semiel

7 ms·

1.
by semiel 6y ago
> And if you cannot trust the police, it is already too late. No. Life went on in the USSR, despite the police being manifestly untrustworthy. Life goes on in the US and UK, despite the police being manifestly untrustworthy (albeit to a
2.
by semiel 9y ago
Those aren't securities, though, because their value doesn't depend on the efforts of the seller, which is one of the prongs of the Howey test.
3.
by semiel 9y ago
It's of course possible that Bitcoin had less than a 1/10000 chance of hitting $10,000, and we're just living in an extremely unlikely world. But given that it _did_ happen, it's probably fair to bet that it was possible
4.
by semiel 9y ago
> It doesn't make sense to dump all your resources onto every new coin that pops up. No, but if the odds work out, then it definitely makes sense to dump a _small_ amount of money into the ones you think have a shot. This is exactly
5.
by semiel 9y ago
> Confirmation bias. How many things were discussed on rationalist websites that people were sure were going to be yuge, petered out, and were forgotten? You can't claim victory for rationalists without factoring in the ratio of fai
6.
by semiel 9y ago
Yep, and we pretty much know what the solution will look like: zero-knowledge proofs, such as the ones used by ZCash.
7.
by semiel 9y ago
Why does it matter if it's dangerous if used incorrectly, if the majority of users use it correctly, and the overall effect is that fatalities go down?
8.
by semiel 9y ago
Surely they can not turn on autopilot, if that's the case? For me, I prefer life over a false sense of control.
9.
by semiel 10y ago
It was a badly designed app written by a couple of over-eager developers who didn't have any security plan in place. If you blamed the language every time a website got hacked, there wouldn't be any languages left.
10.
by semiel 10y ago
That's why you have backups. I agree that having full control over your identity has risks as well as benefits, though. I expect that we'll eventually see security providers arise that have user-friendly account recovery tools. Du
11.
by semiel 10y ago
Solidity is not an ideal language, but I also think that the ~ deep concern ~ everyone has about it is overblown. C is a pretty problematic language too, but plenty of reliable software is built in it. Engineering and testing practices are
12.
by semiel 10y ago
They are comparable, though, and that's exactly my point. They're not the _same_ by any stretch of the imagination, but it's just a weaker reading of history to refuse to consider themes that were common to the time period. T
13.
by semiel 10y ago
Since these countries (in some form or other) still exist, it's tempting to start making moral comparisons and trying to figure out "which side you should be on". But that's not the most interesting approach, in my opini
14.
by semiel 10y ago
Citation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect
15.
by semiel 10y ago
> Some of it sounds ridiculous - for every new federal regulation, 2 existing regulations must be eliminated. How is that considered feasible by any rational person? It might sound great if you don't think too hard about it. Canada
16.
by semiel 10y ago
On the other hand, it's much easier to protect your Bitcoin keys than your credit card number. Credit cards basically require you to share your password with anyone you want to buy from, which is a pretty ridiculous security model. If
17.
by semiel 10y ago
> So what are the implications of an object that breaks that symmetry? Would it be possible to observe an object in different times in the same state, or the same time in different states? The object would be in a repeating set of states
18.
by semiel 10y ago
Really? I haven't heard about this. I'd love a link if you have one.
19.
by semiel 10y ago
It took me way too long for this reason. I got it instantly once I realized I had made that limitation up. I feel like there is some sort of lesson, here.
20.
by semiel 10y ago
I mostly disagree. You definitely need to know the basic abstractions and concepts, like blocks, transactions, and addresses. But they're not particularly harder than concepts like inheritance or pointers, and way easier than something
21.
by semiel 10y ago
I've been working in the Ethereum space for a year and a half, so I know my perspective is warped, but I really don't think the learning curve is that bad any more. Solidity isn't a very complicated language and has decent do
22.
by semiel 11y ago
The point is the security professionals exist in order to facilitate the needs of the users they serve, not the other way around. It's always easier to just say no, but a good security professional knows how to assess risks, find creat
23.
by semiel 11y ago
AlphaGo isn't a fixed strength, though. It's substantially stronger now than it was in October. Obviously it's not a completely continuous function, but I think it's close enough to cause this effect.
24.
by semiel 11y ago
I think there's something analogous to the anthropic principle happening here. This match is happening now because Google realized we are in the moment when Go AIs are passing the top players in skill. Two years ago, Lee Sedol would ha
25.
by semiel 11y ago
Step 1 of exploiting this is "play a brilliant move to win a fight in the middle game", which is not the easiest thing to repeat.
26.
by semiel 11y ago
It actually seems clearly the opposite to me. This approach uses standard tools and methodologies for which there are already experts. Asking Apple to write new firmware has the potential of software bugs and similar unexpected issues.
27.
by semiel 11y ago
I have the top post in the reddit thread this is based on[1], and I don't endorse the spin of this article. > smart contract programming is complex and at the moment is lacking functionality I disagree. Smart contract programming in
28.
by semiel 11y ago
That was the previous version of the glasses. These are supposed to be much better, but we won't see specs until at least Wednesday, when the press embargo lifts.
29.
by semiel 11y ago
Bitcoin can barely agree to a minimal blocksize increase. The Ethereum proposals for stuff like sharding would be complete non-starters in the Bitcoin world.
30.
by semiel 11y ago
Currently, yes. However, the Ethereum foundation is actively working on addressing that limitation, and there are some very clever proposals for how to get around the problem. Unlike Bitcoin, Ethereum development is very active and the comm

More ›