Yes. In effect the market grows because it's ultimately fed by energy from the sun. A tradable company can make a pile of valuable timber out of an acorn, some nutrients, some water and some sunshine, and hence its value increases.
Free chocolates for everyone: Please send me 1 chocolate and then send this letter to 5 friends. Everyone gets 5 chocolates just for buying one. Amazing!
Of course if participants take part more than once, and everyone always accepts the deal and honours it, then it could loop around forever, and on average everyone would break even.
US dollars, (which before you argue the point, you can pay taxes with it, you can buy gasoline with it, you can throw it at strippers/whores... unlike bitcoins).
I did a quick Google and found a store selling Thinkpads for BC150. So a bitcoin is *worth* 1/150 of a Thinkpad, at least to one trader.
True, you can't pay taxes with BC. But you can buy dollars with BC, and spend that on taxes. There's not many gas stations accept it (but I bet there's at least one). I'm certain I read somewhere of a brothel that accepted BC. If you really want to you can throw http://www.bitbills.com/ at strippers...
But none of this "you can't do X" is all that relevant. One day Bitcoin didn't exist. A bit later it existed. A bit later some people were accepting it exchange for services. In future, it might become more widespread, or it might die out. It'll be interesting.
"if the price goes up fewer people will have them"
- well yes, that's how every product works, the more it costs, the smaller the market is for it. Think plasma TVs when they just came out and today. The difference is price, and if the gov't sets tariffs for example on plasma TV imports and because of that the TVs become twice as expensive, fewer people will own them. If the prices goes up by a factor of 10, then very few people will buy them.
Perhaps this is a semantic issue of "fewer people will have them" versus "people will have fewer of them".
Practically every American has a cent. Some people have more cents than others. But everyone owns a cent. If the dollar doubled in value, I still think everyone would own a cent.
If you can own a fraction of a bitcoin, there is still a smallest unit that you can have, so basically the same rules apply, except now, obviously they even lose the perceived collector value.
I think the rules break down (as they do for cents) when the divisions are small enough. The smallest division of a BC is a "satoshi". There will eventually be 1.2 * 10^15 of them, enough for every human being on earth to have over 170,000 satoshi each.
As to being general purpose, well, obviously they are not. They have very specific purpose, you need a computer, maybe a computer network to be able to use them.
General purpose within those constraints, in that they're conceived as being equally viable for small transactions like buying a bag of sweets, right through to larger transactions like a load of grocery, a lawnmower, a car, a house. Lots of people carry small networked computers around all the time. I think that offline transactions can work somehow but I don't know the details.
(I do, however, write as someone who hasn't ever owned a Bitcoin, due to not being arsed and not having encountered a situation where one would be useful, yet)
I cannot pay taxes with bitcoins, nor can I use them in my day to day life
"Cannot" and "choose not to" are not the same. There are a handful of businesses who accept BC, and you could choose to use them. I'm told some people pay their rent in BC. If they're happy with that arrangement, then why not? It's not much different from paying your rent with PayPal, as I'm told some people do as well.
Pension funds are supposed to be conservative and heavily regulated, which they are, but to get the returns they need to outrun inflation they have actually ended up just putting their money into unregulated entites - effectively acting as proxies.
How do you make interest on a currency that is that fixed?
The same way you make interest on any currency.
You put $10 in the bank. The bank gives me $10. I spend that $10 on tending an apple tree. I sell the apples for $14. I pay back $12 to the bank (20% interest) and keep $2 for myself. The bank adds $1 to your balance (10% interest) and keeps $1 for itself.
I admit that a lot of what you said went over my head. There are some statements made as if self-evident in there that are not self-evident to me (e.g. " if the price goes up fewer people will have them").
so there cannot be more than 21 million individual owners of the actual coin
As I understand it, a wallet can contain a fraction of a bitcoin, so in fact - 2.1 × 10^15 people could own one of the smallest unit each.... which makes sense since currently 1BC has a market value of ~US$10, which wouldn't be very useful for small purchases, if they weren't divisible.
they are of very limited purpose and so there will be limited number of owners
They are intended to be very general purpose. Whether that comes about, we'll have to see.
the number of people with Bitcoins diminishes over time, so that is an unfair qualification for it.
Can you expand on that? The number of bitcoins keeps growing until there are 21M, then remains constant. I suppose there might be the digital equivalent of "losing coins down the back of the sofa" -- losing your BC wallet or whatever.
