crypt1d

you dont really need to go to an exchange to get crypto. Lots of OTC sellers, miners, etc.

There were actually a few news articles about people in 3rd world countries that survived thanks to btc, though I can't find any at the moment.

Are you implying that because someone lives in an oppressive country that they have no money to transact? I really dont understand your question.

Oppressive regimes tend to control money flow in/out of the country. So if you, for example, have an aunt somewhere outside that wants to send you money -> you just might not be able to receive it, or would need to give some official a slice of the pie. Bitcoin obviously can help as u can just move the money without government oversight.

even if SEC comes raining down hell on exchanges, it will not bring any value on the long term. Decentralized exchanges are popping up like flies, each new one being more close to the "fully decentralized" concept (see idex, etherdelta, radarrelay, anything 0x related, etc).

It is very clear to me that SEC has no idea how any of this works under the hood and does not understand in which way the crypto ecosystem is headed. I feel like they ought to work more tightly with the industry's thinkers in order to create some more meaningful guidelines.

by allowing u to transact wealth without the control and oversight of the oppressive regime.

I am almost 100% sure that this is, in part, caused by the recent crypto mining surge. Or at the very least was a catalyst for something that's been cooking for 20 years now.

I have no evidence to back this claim, only anecdotal info as I know some people in the area: The Serbian minority in the north does not pay for electricity in Kosovo due to a long standing disagreement with Pristina. The Kosovo government so far managed to find ways to compensate for that, either through loans or by charging more people in other areas.

However, I'm guessing, the bills skyrocketed when the crypto mining craze started so Pristina decided to stop footing the bill.

I've heard of thousands of mining rigs being set up in the area, largely due to the free electricity. So now there's no more free electricity but there is a huge demand and nobody is paying. Hence the deviations.

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/government-pays-a-mi...

edit: wording

In the developed world piracy seems like this big naughty thing you shouldn't do. In places like Ghana, and many other undeveloped areas, its considered normal and expected. Provided you can even afford a computer.

No glove fits everyone. There are many answers to the problem and each depends on the set of circumstances in which your service exists. Security is, simply put, risk management. To put things into a context: the 'average Joe' user is rarely going to be targeted specifically - which means that the biggest attack vector of the average user is brute forcing by bots and phishing attempts or maybe a key/password stealing malware. Hence your argument that 'key-based auth' just shifts the attack vector is partially incorrect because automated attacks do not focus on a specific target but on a specific vulnerability - like password guessing bots for example which move from IP to IP and try a bunch of simple password. If these passwords don't work, the bots will not try to hack a dev's workstation, they'll just find an easier target.

So for the average user it makes sense to move to key based auth because it will remove a big attack vector. It is still possible that the workstation where the private key resides becomes compromised, but thats another attack vector that needs to be addressed by different security methods (eg, passphrase on the private key).

some will. But ETH has the majority of the hashing power, so any significant moves to other coins will result in major difficulty increases. Which will further decrease mining profitability and hence even more GPUs on the market.

Proof of stake on Ethereum is right around the corner. As soon as that happens there will be plenty of cheap GPUs back on the market.

which is really just a drop in the bucket compared to the daily crypto market oscillations.

I found the style of the article to be quite refreshing somehow. The OP is not trying to look like a smartass about the discovery (a trait very common in the IT industry), and she acknowledges that she doesn't really understand what is the underlying cause. She is just happy that she discovered something and is keen on sharing it with the world.

Ryanair allows you to change booking for a fee, as long as its not less than 5hrs before the flight. Bug is that this feature is basically broken and I couldn't change the booking even more than 12hrs before the flight. The button for selecting a different flight does not work (you can search for different flights but cannot select one). Because of this I was forced to book a different flight separately, which was more expensive than simply changing the existing flight.

I can totally relate to this from both perspectives (being pissed off at someone, and trying to calm somebody pissed off) and seeing how both approaches work/dont work.

Not too long ago I opened a dispute with Ryanair about what I thought was quite obvious their own issue for which I should be refunded (I provided screenshots and everything). I've reached out to their customer support expecting to raise a simple issue that should result in a quick solution on their end. I was shocked to see their support behaving in a very defensive and completely dismissive way that resulted in a 2 hour long support case that didn't really fix anything (they still have the same bug on their website, and I was not refunded). These guys basically upgraded me from 'slightly annoyed' to 'never again will I fly ryanair' kind of customer.

In another case, I've reached out to an online chocolate vendor to point out an issue I had with their shipping carrier. I knew it was not directly the vendor's fault, but this being their only shipping method I figured they should be aware as it is a constant problem. These guys acknowledged my frustrations immediately and even offered a symbolic gift card as a way of apologizing for an issue that they can't really fix any time soon. I was generally happy to see them even acknowledging my problem, and in turn completely understood that this was out of their hands. I continue to be their customer even though the shipping is still a pain.

I also have a local ad to help my father sell some stuff he makes by hand. As its a hand made thing that he makes in large quantities, mistakes happen every now and then and I get complaints. I try to be understanding of every issue they raise and offer urgent refunds/replacements to anyone affected. Even though people get pissed off they didnt get what they expected, everyone responded much better if I used similar methods of de-escalation.

