Situation: You run a website and want users to have to do some amount of work in order to activate a function in your code. The "function" can be anything: creating an account, receiving some kind of in-game token/reward, dispensing coins from a faucet, whatever. Captchas are becoming increasingly both increasingly complex and increasingly useless against spam attacks. Various "proof of personhood" options are available (SMS verification etc) but come with downsides as well.

An obvious alternative to captchas is some kind of "proof work" scheme where the user has to run a certain number of hash calculations. This is cheap for individual users but expensive for spammers to spam, and could even net you a little crypto if you wanted it to. This, for example, is the approach used by Tor's anonymity network help prevent DDoS attacks. This is fine, but it serves no other purpose and uses lots of of energy. Though in Tor's implementation, it is only occasionally used as opposed to being used for every request.

My script is a "proof of useful work" captcha alternative. The user must download and process a chosen amount of workunits from a chosen BOINC project(s). This work is "useful" because it contributes to scientific research. BOINC is a software for distributed/volunteer computing and its used by scientists all over the world including the Large Hadron Collider (CERN) to offload expensive computation to the machines of volunteers. My script downloads stats from the BOINC projects and verifies the user has completed the work. If the user is a pre-existing BOINC user, they will already have sufficient credit to instantly activate the function on the site.

The default setup for this software is as a "crypto faucet", but you can plug-in any function you want: anti-spam, user registration, whatever. It calculates a cost for the "work" and makes sure it dispenses less than the cost, making sure no user has incentive to use the faucet more than a few times since it would cheaper for the user to just do the work on their own without the faucet acting as a middleman.

Downside of this tool is that the user may take some time to accumulate the credit (unless they are an existing BOINC user with credit) and the BOINC projects only report updated credit once every 24 hours (though if you ran your own BOINC project for this purpose, you could get this time down much lower). So while this can be good for longer-term tasks (such as giving an in-game reward to users who contribute to science), it is not quick. They also have to download and run BOINC (and change their username at a BOINC project), which is a big step compared to a captcha. In an ideal world, the BOINC work could be completed in the browser instead of by downloading BOINC, I believe folding at home had a client that could do this at one point.

Anyways, I think it's an interesting idea. Maybe you do too and can use it to your advantage somehow.

There's a lot of talk about inflation and its causes. Is it corporate greed? Supply chain issues? One clear base cause of inflation less talked about is having an inflationary currency supply. Any other inflation caused by supply chain issues, corporate greed, lack of market competition, etc is just added on top of that. Fiat inflationary currency is a rather new invention in terms of the human timeline. In the US, Nixon is the start of it. Central banks aim for 2-3% inflation in "good years". The money supply expands, the portion of that supply a single dollar represents, and therefore its value, decreases. This isn't a conspiracy, it's government policy, and both parties gleefully support it because it benefits their rich donors.

Think of it: in the last 50 years, everything has gotten cheaper to produce thanks to increasing mechanization, outsourcing to cheap labor/low regulation countries, and extremely efficient supply chains. Yet so many things "cost more" than they did 50 years ago. Even basics like bread. What used to be 5c in the US in the 50s now costs $5.00. How is that the case? Shouldn't it cost less? Where is that "extra efficiency" going if not to lower prices? The answer: bread is the same value it's always been, the money has gotten less valuable. This is how they keep working class people running on a treadmill, never able to achieve economic mobility.

Inflationary currency devalues the currency you worked hard to earn by increasing the supply. It hits the middle class the worst because they have more of their net wealth in cash, often in the form of emergency funds, savings, and putting together enough money for a down payment on a home. Rich people have their money in assets which aren't harmed by currency inflation. Actually, even worse, it inflates the value of those assets! If the dollar loses value (all other things being equal), it takes more dollar to buy a share in Amazon, just like it takes more dollars to buy a loaf of bread. Poor people live hand to mouth, so their net wealth is not impacted much, but inflationary currency prevents them from saving and "moving up". If you want to identify the causes of increasing wealth disparity, the inability of people to save money and theft of value from the middle class via money supply expansion is a major one.

Most of these transactions took a few minutes and around $1 in fees. Bitcoin lightning is pennies in fees, but the account shown is on main chain. There are over 19,000 individual donations.

• If you know somebody who wants to contribute to Ukraine but doesn't want to deal with the hassle, cost, or availability of international bank wires, this is a great way.
• It will go directly to the Govt of Ukraine instead of being filtered through a NGO or other party.
• Unlike aid from governments/NGOs this money comes with no restrictions on how Ukraine can spend it.
• Most major cities have several Bitcoin ATMs and in many countries you can buy Bitcoin online easily. This means you can have a bake sale or other fundraiser, turn that money into Bitcoin, and send it to Ukraine directly.

Transaction list: https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/addresses/btc/357a3So9CbsNfBBgFYACGvxxS6tMaDoa1P

Proof this address (357a3So9CbsNfBBgFYACGvxxS6tMaDoa1P) is really owned by the Ukraine govt: https://twitter.com/Ukraine/status/1497594592438497282

This is a thing with every dishwasher I've had, some models seem better than other. You wash the dishes and when they dry, they have a musty odor I can only describe as "wet dog". Other people often don't seem to notice this, so maybe I am just sensitive to it. Though if I point it out, then they smell it.

I have tried:

• Cleaning every nook and cranny of the dishwasher and filter
• Running with orange kool-aid/citric acid/lemishine in dispenser after each wash (works decently well)
• Running a rinse w white vinegar after each cycle (this works the best so far)
• Making sure dishes air dry instead of dry inside the dishwasher (always do this, helps a bit)

In all instances where this happens, the dishes are clean and don't have food stuck to them or floating around in the water.

Has anybody else fought this problem? What worked for you?

I work with a FOSS project that needs better documentation. We have some written stuff but want to add video guides and some more written stuff as well. There's also some desire to re-organize our existing documentation using some system like ReadTheDocs etc. Our devs are good devs, not good documentarians. We have money.

I know we could just go on upwork and find somebody to make this, but I'm curious if there's a company or organization out there that specializes in making documentation for FOSS projects? One we could pay to have this done?

Edit: Not going to name the FOSS project, don't want this post to look promotional. I am just trying to see if the service we're looking for exists.

Most of these transactions took a few minutes and around $1 in fees. Bitcoin lightning is pennies in fees, but the account shown is on main chain. There are over 19,000 individual donations.

• If you know somebody who wants to contribute to Ukraine but doesn't want to deal with the hassle, cost, or availability of international bank wires, this is a great way.
• It will go directly to the Govt of Ukraine instead of being filtered through a NGO or other party.
• Unlike aid from governments/NGOs this money comes with no restrictions on how Ukraine can spend it.
• Most major cities have several Bitcoin ATMs and in many countries you can buy Bitcoin online easily. This means you can have a bake sale or other fundraiser, turn that money into Bitcoin, and send it to Ukraine directly.

Transaction list: https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/addresses/btc/357a3So9CbsNfBBgFYACGvxxS6tMaDoa1P

Proof this address (357a3So9CbsNfBBgFYACGvxxS6tMaDoa1P) is really owned by the Ukraine govt: https://twitter.com/Ukraine/status/1497594592438497282