But is there a definite economic reason why BCs should consolidate to a smaller number of owners, rather than spread to more?
Every time there's a BitCoin story, people loudly claim it's a Ponzi scheme. Maybe they're right.
But it's worth pointing out that this story is not the story that vindicates that claim. This is a story about a Ponzi scheme that happens to have been conducted using Bitcoins.
To claim that this shows Bitcoins are a Ponzi scheme is like saying that C is a virus because you can write virii using C.
It might be the case that this Ponzi scheme couldn't have been conducted using (say) US$ because of financial regulation. Lack of financial regulation attracts some people to Bitcoin -- but look how it can bite.
(Speaking as a man with a foreskin, who can't quite imagine what it would be like not to have one... uncomfortable?)
I occasionally see reports about circumcision affecting cancer outcomes, AIDS transmission, things like that.
What completely mystifies me, is the mechanics of these effects. Perhaps a foreskin can lead to increased transmission of AIDS. How? By what mechanism?
Is just your common sense, or do you have any research to cite?
There's actually been a lot of actual scholarly research into pairing; enough for a meta-analysis. http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1309094 -- it's not even that new.
The meta-analysis finds that pairing results in much higher quality, slightly shorter timeframes, and a slight increase in overall effort.
What it doesn't take into account is the effect of that higher quality on future maintenance costs. So it's likely that slight increase in effort results in large savings of effort during the later lifecycle of the software.
(Years ago, I used to use the Codewright IDE. It had a feature where 2 people could "link" their Codewright sessions and be able to collaboratively edit the same file, each one seeing what the other was typing in real time. I don't know of another code editor with this feature (except maybe Google Documents, which is not appropriate for our needs.).)
I think even the most ardent pair programming advocate would recognise situations where it's not adding value, and break out to do that aspect a different way.
That said, they'd probably see your boilerplate activities and chase a way to avoid doing it that way.
The problem with pair programming is that it doesn't allow you to think. Inexperienced programmers, like children, tend to ask questions before thinking about the problem.
This may be a problem with pair programming with an inexperienced partner. It shouldn't be a problem when you're pairing with an equal.
Pairing with a less experienced partner is a great way of teaching though -- and teaching is irritating for many people.
Pairing itself is a skill. I think a lot of people shooting it down have tried it briefly, and given up before seeing the benefits. Like spending an hour with a guitar and a fingering chart, then saying "this instrument is incapable of making a pleasant sound".
The only way I can see this working is if one developer is writting the unit test code while the other is writting the actual code and both are referring the same set of specs. Oh snap!! Wait...this is Agile so no SPECS!!!!!!!:D
That's the only way I can see it *not* working.
And of course there are specs. The unit tests are the specs!
BAD for programmers that are best setup in a "den" and then have Food/Drink shoved into a slot in the door.
These tend to be a millstone anyway. Sure, they barely need any oversight, and they deliver code that works, on time. But then it needs some maintenance, and you find it's a monolithic uncommented pile of spaghetti that only he understands.
That was a typo -- I meant "perhaps traditionally the "E"s were just absent from programming". For a long while computing attracted introverts because you can spend hours in the company of nothing but a keyboard.
I don't think anybody says introversion is a disease. Neither is being an extrovert. Myers-Briggs is all about recognising these tendencies (they are not absolutes) and using that knowledge to get the best out of people.
Not only do Es need to understand you -- you need to understand Es. It's a two way street. Give and take.
Pair programming is a subset of Extreme Programming.
XP takes in Test-Driven development, Continuous Integration, Refactoring, and all sorts of other things.
Most of what was called "Extreme Programming" is pretty mainstream now. Perhaps pair programming will be as mainstream as TDD and CI one of these days?
Slashdot Mirror
Yes. In effect the market grows because it's ultimately fed by energy from the sun. A tradable company can make a pile of valuable timber out of an acorn, some nutrients, some water and some sunshine, and hence its value increases.
Free chocolates for everyone: Please send me 1 chocolate and then send this letter to 5 friends. Everyone gets 5 chocolates just for buying one. Amazing!
Of course if participants take part more than once, and everyone always accepts the deal and honours it, then it could loop around forever, and on average everyone would break even.
US dollars, (which before you argue the point, you can pay taxes with it, you can buy gasoline with it, you can throw it at strippers/whores... unlike bitcoins).
