That's not what he said. He said people with something to hide will be in that category, not that everyone in that category has something to hide. And he's right; this can't be considered an unbiased sample set.
The Coinbase service based in the US works well for just buying and selling (not trading). I didn't buy way back in the day, I bought a dozen or so over the course of the summer, and sold about half at various points (usually not at the peak, sadly).
Of the exchanges I've tried, BTC-e is frankly the most stable. It's got a mild air of sketchiness from being Russian and spartan, but I've seen some of the other exchanges (Cryptsy, etc.) crap out or become unusable under load. Mt. Gox is a bit pointless given the difficulty of getting dollars out, and usually trades higher since speculators want a higher dollar return in exchange for the risk.
Sad to see BTC dropping right now, but I've already cashed out the initial speculation and a profit, so anything else is just gravy. I'll probably take out a bit more and just hold the rest indefinitely.
All good observations, because I'm not so concerned about it avoiding one-off obstacles encountered serially as I am about the choices it makes between two bad options, like the braking path that goes through a small dog vs. a crawling toddler.
That's not how it works. First to file means that, given that two claimants of a patent, the first to file will get it. It does away with a messy process that incentivized holding on to trade secrets and delaying filing a patent as long as possible. First to invent can get incredibly messy and expensive to prove. Before some reform years ago, there was a practice known as submarine patents where applications would be submitted and withdrawn indefinitely, effectively allowing extended patent protection without disclosure.
If prior art is out there, the patent is invalid anyway in both cases. Quoth Wikipedia:
"Prior art (also known as state of the art, which also has other meanings, or background art[1]), in most systems of patent law,[2] constitutes all information that has been made available to the public in any form before a given date that might be relevant to a patent's claims of originality. If an invention has been described in the prior art, a patent on that invention is not valid."
Sure, maybe they'll get the patent. If it's the same as Bitcoin, it would be invalidated. First to invent vs. first to file doesn't really come into play here because no one else is trying to patent it.
Where did you get that information from? I haven't seen an estimate like that anywhere else, and that would be all over the place if it were true, even if just by speculators trying to short the market.
I didn't say it couldn't be lost or stolen. If it's stolen, it still exists. If it's lost, likewise, it still exists and could be found.
I could commit the wallet code to memory and destroy the hard drive it's on, and theoretically bring it back. If I lost it forever and a million monkeys figured out the code, it would have value in the system.
The deflationary part pretty much assures that. I do think that some of the other cryptocurrencies that incorporate a simply determined inflation rate are more likely to achieve a stable value.
There is no such thing as intrinsic value to begin with. People place value in things.
Absolutely correct. However, it's that process of how humans value things that make it an interesting case. We have in our economy a network of things that have some generally agreed upon value. When people try to value something, they look at the activity its used for and the value of that activity within the current network, and so the value is subject to the changes in that object's use.
Ignoring mining, with Bitcoin there is no function within the current universe of things we value. The only cue I have is what others have previously valued it at, and what it is currently valued. I think that's very interesting, especially when you consider the kind of objects that humans have used as currency throughout history (gold, metals, durable objects like shells, etc.)
I'm not going to argue that Bitcoin won't dip in value in the future, perhaps precipitously, but the fascinating thing about Bitcoin is that after that happens....it will still be there. They don't disappear, and other than signalling from other participants in the market, nothing will have changed about it.
Beanie babies fall apart. Penny stock companies go bankrupt. Tulip bulbs and all that eventually rot, burn, or get destroyed.
I don't think that persistent state is a trivial difference. Bitcoin will still be there, with a price history that will encourage speculators again. The Bitcoin network will be running on some networked computers on the planet for decades to come, no matter what. The net present value calculation for Bitcoin really does have to go out much much farther than almost any other object besides precious metals and gems.
Honestly I find that one of the most interesting things about it. There is no intrinsic value. None! And yet it's indestructible* and peer to peer confirmed. Therefore (ultimately) the only cue anyone has to the value is what others value it at. Gold is sometimes considered to have become valuable for similar reasons. Sure, it's pretty, and that likely helped, but it doesn't have enough use to justify its value other than what everyone has previously valued it at.
