cantrip

These seems like very different programs to me. The MarArthur Fellowship is a no strings attached financial grant to nominated individuals in any field, they do not allow applications. The Shuttleworth is by application and specifically funds individuals working on projects related to "openness".

I get the sentiment, but I'd just like the point out that with current interest rates it makes sense put 20% down and invest the rest in mutual funds. You get mortgage interest deduction and are paying 4% interest while making 7% market gains. Buying a house all cash is not the way to do it.

Because the post was a joke about suicide.

Anything can be funny given the right person saying it at the appropriate time in the right context

Seeing a suicide joke from a person I don't know in the Hacker News thread about the death an individual I respect an hour after it's been released is not my idea of funny.

A regular Github search turns up half a dozen more. It feels like you've intentionally limited yourself to the less commonly used tag search in order to attempt to prove a point that isn't there.

It's not by any argument just saying "pay your taxes".

The article outlines an interesting situation specific to bubble valuations like the dot com boom or (possibly) crypto currency in which you can easily end up owing far more in taxes to the IRS than the current worth of your holdings.

That, to me, is worthy of discussion and a front page place on a tech news site.

I honestly don't know where you're going with that argument.

My point was that if the central bank behind a currency goes away so does all of its utility, even if the currency is still physically or digitally there.

No one said anything about default. You can't default on a currency that isn't backed by anything.

You don't generally hold onto Bitcoin when you take it as payment, you sell it immediately, so no, Microsoft was not "investing" in Bitcoin by taking it as a payment for their products and they're not shorting Bitcoin either.

The volatility is what makes it untenable as payment, as you can't sell it fast enough to ensure that you get the same exchange rate you gave to the customer.

I don't think it's weird to focus on Ethereum as, as the article correctly states, most new currencies are not a separate chain themselves but are simply tokens on the Ethereum blockchain. Ethereum is also the only blockchain with a real developer community, and the article focuses on building applications.

Microsoft didn't abandon Bitcoin because it was overpriced, they abandoned it because it was volatile.

One could argue that a blockchain's only real world purpose is as a shared database, just as http's only real world purpose is the transfer of data between computers.

There are a bunch of solutions on Github but I'm not sure how to judge these ones.

Which solution here was the most interesting to you? Were there any bugs or solutions that were clearly sub optimal?

This is a disaster, as it will likely succeed and in doing so make the entire world less secure.

Telegram is not a secure messaging platform, despite marketing themselves as such.

Signal has built a simple, seamless, and beautiful messaging platform whose security is based on solid cryptography, not marketing, bug contests, or chasing the latest tech fad.

Just like if the US Government ceases to exist we'll still have all these dollar bills.

The Gbikes are single speed, not fixies both of which are excellent for commuting longer than a block.

I don't think redacting her name is necessary. Ms. Veach's full name, place of employment, and picture appear in the article.

Is it theft? Probably by the definition of the law. But it's also a bit nebulous in practice and expected repercussions.

I personally have pirated movies, jay walked, and danced at a bar in NYC, and would be perfectly fine with a news article quoting me admitting as much.

Is it illegal for Uber to skirt taxi laws? Is it illegal for AirBnb to ignore hotel laws? Probably. But no one is going to stop them and no one is going to stop Ms. Veach from borrowing a bike left in public.

Yeah I don't get why you'd assume 4th year Mathematical Finance would be common knowledge. It still strikes me as knowingly condescending.

I don't agree that someone else has to lose in order to gain. That assumes zero growth, which is not the case.

I think people don't know what you're talking about because you seem to just be repeating stuff you heard in a lecture hall 10 years ago when the world is vastly more complicated.

I think you need to elaborate more on what exactly you're talking about.

Nothing does better than the prime rate? You mean in terms of interest rate? Isn't the definition of the prime rate the best you can get?

In the long term? What does that even mean here? Can I get lucky and do better than the prime rate, whose definition is the best interest rate you can get?

Saying this knowledge is basic Mathematical Finance is also very condescending. I haven't taken "that course" but I feel from your tone that you took a 101 college course which now guides your entire mode of economic thinking.

Elaborate on your statements.

The statement isn't saying that they're everyone's direct ancestors, just that if 20% of people alive 1000 years ago do not have any current ancestors, that means that the remaining 80% are the ancestors of everyone else alive today, including lines with single descendants.

Not yet at least. Once attitudes towards privacy change further towards continual surveillance they'll be the first to flip the switch and turn it on.

None of that is remotely true.

Even discounting local and state governments, which use tax dollars to fund themselves and can't print money like you describe, even the federal government doesn't work like that.

I have never paid more taxes (that I'm aware of) than I am legally obligated to and I never will.

Your list of conditions for rationally paying more taxes hinges on so many assumptions that it's a moot point. You might as well say it's rational to burn money in a fire.

If you have more than you need, and you know that others don't, and you know that the government is not efficient enough to use it properly, and you know that corporations will keep it instead of paying higher wages to workers, and you know that non profits will eat the majority of it in overhead before it helps people, and you know that decreasing the amount of money in circulation will cause the value of all money to increase, you should rationally set fire to your extra cash.

I actually thought that sentence was one of the more cringe-worthy parts of an otherwise interesting article since "hot-shit" was a term used by the author, not a quote from anyone involved in the parties. I think it's likely the author meant to say "hot-shot" but the editor (if there was one) didn't catch it.

Also, "product" is a term used extensively in software development / startup culture. We have product managers, product developers, etc. When I (as a mobile developer) hear "product" I think of software.

Exactly.

Do you think shareholders would stand for a company paying $19.2B more in taxes than they should? That would be absurdly negligent on the part of everyone leading the company.

Would an individual pay $500 more in taxes than they are required to out of the goodness of their heart and belief in the American government?

Don't indict corporations for following the tax code, change the laws.

Really missed an opportunity for the "considered harmful" trope.

Yes, even if the swatting results in the death of an innocent person.

> The penalties for driving drunk and killing someone are harsher than a simple DUI.

The penalties are harsher because they are different crimes. That's not an argument for executing prank callers.

> I would like to see this swatter executed

Swatting is an abhorrent practice but if a society does execute people (and I don't think that they ever should) you absolutely do not execute them for swatting.

  > Over 20 schools and homes
  > Homes I'm about 10 now
  > Schools I'm at about 100

Is no one going to reference the typo in that admission?

Isn't it possible he meant to say 10 schools?

It's possible that some people just don't feel comfortable taking classes from someone who self describes as aggressive.

A "stablecoin" allows traders to move in and out of cryptocurrency positions to a stable currency quickly, without converting to true USD, which is slow to process.

It also allows the transfer of stable value (payments, remittances) on the blockchain, rather than transferring volatile currencies and converting them to USD, incurring the risk of price fluctuation and conversion fees.

A stable coin is a very valuable asset to the ecosystem.

The term "hacker" depends on your viewpoint. Put another way, a user executed a function on a decentralized smart contract platform that transferred $150 million to the possession of the function's caller.

If the value of smart contracts is that they will execute as written with no possibility of third party interference then Ethereum is not a smart contract platform. It is a very inefficiently designed public ledger governed by a highly centralized group of developers who can change it on a whim.

The point is that it's stable relative to the most used and trusted currency on the planet.