We're helping others turn their wealth into billions they don't even have what to do with by buying their extremely overpriced products *cough* Apple *cough* while flipping off those who produce stuff in China that's much, much cheaper although of the approximately same quality (not all products, obviously - you have to know how to choose the right sellers) and blaming them as if they've done something bad.

I've personally bought some extremely cheap stuff from China that I'm still using up to this date without ever having any issues. Stuff that's being sold over here in the EU for $20 that I bought from China for under $5. That's more than 4x difference. And if that isn't enough, most shops from my country sell exactly the same products I buy from China, but 4-5x more expensive.

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Good for you then, but don't put everyone in the same boat with you. The number of persons using only FOSS software and operating systems is very, very low. I know 0 friends that have never watched movies for free off Popcorn Time, never got cracked games/software for free or bought a legit copy of Windows. Myself included, and I live in Europe.

Had I bought legit copies of Photoshop, Windows and everything else I have ever used, I would have had to probably work half an year just to buy them considering the wages in my country. The thing is, I have never even heard of free-to-use software of Adobe's/Windows' level until recently. The free software is flipped off by many and all the support goes to billionaires. I'd rather have an issue with them than with the Chinese/Indians.

If you can't afford to pay for Windows/Mac OS X/Adobe codes anymore, why do you expect them to afford paying $95 for your drawing? This looks more like some issue you're having with the Indians and Chinese. Just don't put them all in the same boat..

Almost anything I'd look at from my house says "Made in China" underneath the said product. Some Indians/Chinese may try to replicate high quality products and technology, but so do some USA and European companies producing & selling phones very close to iPhone's design. So do some online casinos with their website features & design.

Try to buy nothing anymore that's been made in China and you'd find yourself running out of money soon. Chinese and Indian products are easier to afford than those made in the western countries. One very quick and basic example is: look at the latest iPhone specs & its price and then take a look at Xiaomi's best spec product out there & its price. And guess what, iPhone is known by many as an USA company but guess where most of their products come from..

I think we've got a contradiction over here Come on, it doesn't even matter where you live or where that guy lives nor does it matter whether they're Chinese or Indian. No offense but I'd personally not spend $95 on a colorized sketch either. Sometimes it's better to sell them cheaper and have many orders than sell one sketch an year for $500.

People tend not to take lots of money out of their pockets to pay for something unless they think they really need that specific thing.

Take a barber as an example: I've been to barbers that asked me $5 for a hairstyle and to ones that ask $20 for one. I get it that the latter has more experience and courses and stuff, but the thing is, whenever I went to the more expensive one I was the only one over there. The cheapest one has a long queue almost every time. He manages to do 3 hairstyles ($15) + a tip from each one in one hour while the other guy does one hairstyle ($20) with almost nobody giving tips, every 2-3 hours. Which one do you think earns the most?

If he owns 1 million BTC and he sells them all, it'd actually help Bitcoin be more decentralized. Just think about it: if 1 million out of 21 were his, that's approximately 5% of BTC held by a single person. If he sold, they'd all go to different persons.

Why do people always think Satoshi was the kindest guy ever? He could've been a serial killer - just the fact that Bitcoin was invented by Satoshi doesn't make him entirely a good guy. Maybe his intentions weren't even the ones we think they were. Everything about him is a supposition and even if he was to sell his 1M BTC .. why would you wish he didn't? He created all of this. I think he deserves his reward.

I'm interested in hearing/reading more about this, do you have an article you could link me to so I could read more about the e-wallet (or would you mind telling me which area is it so I could look it up)?

I wonder how the elderly will get accustomed to this new e-wallet. I know tech has to advance and stuff and it sure does look like the only way everyone's pushing for is cashless, but this will be a very big headache for those older. I have family members who don't even know how to use a mobile phone. Give them an "e-wallet" and there goes the hunger

VR games could be considered physical sports too, partially. You have to move your entire body to play. For example, if there were any Pavlov VR (or Onwards VR) tournaments, every player would have to physically move their body to play. But then there are some games like CS:GO that only require hand movements.

I think e-sports is a good name. I mean, some people consider chess a sport so I guess the way virtual game tournaments are called is fine.

