feedjoelpie

Guitar pedant: Shouldn't the up/down on the tuning keys be opposite directions on opposite sides of the headstock?

Eh, there's always a limit though.

If you're talking history, I don't think that's quite fair. The whole hash-based algorithm was just the most mathematically simplistic way to make the idea work. It still is.

If you're talking present-day, yeah, mostly Bitcoin hoarders don't want to see any change that might make their currency start functioning like a currency instead of fake gold.

Every single thing you mentioned benefits from increases in efficiency that drive down the cost of these pursuits, making them accessible to more people.

Gold without millenia of collective psychology to give it staying power as a store of value once more useful, cheaper, and faster to transact cryptocurrencies get any uptake.

I think you're confusing the present state of cryptocurrency as being its conclusion. Yes, Bitcoin was the first mover, and Bitcoin has the most buy-in. But cryptocurrency in general does not have global buy-in as a way to buy and sell stuff.

A) Barriers to initially acquiring crypto coins remain a bit high. B) Expense of transactions remains way too high, C) Transactions are way too slow, and D) For Bitcoin in particular, the hoarders make it politically difficult for Bitcoin to move to an algorithm that can produce faster transactions and therefore serve as a better means of payment.

All the major blockchains in the cryptocurrency ecosystem, right now, are too slow and expensive to be of much use as a currency to the global economy. It stands to reason that if one of them, unburdened with Bitcoin-holder demands for ever-increasing scarcity, solves that problem (Proof of Stake?), then Bitcoin will be supplanted by a cryptocurrency that improves the currency experience. Several are in the process of fixing that, while Bitcoin is not.

No cryptocurrency's competition is Bitcoin. The competition is old school means of payment. If your currency becomes closer than Bitcoin to being as useful as traditional money, your currency will have an advantage over Bitcoin.

Imagine you sell a phone on Craigslist, for crypto. You and the buyer can either deal with a $10 fee and 30 minutes to an hour of sitting in a Starbucks to complete your transaction, or you can give up, swap cash for goods, and walk away. Which one do you choose? Time is expensive, too.

Whether or not that's true, I literally have code sitting on the shelf waiting for it be cheap enough to run on ETH, and I think PoS will make it cheap enough.

The one with the most utility (connected services, ability to spend, and other infrastructure).

Not to be all "both sides tho," but I think you're both right. I code on blockchain stuff from time to time, and it's both really awesome for the decentralized no-trust part and straight-up nonsense for entire categories of problems that would be better solved off-chain. The hype machine is crazy and driving things toward the blockchain that absolutely don't belong there. ("Uh, do you need a blockchain, or do you just need to cryptographically sign something, and you've never thought about cryptography before today?") There are still some very interesting untapped possibilities that aren't better-served by any centralized system yet.

IMO PoW scarcity is only more important to the future of cryptocurrency than global speed and cost of exchange if: You are already heavily invested in PoW coins.

PoW coins have a multi-year headstart, and Bitcoin didn't have any truly interesting decentralized competition until Ethereum. Ethereum is moving to PoS, I presume because being able to more cheaply and quickly execute smart contracts is deemed more valuable than artificial scarcity. A sentiment with which I could not agree more.

If you want to compare Bitcoin deflation to substance addiction, I'll agree with you all day long.

IMO the problem with Bitcoin as an asset, over the long term, is that its proponents' nearest comparison is gold. Gold has at least _some_ intrinsic value, and more importantly it has millenia of history as both an asset and a means of exchange. If Bitcoin doesn't get off of Proof of Work, it's entirely plausible that it will be superseded by a Proof of Stake coin that has more utility.

Which is not even to mention my most cryptocurrency-controversial belief: Gold is the only deflationary asset that might not flash-crash into non-existence as a hoarder favorite.

What if you having a personal near-guarantee that this weird asset you hold onto stays deflationary _isn't_ the most important problem for blockchains to solve?

Currencies' value lies in their usefulness as a means of exchange. Cheaper operation of the network and faster verification of transactions make for a better currency.

And the more powerful Ethereum-like blockchains that remain on a Proof of Work system are too expensive to perform their most interesting possible duties. Cost and speed improvements are essential for making the next leap forward.

It makes absolutely zero sense to bend to holders' "I must have a guaranteed deflationary asset, or I will complain to all my libertarian friends" desires. There are so many more important things to do with blockchain tech, including more globally important ways to create wealth.

EDIT: "You" is not the parent thread. I'm just expanding on what the parent said.

Because it's insanely expensive to operate a PoW blockchain. We literally set things on fire to generate electricity for these global brute force algorithms. Proof of Stake uses game theory (you will avoid cheating if cheating costs you money) to replace expensive raw computing power.

