Petrushka

I'm a student myself. Funny enough, some of us are actually intelligent and can handle complexity. To me, this is the equivalent of teaching military science by telling someone how to shoot a gun. Instead of trying to introduce someone into the field by showing them what questions the field is actually trying solve, you're introducing them into the field by showing them the small subset which those who have no interest in it assume constitutes the entirety of it.

How many mathematicians do you thing have read an article on cryptography, gotten really interested in it, and then realized the most important open question in it revolves around the computer equivalent of spotting a fake ID?

I'll agree I could be a little less demeaning. The point is though that cryptography more then anything else is about its practicality, and so by ignoring the difficult parts of it you render any statement you make pointless. Also, although you are correct about noting that under infinite resources RSA et al is breakable, again, practicality. If it takes longer then the previous amount of time elapsed in the universe to break (assuming proper implementation etc.) then it is, for all intents and purposes, unbreakable.

Wow! Does this say that as long as key generation, key distribution, and message authentication are trivial, unbreakable cryptography is a cinch? What a shock, here I thought that all those billions of dollars of research and thousands upon thousands of man-hours devoted to the development of secure communications throughout the last three-thousand years meant that this is a difficult problem. Had all those people simply read this article, we wouldn't have had any sort of issue whatsoever...

Not only are the three problems I mentioned above the most serious open issues in cryptography, but the actual encryption of information might be the least difficult. As long as they are implemented correctly, and no one has some quantum or otherwise impossibly powerful computer lying around someplace that no one knows about (or has solved the Riemann Conjecture), then RSA, El Gamal, AES (w/ proper mode), Blowfish (ditto), and numerous others are unbreakable as well. In fact, with the lack of restrictions the author includes for what constitutes "unbreakable" cryptography, a one-time pad will also work just as well.

And yes, I do realize he gives mention to this at the bottom of the article, but it's still hilarious to title this "unbreakable" cryptography.

Hilarious. This is what happens when you have compulsory military service as a nation which (although constantly under threat) rarely if ever actually sees combat. I can't decide whether it's a better or worse waste of time then the Air Force's professional StarCraft team, but either way, bravo.

PG County is Maryland, not DC. It's the county that wraps around the eastern side of the District, and includes the University of Maryland. The rules of the District don't apply to what they're trying to do. I think the author mentioned them (and those of Montgomery County, PG's far wealthier and higher performing neighbor) to show that the idea wouldn't be possible in those school districts.

Notably, PG County has an awfully run government that presides over a relatively low-income population generally composed of Latino immigrants and African-Americans pushed out of the District itself by rising home prices. I've seen a picture before of the average income levels in the counties surrounding DC. Montgomery, Arlington, Fairfax, and Loudoun counties are all top 10 in the nation. PG sticks out like a sore thumb. Adding to that, they have by far the most racist police force you'll find. A friend of mine has been pulled over and searched multiple times there solely because he is a young black driving a car that doesn't look like it got pulled off the scrap heap. The last thing that county needs is something that stifles the abilities of its younger residents to try and create something new and interesting for their local community and at-large.

Looking at it through the economic lens that the author does, I think what he fails to recognize is the payoffs. War has immediate and substantial payoffs. Whether that is material gain, new energy or food sources, pillage, prestige, etc., or moral gain, in the destruction of a regime that commits heinous acts, war has benefits which can be easily seen in the short term, and so it is easier for the governors and governed of a state which chooses to undertake war to make that decision.

Space exploration is significantly more long-term. You're spending billions of dollars (not just lives) for what in the short-term does not seem like much benefit. Although landing on the moon and other such projects are incredible achievements, and although the development of the technologies that have allowed such achievements has dramatically impacted daily life, it's much harder to make clear to people the benefits of exploration in both a human or a economic cost.

If the benefit is defeating Nazi Germany, or Assad's Syria, or Osama Bin Laden, we're able to accept the costs. If the benefit is Tupperware, GPS, and some cool pictures of the lunar surface, then we will most likely not (not that I agree with that, it's just how most people see it).

It's Plato's Ring.

