funfunfunction

A few thoughts:

1. If this amount of value in the form of a government backed currency was stolen in some manner the victim would have multiple avenues of recourse and it is likely the funds would be returned, at least partially. The stolen funds would also be much more difficult to liquidate without being caught.

2. To steal this amount of value in the form of literally anything except cryptocurrency would be much more difficult and would almost have to involve the thief being in the physical location of whatever it is they are stealing, thus giving law enforcement an area to canvas and hopefully providing physical evidence as to who might be responsible.

I've been a advocate of cryptocurrency for several years now but I think the amount of value that is placed in a financial system just because it claims to be decentralized is way overblown. A massive part of the reason we have government is the first place is the minimize the impact of crimes exactly like this. The same institutions that cryptocurrency aims to replace would be held accountable for allowing this sort of thing to happen.

> You can also buy them from someone peer to peer if you really want to onramp in a 'decentralized' way.

This makes it seem like you can onramp via an exchange and still maintain all the benefits of decentralization. If I don't onramp in a decentralized way then there will also be a centralized entity with tremendous power.

> You aren't trusting an exchange when you send a transaction on the blockchain.

This is true, but exchanges have become the de facto on/off ramp for cryptos. If I want to acquire bitcoin without mining, how am I going to do it other than buying from a centralized entity?

Edit: As I post this I remembered that Paradex, a decentralized exchange for ERC20 tokens built on 0x, was recently acquired by Coinbase[1], the largest centralized crypto exchange, who in turn might soon be acquired by Facebook[2]

1. https://www.reuters.com/article/crypto-currencies-coinbase/c... 2. https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/ne...

My apologies for the hyperbole. My comment was less about this particular project and more about the shaky ground that the entire cryptocurrency industry is currently standing on, seemingly in part due to announcements like this that claim to have solved the scalability problem of decentralization without providing much hard evidence. If there were specific technical claims, I would discuss them, but in this case there are not.

I think it's confusing to the public, who ultimately need to be confident in cryptocurrency as a whole if they're going to use it, when they find them asking, "wasn't this problem already solved by x?" every couple of months.

Another day, another Decentralized AI Privacy Blockchain project raising a ton of money from people who don't truly understand the intricacies of the problems trying to be solved. What's new?

I hate to be so cynical and this teams background does seem solid but I feel the same way when I see this as when the Prince of Nigeria personally reaches out to me for a loan. With all the other failed crypto projects these announcements feel like spam at this point..

1. Most serverless solutions tie you to a cloud provider 2. Difficult to set up CI/CD with decent auditability 3. Hugely overkill for most projects

This article has an interesting point. I think the corollary to the point made is that web software, which is what is providing most of the plumber-type jobs this article references, has reached a point of maturation where certain solutions have been accepted as best practices. This lowers costs for businesses and lowers the barrier to entry of the web software industry, which I think of as generally good, but it also cements the positions of certain organizations that are foundational to the infrastructure on which these best practices are built.

The saddest part about this for me is the realization that there is little room left for truly innovated web technologies that have real impact to businesses. Of course there are counter-examples to this (I would count WebRTC, WebSub, and a few others as having potential to impact some usecase specific best practices) but the majority of new software I see being hyped is either a new implementation of an old idea (React and Vue for FRP on the front end) or something touting decentralizing as the next major step which so far hasn't proved itself valuable in a commercial sense.

> All those labels are just shackles on a heavy chain of controlling discourse.

Can you elaborate on what you mean by controlling discourse?

The claims in the article seem like hyperbole. The specifics of this sort of thing are very difficult to know, though it does seem like there may have been some state-enabled theft of intellectual property.

The key takeaway from this article for me is not the specifics of the case involving Micron, but the attitude of the Chinese government toward non-Chinese companies trying to compete in their country and their willingness to use underhanded tactics to prevent fair competition if it means furthering the agenda of a Chinese national actor.

We will have to wait to see how effective US tariffs are at preventing growth of the Chinese economy, but I imagine that they will be viewed as too little too late in the grand scheme of history.

