This dividing in ever smaller units is not a solution, it doesn't increase the number of bitcoins in existence. It just means that the bitcoins that are still there increase in value - possibly rapidly - making it more interesting for people to hold them instead of spending them, amplifying the problem.
This until so many bitcoins are lost and being hoarded that there is not enough liquidity left to make it a viable currency.
It avoids the problem of one unit of Bitcoin growing in value to the point that hardly anything can be purchased with one or 1/100th of a bitcoin in the case of bitcoin deflation.
Isn't it inevitable that the total pool of BitCoins would be reduced to nothing as owners die off without passing on their wallets? That was the intent of my original question.
Okay, how about this example. Many a ship sank to the bottom of the sea with loads of mined, processed, assayed gold and silver, yet it did not result in the end of those metals being used as money. Not everybody is keeping the access to their bitcoin with them to their grave, and the ones who do give a modest bit of deflation to this version of money. Another note, people change what they like to use for money from time to time. Sometimes it is salt, other times it is gold, and a not insignificant group likes bitcoin right now. There is no reason to believe that something else might replace bitcoin as a liked electronic based means of exchange.
Isn't it inevitable that the total pool of BitCoins would be reduced to nothing as owners die off without passing on their wallets? That was the intent of my original question.
No more inevitable than people having stashed away money that gets destroyed in fires (or other) will result in all money being reduced to nothing.
Personal example (I was not there, my dad was) an old relative died at home after extended illness. He kept saying something about the mattress, but could not speak well. Dad and his brothers took the mattress to the side of the railroad tracks and burned it. That is when they discovered it was stuffed full of cash and they had no way to put it out before it was all gone. Similar stuff happens all the time, but it is the amount of money remaining in circulation that has the impact on prices, etc. Also, since BitCoin can be made into such small change, losses of sizable chunks should not be devastating.
He continues, 'I am confident that with the support of the international community, the government of the United States will abandon this harmful behavior."
Imagine having a library in your village that could show you how to build water condensers, new farming techniques, basic chemistry that could improve your quality of life, really ANY piece of information you could conceive of as well as the ability to communicate remotely with other vilalges trying to overcome similar problems at the touch of your hands.
But no, better to hand out fish then give access to fishing instructions.
Knowledge is power.
This is the stuff right here. It is not just one or the other, both are important. Having someone parachute in and give everybody shots is one noble and great thing. Having someone drive up right behind him with a library is yet another.
How good can a company be if they offer you a job solely on your so-called resume?
No interview, no verification..
I suspect they are grossly misusing the term "job offer." Could be an indication of just what sort of people they have working in their own organization.
This might be a new record or maybe not. The headline currently states "120 Degrees..." when it should say "210 Degrees..." Summary and article both state 210 degrees.
How long before 360 degrees is crammed into it? Now that would be cool, but I don't know if it has already been tried yet.
Smart watch but dumb marketing. This idea came to market about twenty years too late. Perhaps if it arrived before the market was flooded with smart phones, it might have enjoyed a short life, maybe one on my wist before being added to the junk box collection of smart-looking but quite dumb wrist-watches. Now where did I put that sun-dial ?
20 years too late? Similar gadgets have been introduced and failed long before that. Seiko wrist TV is but one.
One out of three people decided they looked like a dork with that awful thing on their wrist.
All the makings of a future collector's item! Anybody who has one and is thinking of returning it, place it back in the original box and stow it away. A whole new generation of nostalgia geeks is being born right now who will beat a path to your door about the time you need retirement money.
Thing is, everybody does not need to be taught coding, but they really should be at least shown how to use a computer. In the same manner that everybody does not need a mandatory engine building class, though driver's education would be nice along with the basics on how to maintain an automobile. Even that is not mandatory in these parts.
Banks were deregulated, and massive consolidation followed. Same with phone companies, and media companies. The less regulation, the fewer choices.
ATT was a national monopoly only until the feds allowed competition.
ATT was a competing company until the government outlawed competition. In the early 1900s, companies would have multiple phones from multiple companies because Bob might have one company and Alice a different one, and they couldn't call each other, and couldn't call a business unless that business bought lines from both companies. That silliness is why competition was outlawed. Then later mandated.
