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If you have normal blood pressure (normotensive population), then a high-salt diet has no association with cardiovascular events and death:
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-67... /"Compared with moderate sodium intake, high sodium intake is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular events and death in hypertensive populations (no association in normotensive population), while the association of low sodium intake with increased risk of cardiovascular events and death is observed in those with or without hypertension. These data suggest that lowering sodium intake is best targeted at populations with hypertension who consume high sodium diets."/
Eating too little salt can result in increased risk of cardiovascular events and death: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3558770/ /"we cannot extrapolate that lowering sodium consumption would reduce cardiovascular risk or premature death. In fact, randomized controlled trial evidence suggests just the opposite: that lower sodium intake may lead to worsened cardiovascular disease and earlier death."/
Low salt == higher risk of a heart attack resulting in death: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21540421 /"Among 3681 participants followed up for a median 7.9 years, CVD deaths decreased across increasing tertiles of 24-hour sodium excretion... Lower sodium excretion was associated with higher CVD mortality."/
Salt intake is not associated with blood pressure, although body mass index and age are: https://academic.oup.com/ajh/article/28/3/362/2743418/Relati... /"Considering their squared partial correlation coefficient, age and BMI were the most important parameters relating to SBP [systolic blood pressure] level. Salt intake was not associated with SBP in either sex after multiple adjustments."
If you do have high blood pressure, supplement with potassium: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26039623 /"Potassium supplementation is associated with reduction of blood pressure"//
Salt intake is not linked to heart problems for adults 71 to 80 years old: http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullart... /"we observed that sodium intake estimated by FFQ [food frequency questionnaire] was not associated with mortality or risk for CVD [cardiovascular disease] and HF [heart failure] in a cohort of adults 71 to 80 years old. These findings extended to sex-based and race-based subgroups and in participants with and without hypertension at baseline."/
I think there is a big difference between merely requiring IDs (which as you say may well be the case today) and being subject to thousands of pages of regulations, of which requiring IDs is only a subset. For example, a big part of those thousands of pages of regulations has to do with submitting SARs--suspicious activity reports about customer activity--to the Feds. They have a handy web interface, complete with a FAQ, for you to use to submit those reports: http://bsaefiling.fincen.treas.gov/main.html
As for individuals transmitting cryptocurrency, I haven't spent enough time with the bill and the existing part of Title 31 to be able to answer that question. I would point out, though, that other sections of the bill make existing law even more onerous than it is today.
Not quite illegal, but not quite legal (in the current relatively unregulated sense) either. I did a writeup of the Senate bill in the HN thread on it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14567005
I tried here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14567005
This is a far-reaching bill that gives the Feds much more discretionary authority over digital currencies. The reason it's so far reaching is that it tweaks definitions that are embedded in thousands of pages of existing laws and regulations. It's like changing stdio.h in C--one tweak could have a big impact throughout an entire system.
So let's wade through it.
Federal law (31 USC 5312) currently regulates "financial institutions," which are defined as including banks, credit card companies, insurance companies, securities dealers, loan issuers--and that's not even an exhaustive list! One of the categories that's currently regulated is: "an issuer, redeemer, or cashier of travelers’ checks, checks, money orders, or similar instruments."
The legislation would rewrite that definition to include:
(K) an issuer, redeemer, or cashier of travelers’ checks, checks, money orders, prepaid access devices, digital currency, or similar instruments, or any digital exchanger or tumbler of digital currency;
as the Secretary may prescribe by regulation, coins and currency of a foreign country, travelers’ checks, bearer negotiable instruments, bearer investment securities, bearer securities, stock on which title is passed on delivery, prepaid access devices, and similar material...
an electronic device or vehicle, such as a card, plate, code, number, electronic serial number, mobile identification number, personal identification number, or other instrument, that provides a portal to funds or the value of funds that have been paid in advance and can be retrievable and transferable at some point in the future.
Fincen (part of Treasury) said in 2013 that "A person's acceptance and/or transmission of convertible virtual currency cannot be characterized as providing or selling prepaid access because prepaid access is limited to real currencies." But that was based on the old definition, not the newly broadened one. (https://www.fincen.gov/resources/statutes-regulations/guidan...)
