someone find a new way to screw up? Add another restriction.

I sometimes wonder why these interfaces are so freaking common for anything not facing the general public.

<comment><USER4> >I sometimes wonder why these interfaces are so freaking common for anything not facing the general public.

It's simple, the choice is to either use it or find a new job. Quitting is not easy or practical to many people.

Even the general public faces such choices with atrocious bank, DMV, govt sites etc. written 10 years ago in with CGI or ASP. (and a COBOL backend).

<comment><USER5> Yep and sites like this get the back button treatment if they're public sites, but you don't know about it until you start working there when it's intranet crud.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "For security reasons, the Volkswagen Group does not recommend other browsers like Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Netscape etc. as they show security gaps."

This probably means they have serious security holes which could be easily triggered by other browsers.

<comment><USER7> I think it simply means that this page was written more than five years ago.

<comment><USER8> Indeed. Aol stopped supporting Netscape (the browser) in 2008.

Ref: [http://www.thetechherald.com/article.php/200810/312/Netscape...](http://www.thetechherald.com/article.php/200810/312/Netscape- Navigator-heads-to-the-twilight-of-oblivion)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This'd just be a case of yet another page that's never been updated. I think my bank's site recommends either IE or netscape - site works fine, just that no one's ever updated the required browser page

<comment><USER10> Though claiming IE6 was the most secure web browser in 2009 is still pretty worrying.

<comment><USER9> er, yeah... that one's a bit more difficult to explain :/

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Apparently they don't recommend other browsers as they show security gaps. I'm glad the security experts of VW have finally decided to share their knowledge with the world. A pity they don't make routers and anti-virus software, rather than cars.

</comment><comment><USER12> For a well-designed website, I must say, I'm a bit worried.

> The cooperation takes place by our Group Business Platform using current > security standards and ciphering methods. A secure data interchange has high > priority!

Because that's all there is to security.

> All data is transferred with a 128 Bit SSL coding and are even secured by > your log in on our Group Business Platform. This ciphering method is used in > all areas of the platform and is added with further certificates.

I didn't realise we could code in SSL.

> The Volkswagen Group is using Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 as standard the > for displaying web pages. For the daily work with our platform, we recommend > you to use the Microsoft Internet Explorer 6, too.

IE6 ftw!

> By using the current version and the updates provided by Microsoft we > guarantee you a secure connection.

I must have been living under a rock; I thought that it was because Internet Explorer was so insecure that I get patches every week for it. Oh, but then again, those were security issues with the rendering, not the connection. It must be the connection that is so important!

> For security reasons, the Volkswagen Group does not recommend other browsers > like Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Netscape etc. as they show security gaps.

Oh. Okay. I understand.

<comment><USER13> You forgot this bit in the technical requirements:

 _-PC or MAC with internet connection

-Web Browser (Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 is recommended)_

So... they mean a (pretty old) PC with internet connection then?

<comment><USER14> Hey now, there's Microsoft Internet Explorer for Mac. Supports high-quality (broken) CSS1, y'know.

<comment><USER15> Not IE 6. Mac stopped at 5.something.

<comment><USER16> Yup, but I remember IE 5.2 on Mac being a little better wrt. the w3c standards than IE 6 on windows, so I guess the version numbers weren't really comparable.

<comment><USER15> It was better in some ways, but IIRC the box model was the brokenest thing ever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17>
        By using the current version and the updates
        provided by Microsoft we guarantee you a secure
        connection.

Tell this to Microsoft which currently formally stated: "it's time to say goodbye to IE6" at <http://www.ie6countdown.com/>

        10 years ago a browser was born.

        Its name was Internet Explorer 6. Now that we're in 2011,
        in an era of modern web standards, it's time to say goodbye.

        This website is dedicated to watching Internet Explorer 6
        usage drop to less than 1% worldwide, so more websites can
        choose to drop support for Internet Explorer 6, saving hours
        of work for web developers.

</comment><comment><USER18> Apologies for being mind-numbingly obvious, but this is an opportunity for being very disruptive, and similar opportunities exist in every hide-bound industry. Unfortunately you cant do it on a ramen or even a YC budget. However if you work for a feisty player and can convince them that there is money to be made in selling their back office software, you have a chance. A few years ago I almost pulled it off until the principals realized the cost of HN grade sr developers.

