MichaelGG

Yep. I'd recommend the Mi A1. If you can find one, they're pretty cheap, $200 I paid at a retail store. Great specs, very little trash (Moto X4 is Android One, but ships with Moto specific stuff that is annoying.)

The rest of his emails are about pushing sales, saying he'll fix issues to make it more legit looking, but encouraging his sales guy to move the product.

Miners take Bitcoin directly giving you a way to launder a big chunk of money. They don't ask questions and it's not a big visible thing like buying cars in your name. Hosters are fairly cheap and aren't going to be a problem.

Well suppose you have a million bucks of cash or Bitcoin from selling drugs. If you just buy miners and get clean Bitcoin, that might solve the issue by providing a clear and legal source of funds. But if they ask how you bought the miners in the first place...

I think one might find that if you go buy a million bucks worth of Amazon gift cards and try to load them into a couple of accounts, it'll probably be flagged.

The article is not about money laundering, but using stolen credit cards. It makes little sense to use Amazon for laundering.

Their source is an author that doesn't know what money laundering is. What he described is just a way to cash out a stolen card (fraud).

Can you tell me how you can laundering, say $100K in cash via Amazon? If you already have it on a credit card, you've already laundered it.

Bad title, this is Office Space levels of misunderstanding. The claim of money laundering is by some author that has no idea what he's talking about. All it really is: scammers use Amazon to cash out stolen credit cards. That's not money laundering, it's just fraud.

The money isn't even clean if they're using the wrong SSN.

A stolen credit card isn't money laundering, that's just fraud.

Your argument hinges on your word "abuse". Except there's no abuse. Nothing stops Ian from conducting business legally with that company name. If CAs have a problem, they need to fix the cert system. What should those guidelines look like? "You need to have a legal entity, but not one that conflicts with any big brand names people might know, even if you're legally entitled to conduct business under that name"?

There was no forgery.

>cannot be considered offensive >Both of these appear reasonable to me.

That is the issue. Just because someone considers something offensive does not make it so. With a tiny bit of effort, so many things can be "considered offensive". A generous interpretation would be that a governing body must consider it offensive, but more likely this means the recipient of a message can take offense where none is given.

But far more importantly, students should not be given protection from being offended. Harassment, sure, but offense? That's part of growing up.

Apartheid killed very few, 7000 is the number I can find (then 14k during transition). This doesn't square with "needs to kill increasingly large number of people". That's my only point.

It doesn't matter because it doesn't justify apartheid, just shows that you don't need to murder lots of people. Having bad countries outsource key government roles to good countries doesn't need to involve any sort of tiered citizenship or segregation.

Current murder rates seem high and are likely underreported. (For instance, Guatemala won't record a homicide if the person doesn't die right away but is helped by aid personnel.)

Further, apartheid isn't a case of what I'm proposing. They were running their own country for their benefit, not as a humanitarian/client setup.

How many people were killed during apartheid vs transition vs nowadays?

Yes it was an obviously disastrous policy, as anyone should have been able to predict. Some politicians at the time accurately stated this obvious truth, and years later they've been proven right beyond a doubt. So right are they that critics even now only yell insults and demand censorship.

Running a country for someone doesn't mean you need to give citizenship, residency, or even visas to them. It just means you do the math and see that it's obviously less suffering to remove some liberty and self-governance to improve the lives of millions. Over time, slowly give back bits of governance while retaining the right to override. Then take it from there.

It takes some mental gymnastics to allow a situation where innocent people live in fear and can be robbed and killed without reprisals only to claim you've delivered "human rights" and democracy.

Not at all. If my neighbor breaks his bathroom, he's welcome to use mine. But after a month, when his whole family is now frequently coming over, I will ask him to get a plumber. If he won't, I'll do it and lock my door.

For many countries sending people to prime immigration target countries, the only visible fix is running their countries for them.

Instead, the UN and other groups do the opposite. They run around singing about human rights, enabling lawlessness and crime to go on unchecked while decent citizens become frustrated, some of them escaping and contributing to immigration.

In particular, Central America. I know many people that would be 100% onboard with defending and cleaning up their country. Instead, they all tell me they don't even carry a weapon, because using it will get them jailed with a short life expectancy.

Meanwhile, pretty much every Guatemalan I speak with pines for the days of Rios Montt which kept things safe and clean. Yet is decried by the international community which doesn't have to live with the result of their choices.

