IOTA is an interesting concept, but it's silly to say it's not a blockchain. It absolutely is - it just allows parallel versions to exist for undetermined amounts of time, until they happen to merge together.
What? You mean someone actually posted to a Slashdot cryptocurrency thread that wasn't a tulip/ponzi/monopoly money post?
I was starting to lose hope that Slashdot comments might still contain information from people who actually know the subject matter . Thank you...
Sounds like Ethereum. Although it has a coin, it is more about the network so it used by many other 'coins' for transactions. It has smart contracts and applications built-in so you don't even have to have Ethereum to use it.
horribly centralized is a good thing. The reason "cryptocurrency" will never take off is that it can't be easily controlled.
The whole point is that you don't need your governments permission to use it. And in case you haven't read the news, cryptocurrency is already starting to take off
Nation states require monetary policy. Also, 1% inflation is "good" for the economy. If the main currency were deflationary, as bitcoin is, the economy would crash.
So what about any of the other hundreds of cryptocurrencies that aren't, like the one in TFA?
You're also assuming nation states will always be a thing. I realise I'm stretching things here, but changes in technology changed us fiefdoms and kingdoms to nation states, decentralised currency might just be something that evolves us from nation state to the next model of civilisation?
Also, bitcoin burns electricity like a small country. A small country would need 100% of power generation going into a crypto currency to ensure it was stable.
You're confusing two things there. Bitcoin burns electricity, so is likely to end up as a store of wealth like gold than transactional like cash. However, there are hundreds of other cryptocurrencies that have been specifically designed to not have the same issues. So even if BTC falls flat on its face, it won't be because of a cash revival, it'll be because a next gen cryptocurrency usurps it.
There are thousands of reasons why bitcoin will never be used as a currency replacement. And even more ACs who will complain when any of those massive failures are addressed.
Pretending that the current political circumstances are the result of the Russians is deranged.
If you work in national security, and you identify that foreign powers having some covert influence on your political process then you have to act to contain it.
I don't think anyone thinks the result is 100% because of Russia, but if they are pushing 1 % here and 1% there, then over time they can disrupt the balance of power. We know they did it during the Cold War, and there are already cases where Russian backed groups created 'local' Facebook groups with opposing points of views to deliberately inflame civil unrest.
You can't just sit by and let that stuff continue to happen.
I for one do not care how the information came out. The fact that it came out was good enough for me. I actually hope hackers all over the world do this every election. Break in to both sides as show where all the bodies are buried. Maybe then we can end some of the corruption that plagues governments.
Well this is the problem isn't, they aren't doing it equally. Right now we have forces at work deliberately targeting divisive causes in an effort to upset our way of life.
This is not an issue of red v blue, it is America and democracy under attack from foreign powers. And some people seem content to play along with that because it's in their own personal best interests.
has been stolen from Federal government systems three times now.
It's worth pointing out that the OPM breaches were on servers maintained by contractors and other breaches were from other companies that the government outsourced background checks to.
That's not worth pointing out at all. It's equivalent of Trump blaming crime on immigrants.
To counterpoint this ridiculous point: https://listverse.com/2016/01/...
The government should never use cloud services. They should by law be mandated to maintain, quite expensive hardened electronic data systems, backed up by manual, actual dead tree and pen and pencil systems...
I'm not surprised that this administration has fallen for the shiny veneer of cloud services. However, the idea that this will improve security is laughable. I agree that we need to a technological overhaul using the latest protection but cloud services are not the solution and far from the panacea they claim to be.
When I read stuff like this I feel like I've fallen back into 2008. 'Cloud' doesn't mean just give all your stuff to someone else and stop thinking about it, it means stop trying to own everything and adopt a service-centric model.
In case this scares you think of things like electricity, you don't bother generating your own electricity, why not? Or a Public bus or train, people rely on them, why not buy your own train? A bank etc.
