Well, when you're applying for the Chipmixer campaign I guess some people think throwing whatever they can against the wall and hoping it sticks is the best option--though I'm not sure if there are any sections of bitcointalk that the CM campaign pays for that are underrepresented.  

If those two posts had happened in a vacuum, they still might have raised a tiny red flag in my head, but with all the other evidence presented here I'm pretty much convinced there's probably some relationship between the two members.  I would not be surprised to find out that they're under the control of the same person, which is disappointing.  

Edit: Looks like I did some post history reviews for KingsDen last year, which I would not have done had I had suspicions; I could have his name mixed up in my head with RainbowKun's, but I'm not sure, so don't take offense just yet, KingsDen.  I could swear there was some drama surrounding him (KingsDen) at some point, though.

By the way, I seem to recall the issue of KingsDen having alt accounts not being a new one by any means.  Does anyone remember this being brought up before?  I know I commented on it in at least one thread, though it could have been a year or more ago and I don't know which section it might have been in or even how to quickly find the post(s) I made about it.

I'm not defending Russia's politicians here, but those accusations could easily be leveled against my government, your government (wherever you are), and pretty much every government out there.  World leaders don't rise to power and remain there by telling the truth, because that isn't what people want to hear.  And there's a lot of secrecy within governmental powers as a matter of security, which is why no government is completely transparent.  So while Russia does indeed lie to the world and all of that, that isn't the main issue here.

The issue is the will of Putin to continue his aggression against Ukraine, and with respect to the topic of this thread I'd love it if there were an internal rebellion amongst his generals (or anyone else in Russia's military).  I just don't think that's going to happen--if it did, it would certainly be groundbreaking stuff.  Has that ever happened in Russia's history before?

Dang, I wasn't aware of that fact (though it doesn't come as a surprise to me whatsoever).  That's some rarified air, as there are only a handful of current members who'd ever stand a chance of hitting the 10k mark.  Maybe some new, brilliant poster like nullius will come along eventually and blow up and through all the ranks and get to that many merits, but just given the history of how things go on the forum, it's not likely.

You've got some drive in you, m'man.  And then there's me, content with what I've got in terms of merits and my little position as a merit source.  I'm a couch potato compared to you guys.  Well, I'm pretty much one of those anyway, so.

Good luck to all those frantically trying to earn 10k merits.  I'd love to help out, but if you've even got one toe in the race you probably don't need any help from me or any other merit source.

I'd go even further and say that bitcoin isn't like any educational institution--or an institution of any kind.  Idiots, geniuses, scammers, criminals, and fine upstanding citizens are all welcome to participate.  And so far in bitcoin's relatively short lifespan, that's precisely all the types of people it's attracted (and more).

I'm a little PO'ed that my IQ was measured at something like 126.  Those questions were heavily biased toward pop culture and other things I generally don't pay attention to.  Oh, Theymos you're a tempest in a teapot and we're all minnows bumping around in the ocean below.  If I offended you on 4/1/22, my apologies.  But really, I'm a lot smarter than your little IQ test indicated.  Just sayin', now.

Go for it, b. gator. 

I don't pay attention to feedback I get anymore, since...I just don't care, but I found these two amusing, and I wouldn't have become aware of them had you not pointed them out:



Those comments I made about selling my account were on April Fool's Day, may I remind those in the community who might have gotten the idea that I really want to sell my account (or that I meant to insult Theymos for that matter).  T'was a day for joking, and I figured most people would understand that I'd never sell my account.  I think most did, since I didn't get any PMs of any kind.

Anyway, if you want to unleash the inner programmer in you, gator, I think that's an admirable thing.  I only wish I had that in me.

Not sure how the German authorities deal with seized funds, but hopefully they're more fair than the US and some other countries, who'd just either keep the loot for their own purposes or have higher-ups embezzle everything (like the DEA or FBI did with the Silk Road bitcoin; can't remember which alphabet agency employees who did that).

I've never heard of Hydra Market, which is a bit strange.  If it used significant amounts of bitcoin, you'd think it'd at least get a mention on bitcointalk, but I can't remember anything of the sort.

Because logic and headlines more often than not don't mix well.  I can't believe how many people believe everything they see on the news or read online.  And with this, it's the same tired old argument that since bitcoin is and always has been used for illegal activities, it must be inherently bad.  The counter-argument, of course, is that government-issued currency has always served the same purpose and is still the most anonymous way to deal in illegal goods & services like drugs and murder-for-hire.

No.  A thousand times no.  Not only would an IQ test be universally loathed by the community (newbies in particular), but it wouldn't even be effective for whatever purpose it had, since as has been pointed out it's too easy for someone to grab the answers off the internet and cheat.

