vec

12 ms·

121.
by vec 9y ago
Yeah, but the hard-earned wisdom the parent post is trying to impart is that if you think you want to avoid a subset of items, you're probably wrong. In an explicitly enumerated category, blacklists and whitelists are logically equival
122.
by vec 9y ago
If you're the Governor of Montana, it probably is the best that can be done. It's not a lot by itself, of course, but I'm not going to begrudge local and state officials from exercising what powers they do have to try and mak
123.
by vec 9y ago
In theory, we could either have one of us run a mining node for long enough to confirm the transaction or we could find a third-party miner to do it for us on whatever terms we could negotiate directly with them. In practice, running a mini
124.
by vec 9y ago
Yeah, but the volatility is still a nonstarter. A quick glance at the price chart shows the price has dropped 50% in the past month. A longer view shows something like a 1,700% difference between the six month low and high. Meanwhile first-
125.
by vec 9y ago
I don't expect him to work for free, but I do want Intel (and AMD, ARM, NVIDIA, TI, and anyone else who makes a floating point module) to go "sweet, thanks for the fix" as quickly and, almost more importantly, as collectivel
126.
by vec 9y ago
Okay, but I've been hearing for a decade now how cryptocurrencies are immune to regulation. That, by their very nature, they're going to prevent existing governments from being able to exercise some types of power that libertarian
127.
by vec 9y ago
It's true miners have to have some incentive, and Bitcoin chooses to make that incentive a financial reward, but it's not the only possible incentive structure. For example, imagine banks wanted to replace their clunky old ACH s
128.
by vec 9y ago
No, I'm implying that central banks are less prone to booms and busts than not having central banks. Just because they're an imperfect solution doesn't mean they're not addressing a real problem.
129.
by vec 9y ago
There's two separate things that get conflated in these discussions. The first is the blockchain, which is a technical innovation that allows a client to decide which version of a shared event log to trust, even if it doesn't trus
130.
by vec 9y ago
Right, this. I think cryptocurrencies are here to stay. I'm not convinced that's actually going to "positively affect the industry in the upcoming future". I don't think cryptocurrencies are going to remove the need
131.
by vec 9y ago
I already have a machine that lets me dump a bucket of laundry in the top and have it come out clean/dry/folded. It's called Washbox, and it's a locker in the atrium of my apartment building. I drop my clothes off, text
132.
by vec 9y ago
Sure, some cryptocurrencies (which may or may not include Bitcoin) will probably have some long-term stable valuation (which may or may not be above their current market value). That doesn't imply that what we're seeing now isn&#x
133.
by vec 9y ago
This is the kind of dangerous thinking that fuels speculation bubbles. Bubbles go up and up and up until they plummet all at once. Everyone looks like they're winning all the way up until everyone suddenly loses together. Maybe Bitcoin
134.
by vec 9y ago
That ends up with the same fundamental issue as a third-party run. If I think the Purple Party's candidate kinda sucks but the Fuscia Party's candidate would be an absolute disaster, I'm incentivized to vote Purple instead of
135.
by vec 9y ago
> This has the advantage of /continuing to exist if Kodak goes away/, which is what you want as a rights holder. If you mean the ecosystem can thrive without Kodak, then it sounds like you don't expect Kodak to add any sig
136.
by vec 9y ago
...is a sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek dismissal of the fundamental idea. That's about par for the course for intellectual debate around cryptocurrencies of late. To be clear, I don't have a dog in this fight. Tokens may be the Next B
137.
by vec 9y ago
In this case, I suppose my specific complaint is that I'm unable to make `range` work transparently with an arbitrary type. I guess you could chalk it up to a difference of aesthetic opinion. I don't want to think about buffers or
138.
by vec 9y ago
I agree. "Bitcoin as anarcho-capitalist proof of concept" does seem to be the correct framework for understanding why it exists, why it works the way it does, and what one might find valuable about it. On that front it's been
139.
by vec 9y ago
The problem with that is I have to care how `file` works. Here's how to read a whole file then loop over the lines: file, err := ioutil.ReadFile("data.txt") // some error handling for _, line := range
140.
by vec 9y ago
Electricity isn't free. In the US it's about $0.12/kWh. If I spend a kWh of electricity mining Bitcoin, I owe the electric company in my town another $0.12. Presumably the electric company uses most of that $0.12 on the fuel
141.
by vec 9y ago
That's the trap of Go. None of these are deal breakers. Yet. It's notable that the vast majority of the above are complaints by experienced developers working on large projects that need to be maintained and expanded for years.
142.
by vec 9y ago
Person A mines 1 BTC. Since a Bitcoin has no intrinsic value (as distinguished from market value), Person A has not created any value. They have created $0 worth of goods. Person A sells their coin to Person B for $1,000. A is $1,000 richer
143.
by vec 9y ago
Maybe I read too much into your original comment, but it reminded me of a pitfall that I see too many engineering types fall into, namely that because something can't be formalized then it must be arbitrary, unimportant, or both. In pa
144.
by vec 9y ago
Yes, it is a tradeoff. Why do you think it's a good tradeoff?
145.
by vec 9y ago
In Go I can write to a channel that nothing will ever read, and I can attempt to read from a channel to which nothing will ever write. In a pure actor model raw channels wouldn't be directly available and I would be required to push to
146.
by vec 9y ago
"Which is the better painting, Van Gogh's Starry Night or Seurat's La Grande Jatee ?" is a deeply subjective question. "Which is the better painting, Van Gogh's Starry Night or a kindergartener's wate
147.
by vec 9y ago
The money doesn't go up with traditional goods, but the total value in the system does. This is easier to understand if you think about a specific traditional commodity, say timber futures. A timber future is created by some arborist w
148.
by vec 9y ago
No, although that is nice. Taxes are why I think a piece of paper with a bad portrait of George Washington has some intrinsic value to me, whether or not there's a secondary market for them. It's why I think the purchasing power o
149.
by vec 9y ago
Paying for a $5 cup of coffee with a debt card takes about 10 seconds and invites about $0.10 in transaction fees. Paying in physical currency is even faster and costs approximately $0. According to https://bitcoinexchangerate.or
150.
by vec 9y ago
But not 3. fast and easy to transfer ownership of or 4. stable in value over time. Plenty of things (houses, human toes, pre-release copies of films, etc.) Are both scarce and useful without also being good candidates for a medium of exchan

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