Fair enough, if you mean that an article about Bitcoin should give some background on how it works, which will probably involve something about its money supply growth.
But the OP wasn't merely suggesting that: he said it should basically give weight to one particular criticism, viz. that the bound on money supply growth will be a "deflation problem". My point (drenched in sarcasm) was that if it did that, they'd have to cover so many criticisms they'd never get around to discussing the "new" in "news".
Yeah, good point, every story about Bitcoin should re-hash every major and minor criticism anyone has made about it, regardless of how many times they've been made public, or the relevance to the story.
I mean, while we're at it, be sure to mention how bitcoin uses SHA256 cryptographic hashes for proof of work, as well as the relevant journal articles on SHA-2's potential weaknesses, on double-spend attacks and their countermeasures, etc etc etc.
That way it'll be sure to be a nice, to-the-point, concise article, pandering to every possible concern. They might even be able to squeeze in a few words about some mining startup and the VC they raised!
Creating numbers and telling people they have value is not being a producer of value.
Actually, it is if those numbers allow people to make mutually beneficial changes they would otherwise not be able to make, which is what all moneys do in the first place. They don't have terminal value, but they facilitate exchange.
If Bitcoin can so facilitate exchange between people who like the protections it offers (and don't mind those it doesn't offer), then it has created value.
The work that went into the crypto behind bitcoin was useful skilled work, that created value for society. Running a bitcoin mining operation is not.
Only in the sense that performing any computational proof-of-work "didn't create value for society". If you can accept that e.g. a hypothetical system where an emailer has to perform a proof of work (in order to not be labeled as spam) has value, then you should accept the same of Bitcoin, in which the miners are performing a similar function.
You have no idea how ecstatic I am to see that. Normally, critics of the Laffer Curve will strawman it as "cutting taxes always raises revenues", and never get around to conceding the above-quoted, should-be-uncontroversial truth about it (that there exist taxation levels that are so destructive that lowering them can increase revenues, though not all tax rates are this way).
And now we have the multimedia/communication hype: the best bits are those that just arrived from far away, and if you are not "on line", "on the Net", you just don't count, you are not of this world (which is virtual anyhow...). Apart from a change in vocabulary, it is the same hype, the same snake oil over and over again, and you can do me a favour by not getting excited by all the time you are supposed to save by switching to "home banking".
I guess you could say it isn't, but the threat of workers being poached (in *some* sense) is what keeps wages from falling to zero in the first place, protecting the worker.
It happens in a different form for lower-wage workers, like in fast food or janitorial services: employers have to pay enough of a wage that the workers won't flee and go to someone else who offers more.
In high-wage tech jobs, it more often takes the form of some company actively seeking out the worker and making a competitive offer.
Either way, "competition" for workers is what keeps wages reflecting relative scarcity of that kind of labor (with a ton of caveats I won't go into, obviously. And whether or not you agree with the idea, antitrust is intended to prevent anti-competitive behavior, whether regarding consumers or workers.
As a software developer, I can see where the call for that comes from - but it's just about as misplaced as it could be. Software developers aren't the 'standard' the rest of the world should orient themselves by.
Developing software is a great skill to have if you're a software engineer -- not sure whether it's a waste of time if you plan to become, say, a doctor, a plumber, etc...
If you're talking about the whole developer toolbox, sure. If you're talking about the general "programming" skill, then no. That is something we should attempt to teach to everyone.
Specifically, we should try to teach everyone the skills of:
1) Converting an abstract specification into a concrete list of steps "so simple a computer could do it".
2) Recognizing and generalizing the relevant patterns in a process: for example, being able to take a cake recipe and modify it to make twice as much, and then further being able to specify how to make an arbitrary amount.
These skills, I think, are what people need to learn by being taught programming. And frankly, it would scare the hell out of me to learn that a doctor, plumber, manager, etc. would do their job without these skills.
If the cipher doesn't require the ciphertext to give you a test for determining whether a given key is the right one, then you can claim that any key (including one you just made up from a thermal noise source) is the "real" key, and the fact that it decrypts to gibberish just means you were storing gibberish on the computer.
You won't be believed, but then at that point -- where the government gets to cross-examine and challenge your purported key -- you're pretty clearly coercing testimony, and much more obviously violating the fifth.
How could a long string of words and symbols be hard to remember? I mean, most of us here are like your husband, but what kind of string are you talking about? What's an example?
