We going to be going down pretty low. (...) Remember, bitcoins were almost at $1 just a month or so ago.

Yes. You're right. 17% risk free. Paid daily. (...) We are short of USD now, and that's why the interest rate is so high.

hey! you edited that! i liked the prior version of your answer much more

i thinkt the fact popper and his philosophical work remained in the state of positivist-though although he criticized it, is the number one reason for him beeing criticized by the Franfurter School Dudes.

Stephen Hawking is a recent high profile advocate of positivism, at least in the physical sciences. In The Universe in a Nutshell (p. 31) he writes:

Any sound scientific theory, whether of time or of any other concept, should in my opinion be based on the most workable philosophy of science: the positivist approach put forward by Karl Popper and others.

However, the claim that Popper was a positivist is a common misunderstanding that Popper himself termed the "Popper legend."

In fact, he developed his views in stark opposition to and as a criticism of positivism and held that scientific theories talk about how the world really is, not, as positivists claim, about phenomena or observations experienced by scientists.

In the same vein, continental philosophers like Theodore Adorno and Jürgen Habermas regarded Popper as a positivist because of his alleged devotion to a unified science.

However, this was also part of the "Popper legend"; Popper had in fact been the foremost critic of this doctrine of the Vienna Circle, critiquing it, for instance, in his "Conjectures and Refutations"

so, to be exact, in a postmodern tradition of discourse, in which we remain nowadays, you are indeed right and wrong. and so am i.

rather he spend his days propagating scientific positivism.

BTC Guild blocks will be containing BIP 16 support, hopefully between February 10 and 12.

Wow:

"I predict three revolutions in the 21st century: the global democratization of capital; the democratization of health care to the remotest parts of the world; and nearly universal access to knowledge. Scientists say there are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on our tiny planet. As these three revolutions take hold, perhaps the opportunity to contemplate such humbling facts will give our 21st-century leaders the perspective they need to leave behind the confrontational attitudes that have plagued mankind until now."

"The opening of our capital markets to people of broader backgrounds since 1980 has allowed far more individuals with a dream to test themselves in the marketplace. That has strengthened our economy, to be sure. Equally as important, it has strengthened our democracy."

"Today, in 2008, it's more important than ever that people on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder feel they're part of the American dream. They need access to capital. The promise of capitalism is that you'll have that access based on your ability."

"The accessibility of capital markets has grown continuously since 1974. Businesses are not as dependent on banks, which now own less than a third of the loans they originate."

Here's a link to the article.

Bitcoin is like the Web before the advent of
all the technologies that made it so useful for
non-techies. Back then, it was nearly impossible to
find anything of value on the Internet
– pioneer surfers will remember clicking through
pages and pages of irrelevant AltaVista results.
Businesses that had Web pages
did so more to seem edgy than to make sales.

Of course, the Internet eventually became
a critical part of our society and economy,
with technology making it easier to find
things, and a combination of scope and scale
increasing the value of what there was to find.
The potential of Bitcoin – more generally, of
a decentralized, self-regulating currency – is
similarly imponderable and similarly feared.
My hunch is that it will prove revolutionary.
I’m just not sure how or when.

Can you explain to me what theymos' proposal is?

Looks like I have to remind one of my points:

• I don't think that there is any chance of BIP17 winning because it's not supported by any major force besides Eligius (sorry, luke)

I like the fact that it doesn't uses magic cases and serialized form, but it may have drawbacks too. Also, I expect most people to be disappointed if I choose BIP17.
So I'll repeat: I don't think that there is any serious competition between BIP16 and BIP17. The only question is WHEN BIP16 will be adopted (if no other proposals appear soon).

I would immediately support any plain multisig scheme or sane long-address multisig TX proposal as possible first-stage on our way to P2SH to allow people play with it and get more time for preparing P2SH deployment.

21:58 <gavinandresen> BlueMatt: just got back... yes, I'd like to have a 0.6 rc1 soon
22:07 <gavinandresen> I'd like to talk about what to tell the miners who have already deployed BIP 16.
22:07 <gavinandresen> And talk about theymos' proposal for how to proceeed.
22:08 <BlueMatt> I was under the impression btc-guild was going to implement bip 16 later today and then [Tycho] would do it thereafter as a result
22:08 <genjix> but i am in strong favour of theymos proposal
22:08 <BlueMatt> so then we get >50%
22:08 <genjix> i think it is a great idea.
22:09 <gavinandresen> I strongly feel that we don't need more time to discuss/debate, that there is (and has been) rough consensus
22:11 <gavinandresen> I'd completely support theymos being a reality check on that, though.
22:11 <genjix> why not try theymos idea? it would be a good test case for a small thing to learn how to do this in the future.
22:11 <genjix> i called him 'organiser' there, but 'facilitator' is more accurate.
22:12 <gmaxwell> I believe that the most competent people are already burning out on this. Luke is saying that he's going to take a break. Gavin is clearly 'done' with the dispute.
22:14 <BlueMatt> Because I believe we are going to get >50% mining power on bip16 in the next few weeks, I say just continue by rolling a release candidate of 0.6 with bip16 set to start being enforced on March 1st
22:14 <BlueMatt> and then release when we hit 50%+
22:30 <BlueMatt> gavinandresen: are you sure 0.6 will make it by feb 15?
22:30 <BlueMatt> even if we push rc1 tomorrow...