Benmcdonald__ (u/Benmcdonald__)

Benmcdonald__ commented on My 7 year old Chrome extension arbitrarily deleted for linking to chat support · Posted by u/Benmcdonald__

Benmcdonald__ · 5 years ago

It's back!

"Thank you for reaching out to us. We have found your item to be compliant with all our policies. So, we have approved your latest submission. It will be available in the Chrome Web Store shortly."

Benmcdonald__ commented on 2021 in crypto and blockchain: your 100% reliable guide to the future davidgerard.co.uk/blockch... · Posted by u/davidgerard

bitxbitxbitcoin · 5 years ago

> Nothing has changed in crypto since 2011

> There will continue to be no use cases for crypto that absolutely anything else does better.

Gonna need to 100% disagree with that. There are plenty of reasons to bash on bitcoin and cryptocurrencies and PoW, and you're great at articulating them; however, completely discounting the work of thousands upon thousands of open source developers is getting kind of tired.

Also, I think what most cryptocurrency detractors are missing in terms of a mental block is an understanding of just how big the world's shadow economy is.

For arguments sake, tell me what you think is "better" than cryptocurrency for dark net market transactions.

Always happy to discuss :).

Benmcdonald__ · 5 years ago

Most of these projects are token sales and yes you can discount them as the technology is irrelevant to the scheme

Winners in an ICO utility token sale (a gift card sale, not equity/money only marketed as such). Coin FOUNDERS that get a starting stake. Early INVESTORS that get coins at a discount. INSIDER traders that know when the positive media or coin listing will happen. EXCHANGES that get paid to list and pump the coin. Loser. You the bag holder

Benmcdonald__ commented on The Conspiracy Theory Handbook climatechangecommunicatio... · Posted by u/Anon84

galaxyLogic · 5 years ago

I agree that calling something a "Conspiracy Theory" is basically name-calling. Calling something conspiracy theory doesn't tell us much if anything about what is true or not.

Benmcdonald__ · 5 years ago

But many times it's justified name calling. Because it's not the conspiracy in the theory that is the issue but the lack of evidence in proportion to the strength of their beliefs. And in place of evidence their is paranoia. The problem is conspiracies by their nature are very hard to prove so your evidence for them will likely be weak

Benmcdonald__ commented on Show HN: PSX Party – Online Multiplayer Playstation 1 Emulator Using WebRTC psxparty.kosmi.io/?ref=hn... · Posted by u/hauxir

leoplct · 5 years ago

WebRTC is really cool. Is someone using for video conferencing (Eg Zoom) ? What are other example using webrtc?

Benmcdonald__ · 5 years ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jitsi

Yes and it works well

Benmcdonald__ commented on Central Bank Digital Currencies Are a Bad Idea forgac.me/blog/2020/11/17... · Posted by u/simonebrunozzi

Benmcdonald__ · 5 years ago

They are the ideal tool for communist China or North Korea. I doubt they see that kind of control over every citizen money as bad

Benmcdonald__ commented on Ethereum 2.0 launches twitter.com/ethereum/stat... · Posted by u/0x64

dirtnugget · 5 years ago

* which the majority of nodes are running

Benmcdonald__ · 5 years ago

That's not how the technology networks. That naive implementation would leave you wide open for sybil attack

Benmcdonald__ commented on Lambda School is the biggest mistake I made this year reddit.com/r/LambdaSchool... · Posted by u/barry-cotter

jacobion · 5 years ago

The thing about efficient markets is that lucrative activities which don't produce much value—borderline scams—can block activity which would be highly wealth creating. For example, there could be a huge untapped retail market for financial derivatives such as interest rate and fx hedges. However, it's very hard to access this market because historically anyone who has started selling such products has pivoted towards targeting degenerate gamblers in order to fleece them. Normal people who want to hedge conclude that it's better to live with the risk than to be the sucker.

Here we can see that there are lots of people who are prepared to make significant personal sacrifices to work in the software industry. The industry itself is crying out for more people and new people. But it literally doesn't make economic sense, either for universities or for new players such as bootcamps, to train people properly. It's vastly more lucrative to confuse them and then rip them off. It's hard to see a simple market mechanism which can resolve this, as opposed to rebuilding something similar to the gatekeeping and signalling functions around universities, commonly regarded as broken nowadays.

Benmcdonald__ · 5 years ago

Same as health care. Without regulations the industry would be full of snake oil. And yet the regulation kill innovation in the industry. Money all devolutes to scam. Look at digital money. Not even HN community can spot the "crypto" scams

Benmcdonald__ commented on EU leaders agree to cut emissions by at least 55% by end of decade theguardian.com/world/202... · Posted by u/billyharris

1234fdsazxcv · 5 years ago

Emissions per capita are low because a lot of the population lives in poverty outside the city or in the city on the margins. It is not an eco-utopia.

Benmcdonald__ · 5 years ago

Even the rich lifestyles are greener than in America

Manufacturing is dirty but then the whole world consumes these goods so that's not only a China problem