So Kodak is (was?) like Apple because they had *extensive* innovation within analog film photography? That's like saying, "oh, we diversified into both country *and* western."
The similarities end there, though. I'm no fanboy, but Apple is constantly adapting to new conditions. When did Kodak, for example, make a leap similar to what did when Apple got into (and soon dominated) the music business?
I recently read Dawkins's Greatest Show on Earth, and I have to nitpick even despite your superior expertise:
Wouldn't it be more accurate on 4) to say that RNA performs catalytic functions like enzymes rather than like proteins? Since enzymes are the subset of proteins tthat catalyze reactions?
High schoolers are really not in a position (epistemically, not socially) to question fundamental theories. Every future scientist needs to be brought up on what the current body of scientific knowledge is.
So science classes necessarily have to take the form of, "Here's what we know." Good ones go a step further and say, "here's how we know it". But either way, they're ultimately presenting it as you would any other accepted fact, because stuff has to be well-vetted by the scientific community before it ever gets to the point of being in a high school science textbook.
Yes, real science questions it, and yes, these students may go on to do it some day: after they know what the current scientific consensus accepts as true, and know what they're refuting.
Could there be students with the potential to find flaws in major theories and fundamentally revise them while still in high school? Sure, by the law of large numbers. But textbooks simply can't attempt to satiate such minds while also providing the necessary education for the average student -- these geniuses will just have to research it themselves.
So, in short, yes, true science questions itself, but it does not get so caught up in questioning every thing that it never passes the knowledge on to the next generation.
Slashdot Mirror
Fair enough, if you mean that an article about Bitcoin should give some background on how it works, which will probably involve something about its money supply growth.
But the OP wasn't merely suggesting that: he said it should basically give weight to one particular criticism, viz. that the bound on money supply growth will be a "deflation problem". My point (drenched in sarcasm) was that if it did that, they'd have to cover so many criticisms they'd never get around to discussing the "new" in "news".
Yeah, good point, every story about Bitcoin should re-hash every major and minor criticism anyone has made about it, regardless of how many times they've been made public, or the relevance to the story.
I mean, while we're at it, be sure to mention how bitcoin uses SHA256 cryptographic hashes for proof of work, as well as the relevant journal articles on SHA-2's potential weaknesses, on double-spend attacks and their countermeasures, etc etc etc.
That way it'll be sure to be a nice, to-the-point, concise article, pandering to every possible concern. They might even be able to squeeze in a few words about some mining startup and the VC they raised!
Creating numbers and telling people they have value is not being a producer of value.
Actually, it is if those numbers allow people to make mutually beneficial changes they would otherwise not be able to make, which is what all moneys do in the first place. They don't have terminal value, but they facilitate exchange.
If Bitcoin can so facilitate exchange between people who like the protections it offers (and don't mind those it doesn't offer), then it has created value.
The work that went into the crypto behind bitcoin was useful skilled work, that created value for society. Running a bitcoin mining operation is not.
Only in the sense that performing any computational proof-of-work "didn't create value for society". If you can accept that e.g. a hypothetical system where an emailer has to perform a proof of work (in order to not be labeled as spam) has value, then you should accept the same of Bitcoin, in which the miners are performing a similar function.
You have no idea how ecstatic I am to see that. Normally, critics of the Laffer Curve will strawman it as "cutting taxes always raises revenues", and never get around to conceding the above-quoted, should-be-uncontroversial truth about it (that there exist taxation levels that are so destructive that lowering them can increase revenues, though not all tax rates are this way).
Enough is enough! I have had it with these motherfucking snakes neglecting their motherfucking planes!
They'll gladly suffer through free prostate exams if it means they can sit comfortably on the flight,
Um, a prostate exam usually isn't associated with "sitting comfortably"...
Ah, good point. I had thought about that one carefully enough.
when you hash a telephone number, a rainbowtable is easily generated
Two words: salt.
Unfortunately, the next paragraph reads:
And now we have the multimedia/communication hype: the best bits are those that just arrived from far away, and if you are not "on line", "on the Net", you just don't count, you are not of this world (which is virtual anyhow...). Apart from a change in vocabulary, it is the same hype, the same snake oil over and over again, and you can do me a favour by not getting excited by all the time you are supposed to save by switching to "home banking".
Does it count if it just makes an enzyme that can digest the sammich?
