It's a hashchain. They predate blockchains. I used them a long time as just signed, text files full of hashes. Trusted Timestamping used them. Blockchains were a highly-wasteful modification of hashchains for a different purpose. Databases, logs, and hashchains are still better for most things. Centralized services with decentralized checking of a signed log is still more efficient since centralized tech is itself more efficient.
A blockchain is a modification of a hash chain to make it usable in cases where different transactions conflict with each other. In the case of TLS certificate transparency, Go packages, etc., a log entry "This object with this hash was published" does not conflict with a log entry "That object with that hash was published." You can append them to the chain in either order and it's fine. For a financial ledger, "This money was moved from A to B" conflicts with "This money was moved from A to C," and so one needs to be applied first so that the other can be rejected. If both transactions are signed it doesn't matter which one (for the correctness of the system, at least), but all users have to come to consensus about which of the two is accepted. Otherwise you have the "double-spend" problem.
Bitcoin's blockchain solves this problem with "proof-of-work," i.e., making it computationally difficult to add another entry to the hash chain. Because it's difficult, it's unlikely that both transactions will be accepted at the same time, which serves as a publicly-verifiable way to arbitrarily pick one. There is a small financial incentive for the network entity that successfully solved the computational problem, hopefully offsetting their expense in "mining" the "block." (As a further means of making sure only one is accepted, even if both are mined in quick succession, it's common practice in Bitcoin to wait for a few more blocks to be mined before B or C accept the transaction, which forces the network to accept one chain or the other.)
Satoshi's innovation was that proof-of-work can be used to allow arbitrary / anonymous entities to participate in this system without risking someone creating several thousand anonymous entities voting in their favor, or creating one view of the hash chain for B and another for C to convince them both to accept the transaction. (Satoshi's innovation was not the append-only cryptographically-verifiable store; that's just a hash chain. It was securing updates to that store without a central trusted coordinator.)
There are other ways to arbitrarily pick one transaction or the other, e.g., using a distributed consensus algorithm and admitting participants based on "proof of stake." Or you can redefine the problem to allow double-spend to a limited extent and make A responsible for paying out both B and C - this is roughly Stellar's approach.
But if you don't have a double-spend problem (or if you have a central trusted coordinator), you just need a boring old hash chain, which can be implemented much more efficiently - and possibly expanded to a hash tree, as described in this article.
This is different from a blockchain because it's more efficient - the length of a log proof is O(log(N)) instead O(N). A blockchain in the Bitcoin sense does not satisfy properties 1, 2, and 3 in this article.
The term "blockchain" is ill-defined (and often is used to mean just "Merkle tree"), but in the sense of the 2008 Nakamoto paper, a blockchain derives its security from having more computational power participate in the security of the system than the unused and available computational power in the world, and specifically from having financial incentives (mining) to make this be the case. In other words, the data structure is specifically about money and corruption, by design.
Basically yes - if your application needs neither currency nor privacy (e.g., signing Go packages), linking it to a data structure that inherently deals with both would be a mistake. Currency and privacy are both difficult, so avoid bringing in dependencies on them if you don't need them.
(Again, the Bitcoin paper is specific in how the data structure is only secure because the consensus algorithm creates financial incentives that hopefully outweigh the incentive to misbehave. If you drop that from a blockchain, it isn't secure any more.)
It's an argument for being cautious about handling money and avoiding it if you can. Of course, Internet commerce deals with it a lot, but sometimes it's an unnecessary dependency and removing it simplifies the problem.
They've even put Jetbrains' IDE at the bottom of the "Staircase of intelligence" in their little infographic...
I'm not sure if developers familiar with those tools can take this company seriously (especially given what they've done previously.)
My primary experience is with Intellij, though most of their IDE's behave similarly.
Im not sure what advantage I'd get with kite.