And most of you wont be in a position to do so, because you avoid these industries like the plague. :-)

</comment><comment><USER19> For some reason the corporate world is still stuck with IE6.

Just recently we were dealing with a large corporation that was still using IE6 throughout the company and our web app had to support this browser.

<comment><AUTHOR> The reason in Germany is mainly SAP (because of its popularity here)

Their Netweaver product was build with lots of ActiveX + OS stuff that's so proprietary, that it will not work with even IE7.

Of course SAP has released upgrades but companies have to pay for it or change larger parts of their ERP to be able to apply the upgrades. As ERPs are propably upgraded once per decade, this will take some time...

From various access logs I've analyzed, I can say that Daimler, Merck (the Germany Merck), Bayer, Deutsche Post and some Governments (Bundeszentralamt für Steuern) still run IE6 in wide-scale deployments.

It seems that only view companies provide alternative, modern browsers to their users or the users don't use them and stick with their IE6 default (as they know from SAP Portal) even when browsing externaly.

<comment><USER20> Working in a ~50000 employee company that shall remain nameless I can give you another datapoint from "big companies" out there:

We only got IE8 (on WinXP, Win7 will not launch for another year or two) this year. And before that it was whatever IE version ships with WinXP.

The alternative we can use is a Firefox that has not been updated since its rollout in 2009. And of course you are not allowed to use other than company- managed software, especially web-browsers are tightly regulated, exceptions granted only for a few chosen employees.

The policy regarding webbrowsers explicitly states that this is done to avoid having people running outdated versions of them...

<comment><USER21> Here's what I don't get. (Maybe someone here can help answer this.) My company, with 18,000 employees, recently decided to upgrade workstations from IE6 to IE7. It wasn't entirely seamless - employees still had to double-click a desktop icon to kick off the upgrade. What I don't understand is why they upgraded to IE7. Once you're going through the friction of doing an upgrade at all, why not go all the way? Is the retraining coefficient that much more for IE8 (or 9) vs. IE7?

<comment><USER22> I can't say what happened at your company, but at mine (which is a bit bigger), the IT people started "qualifying" IE7 when it came out. It took them until after IE8 was released to get all the various internal groups working and tested on IE7. The testing part was really the big piece, so they couldn't just jump to IE8 when it was released because it would have meant months or years redoing the testing cycle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Peugeot suffers with the same issue:

<http://landing.peugeotlink.co.uk/browser1.php>

I think this is pretty common through the motor trade. They simply cannot move quick enough.

</comment><comment><USER24> Does anyone else get the feeling that the entire automotive industry could be disrupted by a company that focused on design, usability, and modern technology in their car interiors? It seems to me you could replace just about every car's dashboard with an iPad and already be light-years ahead of the industry standard.

In fact the problem seems to get worse as you add more technology and money; if Top Gear is any indication the supercars of the world are all a usability joke. They have a dizzying array of meaningless, misplaced, and practically useless buttons. I believe on the latest Ferrari you can either see your speed or your position on a map, but not both.

It seems very similar to the phone industry before the iPhone.

<comment><USER25> Top level Mercedes don't have a traditional 'dash panel'. The entire area is just one large LCD display. This generally is used to display speed/engine revs/temp etc, but can also be switched for infra-red imaging, reversing camera, navigation overlays and other things. It also can be themed with the rest of the car, so you can choose a blue, red, yellow, etc theme for your interior.

BMW have had HUD for several years, which overlay speed and turn-by-tun navigation, which are very usable.

You can expect this type of thing in entry and mid level cars within the next 5-10 years, as the current model cycles pan out. Top Gear love to make fun of these features, and indeed some are silly. But the vast majority work well and have a lot of thought behind them. The version 1.0 of all this stuff is already 10 years old.

