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rax0m

227 karma · joined October 20, 2018

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rax0m··on The vi family
Interesting that there is such a clearly stated differentiation between projects that use "LLM-generated code" and those who don't.

I wonder how it went for the farms that stuck to "non-tractor-generated crops" in the 1900s.

rax0m··on Why does the U.S. always run a trade deficit?
Another alternative to a non-national global reserve is of course gold (or dare I say the B asset which must not be named)
rax0m··on Thoughts on thinking
Video games come to mind
rax0m··on The Friendship Recession: The Lost Art of Connecting
Where did you find the time to read HN and write this comment? It's about prioritization. (My priorities are pretty much the same as yours)
rax0m··on Y2K
nice AI chat bot. It has made me think a bit
rax0m··on First Is the Worst: Nintendo's Color TV Game 6 and 15
Toggle dark mode at the bottom of the page
rax0m··on Fair coins tend to land on the same side they started
I watched one of the 12-hour coin tossing marathons.

They were sitting with their laptops and pressed a button for every result.

I wonder if human error can explain (at least part of) the deviation from 50/50:

* locations of the buttons they pressed on the laptops (they only pressed once per toss before enter, meaning the button represented same-side or other-side)

* remembering what the coin started out as may be harder (or easier, but probably harder) when the result is other-side

* other??

Need to repeat this amount of tosses but with a higher degree of supervision to be sure of the result.

rax0m··on CNBC just deleted 5 pages showing CD5 data for banks including JPM and BAC
I'm guessing all of these banks asked their quotes to be removed, ans cnbc decided to cave in to all requesters at the same time
rax0m··on What is the minimal possible UK address?
Olga was a famous doorkeeper at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden.

Students used to send her postcards from their journeys.

It became so popular that it was enough to write "Olga, Sweden" for her to get the letters [0] (source in swedish).

[0]: https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olga_Boberg

rax0m··on Vimium – A browser extension that provides Vim-style keyboard controls
I love qutebrowser and use it daily (and donate to the compiler), mostly on Linux but also on Windows.

Here are some of my headaches that force me to use Chrome/Firefox anyway sometimes, if anyone has answers to these I am very interested to hear them.

* Can't save passwords / autofill (for accounts I don't particularly care about)

* UI scaling in Windows (for high-res screens) is bad. The web page contents do not scale automatically.

* Does not resolve Teams "secure links" (workaround is to right click teams links instead and copy them, then paste in qutebrowser)

* Twitter videos don't work

* On linux (somehow this works on windows), "accept all cookies" sometimes does not get rid of that prompt. Stack overflow is an example where this happens. Another example is redhat where the prompt does not load for a while [0]

* Clicking something that spawns a box where text can be inserted does not bring me into insert mode. Example [1] (the searchglass). This causes me to close the tab by mistake sometimes by typing 'd'.

[0]: https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_enterp... [1]: https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/templates/web-design...

rax0m··on 1min high-intensity exercise 3x a week improves fitness as much as 3x aerobics (2016)
What about bone strength though?
rax0m··on The number of banks willing to do business with the crypto industry is shrinking
Scarcity has driven value before [0]. And the more scarce, then more valueable. This being combined with other characteristics necessary to be money: Divisibility, fungibility, salibility across time and space.

Some examples: wampum seashells, mammoth ivory beads, glass beads. None of these have "intrinsic" value.

By the way, the main point of the article I linked is that since humans like to collect random, valueless things (like seashells on the beach) then there must exist an evolutionary explanation for that. Meaning, the behavior must have been selected for.

[0]: https://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/rob/Courses/InformationInSpeech/C...

rax0m··on SEC Charges Samuel Bankman-Fried with Defrauding Investors in FTX [pdf]
Arthur Hayes has written extensively [0] on these points.

[0]: https://blog.bitmex.com/white-boy/

rax0m··on Defending Privacy in Crypto
Very unexpected that this comes from Coinbase.

But kudos where kudos are due! I hope this goes the way

rax0m··on Absurd Trolley Problems
I did the problems under the assumption that "pulling the lever" was an act, while doing nothing was not acting. Implied legal (and moral) liabilities made a difference in my choices.
rax0m··on TerraUSD crash led to vanished savings, shattered dreams
I used to think Vitalik was earnest as well. I was an ETH believer up until a few years ago. My distrust in him was the crack that in the end spread and became a distrust in ETH.

