Yeah, the difference in speed basically is negligible because in the end both card payments are making an internet request, and that means that sometimes one will be faster than the other and sometimes the opposite.

The main point is that you're not using a centralized system to make the payment, you're using your own sats directly, natively, in the same way that you would use a credit card, just tapping.

There are no banks or exchanges needed to pay, just your own lightning node. I think this is a great improvement in terms of usability of Bitcoin.

And the merchant in this case gets the sats immediately, with virtually no fees. In comparison, credit card companies take days to pay and charge quite a bit for each transaction.

This basically connects the seller with the buyer directly, from one lightning node to another. Game changer.

One of the issues with problem gamblers is that part of the fun is the idea that they will become rich by gambling, that's the whole point.

And the thing is that some people actually have become rich by gambling, like Australian professional gambler David Walsh.

But even he has said that it's all just luck and feels a bit bad about the whole thing, so he created the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) with the profits of his gambling.

Well, technically speaking since the expected value of gambling is negative then the maximum profit strategy would be to not play at all, but where's the fun in that? 

Instead of maximizing profits, I prefer to maximize fun, so if I'm in a casino I would just put a bit of money in a slot machine, and play until the money runs out or until I win. If I get bored I'll just go all in and leave after whatever happens next.

I don't think employers should do any kind of problem gambling tests or similar, unless the job is at a casino or something.

There are many ways in which things can go wrong when you hire someone, not just problem gamblers, and you can't possibly test the employee for everything.

You need to have a proper face to face assessment of the person and see if he or she is able to do the job and if you're willing to trust that person. That's pretty much it. It's a bit of a gamble to hire someone, but that's part of being a human, it's a human relationship in the end.

Yeah, goalkeepers tend to have a longer career because they are not as physically active in the entire 90 minutes of every match. I'm still surprised to see many players like Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi still at almost their peak even though they are pretty old for football standards. I guess science and technology these days help to keep them active for longer.

At a cafe in Gibraltar two people paid for their coffees, one with a Bolt Card and one with a legacy card.



You can see the video in the original tweet. You will see that the lightning payment is done faster than the legacy payment, and both are done in the same way, just tapping a card.

The Bolt Card is basically an NFC card with a NTAG424DNA chip, which provides better security than normal NFC cards (prevents replay attacks), and also comes with nice designs. You can also just buy blank NFC cards with that chip as well, but the Bolt Cards are probably cheaper and look better anyway.

How it works is that basically you write a LNURL withdraw link into the card, the checkout reads the NFC card, processes the link and gets the bitcoin. You can manage your cards with open source: boltcard server, and the NFC programming app.

This is really great because people will now be able to use Bitcoin directly, with no middle-men. Note that this is not a credit card linked to an exchange, this is a card that spends your sats directly from your own lightning node, all managed and controlled by only you.

Here's some more information about the Bolt Card, some more videos of it in action, and how to use them with other software, all without having to rely on any other financial institution.

Yeah, taking a loan and then losing puts you deep into negative territory, whereas losing your savings at least keeps you positive, so it's not that bad when all is considered.

I wouldn't be comfortable betting with a loan.

I can definitely see any of those two teams in the quarter finals at least. Hard to predict who actually will end up winning the world cup though, as that requires a bit of luck as well.

Maybe we will see a South American final, Brazil vs Argentina, maybe The Netherlands ends up finally winning, maybe Cristiano Ronaldo surprises everyone, etc. Anything can happen.

This is what Hal Finney predicted in 2009:

That Germany vs Spain match will probably determine who wins the world cup.

I can easily see one of them ending up in the final and even winning it in the end.

Not sure where they would meet again if both keep winning their matches after both pass to the next stage, but it would be an interesting match to see happening.

Maradona and Pele are probably on another level though.

In Argentina Maradona is also known as D10S (God in Spanish, spelled with the number 10, his shirt number). People really have an adoration of Maradona, I think he transcended football.

And Pele was just phenomenal, probably the first superstar in football.

Even though Messi is great, it will never get to the same level of Maradona.

Yeah, E is a tough group, I agree. But I think Germany and Spain are going to pass into the next round.  At the end of the day those two are the only winners of previous world cups in that group.

It's definitely going to be an interesting group to watch though.

We do have them, it's math, and probabilities, and it's being taught in schools everywhere.

Most people don't understand probabilities, and that's why they keep gambling with very bad chances of winning anything.

I mean, all games have an advantage to the casino, but some people play games that have an absurd advantage to the casino.

Direct cash reward is going to be more valuable for the gambler of course. But free spins are probably cheaper to provide for the casino, and yet they're still seen as something positive for the gambler.

So, if I was running a casino I would probably use free slots instead of direct cash reward. Specially since many gamblers will just try to trick the system and create multiple accounts for the free money, etc.

In the end they would probably have to beat Brazil to win the world cup, and that's going to be a difficult task.

And if they don't clash with Brazil, then they probably will meet Argentina, which is also an extremely difficult team to beat.

It's also possible that this address is just one of many. And that the miner has simply continued to sell one block reward every few years to fund life.

Remember that in 2010 it was not uncommon to have multiple block rewards if you had a PC miner running 24/7 for months.

Also, it seems that the altcoins are still there as of now: https://blockchair.com/search?q=18eXJskHRVvKrqmxD9T6K6UQ6GBC6ya2WS

When you mentioned injuries I remembered about covid. Hopefully we won't have an issue with that in this World Cup. Since the last one happened in 2018, in a world without covid, I really hope the first post-covid19 world cup happens without an issue. I mean it in every way. It's not only the virus itself that can cause controversies in a sport, governments can also cause them by denying/revoking visas, just like what happened to Djokovic in Australia recently for the 2022 Melbourne open...

Well, the British Museum has Bitcoins in it: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5408766.msg60691346#msg60691346

Here is one of those cases: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5410867

Mined 50 BTC (worth 50 cents at the time) and now just transferred it to another address, worth about a million.

Interesting, thanks for sharing.

I wonder why they're still using an older address(the ones that start with 1 or 3), and not a new one (the ones that start with bc1).

My guess is that this is someone that found an old miner PC or something like that, and moved the coins around using the same configuration/wallet.