Now if only more places would take bitcoins you'd have more pseudo-anonymity and be cashless. While there is a credit card tied to bitcoins they still follow the normal rules of credit cards so that isn't as private.
There is a reason both Obama and Romney brought up Cleveland Clinic in a debate, they bill as things should be. Doctors work for the hospital, no separate bills for each doctor, each test... the cost for doing something is a base rate that handles everything involved. No surprise bills showing up months after the fact, no extra referals within the system because they're paid the same regardless of how many tests are done. Not surprising there are fewer tests and higher results as profit motivation isn't the major goal. One study shows they do things 50% cheaper.
Sure things are still damn expensive and I don't know how the cost comparison is to other countries. I do know from personal experience that this sort of billing is drastically easier than any other hospital I've ever dealt with. Sad we have just Mayo and Cleveland doing this in the whole country. A quick google points out the highlights better than me http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2009/11/26/the-hospital-that-could-cure-health-care.html
I can understand some bit of complexity for a multi national, over half a trillion dollar company. But there is no reason for any tax code to be 73K pages unless it's to hide loopholes and other corporate benefits. Also the damn thing keeps growing every year. At least Apple paid some tax, GE paid 0% not long ago.
I'd argue that bitcoin is better than a fiat currency like the US Dollar. The FED - a private banking system managing our currency - has caused many of the bubbles with their monetary policies. Even Bloomberg recently had an article comparing current central bank policies across the world as possibly causing another Japan like lost decade. So flexibility in a crisis doesn't work very well with our current system.
You talk about wealth distribution. Look no further than the policies of the FED and the government. Who got the bailouts? Primarily the big banks and rich. Who got in trouble for breaking rules and causing the financial meltdown? Oh nobody. Also we have 5 banks bigger than before the too big to fail. The US has corporatism at its finest. I'll take my chances on a small shake up with an open money alternative like bitcoin. With a total network monetary value of what, 100 million or so BTC is a small player at the moment.
How can a law be retro-active? A quick search found "In the United States, the federal government is prohibited from passing ex post facto laws by clause 3 of Article I, Section 9 of the United States Constitution. "
No one seems to have brought up Brandon Ruub. US Vet held for Facebook Post. He posted on facebook and was locked up. The scary part was the judge that gave the release found no grounds for the hold. Glad the US and UK are so in step with trying to lock people up.
They jury could have have used Jury Nullification. Jury's can find someone guilty but not agree with the punishment so acquit them. Of course if you even bring up nullification you'll probably be kicked off the jury. But I give the founders some credit for at least trying to make sure the average peer could apply common sense to laws.
I wish jury nullification was taught in every school, or included in every jury summons, to let people know the power they actually wield.
Quantum mechanics shows that conscious participation can help define the universe (Are things a wave or a particle? Matters if you're looking). John Wheeler took this further and called it the Participatory Anthropic Principle. (Not as catchy as his other terms he came up with like black hole or wormhole). So whomever sees epoch first may become the Maker. A fun little read on the idea is 2002 discover mag article
Steam sales are great values for recent games. I picked up a copy of Portal 2 for a nephew for 5 bucks. It's also a great introduction for multiplayer gaming. Just over a year old game for that cheap is a great deal. I can see why steam is doubling their revenue every year.
Anyone interested in education should look at what Finland has done. They're now top in the world education wise, spend 30% less on education than we do, have a student/teacher ration of 7 / 1 and only require 1 standardized test when they graduate. Why are Finalds Schools Successful. The teaching to the test, having a huge level of bureaucracy with the dept of education, and local teachers having absolutely no control over their students seems like it isn't working in the US.