Early experiments into touch-screen everything have proven to not be popular with the car-buying public. Through experimentation, designers have found that, for important functions (ventilation, radio, etc) a physical button in a known location outperforms a touch screen interface every time. In my case, this is because you can memorize the location and feel of a button and can push it reliably without taking your eyes off the road. You can push it in the dark at night time, and you get tactile feedback.

Touchscreen systems are already here, but will always bury less-used functions like options and navigation, which is designed to be used while stationary, while the more common functions will remain as dedicated push buttons.

Outside of the tech-geek world, function, function and function is prized much more than interesting neat features. Take a test drive with the average car buyer and you'll find that a simple, familiar and well-designed user interface will trump a tech-fest every time. While there is a lot of technical interest in 'carputers' the general public won't ever really warm to them. The big sales winners are in things like self-parking and parking cameras/sensors, accident avoidance and other passive safety systems.

<comment><USER24> So touch screen only controls aren't the way to go. But it may not be necessary to reinvent the basic controls of the car. Making a better climate control system isn't going to win hearts and minds. But what would be very interesting is a web-connected car with an API and a touch-screen device with an open app ecosystem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I can understand- at my last job (multi-national CPG manufacturer) the code on all the internal webpages wouldn't even display in Firefox. Between the IT workload and general paranoia / superstition of execs (any change is bad), there was no motivation to upgrade internal software. So we made all of our suppliers comply if they wanted access to any piece of the intranet. Just easier that way.

For companies that don't rely heavily on internet tech, understanding why you don't want to use IE6 is beyond most people.

<comment><USER12> Except that they're _boasting_ about how _good their software and coding are_...

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I see that you'll also need either a PC or a Media Access Control.

<comment><USER28> Ah, that's why my Message Authentication Code wasn't working.

<comment><USER29> Good for you. I tried several hours of Murawarri aboriginal chants and was ready to start with the Miappe ones... ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> As someone who works for a car dealership which uses these systems I can tell you that the "VWG Desktop" intranet dashboards are only accessible via VPN'd tunnels that you can't just "connect" to from the standard internet.

Further more, we use their systems with Chrome, Firefox and other browsers with no problems.

Maybe the standard is different with the US, but in the UK this doesn't apply.

</comment><comment><USER31> "By using the current version and the updates provided by Microsoft we guarantee you a secure connection."

Is that a "legal" guarantee? Seems kind of dangerous for a company to make that kind of claim about 3rd party software.

</comment><comment><USER32> It's pretty common for big organizations. In one of our websites it is still recommended to use IE5.5+

As much as I want I can't drop support for IE6, it's still 40% of my crowd (old people ftw).

</comment><comment><USER33> A few years ago I remember thinking of applying for a position at VW, yet their blind adherence to IE really turned me off. Its gotta be a indicator of the culture there.

</comment><comment><USER34> Funny - only the other day I posted on this:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3129438>

It seems that the current post "outs" the security function.

I wonder if it was carefully worded by someone who knew better as it appears to be a very good advert for attracting "unwanted" attention.

</comment><comment><USER35> Even those who don't know whether the word "data" is singular or plural tend to be consistent ... not this crew.

"All data is transferred with a 128 Bit SSL coding and are even secured by your log in on our Group Business Platform."

</comment><comment><USER36> I hope this is because they haven't updated the content of the page in a while.

<comment><USER37> <meta name="date" content="2009-10-20" />

Although even in 2009 I still wouldn't recommend IE6.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> "using the current version and the updates provided by Microsoft"

If you have a current, up to date version of IE, it's not version 6. We've been trolled by what is clearly some sort of prank.

</comment><comment><USER39> I think this document is pretty old as they have mentioned Netscape which is no longer exists. And even didn't notices Google Chrome. :-)

</comment><comment><USER40> I found the link at the bottom to download Adobe as the cherry on top. Let's make sure you have a few other problems along with IE6.

</comment><comment><USER41> I am running osx, and I really want to be secure. How do I get this IE6 nonesense.

</comment><comment><USER42> This must be some kind of joke right? The trolling of the year?

</comment><comment><USER43> Some bank's have problems with new browsers, it's strange.

</comment><comment><USER44> Is it april 1st already?

