dsco

What if you’re stuck in Turkey with its current inflation and want to hedge against it? Or what if you’re someone who would like to in a permissionless way buy Bitcoin options?

What the Hacker News crowd generally misses about crypto is that it’s technology, ideology and finance in one package. They keep on arguing against the storage model itself (centralized vs decentralized) and miss the bigger picture.

So many of these anti blockchain comments remind me of the initial HN reaction to Dropbox and people saying that “hey, you can just set this up yourself on a Linux machine”.

You’re missing the point. A 3 trillion dollar industry doesn’t give a shit about your database takes and how it’s all a bubble - we’re way beyond that.

I wonder if some explanatory texts, alongside usability improvements could help you get more users. I can’t tell if your website is useful since I know anything about DNA sequencing - but from a UX perspective there is room for some improvements.

Isn’t that the same for gold? That it’s for speculation? Or stocks.

I learned to code around the age of 7, and I too agree that there's no way in hell we can get everyone interested in learning how to code. It's something I basically can't explain why I enjoy doing. How would you even get someone who doesn't understand programming to get interested in a career of software engineering?

You don't have to, that's the beauty of having a choice.

Now that HN knows that you're so opinionated about the tech stack of your bank - can you detail down what type of infrastructure your current bank has, and why it's so good? Or is that just something you assume since you basically have zero knowledge about what traditional finance uses as back-ends?

So give me the bull case where there’s a regulatory gray zone and institutions who really don’t understand technology get to decide how it should be operated. I’ve been in contact with Finansinspektionen on multiple occasions and there’s a pretty low understanding of technology in general. Another detrimental aspect is that there’s very little competition to the regular banking system because of this.

So since HN is a place primarily for technologists who like to push things forward, maybe you have a stronger argument than just saying that you’re a Swede?

JavaScript powers much of the Internet today, and PHP too. When evaluating the effect of any given system or protocol - do you only analyze the design of its language - or its outcome?

Try starting a Blockchain company and they will violently fight you until they’ve (the big banks) have shut down your access.

There’s also proof of stake which requires a lot less energy. I think a lot of nuance is missed when discussing Bitcoin and its consensus mechanism as the only way of running a blockchain

We used ListenNotes a while back in a web based podcast player and have only good things to say about the API. It's reasonably priced, much easier to deal with than Apple's API and email support is speedy!

I'd counter that by saying that the sharpest elbows always outperform the sharpest minds financially. Income and genius have rarely had a strong correlation. Instead I'd look at a mixture between greed, conscientiousness and that feeling of never being content as drivers of income. Also of course the field in which you're in as one could argue that each field has its own "total addressable market".

Isn't running a project more about the outcome than putting in as much time as possible? Also taking long breaks could potentially mean being AFK but still obsessing about next steps in the project. Maybe you're imagining him being on a tropical island drinking mochito's during the long breaks?

Now slap cloud storage, collaborative editing/highlighting and paid accounts on it - this is impressive software!

This is fantastic! Wrap it in a SmartTV app and sell it for a dollar or two as a monthly decorative art subscription!

Is this TTS? I tried getting into Curio.io for a while, but the audio format article genre is very hard to make into a unique product category. Especially when the big news organisations such as WSJ, Economist and The Guardian have their own audio versions of articles.

The times have changed. This website now needs pinch to zoom to be readable on smaller screens. Also the text is centered across the entire page, reducing legibility.

What I remember from that era is Flash, living through the shit show that was browser quirks and dealing with a front-end stack with no foundation in computer science.

They've also shown an unwillingness to fork other hacks, such as the Parity one: https://blog.zeppelin.solutions/on-the-parity-wallet-multisi...

I do understand that reverting is somewhat against fundamental blockchain ideals, but on the other hand – you could always just continue using Ethereum classic – if you're a more principled blockchain enthusiast.

Also the use of the word "embarassing" makes me wonder if you truly understand what massive efforts it takes to create something as ambitious as Ethereum without running into some critical bugs.

Another tip is to force yourself to read in half your normal speed. You’re not going anywhere, and reading is not a competitive sport. Personally this gives me a ethereal and meditative sensation, making literature more impactful.

Like you mentioned this is the opposite of “online reading”, where the point of reading often is to consume the content and move on.

Related and _very_ inspiring; how the Sega Saturn CD was cracked after 20 years. Even my very non-technical girlfriend sat through this thing, being intrigued by the dedication.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOyfZex7B3E

Divide my time between ML and crypto, trying to understand the fundamentals of each discipline.

The thing that worked for me is to have a personal mission statement, which goes beyond the project and company I’m working for. Currently it’s the idea of digitalization as a greater good, which in turn propells humanity into a more well-connected and globalized state. So I just take on jobs that align with that personal mission statement. Then everything from doing mundane tasks to strategic work actually makes sense, and are easier to do.

For the Javascript lovers out there, I wrote a client-side project which conceptually demonstrates how a blockchain works. It runs in your browser and uses web workers to concurrently mine blocks, showing how miners, transactions and addresses fit together.

https://github.com/sunmer/lightchain

I’m unsure about what goes on under the hood, but Zepto uses the jQuery syntax.

A lot of the boiler plate can actually be removed if you combine Vue with TypeScript decorators. Here's a library which will do that for you: https://github.com/vuejs/vue-class-component

Although at this point in time it is pretty cumbersome to get the entire Vue stack type safe. I think it's getting better but it's far from ideal. You'll need a wide range of libraries to get everything set up. For instance here's the list of libraries I use for bootstrapping projects:

Vue-class-component - Vue-loader - Vue-property-decorator - Vue-template-compiler - Vuex - Vuex-class - Vue-router - Vuex-router-sync.

The ecosystem just keeps getting larger and larger and for a beginner it can seem pretty daunting. I don't complain though - UI's have become a lot more technical and complex the last 10 years - and of course that'll increase the learning curve of learning how to program them.

Facebook has the muscle to turn Coinbase into an acquisition success on the scale of Instagram. They already have their VP of FB Messaging, David Marcus, on the Coinbase board as well.

If I were a Coinbase investor, such as Andreessen Horowitz, I'd take a long hard look at a potential acquisition. It could increase the value of their cryptocurrency holdings and speed up market adoption.

I was expecting "dark patterns" to be a hyperbole but these are clear violations of GDPR. This will probably catch public attention when the press gets hold of it and makes the screen shots more accessible (not hidden deep down in a PDF).

I think you're doing blockchain and human ingenuity a disservice by framing the question that way. Many corporations haven't revolved around "solving a problem", but instead making existing solutions more efficient.

There were people letting out apartments before AirBnb, and there were taxi cars before Uber - yet we feel that these companies are making our lives easier.

Also your question is very much centered around your own world view. What about the Venezuelans who are mining bitcoin becauause theyir own currency is at an all time high inflation rate? Isn't that example enough to at least partially answer your question about how blockchain addresses societal problems?

https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2018/04/03/...

I built this blockchain proof-of-concept which fits in 140 lines of code. It contains concepts such as concurrent mining, proof-of-work and transactions, all running in your browser.

Just what I love, a scientific and pedagogic CS article, in well formulated English.

I would appreciate some introductory notes or links to prerequisites though. That would perhaps entice an audience who has no previous experience in writing compilers.

The design is fine. Certain things can be tweaked but great web design isn't really going to drive the product. The taste, market-fit and brand probably have more impact.

I'd suggest offering samples for a small price. Convincing customers about the taste with only a website can be an uphill battle unless they've been recommended the product, or actually tasted it. Perhaps free taste samples in stores can be a sales channel to the web site.