One issue with cryptocurrencies that pretty much everyone has a vested interest and you can't separate out the bullshit.
And it's not just vested interest though, there's vested delusion. If you read enough comments on /r/bitcoin, for example, you'll find people who seriously think their 0.001 BTC will buy them a Lambo one day. Completely rational people must have trouble resisting the temptation of just quick-plugging their pet cryptocurrency here and there because they own some and they're super enthusiastic.
And, on the other side, there are people who overreact to that, unable to separate the community from the tech when they are just talking about the tech. But I also think a lot of people dump on it because they are bitter that they missed out. I think the latter group explains more than we realize. Read patio11's bitcoin rants on twitter and tell me you don't see a flare of that.
It all creates a scenario where it's hard to really trust what anyone says about anything.
Some people just really dislike the shitty economics theories that are basis for cryptocurrencies. Hating on something you dislike is not too bad way to procrastinate.
The great thing about Bitcoin is that people with "shitty economic theories" are not able to influence the money printers.
Hating on it is wasting your time, because you can't change the fact. No matter how much you dislike it, or your bankers dislike it, or your politicians dislike it. It is immune to dislike. You can either chose to live with it and use it, or live with it and ignore it (at your own peril). It's not going away.
Well, if you only look at a 12 month period, then it might look like "bitcoin is dying", but when you look at the overall picture of bitcoin over the past 10 years, it tells the complete opposite story. Bitcoin is only trending in one direction over the long term, and it isn't downwards.
It's certainly fun watching TAs try to predict the price of Bitcoin based on a few graphs. Both those who are bullish and those who are bearish about its price in USD. None of this matters.
Bitcoin is not about how much of it you can obtain with USD. It's about sound money and financial autonomy. Demand for these is only going to continue to increase, particularly when far-left fintech companies are actively pushing people towards it, by refusing to conduct trade with people who have "wrong" political opinions.
> Well, if you only look at a 12 month period, then it might look like "bitcoin is dying" ...
Not dying yet (I wonder whether it will ever die), but "fading away". Which seems obvious, but hey, let's hope for another bubble!
> It's about sound money and financial autonomy. Demand for these is only going to continue to increase, particularly when far-left fintech companies are actively pushing people towards it, by refusing to conduct trade with people who have "wrong" political opinions.
And here comes the "economics theory" behind btc. Especially "sound money" is always fun to hear ... Nothing sounder than wildly fluctuating speculative asset! And people will demand it for sure! (or someone is paying for anything legal with btc again?)
I am not sure why some people keep believing in this. I-cannot-be-wrong syndrome?
> Not dying yet (I wonder whether it will ever die), but "fading away". Which seems obvious, but hey, let's hope for another bubble!
If you're convinced it is fading, be my guest. As far as I can tell adoption is continuing to increase. You can't take last years FOMO event as evidence that bitcoin is failing. We all knew it was being overpriced with people's expectations inflated. We knew because it had done this at least 6 times before, whenever a new media organization discovered it and announced it to millions of people who had not previously heard of it.
The difference in the 2017 bull market was that everyone heard of it. Even your grandma. Every media group published something about it, and everyone who had not previously heard of it FOMOd into it, expecting it to continue rising. An event like that is unlikely to happen again, because everyone has already heard of Bitcoin. There are no new people to inform, other than children who weren't previously old enough to learn about it.
Bitcoin adoption will be gradual as and when (if) people want to use it. It really does not matter if adoption stagnates, because there are enough existing users and enough liquidity in markets that existing users can still make good use of it, and trade with it.
Sound money will not really occur while bitcoin is under its inflation stage. It can only occur afterwards. Demand will increase if other currencies continue to decline in value relative to it. We have over 2000 years of economic history telling us this, although it was only coined "Gresham's Law" a few centuries ago. It all boils down to simple decisions people make. If I have an easy to obtain dollar, and I have a hard to obtain chunk of gold, which one would I let go of first?