* I can't say that with absolute certainty, given how software goes, but as a thought experiment it's fascinating.
One thing that I don't think is usually appreciated is that Bitcoin isn't necessarily a replacement for a bank account. It's supposed to be a replacement for *cash*. Bitcoins can be stored in a wallet, lost, stolen, and handed to the wrong person just like cash can, except with the added advantage (danger) that I can transfer it to anyone on the planet almost seamlessly. Credit cards, bank accounts, etc. that offer me asset protection and such will be just as useful for Bitcoins as they are for cash, but they will be denominated in a currency independent of any given country.
Honestly, I don't see the transfer time as a huge issue. Let intermediaries spring up to make that faster; it's probably safer to keep instantaneous transfers on a separate level than the asset itself.
Doubtful. For services of this kind, who else is able to pay and needs these services? There are a few, but losing US contracts would kill them.
This is more akin to the mutually beneficial relationship between China and US sovereign debt. Sure, they could divest, but *where*, exactly, would they get a safer investment vehicle? The only reason one party would pull out is for non-economic reasons, because it sure isn't beneficial to do so.
No one wins if SpaceX starts trying to milk the US too hard. And in the end, the US government could always play the national security card with the IP and incubate another company or bring it back inhouse.
If my surgeon is deep into my chest cavity, I'd like him to have as much information on a heads up display as possible. Every repetitive head motion back and forth is a risk that a scalpel slips a bit as the rest of his body moves, cutting something important or just adding unnecessary lacerations to my insides.
Granted, robotic surgery is on its way. For the time being, though, there isn't anything quite as agile and responsive as a well trained surgeon's hands, even if he requires a bigger hole cut in my side to do it
As for sterilization, a combination of UV and being strapped to the head probably takes care of most of it.
No, because "protecting people" from their mental illness is a more sanitized, less outrageous aim, at least on the surface. If you're looking to stigmatize opposing points of view with a slow boil, it's an intermediate point. Just long enough to collect statistics "proving" that such people are often criminal, and regrettably must be incarcerated in some cases.
Disclaimer: I don't believe in some large conspiracy attempting to do this. I am afraid that certain segments really believe this, though, and would do it if they could, which terrifies me. The agreeable laughter I hear in my liberal area when a scientific study claims conservatives brains are different can be unsettling at times.
While true, Mtgox is a bad example, as BTC/USD trades at a premium because USD is risky to hold there and not easily withdrawn due to US investigations.
A lot of funded science bypasses detail for novelty. Most of the things mentioned by GP were *tools* that could be used to analyze many things that a professional scientist probably could not get grant money for.
If you're talking cutting edge clean room produced nanodevices, of course not. If you're talking good science, then these guys have a shot at doing so, as long as they approach it methodically.
I think the point about debt was moot because most science and engineering grad students don't have debt. I know I don't and I don't know anyone who took out loans for STEM grad school.
Not what he said at all. Just that it was founded as a representative republic, not a democracy. You choose people you trust for a term to collectively make decisions rather than voting on every issue. In kind, of course, the national level government didn't have anywhere near the power it does today, so it wasn't as big a sacrifice.
Take California's ballot initiative system. Raising taxes will always be unpopular, and cutting services will be unpopular and both fail as individual measures. And yet, you need someone to make those decisions.
Your Nazi (Fascist?) analogy is a little overkill.
The most troubling aspect of this story is that the person felt that he needed to change his behaviour when he learned society would diagnose him as abnormal, despite having been a functional member of society and a respected scientist for several decades with his behaviour as-is.
In the article, you'd see that much of his desire to change was motivated by deep questioning of those close to him and analysis of how he'd treated them over the years. It was the diagnosis that prompted him to look deeper, at which point he decided to change based on what he found. It wasn't simply that he decided to change immediately due to the diagnosis.
It is, after all, quite possible to be both functional and a respected scientist as well as a jerk.