Stores are private properties. If they decide to rule out customers with .. normal temperature .. then okay. Their rule. But our authorities gave an unconstitutional order for all stores to have this as a mandatory procedure. Let me give you one, simple example:

One man wants to buy his necessities. He is very poor, old and religious; he doesn't have a TV, internet or a phone. Once he arrives at the shop, they want to take his temperature. He's old - he doesn't understand tech, so he fears that's the mark of the beast (especially as it's taken from the forehead). If only that store decided to do this, he'd turn around and go to another shop which doesn't consider this necessary. But the authorities force all stores to have this mandatory. Hence, even after 5 shops he visited, he cannot buy food.

What does he do? Will he not be able to purchase food at all because he fears having his temperature checked (reminder: we are not allowed IF WE HAVE NORMAL BODY TEMPERATURE)? That's discrimination.

Before someone reading this doesn't care about religion and is willing to reply to this part specifically for this reason, then believe/don't believe in whatever the fuck you want. But if you decide NOT to believe in something and someone else decides they do, then let them choose to believe exactly the same way you chose not to.

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Big difference between a store deciding not to let specific customers in and the authorities giving an unconstitutional order to force them all to do so.

Let me tell you one thing: at least in my country, security agents only need 4 years of school in order to become a security agent. If that's someone you'd trust even when it comes to basic temperature taking, especially considering we have these kind of devices for sale even under $15 in my country and could be wrongly calibrated (or the security agent could somehow decalibrate it by mistake), then I don't know what to say anymore.

Moreover, one of our authorities said something like the fact that temperature taking is a procedure through which any symptomatic or asymptomatic person takes the temperature of a healthy person willing to enter a shop. So as you can see, everything goes upside down right now over here.

What's even funnier is the fact that those without studies or with low grades at school have been considered idiots - yet the security agents with minimum 4 years of school are able to take our temperature. Damn, if I ever wanted this to be mandatory and I had 6 years of school, they would've talked about how stupid I'd be and how I would probably put that laser inside someone's eyes instead of forehead.

Were the 7 policemen really needed for that one old man? Why did the policeman touch the woman - I mean, the old woman who did not pose any danger to the cops? Why did EIGHT cops not respect social distancing and why did NO COP have a mask? Why did the police not respect social distancing even before the "arguing" starts? Please don't tell me that with these 7 policemen, if the old man was infected, the virus was perfectly contained in this encounter.. Honestly right now, if the old man had the virus, all cops would've already been infected and from a "you two go back home" we get to a "7 cops and an old couple have been infected with the virus" in a matter of minutes..

And about the arguing, the cops are obliged to introduce themselves when they appear and the arguing started when the woman asked him to show his badge - he refused to do so, and then he put the hand on her shoulder and she said he is not allowed to do so. In all honesty, the cops all look like they're under 20. Were they fake cops, maybe someone would've agreed with the way she proceeded. It's like being stopped and asked for money by a cop without him ever presenting himself. Would you give him money just because he has the cop clothing on him?

P.S: Take a look at the video again. The security agents are supposedly keeping us safe by checking our temperature and not letting someone with a normal temp go inside, right? Hmm. Do you see something not okay at all regarding the security agents? Maybe.. just maybe.. the fact that they wear the mask under their nose so if anyone infected came in their proximity to have their temp checked and coughed once or spoke, the security agent would've been infected 100% and would've infected everyone else who came into the store ..

I heard yesterday that they may ban women on their period from entering stores, because when a woman is on her period her temperature rises. Is that okay?

This "pandemic safety measures" got the stupidity of many to the surface really quick.

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A little update in regards to how the narrative keeps changing continuously. We all heard the fact that a vaccine needs around 18 months to have the most basic research and make sure the vaccine has at least a bit of efficiency and safety and even 18 months are a world record.

Well, our TVs are now pushing the idea that we're going to have lots of people tested BEFORE the end of 2020 and they're talking about mandatory vaccination. I have a very curious thought: why do I have to be forced to take the vaccine? If I and all the other "anti-vaxxers" don't take it and everyone else does, doesn't that mean this "controversed community of anti-vaxxers" would die and everyone else lives happily?

