smokey_circles

A point that I always find interesting to remember is that although we've proven there's no measurable benefit to crystal therapy, there's no discounting the people it's helped.

We think that's probably placebo (seems like a reasonable assumption at least) but the people it's helped are going to be devout believers. Experience is a powerful motivator

That's not a fair comparison though. An exchange is a fat, juicy target. I am not

Good question. I only wanna add that traditional trading instruments suck and are not fun to scale. Highly centralized points of failure with truly mind numbing consequences that are difficult to predict and respond to. I've worked on forex systems and when the feeds get iffy things get real uncomfortable, real fast.

Blockchains could, maybe, provide an interesting global platform for fintech to migrate cross-border stuff to. That stuff is not reliable, the engineers are just hella talented

It is the implementation.

I believe in bitcoin, works well and I don't blame the consumer for the producer's problems when it comes to power.

But exchanges have become a key part of the implementation.

That's not the real issue though. The issue is the _need_ for exchanges. They provide a host of services, mostly all of which are antithetical to the loftier ideals espoused by bitcoin.

Too many crypto fans waltz passed this glaringly obvious issue and these kinds of stories will never go away as a result.

If banks get hacked, nobody blames the internet. "a small sub section of the system" applies as aptly to the blockchain as it does the global financial system, and I'm pretty confident being a locally popular trading commodity amongst edge communities is not the central goal for bitcoin

Humans are a cooperative species. Seeking help and wisdom is part of the process. Nothing is being taken away or deprived here, and from what i can tell that's a hell of an overreach on such little context, unless you've caught something I missed?

It's a Bethesda game. So it needs mods to truly be appreciated. Doubly so 11 years after release.

I did this with Oblivion, glad I did cuz I love that game

Crypto is just a fancy distributed linked list and people get tied up over it for no reason (gross oversimplification, I know).

The issue is the lack of regulation in the intersection of fiat/traditional finance.

EVERY time there's been a gap like this, it's it's exploited.

> I'd prefer seventy years of living to eighty years of not dying

You're going to be disappointed then. Closer to 40 years of living, 30 years of being imprisoned by your failing health.

I support your right to make stupid decisions but at least make sure they're accurate and informed stupid decisions.

I maintain a usenet subscription because the file transfer and search mechanisms are incredibly relevant today. There is a yuge amount of data still pushed around on the usenet. Which is not-so-coincedentally related to media formats and sizes (yarr)

I don't understand how bitcoin is a ponzi scheme. There's no pyramid shape, which is kind of crucial. "Just look at the whales" uh huh, you mean like the dollar?

It's just a value store. Debating the efficacy of the value store is fine, labeling it a ponzi scheme seems reductive to absurdity.

The real problem (unsurprisingly) is with fiat currencies. These are heavily regulated, nearly made up values. That crash, often. We put handbrakes on the systems (see gamestop, mortgage debt crisis etc) because of how unsafe they can be.

If we trade goods for fiat currency, we put handbrakes and regulations there too.

The bitcoin/fiat exchange is merely proof why we need these regulations. Until it (the crypto/fiat intersection) is regulated, it's not gonna look and feel like what we're used to.

There are good criticisms to be made of bitcoin (like how centralized most mining operations are, the community's constant in-fighting and many more). It's drowned out by daft arguments like pollution (that's a whole other economic sectors fault) and ponzi schemes.

Maybe other coins could be construed that way (again, regulations required) but not bitcoin.

I just can't take the power and pollution argument seriously. There's just nothing salient about it. I might have otherwise agreed with the author on their other points but if you can't see the issue with this argument it disqualifies your opinion (which js just my opinion).

"Bitcoin requires lots of electricity". No, nowhere near the scale human activity sans blockchain does and to provide it we burn coal. Like we've done for a looong time before bitcoin. Removing bitcoin doesn't remove the coal we burn. Genuinely daft argument.

And that's before we get into looking at the numbers from areas like the mining sector. Aluminum smelting isn't cheap from a power perspective, yet I don't see this argument leveled against coke.

