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?

Well, I didn't state it outright but I'm making the assumption that I would bring all of my possessions with me to wherever it is I can wear my crown (lol).  And I'm going to make a further assumption that if I needed something like a PS5 I could buy it online and have it delivered.  Am I wrong in that assumption?  I don't know if Newegg or Amazon ships to Zimbabwe or Venezuela, but I can't imagine those countries don't have people buying stuff online.

I'd love to go to Zimbabwe, by the way.  I've read stories of the bush and its climate, and a lot of that appeals to me.

Yeah, but it'd be $1500 per week for 5 people, so $300 apiece.  I could easily spend that probably wherever the castle is located.  I don't know what country you're in (I probably forgot) but it sounds like $300/week would go a long way.

And that's the thing about living in the US.  $300/week is a pittance if you don't want to live like a bum, buying cheap food and never having enough extra to buy things you want as opposed to the necessities.  Somebody tell me where there's a castle, mansion, chateau, hacienda, whatever that can be bought for a decent price where the weather is warm at least 3/4 of the year.  Pleeeease.

Bro, people worship at the same altar in the US--just look at all the American Youtubers flashing their bling and making a killing by filming themselves speaking illiterately about inane topics.  How many people are cashing in on the Will Smith slappening right now and making bank?  Tons.

Well, it's not exactly a lie to say that crypto can and has been used for illegal activities, it's just that the argument is an appeal to stupid people who'd accept that line of reasoning as a justification for a ban on (or heavy regulation of) crypto.  Incidentally, that same argument has been made since the early days of bitcoin and I'm surprised that a world leader is still repeating it.

Yep, it's the same old story with them and it hasn't changed one bit in my lifetime as far as I know--granted, I don't live there, but I've heard the same horror stories of communist repression for as long as I can remember, so I don't think the government has changed much in decades.  Unfortunately the same is true for the US as well, though our government isn't a totalitarian one.

Also, I doubt the IT sector is going to disappear from China anytime soon.  There are way too many smart, tech-oriented people there for that to happen.

Indeed he does; the changes/additions he makes to the forum often appear to be out of the blue to those who aren't in his inner circle (and I'm not even sure he has one of those).  Back in 2019 he made merit sources out of a bunch of members who hadn't even applied, me included--and though I'd said in posts prior to that that I didn't want to be a source, I'm glad he tapped me to be one.  The merit system has turned out to be extremely important as a spam-neutering tool as well as a deterrent to account farming.  And since its inception, I've certainly calmed down a lot.

And that was my one and only concern.  Also, in your defense the fact that you didn't abandon the forum altogether says something about what it means to you--and I know it does, because you've told me as much before. 

I'm wondering about the status and number of current merit sources.  I can't help but think that some may have gone inactive since Theymos added the last batch.  On the other hand, I haven't been seeing many threads in Meta complaining about not earning enough merits, so maybe the system is functioning fine.

IMO, posting news articles here from a news site that you're affiliated with, work for, or own, is on the borderline of shilling at least.  Personally I don't have a problem with what Coinshots is doing, because I get most of my crypto news from bitcointalk and wouldn't have stumbled across that site if he hadn't posted here.  And we've seen much the same thing before--I can't remember the website, but it was the same deal with constantly posting news blurbs and links to the site.

I'm more curious about this:

Maybe I'm a bit behind, but how has any of that changed?  Have the rules around plagiarism relaxed?  And what's the state of moderation on the forum right now?  I'm wondering if Theymos needs to hire some more mods.

That's good to hear, because I'm not sure Theymos has any plans to add more merit sources anytime soon.  It'd be nice to know when the last time he accepted an application was, aside from what BlackHatCoiner mentioned (and if anyone knows, please share that info).

I've been friendly with you for quite a while, and I have no doubt that you can tell good posts from the typical shitpost written by someone posting for their bounty or whatever.  The only question I have is whether you plan on sticking around and being active enough to be an effective merit source.  You were gone for quite a while if I'm not mistaken. 

Eh?  Not sure what that has to do with someone's ability to discern post quality, but whatever.  You've got my support, Mr. gator.

Assholes like this one who's selling a whole bunch of different accounts couldn't give a crap about this forum and probably not any forum or platform.  I tagged him, but it's unlikely to do any good since he's a newbie with only 13 posts.  Thanks to OP for pointing this out, however--it's better that members like him get painted red as fast as possible no matter what effect it may have.

Ugh....reminds me of 2015.  I need to take a cold shower.

Well that's....interesting.  My first impression was that you know bitcoin has jumped the shark when a giant mega-corporation like Exxon Mobil gets into the business of mining it.  Fortunately my first impressions of things are often wrong.

If this article is true and Exxon really does get into the BTC mining business, it probably would be profitable for them.  But one problem I see is that they have so much cash they can throw at the operation that they might end up with a bit too much hashing power if they decided to go that far.  Maybe somebody with actual mining experience could set me straight on that point and tell me if I'm wrong.

As far as their choice of location, they picked a good one.  North Dakota has got to be one of the coldest states in the US.  They might have done better in Alaska, but maybe there's some tax advantage in ND.

Oh....that sounds so nice.  As I think I mentioned earlier in this thread, I talk to my local gas station owner all the time, and he's from Bangladesh.  I always ask him what the weather's like over there, and he always tells me it's hot.  It's amusing to me that he hates the cold so much in our state, as I'm sure it's much different than Bangladesh--only sort of amusing, because I've lived here all my life and I can't stand it either.

And wow, that's a very low cost of living.  You can't rent anything but a room in a boarding house for $400/month, and probably not even for that little money.  I'd say the least you'd have to spend is $500/month (depending on what state in the US you're in).  I swear, these fantasies of emigrating to a milder climate and living off the proceeds of bitcoin hustling are growing stronger by the day.  Anyone interested?

Some do, and I certainly would if I had enough money.  Unfortunately I don't, nor do I have anyone to travel with (sadly).  I'd love to check out India and the surrounding countries, and some countries in South America as well--Brazil and Belize in particular.

Damn, you're good.  I really wish I'd studied computer science or programming or some related field when I was in college.  Unfortunately I think it's way too late for me to start at this point.

And welcome back to the forum, bill gator.  Been a while, eh?  I'd been wondering where you'd gone off to (in addition to other members like TMAN and Your Point Is Invalid).  It's always nice when there's a community that's stable in its membership.

As far as your search woes go, hopefully you've found a solution that makes it easier--and I'd add that this is one of the aspects of bitcointalk that needs a serious overhaul.  I've often gotten errors just from searching too fast, and that just shouldn't happen in the present day.