Would wonder what happens if vaccines turn mandatory and the government ever comes out and say "hey, we have this mandatory experimental vaccine we want to put inside you!". What if in that, exact moment all the pro-vaxxers turn anti-vaxxers and vice-versa? It'd be VERY fair for us to push for vaccine administration inside your body, hmm?

But wait! When did 18 months turn into under 12? Hmm, maybe the PREP Act providing immunity for liability now speaks words huh?

This is what other new members do and that's why you see the same names on the OP of every few new threads in this board. Instead of trying hard to create merit-begging threads, I feel like actively participating in other threads is a much more appreciated behavior and fixes the usual "I can't rank up" problem.

I see the same thread subjects pop up every now and then and, after a while, it gets to the point where I don't even click new threads belonging to these specific users as I already know what kind of thread I'm about to read.

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Regarding bounties.. I'd personally advise you to stick to at least some of the most reputable decentralized coins out there, I've joined bounties before and my total earnings are under $10 so far. I think they're under $5 in fact.

Joining bounties nowadays is literally only giving the shitcoin creators free promotion as in the end the efforts you make will not be proportionate to the value of the coins you earn.

Irresponsible parents. If you've ever played GTA V Online, you'd find out like +80% of the players you find in the online sessions are actually kids. As long as you don't care that the game is 18+ as a parent, you wouldn't even know if the kid becomes an addict or not. Add casinos in this game and you have the worst combination for an underage as if prostitution and crimes weren't enough.

A very simple thing you can do is check out some fan meeting of any 15+ entertainer on YouTube. Especially the more rebel ones talking about meth and sex every video - you'd be surprised to see how young the audience is. And if that wasn't enough, I might have to remind you that they are physically meeting so their parents consciously let them go there.

Maybe that's why most of my younger male friends are sport betting addicts spending all their parents' money on online casinos. Might become a very popular trend in a matter of years if their generation continues to grow this way.

This is what I was talking about.

An old, innocent couple was arrested and taken by force for not willing to have their temperature taken at the entrance of Kaufland, a hypermarket in my country. The cops requested more forces (a total of 4 cars) to come and force the man be arrested for the pure fact that he was arguing temperature taking is unconstitutional.

Here's the article talking about it and here is a video of the cops taking the man by force. The cops even put their feet on the old man's head (and as you can see later in the video, the old man has been hurt).

Yesterday, after lots of people and even lawyers argued against taking the temperature, our government silently modified the latest order which made customer temp taking mandatory and removed this rule, as there was more than enough legal evidence this was a completely unconstitutional move.

As a reply to the answers I haven't replied yet to, I think the links I've placed in my posts on this thread and this event from my country is enough to prove why I really felt the need of writing this thread. To those hating on my thoughts, maybe now you understand me.

The old couple had NO violent behavior except arguing with the cops: the old woman requested the cop to show his cop ID and he refused her every time, and as you can obviously see, the cops have NO mask and the cops respected NO social distancing in the entire process. Cops touched them while they raised no hand at the cops.

This is the sad path we're heading for as humanity.

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Edit: I'm going to leave here just a few links as an answer to those stating that "COVID-19 measures save more lives" and I will answer suchmoon's question..

Have you ever considered what the current crisis has done to the hundreds of millions around the world having no more job and some people going into absolute poverty?

Maybe there are more deaths because more than half a million of people from UK have joined a suicide prevention course in the last 3 weeks alone? Maybe there are more deaths because poverty is now on the rise? Maybe it's because ventilators may do even more damage to the lungs? Or maybe it's the fact that people die at home because they aren't treated anymore for anything except COVID-19... or maybe the fact that hospitals get paid $13k per COVID-19 positive patient and $39k per COVID-19 death... OR maybe it's the fact that more people have died in Austria from heart attacks than COVID-19, as lockdowns lead to some pretty bad mental and physical states? Or... perhaps... it could be due to multiple reasons including the above...

I don't know, I'm just wondering...