Often I'd start using a class in the code, and then ask intelliJ to import it, rather than going to the top, and use the autocomplete tool. It can do patterns as well, even custom defined ones, with default values (https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/using-live-templates.htm...)
I don't think it has much to do with Facebook. The way it works (from their website) is that the target has to be sent a link to click on, which opens a page that places a cookie on their browser and immediately forwards them to a generic article. Presumably they'll then be targeted by major ad networks based on this cookie.
Also be careful with opening many of these images, as they open in Google Drive. Which will display all images viewed on this blog the next time you open it.
I don't understand why you have your privacy policy as it is right now, at all.
Privacy is important to us. We want to do it right. (...) At no time is your DNA data shared - or sold - to any external party, period. (...) If a genome is uploaded, but the user does not continue and generate a report, the uploaded genome is automatically deleted immediately. As soon as a report has been generated (no more than 10 minutes) the uploaded genome is deleted.
Wow! A company that isn't out to steal your data! Great!
When using Meports you are uploading your genome to our central website for analysis. (...) By uploading your genome you grant us a temporary, limited, revocable, royalty-free, world-wide license to process and use your genome for the purpose of providing you with the service.
"Vision: We believe in using data and software in order to maximize everybody's quality of life. "
(Actually - you even have a different company "vision" on gene.meports.com. Which one is it?)
So what does this mean then? Are you using the word "analysis" to trick people into thinking you don't store data derived from the genome on your servers, but you're not storing the literal file someone is uploading? While, at the same time, reassuring clients you'll never store or sell their data?
Not sure I understand your concern: It’s standard boilerplate for the case where private data is required to run an analysis, but is not otherwise used.
Not saying that it should necessarily be trusted but the wording isn’t problematic. What is problematic is the complete lack of legal security.
Definitely not boilerplate. The privacy policy is quite light, doesn't define terms like "external parties", doesn't even have the company's name or origin.
Yeah I mean Im a one man shop, have no lawyer. The privacy policy is this: we don't store your genome or any identifying information beyond the report which is automatically deleted (or deleted at your request) within 48 hours.
I was talking specifically in the context of OP’s comment. I otherwise agree with you. But the wording that OP seems to complain about simply means that, in order to perform the requested analysis, the company needs to temporarily store your data.
Well, I hope the designer accounted for multiple colors failing to displayer properly. The pink and red are impossible to discern for me. My bank uses colored QR style codes and they're impossible to use with (very common) blue light filters active in the evening hours.
As an unmarried Young Adult (in the Netherlands) myself I can give my 2 cents about why I wouldn't get married; I've simply taken to heart the advice nearly every senior developer would give me; Don't EVER get married.
That is very weird advice. I've been a software developer since the mid-1990s, when I was a teenager, got married at 21, had two kids, started several companies, sold some of them, and getting married is easily the single best decision I ever made.
I would like to gingerly suggest that this is a subject for which you might not want to sole-source your advice from software developers. We are an odd lot.
Perhaps software developers in the Netherlands have geographically-clustered attitudes about marriage that more closely resemble those of Dutch adults generally (or maybe Dutch academics or trades-workers specifically), than software developers generally.
This is actually a topic that has received a lot of investigation. It's true that men who marry differ, before marriage, from men who don't. But it also seems to be true that marriage has a strong causal effect on male behavior.
There are a lot of instances where long married men lose their wives then die very soon afterwards. When there's a correlation of something with longevity and removing the something is soon followed by death, then there's good reason to believe the causation theory.
True for both partners -- usually after one dies the elderly widow/widower tend to have ~5 years or less.
Some of that is just timing, like if the average age of death per the actuary tables is like 79, and your spouse dies at 80, you're statistically going fairly soon as well.
As far as I recall, there were studies showing some causal effect in the behavioral difference of how early things like cancer were diagnosed.
In essence, the average man living with a female partner would get a "nuisance" investigated, diagnosed with cancer, and (sometimes) treated; while the average single man sought treatment only when the condition was truly disturbing, and by that time it's too late to treat the cancer.
