jimmysong

Yea, grayscale definitely impacts the syntax highlighting, as many of the colors end up pretty dark.

It works, though, and I have coded a bit on it. My only criticism would be that the copy-pasting is a little clunky, at least with JuiceSSH. Maybe other apps would be better at it.

I've got JuiceSSH set up and use the device as a thin client. Coding is a little different since you don't get the terminal colors that you normally use for syntax highlighting. Still, it's functional, and I can do it, mostly using a bluetooth keyboard to do so.

There's a stylus that comes with it and lots of note-taking apps. I particularly like the ability to take notes directly in PDFs, which for technical papers can be very helpful.

For one, images and videos are a lot less visually stimulating. Everything is in black and white, and though those all render fine, they're just not as interesting as they would be in full color. So instead of doomscrolling Youtube shorts, I find myself doing more reading, particularly of books since the epub reading experience is fantastic and causes much less eye strain.

I'm typing on a Daylight computer on Firefox right now with the brightness turned to 0 so it's only reflecting light. It's very similar to the tablet experience for Hacker News, just with less color, so it's not as straining to the eye.

As one of the beta testers, let me just say that I really like this device. It's very different than a kindle, kobo or reMarkable in that the refresh rate really makes a big difference. When I show this device to people, I show them how quickly zooming in on a PDF is. It's way faster and more responsive than any e-ink screen and it's way less addicting than the typical laptop, phone or tablet.

I'm attempting to make this device my main driver over the next few months and while the ecosystem isn't exactly mature yet, most android apps just work out of the box and I've found myself doing a lot more reading, either through an e-reading app (Lithium), PDF reader or Instapaper. I have X, Primal, Telegram and many other apps installed, but I don't go to them nearly as much. The device really is a lot more human centered and it makes for a much more intentional device.

I like Unhook, a browser plugin that takes out recommendations for YouTube. The YouTube home page then becomes more like a search engine and you can use it for that, but you won't keep going by watching more videos that are similar or related.

This is a common misconception. Bitcoin mining is taking electricity generation that would otherwise be wasted. In non-peak demand times the energy is generated anyway and would simply be wasted. Bitcoin mining takes that energy and does something productive with it.

Proof-of-Stake doesn't solve the Byzantine General's Problem. Therefore, the system no longer has the property of being able to get decentralized consensus

I'm going to be that guy that shills his own stuff. I wrote Programming Bitcoin published by O'Reilly. It has specifics and exercises on all the building blocks that make up the Bitcoin blockchain. You'll learn Finite Fields, Elliptic Curves, ECDSA, Transactions and more. It'll be worth your time since it's a gentle introduction to a lot of cryptographic concepts.

I wouldn't waste time on Web3 or DeFi, though.

I wrote Programming Bitcoin for O'Reilly and it was published 3 years ago. Some observations:

* You won't make that much money directly, but I have probably made a good amount indirectly. The credibility from having published an O'Reilly book is not to be underestimated.

* I got the animal I wanted (honey badger) by asking for it. I did justify the ask by showing my editor the Bitcoin honeybadger memes.

* The book writing process was a grind. Because my book was so focused on programming exercises, I wrote my own suite of testing tools to make sure everything was consistent. It felt more like a software engineering project than a bunch of blog posts.

* I have since introduced more people to my intake editor and they've published their own O'Reilly books.

* I don't get much of a discount on my own book. I just buy them through Amazon.

* They give you a framed picture of your cover when your book publishes.

I had to lobby pretty hard to get the honey badger for the cover of my book. I was surprised no one had taken that yet.

I do wonder about running out of animals given they publish so many new books a year.

This article is an example of a person speaking from the perspective of massive financial privilege.

Does the author realize how much people in the third world have been screwed over by banks and why they wouldn't want to trust one? The author's opinion would be vastly different if the author were a resident of Turkey or Lebanon or Nigeria right now.

This is very interesting when looking at prices in terms of gold. During the 19th century, US dollars were backed by somewhere around 1.5g - 1.6g of gold, which is worth around $90 today. So multiply by 90 and you start getting reasonable prices:

1833 - cheap meal for 1 shilling = $10.80 1834 - moderate meal for 15 3/4 cents = $14.18 1838 - beef steak 25 cents = $22.25 1849 - corned beef and cabbage = $112.50

and so on. A very rough rule of thumb is multiply by 100 and that's the rough price in gold today. Things weren't all that cheap and monetary expansion since the devaluation of the dollar makes these prices seem much cheaper than they are.

Posts like these make it clear to me that the author does not really understand money, not Bitcoin. It's hard to reason about what Bitcoin's advantages are without first considering what the purpose of money is and the analysis from this article is mostly just sniping at the edges about some of the perceived flaws and not the actual usefulness which is the good part of the trade-off.

For a better understanding of money and why Bitcoin is a better money, I would recommend this article:

https://vijayboyapati.medium.com/the-bullish-case-for-bitcoi...

