I should have stated that cell phone jamming is illegal without a permit. I am pretty sure you can apply to the FCC to do it. I doubt they'd give just anyone a permit though.
If you have an indoor business, there is absolutely no reason to "jam" signals. You can block and ground them instead with a Faraday cage. Just make sure your walls and ceilings are lined with chickenwire (should work fine for cell phone frequencies), and make sure it is all grounded. Voila. Cell phone no worky.
There is a very big difference between BLOCKING cell phone signals and jamming them. Blocking is legal. Jamming is not.
Passive reflection and "screening", as you put it, are not even close to the same as "jamming". They're just not the same things. Jamming is something you pretty much have to do actively and on purpose.
"Instead of "passively blocking", I think you mean "shielding". As in a " Faraday cage". This doesn't hamper signals outside of the structure."
It's mostly due to bad reflections, interference, and simple attenuation. Unless a building is entirely steel clad, modern buildings make terrible Faraday cages.
Even with steel studs at 18" centers, that's more than 3 times the wavelength of 2GHz signals. Aside from studs, beams and girders and the like, even in a building with a lot of them, are nowhere near close enough to make a Faraday cage at those wavelengths.
(I should have added: redundancy would probably require that the possessors of each "part" of the key were ignorant of who held the other parts. But then, key splitting might require that too.)
"Although basing a discussion on news articles is like basing the housing bubble on house flipping shows."
Sure, there are winners in most markets. But at what cost? Some people will get screwed. But then that's how money markets tend to work.
But my argument still boils down to a simple concept: as long as the price is far above the cost of mining, we have an irrational "bubble". Just as if house prices were far above any intrinsic value. With Bitcoin we do have a sound mechanism to find that value. At least approximately.
"These watches better hold a charge for a year or longer."
All the "smart watch" proposals I have seen so far have required charging no less often than every 2 or 3 days. I consider that to be a very serious, make-or-break flaw in the concept.
"MOST usually means >50%, and I can assure you that most people don't wear watches today."
And I can assure you that is not the case where I live. Certainly this is only anecdotal, but there was a recent period in which I my only transportation was by bus, and my watch band broke. I repeatedly forgot to take my watch with me, and wasn't using a smartphone. I noticed how many people had watches because I had to ask for the time in public places, in order to catch the bus. And it was WAY over half.
"Maybe in the US, or other highly developed countries, but not 50% of all people, and definitely not today."
I'll grant that. I was referring to where I live, in the U.S.
"If daily global demand for bitcoins is more than the fraction of new coins sold, a price above the cost of mining is inevitable."
Basic economic principles say that this is a given, and I did not claim otherwise. The only question is HOW MUCH higher than the cost of manufacture and distribution a commodity will sell for.
And historically, that has usually been a low percentage. So yes, I maintain that a $250 (or even $150) price for Bitcoins that only cost around $30 to make is an unbalanced market.
"That doesn't mean there isn't a bubble right now, but it's pretty clear the "proper" price of a bitcoin is determined by more than just the cost of mining."
Above, yes. As I stated before. That is a no-brainer. But not 5 or 6 or 8 times higher than cost. Repeat: if that remained the case for any length of time, people would pounce on Bitcoin mining, and the price will drop.
So yes, it is a bubble. The market price is far about their "worth". It is bound to equalize, if the market is rational.
"I agree completely with parent. There is a difference between passing an inheritance to your children and providing access. I can leave the keys to my house to my children, but that doesn't mean the legal possession of the house will pass to them. Very different concepts."
The whole question here was not about ownership, but about access. Ownership is simple: leave your hard drive to an heir. Access is something completely different.
"The key is split (look up PKI key splitting) into 5 parts."
This is completely unnecessary, if you want to make sure all 5 parts are present before anybody can access the data. All you have to do is use standard encryption 5 times, and give each person 1 of the keys. (And of course specify the order.) But that way you can use standard encryption without any fancy "split keying".
"That's the only case, though, in that it's the big liberal-wing failure that's always trotted out to counter dozens of cases where the conservative wing has let the country down."
Not to pick on you particularly, but this whole argument makes me sick.
The TRUTH is that BOTH sides have been letting The People down for decades. Any other viewpoint is fantasyland.
"Isn't there a mechanism for adjusting the difficulty of mining depending on how much mining is done? Wouldn't that mean that the difficulty will go up if the price does, so that they will match?"
Yes, that is one of the things that would serve to bring the cost up to market place. While more miners will also bring the price down to the cost. (Actually, it's not "adjusted" per se. It's built in to the math. The more Bitcoins that are mined, the more difficult they become to mine.)