That's something separate: government research funding, which is indeed dismissed by many conservatives. However....
The subsidies in question are ones that create incentives to install solar before it's cost effective on its own. Consider the distortion created if solar cells were heavily subsidized just before a major efficiency advance. You now have spent a large sum on an installed user base of costly, inefficient stock and probably dampened uptake of the better model
Why do small countries around the world often have innovative solutions before the US? Often because the current solution is highly entrenched with a lot of money invested into it. People don't want to throw it away. Meanwhile, African countries are developing using far cheaper cell networks without having to install the land line infrastructure.
When is this guy retiring? I very much hope he has some "inspiring" discussions with academic colleagues at some point.
Actually, that makes me feel a LOT better, because once things hit the fan, if you're right, there is at least one antibiotic held in reserve, at least by virtue of anonymity.
I think it's important to consider the purpose of the grading, which is not to differentiate cars based on minor if statistically significant differences, but to really demonstrate which cars are objectively less safe.
It's not on a curve, it's an absolute scale. A variable scale would effectively leave carmakers unsure of what regulatory bar they had to meet. Imagine a carmaker that produced an incredibly safe, unaffordable fortress that wrecked the curve. I'm very glad that a system such as that has encouraged them to all be straight A students.
You're not getting the point. There is no intellectually defensible definition for "pure" humans. None. Every lineage we are a part of are clouds of clouds of data points in a multi-dimensional space of genetic traits. Maybe you find a cluster somewhere. Fine. Look deeper and that cluster is composed of many mini clusters of tribes that interwove, separated for a while, and interwove again. Were those separate species? Why not? At any point time you choose, there will be divergence going forward AND backward.
Any line you draw around a given grouping is an arbitrary definition based on some time or distance scale you decide is appropriate. The reason you might choose that scale to divide things could have some explanatory power for a specific trait, but that's it. No more, no less.
Slashdot Mirror
That's not what he said. He said people with something to hide will be in that category, not that everyone in that category has something to hide. And he's right; this can't be considered an unbiased sample set.
The Coinbase service based in the US works well for just buying and selling (not trading). I didn't buy way back in the day, I bought a dozen or so over the course of the summer, and sold about half at various points (usually not at the peak, sadly).
Of the exchanges I've tried, BTC-e is frankly the most stable. It's got a mild air of sketchiness from being Russian and spartan, but I've seen some of the other exchanges (Cryptsy, etc.) crap out or become unusable under load. Mt. Gox is a bit pointless given the difficulty of getting dollars out, and usually trades higher since speculators want a higher dollar return in exchange for the risk.
Sad to see BTC dropping right now, but I've already cashed out the initial speculation and a profit, so anything else is just gravy. I'll probably take out a bit more and just hold the rest indefinitely.
All good observations, because I'm not so concerned about it avoiding one-off obstacles encountered serially as I am about the choices it makes between two bad options, like the braking path that goes through a small dog vs. a crawling toddler.
That's not how it works. First to file means that, given that two claimants of a patent, the first to file will get it. It does away with a messy process that incentivized holding on to trade secrets and delaying filing a patent as long as possible. First to invent can get incredibly messy and expensive to prove. Before some reform years ago, there was a practice known as submarine patents where applications would be submitted and withdrawn indefinitely, effectively allowing extended patent protection without disclosure.
If prior art is out there, the patent is invalid anyway in both cases. Quoth Wikipedia:
"Prior art (also known as state of the art, which also has other meanings, or background art[1]), in most systems of patent law,[2] constitutes all information that has been made available to the public in any form before a given date that might be relevant to a patent's claims of originality. If an invention has been described in the prior art, a patent on that invention is not valid."
Sure, maybe they'll get the patent. If it's the same as Bitcoin, it would be invalidated. First to invent vs. first to file doesn't really come into play here because no one else is trying to patent it.
Where did you get that information from? I haven't seen an estimate like that anywhere else, and that would be all over the place if it were true, even if just by speculators trying to short the market.
