My point was that you can buy them online, rather than buying them in person and mailing them to people yourself. 

Note, you can also buy them online: http://shop.timhortons.com/Catalogue/Default.aspx?categoryId=19

And +1 to Timmy's, eh!

I think that illegalization is Bitcoin's most likely mode of failure.  Failure, of course, only in the sense that it would crash the price by eliminating the likelihood of "upstanding citizens" ever adopting it; it could continue to be used for black market stuff, and while this would get a few careless people in trouble, would be unstoppable on the whole.

Considering how quickly services like Silk Road have sprung up, and the fact that the demographic of people who seem most interested in Bitcoin at this point tends to overlap with the demographic of likely tax evaders, I am afraid that this illegalization might just be a matter of time.  Bittorrent was bad enough, after all, and that is only a "threat" to the private sector.

This is something I think we need to give more consideration to.  So many of Bitcoin's users seem to be individualists and on the political fringe - the sorts of people who say "I don't care what anybody thinks of me" - and while that's often a great attitude to take, there are times and places where it's not beneficial.  That sort of attitude could hurt the spread, and therefore the value, of the currency in which so many of us have invested.

I'd defend the ponzi schemes in the context that most of us here are like-minded and can easily take it as a joke.  But in order for Bitcoin to move forward, we might need to start looking a little less "fringey" in order to get normal people on board... the sorts of people who might not find ponzi schemes so funny.

QFT  XD

I think the only thing necessary to make a pyramid/ponzi scheme "honourable" is for it to not hide that it is in fact a pyramid/ponzi scheme.

Just rewrote that to be slightly more clear.  I'm not certain what the third sentence was supposed to say.  (It might be clearer to a native Chinese speaker than to me, though.)

lumos 说：
你好，我想对你们的项目帮助你们。要是你给我发送你的论坛帖子，我愿免费地用更好的英语改写它。那（这句话我看不懂）。我希望你们能理解这个帖子，我用谷歌翻译。
现在，我愿意帮助前七个想要这项服务的人。这样我给你们看例子，怎么写更好的英语。然后，我会不停地指导你们。

You can indeed do that!  And so I'm asking, if I (or someone else) were to write this code, would it be worth it?  And what might be the best way to go about it?

My parents pledged to a charity today and had to set up automated withdrawals with their bank account.  This got me thinking - automated deposits are trivial with bitcoin, but automated withdrawals are (by design) not really possible, except by giving away your private key.  (I'm not sure what sorts of security measures are in place with automated withdrawals from ordinary bank accounts.  It may not be anything more than the reputation of the withdrawer, and the force of the law, i.e. no better than giving away your key.)

Anyway, I was thinking that in lieu of literal automated withdrawals, a system like the following could be really useful once bitcoin comes to be used for loans, rent, payment plans, and charitable pledges: the payer can set up automated payments, and the program, so long as it is active, "phones home" to the receiver to report that the payment is in place.  That way the receiver knows if they don't receive their payment that the payer hasn't simply forgotten to send it, but is either NSF (which could be easily determined beforehand by looking at the blocks) or deliberately scamming them.

Is this something that would give lenders a little bit more of a sense of security and legitimacy in their transactions?  Is there a way this could be set up such that when the program reports to the receiver that the payment is in place, this could be trusted and "unspoofable"?

I will use the support feature to reimburse the first four jokes posted here 1.5x the cost to comment: http://gambling.witcoin.com/p/717/The-official-comedy-pyramid-scheme

coljac, 你的中文程度跟我的差不多啊！ 

I dream of the day bitcoinsnow falls from the sky.

And the community is grateful.   

ryepdx is right, the baroque thing it has going on is pretty cool...

@Floww
Not to be the first wet blanket (because I think it's really great that people are submitting ideas, and I appreciate your skillful work) but I think it's a bit garish compared to the current logo.  I think it would look better as an actual coin than as a logo.  The current logo has the sort of SVG-chic simplicity that seems to be in vogue in the tech industry right now, especially among open-source projects.

Do you know anything about underground music (地下音乐) in China?  Experimental (实验的) rock (摇滚), jazz (爵士), folk (民間), punk (朋克), etc.?

Are you familiar with 崔健 or other Chinese classic rock musicians like him?

I'll be keeping an eye on this in case you get more topics.  I like writing essays on areas I'm knowledgeable about, but none of the topics listed really fit the bill...

How about, "He's just taking a break / busy with his day job"?

Concerning the "Ponzi" notion, Bitcoin only resembles a Ponzi scheme so long as it is primarily thought of as a vehicle for investment - i.e. so long as the only thing you can buy with Bitcoin is other currencies.  If Bitcoin becomes well-known for its convenience rather than of its appreciation, and becomes widely used in day-to-day transactions, any resemblance to a Ponzi scheme will vanish in a puff of smoke.  Early adopters may still profit, but not at the expense of later adopters.

Even if Bitcoin continued to be used primarily for investment, that doesn't imply unsustainability.  Nobody calls gold a Ponzi scheme.  The biggest difference between Bitcoin and gold, as I see it, is that the "total gold over time" chart is at a much further stage than the "total Bitcoin over time" chart - thus, it has gotten to a point where the deflation of gold can't be depended upon by those who invest in it.  Inevitably this lies ahead for Bitcoin too, and it's not like it would be a bad thing.

I have to admit, it looks good!  In a Unicode context, it could be thought of as either a "b" with a vertical line through it, or this upside-down: http://en.decodeunicode.org/en/u+204b

I guess most of the weird patterns I've observed would probably be pool payouts and such then.  Kind of a hit for anonymity.  Is the 1000 BTC that remains probably Tycho's profit, then?

Okay, I'm not Chinese, but I heard this joke from a Chinese person.  ;p


Apart from the economic aspect of the joke, this is especially funny if you've ever driven in China.