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k00b

350 karma · joined May 2, 2019

https://keyankousha.com
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k00b··on Ask HN: Recommended reading for decentralizing a social network?
It would certainly exclude people initially but there are self-hosting "operating systems" emerging that enable users running a raspi to download and run pre-configured Docker containers as easily as an App Store app (e.g. https://getumbrel.com).

A federated Mastodon-like instance might be the move, but I have a way of providing Sybil resistance so could probably have an open p2p relay network. This is why I was asking for reading. I want to make sure I understand all the options.

For more context, I want to decentralize https://stacker.news which is basically an HN clone with Sybil resistance (costs bitcoin to post/broadcast) and karma is withdraw-able as bitcoin. The community is very fond of decentralization for obvious reasons plus I think it'd be a fun challenge.

k00b··on Ask HN: Recommended reading for decentralizing a social network?
Specifically: something like HN so replies and ranking I guess.

Audience: a Docker audience suffices.

k00b··on Ask HN: What is the HN of Cryptocurrency?
You can join us on https://stacker.news if you're into Bitcoin. I'm the maker.

It appears even this question was heavily downvoted based on its rank and timing relative to older, fewer upvoted Ask posts.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

k00b··on Ask HN: What is the HN of Cryptocurrency?
The site however does use the Lightning Network to provide Sybil resistance. Upvotes/posts/comments cost 1 sat, ~1/2000 of a dollar. This helps gate the site allowing mostly Bitcoiners in and imports an incentive structure - those more like in person social interactions.

Rather than staking your reputation, you're staking Bitcoin. Rather than earning just reputation, you're earning Bitcoin (your earned karma/upvotes is Bitcoin you can withdrawal from SN at anytime).

k00b··on Ask HN: What is the HN of Cryptocurrency?
Hey, I'm the founder on SN. Thanks for the mention! You generated some extra traffic today.

There actually isn't a cost to using Lightning Login (lnurl-auth). It operates without really touching the Lightning Network, i.e. a channel. It just uses your Lightning wallet's key pair to authenticate you.

More on login: through the QR code (or lnurl string), I effectively send your wallet a randomly generated string, a challenge, it signs it using a deterministically derived key pair using my domain and your wallet key pair, then hits an endpoint on my server with the signature which authenticates you.

k00b··on Coinbase from YC to DPO
Things precede shelter in the hierarchy of needs yet shelter is still valuable. Also there are shades of shelter. Most people might not want to live in the trailer park of money.
k00b··on Ask HN: Do you think the next Apple is going to apply to YC?
The likelihood depends somewhat on whether they are in or out of a network that can provide the quality and quantity of capital, advice, and process that YC provides. If you're out of network, YC is (I think) a no brainer. Even people "in the network," like Justin Kan and Suhail, repeat YC so there are likely also non-fungibles that YC provides.
k00b··on Ask HN: What new programming languages did you learn in 2020?
The real beauty is in how few operators you need to achieve maximal expressiveness in a programming language. It makes other programming languages seem extra. Highly recommend the SICP lectures https://youtu.be/-J_xL4IGhJA
k00b··on Show HN: End to end encrypt Git repos – Git-remote-gitern
Hi all! I’m Keyan.

git-remote-gitern is a git remote helper that end to end encrypts git repos without a custom remote receiver and without additional user key management (other than SSH keys). For demonstration, git-remote-gitern's repo has been encrypted using itself: https://github.com/huumn/git-remote-gitern-encrypted. It's built for use with https://gitern.com.

I know some hackers self-host git for security reasons so I was curious how tractable e2ee without a custom backend might be. I had also been curious about git internals given my plans with gitern so I made this as a bit of a forcing function to learn git and encryption and nodejs better.

A little snippet about how it works from the README for those that don't like to click off

> git-remote-gitern creates an encrypted object graph that has mostly identical structure to your git repo's unencrypted object graph. This encrypted object graph behaves like any other git repo but all of its objects are encrypted. It keeps track of the mapping between unencrypted and encrypted objects using a flat file stored in the encrypted repo. This mapping allows git-remote-gitern to determine the revision of an unencrypted repo relative to an encrypted one.

I go into more depth in the README.

And key management

> A symmetric key is generated for each repo and is used to encrypt the repo. For each ssh public key on the gitern account, the symmetric key is encrypted with this ssh public key and stored in the encrypted repo. Thus any computer with an ssh private key corresponding to an ssh public key used to encrypt the symmetric key can decrypt a git-remote-gitern repo.

