As for gold, I think the explanation is a mixture of inertia, rarity, resistance to governmental manipulation, and lack of corrosion.
You realize that Bitcoin objectively has those exact same qualities, right? Okay, yes... gold has been valued for longer and thus has more "inertia". But the valuation of Bitcoin -- however crazy you may think it to be -- is still a value that a group of people have collectively agreed upon.
There won't be any scarcity. Well, not because of increased difficulty, anyway. There are only two main reasons for scarcity within Bitcoin, and mining difficulty isn't one of them. The coin reward will happen, on average, every 10 minutes. If it ends up being faster than that, difficulty will rise until it averages out to 10 minutes again. If it ends up being slower than that, the difficulty will rise until (you guessed it) the average coin reward rate is every 10 minutes.
The two reasons for scarcity are (1) people hoarding their coins ("hodling" is the in-joke) and (2) the built-in halving of the block reward every four-ish years. In fact, the block reward for mining will eventually end -- in 2014. For the time being, though, the supply of coins is self-stabilized at 25 new coins every 10 minutes, regardless of how many people are mining or how large their computing power is.
You're not the first person to make this observation, and you won't be the last. However, you are nonetheless mistaken. In your rush to pass judgement, you've missed some fundamental aspects of Bitcoin.
Either mining remains profitable, or miners will stop mining.* At the point where they stop mining, the difficulty goes down until mining becomes worthwhile again. The system was meant to balance itself in exactly this way, and it works very, very well. Yes, mining is an expensive proposition with a large initial buy-in. Yes, it is quickly leaving the realm of hobbyists and becoming an endeavor best addressed by large data centers. This doesn't mean that it isn't profitable, though -- just that the cost of entry is high.
*Even this isn't entirely true, as there are many hobbyist miners who will operate at a loss just for the sheer love of it. No, I'm not kidding.
Slashdot is the comment system. In many ways, it's a forum in disguise, with each topic just an excuse to converse on that topic. Practically speaking, the only concrete difference between slashdot and an actual forum is that rank-and-file members can't start new topics.
So if you make the comment system suck, you have essentially put a stake through the heart of slashdot. It doesn't matter how pretty you think the front page is, or needs to be -- we come here to read the comments, not the fucking stories.
The energy costs of PRODUCING Bitcoins (which is what the GP you were responding to, wrongly I might add) is incredible.
Not as incredible as you might think. The current generation of ASIC mining hardware is quite a bit more efficient than the generation before, and the next generation is more efficient still.
And Bitcoin miners are a drop in the bucket compared to worldwide computer use. They're probably a drop in the bucket compared to all the computers used by all the people who collectively make up the finance industry.
Well, I could think of a few reasons why Apple should not have.apple. One of them being that there's allegedly a fruit by that name that even allegedly has older rights to that name.
Corporations are people. Fruits are not. I'm personally against expanding the right of personhood to fruits.
I have decades of industry experience in Silicon Valley as well. And really, your post comes off more as a bunch of whining than an actual critique. There are always going to be new technologies, and the people who are heavily invested in the previous generation of technologies will always groan about these dag-gone kids with all their newfangled ways of doing things. Heck, I've been guilty of this kind of thinking myself.
But you know what? When we entered the industry as young whippersnappers, the previous generation of programmers said the exact same kinds of things about us.
And somehow, despite all that, progress marches on.
It's really sad that allegedly intelligent people have bought into that narrative hook, line, and sinker. If you were actually smart, you'd take the time to read up on the difference between design and utility patents so as to form an opinion of your own, instead of the one that has been planted in your head by someone else. Then -- maybe, possibly -- you'd realize that the people who planted the original idea in your head actually had an agenda, something which you probably should have recognized to begin with.
if you're going to learn a language, why not Spanish or Chinese something else you can use to communicate with and represent real people with real problems. (If you're a politician, that's really your only job.)
Because, politician? I dunno, it seems like politicians haven't been interested in public service for a couple hundred years now. Maybe longer.
You appear to be grasping at straws. I suspect this is an attempt by your brain to cope with the cognitive dissonance you are currently experiencing. Why else would you attempt to explain away the facts by ranting about "alternate user agents", a factor which surely represents -- at best -- a rounding error in the data.
Seriously. Give it up. You're not convincing anyone except yourself.