People are often (and understandably) very impulsive and rude when they feel they are being wronged. We should try to be more understanding of these emotions and work towards solving the issue instead of taking it so personally.

I don't think that every husband would be replying the same to the 'bum problem'. I'd expect the response to be tailored based on some specific traits of both husband and wife and based on experience in similar types of marriages/relationships.

I do agree with you that I'd rather make my own mistakes, than try to be a perfect partner by using an app. The idea is definitely interesting, but scary at the same time. It sounds like something out of The Black Mirror show :)

P.S. your English is great, nothing to worry about!

WaveCrest seems to be the card provider for all major crypto debit card offerings. Its actually so popular among top searches for 'btc debit card' that I'm starting to think they are actually running the show and just have a few different front ends. Initially, they only closed visa cards for holders that were outside of EU, but now it seems to include everyone. The issue seems specific to EU-based Visa issuers. US ones seem unaffected, for now.

interesting choice. doesn't ship to Europe though :/

As far as I'm concerned, this is a deal breaker. I've been an iOS user since 3GS and now I'm ready to jump ship. Apple has been disappointing me since few years now, and I've postponed migrating to Android mostly because I'm accustomed to its UX. But this is enough of a push for me to make an effort to give Android a try.

I'm looking into Oneplus 5T and Pixel 2 XL. Any other suggestions?

I use ddwrt on my wrt1900ac. its quite fine, but I may try LEDE anyway

Me too! I used leapin for the whole process. Never had a more pleasant experience with bureaucratic procedures.

huh? btc was premined by Satoshi and early contributors too. while nobody can confirm which of the early wallets are his, the value of the premined btc coins is likely higher than the Ethereum premine.

this is the nature of all the PoW coins. The early contributors take the most risk and the most reward (if the coin succeeds).

instead of eliminating PoW we can improve on the efficiency of the miners. Its possible to use the emitted heat from the ASICs/GPUs to warm up households for example. Imagine if this were a city/country-wide thing: you could have an economically self sustaining heating system.

FWIW, Firefox has been behaving quite weird for me for the last 2-4 weeks (Linux version). It randomly freezes and slows down during page loading, even crashed a few times. Seems to happen mostly when there is some video content on one of the tabs, so I'm blaiming the plugins for now. Kinda sucks because I switched from Chrome few months ago only. I really hope I didn't make a mistake.

Good riddance.

That said, there are always some logs. The VPN provider may not keep session logs, but their upstream could easily log connections to the PureVPN boxes. You can use the upstream log to cross reference with gmail account accesses of potential suspects and you can establish a link.

Not to mention that no US based company is going to fight a subpoena/gag order from the US authorities for a lowlife online stalker.

edit: I see now that PureVPN is based out of Hong Kong, so the statement about subpoena may not apply.

Last year I went on a 2 week long entrepreneur-ish conference on a cruise ship. Due to satellite internet limitations, my phone/laptop usage was limited to 1-2hrs per day, usually in the evenings. Rest of the time I spent mingling, joining workshops, talks, or just having fun on the boat. Now mind you, I'm not a particularly social person. Being around people so much was very much out of my comfort zone, but it still felt great! I felt productive and relaxed at the same time, probably because I was able to focus on a single thing at the time, and wasn't being constantly distracted by notifications on my phone or emails and Slack conversations on my laptop. It was sort of a detox from the constant information bombardment of the digital age.

I really need to do that again.

I assume OP is referring to the test nets which are already running publicly, not one u would run locally:

https://testnet.etherscan.io/

Sure, you can do whatever you want. That doesn't change the fact that people will consider u a prick and a coward if you ignore calls for weeks on end without any explanation.

meh... I'm a Linux Ops person, and I shift between Linux/Mac/Windows all the time, depending on what I'm doing at that moment. Sometimes Linux is a PITA (ever tried setting up Bluetooth on it?) so I end up using my macbook and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I still love my Linux though.

There's plenty of space for all OSs to fit in this ecosystem. I thought we were over the 'linux rulz, windows/mac sucks' debate. Guess not.

thats no longer true. Now-a-days, ICOs ask for all kind of KYC documents - passports, utility bills, etc.

The amount of negativity towards the cryptocurrency space on HN is staggering. Even worse is the fact that a lot of comments are coming from people who obviously have no clue how the whole ecosystem works. I guess a lot of them are bothered by the fact that ICOs allowed wealth to move in a direction opposite of them. I honestly expected a lot more from this community.

Those of you that are not yet corrupted by the 'everything cryptocurrency related is a scam' attitude: try to keep an open mind. Yes, there is a lot of shady stuff going on, but that doesn't mean there is no potential in this space. We are witnessing a creation of a new industry with tremendous potential to change we do business. You should be excited!

> This is not a new concept. The same regulations apply if you start telling your friends that you're smart and that they should let you manage their money for them.

u mean like a 'friends and family' investment round? ;)