I guess you could say places like Texas and Kentucky could have bible thumping no evolution courses if it was state level. But if the student fails the graduation required test that would help weed out the idiot teachings. Besides I went to a catholic school myself and we had an hour of religion class every day so it's already doable. (Although I was taught real science, no creationism)
I'm 2 blocks from my office which has DSL, but the house is in a different phone exchange and at the end of that run so no DSL available. I'm using open-mesh to get to my house. I go from an outdoor open-mesh on the office to non line of site outdoor unit out on a neighbor's barn. Then across a field to my house (I'm semi rural). I'm only getting around 3 meg of speed but it's better than the 22k modem option. This is with the default omni antenna on the open mesh gear. Nice equipment for less than 100 for an outdoor unit.
Of course if the zombies hit who's going to have power to be running these things?
I think the movie swordfish teaches the best programming position. You can hack the DoD in under a minute with basic commands and all you need is someone pointing a gun to your head and a woman under the table.
I could see an interesting crowd sourcing project though of a name to a plate. If the camera hardware was cheap enough for an outdoor system and easy to use software to spit out a plate I wouldn't be surprised if people around the country would use it. Any neighborhood watch would love it. I'm not a hardware guy but an external camera and easy software that would work is probably still too pricey to make this doable. Perhaps a hardware guru could chime in.
I live on a state highway, a rural area but it still gets a lot of out of staters on weekends. I don't see how I could get in trouble if I directed a camera on my property at all license plates driving by and recorded the info, even if I published it as a live feed. Of course police have it easier since they can do a plate search to find out who the individual is. Also private cars don't have the nice plate scanners on their car and cell electronics probably wouldn't work.
I have a vague recollection of some license plate website in the dotcom era where you could leave messages to a license plate. Seems like a natural fit for FB app.
Dune is great, as long as you don't include anything his kid wrote. I read some of those, thought they were bad. Then they had the final chapter - supposedly from notes left from his dad. I think they pulled a blair witch with a fake finding of something. It was bad. Bad is putting it nicely, it took all the philosophical bent that dune had and wrapped it up into something that was dreary to get through. Also they had to write a few trilogies of mediocre at best sci fi to explain the old couple characters in the last chapter of chapterhouse. Not a good way to wrap up the series and the cliffhanger Herbert left with his death wasn't solved adequately.
I also don't understand how anyone trusts this. Sure bitcoins can be rather anonymous with laundries and easy to use taint detection on addresses. But the buyers are giving physical addresses. Unless there's some anonymous package remailer service it seems like delivery without being known would be difficult. I'd be concerned about a long term sting operation by some letter agency selling things on the site and let it coast for a year or so and then hit everyone you sent a package to.
Sure you can, it's been done. It follows the adventures of 4 Boggies including Dildo Bugger of Bag Eye and his friends Frito, Moxi and Pepsi. The Bored of the Rings
I've played with distances using a few different smart cards, a USB NFC reader, and a nexus S. I couldn't get a smartcard to read through the front of the phone or the side. I could get a USB NFC reader to detect if smartphone was placed face down. From the back it is about 3 inches with a USB reader, 1-2 inches with a smartcard.
NFC is also a battery hog. I don't see having it running all the time.
The linux AMD catalyst drivers support the Radeon HD 4x line, is there something special on your card that it doesn't work?
I have a handful of AMD 6x cards from a few bitcoin machines and my only complaint against AMD is they have weird errors pop up. Multi GPU cards may have a 100% CPU bug, fixed one release of catalyst, but then not on the next. But installing the catalyst drivers is as simple on linux as on windows (At least ubuntu and opensuse).
I owned a regional ISP for a decade. The '96 telco act was great. It forced the legislated monopolies to interconnect with new local exchanges. Suddenly an ISP could easily do business with a non monopoly telco and gain access to all exchanges in an area code (or a state/region) at one set of equipment instead of paying high foreign exchange rates or having various rack space spread around the countryside. Then.. Bush got elected, Powel's Kid was put in charge of the FCC, and the FCC became very big business oriented. They rolled back the telco act - the baby bells did pay huge fines for not following the act by being competitive but the FCC got more and more lenient. After a few years under Powel the FCC said the free market would handle such things and the act went away..