The thing Ice Posidean has going for him is an almost cult like following. Unfortunately the way that plays out is often quite negative who people who aren't a part of the community. I wonder if building a community with this level of dedication is even possible without victimizing people or causing mayhem.

Do most people choose Electron for the licensing or because of the cross platform benefits of a JavaScript codebase?

This looks interesting. I have to say I find it amusing that the NSA has a GitHub.

Brand new account, -4 Karma. This is spam.

I would argue that Atlassian has better rapport with engineering manager types. Their products integrate and bundle quite nicely which is compelling for many organizations. As a dev, I'm not a fan of their UX but I've known quite a few PMs that are JIRA masters and love the fully integrated solutions Atlassian offers.

Any links with more info would be appriciated :)

You asked if OP was sure they are android devices and suggested they may be spoofing user agents but it would be relatively easy to tell if they were actually mobile devices on a mobile network by the IP address. Assuming that they are mobile devices on a mobile network, the next question would be how would someone do this other than a botnet of mobile devices, which is essentially what luminati.io is, albeit a little more legitimate. My comment was really just suggested reading for anyone curious.

There are services that specialize in providing mobile proxies at scale for this sort of thing. See luminati.io

I would caution against redirecting them to a government run website. I understand the sentiment but it seems like you could quickly run afoul of the regulations surrounding abusive traffic and may be liable if anything bad were to happen.

> in the dream stage it is possible; everything is possible. In the reality stage, it will only be what it is.

Best comment I've read all week.

I worked for a tech startup for about 18 months before we were acquired. Things weren't looking too well and a larger company in a similar industry was looking to expand. Instead of building their own, they opted to acquire our IP and five person team. We had several meetings with the senior leadership of the acquiring company and from what they told us their company was a wonderful place to work with huge prospects of success in the short term. They offered each of us on the team a meager raise and large signing bonus, payable over 18 months. Fast forward a few months and I find myself working for a more bureaucratic and mismanagement company that I thought could exist. Our small team continued to operate as a stand alone unit for a while and were the only team meeting our deadlines consistently. Eventually employees on other teams started seeing that we were doing good work, had autonomy, etc and our team doubled and then tripled in size in the span of just a few weeks. Managers that had been with the company for a long time were brought in. New team members brought there own inefficient processes from other parts of the company and before long our team was missing deadlines and generally not being productive. Once our products had been succesfully integrated into their existing suite, I left. It was hard to watch such a productive team (which we truly were) get destroyed by people who thought they knew best just because they had a few years of middle management experience behind them. I feel like next time a company is interested in acquiring something I'm working on I'll have a much better sense of the type of questions to ask, e.g., what are your current and historical retention rates? Will be be able to continue working as we have and for how long? We were also told that the company had great remote work options, and they did. Our team just wasn't allowed to use them. All in all it was a interesting experience and I certainly learned a lot.

I saw your other comment about starting something of my own and thought that was good advice. As far as college goes, I definitely wouldn't go unless I was serious about it and social aspect is especially attractive. Most people I interact with are 15+ years older than me and it's getting a little boring. It's also hard to make friends when everyone your age is in college.

I've never been to college, but I guess I would say it seems like college is as much about figuring out what you want in life and finding people who can offer perspectives you may not have considered as it is getting an education. I grew up in small town and this sort of thing is attractive to me.

I'm very interested in ML but have had a hard time getting started. Any advice on a good entry point? I've gone through Andrew Ng's course but haven't found a great resource passed this level.

This was my original thinking though I've come to realize that college is about much much more than education in the formal sense.

A CS degree is not real software engineering experience (;

I don't have time right now but I've been thinking about writing it all down once I've had a chance to reset. I'll post it in here if you're interested.

This looks amazing. I've been considering something like this but wasn't sure where to start. Thanks!

I live in Seattle but the people hear are all in institutional tech, Microsoft, Amazon, etc. Not too many truly innovate startups here either, mostly B2B. Was in The Bay recently and really liked it.

Interesting you mention Berkeley. I was visiting my sister there just this last weekend and have since considered applying. It seemed like a great place with lots of happy young people!

I lived in Belltown for about a year and was paying $2,335. I now rent a house in Medina (just across SR 520) with some friends and rent is only $585.