Can you point to any examples in history where two separate monies have been in circulation and Gresham's Law has not played out?
This does not apply only to money either, but to many items which have intrinsic value (people desire to possess them) and are scarce. This is why original artworks continue to appreciate in value over time. Limited edition products tend to appreciate in value. Abundant items usually get trashed, until they become scarce, at which point their value starts to increase again (they become collectors items).
The dollar will not appreciate in value wrt to such limited items. It's just not scarce, nor does it have any intrinsic value. If Bitcoin has done anything, it has laid bare for everyone to see how worthless paper money is. I don't think this effect can be undone at this point. Too many people are too aware of this fact to ever revert back to using such a worthless store of value.
You are seeing things that aren't there. Just ask any people on the street what is more useful (i.e. intrinsically valuable) - dollars or btc. I am not sure why this isn't obvious to you.
Also, you focused on the bull run, but forgot that people _stopped_ using btc for payments. For me the breaking point was Steam removing it as a payment option. Everything after seemed like a show, concealing the main trend. That's why I added question whether anybody started using it again - I hear only people longing for days when btc was not valuable and you could pay with it. Now everyone just hodl's.
And as you say,everyone heard of it already. I don't see how usage can jump now, when btc made its name as super-crazy digital lottery. You continuously lean (Gresham law) on the btc being "good", but never mention why it is good, other than paper money being "worthless".
Which brings me to my "shitty economics" point ...
I interviewed for a week at a consultancy known for pair-programming a long time ago.
Each workstation had two chairs, a large iMac in the middle, and the developers had an individual macbook/kb/mouse on each side.
The code was on the middle machine, and either kb/mouse could control it. They also were using software named Teleport(?) that let you seamlessly interact with both the main iMac and your own laptop. I don't remember exactly what it did, maybe let you drag files between the two computers or something.
I got to pair-program with them on assorted real world tasks that week, a different employee each day. I was generally impressed with the workflow. There was basically zero downtime in terms of progress. I can easily them imagining at least getting a 2x productivity boost, but I'd imagine it was more like 2.5x or more.
Sheepishly, what I didn't like about it was that I'm the kind of person that likes to get a lot done and then work on my own stuff on the job, or have the freedom to surf HN when I'm ahead of schedule, and that was kind of impossible there without your teammate knowing it. :)
But I will say it was very stimulating and fun. The other developers were really nice and fun to talk to. I work remotely, but I would certainly consider that arrangement if I were to get a desk job again.
It's better than the sort of office job where you're languishing on your own and nobody has a firm grasp of what exactly you're even working on in precise terms. I've been there before and it's incredibly stressful when you fall behind pace and your work performance starts to suffer. I feel like pair-programming eliminates that kind of thing.
2x productivity boost compared to one programmer or two programmers ..?
I have a hard time seeing why this would work. On the other hand, it's more or less a hand over of knowledge for the system, so in that sense all the negative effects are might be zeroed. I've got this feeling that knowledge hand over is the biggest problem in the industry.
I would really hate to have to do pair programming but I'm not totally convinced it's all bad for the company/product. Maybe one day a week to spread the knowledge?
EDIT:
The song is nice. A bit to specific topic to be funny though.
This interview story sounds more like Hashrocket (the consultancy I founded in 2007) than Pivotal. Pair programming used to be a big selling point for us both with hires and clients.
I did it for two years. I found that it was draining to be focused the full time every day. I liked the way it worked, I loved the code quality that came out of it, but I can't do it 8 hours a day month after month.
I was exhausted the first month, but... I actually hate myself when I slack off. I love few things more than getting things done, and pairing provides me with that euphoria and discipline.
Type 2 diabetes can be reversed. Many people aren't seriously suggested this option by their medical professional or are unwilling to change their lifestyle.
I don't think it's a counterpoint to the study, but rather to the ways the data will drive policy changes.
