Quintupled. Outside freemode/survival implementation, it could alternately be done in story-mode fashion, where customers' death threats become increasingly severe and frequent. You could eventually have a choice between going into protective custody (through some type of long series of tasks), or simply pay a guy to whisk you away to South America, Breaking-Bad-style.

You would have to deal with employees being shot, SEC & FTC investigations, civil suits, and damage to the facilities.

End day event: Mining market over-saturated, ASIC demand permanently drops 100%. Bank officer has stopped by to inform you they're calling your $1,500,000 loan in full. File for bankruptcy protection?

Ah - don't worry about immigration controls. I have a male and female ready to marry, and space for any refugees in the basement. 

You'd have to spend a year or few in MI, though.

Yes, except there is an alternative to both DSL, satellite and cell conglomerates which deal in both data and voice. A wireless mesh infrastructure utilizing WiFi signals (traditionally 2.4GHz, though most wireless ISP providers opt for 600-900MHz) can utilize both low frequencies and mid frequencies (4G uses a significantly higher frequency than 3G).

The trouble there is that you're pretty much stuck with 2.4GHz, 5GHz, or 600-900MHz. Most everything in between is privately owned, and forbidden from use by the public. 600-900MHz can provide something like 2-5mbps per connection, and is able to penetrate many obstructions (except hills and thick forest). 2.4GHz can provide speeds comparable to ADSL, but it can't penetrate trees. There is probably an ideal compromise frequency, but since it's privately-owned, we'll probably never know.

Since in the 2-5mbps (600-900MHz) range, you have to either beam multiple connections to one house for ADSL speeds, this is extremely cost-inefficient. 2.4GHz is more promising, but it really only works in flat farmland which has been cleared of trees. Desert is another fantastic place where 2.4GHz and even 5GHz signals could live, but unfortunately, I'm in a forested area.

However, there's still some hope of existing in the Digital Age without ADSL, and it comes in the form of balloons, which is why Google's recently-announced foray into this sector is extremely important. Balloons can fly high in the air (but not crazy-far-out like satellites) and broadcast a 2.4GHz or 5GHz signal without nearly as much signal penetration issue (since the signal is more vertical than horizontal in a high-up balloon -- towers are very tall because they're trying to avoid having to go through a bunch of terrestrial obstructions, but this isn't particularly effective since it's very costly to build them high enough to be more likely to send a signal somewhere and have it be at a vertical-enough angle where it's not having to deal with a bunch of trees and hills). Balloons may or may not be the holy grail in getting higher-frequency signals from central locations to a home without costly landlines.

Well-designed solar balloons may be able to stay in the skies for months or even years, but there's an issue in having the balloon not blow far away. It may be possible to solve this with complex tethering (I'd consider this a kludgey solution, though I think it likely to be the most cost-effective if you hold enough land for it not to blow into others' land). Google's taking a different route, trying to control the balloon's location through active propellants, more like a spacecraft. The balloons would be equipped with a computer which keeps track of its GPS position, and appropriately engages thrust when it goes off-course. If their experiments prove successful, the era of towers may be near its end, replaced with high-flying routers and satellites. (This'd be extra-super cool if technicians maintained these by floating up to the balloon [or in the tethered solution, by scaling the rope], instead of bringing the balloon down to them)

ETA: I thought about scaling high-guage fishing wire tethers a little bit more. That wouldn't be awesome. That would suck.

There are essentially two Satellite ISP providers in the US. There's Hughesnet (and their subleasing partner, DishNet/Dish), and WildBlue (and their subleasing partner, Exede/DirecTV).

WildBlue has the same issues as Hughesnet with reliability, because at least in the US, they both use extremely high GHz signals (40GHz, I believe) which are just barely able to penetrate dust particles (compared to 3g and 4g, which use very low frequency signals, allowing even significant forest penetration). Latency is the same issue with both - they're both sending signals an extremely long distance -- the high frequency helps, but there's no getting around latency hurdles of beaming something out to space, back to a terrestrial tower, and then through traditional ground infrastructure. In the US, they're trying to advertise the new satellite ISP technology as being comparable to 4G, which is complete bunk -- latency's a very important vital statistic when looking at ISPs, which they appear to completely gloss over (even if you generously assume they can compare their advertised maximum speeds with speeds actually achievable with 4G).