I did a quick Google and found a store selling Thinkpads for BC150. So a bitcoin is *worth* 1/150 of a Thinkpad, at least to one trader.
True, you can't pay taxes with BC. But you can buy dollars with BC, and spend that on taxes. There's not many gas stations accept it (but I bet there's at least one). I'm certain I read somewhere of a brothel that accepted BC. If you really want to you can throw http://www.bitbills.com/ at strippers...
But none of this "you can't do X" is all that relevant. One day Bitcoin didn't exist. A bit later it existed. A bit later some people were accepting it exchange for services. In future, it might become more widespread, or it might die out. It'll be interesting.
Nobody said you should, nor that it's ubiquitous.
Only that you *can* use it for *some* things if you *want* to. Which you stated wasn't possible.
"if the price goes up fewer people will have them"
- well yes, that's how every product works, the more it costs, the smaller the market is for it. Think plasma TVs when they just came out and today. The difference is price, and if the gov't sets tariffs for example on plasma TV imports and because of that the TVs become twice as expensive, fewer people will own them. If the prices goes up by a factor of 10, then very few people will buy them.
Perhaps this is a semantic issue of "fewer people will have them" versus "people will have fewer of them".
Practically every American has a cent. Some people have more cents than others. But everyone owns a cent. If the dollar doubled in value, I still think everyone would own a cent.
If you can own a fraction of a bitcoin, there is still a smallest unit that you can have, so basically the same rules apply, except now, obviously they even lose the perceived collector value.
I think the rules break down (as they do for cents) when the divisions are small enough. The smallest division of a BC is a "satoshi". There will eventually be 1.2 * 10^15 of them, enough for every human being on earth to have over 170,000 satoshi each.
As to being general purpose, well, obviously they are not. They have very specific purpose, you need a computer, maybe a computer network to be able to use them.
General purpose within those constraints, in that they're conceived as being equally viable for small transactions like buying a bag of sweets, right through to larger transactions like a load of grocery, a lawnmower, a car, a house. Lots of people carry small networked computers around all the time. I think that offline transactions can work somehow but I don't know the details.
(I do, however, write as someone who hasn't ever owned a Bitcoin, due to not being arsed and not having encountered a situation where one would be useful, yet)
I cannot pay taxes with bitcoins, nor can I use them in my day to day life
"Cannot" and "choose not to" are not the same. There are a handful of businesses who accept BC, and you could choose to use them. I'm told some people pay their rent in BC. If they're happy with that arrangement, then why not? It's not much different from paying your rent with PayPal, as I'm told some people do as well.
Pension funds are supposed to be conservative and heavily regulated, which they are, but to get the returns they need to outrun inflation they have actually ended up just putting their money into unregulated entites - effectively acting as proxies.
Thanks for scaring the bejesus out of me.
How do you make interest on a currency that is that fixed?
The same way you make interest on any currency.
You put $10 in the bank. The bank gives me $10. I spend that $10 on tending an apple tree. I sell the apples for $14. I pay back $12 to the bank (20% interest) and keep $2 for myself. The bank adds $1 to your balance (10% interest) and keeps $1 for itself.
I admit that a lot of what you said went over my head. There are some statements made as if self-evident in there that are not self-evident to me (e.g. " if the price goes up fewer people will have them").
so there cannot be more than 21 million individual owners of the actual coin
As I understand it, a wallet can contain a fraction of a bitcoin, so in fact - 2.1 × 10^15 people could own one of the smallest unit each. ... which makes sense since currently 1BC has a market value of ~US$10, which wouldn't be very useful for small purchases, if they weren't divisible.
they are of very limited purpose and so there will be limited number of owners
They are intended to be very general purpose. Whether that comes about, we'll have to see.
Yes, and that's exactly the same what this scheme promised: let me control your bitcoins for a while and you'll get them back later - with intrests.
So this alone was no criteria for recognizing a scam.
The clue is "with interest vastly in excess of market levels".
The higher the promised interest, the less plausible it is. (Yes, I don't find hedge funds particularly plausible).
the number of people with Bitcoins diminishes over time, so that is an unfair qualification for it.
Can you expand on that? The number of bitcoins keeps growing until there are 21M, then remains constant. I suppose there might be the digital equivalent of "losing coins down the back of the sofa" -- losing your BC wallet or whatever.
But is there a definite economic reason why BCs should consolidate to a smaller number of owners, rather than spread to more?