</comment><comment><USER45> Somebody please explain to me what new browsers have that a car manufacturing corporation needs for its daily business. Flash games? WebGL? Or a bit lower, popup-blocker and google search field?

HELLO?

Obviously this entry is for unexperienced people of the IT, which neglect the fact that your stuff is only safe as long someone hasn't found it's weakness.

<http://youtu.be/sforhbLiwLA>

AND - CAN YOU BELIEVE IT, REVERSI!

<comment><USER46> _"Obviously this entry is for unexperienced people of the IT"_

They are giving the unexperianced wrong information and making them misinformed. If they want to help the unexperianced, they shouldn't tell them that a secure experience can be guaranteed with IE6. They should encourage them to use modern browsers which are still regularly supported with security patches.

<comment><USER45> honey you DID read it's in their B2B folder? So this is for BUSINESS TO BUSINESS and they want to interact in a secure way with small companies which probably have 0 IT professionals and old software.

You only prove me ..

<comment><USER47> Old software? That can't be right, since the page expects everyone to have the latest version and all updates from MS.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Real People Are Turning Their Accounts into Bots on Instagram – And Cashing In - <AUTHOR> https://www.buzzfeed.com/alexkantrowitz/people-are-turning-their-accounts-into-bots-on-instagram <comment><USER2> This type of abuse happens with almost any kind of media platform.

Google for a long time was losing the battle with people gaming their search engine until they invested a ton of effort (around 2011) into shutting down the fakes, many of whom still succeed, but not enough to send people fleeing for Bing.

I suspect Instagram has shutting these bot accounts down as a top priority.</comment>


How to Buy Bitcoin - <AUTHOR> http://markmaunder.com/2013/11/28/how-to-buy-bitcoin/ <comment> grey-area If you're just speculating on the price going up, and don't actually want to use coins to pay for something, it might be worth having a look at these charts before you do buy any:

[http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg360zigDailyztgSzm...](http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg360zigDailyztgSzm1g10zm2g25zp)

[http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg730zigDailyztgSzm...](http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg730zigDailyztgSzm1g10zm2g25zp)

by the time mainstream publications like the BBC are reporting on spectacular gains in an asset, it's far too late to invest speculatively in the hope of finding a greater fool and cashing out before the inevitable crash, even if you believe in the long-term future of this currency.

<comment><USER2> Disagree. When I can get a bank account with a UK bank denominated in bitcoin (at whatever cost), then it's too late to invest speculatively. Until then, the barriers to entry are exerting downward pressure on the price.

<comment><USER3> The current price hike is made in China. Better to look there for hints as to when the bubble will burst.

<comment><USER4> +1. In my opinion, the Chinese government has effective control over the price of bitcoins right now. Obviously they can't dictate the price but, if they decide to restrict bitcoin trading, the price would plunge.

<comment><USER5> It would plunge temporarily, for sure, but not for long. Plus, why would the Chinese government do it?!

<comment><USER4> To prevent people from shifting their wealth from CNY into USD.

<comment><USER5> Putting their wealth into Bitcoin isn't putting it into USD - on the contrary. The Chinese exchanges are all in CNY, dollar isn't mention there at all, which creates a number of issues like psychological levels being different and CNY/USD ratio varying on its own.

<comment><USER4> You're missing the point.

China has implemented capital controls to prevent individuals from moving large amounts of wealth out of China. See [http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia- pacific...](http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia- pacific/china/120418/money-laundering-bo-xilai-gu-kailai-neil-heywood) for some background (or just do a Google search for china capital controls).

A Chinese citizen could conceivably bypass those controls by (1) depositing renminbi (i.e. CNY) into a BitChina account, (2) buying bitcoins, (3) transfering them to a non-Chinese exchange (e.g. MtGox, BTC-e, BitStamp), where they (4) sell them for USD.

<comment><USER5> This is true, but both BTCChina and OKCoin have no option, but to start working with the Chinese government (BTCChina already started) and will provide control mechanisms, which isn't necessarily a bad news for Bitcoin as people try to present it. Also, due to major mining operations happening in China, there's inflow of capital to China, so, I don't think the government will have a problem with that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Coinbase.com is by far the easiest to simply buy or use Bitcoin if you have a US bank account (and it is a YC company). Unlike MtGox.com (originally the most popular) the site is fast, stable, well designed, and can connect directly with your US bank account. They've also got a set of merchant tools and APIs.