Now let's walk through some of the existing laws that reference these new definitions. A good start is the long list of existing Title 31 regulations primarily aimed at banks that would now get levied on any "issuer" or "redeemer" or "exchanger" of digital currency. That includes the obligation to:
- "Verify[] the identity of any person seeking to open an account" (31 USC 5318)
- "Maintain[] records of the information used to verify a person’s identity, including name, address, and other identifying information" (31 USC 5318)
- "Report any suspicious transaction" to the Feds (31 USC 5318)
- "Establish anti-money laundering programs, including, at a minimum" developing internal policies, compliance officer, training program, and independent audits (31 USC 5318)
- File reports on transactions (31 USC 5313)
- "Maintain appropriate procedures to ensure compliance with this subchapter and regulations prescribed under this subchapter" (31 USC 5318)
- "Guard against money laundering" (31 USC 5318)
- Allow the examination of "any books, papers, records, or other data of domestic financial institutions" related to reporting requirements (31 USC 5318)
- Be summoned by Treasury to "produce such books, papers, records, or other data" and give testimony under oath up to 500 miles away (31 USC 5318)
Note that many of the above sections of existing law give a heck of a lot of authority to the Treasury Department. Treasury could cough up very specific and narrow regulations that would lessen the impact. Or Treasury could follow the statutory text (aka go big or go home).
The bill also expands the sweep of existing criminal law. Existing criminal law (31 USC 5324) prohibits any attempt to "structure or assist in structuring, or attempt to structure or assist in structuring, any transaction with one or more domestic financial institutions." (Structuring is defined as "evading the reporting requirements" in which banks tip off the Feds that you're, say, moving high volumes of cash.)
Because an "issuer" or "redeemer" or "exchanger" of digital currency is now a financial institution, if you or I tried to dodge reporting requirements, we'd be looking at a federal felony punishable by up to 5 years in prison. Note that many other sections of Title 31 grant the Treasury Department discretion in rulemaking, so the blow could be lessened. At first glance this section does not seem to be one of those.
The bill also means that no financial institution (remember this now includes any "issuer" or "redeemer" or "exchanger" of digital currency) would be allowed to "issue" any "monetary instrument" (which includes any code "retrievable and transferable at some point in the future") unless "the individual furnishes the financial institution with such forms of identification as the Secretary of the Treasury may require." (31 USC 5326)
I'm getting a bit tired but did want to raise the question of whether or not the 31 USC 5332 rules against moving cash across the U.S. border now extend to digital currencies.
One section of the bill requires CBP to devise a "strategy to interdict and detect prepaid access devices, digital currencies, or other similar instruments, at border crossings and other ports of entry for the United States." (Emphasis added)
Existing law punishes anyone who: "Attempts to transport or transfer such currency or monetary instruments from a place within the United States to a place outside of the United States" -- and remember, "monetary instrument" is newly expanded. At least this seems at first glance to target only physical border-crossing and not electronic, and to require intent to evade reporting requirements. Would you have to declare a cold storage wallet if one happened to live on your electronic device? (CBP's forensic searches and scans just got a bit more worrisome...)
Anyway, that's my quick take. I may be wrong on some items--as I'd like to be! That means this bill would not be as broad and potentially worrisome as it seems to be at first glance.
Any lasting solution would be negotiated by Congress.
Current headline: "GOP’s “Internet Freedom Act” permanently guts net neutrality authority"
More accurate headline: "GOP’s “Internet Freedom Act” preserves 2015-era FCC Internet regulation status quo"
Another headline: "GOP’s “Internet Freedom Act” temporarily prevents FCC from enacting 3-2 partisan Internet regulations, unless a future Congress changes things"
Yet another headline: "GOP’s “Internet Freedom Act” shifts authority for Internet regulation from unelected bureaucrats, who may not even have the power to regulate here, to elected officials in Congress, who do"
Keep in mind that "Net neutrality" has become a partisan issue. The current 2015 rules were passed by a 3-2 party line vote when the Democrats controlled the FCC. (They're currently being litigated, with U.S. Supreme Court review likely.)
Now that the Republicans control the FCC, the 2015 rules are probably going to be repealed by a 3-2 party line vote. Even if Congress does nothing.
Whatever you think of the reasoning behind "Net neutrality" regulations, it makes little sense for hundreds of pages of regulations to be enacted when the Ds win and repealed when the Rs win. It means regulations applying to a multi-billion dollar industry bounce back and forth every 4 or 8 years. It makes more sense for Congress to come up with a lasting solution that isn't subject to regulatory bounce-back, and this is what the bill being described in the article seems to do.
<zabana>: The threshold question is: do you want to make money on a "cyberpunk-inspired" news site operated as a business, or is your "cyberpunk-inspired" hobby site expected to lose money--as hobbies typically do?
