b1daly

18 ms·

151.
by b1daly 9y ago
Good point here. There have been several episodic television series I've watched that I've experienced as unusually gripping (the usual suspects, Breaking Bad, Orange is the New Black, Man in the High castle). One area where the l
152.
by b1daly 9y ago
It's surprising to me that the rather straightforward question of whether Tether (Bitfinex) is actually holding the dollar reserves against the issued tether tokens is so difficult to answer. Just the fact that the company has not defi
153.
by b1daly 9y ago
in such a scenario, tether collapsing in value, the demand for Bitcoin (or other coins) would be from those who held the collapsed token. So the price of Bitcoin in tethers might skyrocket, but since the one to one peg to the US Dollar will
154.
by b1daly 9y ago
I'm only use spreadsheets here and there., bit this article has the kind of grating stupidity that adds to the conceptual noise we are surrounded with. To replace Excel with software X, you would have to deliver software that would pro
155.
by b1daly 9y ago
Generally, huge demand and limited supply are necessary for any bubble to get going. I can see no way that the Bitcoin price is not a bubble. It's rise in price is none-the-less astonishing, and is somewhat a testament to the soundness
156.
by b1daly 9y ago
Some very interesting points made in OP and comments. I’ll add one about user experience. Obviously the big web corporations benefit from the natural advantages of scale. But an overlooked aspect of what makes these platforms sticky is tha
157.
by b1daly 9y ago
The applications make the interface feel slower, and it seems like they must make the interface slower, as it is extra work for the processors. I wish the could be shut off entirely!
158.
by b1daly 9y ago
I think you’re mistaken, simply by observing the incredibly high amount of drunk driving that goes on in my city. It’s indicative that alcohol can have very strong effects on inhibition and judgement.
159.
by b1daly 9y ago
Maybe I’m missing something amid all the technocratilly minded discussions on the virtues of paying dividends vs stock buybacks vs the issue of whether the profits of a company are more efficiently used to fund new investment compared to r
160.
by b1daly 9y ago
The article, and comments, led me to muse along a line of thought I hadn’t considered before. An observation, perhaps criticism, of machine learning systems that can be trained to do pattern recognition tasks, is that such a system has no s
161.
by b1daly 9y ago
That’s an oversimplification of his argument. I interpreted it as him saying that positing a future, superhuman, malevolent, intelligent agent, that we should tremble in fear of, provides no useful line of reasoning that we could pursue to
162.
by b1daly 9y ago
Crypto would only retain its value in such a situation if a significant market system, in real goods, had been developed around it. Meaning you could exchange your crypto for the things you need. (Meaning the seller would have confidence th
163.
by b1daly 9y ago
I think the reason the system has evolved this way is because politically it is hard for the treasury to "print" money, even though they have the legal right to. Having the Fed inject money into the system is a dodge, but effectiv
164.
by b1daly 9y ago
Why can't the fed just hold onto said toxic assets indefinitely?
165.
by b1daly 9y ago
This is ridiculous. If any of these crypto currencies became a significant way to hide wealth from the government, all the government has to do is make the crypto currency illegal to use or hold. If the US did this, it could easily pop the
166.
by b1daly 9y ago
Bitcoin can easily be stopped by governments, at least in countries that are not failed states. All they have to do is declare it illegal, and enforce the law. It would be trivial for them to shut down exchanges. Without that, it would hard
167.
by b1daly 9y ago
Government spending is just another way that the productive resources of society are funded, and that people receive the benefit of those resources. As a thought experiment, we could lower taxes, and have the services provided by government
168.
by b1daly 9y ago
A key point in the philosophical foundation of democracy is that it is a good system for making decisions of consequence. One can fashion a simplistic thought experiment where a simple majority votes to take resources from the minority, pre
169.
by b1daly 9y ago
My point is that both of these problems, who gets to occupy a spot of land, who gets to exploit an intellectual creation, are solved through the abstraction of laws. Arguments that the concept of intellectual property serves no purpose are
170.
by b1daly 9y ago
I'm not sure about Urbit as a solution, but they have identified a very real problem around the issues of identity and information that is connected to identity. This essay sums it up nicely, so I won't repeat it. But I very much
171.
by b1daly 9y ago
Don't most ICOs explicitly state that the token does entitle the holder to...anything? With a stock or bond, there are legal structures that underlay the promised mechanism by which an investor might get a return on investment. While i
172.
by b1daly 9y ago
This just reminded me of my personal pet "first world problem." The move from hardware based interfaces to touch screen interfaces is an astonishing regression in usability. Older car "audio" systems could be controlled
173.
by b1daly 9y ago
Don't we have an obligation to follow the laws of the land we live in? I see no more philosophical justification for physical property than for intellectual property. In the same way that we have some folk intuitions about the validity
174.
by b1daly 9y ago
One thing to consider is that different types of projects have different "thresholds " of "good enough." This is also highly dependent on the available competition to your product. At this point, unless there is some fan
175.
by b1daly 9y ago
I'm amazed that this article and most of the comments implicitly assume that Uber is succeeding, and therefore useful as a an example of a successful platform startup. Uber seems to be failing badly so far, losing increasing amounts of
176.
by b1daly 9y ago
I agree, the timing is way too tight, only master level musicians can approach it. Though they can. Having grown up listening, and producing, rock music, and related forms, I find the rigid timing of EDM to be unpleasant. Except for occasio
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by b1daly 9y ago
I think the trend will continue down for guitar playing, and for all musical instruments. My theory is based on the fact that learning to play well is difficult and time consuming. Popular music is by and large not the product of humans, mo
178.
by b1daly 9y ago
You make a good point about the pricing asymmetry. But the point remains that most people are voluntarily, enthusiastically, giving up personal data in exchange for features that they find valuable. It's hard to see that as a privacy i
179.
by b1daly 9y ago
I disagree. The practice of medicine in general is one of the most highly regulated professions. It does not follow that such regulation is a slippery slope to the practice of medicine being made illegal. The contrary argument is easier to
180.
by b1daly 9y ago
The author belies the libertarian quirk of mind that conflates something being regulated with something being made illegal. Quite different things! This strikes me as a cousin to the libertarian intuition that if it is possible to craft an

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