Is it weird that for a certain category of tech company that I intuit would learn from their mistakes, I trust them more _because_ they've had one catastrophic failure? And just sort of assume that many of the ones who haven't are still riding on a wave of blissful ignorance? Maybe that's nonsense, but it's still a thought that occupies my mind.

The buried headline here is that the AFL-CIO apparently used prison labor.

It is noticable again and again that devs publishing to npm are not up to snuff, I wish I knew why, as this does not happen with other dynamic languages/their code repos.

It absolutely does happen with other languages. It just happens in Node with greater volume because of the greater volume of programmers, low barriers to entry for JavaScript, lack of a rich standard library, the convergence of server focused coders and frontend coders, and lack of consensus around best practices and frameworks for applications.

Kind of the way it's been possible to write decent code in PHP since version 5. Yet the overall ecosystem is still mostly bad.

Lots of need to fashion very basic tools + high volume of inexperience + democracy = A package repo full of nonsense where it's difficult to find the diamonds in the rough.

Most democracies don't have winner-take-all systems like ours. I would argue as part of the "wasted vote" crowd that this viewpoint is entirely justified given the mechanics of a U.S. presidential election, and that the best any of us can do is take our idealism to a more local level.

Parliamentary systems with proportional representation and "coalition" governments exist throughout the world. The U.S. just isn't one of them and would require a big overhaul of the Constitution in order to change that.

I can't believe we're suddenly having a moral crisis about business cultural politics... over the fact that a guy was fired for arguing in part that historically discriminated-against groups are underrepresented because of biological unfitness.

Political business monocultures have been a thing since forever. Dial the clock back a little and you have bosses pressuring you to campaign for Nixon. Dial it forward again and you have CEOs starting meetings with prayer. Dial it forward to today where one dude gets fired for arguing Nazi race science, and suddenly we all have to chat.

A few things...

* Your boss parading his religion around and making you feel othered, while probably legal, is uncool.

* Though I would be remiss if I didn't point out that across America, it's by and large the Christian viewpoint that's flaunted at employees. I feel bad for you, but I'm also happy that you've been given an opportunity to understand why this is bad.

* You're protected from being _discriminated against_ based on his religious beliefs.

* That law being "paraded" is the one that protects you from your boss discriminating against you based on his religious beliefs.

"At conservative oil companies, those who disagree on politics say they're isolated"

Okay, see how utterly useless this "controversy" is now?

I wonder if our experiences aren't wildly different because you seem to hail cabs the traditional way whereas I hail and pay via Curb.

Just curious: What makes you call Uber fast and taxis unreliable in NYC? I would agree with you in almost any other market, but I find getting a taxi in NYC using Curb just as fast and reliable, yet cheaper.

Hello, fellow Park Slope yuppie!

Y'all have a good thing going. I just don't think the co-op model necessarily translates to that many scenarios. Park Slope Food Co-Op depends a lot upon volunteer hours, and operators are customers. I think that's been the distinction in every co-op or co-op-like that anyone has cited as successful. They're customer-owned as much as they're employee-owned.

Vanguard is owned by funds that are owned by shareholders. Essentially, it's customer-owned. That's a very different proposition.

Co-ops aren't a new idea, and they certainly can survive. But in the two forms I've really seen them in action, they have been a mess.

Form 1: Freelance designer and coder co-op. Top players were continually dissatisfied with performance of their peers and the bargain-basement rates that would result. And their only remedy was to go join a normal company.

Form 2: An employee-owned taxi company with a 100-person board whose response to Uber was, "Oh, we just need an app." However, they couldn't agree to change any of their practices, resulting in people still not being guaranteed service when booking through the app. And no customer feedback or punitive mechanisms for drivers not following through. The system is: Cabbie clicks in on the radio and says "I'll take that fare." After that, if they see an easier-made buck on the way, they divert and grab that instead. The customer doesn't get service.

This is not to say that any given co-op is doomed, but consider this: A community, of which the customer is not part, making decisions in a mostly democratic fashion, will frequently devolve into each member acting and voting in self-preservation within the organization. And with no one to wield a hammer on behalf of the customer, eventually killing the entire organization with a thousand paper cuts.

Were I to attempt something approaching a co-op today, from the ground up, I would want to think very hard about how to create a governance structure that could prevent the organization from cannibalizing itself. Can it be done? I'd like to think so, but I also think it would be very difficult. And dangerous to get wrong.

Isn't this more of a lack-of-education problem? There are plenty of maker-grade boards out there that are easier to turn into manufactured product. Arduino is particularly bad and almost an outlier.

Solidity's relationship to JavaScript is negligible and way overplayed in its marketing. Similarities are entirely superficial.

This is only a valid analogy if in our real world I could make a tuxedo appear on my body with no more effort than snapping my fingers. (Which would be awesome.)