sdtsui
Joined 12 years ago
Karma
66
Submissions
35
Member since
Oct 31
[ my public key: https://keybase.io/dan_t; my proof: https://keybase.io/dan_t/sigs/Xzv-KR3OmGv6ywp3zNtiLzc36lljzdxM0jJlqD5lhFo ]
View on Hacker NewsRecent submissions
Comment · 6 years ago
Haha, I like "cBozos" personally, or "cozos".
Comment · 6 years ago
In a way, I'm saying that:
1. I want a project like Handshake to be successful as well, and I agree it has a long way to go - the trade-offs are numerous, high-magnitue, and (sadly) opaque.
But also, 2. Having seen first-hand how these things take shape over long periods of time (the second decade of Bitcoin's existence is just getting started), Handshake needs help, is designed to be flexible, and you can help. In fact, I'd argue you already are helping, and in ways the average crypto-native community member trumpeting blind-eyed optimism - is not. :)
Comment · 6 years ago
You raise some extremely good points here, and you're right, the trade offs are massive, partially due to how early the project is.
My view is that maturity of the project will bring some of the answers everyone is looking for.
As an anecdote, the first name auctions are actually ending in the next 48h.
Mean bids for early names (a few hundred) from the last time I looked in a cli were under 10 HNS, so under 5 USD at current prices. .coin for low thousands of USD. .11 for low hundreds of USD.
So that may give you a bit of an early view of what the prices are looking like. All subject to change of course because the auctions are not done yet.
For what it's worth, as someone enthusiastic about Handshake, crypto, and decentralized systems in general...I can totally empathize with the irritation you've expressed here. There's so much noise out there and 2017-2018 blockchain projects are notorious for over-promising on vague and impossible things, and then fading to nothing when the impossible things turn out to actually be impossible.
One thing I'd like to emphasize: Handshake's community may be what ends up being the differentiator against ICANN, less so anything financial or crypto related. I think that is what Rasengan is trying to accomplish here: build a true grassroots effort to work together to make Handshake a real contender. Because many of the readers here already have a piece of the network (majority of the coin supply being given not to investors, but Foss developers).
The simple notion that skilled, knowledgeable, opinionated, and generative individuals can have an outsized impact when raising concerns like this can be very powerful. Because it's an open network, many, many things are malleable, even economics/pricing/miner influence.
Decentralization has it's trade-offs. As Steve Waldman likes to say: "it's powerful at the edges, where Hayekian information flows can cover the blindspots of centralized efficiency".
https://www.interfluidity.com/uploads/2019/02/tao-of-decentr...
Comment · 6 years ago
Same! I'd be interested in a chrome plugin that prevents this.
Comment · 6 years ago
Yeah! It's nice to be able to see the opportunity in bad UX.
Comment · 6 years ago
Have you built/coded/made/delivered things to other people? Being on the other side of the table, so to speak, may help - as receiving their criticisms (and knowing internally why you didn't think of making it better, or knew but didn't have time/funding/certainty) can give a window into what was going on when you see examples of poor design. In a way, it's narrowing the window of "indefensibility".
In the same vein, you could consider learning more about why the poor design decisions are the way they are. At all levels (from building and city UX to individual products), there are myriad uncertainties and trade-offs when building something.
Some commenters are gesturing at to mental health issues - I don't know you well enough to feel comfortable with making a judgment like that, but on some level, if this is bothering you deeply, anger and depression may be symptoms of a deeper mental health issue: this might help! https://ncase.me/mental-health/#toc_4
Comment · 6 years ago
I'm not a member of the Handshake team, and I don't have control over what comments get posted. This is a Show HN - I am sharing something I have helped make, that other people can play with. That was my only intention, and I've atttempted to follow the guidelines here: https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html
I don't know what other links have been posted beside this thread, which a colleague sent to me: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22310604
That said, you are probably right. It doesn't surprise me that there is a lot of Handshake-related activity on HN right now. The project was conceived over two years ago, and today marks its second week of existence and the first day that people can actually try it out. Respectfully, is it possible that most of this is genuine interest/excitement in a new project instead of, as you put it, "PR astroturfing"?
Comment · 6 years ago
It looks to me like a lot of discussion about the viability/usefulness of Handshake itself, which I have no problem with; the post sparked a discussion, and that's cool with me. There are a couple of things about Bob I'd like to state, just so it's here for future readers, as I had hoped to answer questions about the software.
1. Bob is an electron application that also is a Handshake resolver and full node - you can find these projects at: http://github.com/handshake-org
2. We're looking for contributors and help of all kinds! Like any other open-source project, bug reports, suggestions, and contributions are very much welcome. Personally, my concerns as an engineer are around the scalability of the UI (electron can be hard to work with) when many (possibly hundreds) of domains are being watched or bid on. This is behaviour I believe is possible to see, from observing early internet domainers.
3. Like many non-custodial 'wallet' projects, it is meant to be a reasonable alternative to exchange custody, but we don't provide any guarantees as the user is responsible for self-custody. We intend to add hardware wallet support in the future. The goal is for the average person to have an easier time working with Handshake and Handshake names, by using Bob instead of a cli.
4. Bob is maintained by Kyokan, and I am the CEO there. It is not maintained by the Handshake team, and there is no Handshake foundation or business that runs the project. Kyokan is a separate software engineering consultancy that is working on multiple projects - we are also not a part of the Handshake team. Our contact info for security disclosures is in the repo.
5. Name Auctions and Airdrop claims on Handshake's mainnet start today (in under 8 hours), so it felt appropriate to share this repo, which we've spent a lot of time and effort working on. One can also find details about this in the repo, but we all hope you have a good time using the software!
Again, we're looking for feedback and suggestions. Even in the process of making this post, I found a few bugs, filed them and made minor improvements to the documentation. Thanks for reading!
Comment · 6 years ago
> I find the words confusing [1] and incompatible [2][3].
1 - for Handshake, VCs are 'used' primarily as a signal to price the coins - like in Bitcoin, the asset having a price helps on many dimensions, for example, security (miners mine it).
2 - in Handshake, unlike most VC projects and startups - the capital raised was not used to pay salaries or enrich the developers building it - development was funded by other means. This is what is meant by "one-way non-destructive 'proof-of-burn'" -> in fact, it's not really a burn but a generative action since funds were donated to FOSS projects that put the capital to use!
That's why 1 and 2 are not incompatible.
Comment · 6 years ago
If the chain benefits people, the sponsors are likely to profit. Early in the life of any public protocol, there will be some discovery process while word gets out and early use cases are tested: for public blockchains, that process includes price discovery.
I don't think that means the sponsors of the protocol are entitled to profit: they also took risk by putting up initial capital. The downside is capped in that if the project doesn't go anywhere and the coin goes to 0, FOSS projects that received $10.6mm benefitted.
Comment · 6 years ago
Yes, this is true, but the transfers are being enabled later today (evening Pacific).
Transfers will be enabled on Block 2016, and blocks are ~every 10 minutes - right now ~1960.
https://hnscan.com/?page=/blocks
If you are reading this on Feb 15th or afterwards, claims and auctions are working. Non-custodial options are Bob and using cli. Namebase is the only custodial option right now.
Comment · 6 years ago
> I can't imagine using a DNS registrar that made me wait 5 days to discover whether or not I got to have the domain, or that made me guess how much it would cost at the risk of losing the entire domain.
That's fair - may help to compare this with the current tld system, not just the regular domains (x.com). Right now, getting a new tld takes months and a six figure investment. Here it is 5+ days.
After that tld is claimed, it's up to the owner to administer it and make a profit on selling the names, or not.