> This discourages thoughtful and frequent commits that express the intent of a change because all the commits are just smashed together anyway so why bother.
This is only the case if said squashing just bundles commits without context or consistent logic. If merges to a mainline branch consist of feature branches whose pull request was already approved after a couple of iterations then the end result is a cleaner commit with it's history thoroughly audited. In practice it's equivalent to a fast-forward merge of a single-commit feature branch that just happened to be nearly lined up with mainline.
Agreed. This is when you believe that your program should at the very least compile (or pass tests) at any point in the history. In this case a commit must be a consistent and related set of changes.
In other words, a commit to us is sort of like an "atomic" change, something that cannot be split or else more or less bad things happen.
I have trouble conceiving a better way to use Git when you really care about the readability of your history.
in some cases I don't care about readability though. On hobby projects I sometimes use Git more like a file transfer and synchronization tool. In this case I don't give a huck about how the history looks like.
Just like with code, the more readable this history is (in terms of what features/fixes are in there at some point in time), the better.
Most of the time, that's what I expect. However, sometimes when proceeding step-by-step through a large refactor or a large feature addition, the codebase may be left temporarily in an incomplete state.
My preference under such circumstances is to favor clarity of commit history, and leave the step-by-step commits intact — with the requirement that they always be located in a feature branch behind a merge commit.
I mean, it does? If you rigidly turn every feature branch into a single commit, that means that also applies to feature branches that would be thoughtfully crafted into multiple clean commits. (Note: that is not the same as random fixup commits with code review iterations.)
> (...) then that truck of stolen graphics cards becomes much harder to move.
That sounds like a convoluted and impractical solution looking for a problem. Mobile service companies and hardware vendors managed to implement services that support activation and bricking without getting any crypto-related buzzword in the way.
> But it would cost too much of added gas fees(...)
If your goal was honestly to just buy art, why would "gas fees" matter? They only matter in a scenario involving wash trades and high rates of transactions involving small deltas in price.
Look, I'm not trying to defend NFTs here, but let's view this from an artist's perspective that wants to hop on the bandwagon:
you either pay around $70 to mint your NFT without caring about how and where your image is actually stored, or you pay $20,000 to upload your 500kb onto the blockchain (as the article mentions).
To me that assertion, albeit convenient to paint a rosy picture, doesn't make any sense. No one needs a convoluted technical scheme to support artists as donating cash is easy and effortless. Buying the rights to a work from an artist also does not require a convoluted technical scheme, and considering that NFTs haven't been used to enforce any right then that hypothesis is also highly dubious.
What NFTs offer is the ability to perform transactions, and ones which don't have any artist or provenance in consideration.
There is little spiritual or foolish in this. When you solve a problem in a creative way, be it a cool application of an algorithm, a feature, a product, a clever bug fix, a clever marketing campaign, new way to raise money, etc, you get rewarded.
> The most plausible conspiracy theories I've heard is that the big sales ($1 million plus) are wash trades, ("sell" an object to a confederate for 500 ETH, then they transfer the money right back via another route) and some classic money laundering
I'm not sure if the link between NFTs and money laundering can be downplayed as conspiracy theory. Even yesterday Reuters published a newspiece on NFTs being auctioned by the likes of Sotheby's, and where crypto-rich buyers pay NFT auctions with crypto, where a cryptocurrency lawyer was quoted as pointing out money laundering via cryptocurrencies was a "known fact."
Using NFT transactions to launder money isn't exactly a novel idea as the art world is dominated and driven by money laundering schemes. In fact, in Mexico the art market tanked 70% once the Mexican government passed legislation requiring more info from buyers, because it's believed Mexican cartel rings were behind these transactions.
> The people that make separate higher standards for crypto are ignorant about how the thing they respect works too.
Not really, it's actually the other way around. Whataboutism aside, crypto proponents somehow try to maintain a cognitive dissonance of how crypto is designed to be unregulated and out of government's reach and at the same time show a kneejerk reaction to any comment on how crypto is used to perform transactions not allowed by regulation controlled by governments such as securities fraud and money laundering.
> Now covid is less of a problem every day, and those things are coming back ... we have a huge demand shock.
I suspect that stimulus checks may have also played a role. Those who fall below the poverty line finally found themselves with a little disposable income to spend on basic everyday things, thus driving up demand. Stimulus check detractors prefer to spin this as inflation but you only get that with a generalized increase in demand for basic consumer goods and services.
My personal theory is that this effect is driven mainly by poor people finally getting a break. Those who were already well-off tend to either not change their consumer patterns with small changes in disposable income, or tend to spend it with one-off expenses such as luxury goods and services, or even dump it in risky investments like crypto as we've been seeing in the ongoing bull run.
> The above makes oil and gas more costly to extract and to ship, which raises the price.
I'm not sure if you're just expressing your personal concerns over what you believe can hypothetically happen, or whether you're grossly misinformed.
Meanwhile, even though gas prices are breaking records all over the world, in the US they are still below the prices from 2010, back in the days no one in the US was concerned about gas prices because they were 3 times higher a couple years back during Bush2's presidency.
> I'm not sure if you're just expressing your personal concerns over what you believe can hypothetically happen, or whether you're grossly misinformed.
So do you have an argument to make, or just a stream of ad hominem followed by smoke and mirrors?