Frankly though, people around here are generally as reasonable as you'll find out on the interwebs. Sure you'll have people come in and stir things up, but generally I get the sense that the majority of comments and their authors are attacking the question at hand as opposed to the person behind it, and are doing so in a respectful way. The internet as currently constructed will never be perfect in that regard because of the lack of accountability, but Hacker News in general seems to move against the general stream and have some sense of decency, the way that say, early EBay is often described as having.

For the Plato reference by the way: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_Gyges

Religion was created to answer three questions. Why are we here? How are we here? How should we carry ourselves? Its secular cousin philosophy was designed to answer the bookending two.

Empirical science answers the middle question, but it leaves the other two untouched. I'm personally a nihilist, but even if you do not believe we are here due to some divine plan or goal, it is certainly possible to rationalize (and not in a negative sense) a purpose for humanity, such as the pursuit of happiness. As for the latter, although most discussions of the role of religion in general society tend to be negative, the Crusades, Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Extremism, pedophile clergy, etc., to name a few (Western) examples, that religion is the fundamental basis for our morality is lost in the shuffle. Sure the edges can get quite frayed, especially when religions bump into each other, but the basic framework of the way we live was codified and enforced by religion, and without it humanity would have had and would have a much rougher existence. Philosophy has attempted to replace it as a secular approach, but they really are doing one and the same.

So the answer is no. Physics has (thankfully, in my book) replaced one of religion and philosophy's three founding bases, but the other two remained untouched. And now you can say you've come across a nihilistic atheist who loves organized religion...

Knuth's up-arrow notation and the Ackermann function are both designed to make very large numbers easy to notate, but unfortunately I don't know how difficult it would be to write a program to find an expression for any number in one or the other (I'm sure there are plenty of others on HN who can). Might still be worth looking into however.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knuth%27s_up-arrow_notation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ackermann_function

You can't tell me one and even larger one of these isn't going to cause some Q factor issues. This (the Truvativ) is designed for gravity riders though, where pure pedaling efficiency and fluidity is not at value. Same goes for durability not being as much of an issue. This needs to take rock blows, not miles of wear. I read this product as for commuters and people who put in a lot of miles around town:

http://mtobikes.com/wp-content/truvativ-hammerschmidt-detail...

And yes, the durability is entirely speculative, but, especially coming from a new company (as opposed to HammerSchmidt, which was 100 or so years old when SRAM, of which Truvativ is a brand bought them), I'd have serious doubts they'll put a top quality product out at the start.

As a former bicycle mechanic and salesman, and someone who is still very tuned into the industry, I'd give this a zero percent chance of actually being successful.

There are three big issues with this design. First of all, you're going to be looking at a seriously increased Q factor trying to fit three different speeds into that gearbox (as opposed to Truvativ's two). The Q factor is the amount of distance between your feet. If you lie down on your back and make a pedaling motion, the natural positioning of your feet is one banana apart. Bikes, to have sufficient stiffness in the bottom bracket region, space your feet two banana's apart or more. Graeme Obree (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graeme_Obree) figured that out, and when he designed Old Faithful he added a very narrow Q factor, which was a big piece of his success. A huge benefit of carbon fiber is its ability to add stiffness in the BB area by overbuilding without increasing Q factor (or weight all that much), hence the BB30 standard. Truvativ's two-speed front crank is already very widely spaced, and trying to fit more in is going to cause problems. Remember, to balance out the pedal stroke, you have to compensate on the left pedal (I see this is designed to work with existing tech, but it'll feel strange unless you get a longer left pedal spindle), so every increase in distance on the right side is doubled.

Secondly, no part on the bike gets worn out quite like bottom brackets (not including "wear" parts like chains, cassettes/freewheels, tires, etc.). Powerful riders (and not necessarily racers, I know plenty of everyday commuters who fit this bill) tear BB's to shreds. I am a racer, but I'm also a lightly built climber, and I tear through them pretty regularly. Putting a gear box in the BB shell is going to subject it to a hell of a lot of torque, and it'll be difficult for it to stay dialed in and functional with the power output of many riders. The extra mass could also make it uncomfortable to stand up and power out of the saddle. Trek, Pinarello, and a few other companies already reinforce the non-drive side of some of their bikes to even out the extra weight from the chainrings and front derailleur. All the extra mass from a gear box will expound this.

