HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

gtlondon

114 karma · joined May 22, 2016

submissionscomments
gtlondon··on My Teenage Video Game Obsession Wasn't 'Gaming Disorder'
What makes me smile about this (and any) "disorder" classification is:

> For gaming disorder to be diagnosed, the behaviour pattern must be of sufficient severity to result in significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational or other important areas of functioning

But what if you just really prefer gaming (or whatever your disorder is) to personal, family, social, educational and occupational areas of life :)

Based on this Einstein had a "disorder", always studying rather than outside playing.

gtlondon··on Bitcoin’s Price Was Artificially Inflated Last Year, Researchers Say
This conversation is 6 months old though.

Quite suspicious the New York Times have come to this incredible revelation now, yet didn’t mention it in Nov 2017 when it was actually a hot topic.

I must admit I find most crypto journalism hard to agree with. Hopefully that will change.

gtlondon··on Bitcoin’s Price Was Artificially Inflated Last Year, Researchers Say
Total myth.

Nobody has ever formulated an accurate prediction without gaping holes in the logic.

Also, even with their exaggerated calculations is still a tiny, tiny fraction of that used by traditional banking. (and not even on the same scale as internet use).

gtlondon··on Bitcoin’s Price Was Artificially Inflated Last Year, Researchers Say
The original article is a joke. Large buy orders will obviously increase the price, and to describe this as manipulation is completely misleading.

There's also zero evidence that Tethers are a scam. I'm pretty sure it would have been discovered by now, and also unlikely that Circle would pay $400m for an Exchange whose main currency is USDT if that was the case.

Both NYT and Bloomberg seem to love an inaccurate Crypto article, seems like their editorial standards are non-existent in this sector. Sure that will change once they have bought in.

gtlondon··on Coinbase opens its crypto index fund to accredited U.S. investors
I can find a shortened version of the full interview: https://youtu.be/wFr1ooaVPjY?t=8m59s

IPO stuff is from 9 mins, but the whole video is crypto related / fairly interesting.

gtlondon··on Coinbase opens its crypto index fund to accredited U.S. investors
Jay Clayton (Chairman of the SEC) was talking about this last week.

He was saying that the cost / overhead difference between ICO and IPO is so large that they either need to make IPO'ing easier or perhaps integrate into crypto in future -- otherwise companies will just ICO instead.

So it could be that crypto helps traditional systems, while reducing costs for both parties.

gtlondon··on Coinbase opens its crypto index fund to accredited U.S. investors
This is a good point, however the volatility is primarily that the space / projects are so new.

The economic structure of each project varies, however most are designed so that if they are used for the utility they offer then they will have a price > zero.

Due to the fixed number of coins in circulation the value should rise in some relationship with increased adoption & time (time due to deflation)

Probably only a handful of coins will be used for B2C commerce. Notable other utility includes:

> Decentralised storage (currently much cheaper than any company can offer)

> Supply chain tracking

> Website monetisation systems (without needing ads)

> Smart Contracts

> Create your own blockchain (backed by existing decentralisation)

In summary: if it's used then a project should succeed.

gtlondon··on Why Children Aren't Behaving and What We Can Do About It
It's amazing how quickly young children can learn to swim. My daughter went from disliking the water to swimming 200m with perfect technique within a couple years.

Learning to tumble made me laugh, but is a good idea :)

gtlondon··on Why Children Aren't Behaving and What We Can Do About It
This is a great point that kids don't want AstroTurf and climbing walls -- ultimately they just want to play.

Its the same in the UK. Schools close within 15 minutes unless you pay extra to stay.

On the plus side: the over population and diversity in London specifically means that kids here are actually quite good at behaving / communicating as they tend to be in transitional groups.

gtlondon··on Teenager facing prison for downloading unsecured files from government website
That's true.

But as the person knows they are configuring a web server, I would say this is more carelessness / incompetence rather than an "accident" in the same way as losing a Diamond Ring would be.

gtlondon··on Teenager facing prison for downloading unsecured files from government website
But...you would have left the diamond ring by accident.

Files don't "accidentally" become publicly accessible via HTTP. i.e. you don't return to your computer one day to find everything is public.