"A real scammer would never put the word 'pirate' in his handle. Therefore this guy must be trustworthy..."
Every time there's a BitCoin story, people loudly claim it's a Ponzi scheme. Maybe they're right.
But it's worth pointing out that this story is not the story that vindicates that claim. This is a story about a Ponzi scheme that happens to have been conducted using Bitcoins.
To claim that this shows Bitcoins are a Ponzi scheme is like saying that C is a virus because you can write virii using C.
It might be the case that this Ponzi scheme couldn't have been conducted using (say) US$ because of financial regulation. Lack of financial regulation attracts some people to Bitcoin -- but look how it can bite.
Thanks, that's plausible - along with the microtears mentioned by another commenter.
Icky though. I'm kinda fond of my non-keratinized skin.
(Speaking as a man with a foreskin, who can't quite imagine what it would be like not to have one... uncomfortable?)
I occasionally see reports about circumcision affecting cancer outcomes, AIDS transmission, things like that.
What completely mystifies me, is the mechanics of these effects. Perhaps a foreskin can lead to increased transmission of AIDS. How? By what mechanism?
Oh, and XP has a main flaw in that it tries so hard not to be the tried and true waterfall method,
Tried, yes. True? Not so much.
Even the guy who coined the word "waterfall" for software development could tell it was a bad process.
Is just your common sense, or do you have any research to cite?
There's actually been a lot of actual scholarly research into pairing; enough for a meta-analysis. http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1309094 -- it's not even that new.
The meta-analysis finds that pairing results in much higher quality, slightly shorter timeframes, and a slight increase in overall effort.
What it doesn't take into account is the effect of that higher quality on future maintenance costs. So it's likely that slight increase in effort results in large savings of effort during the later lifecycle of the software.
"Some people get on with pairing, some don't."
And if they're just getting into it now, they're only about 6 years behind the curve.
But why should I be surprised? Considering that Facebook was based on PHP?
This article is about Kent Beck. Kent Beck is not "just getting into" pairing.
(Years ago, I used to use the Codewright IDE. It had a feature where 2 people could "link" their Codewright sessions and be able to collaboratively edit the same file, each one seeing what the other was typing in real time. I don't know of another code editor with this feature (except maybe Google Documents, which is not appropriate for our needs.).)
http://xpairtise.sourceforge.net/ - Eclipse plugin with the scent of abandonware.
I think even the most ardent pair programming advocate would recognise situations where it's not adding value, and break out to do that aspect a different way.
That said, they'd probably see your boilerplate activities and chase a way to avoid doing it that way.
The problem with pair programming is that it doesn't allow you to think. Inexperienced programmers, like children, tend to ask questions before thinking about the problem.
This may be a problem with pair programming with an inexperienced partner. It shouldn't be a problem when you're pairing with an equal.
Pairing with a less experienced partner is a great way of teaching though -- and teaching is irritating for many people.
Pairing itself is a skill. I think a lot of people shooting it down have tried it briefly, and given up before seeing the benefits. Like spending an hour with a guitar and a fingering chart, then saying "this instrument is incapable of making a pleasant sound".
The only way I can see this working is if one developer is writting the unit test code while the other is writting the actual code and both are referring the same set of specs. Oh snap!! Wait ...this is Agile so no SPECS!!!!!!! :D
That's the only way I can see it *not* working.
And of course there are specs. The unit tests are the specs!
BAD for programmers that are best setup in a "den" and then have Food/Drink shoved into a slot in the door.
These tend to be a millstone anyway. Sure, they barely need any oversight, and they deliver code that works, on time. But then it needs some maintenance, and you find it's a monolithic uncommented pile of spaghetti that only he understands.
That was a typo -- I meant "perhaps traditionally the "E"s were just absent from programming". For a long while computing attracted introverts because you can spend hours in the company of nothing but a keyboard.
I don't think anybody says introversion is a disease. Neither is being an extrovert. Myers-Briggs is all about recognising these tendencies (they are not absolutes) and using that knowledge to get the best out of people.
Not only do Es need to understand you -- you need to understand Es. It's a two way street. Give and take.
Pair programming is a subset of Extreme Programming.
XP takes in Test-Driven development, Continuous Integration, Refactoring, and all sorts of other things.
Most of what was called "Extreme Programming" is pretty mainstream now. Perhaps pair programming will be as mainstream as TDD and CI one of these days?