And lastly, internally geared systems are a bitch to maintain, and it's one of the reasons why you will be hard pressed to find a shop which will overhaul your vintage three-speed hub. The newer internally geared systems (like Shimano Alfine and Nexus) are a lot easier to work on, but Shimano spent decades perfecting that stuff. This system is not going to be easy to work on to start, and good shop owners don't sell products their mechanics can't fix easily. It's just not a good proposition.

All in all, a cool idea, but to me far too many issues for it to ever be accepted. As that bikeradar article puts it, no need to reinvent the wheel. Internal hubs and derailleurs (the latter especially) get the job done quite well.

Why do I have a feeling that for the majority of CS students, Shakespeare would be a less intuitive language then Brainfuck?

Some more programming and CS errata for those interested here, a collection of esoteric languages, algorithms, and an operating system: http://www.dangermouse.net/esoteric/

Piet is actually quite beautiful, and just about all of those are quite humorous.

Quite true, but what your post doesn't do enough to recognize is how much this type of thinking has pervaded our culture, and the damage it is doing. The current generation of up-and-coming workers (25 or so and below) have been taught their entire lives that they were special, they were smart, and interesting, and likeable, and that the only thing that was standing in their way was going out and trying. If they did, they'd prevail...regardless of whether they actually had the talent, not to mention the work ethic to put in the hours of sweat and toil to develop that talent into actual skills and learn to put them to good use. I'm a college student now, and the level of assumption about what the world is going to do for us in the future, not us for it, it for us, and the amount of entitlement is absolutely ridiculous. It would be bad enough if these people thought willpower would be enough. They don't even think they need that.

I worked for years in high school as a salesman at my local bike shop, and for a while as well at a television production company, and I've seen multiple people my age come and go from those jobs because they couldn't learn to alter their perspective on how things should work (to no-experience them) to fit with the way things do work.

There are so many awesome and fascinating things being made and discovered now. I don't see why you need to go and make some ridiculous predictions about the future to be inspired as to where technology is leading us.

From the guidelines:

Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say about them.

Is that a comment on the article or on Israel?

Because this is a site fundamentally about start-ups, especially incubators, and so news about them is relevant. If you think the post shouldn't have been put-up because its not all that interesting or news-worthy, that's fine, although I do happen to disagree with you. If that vague post is regarding Israel (which again, this being a site about start-up culture makes me think it likely was) then you are contributing absolutely nothing by posting that, regardless of your feelings towards that situation.

I have the Washington Post from Jan 1, 2000. Below the fold is an article on what the future would hold tech-wise for a child born that day. By 2010, we were all supposed to be wearing wristbands with all of our medical information on it, so doctors would simply have to scan them to gain our history. We also wouldn't have cheap (meaning not thousands upon thousands of dollars) mobile computers with the ability to access the internet from anywhere until 2020.

I can't remember any of the others, but all of the predictions for around now (other then the smartphone one) are completely and totally off. All of these prediction things are bullshit, as most futurist ideas generally are. There's no accountability, because no one will remember the reports. It's ridiculous that the government pays people to write these things, and just as ridiculous that Wired publishes them.

I think SMBC put it best:

http://www.smbc-comics.com/?db=comics&id=1968#comic

Great story. I was expecting the team to win the tournament when a local official with no governing power stepped in and allowed them three chances to score a last-second buzzer beater though...

(Hint: 1972 Olympics)

As an avid sports fan, and very active basketball player and cyclist, the major shifts in current thinking towards evaluating the world of sports through statistical and business eyes is to me quite unfortunate. To those that make their money through that world, fine, but as a fan, I want to marvel in the achievements of athletes, not be debating whether a pitcher is over-rated because of his exFIB.

Basketball is about the battles against racism of Bill Russell and Oscar Robertson, the soaring style of Dr. J, the elan of Magic, the blue collar work of Bird, the competitive viciousness of Michael Jordan, and the physicality of Lebron.

Cycling is about the will of Eugene Christophe, the ethics of Gino Bartali, the ferocity of Eddy Merckx, the spirit of Bernard Hinault, the pain of Marco Pantani, and the insanity of Jens Voigt.

Even if we can't reach that level ourselves, it is that approach to what makes sports great that allows for events and stories like this article. Without that spirit, there wouldn't be any reason to have amateur sports to begin with. Leave everything else alone.

This was also my initial thought. Mao as well...