You saw the near instant collapse of the small ISP and regional CLECs. The thousands of companies that got people online either folded or sold as there was no way to stay competitive against the monopolies. For example wholesale costs for bare DSL lines were often higher than the companies were selling retail. Etc. Of course this wasn't just the FCC. My local fed house rep was sitting chair of the telecommunications subcommitee and he was all for big monopolies. (Interesting correlation with his voting record and his donations record too). His pat response was the big monopolies were holding back from infrastructure improvements because why build out when they may just lose money? Of course once they got their monopoly back it never happened...
With 300 billion documented of broken promises and failed tax breaks given to the telcos it would seem like someone would look into it. But we still haven't seen a single person charged with a crime by outright lying on wallstreet and causing economic damages so what's some broken telco promises?
Maybe he should try to get the telcos to give him some info? It's the least they can do with the 300 billion they've stolen from the public. I know it'd be doomed to failure but worth a shot.
Really only the company knows, and even then it's vague. When you get lines located for any reason they will show up, have vague information, and spend a little time wandering around locating the actual line and sticking flags/painting. Not unusual for them to miss something but if they missed it you're not liable to fix it.
The FCC has found that monopoly telcos are fine. The 1996 telco reform act tried to force them to play well with others - and we had thousands of ISPs open up getting everyone connected - but the FCC under Bush Jr and Powel's kid at the helm rolled all of that back. We're back to monopolies. Now try to be a startup and put something in a public right of way.. ha!
Yes, I know Western Michigan University Library technology staff have an in-house built app for an in-out board that uses wifi signal strengths to locate staff. It's been active for over a year. It does have to be initially trained for any different location. Not hard with the push of a button. Also android only, iphone doesn't let you sniff information on other wifi nodes, just the one you're connected to. I don't have the published article reference offhand but there are a variety of papers on similar ideas.
Slashdot Mirror
Now if only more places would take bitcoins you'd have more pseudo-anonymity and be cashless. While there is a credit card tied to bitcoins they still follow the normal rules of credit cards so that isn't as private.
There is a reason both Obama and Romney brought up Cleveland Clinic in a debate, they bill as things should be. Doctors work for the hospital, no separate bills for each doctor, each test... the cost for doing something is a base rate that handles everything involved. No surprise bills showing up months after the fact, no extra referals within the system because they're paid the same regardless of how many tests are done. Not surprising there are fewer tests and higher results as profit motivation isn't the major goal. One study shows they do things 50% cheaper.
Sure things are still damn expensive and I don't know how the cost comparison is to other countries. I do know from personal experience that this sort of billing is drastically easier than any other hospital I've ever dealt with. Sad we have just Mayo and Cleveland doing this in the whole country. A quick google points out the highlights better than me http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2009/11/26/the-hospital-that-could-cure-health-care.html
I can understand some bit of complexity for a multi national, over half a trillion dollar company. But there is no reason for any tax code to be 73K pages unless it's to hide loopholes and other corporate benefits. Also the damn thing keeps growing every year. At least Apple paid some tax, GE paid 0% not long ago.
I'd argue that bitcoin is better than a fiat currency like the US Dollar. The FED - a private banking system managing our currency - has caused many of the bubbles with their monetary policies. Even Bloomberg recently had an article comparing current central bank policies across the world as possibly causing another Japan like lost decade. So flexibility in a crisis doesn't work very well with our current system.
You talk about wealth distribution. Look no further than the policies of the FED and the government. Who got the bailouts? Primarily the big banks and rich. Who got in trouble for breaking rules and causing the financial meltdown? Oh nobody. Also we have 5 banks bigger than before the too big to fail. The US has corporatism at its finest. I'll take my chances on a small shake up with an open money alternative like bitcoin. With a total network monetary value of what, 100 million or so BTC is a small player at the moment.
How can a law be retro-active? A quick search found "In the United States, the federal government is prohibited from passing ex post facto laws by clause 3 of Article I, Section 9 of the United States Constitution. "
I know I am missing getting new stargate episodes. Even another direct to DVD movie would be nice.
