Indeed (although unlike many years ago most Chinese do not have a poster of Chairman Mao in their home).

Also China hasn't been "communist' since Deng took over after Chairman Mao died (although many "brainwashed" westerners seem to think that it is).

Chairman Mao is still idolised in China despite that fact that he killed more Chinese (mostly through his stupidity) than any foreign invaders ever did.

History is basically always a "story" and that story varies according to every single country that teaches the story to their children.

You won't ever find the "truth" behind any of these stories as that "truth" is different according to every other country that has any involvement.

Basically you simply have to decide which "fake version of the truth" you are going to believe in (because the "real truth" will never appear).

It is not a private ledger - or are you referring to some sort of secretly embedded information?

(that still doesn't make it a private ledger - but a public ledger that also contains some private ledgers)

That doesn't differentiate from any other ledger so "cute - but not helpful".

The OP asked for "one sentence" so asking now for more sentences is just going off-topic.

I would have thought that most people would be more familiar with the term ledger than database but maybe this is a generational thing.

Well that I think we can probably agree upon!

(and I would apply that to the vast majority of all politicians in the world)

Well if you want to "change the meaning of democracy" to have zero to do with "voting" and "majority rule" then I guess you are right.

But you can pretty much win any argument by changing the meaning of words that everyone else tends to associate with a different meaning.

I think you'll find that the majority of people still believe that the word "democracy" refers to a system of majority voting (which Bitcoin is not).

What some dead French philosophers think we should consider the word "democracy" to mean is basically *irrelevant* (or do we have to run votes now to determine what people mean by words?).

I think that is about as "short and sweet" as it gets.

You missed my 3 x 30% point but for sure I get your point (I just don't think of it as "democratic" which is perhaps why I think simply better to not use that "loaded term").

Hmm... okay - so you mean deciding which version of the software to run - still it isn't "democratic" as if forks happen then miners can choose to stick with a fork (there is nothing to force them to do otherwise).

If three groups of mining pools that each had around 30% of the hashing power each decided to go a different way then you'd end up with 3 versions of Bitcoin (not one).

I wasn't thinking about alt coins in this regard btw.

The miners don't decide anything by any method that equates to what most people would call "democratic" as all they do is build on the best chain that they see - so again I don't get the use of the word "democratic".

It is in no way democratic as there is no "voting" or "majority rules" but simply "the rules of the software" (is the >50% attack the reason you included that word?).

So perhaps just: A tamper-proof, transparent public ledger.

If a pool is using modified software then it is entirely possible they could decide to reject txs with zero fees and accept an alternative tx spending the same UTXOs that does have fees (although I'm not sure if any pool is actually doing this at the moment).

You would have to be able to send such a "replacement" tx directly to the pool though as any standard nodes that have seen the first tx will simply reject the second as a double-spend attempt and not forward it to their other peers.

If your coins are "stuck" this is typically due to having paid zero tx fees and the UTXOs are either of too low value or age to qualify to be included in a block (if you are running an old client it might keep sending out the invalid tx so you might want to look into how to get rid of the tx from your wallet if this is the case).

Also the online gambling sites are not stupid enough to lose money from unconfirmed txs so this approach is not going to be a method to make money from them (it is only most likely to succeed for some small physical purchase if a store decides to accept 0 confirmations).

I think it probably depends upon the software being used - but assuming it doesn't allow for "executable code" (or scripts) then either QR or audio should be okay.

My problem with Armory has always been that they don't do QR codes (instead rely upon USB devices that could be hacked) simply because they try to be a "wallet" rather than just a "cold storage" solution (so CIYAM Safe is actually *safer* than Armory).

I'd need to change the signature system to use deterministic values to be certain against that (if vanitygen would add that then it would be relatively easy to incorporate).

My cold storage laptop is around 10 years old (which actually made it very cheap to buy).

And it *cannot* connect to the internet (apart from getting its WiFi card removed I ruined its plugs to prevent anyone plugging in anything to connect it).

I created the CIYAM Safe (https://susestudio.com/a/kp8B3G/ciyam-safe) for the purpose of making safe offline "cold storage".

To be really secure I would advise buying an *old computer" that predates any of the NSA attacks upon hard-drive firmware, etc. (yes it is a pity that they have made all modern hardware now suspect).

Like it or not we are in the middle of a "war' against privacy (which the major governments of this world hope we will lose).

Hmm... you/they are aware that Bitcoin itself uses absolutely *no encryption in the blockchain* - or maybe not.

So if world poverty can be ended by believing in blockchain encryption that doesn't exist then I guess it could probably also be achieved by believing in the Easter Bunny (at least in the latter case you might get to enjoy some chocolate).

Although unfortunately initially we will only have the two blockchains to demonstrate our ACCT AT but what you will find is that we will have created a way to do trustless exchanges across those two blockchains with no need for a separate application (i.e. the trading will be able to be done within the two wallets of those blockchains).

This will set it apart from projects like Mercury that rely upon a centralised website to organise the trades.