The answer is renewable energy. Obviously.

Uh... bodycam footage is somehow different?

If I got a job for a top tier firm and all I could afford was a 2 bedroom apartment, I'd suspect I was played.

What was the point then? "Come for the tech" sure and leave because of anything/everything else.

One of many reasons I will never set foot in the US with the intent to stay: Y'all are nuts

> Over the past few weeks the FBI, Department of Justice (DOJ), Interpol, and other international law enforcement agencies have worked together to incarcerate and indict ransomware threat actors. Through this effort, millions of dollars in ransom payments have been recovered.

yet still, cryptocurrency gets blamed for all the ransomware. nevermind that clearly the law is able to find some course to take, or the unsolved cases unrelated unrelated crypto or any of the myriad of studies about why crime exists. no, the mere existence of monero is why we have international criminal syndicates. never happened with drug cartels or insider trading rings. heck even warlords are bitcoins fault.

odd rant, I know, but the argument that "all that crypto does is encourage criminals" is willfully ignorant. tale as old as time.

"what did they do before crypto then smartie pants"

cash.

and before that: gold. probably shiny rocks before that.

we could try defeat these actors but honestly I am unable to believe it's just human nature. we suck sometimes

Genuinely curious question: how do tell the sky hasn't fallen? American media is so polarized and dramatized that I imagine it's as disorienting on the inside as it feels from the outside.

For context, I believe covid has killed more Americans than anything else in your history (though I haven't been able to confirm that, most wartime figures are estimates).

That doesn't mean lock down and mask up but surely doing nothing is equally bad? Just seems like covid has become political theater and it gets minimized somewhat as a result

I had to read the whole thing to make sure I didn't miss anything.

You don't need to read this article, it's adding nothing new to the conversation except for a whole bunch of "i'm so smart, use my wisdom" type stories dotted neatly around the "i don't like that i'm getting old" lamentation going on.

> Some scientists say these worries about attention are a moral panic, comparable to the anxieties in the past about comic books or rap music, and that the evidence is shaky

Who gives us a toss what some scientists say? What does the friggen data say?

Is this really what passes for higher tier journalism these days? Pathetic

Come on. You can't believe ASICS pull more power than mining operations. Aluminum smelters are not cheap

I'm not convinced crypto has failed to be a value store or an effective means of currency and these "arguments" don't really talk about the meat of the problems crypto faces.

1. Regulation is pretty much the defining factor in cryptos status as a "real" currency. It's never going to be legal tender without legislation.

2. The idea that the value of a dollar is intrinsic or demonstrable is hilarious. The gold standard is long gone and the petrodollar is a doomed idea that fluctuates wildly. Economics is neither predictable nor rationale, because humans are not. See: gamestop.

3. The amazing derison on the subject. Only America could develop such a polarizing narrative about something fairly mundane.

4. I work in fintech in a part of the world that's still developing. The banks should be scared of crypto and banks such as Monzo. The key quality here is ability to react to a market. Crypto is not as quick as cash but it's MUCH faster than inter-bank transfers (st least this side of the world).

Channels. Share information between routines with channels. If you're passing pointers to mutate down a channel, then that's on you. Just set yourself on fire, much easier that way lol.

You don't need immutable structures to communicate between goroutines. Value types are fine. Just think a bit about how to use channels as signal carriers, it eventually starts to make sense

Why does the Chinese Government need to be told _at all_? You're saying that doesn't seem strange to you? The government busy silently exterminating a people and who employ mass surveillance and other obvious human rights violations, that they ask for cyber vulnerabilities to be specifically delivered to them doesn't register a reaction with you at all?

I'm not sure I'm following. Listing 70k files was a benchmark. It would take you 10x the time to use 'exa | grep' but grep might just filter out the item you're looking for during execution (not certain if grep is reading the pipe as it is output or waits for execution to complete first). exa still needs 7 seconds to check all files. ls only needed a tenth of that

well it's been a good few years, but now it's time to pick up another language and wait for the community to beat stupid ideas into that one too

So we're clear, I'm not proposing the west do any kind of reparations. You just won't calculate it and the damage is already done, a pay cheque isn't going to help. But you are wrong. I'd prefer it if they just left, take their corporations with them. They don't have to return anything, just go.