No one seems to have brought up Brandon Ruub. US Vet held for Facebook Post. He posted on facebook and was locked up. The scary part was the judge that gave the release found no grounds for the hold. Glad the US and UK are so in step with trying to lock people up.
They jury could have have used Jury Nullification. Jury's can find someone guilty but not agree with the punishment so acquit them. Of course if you even bring up nullification you'll probably be kicked off the jury. But I give the founders some credit for at least trying to make sure the average peer could apply common sense to laws.
I wish jury nullification was taught in every school, or included in every jury summons, to let people know the power they actually wield.
Quantum mechanics shows that conscious participation can help define the universe (Are things a wave or a particle? Matters if you're looking). John Wheeler took this further and called it the Participatory Anthropic Principle. (Not as catchy as his other terms he came up with like black hole or wormhole). So whomever sees epoch first may become the Maker. A fun little read on the idea is 2002 discover mag article
Steam sales are great values for recent games. I picked up a copy of Portal 2 for a nephew for 5 bucks. It's also a great introduction for multiplayer gaming. Just over a year old game for that cheap is a great deal. I can see why steam is doubling their revenue every year.
Anyone interested in education should look at what Finland has done. They're now top in the world education wise, spend 30% less on education than we do, have a student/teacher ration of 7 / 1 and only require 1 standardized test when they graduate. Why are Finalds Schools Successful. The teaching to the test, having a huge level of bureaucracy with the dept of education, and local teachers having absolutely no control over their students seems like it isn't working in the US.
I guess you could say places like Texas and Kentucky could have bible thumping no evolution courses if it was state level. But if the student fails the graduation required test that would help weed out the idiot teachings. Besides I went to a catholic school myself and we had an hour of religion class every day so it's already doable. (Although I was taught real science, no creationism)
I'm 2 blocks from my office which has DSL, but the house is in a different phone exchange and at the end of that run so no DSL available. I'm using open-mesh to get to my house. I go from an outdoor open-mesh on the office to non line of site outdoor unit out on a neighbor's barn. Then across a field to my house (I'm semi rural). I'm only getting around 3 meg of speed but it's better than the 22k modem option. This is with the default omni antenna on the open mesh gear. Nice equipment for less than 100 for an outdoor unit.
Of course if the zombies hit who's going to have power to be running these things?
For years GTE -> verizon would charge a few bucks extra for the privilege of having touch tone.
I think the movie swordfish teaches the best programming position. You can hack the DoD in under a minute with basic commands and all you need is someone pointing a gun to your head and a woman under the table.
I could see an interesting crowd sourcing project though of a name to a plate. If the camera hardware was cheap enough for an outdoor system and easy to use software to spit out a plate I wouldn't be surprised if people around the country would use it. Any neighborhood watch would love it. I'm not a hardware guy but an external camera and easy software that would work is probably still too pricey to make this doable. Perhaps a hardware guru could chime in.
I live on a state highway, a rural area but it still gets a lot of out of staters on weekends. I don't see how I could get in trouble if I directed a camera on my property at all license plates driving by and recorded the info, even if I published it as a live feed. Of course police have it easier since they can do a plate search to find out who the individual is. Also private cars don't have the nice plate scanners on their car and cell electronics probably wouldn't work.
I have a vague recollection of some license plate website in the dotcom era where you could leave messages to a license plate. Seems like a natural fit for FB app.
Dune is great, as long as you don't include anything his kid wrote. I read some of those, thought they were bad. Then they had the final chapter - supposedly from notes left from his dad. I think they pulled a blair witch with a fake finding of something. It was bad. Bad is putting it nicely, it took all the philosophical bent that dune had and wrapped it up into something that was dreary to get through. Also they had to write a few trilogies of mediocre at best sci fi to explain the old couple characters in the last chapter of chapterhouse. Not a good way to wrap up the series and the cliffhanger Herbert left with his death wasn't solved adequately.