Unfortunately, neither of you seem to know jack shit about Cupertino. They have one of (if not the) most enviable school systems in Silicon Valley, which in turn has driven property values through the roof, which in turn generates more money (in the form of property taxes) for the city.
But please accept my polite suggestion that you don't know jack shit about prior art.
As defined by self-serving lawyers, no. As defined by real-world people in their area of expertise quite a lot actually.
There's a salient difference between those self-serving lawyers and all the real-world people on the topic of "prior art". The self-serving lawyers, for the most part, understand the difference between a legal principle that is accepted by a court of law vs everyday "common-sense". Real world people, for the most part, do not.
I have long observed a trend among my fellow geeks -- being smart in one (or even several) areas -- to eventually come to the conclusion that they are experts in all areas, especially where they perceive logic to be involved.
But please accept my polite suggestion that you don't know jack shit about prior art.
It is a deceit that denies the end user the right to information about the impact upon them, as the ultimate payer of all patent costs.
The consumer can either buy the product or not buy the product. The retail price is the only thing that ultimately matters, i.e. is the product appealing enough to warrant the cost. Everything else is just noise.
Technically speaking one company has no legal right to suspend the free speech rights of another company, regardless of illegal conditions of contract inserted in a contract.
Technically speaking, you're wrong. The so-called "free speech rights" of the company are orthogonal to contract law. In fact, go look up the first word of the first sentence of the First Amendment. Come back and tell us what that word is, and how you think it applies in this situation.
Nondisclosure agreements as a matter of contract law are completely legal and widely understood to be so. This point is not up for debate.
Slashdot Mirror
As for gold, I think the explanation is a mixture of inertia, rarity, resistance to governmental manipulation, and lack of corrosion.
You realize that Bitcoin objectively has those exact same qualities, right? Okay, yes... gold has been valued for longer and thus has more "inertia". But the valuation of Bitcoin -- however crazy you may think it to be -- is still a value that a group of people have collectively agreed upon.
Just like gold.
* Typo 2: ("I hate uneditable posts"):
The block reward will end in 2140.
* Typo:
If it ends up being slower than that, the difficulty will rise until (you guessed it) the average coin reward rate is every 10 minutes.
Should read:
If it ends up being slower than that, the difficulty will fall until (you guessed it) the average coin reward rate is every 10 minutes.
There won't be any scarcity. Well, not because of increased difficulty, anyway. There are only two main reasons for scarcity within Bitcoin, and mining difficulty isn't one of them. The coin reward will happen, on average, every 10 minutes. If it ends up being faster than that, difficulty will rise until it averages out to 10 minutes again. If it ends up being slower than that, the difficulty will rise until (you guessed it) the average coin reward rate is every 10 minutes.
The two reasons for scarcity are (1) people hoarding their coins ("hodling" is the in-joke) and (2) the built-in halving of the block reward every four-ish years. In fact, the block reward for mining will eventually end -- in 2014. For the time being, though, the supply of coins is self-stabilized at 25 new coins every 10 minutes, regardless of how many people are mining or how large their computing power is.
You're not the first person to make this observation, and you won't be the last. However, you are nonetheless mistaken. In your rush to pass judgement, you've missed some fundamental aspects of Bitcoin.
Either mining remains profitable, or miners will stop mining.* At the point where they stop mining, the difficulty goes down until mining becomes worthwhile again. The system was meant to balance itself in exactly this way, and it works very, very well. Yes, mining is an expensive proposition with a large initial buy-in. Yes, it is quickly leaving the realm of hobbyists and becoming an endeavor best addressed by large data centers. This doesn't mean that it isn't profitable, though -- just that the cost of entry is high.
*Even this isn't entirely true, as there are many hobbyist miners who will operate at a loss just for the sheer love of it. No, I'm not kidding.
Slashdot is the comment system. In many ways, it's a forum in disguise, with each topic just an excuse to converse on that topic. Practically speaking, the only concrete difference between slashdot and an actual forum is that rank-and-file members can't start new topics.
So if you make the comment system suck, you have essentially put a stake through the heart of slashdot. It doesn't matter how pretty you think the front page is, or needs to be -- we come here to read the comments, not the fucking stories.
The energy costs of PRODUCING Bitcoins (which is what the GP you were responding to, wrongly I might add) is incredible.
