the_snooze

80 ms·

1051.
by the_snooze 8y ago
>For most use cases, blockchains seem like a really inefficient database. While blockchains are are neat data structure and might have some great uses in the future, most of the proposed use cases seem better served by a normal DB. Would
1052.
by the_snooze 8y ago
I'm surprised it's that high, given that its biggest uses are just speculation, drugs, and ransomware.
1053.
by the_snooze 8y ago
>But in Facebook's case, they did not hesitate to commoditize disinformation and propaganda. They're just in the business of making the world more open and connected (TM).
1054.
by the_snooze 8y ago
See: Facebook's Free Basics, where they offer "free" "Internet" to developing countries, limited to Facebook properties and a handful of non-competing websites like Wikipedia.
1055.
by the_snooze 8y ago
Tech companies are using algorithms to prioritize the messages we see, which makes them incredibly valuable as advertising platforms. It seems like Mr. Stamos wants these companies to have all the rewards and none of the complicated respons
1056.
by the_snooze 8y ago
"I have nothing to hide" is just another way of saying "My friends and family are stupid for trusting me." Your devices don't just contain information that's sensitive to you.
1057.
by the_snooze 8y ago
What assurances do you have that those paid services are actually respecting your privacy? It wasn’t that long ago that we found out that telecom companies were selling fine location data of all their paying customers. The reality is that i
1058.
by the_snooze 8y ago
MISTER PROSSER: But Mister Dent the plans have been available in the planning office for the last nine months! ARTHUR DENT: Yes! I went round to find them yesterday afternoon. You’d hadn’t exactly gone out of your way to pull much attention
1059.
by the_snooze 8y ago
>It's a potentially revolutionary technology (trust-less, decentralized, nearly tamper proof, etc) that hasn't yet found a killer app(s) at scale I'd argue it has: cryptocurrency and all the criminal enterprises it support
1060.
by the_snooze 8y ago
And what exactly are you verifying?
1061.
by the_snooze 8y ago
Let's say I'm the buyer and this happens. There's now a record on the government blockchain that says I own a yacht. Does that mean I physically have possession of the yacht now? How do we assure that what's in the block
1062.
by the_snooze 8y ago
Exactly. How does the real world's state get accurately put into a blockchain? My big beef with all the blockchain hype is that this doesn't seem to be addressed. They say "trustless" and "secure" and "tra
1063.
by the_snooze 8y ago
Yeah, I'm quite skeptical of it as well. If I'm being really charitable to it, then it's a way to synchronize data between parties without relying on a trusted intermediary. That said, it's unclear what practical value t
1064.
by the_snooze 8y ago
$10 won't make or break a game's development. It'll happen (or not) with or without my tiny advance payment. I'd rather hold on to that $10 and buy an actual game now instead of gambling on the promise of one in the futu
1065.
by the_snooze 8y ago
That sucks, but it seems almost inevitable with these new funding/purchasing models: the risk necessarily shifts from the developer and onto the consumer. This is a big reason why I'm a "patient gamer:" why should I be t
1066.
by the_snooze 8y ago
How is this project any less at risk for those client-side implementation risks you mention? Basically, why should this nascent project be trusted over, say, KeePass?
1067.
by the_snooze 8y ago
It's a common tactic in blockchain projects. They cite legitimate problems, but fail to make a case as to why existing solutions are inadequate and specifically how blockchain's properties are a good way to meet those needs.
1068.
by the_snooze 8y ago
I'm not seeing the benefit either. If your credentials are stored under strong encryption, then it's the encryption that's providing a confidentiality and integrity assurance, wholly independent of blockchain or any other sto
1069.
by the_snooze 8y ago
I picked up one of those iPads at ~$270 with an academic discount, and it's a solid machine. Great battery life, good screen, enough space for a couple Netflix movies on flights. It doesn't feel cheap or compromised at all.
1070.
by the_snooze 8y ago
AC Transit is a dumpster fire. The schedules are so unreliable that I wonder why they even bother posting them anyway. It's insulting when they say a bus runs every half-hour, only to see it sitting in its downtown start-of-route spot
1071.
by the_snooze 9y ago
Are there any usable solutions for end-users besides wholesale blocking of ad/analytics/tracker services? With all this, it seems pretty reasonable to assume all third-party elements on the web are hostile.
1072.
by the_snooze 9y ago
Not a "tech company" in the traditional sense, but everyone had an office (shared with one, maybe two, other people) when I was at a university lab. It was great because those really facilitated conversations, both work-related an
1073.
by the_snooze 9y ago
(x-posted from the other submission marked dupe) It's fun imagining this attitude applied to the Space Race. >So we go to space. >That can be bad if they say accidents happen. Maybe three of our guys die on the launchpad. Maybe a
1074.
by the_snooze 9y ago
It's fun imagining this attitude applied to the Space Race. >So we go to space. >That can be bad if they say accidents happen. Maybe three of our guys die on the launchpad. Maybe a spacecraft is lost on recovery. >And we still