The rise in price doesn't mean that more people are using it. The list of buisinesses accepting it is, at a quick skim, a list of places I wouldn't want to do any buisines with. EFF was a big name that accepted bitcoins, and they've since stopped, that's specifically what I was thinking when I said "seem to be losing ground."
I suspect you are the one who doesn't get it. Government makes demands. If those demands aren't met, aren't countered through an internal process (like voting the pols who made those demands out), or if those demands aren't bluffs, there's an escalation. Eventually, force will be used.
There are people to regulate. The government will identify them if the politicians, lobbyists, and special interests are determined enough. I'm not sure if they are. How many transactions over $10,000 in value are being done with bitcoins (the minimum for these rules applying)? I didn't read TFA too closely, but I couldn't see any estimates.
Many slashdotters may disagree that the government isn't serious about stopping bitcoin use, but hear me out. Banks and law enforcement may have made statements "worrying" about it, but that doesn't mean they see it as a real threat due to how few people use bitcoins. Bitcoin proponents love to think that what they're doing will be a revolution, but bitcoins seem to be losing ground (if they had any to begin with.) I can't imagine banks or law enforcement spending much capital on a problem that is solving itself. The "I want taxes" bureaucrats aren't likely to pursue it either for the same reasons. They don't, after all, usually audit teenage babysitters for tax evasion. And I'd wager babysitting is a more lucrative economy than anything happening on bitcoin.
Anyway, the target here probably isn't bitcoins, it's probably the other alternative currency mentioned in the article: corporations with virtual currency. Amazon coins. There's obviously someone to regulate there.
Forget about bitcoins. They're not the story here despite the headline. Amazon or various other entities attempting to avoid sales taxes IS.
I realize I thought the same thing about smartphones, then tablets. "I have a computer and a flip phone that makes calls. What do I want with a portable computer with no mouse?" My reaction just a few seconds ago was "What do I need a smartwatch for? I have a smartphone that tells me the time!"
I think the bigger point is "why are they selling it so expensive in australia?" That you could fly to the US and back to purchase it and still save money only illustrates how idiotic the pricing is, it's not actually what anyone would ever do.
It doesn't really, but funding does. I hear whining here about politicians passing laws on the internet and computers when they clearly don't understand it, the same is problematic for science. I've heard suggestions that the cancelled superconducting super collider would have been completed had the US government not insisted on funding it exclusively to spite the Soviets. That was in a museum of scientific instruments in France though, so that may have been slightly anti-american. I dunno, I was one at the time it was started and ten at the time it was killed.
Either way, politicians always have and probably always will use science to their own ends without regard for actual progress, and it's harder to claim ownership of something you don't own if someone else has contributed equally to it.
Some candidates mentioned include Yahoo, IBM, Red Hat, Mozilla, Microsoft and The Wikimedia Foundation, among others
It was clearly over four minutes before you posted. Pretty much everyone here would scoff at MS.
What's left is pointless discussions of opinion about "Oh, I think THIS large multinational corporation which is utterly devoid of any conscience, as they all are, is lately acting better than this OTHER one, so we should root for them instead."
We may as well skip right to godwining. (Insert the name of the company you think is evil) is basically (insert inappropriate historical bad guy here).
You make a very good point about abortion, that definitely would have been a much stronger of it happening to the right than the tea-party.
Financial conservatism on the other hand, there are straw men against it, but that hasn't hampered it in the least. I'm saying the left seems paralyzed by them, while the right shakes them off, not that people don't make straw men against everything they oppose.
If this is the government paying to push its propaganda, and the rebels (terrorists if you sympathize with the government) don't, then that's not equalizing. That's yet another media form being dominated by money and power, and smaller voices drowned out.
It's strange how so many liberal movements get marginalized by such straw-man tactics, but conservative movements don't. Feminism, global warming, PC speech, socialism, environmentalism, the occupy movement. All become dirty words to what seems like most of the country. Yet the tea-party movement being labeled as racist is about the only similar effect I can think of going the other way, and that had limited traction.
I wonder why that is. I'm tempted to chalk it up to a Bertrand Russel quote: "The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." But that would probably be hypocritical.
I still hate you guys for those obnoxious Sunflower Dodge commercials in the 80's and 90's. Now I have another reason to hate you. (I don't live in KC anymore).
Framed differently: The democrat knew the republican was up to no good, but went along with it due to cowardice, stupidity, or because he actually wanted the same thing. You say that's surprising?
And why does it take so long for the carriers to sign off on them anyway? How long does it take to make sure people on stock roms won't be able to tether for free?
Is there a company out there that charges you reasonable prices for repair on consumer electronics? Not to excuse samsung, just saying if I swore off all brands that tried to keep you tossing out slightly broken electronics, I feel like I'd have to go Amish.