I didn't say it couldn't be lost or stolen. If it's stolen, it still exists. If it's lost, likewise, it still exists and could be found.
I could commit the wallet code to memory and destroy the hard drive it's on, and theoretically bring it back. If I lost it forever and a million monkeys figured out the code, it would have value in the system.
That's pretty dang indestructible.
The deflationary part pretty much assures that. I do think that some of the other cryptocurrencies that incorporate a simply determined inflation rate are more likely to achieve a stable value.
There is no such thing as intrinsic value to begin with. People place value in things.
Absolutely correct. However, it's that process of how humans value things that make it an interesting case. We have in our economy a network of things that have some generally agreed upon value. When people try to value something, they look at the activity its used for and the value of that activity within the current network, and so the value is subject to the changes in that object's use.
Ignoring mining, with Bitcoin there is no function within the current universe of things we value. The only cue I have is what others have previously valued it at, and what it is currently valued. I think that's very interesting, especially when you consider the kind of objects that humans have used as currency throughout history (gold, metals, durable objects like shells, etc.)
I'm not going to argue that Bitcoin won't dip in value in the future, perhaps precipitously, but the fascinating thing about Bitcoin is that after that happens....it will still be there. They don't disappear, and other than signalling from other participants in the market, nothing will have changed about it.
Beanie babies fall apart. Penny stock companies go bankrupt. Tulip bulbs and all that eventually rot, burn, or get destroyed.
I don't think that persistent state is a trivial difference. Bitcoin will still be there, with a price history that will encourage speculators again. The Bitcoin network will be running on some networked computers on the planet for decades to come, no matter what. The net present value calculation for Bitcoin really does have to go out much much farther than almost any other object besides precious metals and gems.
Honestly I find that one of the most interesting things about it. There is no intrinsic value. None! And yet it's indestructible* and peer to peer confirmed. Therefore (ultimately) the only cue anyone has to the value is what others value it at. Gold is sometimes considered to have become valuable for similar reasons. Sure, it's pretty, and that likely helped, but it doesn't have enough use to justify its value other than what everyone has previously valued it at.
* I can't say that with absolute certainty, given how software goes, but as a thought experiment it's fascinating.
One thing that I don't think is usually appreciated is that Bitcoin isn't necessarily a replacement for a bank account. It's supposed to be a replacement for *cash*. Bitcoins can be stored in a wallet, lost, stolen, and handed to the wrong person just like cash can, except with the added advantage (danger) that I can transfer it to anyone on the planet almost seamlessly. Credit cards, bank accounts, etc. that offer me asset protection and such will be just as useful for Bitcoins as they are for cash, but they will be denominated in a currency independent of any given country.
Honestly, I don't see the transfer time as a huge issue. Let intermediaries spring up to make that faster; it's probably safer to keep instantaneous transfers on a separate level than the asset itself.
Doubtful. For services of this kind, who else is able to pay and needs these services? There are a few, but losing US contracts would kill them.
This is more akin to the mutually beneficial relationship between China and US sovereign debt. Sure, they could divest, but *where*, exactly, would they get a safer investment vehicle? The only reason one party would pull out is for non-economic reasons, because it sure isn't beneficial to do so.
No one wins if SpaceX starts trying to milk the US too hard. And in the end, the US government could always play the national security card with the IP and incubate another company or bring it back inhouse.
I'm sort of hoping my surgeon isn't staring deeply into my eyes to make that vital human connection while I'm strapped down unconscious in the OR.
Easy. Far fewer disruptive head motions.
If my surgeon is deep into my chest cavity, I'd like him to have as much information on a heads up display as possible. Every repetitive head motion back and forth is a risk that a scalpel slips a bit as the rest of his body moves, cutting something important or just adding unnecessary lacerations to my insides.
Granted, robotic surgery is on its way. For the time being, though, there isn't anything quite as agile and responsive as a well trained surgeon's hands, even if he requires a bigger hole cut in my side to do it
As for sterilization, a combination of UV and being strapped to the head probably takes care of most of it.