I also don't understand how anyone trusts this. Sure bitcoins can be rather anonymous with laundries and easy to use taint detection on addresses. But the buyers are giving physical addresses. Unless there's some anonymous package remailer service it seems like delivery without being known would be difficult. I'd be concerned about a long term sting operation by some letter agency selling things on the site and let it coast for a year or so and then hit everyone you sent a package to.
Sure you can, it's been done. It follows the adventures of 4 Boggies including Dildo Bugger of Bag Eye and his friends Frito, Moxi and Pepsi. The Bored of the Rings
I've played with distances using a few different smart cards, a USB NFC reader, and a nexus S. I couldn't get a smartcard to read through the front of the phone or the side. I could get a USB NFC reader to detect if smartphone was placed face down. From the back it is about 3 inches with a USB reader, 1-2 inches with a smartcard.
NFC is also a battery hog. I don't see having it running all the time.
The linux AMD catalyst drivers support the Radeon HD 4x line, is there something special on your card that it doesn't work?
I have a handful of AMD 6x cards from a few bitcoin machines and my only complaint against AMD is they have weird errors pop up. Multi GPU cards may have a 100% CPU bug, fixed one release of catalyst, but then not on the next. But installing the catalyst drivers is as simple on linux as on windows (At least ubuntu and opensuse).
I owned a regional ISP for a decade. The '96 telco act was great. It forced the legislated monopolies to interconnect with new local exchanges. Suddenly an ISP could easily do business with a non monopoly telco and gain access to all exchanges in an area code (or a state/region) at one set of equipment instead of paying high foreign exchange rates or having various rack space spread around the countryside. Then.. Bush got elected, Powel's Kid was put in charge of the FCC, and the FCC became very big business oriented. They rolled back the telco act - the baby bells did pay huge fines for not following the act by being competitive but the FCC got more and more lenient. After a few years under Powel the FCC said the free market would handle such things and the act went away..
You saw the near instant collapse of the small ISP and regional CLECs. The thousands of companies that got people online either folded or sold as there was no way to stay competitive against the monopolies. For example wholesale costs for bare DSL lines were often higher than the companies were selling retail. Etc. Of course this wasn't just the FCC. My local fed house rep was sitting chair of the telecommunications subcommitee and he was all for big monopolies. (Interesting correlation with his voting record and his donations record too). His pat response was the big monopolies were holding back from infrastructure improvements because why build out when they may just lose money? Of course once they got their monopoly back it never happened...
With 300 billion documented of broken promises and failed tax breaks given to the telcos it would seem like someone would look into it. But we still haven't seen a single person charged with a crime by outright lying on wallstreet and causing economic damages so what's some broken telco promises?
Maybe he should try to get the telcos to give him some info? It's the least they can do with the 300 billion they've stolen from the public. I know it'd be doomed to failure but worth a shot.
Really only the company knows, and even then it's vague. When you get lines located for any reason they will show up, have vague information, and spend a little time wandering around locating the actual line and sticking flags/painting. Not unusual for them to miss something but if they missed it you're not liable to fix it.
The FCC has found that monopoly telcos are fine. The 1996 telco reform act tried to force them to play well with others - and we had thousands of ISPs open up getting everyone connected - but the FCC under Bush Jr and Powel's kid at the helm rolled all of that back. We're back to monopolies. Now try to be a startup and put something in a public right of way.. ha!
Yes, I know Western Michigan University Library technology staff have an in-house built app for an in-out board that uses wifi signal strengths to locate staff. It's been active for over a year. It does have to be initially trained for any different location. Not hard with the push of a button. Also android only, iphone doesn't let you sniff information on other wifi nodes, just the one you're connected to. I don't have the published article reference offhand but there are a variety of papers on similar ideas.
emacs? It's an office suite, email program, IDE, and even has a text editor.
Interesting observations. That's one reason groups like Mensa exist and I assume that the average /.er has a higher IQ than average.