I use onenote for my lab notebook and to keep ideas in. I back it up to the cloud. At conferences before, I've wanted to access those notes without my computer and have been able to. Plus, I can't be bothered to keep my backups up to date every time I enter something new, automatic backup is good. That way if my computer gets eaten by a mutant frog embryo, I'll still have all my notes. Or rather, the survivors will and will be able to figure out what went wrong.
I think people have different definitions of "innovate." I think this was covered on slashdot within the last few weeks... anyway, I think glass might meet my definition of innovative. For a tech company anyway. Different yardstick for those entities which must make a profit off of what new things they make.
"Apple would like to announce that we are spending all of our money developing graphene nanobot buttplugs which will cure cancer and turn terrorists into gasoline. (snicker)"
Indeed. Bush et al won the war to go to war with soundbites, because no one was paying attention for more than a few words. To suggest that a soundbite machine would have beaten them at the game is absurd.
TFA, which has the same headline, ends by mentioning that people point them at pilots in planes taking off or landing. So way to make a misleading headline, networkworld. Not getting the traffic you want?
Would it be possible today to build a spacecraft capable of exiting the solar system with enough fuel to send back information from outside the oort cloud? The 14,000 years, could we build a nuclear reactor with enough fuel to be working at that point? Alternatively, would it be possible to slingshot a spacecraft around planets until it was going fast enough that it would exit the cloud in a timeframe that was within the limits of our ability to power it?
I realize it would still take way beyond my lifetime and would cost more than anyone would be willing to spend on science that won't pay off for thousands of years, just curious.
I have regrets about mean stuff I did as a young man, but I'm glad I can say I never did anything like erase someone's photos of their daughter being born or get SWAT called on someone else. Not because I wasn't a spoiled, spiteful little chode would have done something like that, simply because I was too impatient and stupid to figure out how to cause much trouble online. I guess that's something.
The scary part is I don't know what my parents could have done to prevent that. I have no idea how to keep my son from doing stupid shit like this.
Slashdot Mirror
The rise in price doesn't mean that more people are using it. The list of buisinesses accepting it is, at a quick skim, a list of places I wouldn't want to do any buisines with. EFF was a big name that accepted bitcoins, and they've since stopped, that's specifically what I was thinking when I said "seem to be losing ground."
It was an offhand comment.
I suspect you are the one who doesn't get it. Government makes demands. If those demands aren't met, aren't countered through an internal process (like voting the pols who made those demands out), or if those demands aren't bluffs, there's an escalation. Eventually, force will be used.
There are people to regulate. The government will identify them if the politicians, lobbyists, and special interests are determined enough. I'm not sure if they are. How many transactions over $10,000 in value are being done with bitcoins (the minimum for these rules applying)? I didn't read TFA too closely, but I couldn't see any estimates.
Many slashdotters may disagree that the government isn't serious about stopping bitcoin use, but hear me out. Banks and law enforcement may have made statements "worrying" about it, but that doesn't mean they see it as a real threat due to how few people use bitcoins. Bitcoin proponents love to think that what they're doing will be a revolution, but bitcoins seem to be losing ground (if they had any to begin with.) I can't imagine banks or law enforcement spending much capital on a problem that is solving itself. The "I want taxes" bureaucrats aren't likely to pursue it either for the same reasons. They don't, after all, usually audit teenage babysitters for tax evasion. And I'd wager babysitting is a more lucrative economy than anything happening on bitcoin.
Anyway, the target here probably isn't bitcoins, it's probably the other alternative currency mentioned in the article: corporations with virtual currency. Amazon coins. There's obviously someone to regulate there.
Forget about bitcoins. They're not the story here despite the headline. Amazon or various other entities attempting to avoid sales taxes IS.
I realize I thought the same thing about smartphones, then tablets. "I have a computer and a flip phone that makes calls. What do I want with a portable computer with no mouse?" My reaction just a few seconds ago was "What do I need a smartwatch for? I have a smartphone that tells me the time!"
Sigh. Time to raid the kid's college fund again.
I think the bigger point is "why are they selling it so expensive in australia?" That you could fly to the US and back to purchase it and still save money only illustrates how idiotic the pricing is, it's not actually what anyone would ever do.
I was always confused why chrome wasn't the default preinstalled browser on android. Google developed the same thing twice?
It doesn't really, but funding does. I hear whining here about politicians passing laws on the internet and computers when they clearly don't understand it, the same is problematic for science. I've heard suggestions that the cancelled superconducting super collider would have been completed had the US government not insisted on funding it exclusively to spite the Soviets. That was in a museum of scientific instruments in France though, so that may have been slightly anti-american. I dunno, I was one at the time it was started and ten at the time it was killed.