I've started both and worked as a journalist for both. Hobby sites are more fun. News sites are more work.
If you can make a decent income from this site, then you might be encouraged to write for it when you might otherwise be uninterested or unwilling (and you also might be able to hire freelancers or a staff). On the other hand, as anyone following the digital media business knows, making a decent income from an online news site is a non-trivial task.
"Also, don't get me started on the construction here in the Bay Area vs. some of the amazing craftsmanship like the one seen in the article."
Drive around Menlo Park south of Santa Cruz Ave and west of El Camino and you'll see many beautiful houses with craftsmanship at least as high quality. This is new construction but with a traditional design, interspersed with 1950s ranchers that haven't yet been torn down. Of course you may be paying $1,000+ a square foot to build these new custom homes, so your 3,000 sq. ft home is closer to $5M including land.
So only an order of magnitude more than these "New Silicon Cities..."
Framing requirements have become far, far stricter. Here's one construction project currently being framed on the SF peninsula: https://goo.gl/photos/hdDmcqWkEuQenvku9
It's a one-story room with a 9' ceiling height. The structural engineer specified two massive Simpson Strong-Walls, side by side. There was barely any room for the window, which had to be askew as a result. A local architect tells me the requirements were far less onerous even a decade ago.
Also foundation requirements have increased as well. You may be on a flat lot with no history of problems based on a soils analysis, but end up having to drill piers anyway. Just in case. Your municipality wants them. Which will likely increase foundation costs by tens of thousands of dollars--so much for affordable SF bay area housing!
I know one fellow building a new home on the SF peninsula who spent $500,000 to pour a roughly 1,000 sq. ft basement. (Small lot, not much outdoor space, so he was determined to have a place for his kids to play in.)
I'm generally familiar with SF bay area construction costs so let me use that as an example. That "Saratoga" house is about 1,800 sq. ft; the cost to merely frame 1,800 sq. ft two-floor new construction on the SF peninsula is about $120,000-$130,000 assuming no steel. That does not include foundation, roof, flooring, plumbing, HVAC, insulation, drywall, painting, siding, cabinetry, doors, windows, etc.--which could be 5x-12x more depending on finishes.
That sum also does not include general contractor overhead and profit of perhaps 12%, architect fees, building permit fees, structural engineering fees, planning review fees, school district permit tax, road impact fees, civil engineering fees, landscape architect fees, Title 24 consultant fees, soils engineering fees, etc.
If you were magically given a vacant lot for free in Palo Alto and wanted to build that house as shown with a basement, it would probably cost you about $2M in construction costs today. Again, that's assuming you got the land for free.
NSLs are likely not the case here with Yahoo (and in fact are not the most significant privacy threat, IMHO). An NSL is a demand from the FBI, not a court order. NSLs also have unique First Amendment vulnerabilities that would help a company choosing to publicize receiving one.
A FISA court order, which can force you to do much more than NSLs, is the more significant operational threat to Internet companies. These court orders typically have "do not disclose" provisions. Willfully violating that court order will almost certainly result in contempt charges.
I'm acquainted with a construction worker who's the foreman for a general contractor working on the mid-peninsula. Current projects include single family homes in Palo Alto, Atherton, Woodside, and Menlo Park. The foreman makes $44/hour without health insurance and is about to close on a house in Hollister.
Hollister to Atherton is 68 miles. To get to Atherton by 8am tomorrow, Google says he should leave at 5:50am: https://goo.gl/maps/bfSBp4vFtJQ2
If cheaper housing could be built on the peninsula--where there happens to be lots of low-density housing and open space!--he could live closer to work and the 101 and the 280 would have one less vehicle twice a day. But for reasons we all know, this will not happen.
PS: The structured wiring guys on this project are driving in from Tracy in the Central Valley and staying at a hotel on the mid-peninsula. That commute is even worse than Hollister. Google estimates it at 2hrs 40min one-way (!) for an 8am arrival time tomorrow.
Silicon Valley wages would have to increase by something like 3x--or house prices would have to drop by over 50%--to make houses here as affordable as the national average. Neither is likely to happen.
A median house in San Mateo County costs 11.3x median county income. A median house nationally costs only 3.3x median national income. So if you wish to buy a house in this area (and of course many people may prefer to rent), you should avoid moving here unless you can make those numbers work.