I guess you could say it isn't, but the threat of workers being poached (in *some* sense) is what keeps wages from falling to zero in the first place, protecting the worker.
It happens in a different form for lower-wage workers, like in fast food or janitorial services: employers have to pay enough of a wage that the workers won't flee and go to someone else who offers more.
In high-wage tech jobs, it more often takes the form of some company actively seeking out the worker and making a competitive offer.
Either way, "competition" for workers is what keeps wages reflecting relative scarcity of that kind of labor (with a ton of caveats I won't go into, obviously. And whether or not you agree with the idea, antitrust is intended to prevent anti-competitive behavior, whether regarding consumers or workers.
For a recent example of a legal expert rationalizing why all that is a good thing, check out this thread on HN/YC.
As a software developer, I can see where the call for that comes from - but it's just about as misplaced as it could be. Software developers aren't the 'standard' the rest of the world should orient themselves by.
Developing software is a great skill to have if you're a software engineer -- not sure whether it's a waste of time if you plan to become, say, a doctor, a plumber, etc...
If you're talking about the whole developer toolbox, sure. If you're talking about the general "programming" skill, then no. That is something we should attempt to teach to everyone.
Specifically, we should try to teach everyone the skills of:
1) Converting an abstract specification into a concrete list of steps "so simple a computer could do it".
2) Recognizing and generalizing the relevant patterns in a process: for example, being able to take a cake recipe and modify it to make twice as much, and then further being able to specify how to make an arbitrary amount.
These skills, I think, are what people need to learn by being taught programming. And frankly, it would scare the hell out of me to learn that a doctor, plumber, manager, etc. would do their job without these skills.
If the cipher doesn't require the ciphertext to give you a test for determining whether a given key is the right one, then you can claim that any key (including one you just made up from a thermal noise source) is the "real" key, and the fact that it decrypts to gibberish just means you were storing gibberish on the computer.
You won't be believed, but then at that point -- where the government gets to cross-examine and challenge your purported key -- you're pretty clearly coercing testimony, and much more obviously violating the fifth.
So wait, you normally bought a lot of it because it was so good but you somehow didn't find out about the discontinuation in time to stockpile?
Wow, what was it like trying to stockpile all the TPB&W film you could when you found out it was going to be discontinued?
I mean, you did do that, right?
Well, yeah ... but, in fairness, a LOT of dangerous things are still safer than a car driven by a corpse.
I'm sorry, it is not acceptable to attribute any intelligence to genetics, no matter what your evidence.
In fact, the very idea of identifying a measure of "intelligence" and correlating it with outcomes is racist.
This research must be purged. [/current state of intelligence debate]
How could a long string of words and symbols be hard to remember? I mean, most of us here are like your husband, but what kind of string are you talking about? What's an example?
So Kodak is (was?) like Apple because they had *extensive* innovation within analog film photography? That's like saying, "oh, we diversified into both country *and* western."
The similarities end there, though. I'm no fanboy, but Apple is constantly adapting to new conditions. When did Kodak, for example, make a leap similar to what did when Apple got into (and soon dominated) the music business?
I recently read Dawkins's Greatest Show on Earth, and I have to nitpick even despite your superior expertise:
Wouldn't it be more accurate on 4) to say that RNA performs catalytic functions like enzymes rather than like proteins? Since enzymes are the subset of proteins tthat catalyze reactions?
They were also pandering to the Christian base that supports Resurrection ... and a certain zombie.
High schoolers are really not in a position (epistemically, not socially) to question fundamental theories. Every future scientist needs to be brought up on what the current body of scientific knowledge is.
So science classes necessarily have to take the form of, "Here's what we know." Good ones go a step further and say, "here's how we know it". But either way, they're ultimately presenting it as you would any other accepted fact, because stuff has to be well-vetted by the scientific community before it ever gets to the point of being in a high school science textbook.
Yes, real science questions it, and yes, these students may go on to do it some day: after they know what the current scientific consensus accepts as true, and know what they're refuting.
Could there be students with the potential to find flaws in major theories and fundamentally revise them while still in high school? Sure, by the law of large numbers. But textbooks simply can't attempt to satiate such minds while also providing the necessary education for the average student -- these geniuses will just have to research it themselves.
So, in short, yes, true science questions itself, but it does not get so caught up in questioning every thing that it never passes the knowledge on to the next generation.
I wish I had mod points today, and that I could sink all them into this.