That's why it was an April Fool's joke, kids.  Theymos might be nutty as a port-o-potty outside a peanut factory, but he's not crazy enough to implement such a time-wasting exercise as an IQ requirement for membership.  Can you imagine?

And all of that as well.  The merit system is one thing--and I'm a big supporter of it, especially since most members here get paid to post, and there's a very real, very great need to limit shitposting, but thankfully Theymos is indeed pro-freedom at every turn.  That's part of what makes bitcointalk such a great forum.  You can speak your mind using pretty much any language you care to, and it's not going to be censored for the sake of not offending someone.

Stupid people are welcome, as are geniuses.  And we've got quite a mix already.

Eh, happy financial new year to you as well I guess(?). 

Those two points above are key strategies for anyone if they want to make any money, or to preserve what money they have.  I see way too many folks living way beyond their means, maxing out their credit cards and re-mortgaging their houses to get cash and so forth, and interest rates will kill you.  Even crypto traders trading on margin are crazy to do so IMO.

It's great that you've got a good job in the biotech industry and do crypto mining as what sounds like a part-time hobby.  I don't frequent the B&H section, but I'm going to check out that thread of yours you linked to.  There's tons of money to be made from mining various coins, and I wish I'd gotten into that when I could afford the hardware.  Dammit, I'm always five hours late to any party.

Ugh.  I haven't looked at what new signature campaigns/bounties that have been coming out in a long time, but that one looks like a waste of time--$70/week for Hero/Legendaries paid out in whatever the hell VOY is.  And if I'm not mistaken, it looks like DeFi is being crowbarred into "solutions" that don't require a solution based on DeFi.  Very much like all those ICOs a couple of years ago that promised to solve every problem under the sun with the blockchain.

I could grit my teeth indefinitely, but dental care is so expensive nowadays.

Now THAT is a stinker straight out of 2015!  I guess some things never change, not with the potholes and skanks on my street and not on bitcointalk.  As long as there's a service that pays non-English-speaking people to post in English, we're going to end up with turds like that.

I'm going to play devil's advocate here and ask this: Could you think of a better time to criticize Europe for not lessening its dependence on Russian oil?  Had the author written that prior to the current invasion (and I'm not even sure he didn't), what impact do you suppose it would have had?  None as far as I would predict, because as you pointed out, hindsight is indeed 20/20--and in addition to that, the criticism would probably just come off as inflammatory rhetoric against Russia.

The way I see it is that it's the big global oil companies that are standing in the way of greener energy consumption, and until their stranglehold over car manufacturers and every other industry that currently relies on oil and oil byproducts is loosened, we're never going to see cities powered by solar energy and roads filled with nothing but electric cars.  And none of that is Russia's fault alone, of course.  There's a hell of a lot of blame to go around, and you don't even have to look that far to find the culprits.

I beg to differ on the first point, and I'd point to the Vietnam war as an example of a war that was neither won nor lost.  The United States knew they had to get out of the situation they'd created for themselves without showing weakness, because they knew they'd never win it and US citizens (a lot of them, anyway) didn't know why it had even been started in the first place.  I guess you could say N. Vietnam won, but that isn't exactly true--the US just withdrew its forces.

Putin doesn't have to win or lose this thing with Ukraine; he could just pull back.  I'm sure he'd have to find a reason that would allow him to save face and not look like a failure, but he could do it.  So this isn't an all-or-nothing, win-or-lose situation for him.  It might seem that way in his own head, but it doesn't have to be that way--and I'm hoping he comes to his senses and does the right thing for Ukraine and for his own people, who are suffering under the sanctions imposed by the various countries that have had enough balls to stand up to him.

I read your post after making mine, and it's nice to see someone else sees that point (and props for thinking of an example that didn't come to mind).  I don't know what the hell we were doing in Afghanistan, or Iraq, or Grenada for that matter, but the US probably has many more examples of "wars" that were never won or lost.

Gee, I'd think most of the underestimation of how life and self changes occurs when you're under 18--but hey, I'm not a pollster.  Personally, I used to think I was immortal when I was between the ages of 8 and 17 and thought I was going to rule the world someday.  Oh, how life disabused me of those silly notions. 

And who the hell is Gilbert's Research anyway?  Are you Gilbert, OP?

My financial plans include moving to a castle with some fellow bitcoiners located in a temperate climate with tons of scantily-clad babes and whatever else meets your fancy.  I made a thread about it in Economics which I'm too lazy to link to, but it's there.  Financial freedom is never going to happen for me as long as I reside where I do, because the cost of living is so damn high (and getting higher).

But on the brighter side, it seems like Will Smith slapped Ukraine out of the headlines and made gas prices drop about 25%.  Thank you, Mr. Smith and Mr. Rock for taking one for the team.

