Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit | final_approach's comments login

I think a lot of non-native speakers don't know the word vanity. How else would you describe it, so that a guy from Moldova understands? Thank you.


Vanitate?


I think this idea of survival rather than living is rather an unfortunate characteristic of our time. People need to rewatch that german movie called "Knockin' On Heaven's Door". All you need is to go see the sea.


I'm just going to add to this: it's been 10 years. Hacker News is still hoping very hard this so called libertarian wet dream cryptocurrency called Bitcoin will soon be out of the picture, replaced by something proper, that is fair and doesn't make you feel angry. And yet, it's still here, angering a whole bunch of people who didn't buy early and think the distribution is unfair & the political ideas behind it are awful and yet, Bitcoin is still #1 and widely used. "Blockchain not Bitcoin" hype is gone (remember how big banks invested millions blockchain projects?). Ethereum scammy ICOs hype is gone. This big-corp-coin thing will soon be gone too.

And all the issues people talk about here - like solving micropayments - are already being successfully solved by Lightning Network. Quietly.


Except next to no one is using Bitcoin, not to mention Ethereum or Lightning Network.

It's very much like the Linux Desktop - it exists, some people love it, it's never going to disappear, but it is very much a niche interest that will never be mainstream, for a multitude of reasons.


It is absolutely clear that every year Bitcoin is being used by more and more people or the price wouldn't be going up consistently over the years.


The price is heavily manipulated and volatile, most of the volume appears to be fake, and the only major 'use' anyone is making of it is speculation.

Also it hasn't gone up consistently, it's still at around 50% of its peak almost two years ago.


Look at 10 years chart. It's been going up consistently.


Well, sure, but then the 4 year chart of returns on my high school summer lawn moving business went up 13,500%, from $5 net my first week, to $675 on my last. Behold my 15 year old financial genius. /s

Any asset that doesn't crash back to a penny likewise goes up astronomically from the day trackable value is first created. Bitcoin's chart appears to have outperformed the market so dramatically, percentage-wise, because its chart tracks price from effectively zero (depending on how you would price a 1/10000th slice of pizza) or a dozen or so pennies (if you're starting from the first BTC-E numbers). But this is really not any different from what happens to shares in a private company, which also start at effectively zero as well.

Publicly-traded share values aren't visible to the public until they have already risen a hundredfold or more from their inception (in terms of percentage gains). Sure, Bitcoin was visible to "the public" but only if you happened to be in the right place at the right time and knew the right people - which in practice are opportune circumstances no different than those available to people who happen to be close to the founders of a privately owned company.


Sigh.

No, it hasn't, unless you've got some sort of alternative definition of "consistently".


So this looks like a dating site for advertisers and those who are willing to provide some advertising space on their t-shirts. Seems to me, not a very new concept. But somehow, I find it less humiliating then when people are dressed as mascots for some real-estate agency. Decency preserved.


In that case, it'd be much less suspicious to purchase a small private jet. No reason to hijack a big airplane everyone would be looking for.


What you get with this plane is huge fuel and cargo capacity not to mention unsupported range.


Neither of which are requirements to do serious damage, and as has been said numerous times before, there are plenty of other planes that meet that criteria that could have been obtained much more easily and not in full view of the public eye.


"Neither of which are requirements to do serious damage"

777-200-er has the range of a tu with hunreds of thousands of pounds more payload and it hold 20x the fuel of a citation x with 10x the mass. It also has double the range of a 777 freighter, with a similar maximum takeoff weight. So these are not interchangeble, but yes they are options.


But they are still not requirements to do serious damage. Do you understand? Someone seeking to do serious damage has much less conspicuous options at their disposal.


"Serious damage" is unspecific and arbitrary.


Buffet is most definitely not a person who could simply miss the point of Bitcoin. I'm sure he understands it. Therefore, his statement must have an agenda. Maybe it's a non-obvious agenda, because he's not known to be involved in anything that Bitcoin may directly influence and hurt. But there must be a reason why he says something he most likely doesn't believe himself.


Because of course nobody could ever understand it entirely yet still think it's a bad idea to get involved. That's unpossible!


I find it hard to believe people that rich can make judgements this wrong about anything. I think Buffet had a history of saying "I don't understand it, therefore I don't invest", but not discouraging others to invest. It is possible he doesn't understand Bitcoin, but it is a lot less likely he makes a fool of himself instead of saying "you know, I just don't get it, so don't ask me about it".


Or, he could be right.


This story gets more interesting and interesting with every day. I really hope it was hijacked and landed safely somewhere.


If true, it means 230 peoples lives are in the fate of a group crazy enough and smart enough to hijack a plane undetected. I don't even want to think about that too much. The situation they are in must be hell.


But if true then there is hope these people will be well treated, because if you wanted to just kill them, they would be dead already.

I bet you could get $500,000,000 ransom for the safe return of the plane, the crew, and the passengers. The plane alone is worth $100 million.

Half a billion buys a lot of military hardware on the open market.

Odds are they are dead, at the bottom of the ocean. Flying low enough to avoid radar will significantly shorten the range (denser air at low altitude, etc).


> The situation they are in must be hell.

Better than being dead.


Are you sure?


Yes. Being alive is better than being dead. I will stand by that statement no matter the circumstances.


Hardly. It most probably means Zuckerberg is kind of concerned of the growing pressure to the point where speaking up is smarter than obeying.


This looks terrific and is absolutely what someone like me needs. I'm excited to see where the development of this editor would go next. It's like a breath of fresh air.


wow, what does "marked dead" means? First time I see someone mentioning it on HN.


First link on google has a good definition[0].

tl;dr He probably got flagged for being a day old account (and being argumentative). I try not to say anything too controversial on here since I do not want to meet the same fate.

[0] http://jacquesmattheij.com/The+Unofficial+HN+FAQ


Consider applying for YC's Spring batch! Applications are open till Feb 11.

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: