benajnim's comments

benajnim | 11 years ago | on: Sony Reveals an Even Bigger Attack on the Internet – the MPAA Is Behind It

It sounds like you're implying that paying for Netflix and using bittorrent is mutually exclusive. If the content on Netflix were better (it has everything you would ever want to watch) and less restrictive (want to watch offline?), and content creators were fairly compensated, why would a rational consumer chose anything else and why would a content creator not advocate for this scheme?

I love streaming subscriptions for the convenience factor but I find they fall far short of their promise due to "incomplete" content and restrictions of artificial scarcity-and I say this as a supporter of these services and the model used.

The profits are still largely going to the middlemen, and from all indication (that I can see), the content creators are still being shafted.

benajnim | 11 years ago | on: Global Web Crackdown Arrests 17, Seizes Hundreds Of Dark Net Domains

Of course, the ideal way of sucking out the oxygen from these entities is to legalize the product they're pushing. Perpetuating the drug war is some "real evil shit" when you consider the police unions are among the biggest lobbying groups fighting to keep these substances in question illegal..

benajnim | 11 years ago | on: A Raw Deal in Michigan

The irony in your last point, is that an electric vehicle is objectively far simpler than an internal combustion powered one.

benajnim | 12 years ago | on: Npm's Self-Signed Certificate is No More

That's not a loaded comment.. Changing your programming environment over an SSL certificate? Tell us all about how awesome it is building apps in Java!

benajnim | 12 years ago | on: Buttercoin – US-based Bitcoin exchange

Until there's one that doesn't suck, there should be more competition keeping the exchanges innovating and improving their services to be more competitive.

benajnim | 12 years ago | on: Comcast vs. the Cord Cutters

I agree with your point that paid products should be commercial free, though what about the insidious placement of commercial products embedded within the content (song lyrics or any item with a logo on it in a movie or tv show)? It seems like those commercial placements are much harder to avoid in pop culture and will likely only increase in frequency in the future. It can skew the creative process of the artisans producing content and unless true commercial-free content is rewarded in some way, this is inevitable.

benajnim | 12 years ago | on: The Day the Internet Didn’t Fight Back

What we need is a new way to communicate where spam is inherently not possible.

benajnim | 12 years ago | on: SolarCoin cryptocurrency pays you to go green

Litecoin itself is a clone of the first scrypt based coin, Tenebrix.

benajnim | 12 years ago | on: Jamaican Bobsledders Ride Dogecoin Into Olympics

Just to clarify some of the facts.

Dogecoin uses scrypt like litecoin, but this proof of work was first used by Tenebrix. It also employs the random block reward (vs fixed for litecoin) pioneered by LotteryTickets (which includes the ongoing 10k block reward feature). I'm not exactly sure which repo it was started from, but the wallet client, namely the 1.5 release inherits all Litecoin updates since 0.6.*.

benajnim | 12 years ago | on: Why Bitcoin Matters

The bitcoin network's transaction verification mechanism, and all the hash power behind it (users) does give bitcoin "intrinsic value". Its true value comes from network effect.

benajnim | 12 years ago | on: Finnish Tax Administration: Instructions on Bitcoin income tax

Sounds like another LIBOR scandal waiting to happen.

benajnim | 12 years ago | on: America's Chronic Overreaction to Terrorism

Nothing makes the economy "boom" more than focusing productivity on single-use weapons and other commodities of war. The industrial production of WWII is what kicked off the boom that followed. If some is good, then more must be better - perpetual war must be the best stimulus we could give our economy!

benajnim | 12 years ago | on: A Year and a Half With a Nissan Leaf (Part 1): The Acquisition

Having worked in deep in the marketing machinery on behalf of big car companies, my take-away is automobile buying decisions are one of the most irrational decisions a person can make. So often, people will purchase a car to address "edge use cases" (e.g. pulling a boat) and most of the time a more economical car combined with renting a vehicle for those edge cases is cheaper.

Oh and each model of vehicle has a target demographic, and you may notice the marketing of any given model targets the lifestyle of the buyer. Young, hip and urban? Hard-working man's man? Eco-concious? A car for every lifestyle.

benajnim | 12 years ago | on: Torsploit takedown: analysis, reverse engineering, forensic

It just proves there are easier attack vectors than tor itself.

benajnim | 13 years ago | on: UNICEF: Give Money, Not Facebook Likes

Bitcoin could play a key role here. In my experience, donating using bitcoin feels clicking a "like" button. After learning about the system and how to use the client, its as easy as logging into facebook to like something.

benajnim | 13 years ago | on: Ask HN: Is there a Hacker News for investors?

I recommend the forum, www.bogleheads.org

benajnim | 13 years ago | on: We are not Consumers, We are the People, as in We The People

While I don't agree with CISPA, but what about the Consumer Protection Agency?

benajnim | 13 years ago | on: Bitcoin rises

You are a venture capitalist, yes? ;^)

benajnim | 13 years ago | on: Using Github issues to track house repairs

I've been looking at chore monster and chore wars for much the same purpose. I've tried using dry issue tracking systems, and for as creative as these "gamified" options are, I still don't see them having enough hook to truly integrate into the family routine.

benajnim | 13 years ago | on: Improved User Profiles

Couldn't you create a repo in bitbucket and push to it as a new remote head to keep your revision history?