I appreciate the advice, sincerely.  And as I've said many times, I'm not crazy about Trezor's design anyway (though if it were an ideal HW wallet I'd go with it in spite of that). 

I'll look into Keystone and Passport, though at this point for bitcoin I'm not sure that using Electrum and storing the seed phrase in a secure place isn't an easier option. 

OP, you've been critical of Ledger for as long as I can remember, and I used to politely disagree with you (if I recall correctly), but everything you've said stuck in my mind and produced doubts--doubts that kept growing and growing until I finally decided to ditch Ledger a couple of weeks ago. 

I don't like the fact that they use a closed-source code, and I don't like their data collection and privacy practices.  In fact, I'm uncomfortable enough with those things that I moved my coins off my device and into separate wallets (fortunately I don't own that many coins, and the amounts are small anyway).  So I thank you for being the canary in the coalmine for so long, because I have a feeling Ledger's policies are going to backfire on them, but it's their users who are going to get their heads blown off.

Too bad, because I loved the Nano S and X and the fact that they supported so many coins.  If anyone from Ledger ever reads this, tell someone high up to get the company's shit together.

Uh, you might have wanted to cite the source you pulled that info from, because you left a piece of end-quote code in that post that indicates it came from elsewhere. 

OK, that sounds nice as has many of the other suggestions I've gotten here, but you and everyone else neglected to mention the climate.  Our campaign castle must be located in a place where the weather is good (and I mean warm and precipitation-free for most of the year) in addition to all the economic factors.  I know how it goes in most of Europe, Africa, and S. America, but I'm not familiar with the climate in most of Asia (except for Russia, but only parts of it).  It's important to me.

The game is rigged, I can see that now.  Just like whenever that year was when Theymos rolled out all of those ridiculous user statistics, which were seemingly random.  This game Thermos is playing doesn't hold any coffee as far as I'm concerned--it's just another Machiavellian show of power designed to frustrate, confuse, and humiliate the entire forum and I'm not having it.

If anyone wants to buy my account for a bargain basement price, drop me a PM.

Generally I don't listen to suggestions from borderline retards, but in this case I think it would be a superlative idea.  Unfortunately it would be about 4 years too late to implement such restrictions, because the worst of the shitposting, spamming, newbie infestation, account farming, and all the other woes bitcointalk has seen were mitigated by the merit system.  

But if it were up to me, I'd keep newbies in jail until they either starved to death and we could hang their skeletons from the home page or they proved their usefulness to the community via a combination of IQ testing, forced sterilization, eugenics, earned merits, and probably some other vicious methods I can't think of right now because of my blood alcohol level.  

And no, I don't remember newbie jail, but I've heard tell of it from members more experienced than me.  I do remember the old scammer tag from my lurking days, and I would also bring that back.  If anyone would like to join me in a forum coup, hit me up via PM.

Hear, hear.  I see, belatedly, that you beat me to the mentioning of it.  I'm sure most noobs don't realize how different the forum was in the early days.  Can you see all of that through the Wayback Machine or some other method?

Edit:  MOTHERFUCKER!!

If you give me enough time, I'll be able to join.  Unfortunately I think I'm in the worst time zone for the April 1st fun and games on bitcointalk.  The first I noticed there was an IQ test for posting was nearly the time I was ready to pass out fall asleep, and said sleep lasted >10hrs.  Now it looks as though I have less than 11 hours to raise my IQ using whatever hellbegotten, horse-fucked algorithm Theymos is using to measure members' IQ.

Couldn't you please just grandfather me into your club based on my prior brilliant and witty contributions to the forum?  I know you know what I mean, and I know you want to.

Are there any monies involved in this?  Any honies?  Foxpup's last midnight black mass left me cold.  But boy, the things I learned one can do with just a pickle and a friend.

Man, if Theymos ever put a breathalyzer lock on my keyboard.....

Just like every year prior to this one, I can't tell who's genuinely confused about you-know-what day and who's just pretending when they make threads like these, hoping they'll earn merits.  I'm cynical, even if it's 8am and I'm not drunk yet.  But OP, if you remain a member of the forum long enough, you'll get used to this kind of yearly fun.

Edit:  Passed another question!  Now I have to answer another one to edit a post?  C'mon Theymos, this just isn't fair.

Edit2: IQ of 113?  Gimme a break.  Last time my IQ saw that number was when I was attached to an umbilical cord and had not yet seen the sunshine and come to loathe it.

Edit3: Still not even close, my man.

Edit4: Oh, fuck you!

Biiiiiiiiiiiitch, what time zone do you live in?  It's too early for this shits.  I'm going to sell my account if this nonsense keeps up--anybody interested?