I think we deserve a lil' breath of pure air after all the stuff Google has been able to learn from us. It's getting quite scary how people now believe life without Google cannot exist!

These phones without Google on them most likely have some custom ROMs on XDA you can flash together with the GApps. Probably wouldn't be as stable as the stock OS is, but it's still a workaround one can go for if they really want a phone with Google that comes with it not installed. There might even be a GApps zip file you could flash without even having to move to another ROM.

On the other hand though, unlocking the bootloader to be able to flash the ROM is a bit of a hassle when it comes to Huawei phones.

I've been using Android 8 without any kind of Google app and I'm using F-Droid as the app store. I can get most of the apps I really need off F-Droid, but there are obviously some exceptions such as WhatsApp although I think you can get the APK & use it without GApps if it's a necessity. FOSS and Google-free life feels great is all I can say.

I'm following this scenario. The current, apparent status of the economy is honestly looking too good to be true for what happened since the beginning of the year. The artificial pumps and desperate attempts to hide the ugliness of what's to come is making me believe that once they stop everything they're doing to cover the real side of the economy, hell will unleash.

This PDF has a chart at page 5 that clearly shows the fact that short-time working is predicted to be for 2020 in Germany on a more-than-double increase in comparison with 2009 which is alarming. To me, the worldwide economy looks like an insane bubble they're still trying to protect from bursting.

Look at the worldwide debt - do you think it'll just increase forever and money will be printed continuously and everything will artificially increase to quadrillions of dollars in debt?

These measures they're taking to protect against a crisis can't go forever. They have to stop one day - wonder what'll happen after they do. I felt a crisis was inbound for years, but never did I expect what we're witnessing right now. I just ask myself many times of the day what comes after health crisis, and I sure do hope the answer isn't food shortage.


Yes. I was planning to slowly accumulate PMs and crypto in the following 1-2 years, but now I'm on fast forward.

The hype that's created when a coin gets listed on Binance makes no sense and is only a short-lived one. If Binance announced today that BTC will be delisted, it'd make Bitcoin no less superior than all the other coins. Let's remember that Binance is a privately owned company/corporation and their choices do not necessarily reflect demand or reality.

Exchanges usually request an amount of BTC to have a coin listed on them, and that is a fact that makes me skeptical when it comes to the artificial hype for having a coin listed somewhere. A coin could be listed today & delisted tomorrow. It doesn't mean that, for 24h, the coin had success. It only means that CZ changed his mind for specific reasons. Most coins on most exchanges are garbage anyway. The only thing that a coin listing on an exchange reflects is the exchange owner's interests. That's it.

I have quite a lot of young siblings and they're all much different than the last generation of kids (sounds like me talking about the last gen of i7). Their behavior is much more different, they're more aggressive and at such a young age they know stuff I used to be punished for being even curious about. But the thing is, the internet is so upside down right now that you get banned for having a different perspective over what the future holds while you can visit brutal websites of things kid nowadays get off to.

I have seen kids play poker and they were 10 years old. Education is something lots of parents ignore and if you raise up your kid without it, they'll live through their lives without it too unfortunately. Now with TikTok and all the other crappy apps, kids follow the money without even knowing the damn definition of it. You'd be surprised to know how many kids gamble their CS:GO items on a daily basis, wasting their parents' money on them.

Vegas is a bit less explicit than the GTA series. The in-game casino could create a little addiction nonetheless though, lol. Now that GTA V has a casino too, it's not the best path to send your kid for. But again, it's the parents' fault and not the kid's. The game has a big, clear "18" written on the corner of the CD case. Meanwhile, lots of parents buy the game for their 5yo kid..

You could own the safest, sturdiest, most secure & rugged offline crypto wallet out there - if you use it the wrong way, it's as safe as throwing some paper planes from a skyscrapper with your seed written on them.

Long term storage of the seed is a thing whether you have a Ledger or not. With or without the hardware wallet, you still have to write a seed somewhere and safely store it in case something ever happens to your device. The thing Ledger allegedly protects you from is that you can plug it into the most infected PC out there and even the roughest virus out there couldn't take your money off the Ledger without your physical approval of the transaction.