Bandwidth not coming close to "maximums" is an issue with overselling service, which WildBlue may or may not have an advantage in (they have far, far fewer customers, but probably also much less infrastructure [unless they share with Hughesnet - I don't know how "roaming" works with satellite ISPs] -- hard to say if it balances out, but if you have less satellites to choose from, that'll cause additional reliability problems). With satellite ISPs, the illusion of "peak speeds" is totally shattered, because they mean it when they say maximum -- you "MIGHT" get the advertised speed at some point throughout service (in my case, I ordered a mid-tier package and never saw speeds advertised for the cheapest package).


As far as pricing, Wildblue's 10gb/mo plan is $60/mo + a 2-year contract. A 15GB/mo limit is $90/mo + contract. A 25GB limit is $140/mo + contract. Those are in addition to hidden/grey fees and a $50 setup fee. Keep in mind, the BTC blockchain alone is coming up on 12GB (+ overhead and seeding traffic). Because of the harsh contract, there's no way to test-drive the service (Hughesnet at least offers 30 days to cancel without penalty). OTOH, Wildblue is at least truthful enough not to promise higher theoretical speeds based on which package you order.

Satellite infrastructure, even after the "revolutionary" upgrades in 2012, is still inadequate for digital age unless you believe the "digital age" is reading emails and news stories (Skype can probably be stuffed in so long as you keep it text). Their only saving grace is that they act as a gap between dial-up infrastructure while already-obsolete ADSL infrastructure is slowly rolled out in the rural US, which probably wouldn't ever happen if the USG weren't shoveling hundreds of millions at DSL providers in grants.

Why would I want a giant, terrifying, mythological octopus-thing managing my coin orders?

Yeah, I had satellite for ~a month, a year ago. It was pretty terrible. Harsh caps (10GB/mo for "cheap" package), ultra-high latency, unreliable (outages when dense clouds rolled by), and massive slowdowns at peak times (their idea of "peak times" are during daylight). Speeds proved roughly equal to the weak 3G signal I'm tethered to, now, and 3G is "uncapped" (until they forcibly terminate my contract  ). The high latency makes it unsuitable for VOIP, so I'd still be stuck with a landline or cell bill, which pushes the "real" cost to $100+/mo compared to $60/mo for cell phone.



ETA: The 10GB is really 5GB during peak time (while everyone's awake), and 5GB you can only use between 2-6am or something silly like that.

No upgrades available unless I move (or have a slow T1 line run out to my house for something like $8k + $180/mo). I have a bunch of pamphlets drawn up to hand out to the villagefolk with a direct contact for someone in the (non-)serving DSL company who draws up expansion plans out here, but not the balls to actually distribute them and interact with humans. It seems very undignified to have to campaign/beg for something pretty much every other being in post-industrial nations have. I guess I'll have to just have a few drinks and get over it soon.

I'll try out the cheat fix for pointlessly-locked content. RTW is still downloading (no clue what I did with the CD).

http://www.scribd.com/doc/169315283/Bitcoin-Foundation-Debate-2

Alright. Final revision, I think. Took the liberty of color-coding names. If that makes it look too much like rainbow vomit, can undo that easily enough. If that all looks good, that's how I'll do future versions.

(oh, and planning on adding "timestamp" references in future transcriptions, but I really don't want to listen to the debate again to add it in this one.)

^You have any suggested RTW mods? (keeping in mind I only get ~20-80kb/s download bandwidth)

There are a ton of good-looking ones, but I don't look forward to spending literally a week or two downloading all the mods which *look* interesting. Mostly interested in graphical improvements (as a major pack), music add-ons, AI improvements, and higher unit diversity. DarthMod usually has me covered on all of that, though Idunno how thorough the RTW mod is. Not particularly interested in new factions or fantasy overhauls.