I'll just provide 2 sources for this, fossuser, and then you can judge for yourself. Cause I just feel bad if someone else trusts someone I know to be intellectually dishonest at times.

[0] https://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pos-still-pointless/ (Vitalik being intellectually dishonest in his responses, which is proven by Paul in his follow-up article)

[1] https://twitter.com/adam3us/status/1273353652447608834

rax0m··on Estonia clocks fastest inflation in the Eurozone at 20.1 percent
Inflation is an increase in the money supply.

If you see everything from this lens then it all makes sense.

Prices of specific commodities and consumables may rise or fall, but if the money supply and demand remains the same the overall combined price of everything remains the same.

rax0m··on Web3 is centralized and inefficient
Proof of Work is the source of truth [0]. That is why Proof of Stake cannot work. You are describing one of the biggest of the problems with PoS perfectly.

[0] https://dergigi.com/2021/01/14/bitcoin-is-time/

rax0m··on What is ‘elite overproduction’?
I think we would keep the top 5% scores, and the remaining 5% would be filled with the people able to "affect the randomness" (read bribe) the best.

There is already a degree of randomness inherent, since for example students don't all study all the material with exactly the same level of attention to each individual part of material. And some will be tired the day of the exams. Some will have something else on their mind while studying due to their relative being in the hospital. Some will by chance happen to guess right on some difficult task. etc. So you already have randomness.

rax0m··on IBM unveils first quantum computer in Germany
Take your confusion about that as your first data point on whether it is over-hyped or not ;)

I don't think there is any way to build a quantum computer on earth with a significant amount of qubits (enough to break ECDSA with Shor's algorithm), where you can entangle the qubits as you want. The system would be too sensitive to the slightest vibration.

rax0m··on Hacking Bitcoin wallets with quantum computers could happen
Using Shor's algorithm at this scale requires entanglement of so many qubits that it will never be feasible, and definitely not on this earth which is vibrating so much!
rax0m··on Bitcoin is a ‘boon for surveillance’, says former CIA director
You are missing the concept of a UTXO, but that's a bit besides the point.

You are in general correct.

However, there is currently no market price difference for "untainted coins". Some are expecting a secondary market to appear, some are not. A lot to uncover in this area!

rax0m··on Suez canal blocked by a massive ship
They are from vesselfinder [1].

[1]: https://www.vesselfinder.com/?imo=9811000

rax0m··on HN front page ranked using only votes from early users (2009)
Turns out "classic" had 10 of my clicked links - while the normal "new" had 5. Will use classic from now on.
rax0m··on Bitcoin Is Time
Good takeaway.

Sounds like something straight out of The Bitcoin Standard [1].

[1]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36448501-the-bitcoin-sta...

rax0m··on Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto
Great at discouraging hoarding I'm sure!

But how can this encourage adoption?

Who would want to hold an asset that is designed to lose purchasing power?

If nobody wants to hold it, then nobody wants to get it as payment.

rax0m··on Tesla buys $1.5B in Bitcoin, may accept it as payment in the future
Personally I'm not so concerned about the step "store of value" -> "medium of exchange".

Let's imagine for a second that most people on earth want to hold bitcoin, becuase they believe the price will not go down (i.e., it will remain stable or go up).

Then, they would rather accept bitcoin for payment, were it as easy to accept the fiat of whereever they live. This is because fiat is designed to lose purchasing power.

The way to make it "easy" will be solved by second layer solutions like lightning or even custodial solutions, these need not occur on the bottom layer all the time.

Anyway, to your last sentence. Why it must rise in value.

Satoshi created "number go up" technology which aligns perfectly with human greed and adjusted to occur in large swings on a four-year basis. No growth in price can be linear btw, because how would the front-running look?

Believers in bitcoin believe in "number go up" [1]

[1]: https://www.ministryofnodes.com.au/2021/01/26/what-is-number...

rax0m··on Tesla buys $1.5B in Bitcoin, may accept it as payment in the future
Graeme I've got the perfect article for you [1].

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

Please let me know what you think

rax0m··on Police seize $60M of Bitcoin from fraudster, but he won’t provide the key
Can one "own" a number?

A private key is simply a number < 2^256. Knowing the specific number gives control of the bitcoin.

Either one cannot really own bitcoin, or bitcoin has proven that knowing is owning.

rax0m··on Counterfeiting Stock – Explaining illegal naked shorting and stock manipulation
Naked short selling is illegal [1]

[1]: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/nakedshorting.asp

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