That "silliness" did not need to be "outlawed" at all any more than any other marketplace problem needs outlawing. You know, like that "silliness" between file formats, etc.
1. Where I live we do have choice between carriers, and it is not even a big city.
2. When I was in a densely populated area, Northern VA, we had choice too.
Deregulation to allow competition causes monopolies? No, does not compute. Regulation creates barriers to entry that leans to monopolies or few providers, those who can get the government to protect their territory with police power. ATT was a national monopoly only until the feds allowed competition. Your local utility is only a monopoly as long as your local government makes them one, same with your cable provider, etc.
They are still looking for the George Orwell radio shows too. I think the scripts are out there, but the recordings seem to have vanished in a memory hole somewhere.
It is South Korea. If you have a culture that will fuck up safety certificates at nuclear plants, do you think they are suddenly going to be better with natural gas plants?
Fix the fucking culture and kill the corruption. The technology was never the problem.
Do you think they have a monopoly on that culture? Witness our very own government owned and operated Tennessee Valley Authority and they falsified readings of wells around the coal slurry dam. Oh, they do it with nuclear too.
From these "world leaders" to journalists, why all of the 'surprise?' Spying is one of the things that governments do, ALL of them. They ALL spy on their allies and foes alike and it has always been this way. In the US/Israel context, we both spy on each other all day, every day, and assist with information on other countries too. France does the same thing, so does England. Nothing new here.
Slashdot Mirror
This dividing in ever smaller units is not a solution, it doesn't increase the number of bitcoins in existence. It just means that the bitcoins that are still there increase in value - possibly rapidly - making it more interesting for people to hold them instead of spending them, amplifying the problem.
This until so many bitcoins are lost and being hoarded that there is not enough liquidity left to make it a viable currency.
It avoids the problem of one unit of Bitcoin growing in value to the point that hardly anything can be purchased with one or 1/100th of a bitcoin in the case of bitcoin deflation.
Isn't it inevitable that the total pool of BitCoins would be reduced to nothing as owners die off without passing on their wallets? That was the intent of my original question.
Okay, how about this example. Many a ship sank to the bottom of the sea with loads of mined, processed, assayed gold and silver, yet it did not result in the end of those metals being used as money. Not everybody is keeping the access to their bitcoin with them to their grave, and the ones who do give a modest bit of deflation to this version of money. Another note, people change what they like to use for money from time to time. Sometimes it is salt, other times it is gold, and a not insignificant group likes bitcoin right now. There is no reason to believe that something else might replace bitcoin as a liked electronic based means of exchange.
In the 1950s it seemed to be not abnormal. And the point was about money "disappearing."
It Should.
At this point it seems to run on dark matter, so that helmet would be a good fit.
Isn't it inevitable that the total pool of BitCoins would be reduced to nothing as owners die off without passing on their wallets? That was the intent of my original question.
No more inevitable than people having stashed away money that gets destroyed in fires (or other) will result in all money being reduced to nothing.
Personal example (I was not there, my dad was) an old relative died at home after extended illness. He kept saying something about the mattress, but could not speak well. Dad and his brothers took the mattress to the side of the railroad tracks and burned it. That is when they discovered it was stuffed full of cash and they had no way to put it out before it was all gone. Similar stuff happens all the time, but it is the amount of money remaining in circulation that has the impact on prices, etc. Also, since BitCoin can be made into such small change, losses of sizable chunks should not be devastating.
He continues, 'I am confident that with the support of the international community, the government of the United States will abandon this harmful behavior."
Has he even read the stuff he leaked?
Check with the Russian help desk for an interview.
How can food in prison be a commodity? Are the prisoners not fed enough?
Didn't you see that Clint Eastwood Alcatraz movie? How did Al Capone get paid off for a case dime? Dessert, every day for a couple of weeks IIRC.
Imagine having a library in your village that could show you how to build water condensers, new farming techniques, basic chemistry that could improve your quality of life, really ANY piece of information you could conceive of as well as the ability to communicate remotely with other vilalges trying to overcome similar problems at the touch of your hands.
But no, better to hand out fish then give access to fishing instructions.
Knowledge is power.
This is the stuff right here. It is not just one or the other, both are important. Having someone parachute in and give everybody shots is one noble and great thing. Having someone drive up right behind him with a library is yet another.