But my main point was that the market right now is very, very far from that equilibrium. It's completely irrational.
So, I would have had about $400. But there are different versions of Core 2 Duo, also. Mine was in a laptop. I also (now) have a desktop machine with a Core 2 Duo that outwardly has the same characteristics (actually a slightly slower clock), but it outperforms my laptop easily.
Repeat: it took me (with my LAPTOP Core 2 Duo) somewhere close to 2 total days to make 2+ Bitcoins (2 plus a fraction).
Wow. Talk about Slashdot errors. It told me the first version of this post didn't post. Hence the second one. I think in all these years this is the first time it's done that to me.
"Quit tuning into Fox news. It rots your brain. Read between the lines."
Do you have these WHOOSH moments all the time? Or just over this subject?
I don't HAVE to read between the lines. What, you're going to base your argument on a rumor about a possible alliance between NASA and a corporation? Big deal.
Repeat: I was talking about CURRENT OFFICIAL POLICY. I don't give the slightest damn whether you think it will change in the future. I wish it would. But I was referring to official policy, RIGHT NOW.
And I repeat again: the OFFICIAL administration policy right now. I remind you that the administration (Congress and the President) are who determine NASA's budget. And as of right now, they have publicly declared that we DO NOT have any plans to go to the moon.
I am fully aware that NASA wants to. And I am behind them in that effort. But I was clearly referring to OUR GOVERNMENT and their short-sided policies, not what NASA "wants" to do.
And you can take your smart-assed comments about "neocons" (which is hilariously different from my actual political views) and "fox news", and shove them right back up your ass where they came from.
Slashdot Mirror
I should have stated that cell phone jamming is illegal without a permit. I am pretty sure you can apply to the FCC to do it. I doubt they'd give just anyone a permit though.
"I think cell phone jamming should be legal."
If you have an indoor business, there is absolutely no reason to "jam" signals. You can block and ground them instead with a Faraday cage. Just make sure your walls and ceilings are lined with chickenwire (should work fine for cell phone frequencies), and make sure it is all grounded. Voila. Cell phone no worky.
There is a very big difference between BLOCKING cell phone signals and jamming them. Blocking is legal. Jamming is not.
Passive reflection and "screening", as you put it, are not even close to the same as "jamming". They're just not the same things. Jamming is something you pretty much have to do actively and on purpose.
"Instead of "passively blocking", I think you mean "shielding". As in a " Faraday cage". This doesn't hamper signals outside of the structure."
It's mostly due to bad reflections, interference, and simple attenuation. Unless a building is entirely steel clad, modern buildings make terrible Faraday cages.
Even with steel studs at 18" centers, that's more than 3 times the wavelength of 2GHz signals. Aside from studs, beams and girders and the like, even in a building with a lot of them, are nowhere near close enough to make a Faraday cage at those wavelengths.
"Ah, so that's why I can never figure out where all my money goes!"
Yep. That's why they jam the cell phones. Makes the steal that much easier.
(I should have added: redundancy would probably require that the possessors of each "part" of the key were ignorant of who held the other parts. But then, key splitting might require that too.)
There are other possible schemes, though, too. For example, rather than key splitting you might opt for redundancy.
"Although basing a discussion on news articles is like basing the housing bubble on house flipping shows."
Sure, there are winners in most markets. But at what cost? Some people will get screwed. But then that's how money markets tend to work.
But my argument still boils down to a simple concept: as long as the price is far above the cost of mining, we have an irrational "bubble". Just as if house prices were far above any intrinsic value. With Bitcoin we do have a sound mechanism to find that value. At least approximately.
"Well, if you read on you'd see that only four of those parts are needed to reconstruct the key."
That's why I wrote "... if you want to make sure all 5 parts are present before anybody can access the data."
But if you only want X keys out of a total of Y, and X is less than Y, I don't know of a good way to do that other than that sort of key splitting.
Interesting problem though. I will give it some thought.
"These watches better hold a charge for a year or longer."
All the "smart watch" proposals I have seen so far have required charging no less often than every 2 or 3 days. I consider that to be a very serious, make-or-break flaw in the concept.
"MOST usually means >50%, and I can assure you that most people don't wear watches today."
And I can assure you that is not the case where I live. Certainly this is only anecdotal, but there was a recent period in which I my only transportation was by bus, and my watch band broke. I repeatedly forgot to take my watch with me, and wasn't using a smartphone. I noticed how many people had watches because I had to ask for the time in public places, in order to catch the bus. And it was WAY over half.
"Maybe in the US, or other highly developed countries, but not 50% of all people, and definitely not today."