Firstly, I am referring to the whole continent. The west didn't just destroy one nation, they took us all out (except Botswana, and hey wouldn't you know it: They're mostly fine. Strange that, must be a fluke). It's ridiculous to think we would have self-corrected after the colonials left, especially in a few decades.

The west created power vacuums, committed coups to remove leaders who didn't want to hand over land and money (and instead wanted to invest it into our own future) and pulled us into wars we had nothing to do with, just to further their own commercial interests. It's not just mineral wealth that was taken from us. They also divided the land they didn't have any right to amongst themselves. Some good arguments about how responsible the west is for the middle east's current crisis. I also feel like this argument ignores a lot of the CIA's activities over the past 5 decades...

America's wealth was greatly enhanced by the railways built by the slaves they stole. How much of that came back to Africa? Oh yeah, none of it. That counts as wealth theft, but I'm happy to agree that this starts to get messy quickly and isn't very productive.

I have to laugh at the 'The west stole enough' line. They nearly stole everything, and it continues to this day. The gold, the fucking Cullinan Diamond, the minerals used to create phones. They all come from labor in Africa, and very little of the generated wealth comes back. That seem balanced or appropriate to you, or does it seem there's a power gradient? We all know about the supply chain issues at companies like Apple, I'm not sure how you can argue that the damage isn't still ongoing.

> South Africa's biggest roadblock to prosperity is not the west

The west excludes us from global economic activity all the goddamned time. In extreme cases that includes assassinating leaders who want to punt them out of Africa. And hey, look at that, Shell is busy sonar blasting our coastline for fucking oil. Great. You think we're gonna see any of that money? Not a chance. Nevermind the destruction they're causing, at least the westerners can drive their cars around. But hey, we should just pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, right?

Here's a nice example: Take omicron. The west banned travel from here because we reported it first. This is pretty simple to work out: We are world leaders in infectious disease management, due to the amount of infectious diseases we have to manage. Experts in the field have been explaining this to (apparently) deaf audiences for a while now. It's not great to have so much experience in identifying and managing infectious diseases, but we do. The west could (and should) learn something from us. I learned the other day that _nothing_ has killed more Americans in the same timeline as COVID has, not even the civil war. Admittedly I doubt that civil war claim and I suspect we just don't know how many people died as a result of the war. Still, COVID is up there.

A lot of the west seems to think Africa is just fundamentally flawed. We're not, it's just hard to act independently or in our own interests under the capitalist boot.

To be fair, it's not just the West. China is busy creating the next silk road through crafty debt tactics. Once again: Something the West could do to help us, but won't. Which is going to cost you a great deal more in the long run (we're used to poverty, I don't see modern America handling it well).

----- EDIT

Removed a lot of "you's" because I am not actually upset with anyone in particular. But the west has 0 understanding of what they did here, they elected to whitewash history instead. Plenty of scars to disprove the narratives.

It's also worth noting I'm a white south africa. I know a great deal about this whitewashed history because most older white south africans spout it, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Happy to continue this debate, I really don't mean it to be aggressive (but I love this country and I will passionately defend the defensible parts of it)

I've lived in Joburg all my life.

Joburg, especially the inner city, is one of the most dangerous places in the world. Couriers are at risk? We all are. I don't know anyone who doesn't have a story of being held up at gunpoint somewhere around joburg, even the wealthy northern suburbs. Happened to me 4 times, twice in one week. Try convincing an armed mugger some other tit stole your phone already. Fun times.

I also suspect the author is kicking themselves over the timing of the release of this article.

> Lockdown has just been eased as Covid infection rates have plateaued

At the time of publication, our rates are very nearly the highest they've ever been.