The only downside is that it's not a real time trading platform / you wouldn't want to do day trading of BTC on it.

This link will give us both $5 in BTC if you buy 1 BTC.

[https://coinbase.com/?r=4fedfb2d6cbd3b0003000845&utm_campaig...](https://coinbase.com/?r=4fedfb2d6cbd3b0003000845&utm_campaign=user- referral&src=referral-link)

<comment><USER7> In case you are European, I can highly recommend bitcoin.de for hassle-free, legit buying and selling of Bitcoin. Similar to Coinbase, they're less a day- trading platform and more a place to buy and sell Bitcoin within a few days. They have a partnership with a "real" German bank (Fidor) which makes them highly unlikely to have regulation issues any time soon.

[https://www.bitcoin.de/](https://www.bitcoin.de/)

<comment><USER8> Doesnt work for Sweden.

Too much hassle to be greeted with "your bank doesnt support some lettercombination"

<comment><USER9> I wrote a list of Swedish resellers: [http://blog.kejsarmakten.se/all/personal/2013/09/09/bitcoin-...](http://blog.kejsarmakten.se/all/personal/2013/09/09/bitcoin- i-sverige.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> For those who've been involved in this for some time: Do you think it's too late to get into mining Bitcoin (or other cryptocurrencies) to make any significant payoff? I've been looking to get into Litecoin and others because I think I may have missed out on Bitcoin (and buying them at the current value just isn't feasible), and I'm trying to assess whether this bubble/trend/fad/craze will extend to other cryptocurrencies and if going in early now on them will be worth it. I know I'm asking you to look into a crystal ball, but anyone who's been in this game from early on knows much more than I do.

<comment><USER11> Mining bitcoin is thoroughly impractical. It would cost you significantly more in electricity than you would make in bitcoin. The only effective way to do it is with specialized hardware built specifically for mining bitcoins.

It's not too late to buy bitcoins, though: you don't need to buy a whole one. For example, if you think bitcoin will double in price over the next month, you can easily buy 0.1 bitcoins for about $100 and sell it next month for $200.

One of the benefits of bitcoin is that it's highly divisible- the idea of "1" bitcoin doesn't really matter for most purposes. If Bitcoin becomes commonly used as an actual currency, people will almost never deal in whole bitcoins (any more than they would deal with $10k bills if they existed). You'd buy a loaf of bread with 0.0001 bitcoins, for example.

So, if you think the trend/fad/craze will continue, you might as well buy fractions of a bitcoin. I can't speak to the alternate crypto currencies, though.

<comment><USER12> The fact that bitcoin is so divisible might be its true weakness in terms of adoption (given huge value of a single Bitcoin).

Imagine prices in shop given as 0.000132 BTC, 0.000123 BTC, 0.0000132 BTC or even worst 0.0009999, 0.000999, 0.009999 - looks similar and it is easy to be mislead and pay for something much more then expected. People would need to get use to count zeros after decimal point. This hardly matters with any real currency.

<comment> grey-area That's really not a big deal. If it was truly popular and highly priced relative to everyday purchases, we'd just invent names for fractions thereof, and use those for pricing, as we do in reverse for currencies like dollars or pounds. They already have satoshis etc.

Far more important limitations:

Built in deflation - that it is seen as a one-way bet with ever-increasing value and an ever more limited supply would cause problems if used as a currency (though not obviously as a store of value). The problem for it as a store of value is that the value is entirely predicated on it being _a successful currency_.

Volatility - if prices change rapidly, that would make use in retail almost impossible, and as a store of value dangerous. Many of the places which say they take Bitcoin right now simply move the money immediately to another currency to avoid this issue - that's not going to work if it is actually used as a currency and to store value long-term. Imagine it replacing the USD for example and remaining volatile...

Time to process transactions - takings minutes to verify a transaction is not going to work -it'd need to be on the order of seconds, and for a digital currency it really should be as fast as the network.