With IT, nerds seem to adopt the approach of I can do it all myself without really a sense of what has business value or not. Cloud service allow you to outsource all the shit that is irrelevant to your core business (like electricity, transport and banking) so you can focus on what you do best.
Ok.. and do tourists, visitors to America, people on work visa's, etc, do they need to register their drone if they decided to bring one with them on their trip?
How is that going to work?
'
Don't be stupid. Visitors won't be allowed in either soon.
I feel that American is truly great now. How about you?
Used incorrectly by people who neither understand the original Tulip story nor the technology behind Cryptocurrency. Yes I absolutely know that 100%.
Its usefulness is as a symbol for greed based crazes.
It's only useful if you can predict something with reasonable accuracy. Since it can't, its useless.
What the craze is about and how they differ is irrelevant
It's absolutely relevant. Otherwise any idiot can just shout Apple shares = Tulips. Berkshire Hathaway = Tulips, Standard Oil = Tulips etc etc.
- it's the psychological drive to jump on a craze in the belief that you'll become rich that's the issue.
I have some news for you, some people do get rich from things.
Any such speculative mania inevitably fails, no matter what the subject of the speculation is.
Of course, over time all things fail. The universe ends in the big crunch apparently so this statement is also useless at predicting anything.
Like with say the Pyramids, Sailing ships, Gold mining, Oil, the Railway, Steel, Electricity, Phone, TV, Internet, a lot of people got wealthy out of those industries. The common trend is the early adopters made the most gains.
Disruptive technologies? Well, so was railroads and the internet, but that didn't prevent the railroad mania and dot.com bubbles.
And vast, vast profits....
It's irrelevant what is speculated on; the issue is that once it becomes a loop feeding on itself, attracting more and more people, it becomes a certainty that it will end badly, and the losers will be those who had the highest hopes and least understanding that it was a risk.
It will end badly for some, and will end well for others, like every other new innovative technology. Blockchain isn't just feeding on itself, it is innovative technology for distributed transaction and payment industries. Industries worth Trillions of dollars. Even if some speculators lose in the short term, this isn't going away..
People who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
True. One thing I've learned from history is that innovative disruptive technologies (this is where the tulip analogy breaks down) have the potential to create massive opportunities and wealth.
I've also learned that when these new technologies were invented, there was no end of luddites who didn't get it, and would claim loudly that it was just a fad.
My key point is old fashion transnational banking, through a central trusted authority.
Right gotcha. You want old fashioned ways of doing things, like Kings and Queens, and the Post Office. Good luck selling that dream in a technology forum...
VISA, MasterCard, and AMEX. They should work out an uninsured transaction system where they charge some ultra low fee (5c? 1c?) for transactions below a certain amount ($50? $10?). Central authority that most people agree to trust and is motivated by profit to keep things running. Traceable and global.
What you just described is blockchain, ie what Bitcoin is built on. Except instead of central control to only the establishment it's distributed to anyone who wants to participate, so it's fairer to everyone involved.
I feel that BTC and others are perhaps a solution in search of a problem
You form all of your opinions based on feelings?
The problem is centralised currency and the issues of trust and control and distribution. The current model relies on govts and banks to play mummy and daddy and history has shown that they shouldn't be trusted (Great Depression, GFC etc).
Blockchain decentralises the system, ie it removes all the problems associated with centralised control (ie corruption and manipulation). Mathematically it's as reliable and as robust as transactions can get, therefore it will likely takeover as the default method or storing and transferring value. Just like how the Internet replaced faxes.
Some banks already use blockchain for interbank transactions, so it's already a solution, and it's only going to gain more traction over time.
The funny thing with BitCoin is that you have technology specialists mostly talking about it, instead of economists or historians.
Because economists and historians aren't useful for much.
I'm not sure where you get your info, but the finance and banking industries they're all over this like a rash. Some major banks have already rolled out blockchain trials, and many others have already kicked off development projects. This is the next big thing in FinTech.
All of that completely misses the point of the argument comparing the Bitcoin bubble to the tulip craze.