You point out that oil and gas prices are high all over the world with a price gap between gas prices in the US and the rest of the world -- because gas is shipped overseas in LNG form and it's a separate market, thus there is generally a gap between world gas prices and domestic gas prices -- to address this we do things like build pipelines from cheap gas countries (like Canada) to other countries and we build more liquefaction plants. But you take this price gap as some sort of vindication of U.S. policy, that perhaps Biden is keeping gas prices low?
So let me spare you the trouble. The facts that Biden has restricted Oil and Gas drilling, cancelled one pipeline and is about to cancel another, and is trying to discourage oil investment by taking away the investment tax credits from this industry -- these increase gas prices, and gas prices have been increasing. Just not as much as in other parts of the world. That is true even if there is there is structural gas price gap vis-a-vis the rest of the world and even if prices are not at the level they were before the fracking revolution caused them to tumble and be truly affordable to many.
Please stop posting flamewar comments to HN and breaking the site guidelines. You've done it repeatedly lately, it's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for. That means we have to ban such accounts. I don't want to ban you, so if you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to posting in the intended spirit, we'd appreciate it.
I already did. You made an unsubstantiated claim, and I pointed out your personal assertion was wrong and baseless, and provided a time history of gas prices as evidence, including the fact that not so long ago they were over 3 times higher than the current market price.
If you have a problem with the facts feel free to point out what exactly leads you to believe that justifies the discrepancy between your personal beliefs and the facts.
>the fact that not so long ago they were over 3 times higher
They never were. You can check futures price data here: https://www.investing.com/commodities/natural-gas
On top of that you're probably talking about those spikes in 2005 and 2008, but they were short lived and spikes are natural for gas markets because of various circumstances (seasonality, pipeline situation, weather, how full are the reserves etc).
>not so long ago
It was 13 years ago! And now it's the highest price since. The reason for such a ridiculously low prices for so long was shale gas extraction. Now US is losing this and more. Because natural gas prices are so sensitive (and react quickly!) to various things - you better hope for warm winter with decisions like these...
Also comparing prices in US and in other countries is intellectually dishonest or you simply don't know how natural gas market works.
> (...) nationals get one of the highest tax rates in Europe[0] and foreigners get a tax haven!
Why is this bad? If foreigners don't move to Portugal then they contribute zero in taxes and to the economy. If the Portuguese government convinces people to move to Portugal with tax benefits, they will pay taxes and spend their income in the local economy.
It's great for Portuguese Treasury, Real Estate investors and the Hospitality Industry. But terrible for everyone else living in Portugal.
Foreign buyers have driven the housing market well above the purchasing power of locals, who still have one of the lowest salaries in Europe specially when adjusted to cost of living.
For perspective, Portuguese minimum wage is 600 euros with a mode at around 1k per month (pre-tax).
> It's great for Portuguese Treasury, Real Estate investors and the Hospitality Industry. But terrible for everyone else living in Portugal.
Why do you believe that? I mean, is no one working in the hospitality or constructions industry, and is no one benefiting from public spending?
> Foreign buyers have driven the housing market well above the purchasing power of locals, who still have one of the lowest salaries in Europe specially when adjusted to cost of living.
If there is foreign investment in real estate increasing supply and in the process creating jobs and tax revenue, and if there is an increase in demand for this specific market segment, isn't there a net benefit to society? And why do you assume that low-wage workers would be in the market for high-end housing in tourism centers if not for these foreign investors?
> For perspective, Portuguese minimum wage is 600 euros with a mode at around 1k per month (pre-tax).
A quick Google search points out that Portugal offers golden visas to real estate investors who spend more than €500k on a home[1]. That's hardly the same market segment being serving the demand of most citizens of western Europe. Why is this being spun as a "they're taking our jobs"-kind of propaganda?
Indeed, the main issue is the earnings stagnation that Portuguese have experienced following post-2008. For perspective, many of the EU members that were behind the iron curtain have already surpassed Portugal in terms of PPP.
This loss in buying power is further exacerbated by the assymetry in housing costs precipitated by 'short-stay accomodation' Tourism and foreign pensioners driving up gentrification.
The golden visa argument from OP is non-sense. Despite the media controversy in the EU regarding Portugal and Cyprus golden visas, in Portugal these visas accounted for less than 17k families that actually settled in Portugal.
> Else those remote works are just going to increase even more housing costs (both rent/real estate)
I'm not sure that's true. Remote work does not require workers to be at commute distance from anywhere, and it only requires them to have a reliable internet connection. Everyone I know who switched to remote work moved out of city centers and into places where both rent was lower and quality of life was higher.
What exactly leads you to believe that fleeing tech hubs and urban centers leads to higher rents?
>Everyone I know who switched to remote work moved out of city centers and into places where both rent was lower and quality of life was higher.
That's precisely my point, they're raising rent prices where rent was cheap - remember that construction isn't following growing demand, the supply of houses is the same.
>What exactly leads you to believe that fleeing tech hubs and urban centers leads to higher rents?
In the case of Portugal it's not tech hubs that are the cause for urban centers to have high rents, that's purely Tourism in our context. AirBnBs wiped a bunch of the supply, then pensioners and rich people that want to have houses in an European capital without paying London/Paris prices.
Hell for 500k they can buy an house and even get a EU passport after 5 years. Where else can you get this deal?
This is only the case if said squashing just bundles commits without context or consistent logic. If merges to a mainline branch consist of feature branches whose pull request was already approved after a couple of iterations then the end result is a cleaner commit with it's history thoroughly audited. In practice it's equivalent to a fast-forward merge of a single-commit feature branch that just happened to be nearly lined up with mainline.