Lack of regulation - again retailers/consumers should be nervous if their financial institutions have no regulations or guarantees that the money they say they hold actually exists at all. Some exchanges have reported a massive theft and walked away with no liability, others impose arbitrary limits on withdrawals etc - this really is wild-west finance and in a crash or bubble you can expect extreme fraud to go on undetected because there are no independent auditors, regulations or laws which govern these activities.

Lack of ties to identity - without verified accounts it's far too easy to commit fraud or theft - very like paper money which everyone is moving away from.

Lack of reversibility - it doesn't let you roll back transactions, though one could work around this by keeping a ledger and rolling the ledger positions back by transferring coins back and forth. If you're going to do that though and trust the bank/exchange to regulate transactions, why bother with the cryptocurrency bit at all?

Lack of transparency in the management process - who decides on the rules of the game here? If the official clients suddenly change rules in concert - existing bitcoin holders would have to just go along with this if the majority voted with it - when large amounts of money are involved, this sort of thing becomes very important. e.g. we hit the existing 21m limit, and those controlling the software decide to up the limit to 30m - suddenly lots of assumptions about value would be questioned. I'd be very nervous about the lack of regulated control.

Lack of backing by a government, corporation or trading bloc - when the market attacks government currencies, governments are able to expend extreme resources to mitigate outright panic and collapse. When the market sharks get interested in Bitcoin and attack it in the same way as they attack say the Euro, there will be no such backup, just a freely floating rate which is open to manipulation and depends entirely on public confidence.

I do think it has some interesting properties and is a useful experiment, but have extreme reservations about this being the actual digital currency which makes it into use as a global exchange mechanism.

<comment><USER13> i wont respond to every point but transactions can take between 10 and 60 inutes to verify, however you can accept a 0 confirmation transaction relatively safely if you were selling a coffee. The resources required to double spend against a sale of $5 is just not worth it. When it comes to larger items such as buying a car or a house then waiting 1 hour is not a problem as the whole process takes longer than an hour anyway so waitng for 6 confirmations is not too much of a burden.

"Lack of transparency in the management process" the official client is open source, any changes would have to be agreed by the development team but they would only come into effect if all miners (or at least 51%) agreed to the change.

It seems your points show you dont really understand what bitcoin is. Requiring it to be backed by a corportation or a government is exactly the oppositte of what bitcoin set out to be.

You should read more on it before making suggestions such as these.

<comment> grey-area _however you can accept a 0 confirmation transaction relatively safely if you were selling a coffee._

What does relatively safely mean? I'd prefer transactions to be guaranteed and accounts to have a verifiable amount of funds in them - the currencies/banks we have now do this in seconds for small transactions.

 _the official client is open source, any changes would have to be agreed by the development team but they would only come into effect if all miners (or at least 51%) agreed to the change._

There's definitely space for conflict there. If the official client and/or lots of the miners decide something, it's going to be hard to get momentum in another direction, and as a small holder you will have no say at all. Given the huge vested interest of developers and miners, that seems ripe for abuse.

 _It seems your points show you dont really understand what bitcoin is._

If that's the case, it should be easy to rebut them. That you have replied with non-rebuttal rebuttals on two points and snide remarks for the rest doesn't give me much confidence.

<comment><USER14> Relatively safely means probably less likely than someone handing you a counterfeit $5 bill. It's just not worth the expense to try and print it.

<comment> grey-area What verification would be performed?

<comment><USER14> I guess if it's actually zero, it's like a accepting a check with a proof that the account ever had the requisite funds.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Regarding BTC-e and it being a shady site: no matter what they say it is the only exchange able to really properly trade into other currencies. Quick. I made a few thousand minute-trading between btc-ltc-ftc-nc et cetera. Got to love the bubble.

<comment><USER16> What about Kraken for trading? They support a number of altcoins and a few fiat currencies (I believe USD, EUR, and KRW). They seem to be a whole lot less shady than BTC-E.

<comment><USER17> Kraken has quite low volume

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> What about trying to buy Bitcoins from a country that isn't the US? I shouldn't have to send you the left arm of my first-borne to verify I'm a human being and then be limited to performing any transaction in dollars.

