For those interested in reading about this, there were some good comments in the previous HN thread:
381 karma · joined August 6, 2013
jamesk [dot] au [at] gmail [dot] com
See, for example, Circle's statement[1], which styles itself as a joint statement regarding "the Insolvency of Mt.Gox", and describes Mt Gox's actions as "abhorrent". At the end of Circle's statement, after listing some of the high standards to which Bitcoin custodians should be held, the author(s) make this observation: "It does not appear to any of us that MtGox followed any these essential requirements as a financial services provider."
The statements of Kraken[2], BTC China[3] and Blockchain.info[4] also describe Mt Gox's actions as "abhorrent" and make the same observation about Mt Gox in relation to its compliance with appropriate standards.
Coinbase's statement[5], on the other hand, does not use "abhorrent" and does not express any view on whether Mt Gox complied with the "essential requirements" of a Bitcoin custodian. But the Coinbase statement does include this sentence: "Mtgox has confirmed its issues in private discussions with other members of the bitcoin community". That sentence is conspicuously absent from the other statements.
Finally, the Bitstamp.net[6] statement is completely different. It says that the "known losses" of fiat currency and Bitcoin "are limited to those balances that were in MtGox's care", and that Mt Gox "can best explain how this happened".
The names of the industry leaders appear at the bottom of each statement. Have they signed off on all of them?
Did some leaders edit the "joint" statement to avoid potentially defaming Mt Gox?
Or do some of them know something we don't?
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[1] Circle: http://www.circle.com/2014/02/24/joint-statement-regarding-i...
[2] Kraken: http://www.reddit.com/r/Kraken/comments/1yux6n/joint_stateme...
[3] BTC China: https://vip.btcchina.com/page/notice20140225
[4] Blockchain.info: http://blog.blockchain.info/2014/02/25/joint-statement/
[5] Coinbase: http://blog.coinbase.com/post/77766809700/joint-statement-re...
[6] Bitstamp.net: https://www.bitstamp.net/article/Statement-by-Bitstamp-regar...
Kudos for making a fresh attempt to solve the music discovery problem, which is often a source of frustration for me, but the italicised words above made me lose interest. I have never had music in my inbox and I never want to have music in my inbox. For me, instead of being "effortless", that sounds like loads of effort.
(I'd consider paying for a subscription to a one-click solution that imports curated playlists directly into iTunes or Spotify.)
Note that Yale's complaint included concerns over "the prominence of class and professor ratings", and the student developers' response was to remove "the option of sorting classes by ratings". Subjective five-point ratings can be useful in many contexts, but in the context of education they can also give rise to genuine pedagogical concerns about the way in which students choose their courses.
Looking at the screenshot in the post, it is not difficult to see that the pattern of enrolments might very quickly become skewed towards those classes with higher average evaluation ratings (whatever such ratings might mean). If that happens, it suggests that some students may be making decisions about the courses in which they enrol based principally on factors other than their interests, abilities and future career paths, or without critical thought. Whilst other factors are relevant, including those for which an average of subjective evaluation ratings might be a plausible heuristic, that does not mean those factors should be the primary or predominant factors.
Without seeking to defend or condone Yale's response, there is more to the story than the tale of student censorship presented in the post.
The frustration for me was gur haerfbyirq vapbafvfgrapl orgjrra gur pbssrr pyhr ng gur pevzr fprar naq Naanory'f jvgarff fgngrzrag.
Gur onevfgn ng gur pevzr fprar ercbegrqyl fnvq gung "n jbzna yrsg evtug orsber gurl urneq gur fubgf".
Ohg Naanory Puhepu'f vagreivrj erpbeqf ure fnlvat gung fur "ena njnl nf fbba nf gur fubgf jrer sverq", gung vf, nsgre gur fubgf jrer sverq.
Vg znl or cbffvoyr gb erpbapvyr be rkcynva gubfr fgngrzragf, ohg gurl frrzrq gb zr gb jneenag ng yrnfg fbzr vairfgvtngvba.
An alternative explanation might focus on when and how discipline and self-restraint should be exercised, the ways in which content can be curated, or how and why one might take steps to learn about such things.
As a matter of logic, that is not necessarily correct.
The beauty of the warrant canary is that it takes advantage of the ambiguity that is inherent in unexplained omissions:
1. A person may choose not to continue publishing their canary because they have received a warrant. This scenario might impermissibly reveal the warrant's existence.
2. A person may choose not to continue publishing their canary at any time, for any reason, without explanation, even if they have previously said (a) they wouldn't discontinue the canary unless they received a warrant, and (b) they have not in fact received a warrant. This scenario doesn't reveal anything.