Gold has a number of internal checks to massive price swings that Bitcoin does not, however. First, and most notably, it is a fully developed market that has been around for thousands of years. As such, it is easier to get a handle on for investors. Currently, gold is seen as a fantastic investment, primarily because of the economic emergence of India, where gold is seen as a marker of social status and is one of the most sought after products. Generally gold, as a luxury item, runs essentially concurrent with overall market trends. People buy it when they have the money, and don't when they don't. As such, it isn't all that difficult to predict in the long term, although you also don't get much increase in value, even over the long term. Gold will always have value in markets that have a base layer of wealth, and time has confirmed that you can be pretty certain that places like the US and Europe will have that base layer. Gold also, as a physical object, is not subject to the same extent that Bitcoin is to fraud, an important point considering its history. In a purely theoretical sense, no Bitcoin is not any worse then gold as a means of investment, although Bitcoin being a currency, and notably one that is only narrowly used, does hurt it, due to the ability for sellers to turn on and off their acceptance of it.

One last thing to remember. Even with gold's predictability and high price (assuming the US doesn't dump its cache on the market at some point) the US decided in the early 70's it wasn't secure enough of a product to base the US currency on. Bitcoin is significantly less stable then gold by a factor of thousands, and that's not even including its susceptibility to hacking (or, more precisely, to hacking its marketplaces). Bitcoin is also to small to ever have the amount of liquidity necessary to assuage the rest of the financial markets. Again, the issue with Bitcoin isn't internal. The issue is with it being strong enough economically to not scare off the rest of the world's financial system.

The points I'm making don't have anything to do with transactions in a primarily Bitcoin marketplace. The issue is that there is nothing in place to maintain price rates, even including that, as you note, its primarily digital existence and small size make it highly susceptible to fraud. This is a major issue for converting Bitcoin to other currencies.

That Bitcoins are supposed to function as cash doesn't mean they are automatically stable. Consider that Bitcoins are becoming more accepted by online retailers, and lets say that, for instance, Amazon decided one day to not only accept them, but, because of the simplicity of Bitcoin transactions (e.g., you don't have to pay eBay to implement PayPal), any and all Amazon products would be 5% off using Bitcoins. Such a situation is unlikely, but if you imagine instead of Amazon, a number of small players, like how Wordpress is doing it, it's feasible. Then, suddenly, the government steps in and forces Amazon to pay sales tax, and, because Bitcoin isn't accepted by the US Government as a full currency, they decide to set some arbitrarily low Bitcoin to USD rate, and Amazon stops taking Bitcoin. Such a series of events would lead initially to a massive increase in demand for Bitcoin, then a massive decrease. Again, fiat currencies have systems built in place to protect against such an occurrence, including scale. Bitcoin does not, and so its interaction with the general market will scare people off unless there is some sort of holding policy in place (like a 24-hour transaction period) to secure the Bitcoin's value.

Not a great example, but it will do.

Exactly. "No explanation why the price would have soared so high" is the exact reason why Bitcoin will have issues trying to tie into the larger financial structure without series difficulties.

Ever seen Trading Places? The stock market scene at the end where they make a killing is based (fundamentally, forgetting about the fraud) on the fact that the value of the Frozen OJ drops to 25% of its former value in a single moment. The normal financial system has things in place, both internally and externally, so that (fraud not withstanding) such a rapid (de)valuation increase doesn't happen regularly (when it does, you get 1873, 1929, 2008, etc). Bitcoin doesn't have the internal measures, as it isn't issued by a central authority, which can alter the amount of currency in the market at will. As such, it would need some many external controls, such as say a 24-hour transaction period, to be useable on the open market, which would in turn make it unreasonable for the open market.

And if you're wondering why Bitcoin is being seriously studied by economists, that's why. No one has seen anything like this ever, and what happens, and how that can influence general economic models, is fascinating.

Quite interesting that Bitcoin appears to be making inroads into the mainstream financial system (which being registered a bank would seem to imply). The primary issue with Bitcoin is that because it is issued by no one, and is no one's primary currency, there is no incentive or ability by any organization to regulate it through monetary policy. It's value is set only by the market. The flaws with such a system is obvious, and Bitcoin experienced it itself when it went through that massive devaluation a few years back. Even with automated banking systems, the market structures used throughout the world are based on currencies having a measure of stability to them in terms of pricing, or, at the very least, that a central bank of some sort will give ample notice before a massive change will occur. With Bitcoin, that all goes out the window, and pricing becomes a major challenge. As such, I don't see anyway Bitcoin can move into the mainstream marketplace. It has to be a niche provider. So this step is very interesting and counter-intuitive.