Someone specifically took the steps to make this data public. The fact they didn't realize what they were doing isn't the fault of people that then view the data.

gtlondon··on Teenager facing prison for downloading unsecured files from government website
Yes, the house analogy is not accurate.

It would be logical to assume that as the files have specifically been made public via HTTP then no laws are being broken by viewing them unless a warning message appears saying otherwise.

gtlondon··on Teenager facing prison for downloading unsecured files from government website
They've made the information publicly accessible via HTTP, yet react like this when someone then views in. Scary stuff.

I just can't comprehend this at all. To even describe it as a "breach" is inaccurate -- the real headline is "government publishes data they hadn't intended to".

gtlondon··on YouTube and Reddit roll out new restrictions including channel and sub bans
We seem to be moving from an era when internet censorship was considered bad, to one where "It's OK, we're just censoring this".

I have no sympathy towards gun use - but the principle of large monopolies applying their own morals to censor content seems wrong.

gtlondon··on Famed poker pro with ‘remarkable’ $9.6M scheme has to pay it back
Interesting case.

The real question for me is: Why does a Casino use card patterns that are not symmetrical?

Considering how much resource is invested to make sure everything else is as precise as possible, this seems suspicious / unusual.

gtlondon··on Keybase chooses Zcash
Hypothetically, anyone could "prop-up" the crypto market for a newly launched coin by buying the first Asks from Poloniex at a deliberately inflated price and then sell back-and-forth to themselves at the same inflated price to create false volume / pricing.

You wouldn't need any ZEC to begin with.

Just to be clear, I am not specifically claiming the devs are doing this, but somebody with an interest in ZEC performing well (and money to burn to prop up the price) has been.

It's eased off now in any case, but it hasn't gained trust from a trading point of view.

gtlondon··on Keybase chooses Zcash
To be fair to ZCash, the high prices at launch were primarily due to very limited supply and market manipulation. The "screaming dive" is really just heading towards a sustainable price.

Somewhere between $2-$10 is a more realistic valuation (based on other coin valuations) -- it will be interesting to see if the price stabilises once within this range.

gtlondon··on Keybase chooses Zcash
Good spot, though not surprising to me.

Worth adding here that it also appears Zcash stakeholders have been internally buying/selling their own ZEC at inflated prices on Poloniex to artificially increase both volume and the market price.

Whilst perfectly legal, it doesn't enhance a "trustworthy" reputation to me.

gtlondon··on Keybase chooses Zcash
Wouldn't it make more sense to use Monero instead of ZCash?

Privacy is compulsory with Monero and also the entire platform is decentralised.

The privacy features in Zcash are optional & very slow / difficult to use -- most users will simply make non-private transactions. Also Zcash requires trust of the founders (Any "private" coin that requires trust of a third party is a fail in my mind).

gtlondon··on “A tale of lies and deceit” – GrabGas CTO let go by founders
Rule #1 of freelancing: If there's anything you definitely want (i.e. money) then always get it in writing beforehand.

Some people will make it deliberately hard for you to get things in writing - these people are looking to screw you over.

If you are a nice guy it's sometimes hard to understand that other (usually more wealthy) people would exploit you. However, the sad fact is some people's default position is to try and exploit others.

On the plus side, sounds like you have some real skills, just needs to be more formal when selling them.

gtlondon··on Ask HN: Should I sell out the startup that misled me?
I am a developer and have been seen many similar "positions" in the past (particularly 10 years ago, .com boom).

IMO they are intentionally trying to screw you. Do all you can to protect yourself, but be formal / polite where possible.

gtlondon··on Ask HN: Why is it still so hard to host your own email/calendar that just works?
I've run my own email for about 4 years now -- I'm fairly tech savvy, but don't know much about email -- so was pleased that my "quick" solution has worked well.

I use Apple Server to host the email via SSL on a dedicated server, really easy to configure.

The key thing is deliverability - initially I had some problems with my email going into junk folders.

To get around this I send all email via a service called PostMarkApp (http://www.postmarkapp.com) which allows you to setup SPF and DKIM records on your domain and therefore ensure emails are authenticated.

I get pretty close to 100% deliverability.

PostMarkApp also shows you open / browser stats, so it's quite useful when I wonder if someone has read a particular email.

Not sure if this would be secure enough, but has worked well for me with almost zero maintenance after setup.