Hyperborian

> How do they store their data?

SQL.

> How do their different applications talk to each other?

Proprietary APIs.

> How do they scale their systems to work for millions of users?

T H E C L O U D

> How do they keep them secure?

They just... don't.

> How do they make sure nothing goes wrong?

They just... don't.

> What are APIs, webhooks and client libraries, when you really get down to it?

Easily outsourced to India.

Because, quite frankly, parts identified by hashes is not all they see.

If you're monitoring and logging the traffic then it's trivial to not only determine the filename of a bittorrent download, but also everything you need to connect to the torrent yourself and download it to verify that it's what the filename says, if that's what you wish to do.

And, personally, I'd expect someone to at least check the filename before accusing me of committing a crime. :(

Oh god... you're not under the impression that bittorrent is a secure or anonymous protocol, are you?

> ...and it's nice to have 110% of your maximum expected needs covered rather than 80%.

That depends very much on the person. For someone with no kids and that needs to move very large cargo every once in a while, it may be the pickup truck that's the 110% and the SUV that's the 80%.

Depends on the speed you most commonly drive. For urban drivers, they spend a lot of time at slower speeds where aerodynamics is less critical. Also, even pickup trucks are designed to be much more aerodynamic and efficient then they used to be these days.

For rural drivers, they probably have other reasons to want a pickup truck besides simple cost effectiveness. They're usually the ones who actually do need the carrying capacity.

Ha! I didn't even think of that. :)

We're talking about a vehicle that's not really even relevant to the question of why different countries prefer different four-wheeled vehicles, though. People looking for a four-wheeled car or truck are generally not looking for a motorcycle, and vice versa.

> I think you're implicitly talking about a classic style 2-door pickup truck, but most consumer trucks these days seem to have four doors.

Replace the shortened bed in the back with a cover and a third row of seating, though, and you have an SUV that's still going to be even heavier and more expensive.

> Small two door pickup trucks are even more extinct, at least in the US.

Very true, and as a small pickup lover that makes me sad. :(

> It's been a long time since there was a market for those.

Indeed, which leads back to the question I posed above... why do we prefer such large vehicles?

Because the pickup truck form factor is the most efficient and inexpensive one there is. No really, hear me out! I see this asked all the time, but you're actually asking the wrong question.

I mean, think about it, what's the most minimal, lightest, cheapest form a motor vehicle could possibly take? It would have wheels, of course, some sort of frame to attach everything to, somewhere to put the engine, and somewhere to put the driver. That's it! A cab up front to house the engine and driver on a frame with wheels. Add some simple low sides to the frame to keep stuff in and that basically describes a pickup truck.

The truth is, for any particular load carrying and/or towing capacity, a pickup truck is the most efficient and least expensive common consumer option. Adding a cover over the back, additional seating, and other amenities just adds weight and cost. A tiny subcompact pickup truck version of even the smallest little hatchback can be cheaper and lighter then the hatchback can ever be simply because it's the same thing but made with less stuff.

I suspect the real question you want to ask, is this: why are such high cargo/towing capacity vehicles so popular? In other words, why do we buy such huge vehicles?

Lots of people, including far too many families with children.

I'm just a few pages in to the tutorial and I already want to try it out myself... but how? Where's the link?

Is this not available to the public yet?

Almost the exact same situation here, except that it was closer to 28 years ago. :)

He's being downvoted because there has never been any evidence for any significant amount of voter fraud whatsoever, though many have looked carefully for it. It's not just thought not to be a problem, but KNOWN not to be a problem. The idea that large amounts of illegals are voting fraudulently is pure right-wing propaganda made up to justify minority disenfranchisement efforts.

Has that always been? Were the first engineers regulated and licensed? By whom?

Perhaps we're just looking at a category of engineering that is not yet at that level of maturity.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

> How can we possibly create a healthy food-replacement system if we don't fully understand what makes food healthy?

Well, in order to finally achieve that understanding, what are we going to need to do?

Basically, attempt something like Soylent and see if it works, adjusting it as we learn... which is what they seem to be doing.

> I found US public school education was not about learning and mastery. It's about conformity and obedience.

Bingo.

There has been much improvement in curriculum over the years, certainly, but the structure of the American school system is still basically the same one that was originally designed expressly to produce a body of conforming and obedient factory workers with a consistent and predicable level of skills.

If this technology is being made available to consumers now, that means it's existed before now, probably for years, outside of the public's awareness.

Makes you think. What's been faked in the last year or two that we didn't know could be faked?

Which is vastly superior to the alternative, which is taking on the liability myself and facing the possibility of being financially devastated by fraud and/or theft.

> People who go into the military are more conservative than liberal, on average.

In-group loyalty is paramount to conservatives. Family and community first, and all that.

> They are more patriotic on average...

Exactly, and that supports my argument. If California declares independence, then the patriots from California will either side with their homeland, their communities, the places where their families are... or be traitors to their homeland, community, and family.