It is phenomenal to see such a movement sprout up, as if a chunk of society decided to just give up. I couldn't imagine a serious, equivalent movement on the same scale for alcoholism and cigarette smoking, to cite a few examples. Yet the abuse of food is going to (or is already) cost us far more.
I've never come across the Fat Acceptance Movement before, but it is something I've thought about.
The issue seems to be equated with race and gender equality, rather than addiction, which I'm not entirely convinced by either. I don't think obesity 'denormalisation' is the answer, but I don't think we should close the door on saying a certain weight isn't healthy.
We pretty much have that with regards to marijuana. I'm not sure why it's treated so differently from tobacco. In both cases you are inhaling the smoke from burning leaves.
Because you can vaporize it, turn it into oil and again vaporize it, bake it into food and eat it, etc. too. Even if you do smoke, a regular marijuana smoker consumes a lot less tar than a regular tobacco smoker since they need less plant product to get the desired effects. Plus, nicotine promotes cancer growth (but does not directly cause it) while THC may mildly inhibit cancer growth
Tobacco is unusually nasty, just look at throat cancer from chewing tobacco. Incense, woodsmoke, and Pot do cause problems, but the risks are significantly lower.
Type-II diabetes isn't caused just from being fat anyone can develop it. I have active, skinny, vegetable eating relatives with type-II diabetes. I avoided diabetes so far but I have hypothyroidism, you could say it's a related cousin disease in the endocrine family.
Endocrine system diseases need to be researched more and the general public needs more education on it. Sugar doesn't cause Type-I or Type-II diabetes as it seems many on the Internet believe. And being fat isn't the only way to develop Type II diabetes.
And as my mother says, "I'm not a diabetic, I'm a person who has a disease called diabetes."
I will absolutely believe that diet and obesity are not the only causes of Type II diabetes. And no, not all obese people are diabetic. But it is a primary factor in many cases. And if people who are obese would change their diet and lose weight, the rate of diabetes would likely plummet. I don't think anybody is suggesting that changing diet and reducing obesity is the only answer, but rather that it would make a huge difference.
I remember as a kid our family doctor straight up telling my parents that they were too fat and they needed to exercise and lose weight. I assume doctors still do this, as it's good health advice, but with "fat shaming" being a thing now, I'm sure that some are more hesitant.
>It has been over 10 years since the resolution of type 2 diabetes was observed as an additional outcome of surgical treatment of morbid obesity. Moreover, it has been shown unequivocally that diabetes-related morbidity and mortality have declined significantly postoperatively, and this improvement in diabetes control is long lasting.
I like the idea. I find it incredibly tedious to lookup IMDB ratings while surfing Netflix since that's almost all I care about when I'm indecisive ("Just give me a movie roughly in this genre that's roughly decent").
The catalog seems very limited though. I couldn't find the few Netflix shows I searched for from my Netflix homepage: "el internado", "gran hotel", "el barco", "3%".
Feedback: Would be much nicer with permalinks and the history push API so that back/forward worked.
For example, clicking around the movies a bit and then pressing the back button took me back to HN. And would be nice to link someone to "/shows/123", one of the key advantages of websites over apps.
I don't care about ratings -- IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, or random film critic -- it doesn't matter. They're all useless to me (often worse than useless, as so many people have such different tastes from me).
The only people who's opinions I care about are friends and family who I know well and who's tastes I share, or who at least know my tastes and can recommend to me something they think I might like.
Apart from that, what I do to find more films to watch is try to see what other films directors and writers I like have made, or do web searches for combinations of films that I like to see what similar films turn up or to occasionally find people with similar tastes to my own and then pick through their favorite movie lists.
You need to find a reviewer you trust and pay attention to them only.
I find RT works great if you understand that professional reviewers rate movies in the context of their genre. So, a Hollywood action flick may be 80%, but if you don't like that genre, you're still not gonna like it.