Fix the source, take a heavy hand. There's no need for the West to babysit people.

Letting a tiny amount of people in to your own countries will accomplish little to actually relieve suffering. It's pointless and costly and not a real solution.

Define "synchronized". If you already have a way for nodes to determine something was valid as of a certain set of data and time, you've already solved it.

Blockchain adds neither things you mention. Both can be accomplished with digital signatures and timestamping, which are not new.

Blockchain alone doesn't prevent you from modifying data -- just rewrite the entire chain. As an example, Bitcoin only prevents this with proof of work, but only following accumulated difficulty prevents someone from thinking my privately-mined chain is true.

Of course you can delete, just create a new DB and insert the records except the ones you don't want.

If you want to have integrity control, you can use digital signatures without blockchain.

If all you're trying to fix is making it hard to issue a DELETE statement, then make it easier to set permissions. Which isn't really hard in any mainstream database...

It seems like this is a log, which might work better, although existing RDBMS already have high performance versioning/change tracking.

You've described merging/replication which has nothing to do with blockchain.

In only responding to the claim that the stats are wrong because of police oversampling blacks. With homicide, no one can make that case.

If lack of money causes homicides, we should expect to see all poor rural areas have high homicide rates, too. Maybe that's true.

Another factor seems to be sex. Males commit so much more violence, so perhaps that's the only thing to focus on.

Homicide rates are unlikely to have this kind of bias though. And they're heavily against blacks. It's unlikely whites being murdered go unreported, or that anyone gets off with a warning. But inner city homicide has a low solving rate. If the reporting rate is also lower, then it could be even worse than the 4-7x overrepresentation of blacks in homicide.

This seems to be the case in London, too, so it's a bigger issue than just the US.

But for things like drug possession, yes, blacks probably get stopped much more and not let off with warnings much less.

I greatly appreciate your responses. Putting it as least-worse is a great idea. Had someone told me up front that it would still have religious aspects, chanting, etc. maybe I'd been more likely to stay instead of feeling mislead/broadsided. Or maybe I'd never have gone.

I think your comments here would be a great addition to your paper. These aspects are a huge part of the course and something I didn't feel was well explained at all. If someone is going to react negatively to the trappings of the course then it seems better that they hear of it before they take two weeks to travel to a centre.

Agree that Sam Harris stuff is in no way a replacement. It was his stuff that lead me to go to Vipassana in the first place.

Thanks again.

This is a great reply, thank you. I thought Harris was also explaining that full motor control remains by "me" until the corpus callosum is severed. Hence patients being unaware that their other hand is writing notes.

Do you have any further reading or information on communicating with the other hemisphere?

The parable in question, about the child not eating the "black stone" in his pudding, is one that many people report hearing. It might have been in one of the discourses.

I must stress that the individuals and teacher in person were wonderful people and I've absolutely nothing against them. The main issue, without slighting the dead, is Goenka's part. Including the condescending parable.

I would probably go again if I can't find a non-goenka course. But I'd listen to all the discourses and get my annoyance out ahead of time and consider the chanting to be an added difficulty.

Most religions are fairly open source and not really hackerish.

Does Dhamma org actually publish the discourses? I got the feeling they were only available via the retreats, but have been leaked.

No, the complaint is that they make a big point about only being pure technique, no faith, dogma, etc. Then they act like any other place. If they were honest about it from the get-go, then it wouldn't be worth mentioning.

>you're free to pick and choose what you find valuable

This is what they say, and sure, they cannot force you. But if you do this, they criticize and condescend, telling you you're like a child not eating all his food and that when you grow up you'll find everything they say is correct.

And Goenka is very clear that the goal of Vipassana is improving reincarnation.

There is one point where they say something, maybe literally "we do not teach dogma, only truth". Saying it does not make it so! They'd be much better off not trying to convince people they aren't pushing such beliefs than being misleading about it.

As far as sleep, I tried meditating. Both there and afterwards. I do not find it as resting as sleep, and found myself drifting off while meditating during the rest of the time. What happens in my case is that I'll be awake in bed until 3-4am then finally sleep. This is fine if I don't need to get up at 5-6. But I understand this is personal and I should have fixed my sleeping habits before arriving.

For students, they seem far more tolerant of medication, probably for liability.

