Good one guys.
Here's another one I found today. It's a college student in UCLA who dressed up in a Poncho, fake mustache, and a sombrero. A real Mexican stereotype. He went on campus and asked the non Mexican students if his Halloween costume was offensive. Most said "yes" that they were offended. The same person went and interviewed native Mexican's. None of them in the video were offended. They seemed to have a sense of humor and confidence in their culture.  Also, I imagine the context of the person wearing the costume is paramount. I would only say that wearing a costume of another culture would possibly be offensive if the persona was demoralizing or demeaning the culture itself.

Here's the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IT2UH74ksJ4

From a sociological perspective, it is interesting to see this unfold.

Hey guys,
Don't forget about honor. Even though someone may not know that you are taking advantage of a situation or you don't care about "reputation" don't' forget that holding yourself to a higher standard is important. It is not about right or wrong or some religious belief. It's about being honorable and trustworthy. It doesn't matter if it is a casino. I think at times people forget that their actions represent who they are. Especially with the anonymous nature of the internet.

How many youths hold themselves to that standard?. I have tried to instill this to my children as often as I can.

Yes, https://www.betbit.com does not have a KYC procedure. All funds can be withdrawn instantly with no human intervention.

Thank you for your input. The effects of reallocating the smerits are listed 1-3. I just thought this would be a way to incentivize posting quality.

I was thinking about the economy of the merit system today. Lately, I have been seeing some posts or responses that are high quality with no merits allocated. I am wondering if unspent merits are an issue? Imagine, how would someone feel if they spend 20-30 minutes on a well thought out reply and did not get acknowledged for their effort? I know users should theoretically be here for the love of the community, but we are human after all. The merit system gives users a little appreciation for time well spent.

I usually spend smerits soon after I receive them. Why? why not, right.

Would a good plan be to have a time limit on smerits? That way the user will feel there is a time limit, and understand that collecting them is useless? We all know that it's in our nature to accumulate.. lol.

By doing this we could:

(1) Allow a tighter control on the economy of smerits and the merit system.
(2) Encourage users to spend smerits before they are lost to them. Give is better than losing.
(3) Re-enforce users efforts on creating quality contributions.

Valid argument or not worth it? I would love to hear what an economist that knows "game theory" would say on this matter.

I mean this with all due respect.

Oh Mk3000, you don't want to do this. This is abuse and some would make an argument for fraud. Only play at casinos or sportsbooks for entertainment. Don't be one of those guys who tries to exploit the system. If there is exploitation then the casinos will not offer these wagers to anyone. Windows of opportunities will close for the average player.

Lately, I've been noticing that our US society is becoming increasingly sensitive to "cultural appropriation". This entire issue hit my radar a few years ago when a saw a video of this stoner looking white guy with dreadlocks being assaulted by a black woman in a college setting. The woman was claiming that he stole their culture by wearing dreadlocks, and could not do that. The hippy guy tried to walk away and eventually did so.

The video of this can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsIVy3cspck

Here is the craziest example I've seen to date. The magazine Cosmo published an article saying that white girls cannot wear the Disney Cartoon "Moana" costume. Ben Shapiro pretty much addresses this and sums it up nicely here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vg4oQ9AV8KY

Here's the interesting thing. I hardly ever use the terms "white" or "black" when describing people. Seems like the media that does promote racially sensitive does excessively. I find that interesting. I had to in the above paragraphs, just to make a point.

Was this even an issue 5 years ago, or am I just culturally behind. I most likely will end up one of those older guys who offend people without meaning to.

Did you see the volume today? It was 6.5 billion! That's almost 10% of overall market cap. Is that a signal in TA?

Speculation is a normal part of some new disruptive technology. Remember the dot com bubble?

Here's a cool chart of the cycle:
I don't know where we are at on the cycle, but I am thinking somewhere along "despair". At least that's what I feel we are at.

IMO, no. Unless a blockchain would solve a problem. I think a lot of business created their own crypto for no reason other than to make one. The database will handle merit better. Also, we wouldn't want to create a secondary market for it. Also, these coins are the "sh%t coins" we should shun as a community. This pretty much sums up my views:

https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/7kaoqb/i_am_having_a_hard_time_understanding_why_nearly/

Oddly enough, when researching useless coins I found very little info. Most of the info is on ICO evaluations and ICO related topics. Most likely, this is due to the fact that that is where the money is in 2017. People generating large funding for ideas with lots of keywords and promises.

I respectfully disagree with you. We have to have the "store of value" crypto like BTC, and ETH be uncensured. trust me, I've had problems with a bank before. They have the ability to freeze your accounts based on a whim of an administrator. Any misunderstanding can cause you to temporarily and in the worse case, permanently lose your funds.

Also, consider that law enforcement can seize your assets. It's called "civil forfeiture". This has never happened to me or anyone I know. I've only seen this in articles and mainstream media. Admittedly, when I've seen this happen it's most likely the person who had the funds seized is drug related (drug mules or dealers).  I don't mind seizing the funds of criminals, but seizing them without due process is the scary thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United_States
the banks are going to want to keep it centralized and the government is going to want it censored. These two characteristics will keep "us" under conventional control.

This happened to me twice before. For some reason I didn't think the button worked, so I clicked it twice. I guess it's a habit. I never have too many smerits at one time, so I usually give away 1 or maybe 2 at a time. This didn't bother me.

I've done the feasibility study of using solar panels here in Florida. It does not look very attractive. My calculations showed that where we live, there is no real cost savings. Also, when you have money tied up in the solar panel assembly. If you do it, it's because of ideological reasons, not economic. I do like the solar shingles that Musk is working on. I think that will be disruptive. Hopefully, all new homeowners will install them.