Not one mention of the disgusting xenophobia demonstrated by the majority of city residents. Not. One.

I don't order from uber eats because, well they're cunts. Mr D is a locally registered business and is required to follow our very strict labour laws, so I happily order from them (although their app is not doing well lately).

What bugs me the most though is that Uber Eats is somehow exempt from our labour laws. Not providing medical cover to employees who've sustained injury on site can land you in jail.

I personally believe we (Africa) should evict these blood suckers. The western world has stolen enough wealth from us. Voetsek now. We have good alternatives (IDK about bolt, but Mr Delivery is a local partner that adheres to the laws)

Genuinely curious how you arrived here.

1. My time is valuable to me. Low effort sales templates are offensive in this light.

2. Joe never answered about why he has different metrics than Evan. You're just going to waltz past that point? Someone in mailgun is lying.

3. Nothing about this was rude or dramatic. Send me an email chain like this, I'd be happy to demonstrate what rude looks like. Waste my time at your own peril

This is not a convincing argument. If things go wrong for nuclear stations, the consequences are incredibly high. I'm not sure there are many fields that can make the same claim. And oil is absolutely not one of them (bit of a weird attempt at trying to be authoritative).

Also, aside from neatly skirting around Fukushima and Chernobyl, not one mention to the fact that most world leaders are brain dead and shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the awesome power of nuclear energy.

Can we, humans, manage to pull this off? Absolutely, didn't need convincing about that. The author has failed to convince me that we, the humans alive today, are anywhere near competent to pull this off at scale. Or even that this shared competency is a challenge to overcome.

"But the US has had nuclear power without incident for so long now" yeah and when the chips were down at the start of convincing they committed acts of piracy to secure PPE. I'm sure it will totally be different in the face of nuclear emergency.

[0] www.bbc.com/news/world-52161995

there's nothing mild about many online ads. pages load faster and I don't use as much bandwidth. YouTube et al are ok, not so much other pages

Because it is usually impossible to remember all possible permutations of a chess board, I disagree.

Humans handle large data set with a cheat by using creativity and predictive reasoning to avoid having to store EVERY piece of data we encounter. Inference is a large part of this. Most models I'm aware of consider these traits to be related to intelligence.

Just claiming an opposing stance isn't enough to validate it. This is just a silly opinion for the sake of argument.

I live in a country with a 40-45 hour max work week. After that, you pay 1.5x rates. Saturdays are 1.5x rates for salaried workers and Sundays and public holidays are 2x. There are very serious legal consequences for trying to skirt the system.

As paid overtime becomes the norm, it becomes another metric to track. Project managers that routinely run into overtime are punished. The same as any other expense caused by analysis failures.

You seem to think paid overtime suddenly incentivises a company to just up the price of their product. Like it was equivalent equivalent the rising price of materials. It just doesn't work that way.

Not everyone is a piss poor planner who can't react to changes in environments. Plenty of projects I've worked for have been pretty close to budget. When overtime is required, we talk to the customer. Their money, their decision ultimately.

If your costs unexpectedly skyrocket, you're not keeping customers.

I'm getting a little bored of these "qualification by differnce of opinion" reasoning. You've gotta actually qualify your opinion

This argument is completely without merit.

Facebook makes money from mining the data you generate while using their platform.

If you're not using _their_ platform, you're not making _them_ money.

To combat WhatsApp and Instagram, Facebook tried the Facebook App. It didn't work (people still used WhatsApp and Instagram a great deal more than the facebook app). Instead of figuring out why, they just bought the platforms out and forcefully integrated them.

Which clearly violates the Clayton Act.

"But why didn't the FTC intervene" because old people don't understand tech and new things will always confuddle the outgoing gatekeepers.

Those purchases gave them data they previously didn't have access to. Which gave them MUCH more control in the advertising market.

I expect boomers and the like to not understand this, but to hear "facebook isn't a monopoly" on HN is fascinating.

How else do you describe the centralisation of the internet via Google and Facebook? Innovation? Really? Despite all the evidence in leaks and statements?