No, because "protecting people" from their mental illness is a more sanitized, less outrageous aim, at least on the surface. If you're looking to stigmatize opposing points of view with a slow boil, it's an intermediate point. Just long enough to collect statistics "proving" that such people are often criminal, and regrettably must be incarcerated in some cases.
Disclaimer: I don't believe in some large conspiracy attempting to do this. I am afraid that certain segments really believe this, though, and would do it if they could, which terrifies me. The agreeable laughter I hear in my liberal area when a scientific study claims conservatives brains are different can be unsettling at times.
While true, Mtgox is a bad example, as BTC/USD trades at a premium because USD is risky to hold there and not easily withdrawn due to US investigations.
A lot of funded science bypasses detail for novelty. Most of the things mentioned by GP were *tools* that could be used to analyze many things that a professional scientist probably could not get grant money for.
If you're talking cutting edge clean room produced nanodevices, of course not. If you're talking good science, then these guys have a shot at doing so, as long as they approach it methodically.
I think the point about debt was moot because most science and engineering grad students don't have debt. I know I don't and I don't know anyone who took out loans for STEM grad school.
Not what he said at all. Just that it was founded as a representative republic, not a democracy. You choose people you trust for a term to collectively make decisions rather than voting on every issue. In kind, of course, the national level government didn't have anywhere near the power it does today, so it wasn't as big a sacrifice.
Take California's ballot initiative system. Raising taxes will always be unpopular, and cutting services will be unpopular and both fail as individual measures. And yet, you need someone to make those decisions.
Your Nazi (Fascist?) analogy is a little overkill.
*turns entire countries into catastrophes
It's an efficient circle.
The most troubling aspect of this story is that the person felt that he needed to change his behaviour when he learned society would diagnose him as abnormal, despite having been a functional member of society and a respected scientist for several decades with his behaviour as-is.
In the article, you'd see that much of his desire to change was motivated by deep questioning of those close to him and analysis of how he'd treated them over the years. It was the diagnosis that prompted him to look deeper, at which point he decided to change based on what he found. It wasn't simply that he decided to change immediately due to the diagnosis.
It is, after all, quite possible to be both functional and a respected scientist as well as a jerk.
That's something separate: government research funding, which is indeed dismissed by many conservatives. However....
The subsidies in question are ones that create incentives to install solar before it's cost effective on its own. Consider the distortion created if solar cells were heavily subsidized just before a major efficiency advance. You now have spent a large sum on an installed user base of costly, inefficient stock and probably dampened uptake of the better model
Why do small countries around the world often have innovative solutions before the US? Often because the current solution is highly entrenched with a lot of money invested into it. People don't want to throw it away. Meanwhile, African countries are developing using far cheaper cell networks without having to install the land line infrastructure.
When is this guy retiring? I very much hope he has some "inspiring" discussions with academic colleagues at some point.
Actually, that makes me feel a LOT better, because once things hit the fan, if you're right, there is at least one antibiotic held in reserve, at least by virtue of anonymity.
I think it's important to consider the purpose of the grading, which is not to differentiate cars based on minor if statistically significant differences, but to really demonstrate which cars are objectively less safe.
It's not on a curve, it's an absolute scale. A variable scale would effectively leave carmakers unsure of what regulatory bar they had to meet. Imagine a carmaker that produced an incredibly safe, unaffordable fortress that wrecked the curve. I'm very glad that a system such as that has encouraged them to all be straight A students.
You're not getting the point. There is no intellectually defensible definition for "pure" humans. None. Every lineage we are a part of are clouds of clouds of data points in a multi-dimensional space of genetic traits. Maybe you find a cluster somewhere. Fine. Look deeper and that cluster is composed of many mini clusters of tribes that interwove, separated for a while, and interwove again. Were those separate species? Why not? At any point time you choose, there will be divergence going forward AND backward.
Any line you draw around a given grouping is an arbitrary definition based on some time or distance scale you decide is appropriate. The reason you might choose that scale to divide things could have some explanatory power for a specific trait, but that's it. No more, no less.