The reality for homebuyers is a bit worse than even those numbers indicate. Income taxes in California are very high, and most of the SF and peninsula housing stock is older and smaller than the national average. The median San Mateo County home is 1500 sq. ft; the median national home is closer to 2,500 sq. ft.
Construction, renovation, and maintenance costs are higher as well. Gas taxes are higher than the national average, sales taxes are higher, electricity costs are higher, etc. SF and peninsula municipalities have planning reviews that can add tens of thousands of dollars, plus state requirements (Title 24) and local requirements (no site development without survey, civil engineer, etc.) that add still more. Also geotechnical reviews and more expensive foundations--remember we're in earthquake country, folks.
On the other hand, we have very pleasant weather. :)
---
Sources: San Mateo County's median home value is $1.13M[1]. The county's median household income is approx. $100K[2]. A house costs 11.3x income. [1] http://www.zillow.com/san-mateo-ca/home-values/ [2] http://www.mercurynews.com/2014/08/28/can-working-class-fami...
The national median home is $188K[3]. The median national household income is $56.5K[4]. A house costs 3.3x income. [3] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/13/median-home-price-2... [4] http://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2016/cb16-158....
I visited the NeXT factory in Fremont, and it certainly seemed state of the art to me at the time.
NeXT Computer Inc. eventually became NeXT Software Inc. and ceased manufacturing hardware. That was 23 years ago. I'd be surprised if any significant presence from that manufacturing team remained in Cupertino today.
It looks like this guy's blog hosted photos of necrophilia (or what seems to have been labeled as such): https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2F1.bp.blogs...
Anal fisting: https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fphotos1.bl...
Naked children from 1970s calendars: https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2F1.bp.blogs...
And something in the vein of bestiality (whether it is or not, I have no desire to know): https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2F1.bp.blogs...
I'm expressing no opinion here about what qualifies as art (or not) or what is legal (or not). But it is the type of content that, taken together, could cause a blog to be deleted for TOS violations.
It seems to me that if you want a free place to publish photos that appear to be necrophilia, anal fisting, and bestiality, well, maybe pay $5 a month to host your site somewhere yourself? I suspect that any free blog hosting service is not the place for you.
At the very least I presume you'd acknowledge that the U.S. Constitution lists crimes including treason, counterfeiting, and piracy. I can't think of a more canonical way to "govern the people" than a state actor specifying criminal sanctions that can include the punishment of death...
"he could probably get away with five years at worst"
For better or for worse, federal prison sentences do not work this way. There are sentencing guidelines, for one thing.
Chelsea Manning is serving a 35-year prison sentence at Fort Leavenworth; prosecutors asked for 60 years. Manning is eligible for parole after serving one-third (I recall) of that sentence.
Yup. There's a lot of mischief in "so far."
Some products take a while to build, especially when dealing with less-than-friendly .gov regulators.
Also price per square foot doesn't reflect lot size. Orinda will, I suspect, have larger lots than Rockridge.
If you wanted to buy a decrepit 600 sq. ft shack on a 10-acre lot in downtown Woodside, a price per square foot metric might seem like it should be <$1M. In reality the property would sell for $10M+ based on the land value, with the shack having negative value because of the cost to tear it down. (Ob. Steve Jobs Woodside reference here.)
I think that was the case until a few years ago. Nowadays, Reuters reports, cargo ships have "massively" increased the number of guns on board along with people who know how to use them:
"Like many merchant vessels, the QM2 now carries armed private contractors when passing through areas of pirate risk... M-16-type assault rifles and sometimes belt-fed machine guns...
For many in the shipping industry, the fall in attacks is a vindication of the decision to massively ramp up the use of armed guards. So far, not a single ship with armed guards has been taken by pirates..." http://www.reuters.com/article/us-somalia-piracy-idUSBRE91B1...
If you had a dog walking service with a route that crossed my property without permission, and after some time I asked you not to do so, you might write a blog post trumpeting: "Property owner is shutting me down." But others might disagree.
There may be ways to preserve the viability of your dog walking service. You can enter into an arrangement with me to use my property (which might include a nominal fee), you can take a different route (inconvenient for you and your customers, but not my problem), etc.
If the only way you can run your dog walking service is to take a shortcut across my property without my permission, well, then the world is sending you a message about the viability of your business.
Again, the mere fact that you and your dogs have grown accustomed to crossing my property does not mean I'm "shut[ing] you down." And next time, maybe you should secure written permission before starting a business based on the assumption that you'll have the right to use someone else's property forever without paying.
