jcbrand

12 ms·

91.
by jcbrand 4y ago
We’re not living in a dictatorship (yet). Funny how people here assume we all live in the same country. There are lots of people on HN who live in dictatorships. If you’re interested in how money works you should read a book or two about
92.
by jcbrand 4y ago
The second paragraph on Wikipedia: Central banks in most developed nations are institutionally independent from political interference. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_bank
93.
by jcbrand 4y ago
Which propaganda videos would you prefer I watch? The Federal Reserve (by far the most important one) is privately owned, as are Belgium, Greece, Japan, South Africa, Switzerland, Turkey and the Bank of Italy. The ECB is owned by central ba
94.
by jcbrand 4y ago
Uhuh... and if the state, with its monopoly on violence, wishes to ban these currencies? They can try, but it's very difficult to do. I hear we'll win the war on drugs any day now. All the problems are social, not technological
95.
by jcbrand 4y ago
Funnily enough, the people who live under dictators, despots, cartels and organized criminals often more easily realise the benefits of money that cannot be censored, cannot have its issuance be manipulated, is permissionless and very diffi
96.
by jcbrand 4y ago
US, Japan, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, Greece, Turkey and South Africa. The Danish one is "self-owned" whatever that means. The US fed is by far the most important Central Bank due to dollar being the global reserve currency. Sou
97.
by jcbrand 4y ago
But you can't just hand wave concerns regarding money laundering and other criminality away. I'm not, I'm pointing out the rhetorical techniques being used to delegitimize people who try to create privacy tools. You mean t
98.
by jcbrand 4y ago
You're making a mistake in thinking that monetary policy is somehow democratic and that there is some kind of meaningful oversight over it. Central Banks are privately owned and by design are meant to be "independent" of poli
99.
by jcbrand 4y ago
Similarly, most public blockchain-based financial products are a disaster for financial privacy; the exceptions are a handful of emerging privacy-focused blockchain finance alternatives, and these are a gift to money-launderers. Damned if
100.
by jcbrand 4y ago
Goat herders with AK-47s did pretty well in Afghanistan and basically defeated the US military after 20 years. A highly motivated and armed insurgency is almost impossible to control, even if you have superior fire-power.
101.
by jcbrand 4y ago
Cryptowatch has a trollbox right next to their charts. https://cryptowat.ch/charts/KRAKEN:USDT-USD?period=1h Click the chat icon (under the bell icon) on the rightmost sidebar to open it up.
102.
by jcbrand 4y ago
that sort of respect for a place and a host just is not possible when everything is done through a giant corporate medium I find the claim that you can't respect someone else's property just because you rent it through an interm
103.
by jcbrand 4y ago
Interesting article and worth reading. This mix of ideological and corporate backing may make Linux and certain similar projects seem "too big to fail", but the only reason Russia, China and India (and indeed certain western corp
104.
by jcbrand 4y ago
Hashing power is not the only line of defence. The (non-mining) nodes have the ability to reject blocks that they don't consider legitimate. That's why it's important to the Bitcoin community that the average person can run a
105.
by jcbrand 5y ago
I'm already the parent and "that guy" in various settings who refuses to join the Whatsapp group and it hasn't had any meaningful effect on my life. Most of the time people already were sending out emails as well, and th
106.
by jcbrand 5y ago
The title is clickbait (what else is new?) and is meant tongue-in-cheek. I doubt anyone seriously thinks that this makes all other DOOM ports obsolete.
107.
by jcbrand 5y ago
Shoelace uses Lit.
108.
by jcbrand 5y ago
Presidents get tens of millions in "speaking fees" and millions in donations to their foundations.
109.
by jcbrand 5y ago
Pleroma is a Mastodon-compatible (i.e. it federates with it) competitor that allows longer form posts. I don't use it myself, but I often notice users from Pleroma servers writing much longer messages than are allowed on Mastodon.
110.
by jcbrand 5y ago
The fact that some Linuxes don't use GNU (Android, ChromeOS) can be used as an argument that when GNU is being used, one can (_should_ is perhaps a bit much) mention that it's GNU/Linux to clear up confusion.
111.
by jcbrand 5y ago
Are you saying more people have died from falling while installing/servicing solar than have died due to Chernobyl and Fukushima?
112.
by jcbrand 5y ago
The existence of the Ford fiesta model won't necessarily make a Lamborghini cheaper, but it does make the category "car" more affordable and provides an option for people on a budget. The same applies to concerts. Woodstock,
113.
by jcbrand 5y ago
So you extrapolate from one HN comment to all libertarians? You are interpreting the original comment as uncharitably as possible. "Additional Woodstocks" can be easily interpreted as "additional concerts similar to Woodstock
114.
by jcbrand 5y ago
You have it backwards. Markets exist because of scarcity, not because of abundance. If something is available in unlimited abundance, there's no need of a market for it.
115.
by jcbrand 5y ago
I'm not sure what you're trying to say. The fact that there is a limited number of Woodstocks is irrelevant. There are other organizers and bands who can also offer concerts, and at a reduced price compared to the premium that som
116.
by jcbrand 5y ago
Pricing is the way in which information about supply and demand is conveyed in a decentralized manner in a free market. When prices of a good or service goes up, it incentivises other manufacturers or service providers to produce more of th
117.
by jcbrand 5y ago
There are people like that, and they're usually great to have on an OSS project, but they're a minority.
118.
by jcbrand 5y ago
That's great news if true. Last I saw (maybe a year ago), Safari claimed they won't support shared workers at all.
119.
by jcbrand 5y ago
Not if you needed to flee.
120.
by jcbrand 5y ago
> The risks are more evenly balanced in younger persons aged up to 40 years, where we estimated the excess in myocarditis events following SARS-CoV-2 infection to be 10 per million with the excess following a second dose of mRNA-1273 vac

More ›