Should note, when I say no regulation, I mean it can't be regulated according to market movements. It's regulated by a pre-set system of release, not one that can react to changing circumstances.

The threat of a "cyber-Pearl Harbor" is completely unfounded and ridiculous, but frankly that's what I'd expect from Liberman. Hackers are extremely good at taking down specific sites that have specific issues with their security, not disabling entire swaths of networked systems. When some sect of Anonymous decided to attack Israeli computers during Pillar of Defense for instance, they claimed victory because they took down nearly 500 Israeli systems...which were just random Israeli websites with major security flaws, mainly grocery stores, locksmiths, and one government website dealing with economic investment. Such an operation is not difficult, yet accomplishes nothing. Actually attacking large numbers of computers used in the US, especially those used for defensive capabilities, is essentially impossible, because each one requires a different attack, assuming there isn't some massive as hell security hole sitting in the middle of ubiquitous server software, which I'd say is unlikely. Sure you can take down the Texas Water Utility, but you couldn't take down the utilities of every water system in the United States simultaneously without spending a significant amount of time on it and hope nothing changes once you crack one and move on to the next. Nobody, not even China, has the personnel to hit all of our major systems at once.

Hell, Not even taking down the DNS network would do all that much, as most computers that form the backbone of our medical and financial systems use IP addresses, instead of URL's, as their primary method of connecting to other servers. The military doesn't even use the main IP system, they have their own.

As most people who actually work within this world know, the primary way of gaining access to systems are social engineering, system defaults, and insecure handling of access information. The world has gotten smart enough now where practically all of our important infrastructure are very well guarded against these attacks. That isn't to say they don't happen, but it's rare, too rare for the possibilities of a full-scale "cyber-attack."

This has been posted previously, yet remains hilarious.

The best have to be:

Diddy - No Content. Well, unless you count saying random bullshit over Biggie's lyrics something.

Fresh Prince (Will Smith) - Moved Permanently. He stayed in LA.

MC Hammer - Unauthorized. Although I would argue Vanilla Ice would have been better here.

Cisqo (or however it is spelled) - Not Found. Unfortunately, he was. And so was the Thong Song.

I'm not getting the Wu-Tang Clan for Internal Server Error though, and Biggie and 2Pac for Gone is just depressing.

I wouldn't consider the use of KISS to be unnecessary. It's sufficiently well-known to effectively be considered a word (sort of the way en cia is used in Spanish), and I define it, albeit not explicitly. I also read way too many military documents to have an issue with acronyms, as their usage as an easily pronounceable vocalization for often complex wordings really helps language flow. Again, I don't have any issues with acronyms themselves, simply their usage when they aren't defined.

And I would argue you don't simplify my comment at all, although you do make it more concise. I consider simplicity to be the primary concern with writing, however being as quick to the punch as possible is also an extremely valuable trait. It must be noted though that they are not the same thing. Often times, especially with technical writing, they are at loggerheads.

With all that said, your re-write is actually quite a lot better. Thanks.

KISS. Too much writing in the non-fiction world, whether it be academic, scientific, or related to business, is far too complex for its own good. This is seemingly to overwhelm, to simultaneously weed out and impress those who are not deeply versed in the subject, but in almost no cases is that a positive development. For academia and science, the point of your work should be to encourage knowledge and learning, which complex language in no way helps. In business, the last thing you want to do is assume a level of expertise from a customer, except in very specific and rare circumstances.

I am aware that there are certain fields and types of works that have to use difficult phrasing and structure for the purpose of limiting ambiguity, but often such writing is found in cases where such strictness is not necessary. So, Keep It Simple, Stupid.

P.S. - Not trying to be rude, but your initial post is a great example of writing at a more complex level that is in anyway necessary. Micro- and macrostructure, the usage of an undefined and unnecessary acronym in USP? It doesn't matter whether it is a safe assumption that your audience knows what you are talking about, as you never know when that audience may shift without your knowledge.