In most cases, it's impossible for a third party to distinguish between those scenarios, with the result that the person's decision to omit any further publication of the canary is equivocal, and does not necessarily convey anything about whether or not a warrant has been served.
There could be other circumstances that do allow a third party to distinguish between the above scenarios, and thereby convey information about the existence of a warrant - but I don't think what Apple has done goes that far. The position of rsync.net[1] is less clear.
Note: I have used 'warrant' here because I am referring to the general concept of a 'warrant canary', but the language of s 501 of FISA[2] (introduced by s 215 of the PATRIOT Act) is a bit different.
That is a different petition to the one that has been posted, which states that the reason for open sourcing the code is "so we may help fix any found issues".
The "let's see what we paid for" argument is an appeal to the more general proposition that there should be public scrutiny of public money. There already exist mechanisms for accessing taxpayer-funded content held by government (including source code) under FOI and other legislation. Unless there is some inadequacy in the operation of those laws, I think they answer the point.
Without that foundation, the petition does not seem to have much utility, notwithstanding its 1000 signatures.
Irrespective of whether you give the speech, you should see a psychologist or a psychiatrist as soon as possible. There is no substitute for having an experienced, rational, objective and trusted person working with you to resolve your concerns.
The thought of confiding in an expert like that may be a source of discomfort for you. It is reasonable and natural for you to want to try to resolve your concerns on your own. But you say that you were unable to leave your house for a period of some five months. On any rational view, the time for self-help remedies is long past. You need to have this resolved if you are to get on with your life. Don't question it: just do it.
If you do it soon, you may find that you are in the same position that many other first-time public speakers have found themselves in, with the result that there are plenty of well-worn strategies available to you to tackle the speech you've been asked to give.
But you need to divide and conquer: solve the other problem first.
He does note that he had to "authorize a $0 transaction" in order to store the details for each credit card.
But leaving that aside, not only was his conduct misleading, query whether legally enforceable contracts were entered into as soon as mutual promises were exchanged (promise to pay made by proffering means of payment in exchange for promise to deliver product).
If that is the proper analysis, a distinction based on whether the credit cards were ultimately charged does no more than draw the line between civil and criminal liability.
He should be glad that no one actually relied on what he said. Those who deal with him in the future might now do so with a degree of caution. He has probably copped enough flak in these comments to bring the message home to him - or at least I hope he has. I like the premise for PublicBeta, and it would be a shame if that service were tarred with the same brush.
Perhaps an unintended consequence of allowing everyone to compile their own version of a multiplayer game.
(Defeating him/her was satisfying.)
The first thing I did after seeing this thread and looking at the repository was to download the game from the iOS App Store (using an iPhone 5). I would have paid $1 to $4 for the app at that point in time.
I 'mastered' the levels up to but not including 'Belgarath the Bold' in the space of about 30-40 minutes, and seem to have unlocked all the spells except for superman, hot dog and teddy bear. That was entertaining - and repetitive. Challenges remain ahead of me in the form of Belgarath and Fionnghal, but unless some exciting new aspect to the gameplay emerges during those challenges, I don't think I would pay for an extension to the single player game. If I'd watched someone else play the game instead of playing it myself, I don't think I would now spend the $1 to $4 I would have otherwise been willing to spend.
My disinterest in paying for an extension to the single player game means I don't have any reason to consider paying for unlockable wizards, custom spells, or forums and betas.
OK - I wrote the above before trying the multiplayer game. Having now tried the multiplayer game, I found that to be much more fun, and much less predictable. Would I consider paying something now? Maybe. I'd be willing to consider one or two small in-app purchases that add to the gameplay in some non-trivial way without unbalancing the game between those who've purchased and those who haven't. I don't think I'd ever have any interest in forums and betas.
The main gripe I have with the game is not something you can easily solve: my finger gets sore after lots of frantic swiping on the glass. (It was even worse with Runic Rumble.)
Good luck!
[1]: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/runic-rumble/id581952563
Edit: Just discovered 'superman'. Hilarious!
The way in which the problem is framed suggests there is a unique solution. The model is presented as a square matrix subject to linear constraints. There are 36 unknowns, being x[1][1] through to x[36][36], each of which is 0 or 1. There is the constraint that the sum of the unknowns is 419. And there are two constraints to ensure that only one number is chosen from each row and each column, which together give rise to 36 constraint equations.
If any one of the latter constraints is replaced by the sum constraint, there is a linear system of 36 equations in 36 unknowns. Is it possible for that system to be constructed and solved directly through matrix inversion?
(For those trying the exercise at home, the number at P[1,2] appears as 90 but from the full problem statement I think it should be 6.)
"The sun's north pole has already changed sign, while the south pole is racing to catch up," says Scherrer.
Does that not suggest that the sun is currently a magnetic monopole? Or is that too simplistic?