While looking for "real" info on the costs of solar panels I found that most of the results on solar power are biased towards solar energy use. Look up "solar energy myths" in google. All of the results are from solar energy special interests. There are quite a few "myth busters" in favor of solar. One common arguement is the fact that solar panels are designed to be used for 30 years. The return on investments is super long. I highly doubt it. There are so many things that could go wrong.

https://southerncurrentllc.com/top-solar-energy-myths-debunked/

Electric vehicles IMO are the exception. There are substantial savings there.

From a medical standpoint, I say "yes, most definitely". Although I do not know his (or her) specific conditions, regardless the answer is yes. Here's why.
During his development, the circulating endogenous testosterone helped develop more muscle mass, bone density, and height. A rule of thumb is that men are about 10 cm more on average in height than females. This varies, but that is a quick rule of thumb. Here is a quick reference on differences in height in male vs females in different countries.

https://www.disabled-world.com/calculators-charts/height-chart.php

It is true, that in sports performance variations in men and women are largely based on height and mass and not sex.

https://www.strongerbyscience.com/gender-differences-in-training-and-diet/

However, taking a full-grown male, who had the benefit of male hormones the entire life, and then removing those hormones does not mean that the height and mass have instantly disappeared. It is unfair to pit him against a woman who has not had those benefits.

Here is the best example I can think of. In the MMA sport, there is a man Fallon Fox, who was a man, and then competed in the women's division. He brutally beat most of the female competitors and raised the same question.
Here is a video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4U4KGz72SEg

I am fine with people wanting to do anything they want as long as it does not harm others. Gender reassignment is not an issue for me. The only issue I have is when men compete unfairly in women's sports.

I started on this forum in late 2016. I am a bitcoin enthusiast, but not a blockchain expert. This was before the crypto fever of 2017. Honestly, I see no difference. I could be wrong. Most of the technical subforums are over my head, and I would be contaminating their threads with questions. That being said, BTC has made a lot of money for a lot of people. Probably most of the early members here. Maybe the users who are only into the monetary gains of crypto are higher now than before.

That's how I imagine it to be. Seems like the natural progression of a high yield market. It starts off as a niche, then early adopters "wealth" gets noticed. Money then floods in and yuppies jump on board. Walla, here we are , lol.

For those of you who promote bitcoin sportsbooks. I would be interested to know what is your favorite

I've seen three different types of sports commission structures.

(1) Turn over volume: I've seen this one on Cloudbet.com. They offer 0.2% of all turnover volume through our sportsbook ('turnover volume' is the lesser of the amount bet and the amount that can be won on a bet)

https://affiliates.cloudbet.com/terms_and_conditions

If the vig is 10% on losing bets, then they are essentially offering 2% of commission of losses by using the .2% turn over method? Please correct me if I am wrong.

(2) Percent of overall losses: Let's say a program offers you 25% commission of the overall losses.  Is 25% competitive? What in your opinion is fair and competitive for the sports affiliate market?

(3) Percentage of the vig : This one is the most attractive to the sportsbook I would imagine. This would be a percentage of the commission made from the punter. This is close to the (2) option in the (2) option has a very large player base. Option (3) would ensure a no negative carry over and avoid asymmetrical losses.

If you are a sportsbook program, please put down your commission structure and percentages. Please keep it factual.

When you think about it, the banking system, in general, has adopted technology well. They seem to use existing tech, rather than create it. No major breakthroughs generated by them.

I think they will adopt blockchain if it makes sense for them. They will most likely be the laggards of adoption. When they do it will be to increase user experience and security in an efficient way. Now, you find a lot of sectors trying to fit blockchain into their business model just because they want the publicity. For example, online schools Edgecoin and the Academy token. These two projects have a token for the sake of having a token. Why not just use BTC.. why make a tokenized representation of value for the education programs? These programs do not make sense to me.
 

The greeks did use the term "metre", meaning "measure". That is where the word "meter" derived from.

http://www.us-metric.org/origin-of-the-metric-system/
I don't think Greeks did that. Apparently, Gabriel Mouton from Lyons France is the father of the metric system around 1670.  The meter is based on 1 minute of the arc of the earth's circle. That doesn't make sense though. That would be 1 nautical mile, 1852 meters. (As mentioned in the article)  In the 1700's they made more accurate measurements to determine the distance. Apparently, Napoleon banned the use of the metric system.

One thing is clear. They put a lot of time and thought into creating the metric system. Very well planned out. I suggest reading the article.

After the latest trend in measuring gravity waves, the theory of "constant" speed of light in a vacuum. Space is not a true vacuum, but the most practical approximation. There is still mass in space (most Hydrogen). There are so many uncertainties. Still, our most advanced scientific theories are still a myth. We can infer a lot with observation. We can take those observations and make models that make us feel good. We are making progress, but slow progress. Talking about the theoretical vs. practical reminds me of this joke I heard before.

Three men enter a doorway to a room with a naked lady in a bed on the other side. Of these men, there is a theoretical physicist, mathematician, and a Mechanical Engineer. They hear a voice that says, "gentlemen, you may walk towards the woman on the bed. Every 3 seconds you must only travel half of the distance between you and the lady. The Engineer immediately lunges forward, walks halfway and pulls down his pants. The mathematician and the theoretical physicist start to walk away discouraged. They yell back to the Engineer .. "You will never get there !!!".. The Engineer smiles and says.. "I'll get close enough that it will matter".. lol.

I found two more great examples of entrepreneurs who are "older".

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/294799

Sam Walton started Walmart at 44 and Charles Flint started IBM at 61.

Also, I remember hearing that Warren Buffet made 80% of his money after the age of 70. Those are not the exact numbers, but very close. So, us "older" guys and gals are still relevant, just in a different way.