Not as incredible as you might think. The current generation of ASIC mining hardware is quite a bit more efficient than the generation before, and the next generation is more efficient still.
And Bitcoin miners are a drop in the bucket compared to worldwide computer use. They're probably a drop in the bucket compared to all the computers used by all the people who collectively make up the finance industry.
Well, I could think of a few reasons why Apple should not have .apple. One of them being that there's allegedly a fruit by that name that even allegedly has older rights to that name.
Corporations are people. Fruits are not. I'm personally against expanding the right of personhood to fruits.
And that very well may be. The main fallacy of your argument, though, is that "progress" can only be limited to a single metric.
I have decades of industry experience in Silicon Valley as well. And really, your post comes off more as a bunch of whining than an actual critique. There are always going to be new technologies, and the people who are heavily invested in the previous generation of technologies will always groan about these dag-gone kids with all their newfangled ways of doing things. Heck, I've been guilty of this kind of thinking myself.
But you know what? When we entered the industry as young whippersnappers, the previous generation of programmers said the exact same kinds of things about us.
And somehow, despite all that, progress marches on.
No, I agree. You're a moron.
I'm shocked that someone with such a very low slashdot ID would be even the least bit confused about this.
It's really sad that allegedly intelligent people have bought into that narrative hook, line, and sinker. If you were actually smart, you'd take the time to read up on the difference between design and utility patents so as to form an opinion of your own, instead of the one that has been planted in your head by someone else. Then -- maybe, possibly -- you'd realize that the people who planted the original idea in your head actually had an agenda, something which you probably should have recognized to begin with.
I did say "allegedly".
if you're going to learn a language, why not Spanish or Chinese something else you can use to communicate with and represent real people with real problems. (If you're a politician, that's really your only job.)
Because, politician? I dunno, it seems like politicians haven't been interested in public service for a couple hundred years now. Maybe longer.
It's a horrible design. Large, bulky, and prone to be prongs-up on the floor, ready to puncture the bottom of a foot.
Awful.
You appear to be grasping at straws. I suspect this is an attempt by your brain to cope with the cognitive dissonance you are currently experiencing. Why else would you attempt to explain away the facts by ranting about "alternate user agents", a factor which surely represents -- at best -- a rounding error in the data.
Seriously. Give it up. You're not convincing anyone except yourself.
That fails both the "novel" and "obvious" tests.
Unfortunately, neither of you seem to know jack shit about Cupertino. They have one of (if not the) most enviable school systems in Silicon Valley, which in turn has driven property values through the roof, which in turn generates more money (in the form of property taxes) for the city.
So how do you think that happened?
But please accept my polite suggestion that you don't know jack shit about prior art.
As defined by self-serving lawyers, no. As defined by real-world people in their area of expertise quite a lot actually.
There's a salient difference between those self-serving lawyers and all the real-world people on the topic of "prior art". The self-serving lawyers, for the most part, understand the difference between a legal principle that is accepted by a court of law vs everyday "common-sense". Real world people, for the most part, do not.
And therein lies the only point that matters.
Guilty as charged.
Technically speaking, people who mod you can't reply in that topic.
But I'll reply in their stead: you're being a troll.
I have long observed a trend among my fellow geeks -- being smart in one (or even several) areas -- to eventually come to the conclusion that they are experts in all areas, especially where they perceive logic to be involved.
But please accept my polite suggestion that you don't know jack shit about prior art.
Your grasp of history is weak, or perhaps just willfully ignorant. Michael Dell uttered those words in late 1997. The iMac was announced in 1998.
You labeled yourself.
It is a deceit that denies the end user the right to information about the impact upon them, as the ultimate payer of all patent costs.
The consumer can either buy the product or not buy the product. The retail price is the only thing that ultimately matters, i.e. is the product appealing enough to warrant the cost. Everything else is just noise.
Technically speaking one company has no legal right to suspend the free speech rights of another company, regardless of illegal conditions of contract inserted in a contract.
Technically speaking, you're wrong. The so-called "free speech rights" of the company are orthogonal to contract law. In fact, go look up the first word of the first sentence of the First Amendment. Come back and tell us what that word is, and how you think it applies in this situation.
Nondisclosure agreements as a matter of contract law are completely legal and widely understood to be so. This point is not up for debate.