Hahaha me too! Since getting married and because of the kind of mental support I got, I quadrupeled my income, travelled the world, got two kids, got boat licensed (together with wife), got ham radio licensed, got a degree, taking flying lessons now (together with wife), start Krav Maga soon (together with wife), start riding motorcycles (together, of course), train playing the piano again, lost 15 kilos (despite the cooking we do), learned a new language (fluent now).
And it is really attributable to this strong relationship. Because I get an A/B-test once a year, when my wife visits her home country for some weeks: I get the lazy guy I was before, not achieving much, despite having lots of time.
What marriage brings to me is the very long-term view. As far as I can see, I know with whom I will be together and we make plans. I meam, how can you raise even kids without being quite sure that you stick together? Marriage is the very official promise that you try your really best. It is not needed if you feel uncomfortable with it. But for me, very personally, I feel it really helps.
Well, it was Persian, the language of my wife. I learned it from books and by talking to her and the family. It is my fourth language. But we are also learning spanish now (courses in form of books), but it is too early to really mention it now.
Whoah, hold on. This is very relevant to my interests. I'm in Chicago and the next big thing I want to do is learn Farsi (my wife is taking Japanese classes, which is not very relevant to my interests, so I can't really do it with her). Is there a particular set of books you'd recommend?
I'm actually hoping to find some place to take classes.
Your plan is awesome! The language is pure logic and terseness (all those who want „gender neutral“ language, here you are, there is no article at all, you really have to ask „is this person male or female“).
I am a German native and there are some good books for Germans that I studied with.
Yet, there are some excellent English resources! First, in order to learn to write (and much more if you want to), there is the excellent site www.easypersian.com. which offers 180+ lessons for free I learned to write there (took me two days). Then, there is „Complete Persian“ as a good textbook in English. I remember my first private language teacher I hired used this and it was really good.
I'm not sure how much of it is _because_ of my marriage, but I definitely don't have a ton of free time. Those have been pretty well spread over the whole adventure and we were actually on WIC/foodstamps when we had our first kid.
Keep in mind that unhappily married or divorced people are the ones who are more likely to say something about it. I'm happily married. I don't really mention it, and I'm sure others in a similar situation do the same.
You're leaving out many things about coffee. Specifically, caffeine, which energy drinks are often loaded with. Caffeine on its own can cause anxiety (See "Caffeine-induced anxiety disorder") and is linked to depression. Let alone workers consuming caffeine during work time with headaches(or other withdrawal symptoms) on their days off who still haven't figured it out the stuff is just plain not good for you.
I've stopped drinking coffee as it would frequently give me anxiety and sometimes panic attacks. I now drink tea or water at work. However, I still need to work harder on cutting down on sugar.
I suspected coffee was giving me anxiety which bordered on paranoia. I stopped drinking coffee and it went away immediately. A week later (today) I had a cup to see how I'd respond. Severe anxiety came back within half an hour. Very interesting.
I found that small amounts of alcohol have a similar effect. Keep drinking though and the depressant effects then start to kick in and the anxiety/paranoia subsides.
There's a third way, very popular among hackers, yerba mate. Used by South American people.
It has good caffeine content, but apparently has a slower absorption. Helps you to keep focused, without the strong highs and lows you have with pure coffee.
Perhaps the ad was using one of the Google redirect tricks? There’s a few google.com endpoints (if I recall) that you can abuse to redirect to arbitrary URLs.
It's a feature, Google allows the same. Basically advertisers want to set the links to be tracking links and stuff which may be through third parties which then redirect to their site.
So both ad services allow the advertiser to display one URL while directing users to another.
Surely they're doing some verification to ensure that either the redirect lands on the advertised TLD, or alternatively that you're at least "in control" of the TLD you're advertising as (similar to GAnalytics verification -- via meta tag, DNS txt entry, etc)?
