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You can convert them to Bitcion on Lightning Network here: https://kriptode.com/xlmtoln/index.html

urzaon Ask HN: Is your company sticking to on-premise servers? Why?

I would like to add, that even for small teams/projects the cost is the reason. We have small business project, with only one server, few hundred customers, with varying traffic (database sync between thick clients, web portal,..). We were considering cloud, but with the features we needed (few different databases, few APIs,..) it would be cca $1000/month (with reasonable response times - could be cheaper but terribly slow). Having our own on premise server, the price is back just after few months and then just the minimal cost of connectivity, energy and occasional maintenance.. it just didn't make any sense for us to choose cloud.

urzaon Show HN: Pattern.css – CSS-only library to fill empty background with patterns

Oh, wow this is cool. Thanks.

urzaon Show HN: Pattern.css – CSS-only library to fill empty background with patterns

This is great! Is it possible to download the whole collection?

urzaon Brave Improves Its Ad-Blocker Performance with New Engine in Rust

Alternatives based on peer-to-peer (micro)payments are already staring to emerge, e.g. this guys is building patreon alternative based on Lightning Network (Bitcoin's second layer able to handle millions of tx per seconds for negligible fee):

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/aacw3h/im_creating...

urzaon Apple announces Apple Card credit card

Bitcoin allowed to accept donation for Wikileaks since 2011 when Visa and MC blocked them. (Nowadays they accept also more privacy preserving currencies like Monero or ZCash)

Bitcoin allows people in Venezuela to avoid wealth confiscation on the borders, either when they are running away or when they are sending money back home to family.

Bitcoin allows people in Iran to transact with outer world.

Bitcoin allows people in India to keep their wealth in face of demonetization.

There are many problems that Bitcoin solves for real people and real companies every day.

Just because you aren't one of them, doesn't mean they don't exists.

urzaon Apple's best product is now privacy

Apple might offer better privacy than Google or Facebook now, but it can change easily because privacy is not their core product.

I have high hopes for Librem 5 where privacy of user is the core product of the company.

https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/

urzaon Intel patches new ME vulnerabilities

This comment should be on top.

urzaon Age of Empires Definitive Edition's pathing and movement

Meanwhile I will be in forests... Kingdom Come.

urzaon Show HN: Lightning Network Search and Analysis Engine

Here is something from Andreas Antonopoulos on this topic: https://youtu.be/c4TjfaLgzj4?t=14m35s

I think the most important aspect is that Lightning Nodes are just sending bitcoin transactions, the whole system is trustless, the node relying your transaction to destination can't steal your money any more then bitcoin full node relying your transaction to miners can.

urzaon Using a Yubikey for GPG and SSH

Btw you can also do SSH, GPG and 2FA also with Trezor, which has the advantage that for all functionallity you can have a one "24 words" seed backup, from which everything is determined. Oh and you can of course use it as bitcoin wallet :)

SSH: https://doc.satoshilabs.com/trezor-apps/sshagent.html

GPG: https://github.com/romanz/trezor-agent

2FA: https://doc.satoshilabs.com/trezor-user/u2f.html

urzaon Coinbase Ordered to Turn Over Identities of 14,355 Crypto Traders to the IRS

Thanks for the essay.

This is on the same topic, from similar angle, also very good one, by Nick Szabo:

"Trusted Third Parties Are Security Holes"

http://nakamotoinstitute.org/trusted-third-parties/

urzaon AWS Fargate – Run Containers Without Managing Infrastructure

So what would be some real use cases?

urzaon Bitcoin Mining Now Consuming More Electricity Than Many Countries

Yes, it is censorship resistant, but more importantly it is much more than payment system. It is for the first time in human history that we are able to scale trust. Money transactions are just first and obvious use of it. But it will eventually change the fabric of our society for more global, decentralized and flat. See this 20min talk for explanation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSRN8PUhHX0

urzaon Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

private schools and hospitals would be Darwinian shitshows that absolutely guaranteed rising health and income inequality

Reality disagrees. Pretty much everywhere where private schools and hospitals are allowed at least to some degree, they provide better value and results for everyone, including the very poor: https://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21660063-where-gover...

Hospitals the same. In my country (eastern Europe) the difference between state hospital and private hospital is like difference between two centuries. The beauty of free market is that it lowers the costs for everyone. So the poor will always have "less luxury" at given time period, but in absolute terms will be much better of with free market then with state services. In eastern post-communist Europe, this is evident on every step.

urzaon Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

Look at the innovation pace of products delivered by free market vs those by government. If government made computers, they would still be big as room and only the rich could afford them. Meanwhile free market delivered computers into your pocket with power and capabilities that just 10 years ago no one would believe.

