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alberto_ricoon Spanish government limits crowdfunding to € 1M, donations capped at € 3000.

As far as I can tell, this doesn't affect Kickstarter and such, since you're not legally investing, but buying a product. So if that's the case, he should be on the safe side.

A shame of law, however, since it's only meant to discourage small scale investing.

alberto_ricoon How can someone go off-web and anonymize themselves after a life online?

It's probably easier to change your offline identity. Bureaucracy can be dealt with, plastic surgery results are in continuous improvement... And you can even start a new family, damnit.

But The Internet never forgets.

alberto_ricoon The problems I am facing with being able to work whenever I want

Maybe off-topic but, as a fellow nomad, I'd love to read how you deal with the weeks before moving. As active as I can be upon arrival, I feel my energy depleted when the time to part approaches. This means I'm less productive, and less prone to social interaction, as if looking forward to the next destination.

Has anything like that ever happened to you?

alberto_ricoon Ask HN: What business domain needs SMS/USSD based UI the most?

Two key points, IMHO, for a service to be fit for a SMS UI:

* Interaction sparsely needed.

* Usage where Internet access is either way too unreliable, and/or expensive (roaming? maybe offering different international numbers?)

Offtopic: Wait, Trondheim? Heihei, nabo :). Gløshaugen is killing me with exams, but let's have a beer some time.

alberto_ricoon How do McDonald's debit card payments get processed in under a second in Italy?

I'm not sure about McDonald's Italy system, but one that's frequently used in places with low/expensive cellular signal, and/or a big number of small transactions, used deferred debit.

Basically, it consists of updating the system every certain period of time, with the list of the revoked numbers, and assuming that the rest are cleared by default. Then, every time the process runs, it submits the transactions while obtaining the revocation list.

This makes every transaction as fast as a look up on a local database table, and it is for example how it works at certain toll booths in Spain.

alberto_ricoon Snapchat reportedly turned down $3 billion in cash from Facebook

$3,000,000,000. All cash.

I'm definitely not a visionary, since that rejection doesn't sound to me like a smart move.

What do you the secret plans of Snapchat are? Obviously they think they can get a greater offer in the future.

alberto_ricoon Google Search Now Includes Etymology

Try again. That was fast.