I'll grant that. I was referring to where I live, in the U.S.
s/"far about"/"far above"
"It was the speculators."
It didn't need fixing. All speculators are investors, by definition.
If you insist on being more specific, fine. But I wasn't wrong.
"If daily global demand for bitcoins is more than the fraction of new coins sold, a price above the cost of mining is inevitable."
Basic economic principles say that this is a given, and I did not claim otherwise. The only question is HOW MUCH higher than the cost of manufacture and distribution a commodity will sell for.
And historically, that has usually been a low percentage. So yes, I maintain that a $250 (or even $150) price for Bitcoins that only cost around $30 to make is an unbalanced market.
"That doesn't mean there isn't a bubble right now, but it's pretty clear the "proper" price of a bitcoin is determined by more than just the cost of mining."
Above, yes. As I stated before. That is a no-brainer. But not 5 or 6 or 8 times higher than cost. Repeat: if that remained the case for any length of time, people would pounce on Bitcoin mining, and the price will drop.
So yes, it is a bubble. The market price is far about their "worth". It is bound to equalize, if the market is rational.
"It's no more irrational than the price of Crude Oil, or Comic Books..."
Yes, it is, because those commodities do not have built-in value standards.
But I've had this argument before, and I don't want to spend hours again trying to explain that to someone who doesn't understand it.
"I agree completely with parent. There is a difference between passing an inheritance to your children and providing access. I can leave the keys to my house to my children, but that doesn't mean the legal possession of the house will pass to them. Very different concepts."
The whole question here was not about ownership, but about access. Ownership is simple: leave your hard drive to an heir. Access is something completely different.
"If your worried, just back them up on CD/DVD and call it a day."
I was going to suggest something similar. If it's not "sensitive" data, just back it up. Hell, even if it is, just back it up.
Using databases and other things that require a particular version of some software is an overly complicated and rather fragile way to do things.
"The key is split (look up PKI key splitting) into 5 parts."
This is completely unnecessary, if you want to make sure all 5 parts are present before anybody can access the data. All you have to do is use standard encryption 5 times, and give each person 1 of the keys. (And of course specify the order.) But that way you can use standard encryption without any fancy "split keying".
"That's the only case, though, in that it's the big liberal-wing failure that's always trotted out to counter dozens of cases where the conservative wing has let the country down."
Not to pick on you particularly, but this whole argument makes me sick.
The TRUTH is that BOTH sides have been letting The People down for decades. Any other viewpoint is fantasyland.
Yes, I agree. That is what I was getting at, though I didn't put it in those words.
s/"market place"/"market price"
"Isn't there a mechanism for adjusting the difficulty of mining depending on how much mining is done? Wouldn't that mean that the difficulty will go up if the price does, so that they will match?"
Yes, that is one of the things that would serve to bring the cost up to market place. While more miners will also bring the price down to the cost. (Actually, it's not "adjusted" per se. It's built in to the math. The more Bitcoins that are mined, the more difficult they become to mine.)
But my main point was that the market right now is very, very far from that equilibrium. It's completely irrational.
So, I would have had about $400. But there are different versions of Core 2 Duo, also. Mine was in a laptop. I also (now) have a desktop machine with a Core 2 Duo that outwardly has the same characteristics (actually a slightly slower clock), but it outperforms my laptop easily.
Repeat: it took me (with my LAPTOP Core 2 Duo) somewhere close to 2 total days to make 2+ Bitcoins (2 plus a fraction).
Wow. Talk about Slashdot errors. It told me the first version of this post didn't post. Hence the second one. I think in all these years this is the first time it's done that to me.
"Quit tuning into Fox news. It rots your brain. Read between the lines."
Do you have these WHOOSH moments all the time? Or just over this subject?
I don't HAVE to read between the lines. What, you're going to base your argument on a rumor about a possible alliance between NASA and a corporation? Big deal.
Repeat: I was talking about CURRENT OFFICIAL POLICY. I don't give the slightest damn whether you think it will change in the future. I wish it would. But I was referring to official policy, RIGHT NOW.
And I repeat again: the OFFICIAL administration policy right now. I remind you that the administration (Congress and the President) are who determine NASA's budget. And as of right now, they have publicly declared that we DO NOT have any plans to go to the moon.
I am fully aware that NASA wants to. And I am behind them in that effort. But I was clearly referring to OUR GOVERNMENT and their short-sided policies, not what NASA "wants" to do.
And you can take your smart-assed comments about "neocons" (which is hilariously different from my actual political views) and "fox news", and shove them right back up your ass where they came from.