Our education system preparing our kids for future is still basically the same as our grand-grand-parents was.

Just imagine where our hospitals and schools could be if not crippled by government..

urzaon Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

Do you really believe the fines Microsoft was ordered to pay had any effect on the direction of the company? It was on a level of mosquito bite for them. What really forced them to change in last few years is the changing landscape of the whole IT ecosystem. Their market shares dropping, because there are viable alternatives, new kinds and classes of products, the whole opensource movement etc etc. So yes, the invisible hand of market, rather then some silly fines by government.

urzaon Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

Rich people and corporations will never pay full taxes. The only way to make it fair is to lower taxes for everyone.

EDIT: downvote me all you like, but the facts and all human history are on my side. Taxes are and always have been paid mostly by poor + middle class. Rich people used to collect them and now have a ways to negotiate a better deals or to avoid them. Look at Trump and his loans schemese. Look at multinational corporations. Look at our local oligarchs in eastern Europe. If you are in middle class, your only hope is to fight for more fair society where tax hells dont exists, and taxes are low for everyone. Because high taxes will never be paid by everyone.

urzaon Fiat is Effective: fiat for the crypto crowd [pdf]

Then the author does not understand how cryptocurrencies work. There is nothing preventing to have inclationary currency, and indeed many such exists.

urzaon Fiat is Effective: fiat for the crypto crowd [pdf]

So the argument basically comes down to that crypto is too volatile and not usable as unit of account?

1. Crypto is still in its initial stage, where capital is flowing into it. Once it is there, it will be less volatile. You can already see this in Bitcoin[1], where relative volatility is dropping every year.

2. There are projects coming that will enable decentralized trustless peg of fiat currencies into blockchians[2][3]. So you will have usd/eur in blockchians. Similar like Thether, but without central issuer. This will be very convenient for pricing (unit of account), but with all the benefits of blockchains.

And as author admits fiat is terrible as "store of value" - so with this combination - fiat pegs in blockchain for accounting and native crypto as store of value (keep bitcoin for your grandchildern instead of dolar that looses 95% value over century), it might be the best combination of both worlds.

1: http://woobull.com/bitcoin-volatility-will-match-major-fiat-...

2: http://cryptopeg.org/

3: http://www.getbasecoin.com/basecoin_whitepaper_0_99.pdf

urzaon iMac Pro

Yes I can understand it with compactness of mabook aris (I also have one), but with such expensive desktop, I would want to keep the possibility to repair and upgrade. When motherboard, display or any non standard soldered component dies, you have to replace the whole thing probably..

urzaon iMac Pro

I am talking about models that have ssd as chips soldered to the motherboard. You cant buy aftermarket replacement for that.

urzaon iMac Pro

I would worry that something breaks after warranty expires and the whole computer can go out of the window. With regular good old desktops you can just replace the broken part. With such special custom made hardware it is sometimes impossible. For example the macbook airs have non standard ssd that is not replaceable, so when the disk dies, whole notebook is done...

urzaon Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

US Dollar lost 95% of it's purchasing power over the last century, so much for "must store a stable value for a long time".

The wealth distribution of dollar is based on how many more people your grandfather killed than my grandfather. I don't have any problem with currency where initial distribution rewards people who took investment risks because they saw potential in innovative new technology.

And volatility - volatility in bitcoin is actually smaller every year, and this trend will continue. And btw volatility is natural and healthy. It's when something is not moving that you should be worried.

urzaon Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

"which will not fuel the economy"

So you mean, like, people will not waste nature's resources for things they don't really need? Oh, what a tragedy!

urzaon One of the most complex wristwatches ever made

I want something like this, beautifully designed, as gadget for my Always On Display.

urzaon MS: Bitcoin mining uses as much electricity as 1M US homes

I wonder how much energy is consumed by wallstreet and all banks worldvide, including the work wasted by all the employees, money printing facilities, and all this other things required for fiat money to have any value. I bet you bitcoin minig is drop in the ocean compared to it.

urzaon MS: Bitcoin mining uses as much electricity as 1M US homes

Many od the mines in china are placed directly near the hydro poweplants.. not becauss any environmental factors but because hydro pw is cheaper for them.

urzaon MS: Bitcoin mining uses as much electricity as 1M US homes

By the downvotes it seems you are true. But the ideas speaks for thselfs regardlea. I suppose it doesnt fit to the worldview of sillycon valley "hackers" :))

urzaon MS: Bitcoin mining uses as much electricity as 1M US homes

Yes it is. Chinese mines are mostly hydro powered. On iceland is running huge mining operarion on thermals.