I wonder how many people who throw the work tulip around actually have any idea what it is about? Because just by reading the Wikipedia page makes it clear that most people never got past the headline.
Tulips are not durable, not scarce, not programmable, not fungible, not verifiable, not divisible, and hard to transfer. But tell me more about your analogy...
Tulips is another way of saying I'm too dumb to understand technology, and I feel bad because I'm missing out on the next big thing. Just let them go...
If it looks like a tulip and smells like a tulip...
You know the tulip thing is mostly myth right? And whenever anyone mentions it they are merely displaying their ignorance for both the original Tulip story and complete lack of understanding of disruptive technologies
I miss the days when comments were from people who actually knew the subject matter....
To be honest, I stopped reading the article at the point where it claimed Tokyo is
the world’s most populous city.
Tokyo is nowhere near..
You must be fun at parties.
But since you went there, it depends on how you measure, since the greater Tokyo area, ie the urban sprawl that extends past the Tokyo city limits, but forms the same contiguous urban area, comprises more than 30 million people. It is generally considered the largest contiguous mass of people on earth.
I'd think money would be better spend on things that actually make the car perform better
Perform at what, being stuck at the next red light? If getting from A to B as quickly as possible is how you measure performance then your wasting your time with any car...
Slashdot Mirror
Your argument is irrational and contradictory.
You asked questions then decided the answers are wrong before I've given them.Good luck with that strategy...
IOTA is an interesting concept, but it's silly to say it's not a blockchain. It absolutely is - it just allows parallel versions to exist for undetermined amounts of time, until they happen to merge together.
What? You mean someone actually posted to a Slashdot cryptocurrency thread that wasn't a tulip/ponzi/monopoly money post?
I was starting to lose hope that Slashdot comments might still contain information from people who actually know the subject matter . Thank you...
Sounds like Ethereum. Although it has a coin, it is more about the network so it used by many other 'coins' for transactions. It has smart contracts and applications built-in so you don't even have to have Ethereum to use it.
horribly centralized is a good thing. The reason "cryptocurrency" will never take off is that it can't be easily controlled.
The whole point is that you don't need your governments permission to use it. And in case you haven't read the news, cryptocurrency is already starting to take off
Nation states require monetary policy. Also, 1% inflation is "good" for the economy. If the main currency were deflationary, as bitcoin is, the economy would crash.
So what about any of the other hundreds of cryptocurrencies that aren't, like the one in TFA?
You're also assuming nation states will always be a thing. I realise I'm stretching things here, but changes in technology changed us fiefdoms and kingdoms to nation states, decentralised currency might just be something that evolves us from nation state to the next model of civilisation?
Also, bitcoin burns electricity like a small country. A small country would need 100% of power generation going into a crypto currency to ensure it was stable.
You're confusing two things there. Bitcoin burns electricity, so is likely to end up as a store of wealth like gold than transactional like cash. However, there are hundreds of other cryptocurrencies that have been specifically designed to not have the same issues. So even if BTC falls flat on its face, it won't be because of a cash revival, it'll be because a next gen cryptocurrency usurps it. There are thousands of reasons why bitcoin will never be used as a currency replacement. And even more ACs who will complain when any of those massive failures are addressed.
Pretending that the current political circumstances are the result of the Russians is deranged.
If you work in national security, and you identify that foreign powers having some covert influence on your political process then you have to act to contain it.
I don't think anyone thinks the result is 100% because of Russia, but if they are pushing 1 % here and 1% there, then over time they can disrupt the balance of power. We know they did it during the Cold War, and there are already cases where Russian backed groups created 'local' Facebook groups with opposing points of views to deliberately inflame civil unrest.
You can't just sit by and let that stuff continue to happen.
I for one do not care how the information came out. The fact that it came out was good enough for me. I actually hope hackers all over the world do this every election. Break in to both sides as show where all the bodies are buried. Maybe then we can end some of the corruption that plagues governments.