At this time, I'm taking the whole thing with a handful of salt. It's not totally impossible, though.
That is next month's article: "Cross-Platform Malware spread through common table salt"
How good can a company be if they offer you a job solely on your so-called resume?
No interview, no verification..
I suspect they are grossly misusing the term "job offer." Could be an indication of just what sort of people they have working in their own organization.
In the 1980s I did not go to the NYT for software reviews, I went to Byte and other serious magazines for that information.
Our local non-fiction group of the Writer's Guild is meeting at our secret undisclosed location.
This might be a new record or maybe not. The headline currently states "120 Degrees..." when it should say "210 Degrees..." Summary and article both state 210 degrees.
How long before 360 degrees is crammed into it? Now that would be cool, but I don't know if it has already been tried yet.
Smart watch but dumb marketing. This idea came to market about twenty years too late. Perhaps if it arrived before the market was flooded with smart phones, it might have enjoyed a short life, maybe one on my wist before being added to the junk box collection of smart-looking but quite dumb wrist-watches. Now where did I put that sun-dial ?
20 years too late? Similar gadgets have been introduced and failed long before that. Seiko wrist TV is but one.
One out of three people decided they looked like a dork with that awful thing on their wrist.
All the makings of a future collector's item! Anybody who has one and is thinking of returning it, place it back in the original box and stow it away. A whole new generation of nostalgia geeks is being born right now who will beat a path to your door about the time you need retirement money.
I would venture to say newspapers like the Telegraph are for exceptionally dull weirdos. Everyone else uses twitter & the web.
But they are on the web. That is why they posted such a silly story.
brace yourself for 1000+ angry comments
No doubt.
Thing is, everybody does not need to be taught coding, but they really should be at least shown how to use a computer. In the same manner that everybody does not need a mandatory engine building class, though driver's education would be nice along with the basics on how to maintain an automobile. Even that is not mandatory in these parts.
Banks were deregulated, and massive consolidation followed. Same with phone companies, and media companies. The less regulation, the fewer choices.
ATT was a national monopoly only until the feds allowed competition.
ATT was a competing company until the government outlawed competition. In the early 1900s, companies would have multiple phones from multiple companies because Bob might have one company and Alice a different one, and they couldn't call each other, and couldn't call a business unless that business bought lines from both companies. That silliness is why competition was outlawed. Then later mandated.
That "silliness" did not need to be "outlawed" at all any more than any other marketplace problem needs outlawing. You know, like that "silliness" between file formats, etc.
1. Where I live we do have choice between carriers, and it is not even a big city. 2. When I was in a densely populated area, Northern VA, we had choice too. Deregulation to allow competition causes monopolies? No, does not compute. Regulation creates barriers to entry that leans to monopolies or few providers, those who can get the government to protect their territory with police power. ATT was a national monopoly only until the feds allowed competition. Your local utility is only a monopoly as long as your local government makes them one, same with your cable provider, etc.
The BBC is still looking.
They are still looking for the George Orwell radio shows too. I think the scripts are out there, but the recordings seem to have vanished in a memory hole somewhere.
The same could be said about the USA, where money equals law and justice is make-believe for kids stories.
Yea, we should put government in charge of it from start to finish, That will take all of the incentive to cheat out of it. TVA never does anything like this. No, never at all.
It is South Korea. If you have a culture that will fuck up safety certificates at nuclear plants, do you think they are suddenly going to be better with natural gas plants?
Fix the fucking culture and kill the corruption. The technology was never the problem.
Do you think they have a monopoly on that culture? Witness our very own government owned and operated Tennessee Valley Authority and they falsified readings of wells around the coal slurry dam. Oh, they do it with nuclear too.
We KNOW all about the intercepts now, why is it a headline everytime The Guardian throws-out a new "discovery"?
Eyeballs.
From these "world leaders" to journalists, why all of the 'surprise?' Spying is one of the things that governments do, ALL of them. They ALL spy on their allies and foes alike and it has always been this way. In the US/Israel context, we both spy on each other all day, every day, and assist with information on other countries too. France does the same thing, so does England. Nothing new here.
So basically they want to introduce a Slashdot for scientists..
Prepare for a brand new style of flame-wars!
Since Popular Science dropped the ball, the government had to take over.