<comment><USER19> You can use Virwox, but it's a bit expensive unless you live in Argentina. If you happen to live in Argentina, you can get the cheapest BTC on the world by buying with your credit card in Virwox.

<comment><USER20> Why is this?

<comment><USER21> There is a ~24% gap between the price you pay in ARS for credit card purchases in USD and what the USD sells for in the black market. This opens up all sorts of arbitrage opportunities that the government struggles to plug.

If you have USD in cash, you can sell them for close to 10 ARS and then buy BTC at about 7.34 exchange rate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> If you are from Europe you can buy some here: [https://eur.bitcurex.com/](https://eur.bitcurex.com/)

Polish version of this market was rock solid for last few years (still is): [https://pln.bitcurex.com/](https://pln.bitcurex.com/)

</comment><comment><USER23> Yep, I find coinbase really easy for buying / selling. Before coinbase, selling bitcoins was such a hassle...

For buying, I use to just buy through blockchain.info, once you created a wallet, you could just put an amount you wanted to add in and run down to the nearest moneygram / western union. The process was fairly painless, took me 20 minutes. You type in the number of bitcoins you want, print out a piece of paper with instructions. Head down to moneygram or western union, follow the instructions of hand it to the person there, they do everything for you, you pay in cash. Refresh your bitcoin wallet and you should see your coins there shortly.

</comment><comment><USER24> How is nobody come live with an effortless solution yet? I mean, credit card and go... ??

<comment><USER25> I think the way you could probably do this is that you could let people buy using credit cards, but then not actually give them the bitcoins until the credit card chargeback timeline expired. The risk is obviously that as the exchange operator you become a bitcoin speculator because you're holding bitcoins that may not end up being paid for by a customer, so not a good idea with the volatility we are seeing, but I think that's the only way credit cards would work.

<comment><USER26> Isn't that period something like 60 days for some credit card companies? That doesn't sound feasible at all.

<comment><USER25> I think it depends on why people are buying the coins. If they are buying them to hold them, then it does not really matter. I think there are a lot of people out there who just want to quickly grab some Bitcoins and hold them for the long term. Often times for those people their biggest concern is getting in before it goes up any more, so this would be a solution for them.

<comment><USER26> But if you're going to be holding onto them for years, an extra couple minutes to link your bank account to Coinbase shouldn't be a big deal. The difference in price over the initial two day validation period is going to be negligible over the course of 5 years.

<comment><USER27> Coinbase seems to be incompatible with my bank account (a credit union).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Sometimes it's easy to buy Bitcoins with local payment methods. Here in the Netherlands you can buy them with ideal and receive them immediately: [https://bitonic.nl/](https://bitonic.nl/)

</comment><comment><USER29> Any way to buy Bitcoins through a bank in Mexico? I can't find any. I'm surprised that even though Mexico is so close to US, there's still no practical way to buy Bitcoins yet (other than person to person).

</comment><comment><USER30> Any decent guides on how to mine some of the altcoins like ppc, xpm, or qrk?

</comment><comment><USER31> Your blog breaks the back button with a redirect.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I tried to reproduce this in Chrome and Firefox but it works for me. I'm not using anything sneaky or that modifies browser history so not sure why you're seeing this. Which browser are you using?

<comment><USER31> Firefox on Windows with Adblock plus. Works on in Chrome. A below commenter mentioned ABP so it might be that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> so I have free electricity, can a machine built from commodity hardware for under $1000 USD be able to make one bitcoin a month?

<comment><USER33> Of course not.</comment></comment>


Must-Dos Before Founding a Start-Up - <AUTHOR> http://www.thedailymuse.com/entrepreneurship/5-things-you-must-do-before-you-found-a-start-up/

<comment><USER2> From experience, I would say #1 is to take a nice, long, no-emails vacation. Because once you start, you ain't gonna have one until you are done.

</comment><comment><USER3> Read: 5 Things I recommend you doing before founding a startup. People need to stop using the superlative, the English language provides nuances like could, should, would etc.