Follow me https://twitter.com/k00bideh or gitern https://twitter.com/giternhackers for development updates. I'll be hacking on public repos next.

k00b··on Go modules have a v2+ problem
I’ve heard it called and prefer to call it the curse of knowledge
k00b··on New Particle Collision Math May Offer Quantum Clues
I came here to say this.
k00b··on Ask HN: Advice for getting funding without being plugged into a network?
That makes sense. I haven't done really any pitching (other than the idea to friends) because I've been presuming I need a network. Are you saying I should pitch to the people that I do know to and the quality of this pitch will determine my eventual success regardless of who they are or if they access to capital? I can see this being true.
k00b··on Ask HN: What helps you push through?
Also, Dr. Huberman of http://hubermanlab.com/ has been making the round on podcasts talking about the neuroscience of motivation.

tl;dr We are motivated/rewarded (at the neurotransmitter level) when we feel that we're on the right path. What makes you feel like you're on the right path?

This feeling of being on the right path causes dopamine to be released which quells the anxiety/quit sensation (adrenaline/norepinephrine) that's caused by struggle and is what leads to burnout.

k00b··on Ask HN: What helps you push through?
For me it's learning but mostly technical learning. This isn't the same for everyone though. It took me a long time to stumble onto this.

Think about finding what motivates you like you think about finding the right diet: experiment and iterate.

k00b··on Ask HN: How do you start getting into VC?
From @garrytan[1]

> Lots of college students reach out to me asking me about how to be a VC.

I tell them: be a founder first. The best VCs are chosen by founders based on how much they can help bake the 10 year overnight success.

Power laws plus adverse selection equal bad returns. Be a founder.

[1] https://twitter.com/garrytan/status/1286307220796272643

k00b··on Show HN: Choremate is a Chore Chart for Adults
Hi I'm Keyan I made Choremate.

According to the 2018 Census, 37% of American adults live in shared housing. With the recent pandemic shared housing will likely continue to increase.

Living in shared housing is hard, because as most of us know from economics sharing a commons is tragic. I've been living in shared housing since college. Aside from privacy issues, the biggest problem for me in shared housing is distributing cleaning and maintenance in a fair way. Choremate aims to solve the Tragedy of the Commons using research done by Elinor Olstrom and in the form of a chore chart.

I've written in depth about Choremate and the application of Elinor Olstrom's work here: https://keyankousha.com/the-best-chore-chart-in-the-world.ht...

If you live in shared housing, check us out! We have a demo https://choremate.co/demo

k00b··on Ask HN: Best way to get started freelancing?
> solve problems in different domains with different tech stacks

I find this aspect most appealing.

> build relationships with people who can give you work or referrals > I'd charge more and be more selective about projects

These are probably harder to do when just starting I assume. I have near 0 tech network other than old employers. But maybe that's a good place to start though.

Thanks for the comment. It gave me some new things to think about.

k00b··on Show HN: Gitern is a Git host for hackers
I've since documented the commands: https://gitern.com/#commands
k00b··on Show HN: Gitern is a Git host for hackers
https://gitern.com/#downloads now provides a posix shell script for those that prefer it
k00b··on Show HN: Gitern is a Git host for hackers
https://gitern.com/#downloads now provides a posix shell script ~2.8KB for those that prefer it
k00b··on Ask HN: Learning about distributed systems?
Speaking of Werner Vogels, have you seen this blog post on DistSys reading? https://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2012/12/paper-readings-...
k00b··on Show HN: Gitern is a Git host for hackers
This very thorough and great feedback. Thank you!
k00b··on Show HN: Gitern is a Git host for hackers
Noted. I think the path I'll be taking is documentation and providing a bash script for those that would prefer it. Thank you for the feedback!
k00b··on Show HN: Gitern is a Git host for hackers
Thanks. Repositories are stored on an ext4 filesystem. I do backups every 12 hours currently. No additional replication is performed but it is something I want to do.
k00b··on Show HN: Gitern is a Git host for hackers
Absolutely fine grain access control is a must have
k00b··on Show HN: Gitern is a Git host for hackers
Thank you! I have a mostly empty blog http://keyankousha.com (I have some drafts in the pipeline but I don't have a good writing habit yet). Twitter is a little more active @k00bideh
k00b··on Show HN: Gitern is a Git host for hackers
I'm a huge hippie actually so spot on. I think my person category would be "tech hippie" if there were such things.
k00b··on Show HN: Gitern is a Git host for hackers
When you don't do your chore, you're assigned the chore for an additional contiguous period. e.g. Floors are set to be swept every week. You didn't sweep the floors on time this week, so now you will sweep the floors the next 2 weeks.

There are group chores, but there aren't penalties for individuals missing group chores so that's a use case hole.

Shoot me an email to discuss more: keyan@choremate.co

k00b··on Show HN: Gitern is a Git host for hackers
Agreed, git is great!
k00b··on Show HN: Gitern is a Git host for hackers
Wonderful!
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