I highly recommend the guided meditation that goes along with that book, Waking Up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OboD7JrT0NE

It has helped me attain the deepest level of meditative state, where I am almost aware of my consciousness as a separate process from the constant sensory input. Becoming an observer, empty-head.

On another level, I've found it very settling in times of emotional turmoil.

I did have a near panic attack from the book when he makes somewhat of a case that both hemispheres of our brains might be independently conscious, with one permanently silenced as control of the body is held by the active one that controls our body. A prisoner in someone else's body, literally, with no way to interact with the world. It is pure physiological horror. But alas I cannot do anything about (other than try to talk to that other entity and see if it can trigger some sort of response?) so no use getting worked up? The world is full of day-to-day cruelty and it's not my fault.

I cannot say it is true because I would not consider myself learned. I will say that the 10-day retreat thing comes off very culty, and it is in their interest to encourage the course. They've built a massive monument apparently funded by donations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Vipassana_Pagoda

See my other comment for my more in-depth review. There is certainly a better way to learn than the Dhamma.org 10-day courses, but it might not be readily available in any form today.

Excellent review, thank you. You capture the vividness of it very well.

I will add a disclaimer, if you are talking about Goekna / Dhamma.org retreats. They are absolutely not just about technique or dogma-free, despite their marketing. They are overtly religious and the entire retreat is couched in hand-wavy woo.

The retreat itself was amazing. I went to one in Quebec. Excellent facilities, crystal clear skies (it was -25 C out), very soothing place. Food was excellent and overall, the physical aspects were not nearly as trying as I was expecting (though my back was kill after a couple days). I would recommend bringing a sleep aid if you are used to not sleeping so early (they are accommodating). I went a few days without using it, but it is hard to meditate after a sleepless night.

I was very excited. The place had been hyped up as dogma-free. Sam Harris's Waking Up book seemed to encourage it. No mystical teachings. Just a great practice. No communication. No speaking, writing, reading. Not even eye contact to avoid non-verbal communication. I love the idea.

The moment I first sat. . . well, here is the type of sound they pump in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqEWTlaweaM

The reason for this, in their words, is that the chanting of ancient Pali gives off good vibes. Next, they ask all the students to start repeating phrases in Pali. It feels incredibly cultish at that point. The voice of the instructor during key meditation lessons is intentionally over-accented (you can hear Goenka speak just fine at other times). In other languages (not English) the instructions are clear and concise. Only in the original recordings do you get this woo-y voicing.

Finally, you do get sustained language, in the form of the nightly discourses. After having no other serious language input, every night there is an hourly discourse. By that time you're dying to relax a bit, and if you're like me, desperate for communications so that even a cereal box label would be spellbinding.

The lessons are very anti-science and very religious. Goenka explicitly states the purpose of meditation is to purge your deep-seated sins (sankhara I believe was the word he used) so that you can re-incarnate better. He was clear to point out that the study of physics is unnecessary because Buddha had discovered physical secrets long ago. Literally, he makes a point that Buddha determined the vibration of subatomic particles (even though the numbers provided are wrong, and the premise is nuts). He even goes out of the way to criticize a scientist involved in the work of the cloud chamber, saying that the scientist was always unhappy and thus should not have bothered trying to discover things.

Even the non-anti-science parts are a bit off. At one point, during a lecture on not murdering any living being (acceptable, sure), he goes as far as mentioning that "a cat killing a mouse is not following its true nature". Questioning these things gets you a warm smile with a condescending dismissal.

Here's an example of the course: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJxuIMGC9s4

I only mention all this because HN readers are probably less woo/religion minded than most, and Dhamma.org portrays it as no-woo when it is full of it. The annoyance caused me to drop out of the course on day 6 as I could not stand the indoctrination side of things. Physically I was fine and enjoying the structure.

But... I would still recommend it over nothing. I would prefer a retreat that had the structure and setup but without the dogma. If you cannot find such a place nearby (Goenka's retreats are everywhere), well just know going in that you will need to deal with all this and ignore the dogma and not be upset. Consider it additional training. Maybe try hanging out with people praising homeopathy and not saying a single negative word as preparation for the kinds of things you're going to feel?

I would also note that Sam Harris's guided meditation (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OboD7JrT0NE) was quite instructive, after reading his book. You do not have to buy into his overall views or be "a proud atheist" to enjoy the book nor his meditation part.

Exactly. At the same time igniting Israel using chemical weapons in Palestine.