</comment><comment><USER4> 6\. Fail in some catastrophic ways. It's the best way to shed your fear of the unknown.

</comment><comment><USER5> Ok list, I agree with the last, finding some sort of vent is crucial. I'd add to that though: Experience a couple of near-catastrophic events while you build it (and ideally before you've got too much momentum). The things that destabilise tend to be looked back on as just-what-was-needed once you've dealt with it - and if you don't deal with it and all falls apart, then it was probably still just-what-was-needed..

</comment><comment><USER6> The point about dumb questions feels cliche to me. I ask my advisors (what I think are) smart questions that sometimes turn out to be dumb. Project yourself as an intelligent, confident person if you want to be judged as such (you do) and remember that your advisors are really busy too so don't waste their time!

</comment><comment><USER7> To borrow a chan phrase: this post gave me cancer.

Seriously, this blogspam is what passes for HN frontpage nowadays?

</comment><comment><USER8> * Work at a Startup * Network with entrepreneurs to learn their ways</comment>


'It's Creepy': Unexplained Drones Are Swarming by Night over Colorado - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/01/us/drones-FAA-colorado-nebraska.html <comment><USER2> My guess is it's some kind private survey relating to oil/gas or agriculture.</comment>


The Problem With Posterous - <AUTHOR> http://oonwoye.com/2011/01/31/the-problem-with-posterous/ <comment><USER2> I think you make a great point here.

The thing I find interesting is that looking back it feels to me as though they did indeed get their first traction by carving a niche and being the best at _one thing_.

In my mind, Posterous _were_ the best at blogging via email. In my mind, they were the blogging platform for people new to blogging. I personally introduced a few people to Posterous simply as a way to blog without using anything they didn't already know. It was simple: the headline is the email subject, and the body is the content of the post. They chose to steer away from that being a USP, I am assuming for good reasons.

You're right about it being hard to focus, however perhaps there is a strategy amongst it all. If they try and do a number of things maybe they can find one thing which people like the way they do or which Posterous find they are particularly suited to delivering a potential "best at" solution for. Then they could focus. It is almost like instead of systematically pivoting from idea to idea, they are doing all the pivots at once. This could, of course, be a complete misreading of their strategy.

</comment><comment><USER3> Oo, I agree 100% with your view. The exact same thing happened to me when using posterous. It's really cool to start with, but I feel I am not really in control thereafter anymore. So I switched to WP, which I think is the best blogging platform available for your metnioned reasons. The wealth of plugins is simply awesome. Only recently I started using Tumblr and you are right, the design is outstanding. Community seems to be far easier to build as well. I can only say, I won't go back to posterous if there is not a big change in what they are doing. Oh and nice last sentence ;).

</comment><comment><USER4> <http://posterous.com/switch/>

Huge copy saying "Switch your site to the simplest publishing platform on the planet" but just look below at the cluttered long-winded over-complicated advertising below, does it feel like you're on a 'simple' site?</comment>


Will Global Crisis Kill Off DeFi? Stakeholders' Perspective - <AUTHOR> https://forklog.media/will-global-crisis-kill-off-defi-stakeholders-perspective/ <comment><USER2> It would help to even know what DeFi is... pretty sure that is not a common term.</comment>


Major Flood Coming Down the Mississippi River - <AUTHOR> http://blog.xkcd.com/2011/05/08/michael-bays-scenario/ <comment><USER2> +1 for a mention of McPhee and _The Control of Nature_. Awesome book. And it's just a fascinating fact, I think, that the Mississippi "wants" to do a major reroute. I had lots of fun maybe 1.5 decades ago poking around the Old River Control Structures and taking photographs, until a guard chased me away. (If I did that these days, I'd probably be flown to some Undisclosed Location & tortured; alas for my country ....)

In any case, I'm definitely going to be keeping an eye on that Natchez gauge link during the next couple of days.</comment>


Herb Sutter's talk on modern C++ - <AUTHOR> http://channel9.msdn.com/events/BUILD/BUILD2011/TOOL-835T

<comment><USER2> in the middle he says some confusing thing about java garbage collection

he knows his language better than he knows java I think</comment>