Either way, politicians always have and probably always will use science to their own ends without regard for actual progress, and it's harder to claim ownership of something you don't own if someone else has contributed equally to it.
This post was up seven minutes before AC trolls had eight off-topic posts on it.
Someone is certainly working very hard to steer the conversation off track whenever google is the topic. I guess everyone has to have hobbies.
I was trying not to be stupid. Why, am I supposed to pretend that I'm one or the other and have no control over it?
Some candidates mentioned include Yahoo, IBM, Red Hat, Mozilla, Microsoft and The Wikimedia Foundation, among others
It was clearly over four minutes before you posted. Pretty much everyone here would scoff at MS.
What's left is pointless discussions of opinion about "Oh, I think THIS large multinational corporation which is utterly devoid of any conscience, as they all are, is lately acting better than this OTHER one, so we should root for them instead."
We may as well skip right to godwining. (Insert the name of the company you think is evil) is basically (insert inappropriate historical bad guy here).
You make a very good point about abortion, that definitely would have been a much stronger of it happening to the right than the tea-party.
Financial conservatism on the other hand, there are straw men against it, but that hasn't hampered it in the least. I'm saying the left seems paralyzed by them, while the right shakes them off, not that people don't make straw men against everything they oppose.
If this is the government paying to push its propaganda, and the rebels (terrorists if you sympathize with the government) don't, then that's not equalizing. That's yet another media form being dominated by money and power, and smaller voices drowned out.
I meant Humphrey.
It's strange how so many liberal movements get marginalized by such straw-man tactics, but conservative movements don't. Feminism, global warming, PC speech, socialism, environmentalism, the occupy movement. All become dirty words to what seems like most of the country. Yet the tea-party movement being labeled as racist is about the only similar effect I can think of going the other way, and that had limited traction.
I wonder why that is. I'm tempted to chalk it up to a Bertrand Russel quote: "The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." But that would probably be hypocritical.
I still hate you guys for those obnoxious Sunflower Dodge commercials in the 80's and 90's. Now I have another reason to hate you. (I don't live in KC anymore).
Framed differently: The democrat knew the republican was up to no good, but went along with it due to cowardice, stupidity, or because he actually wanted the same thing. You say that's surprising?
And why does it take so long for the carriers to sign off on them anyway? How long does it take to make sure people on stock roms won't be able to tether for free?
Is there a company out there that charges you reasonable prices for repair on consumer electronics? Not to excuse samsung, just saying if I swore off all brands that tried to keep you tossing out slightly broken electronics, I feel like I'd have to go Amish.
I use onenote for my lab notebook and to keep ideas in. I back it up to the cloud. At conferences before, I've wanted to access those notes without my computer and have been able to. Plus, I can't be bothered to keep my backups up to date every time I enter something new, automatic backup is good. That way if my computer gets eaten by a mutant frog embryo, I'll still have all my notes. Or rather, the survivors will and will be able to figure out what went wrong.
I think people have different definitions of "innovate." I think this was covered on slashdot within the last few weeks... anyway, I think glass might meet my definition of innovative. For a tech company anyway. Different yardstick for those entities which must make a profit off of what new things they make.
"Apple would like to announce that we are spending all of our money developing graphene nanobot buttplugs which will cure cancer and turn terrorists into gasoline. (snicker)"
Indeed. Bush et al won the war to go to war with soundbites, because no one was paying attention for more than a few words. To suggest that a soundbite machine would have beaten them at the game is absurd.
So, you're the only voice I see calling for them to be banned, and then you turn around and call the government an idiot, for banning things?
Was that trolling or an honest knee jerk reaction?
TFA, which has the same headline, ends by mentioning that people point them at pilots in planes taking off or landing. So way to make a misleading headline, networkworld. Not getting the traffic you want?
Would it be possible today to build a spacecraft capable of exiting the solar system with enough fuel to send back information from outside the oort cloud? The 14,000 years, could we build a nuclear reactor with enough fuel to be working at that point? Alternatively, would it be possible to slingshot a spacecraft around planets until it was going fast enough that it would exit the cloud in a timeframe that was within the limits of our ability to power it?
I realize it would still take way beyond my lifetime and would cost more than anyone would be willing to spend on science that won't pay off for thousands of years, just curious.
I have regrets about mean stuff I did as a young man, but I'm glad I can say I never did anything like erase someone's photos of their daughter being born or get SWAT called on someone else. Not because I wasn't a spoiled, spiteful little chode would have done something like that, simply because I was too impatient and stupid to figure out how to cause much trouble online. I guess that's something.
The scary part is I don't know what my parents could have done to prevent that. I have no idea how to keep my son from doing stupid shit like this.