Moreover, if you ever wear your Ledger in your pockets and lose it, a thief would have only 3 tries to steal your device after which Ledger resets, protecting your seed and funds. But again, you still have to store a seed safely. There are a few ways you could do it, from the simplest & cheapest way to the more expensive Cryptosteel.

For example, if you live in a house you could write the seed on a paper, place it inside a small plastic bottle, close it properly and bury it somewhere in your garden - just make sure you don't forget the exact spot & nobody sees you digging & placing that bottle in there For apartments, you could write it on a paper, fold the paper to make it smaller, place it into a little plastic recipient and hide it inside a pot. These are the simplest ways you could hide the seed and seriously - unless you make the hiding spots somehow obvious, no thief will break pots or start digging your garden.

Just.. don't rush for desperate thread making to get Merits. The first members here to do newbie guidelines and "rankup journey" posts were rewarded large amounts of merits and then everyone jumped in the boat and started creating these kind of threads. Now it looks just silly and whenever I find one thread that was obviously only be created for the purpose of ranking up, I just ignore it.

#Proof Of Authentication
Bitcointalk Name: 20kevin20
Bitcointalk Profile: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=806196
Current amount of Posts (Including this one): 2862
BTC Address: 39k74QRU6yd2HSe46DNQjJk7yaquzbk6cC

Will change the needed stuff if accepted.

You open up Electrum and decide to create a fresh new Bitcoin wallet. You generate the seed, write it down and finish the wallet creation process.

As soon as your wallet loads up, you are in complete shock: your balance is 28,151.05669176 BTC. You are the lucky one to get past the astronomically low, close to zero chance to ever generate an already used wallet. Now you have one of the richest dormant wallets out there.

What do you do?

No, it's not as easy as the fee being proportional to the amount you're spending. You could send 100k BTC with a very, very small fee as long as your wallet history isn't too complex. Long story short, the fees are proportional not to the amount of BTC you send but to the weight of the transaction you're sending.

The weight gets lower or higher depending on multiple factors - for example, as far as I can see, the pizza guy received his money from 131 inputs. If there was only 1 input instead of 131, there would've been a much lower tx fee than 0.99BTC.

If you have ever visited Bitcoin Fees or made a transaction with custom fees, you might've noticed that you could sometimes input a number of satoshis/byte. That is basically choosing how much you want to pay in BTC fees for each byte of your tx's weight.

Now let's say I gave you 1 BTC and you split it into exactly 1k addresses on a fresh new Electrum wallet, so in the end you'd have 1000 addresses worth 0.001 BTC each. If you ever wanted to spend the 1 BTC I gave you, you'd have to use 1k inputs and that'd turn into a huge fee in the end.

Back when I used faucets, I had about 10k satoshis entering my wallet every now and then. After about an year of accumulating, I wanted to move everything to another wallet. Well, guess what happened! I had around $15k worth of BTC but there were so many inputs that the automated fee calculus told me I had to pay $10 in fees. I ended up sending it with a 0 sat/byte fee and it took a few months to be confirmed.

A smart move would've been to lower down their average purchase price. If they bought $2k worth of BTC when it hit $19k and bought $2k more when it hit the low $3k, today they'd own approximately 0.8 BTC so about $7.8k. That's a profit of $3.8k overall.

This "I'm waiting for it to get back to $20k" I believe has a much lower chance to turn into reality than the strategy above. If you lower down your average purchase price, you may enter profit without even knowing it.

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Even if you bought $2k worth of BTC at $19k and only a quarter more (so $500) at $3k, you'd be today on approximately $0 loss as you'd own exactly around $2.5k worth of BTC. Still much better than a $1k loss.

There are some COVID-19 contact tracing apps out there using Bluetooth for the tracing so if they become mandatory, the only real protection might be leaving your phone at home when you go outside.

Lots of people use it for wireless headphones too, so although it's a quite old technology, it's still useful if you have some smart devices (smartband for Merit notifications? ). I have a pair of wireless headphones myself but I never have anything crypto-related on the phone I always carry with me.

I find it more convenient to have an older smartphone at home loaded with these apps and wallets than having them on the phone I always take outside with me.