Unfortunately I'd say the headline on the linked Medium.com post (by the creator of Routebuilder) is a bit misleading.
I feel for the author, but Google is not "forcing Routebuilder to shut down." Google is instead telling the owner of Routebuilder to find another API to use. Routebuilder can find another API, pay to license data, etc. There are alternatives rather than "shut[ing] down."
I know this probably sucks for the author, but this is the risk you take when building your product on top of someone else's API without a separate contract in hand--as many Twitter developers found out firsthand a few years ago. Their service, their rules.
Quite right. I posted the below grafs in a discussion a few days ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10761048) and it seems relevant again.
The median home value in Palo Alto is $2.5M per Zillow; in neighboring Menlo Park with comparable schools it's $2M. If you cross I-280 for larger lot sizes (and generally, though not always, more house square footage) you'll see the median home value in Portola Valley is $3.8M. If you don't like those figures, you can look at Trulia's, which says the median sales price for Palo Alto is $2.5M and the mean listing price is $3M.
Note these are generally not luxurious properties at those prices. Many are small postwar ranchers or Eichlers (beautiful but a pain to update) that have not been renovated in decades. Some houses have negative value because they're teardowns; you'd buy the property for the land.
After taking into account housing costs and California's aggressively progressive tax regime, you may find that $250K salary does not go as far as you like. You may make 2x-3x as much--but your cost for comparable housing may be 10x-15x as high and your tax burden will be more oppressive as well.
The median home value in Palo Alto is $2.5M per Zillow; in neighboring Menlo Park with comparable schools it's $2M. If you cross I-280 for larger lot sizes (and generally, though not always, more house square footage) you'll see the median home value in Portola Valley is $3.8M. If you don't like those figures, you can look at Trulia's, which says the median sales price for Palo Alto is $2.5M and the mean listing price is $3M.
Note these are generally not luxurious properties at those prices. Many are small postwar ranchers or Eichlers (beautiful but a pain to update) that have not been renovated in decades. Some houses have negative value because they're teardowns; you'd buy the property for the land.
After taking into account housing costs and California's aggressively progressive tax regime, you may find that $250K salary does not go as far as you like. You may make 2x-3x as much--but your cost for comparable housing may be 10x-15x as high and your tax burden will be more oppressive as well.
Take a look at Google Photos. It's very good and getting better.
I'd like it to have more advanced options, but it's probably the best choice and well integrated with Google Drive and Google+ (if you use it).
By back filling history...
Yep. That seems plausible. Given means, motive, and opportunity (including a few months of time), could some of the folks here on HN have backfilled history this way? Register an email address one character off of Satoshi's? Edit some old blog posts to insert Bitcoin references? Generate backdated GPG keys? Perhaps enough to satisfy not-very-technical journalists who won't think to compare coding styles and are too worried about losing a scoop to ask folks for second and third opinions?
I'd expect the real Satoshi to have more of a math background, not "ecommerce law" and "digital forensics." I'd also expect him to be more similar in writing style and be more ideologically in sync with Bitcoin in his public actions. Plus I'm not a C# coder but this looks pretty basic: https://digital-forensics.sans.org/blog/2009/04/24/code-skil...
The evidence the journalists published is more convincing if you want it to be convincing. My guess is that they did.
Likewise--our recommendation engine (https://recent.io) runs on App Engine and we weren't affected, as far as I can tell.
Let's assume for the moment that everything you say above in criticism of OKWU is correct.
The difference is that OKWU markets itself as a Christian university; its stated vision is "to provide a thorough and sound education within a Christian philosophy of life" and education "in the light of Christian principles." Its student handbook clearly lists tobacco, drugs, alcohol, porn, and premarital sex as unacceptable.
It should not be any surprise that if you are found to be engaging in any of those activities--which you and I may think are fine, but OKWU clearly does not--you will be disciplined and perhaps even kicked out. OKWU could not be more clear on this point.
In contrast, Yale and many other universities claim to embrace free expression. Yale informs incoming students: "Yale’s commitment to freedom of expression means that when you agree to matriculate, you join a community where “the provocative, the disturbing, and the unorthodox” must be tolerated. When you encounter people who think differently than you do, you will be expected to honor their free expression, even when what they have to say seems wrong or offensive to you." http://yalecollege.yale.edu/new-students/class-2019/academic...
So OKWU may be many things, but it is not hypocritical. If Yale and these other schools do not live up to their own freedom of expression promises, they are.