I'll also toot my own horn a bit which also delves into this confusion:

https://www.amazon.com/Little-Bitcoin-Book-Matters-Finances/...

Because Bitcoin is credibly scarce. In 10 years, Bitcoin will have 20+ years of history behind it. Your BTC2 will be much younger, probably have had a creator, a foundation that directs where it goes, possibly changed the proof-of-work and supply schedule a few times and possibly picked winners and loser on their ecosystem. In other words, your other currency won't be that different than normal fiat money.

Most people don't really get that Bitcoin is unique in this regard. Literally every other coin has less credibility and more intervention and a shorter history. That's why BTC will be more valuable.

I guess Facebook is coming for Reddit.

I was surprised not to see Ken Liu on there, given just how many really good short stories he's written. If I had to pick just one, _Paper Menagerie_ deserves to be on this list.

I've seen this happen to a number of bankrupt companies, this just happens to be a big one. The expectation is that the stock go to zero, but somehow it bounces upwards. Happened with GM back in 2008-2009, happens to a lot of other stocks that are in bankruptcy. The stock becomes unmoored from the actual company and trades like a weird collectible.

some random things:

* open source contribution

* getting a book published with a major publisher

* winning a major award or trophy in almost any field/sport

* a blog with a lot of readers (or youtube channel)

* doing anything considered really difficult if you can tell the story in the right way

My main advice

1. Start easy.

It's tempting to grab a textbook or video series because it gets good reviews on Amazon or likes on YouTube. That's all good and fine, but it's more important to get a good introduction to the topic. The key here is to get a rhythm going and it's very easy to disrupt your study rhythm if you start too hard. So, much like working out, start out easy, with something you can easily grasp. Moreover, do less than you can. As they say in weightlifting, leave a couple of reps in the tank. Don't go all out as you're running a marathon, not a sprint.

2. Be consistent

The key to finishing something is to do be consistent. Intense 5-day seminars can work, but you're going to need a very good teacher and have a lot of motivation to get through it. For self-study, consistency is much more important. I would recommend somewhere between 4-10 hours a week. Anything more than that is going to burn you out and anything less and you'll forget previous lessons. 1 hour a day for me on a given subject and taking weekends off works for me. The key is to build up momentum and keep it going.

3. Power through by stepping back.

There will be sections where you're going to feel lost. You're going to feel frustrated or not know what the text or video is talking about. This is where you need to "deload" a bit. Take a week to review all the material you've learned so far and redo some of the exercises. Everyone has these and the key is to not lose momentum. Many a study has stopped due to one obstacle. The key is to step back for a bit and try again without losing the momentum you've built.

4. Remove distractions.

Not everyone has the discipline to follow these, and most of the time your brain will try very hard to distract you when you encounter a hard problem. The key is to minimize all your distractions during your study time. This means no email, social media, walks to the fridge or anything else. You start and don't stop until you've finished your hour (or 30 minutes or whatever you committed to). It's okay if you only got through 2 pages during that time as long as you didn't get distracted. Give yourself permission to stall a bit. And if this happens a few times in a row, step back and try again (see 3)

5. Get a buddy

The best way to study is with someone or some group that's studying the same thing. There are lots of forums for all of those topics that you can engage in to answer some of your questions and possibly find someone to study with. Getting some accountability is an excellent way to keep up your momentum.

I'm going to guess that you're going to get more mileage out of cutting something out of your life than in adopting yet another mindset, habit, drug or whatever. Some possible things that might work:

* youtube/netflix

* social media

* news

* sugar

* video games

These are the things your brain goes towards automatically as an easier "win" than in facing the harder problem. Cutting them out will leave room for you to face harder challenges.

This has been tried. It's called Namecoin and it failed to get much traction.

I suspect that using Bitcoin instead would improve adoption dramatically instead of creating yet another token. This can be done using sidechains or something similar.

Tooting my own horn just a little bit, I spend the first 3 chapters of my book on exactly this topic: https://www.amazon.com/Programming-Bitcoin-Learn-Program-Scr...

There are exercises that can help you learn it from scratch.

Housing is treated as a good investment because it is scarce. Stuff that's affordable is usually not scarce. Hence you can't have both something that's scarce and affordable.

That aside, the reason why people have been using housing as an investment vehicle is because there really aren't that many good investment opportunities over the long term. You have stuff like gold and stocks, but they have their own problems. Housing has the additional utility of the ability to live in it.

I suspect that the reason housing/real estate wouldn't be considered such a great investment if there were a better store of value.

The main reason lard wasn't sold was because the health industrial complex blamed fat for heart disease and a whole host of other health conditions. This started the low-fat food trend which brought way more carbs into our diet which eventually led to the low-carb diets which spurred a renewed interest in animal fat like lard.

In other words, there was a lot of argument from authority that precipitated this, not just corporate profit seeking (which was also significant).