TSA wasn't so bad when I flew a ~3 years ago from NC to MI. I even had a connection in DC where there was apparently some type of recess in Congress, causing the lobby to be 100% lobbyists & Congressional aides - except me, in a ragged t-shirt and a Jew-y/Amish beard carrying nothing but a few radical books in a repurposed Vietnam-era military jacket. Didn't receive any probes, frisks, or suspicious glances. I was thanking White Jesus that day, though I've been leery about taking flights since.

OTOH, maybe they were just thinking it wouldn't be so bad if I were a domestic terrorist that day.

(what would you tour in the US as a Canadian??? Casinos, natural wonders turned tourist traps, a few decent comedians who probably already tour in Canada anyway...? Startlingly out-of-place nuclear reactors in impoverished rural landscapes? Tour of our piss-beer factories?  )

Tycho's been working on something which has prospects of actually generating more money than it costs atm 

https://icbit.se

The DeepBit forum handle isn't maintained. He uses this one: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=7603

I'll take dibs on E30-E39 (inclusive) unless there's overwhelming demand. Will think about alternative formatting schemes. LTB/MTM have any ideas on best way to display? Something like a server-side .doc or even .pdf viewer might be worthwhile. A captioned audio format might be interesting, too, though I'd guess it'd require unfamiliar software there, too, to display.

Will start in on it tomorrow night. Should be finished by end of month.

On ponzi op's side, he's calculating when to get out. Deposits lengthen the ponzi's existence, amount it scams for, and is ultimately indirectly responsible for additional theft.

One more deposit may make the difference between the ponzi op cashing out or continuing for another month.

Was a return address given?

I'll bite. 1v.io/kluge

What is accepted format for IIO GPG fingerprints? I tried... .... Hey, that's clever - I can't copy text off the site.
Format I'm given is 40 characters (10 sets of four characters, spaced). Tried spaced and unspaced. Won't accept either. Am I missing something obvious?

ETA2: Can the IIO vanity address be dropped from sig? Makes it look like a referral link.

Satoshi's Mossad connections are well-known, though he stopped working for them around the time Gavin went to the FBI. Satoshi is no longer involved with BTC, now instead working to sell the Queen of England's massive cocaine store through Silk Road.

http://larouchepac.com/article/Bitcoin-Creator-Discovered-Selling-Cocaine-for-Qu

Yay! Thanks. Fixed.

qwk asked for this to be reposted here. I reformatted it a bit to hopefully meet the specs he wanted.

Bitcoin Foundation Debate #2 for Individual Seat election in 2013
Original air date: September 14, 2013 (original audio version on LTB)
http://pastebin.com/R0S5dNt6

19QtprJN7Z62GFHuiEjET32DjNw62o3uDy


ETA: If you want the example further edited for style/aesthetics, I can do that, too. Pastebin text isn't exactly easy on the eyes. The text can't fit in one BTCTalk post (hard forum limitation), though.

(Thanks to abdussamad for giving name to German word giving me trouble)

Round-trip from DTW to SFO and back, $276 total after fees & taxes. $316 total with a bag. There's one connection on each flight in Denver. ~18h total travel time. GFlights makes it absurdly easy to find ultra-cheap flights.

Compare to alternative (dramatically slower) ways of travel:
Car (assume generous avg of 30mpg, $3.50/gal-gas) - $560 round-trip + car wear + toll roads + motel rooms (~50 hours total travel without sleeping, 4-6 days with sleeping)
Train (most uncomfortable way to travel in the US) - $458 (three transfers, ~60 hours total travel)
Bus (by leaps and bounds, most dangerous ways to travel in the US) - [Greyhound site down, couldn't find another bus company willing to take someone that far. From previous experiences, price probably ~$650-$1100, ~100 hours total travel and 5-15 total transfers)


If you're willing to put up with the TSA, flying is - by far - the fastest and safest way to travel. With GFlights, it is now also often the cheapest way to travel.

(all use cheapest travel option [economy or equiv.], no ability to check bags on train route looked up, tried to find cheapest option for travel in October using flexible dates. No particular reason for posting... I just remember when flight was considered the luxury option for travel.)