Well this is the problem isn't, they aren't doing it equally. Right now we have forces at work deliberately targeting divisive causes in an effort to upset our way of life.
This is not an issue of red v blue, it is America and democracy under attack from foreign powers. And some people seem content to play along with that because it's in their own personal best interests.
Exactly.
The media has been pounding on the Russian drum for over a year now. So far, it's a big nothing-burger.
The FBI, CIA and NSA all say otherwise, but yeah let's just keep pretending it's all CNN's fault...
It's just using someone else's computer.
Like using someone else's electricity, or storing your money in someone else's safe. Who would ever do such a thing...
It's worth pointing out that the OPM breaches were on servers maintained by contractors and other breaches were from other companies that the government outsourced background checks to.
That's not worth pointing out at all. It's equivalent of Trump blaming crime on immigrants.
To counterpoint this ridiculous point: https://listverse.com/2016/01/...
The government should never use cloud services. They should by law be mandated to maintain, quite expensive hardened electronic data systems, backed up by manual, actual dead tree and pen and pencil systems...
News for nerds, comments from the 1980's...
I'm not surprised that this administration has fallen for the shiny veneer of cloud services. However, the idea that this will improve security is laughable. I agree that we need to a technological overhaul using the latest protection but cloud services are not the solution and far from the panacea they claim to be.
When I read stuff like this I feel like I've fallen back into 2008. 'Cloud' doesn't mean just give all your stuff to someone else and stop thinking about it, it means stop trying to own everything and adopt a service-centric model.
In case this scares you think of things like electricity, you don't bother generating your own electricity, why not? Or a Public bus or train, people rely on them, why not buy your own train? A bank etc.
With IT, nerds seem to adopt the approach of I can do it all myself without really a sense of what has business value or not. Cloud service allow you to outsource all the shit that is irrelevant to your core business (like electricity, transport and banking) so you can focus on what you do best.
I find it bizarre that SPCA has funds for homeless-shooing robots.
TFA sez the robot costs $6/hr to rent. Min wage is $14/hr.
How much does it cost to repair a robot smashed with a baseball bat?
Serious question... I don't live in the USA, am I now prohibited from bringing my recreational drone over the border?
All foreigners will be banned so this will cease to be an issue...
Ok .. and do tourists, visitors to America, people on work visa's, etc, do they need to register their drone if they decided to bring one with them on their trip?
How is that going to work?
' Don't be stupid. Visitors won't be allowed in either soon.
I feel that American is truly great now. How about you?
My AR-15 assault rifle worked great straight out of the box. It is registered with no one.
Can I buy it off you? Where I live we aren't allowed thing like that...
You know that the tulip is just a parable, right?
Used incorrectly by people who neither understand the original Tulip story nor the technology behind Cryptocurrency. Yes I absolutely know that 100%.
Its usefulness is as a symbol for greed based crazes.
It's only useful if you can predict something with reasonable accuracy. Since it can't, its useless.
What the craze is about and how they differ is irrelevant
It's absolutely relevant. Otherwise any idiot can just shout Apple shares = Tulips. Berkshire Hathaway = Tulips, Standard Oil = Tulips etc etc.
- it's the psychological drive to jump on a craze in the belief that you'll become rich that's the issue.
I have some news for you, some people do get rich from things.
Any such speculative mania inevitably fails, no matter what the subject of the speculation is.
Of course, over time all things fail. The universe ends in the big crunch apparently so this statement is also useless at predicting anything.
Like with say the Pyramids, Sailing ships, Gold mining, Oil, the Railway, Steel, Electricity, Phone, TV, Internet, a lot of people got wealthy out of those industries. The common trend is the early adopters made the most gains.
Disruptive technologies? Well, so was railroads and the internet, but that didn't prevent the railroad mania and dot.com bubbles.
And vast, vast profits....
It's irrelevant what is speculated on; the issue is that once it becomes a loop feeding on itself, attracting more and more people, it becomes a certainty that it will end badly, and the losers will be those who had the highest hopes and least understanding that it was a risk.