What do you think is the more likely thing for a conservative to do?

> I don't see many, or any significant amount going rogue...

If it reached the point where California declared independence, it would be those who sided with the US who were the ones "going rouge".

You are completely ignoring, most importantly, the issue of family. A service member from California almost certainly has their family in California. Your suggestion is that a significant majority of service members would side against their own family. That is what siding with the federal government in the even of California declaring independence would mean. Does that really seem likely to you? That they would side against their own family and home? Especially for a group that tends towards being conservative?

Think about it.

Ah, yes, if only the British had responded to the American rebellion by "not allowing it", then the US would have never existed.

That sounds reasonable.

> Perhaps, but remember militaries train discipline and chain of command for a reason.

Indeed, and that's why its so significant that Californians make up such a large portion of the military. They bring that modern world class military training with them. Without that body of already experienced and trained people, a real military would be essentially impossible for years, even decades.

> If there were a serious rebellion, those would be the first targets. Thousands--even tens of thousands--of lost military and civilian lives would be a small price to pay in the US govt's eyes than to let a new nuclear power spring up on its doorstep.

If it actually reached that point, Californians would probably be just as ready for that.

Regardless, though, my point was that it's not so cut and dried as was suggested. The scenario would not be the full might of the US military against defenseless California, it would in essence be a gutted US military in total disarray against a cobbled together smaller portion of the US military.

On the other hand, a very significant number of military bases (packed full of military weapons and equipment) are in California, and thanks to California's out-sized population a major portion of the current active military are native Californians. That's not even taking in to account National Guard units and such.

California would take a very significant chunk of the US military with it if it left the union, and there are native Californians (who, if they backed California, could cause many problems) in key positions throughout the rest of the military as well.

Form a militia? That's ridiculous. California would be a global military power right out the gate, and a nuclear one at that.

That Venn diagram has little to no actual overlap at all.

The objectivists just find it to be to their advantage, these days, to make it appear that they might. The controversy that you suggest is as manufactured as the controversy about anthropomorphic climate change.

One super cheap idea that might be worth considering: clear shrink tubing. You could put whole trays of them at a time in your oven, just make sure the tubing is the right length and lined up right.

You might even be able to get away with not cutting out a hole for the button, as it could be activated through the flexible tubing.

Currently the typical solution on Hyperboria is indeed the current internet DNS system, primarily for lack of a widely accepted decentralized alternative.

A truly decentralized alternative to the current DNS system is a difficult problem to solve, and one that people continue to work on. IP addresses are easier because they are interchangeable, it really doesn't matter which one you have as long as you're the only one who has it. Domain names, though, are not at all, in fact that's basically their entire point. The question of who gets which names, issues around fraud and phishing, mass registration and domain squatting... how do you solve those problems without some sort of authority to arbitrate and enforce rules?

The closest alternative to the ideal that I know of right now is probably Namecoin, which works quite well with Hyperboria, but it still involves a number of compromises that not everyone is happy with.

It's true that key rotation would mean changing your IP address, but that is something that is fairly routine on the current internet already, though certainly infrequently done by major sites and services.

The primary purpose of the encryption in CJDNS is simply to establish identity and make the completely decentralized addressing system (the key component) possible. Using the keys to do built in transparent end-to-end encryption is an important and valuable feature as well, but ultimately is secondary. If you need the kind of security that requires frequent key rotation, you should really be using an additional encryption and identity verification layer on top, just like with the current internet.

Also, CJDNS uses 512 bit keys, and the nature of how the protocol works means that any address collisions (which would be unavoidable by someone impersonating you) would be obvious and detectable, so for it's intended purpose it should not be necessary to rotate keys very often at all.

The protocol is also key to Project Meshnet (a response to the many current concerns over censorship and net neutrality), which seeks to use it to essentially replace ISPs with local community mesh networks, ultimately seeking to interconnect those networks and, basically, replace the current internet from the ground up.

The whole project is. The ultimate goal of CJDNS is essentially to replace the current TCP/IP based internet, or at least to be an alternative global internetwork.

The existence of Hyperboria and the use of VPNs over the current internet is purely due to the fact that the current users are still too few and far between to establish direct links to each other.

So, you want to punish them all because most of them happen to not agree with your personal political views... even the minority that do agree with you, just for having the gall to live similarly to the ones who don't.

You seem like a nice person.

China also has a very limited air force and barely significant blue water naval capabilities. They are especially lacking in the kind of heavy lifting and transport necessary to make force projection even possible. Due to the size and power of their army and their nuclear capabilities it's safe to say that China is effectively immune to attack (even from the US), but they have a nearly non-existent ability to project force outside of their immediate sphere of influence.

The US, on the other hand, has carrier groups that each have as much military power as many moderately sized nations. And we have ten of them stationed all over the world pretty much all the time. The difference is orders of magnitude.