At a high level of abstraction, here's how any blockchain works: Someone on the network proposes a block containing a list of recent transactions. Then other network participants verify that the block follows the network's rules. If a sufficient number of other network participants accept the block, it becomes the "official" next block in the chain. As long as most network participants are honest, users can have confidence that transactions accepted by a majority of the network won't be removed or modified later.

The big challenge for any blockchain project is preventing a malicious party from creating many sock puppet accounts to "stuff the ballot box," outvote the honest participants and thereby tamper with past transactions. Bitcoin's pseudonymous founder Satoshi Nakamoto's big insight—the one that made bitcoin possible—was that this problem could be solved using the principle of "one hash, one vote." On the bitcoin network, whoever has the most computing power—specifically, the capacity to compute SHA-256 hashes—has the most influence over which blocks get added to the blockchain. As long as honest miners have more hash power than malicious miners, users can be confident in the integrity of the blockchain—and hence in the integrity of payments made using the bitcoin network. (Check out our in-depth bitcoin explainer for details on how this works.)

When Vitalik Buterin launched Ethereum in 2015, he used a variant of Nakamoto's scheme. By that point, bitcoin mining was already dominated by specialized silicon optimized for computing huge numbers of SHA-256 hashes, locking ordinary bitcoiners out of the mining game. So Buterin developed a new mining algorithm designed to be "memory-hard"—and therefore difficult to accelerate with custom hardware. As a result, Ethereum mining is still largely performed using off-the-shelf graphics cards, allowing ordinary Ethereum users to participate. //

Buterin has long recognized the environmental downsides of proof-of-work mining. Several years ago, he announced plans to transition Ethereum to proof-of-stake, which has been pioneered by several lesser-known cryptocurrencies.

While proof-of-work mining operates on the principle of "one hash, one vote," proof-of-stake is based on "one coin, one vote." Anyone who wants to participate in Ethereum's validation process must post ether as collateral, a process known as "staking." The more ether someone stakes, the more influence they have over which blocks get added to the Ethereum blockchain.

Every 12 seconds, a pseudorandom number generator selects a subset of stakers to form a committee to decide on the next block. One of them is designated to propose the next block, while the rest, called validators, verify that the new block follows all the rules of the Ethereum network. For example, if the block contains a payment transaction, the validators check that the source address has the required funds, that the transaction has the correct digital signatures, and so forth. If two-thirds of validators approve a block, it becomes part of the official blockchain.

Validators that faithfully follow these rules earn additional ether as a reward for their efforts, with the size of their reward proportional to the ether they've staked. On the other hand, if a validator tries to cheat—for example, by validating two different, incompatible blocks for the same blockchain "slot"—they will face financial penalties. If another validator posts evidence of such a cheating attempt, some of the cheater's collateral will be destroyed ("slashed," in Ethereum jargon), and the whistleblower will get a reward.

It's probably a little early to be warning of extinction, but in some new cars, buttons are becoming hard to find. Given that a screen has to go into the dashboard anyway (thanks to things like backup camera requirements) and the fact that people increasingly won't consider a car without Android Auto or Apple CarPlay, touchscreens make life easier for automakers in terms of design and assembly.

It's just that they don't make life easier for drivers. Instead, we're treated to bad interfaces that don't create muscle memory but instead distract us while we should be driving. And now, Swedish car publication Vi Bilägare has the data to prove it.

VB tested 11 new cars alongside a 2005 Volvo C70, timing how long it took to perform a list of tasks in each car. These included turning on the seat heater, increasing the cabin temperature, turning on the defroster, adjusting the radio, resetting the trip computer, turning off the screen, and dimming the instruments.

The old Volvo was the clear winner. "The four tasks is handled within ten seconds flat, during which the car is driven 306 meters at 110 km/h [1,004 feet at 68 mph]," VB found. Most of the other cars required twice as long, or more, to complete the same tasks.

Despite insisting that national elections include mail-in voting, Starbucks is cracking down on its employees’ mail-in unionization efforts. //

The company’s latest hypocrisy is its request to the National Labor Relations Board for suspension of mail-in ballots for union votes. The coffee giant is concerned about the mishandling of ballots and potential collusion between NLRB and union organizers. In addition, it wants all elections to be held in person, with representatives from both the union and Starbucks corporate present, to ensure fairness in how votes are validated and tabulated.

These are all very reasonable expectations, and they’re very similar to positions conservative lawmakers hold on voter integrity in our political election process. They are also very similar to positions Starbucks publicly characterized as being an affront to the democratic process in an open letter last year, disparaging laws to protect voter integrity. //

The company’s concerns are, however, correct regarding union votes being corrupted. The accusations regarding collusion between the NLRB and the Starbucks Union are serious, and if the federally funded labor watchdog illegally provided union activists with vote tallies as the ballots came in, allowing union reps to target non-voting employees, it could cast doubt on the validity of many previously decided elections.

The accusations are based on the reports from a whistleblower within the NLRB itself, lending credence to the charges. In-person voting will cut down on the potential for fraud and this type of voter intimidation.

Kevin Duperret 2 years ago
America is moving towards the metric system, one inch at a time //

redbat1010 2 years ago
will not do it. Read Measuring America and it will explain to why it will never fully switch to metric. State DOT's have tried. and it always ends up back with the Survey foot. //

TheNewGreenIsBlue 4 days ago
@Adam Smith THIS! Few people actually get this. Metric beats imperial when converting between units, but in MOST day to day life, you don't care... even in the SAME vector. Do I REALLY need to know how many feet it is between New York and Washington? So... does it REALLY matter that there are n feet / mile? In Canada, highway exits put signs out as 1200m and 400m. In the US, they do ¾ mile and ¼ mile... and there may be a case for keeping the units the same for faster processing.

They're both JUST as understandable. //

Adam Smith 4 days ago
The thing is you almost never do any arithmetic in aviation where the units would matter. Thus it does not matter what units you use. You just know that your flight level is X or Y units, no matter. Also the different units may be safer because they also imply what is being measured or indicated. And the change over to metric would surely cause a lot of accidents before it would be through. So safety first.

Citizens United filed two lawsuits this week against the Department of Interior and Department of State for failing to comply with Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) records requests regarding the White House’s attempt to federalize elections.

The nonprofit submitted FOIA requests in June, but both agencies failed to respond (federal law requires FOIA requests to be responded to within 20 working days). The requests sought email and text messages from both agencies that mentioned President Biden’s Promoting Access to Voting executive order and the Hatch Act, a law that prohibits executive branch employees from engaging in election activities. //

As previously reported by The Federalist, Biden’s executive order directs all 600 federal agencies to become voter registration agencies and organize voter outreach efforts. It allows such agencies — including ones that dole out federal benefits —to work with leftwing get-out-the-vote groups.

“Many people in their 20s and 30s see matrimony as something one does once life has reached stability,” the magazine noted. “But Bieber, who wed at 21, sees it as only the beginning: You don’t figure things out and get married but rather get married and figure things out.” //

But there’s another part of the point that Bieber at least appears to be espousing. It’s not just a lackadaisical “figuring it out as you go” approach that doesn’t take marriage seriously, but rather one of taking marriage so seriously that every other life circumstance to be figured out is secondary. //

In the Harper’s feature, Tashjian is right that many in Bieber’s (and my own) generation see marriage as an afterthought to “getting your life together,” the joining of two successful, finished, polished people who have already “found themselves” and therefore do not need each other but simply find the partnership pleasant, convenient — and often dispensable.