It will end badly for some, and will end well for others, like every other new innovative technology. Blockchain isn't just feeding on itself, it is innovative technology for distributed transaction and payment industries. Industries worth Trillions of dollars. Even if some speculators lose in the short term, this isn't going away..
People who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
True. One thing I've learned from history is that innovative disruptive technologies (this is where the tulip analogy breaks down) have the potential to create massive opportunities and wealth.
I've also learned that when these new technologies were invented, there was no end of luddites who didn't get it, and would claim loudly that it was just a fad.
My key point is old fashion transnational banking, through a central trusted authority.
Right gotcha. You want old fashioned ways of doing things, like Kings and Queens, and the Post Office. Good luck selling that dream in a technology forum...
VISA, MasterCard, and AMEX. They should work out an uninsured transaction system where they charge some ultra low fee (5c? 1c?) for transactions below a certain amount ($50? $10?). Central authority that most people agree to trust and is motivated by profit to keep things running. Traceable and global.
What you just described is blockchain, ie what Bitcoin is built on. Except instead of central control to only the establishment it's distributed to anyone who wants to participate, so it's fairer to everyone involved.
I feel that BTC and others are perhaps a solution in search of a problem
You form all of your opinions based on feelings?
The problem is centralised currency and the issues of trust and control and distribution. The current model relies on govts and banks to play mummy and daddy and history has shown that they shouldn't be trusted (Great Depression, GFC etc).
Blockchain decentralises the system, ie it removes all the problems associated with centralised control (ie corruption and manipulation). Mathematically it's as reliable and as robust as transactions can get, therefore it will likely takeover as the default method or storing and transferring value. Just like how the Internet replaced faxes.
Some banks already use blockchain for interbank transactions, so it's already a solution, and it's only going to gain more traction over time.
The funny thing with BitCoin is that you have technology specialists mostly talking about it, instead of economists or historians.
Because economists and historians aren't useful for much.
I'm not sure where you get your info, but the finance and banking industries they're all over this like a rash. Some major banks have already rolled out blockchain trials, and many others have already kicked off development projects. This is the next big thing in FinTech.
The following fit the pattern:
Microsoft and other internet/tech stocks (2000)
Apple 2007.. oh wait...
Housing (2007)
Housing any other year from 1980 to 2017.. oh wait...
Gold (2012)
Gold any other year other than 2011-2012..oh wait...
Bitcoin (2017) will likely be the next big entry to the list.
What list, a list of things you clearly don't understand very well?
All of that completely misses the point of the argument comparing the Bitcoin bubble to the tulip craze.
I wonder how many people who throw the work tulip around actually have any idea what it is about? Because just by reading the Wikipedia page makes it clear that most people never got past the headline.
From Twitter:
Tulips are not durable, not scarce, not programmable, not fungible, not verifiable, not divisible, and hard to transfer. But tell me more about your analogy...
Tulips is another way of saying I'm too dumb to understand technology, and I feel bad because I'm missing out on the next big thing. Just let them go...
If it looks like a tulip and smells like a tulip...
You know the tulip thing is mostly myth right? And whenever anyone mentions it they are merely displaying their ignorance for both the original Tulip story and complete lack of understanding of disruptive technologies
I miss the days when comments were from people who actually knew the subject matter....
To be honest, I stopped reading the article at the point where it claimed Tokyo is
the world’s most populous city.
Tokyo is nowhere near. .
You must be fun at parties.
But since you went there, it depends on how you measure, since the greater Tokyo area, ie the urban sprawl that extends past the Tokyo city limits, but forms the same contiguous urban area, comprises more than 30 million people. It is generally considered the largest contiguous mass of people on earth.
You know....
If you have a real car that can perform,
Maybe not everyone wants that?
I'd think money would be better spend on things that actually make the car perform better
Perform at what, being stuck at the next red light? If getting from A to B as quickly as possible is how you measure performance then your wasting your time with any car...