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3461  Other / Off-topic / Re: Libertarians Are Sociopaths on: October 29, 2011, 12:03:00 AM
^^^ Noted.
 Employers don't care what your degree is in, only that you have proven you are willing and able to learn." That's their explanation for being able to get jobs in database software development with Masters degrees in microbiology. Not sure exactly how much fundamental truth is in that.


There is a lot of truth in that, but a degree isn't the only way to demonstrate such a skill.
3462  Bitcoin / Mining / Re: The myth about "free electricity" in winter on: October 28, 2011, 09:58:14 PM
The question remains? Damnit guys, don't you learn physics at school??? Like, that energy DO NOT disappear? If something use 1kw guess what, it will spit out 1kw of heat, be it a computer or a heater.

Well that statement is equally wrong.  An electric car (or any other non-resistance load that does actual work) that pulls 1kW won't generate 1kW of heat.

Yes it will, just not in any place or form that is usable.  In the case of the electric car, heat will be produced in the batteries, wiring, motor and braking system.
3463  Other / Off-topic / Re: Libertarians Are Sociopaths on: October 28, 2011, 09:34:47 PM
Focused education can land you in a life of focused jobs.


It can, certainly.  It's no more limiting than a law degree, a history degree, or a sciences degree is likely to limit the holder to be a lawyer or an academic, though.  A good book on this topic is Rich Dad, Poor Dad.

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 What will those blocklayers and pipefitters do when the tech changes, or when their jobs are out sourced to some other country, or replaced by machines?



I don't know, and neither do you.  The basic abilties of literacy and athrimatic are useful skills for most people, I don't contest that.  The few that I've met that were illiterate were certainly limited in many respects, but every one of them attended a public school until eighth grade at least.  The public educational system failed them.  Their parents didn't and neither did they do it to themselves.  All but one of those illiterate men were either black or hispanic, BTW.  The one that was white was quite obviously dislexic and still working in his 60's.  He is likely dead by now, since I met him at 20.  As for those who couldn't do math beyond addition and subtraction, there exist little pocket reference books for tradesmen.  Called "Uglies" books, for whatever reason I know not.  The one for electritians had common trig shortcuts and examples for the accurate bending of conduit, as well as pre-calculated tables for wire capacity selections and such.  Somewhere along the line, an educated electritian decided to write that little book, and have aided his brothers in ways unmeasurable.

Still, if the blocklayer can read, he can get another job if he loses his.  And in my experience, if he is fairly intelligent, he is either going to be running his own company/crew in short order or find a less physically demanding career anyway.

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 You know where the economy is going; a steady life-long job is quickly becoming a myth thanks to technological progress.


It's always been a myth.  The average career has been only seven years for at least a generation.  I've had many careers, only loosely related to one another.

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I'm sure they are happy living their lives at their level of income, and that's fine, but I doubt most of them have a choice, either (I don't want to get into a conversation of grownups accepting their lot in life and being happy with it). As example, my parents both have degrees in molecular biology. Dad ended up working in genetic engineering instead. When both of my parents jobs hit a pay ceiling, they both studied and switched to software development. It's not a subject either of them particularly likes, and learning it was difficult, but since school and the rest of life was a difficult education in how to learn, they did ok.


Really?  Your own parents didn't stick with their degree subject and yet you ask how a blocklayer is going to be able to maintain his standard of living because he isn't as well educated as his peers?  If he has the desire to educate himself, he will.  If he does not, he won't.  He's an adult, he can make his own choices.  If your parents traded a career they enjoyed for one that they did not but with higher incomes, that's their choice.  Americans generally don't define themselves based upon their occupation.  I work to live, not live to work.  I once knew this electritian who would work every week diligently, but never show up on Fridays.  I asked him, "why do you only work four days a week?" and his response was something like "because I can't make in on three!"

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As for learning, the biggest issue is that you can't learn something if you don't know what it is or what it's called. Google is a vast resource, but even it can't help. For example, if you wanted to invest in a mix of stocks/bonds, and wanted to know how to calculate the optimal mix, how would know know what information to even search for if you did't know the terms " markowitz efficient portfolio theory?" Better yet, how would you even begin thinking about it if you didn't know that such a concept even existed? Only bringing this up as example because I actually personally ran into this specific problem myself a few months ago.


How did you ever find Bitcoin?  Did your economic instructor give you the link?  No, you either surfed here by following your own interests or because someone you know referred you here.

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As for examples of uninteresting but required subjects, everyone should know how cells, blood, nerves, etc work (anatomy) so you can make informed medical decisions, even if the subject is boring.

While I agree that this is useful knowledge, even the biggest rock I've ever known had the sense to seek advice from a doctor for medical issues.  That is not necessary information for anyone in modern society.  People in third world villiges need to knwo that kind of stuff, adn even then there are books dedicated to that subject targeted at those people.  See Where there is no Doctor by Dr David Werner.

Wait, how did I know that such a book existed!?  I never had that in school!

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Everyone should know at least some rudimentary algebra and basic finance to deal with money, loans, investments, and other life things (I just had to use it for te recipe I was cooking up this week), even if they hate math.


Again, I agre that it's beneficial; but to say that everyone must is provablely false.  You don't need math to adjust your recepies, you find it useful.  You could just use a recepie book at it's stated values; or use Recepies.com to make those conversions for you.  Someone needs to maintain those skills for society to function, but to claim that everyone does is patently false.

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  Everyone should know some basic physics and understand the scientific method, even if only time they'll need it is to pull a car out of a ditch, lest they think science is conspiracy bunk and start believing crazy religious/cultish shit.

REally?  You don't think that my blocklayer could manage to get a truck out of a ditch without a formal education in the scientific method?

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I think everyone should have some exposure to culture and history, if only to know where they came from and on what foundation to build their life upon.

Great idea, but that is not what public education is for, and doesn't do that.  They barely teach history at all.  You could get a much better mastery of US history by watching the History Channel on cable than by attending a public school in just about any city in America.  That might not be true in Russia, but not everyone lives in Russia.

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Sure, there are thousands of people that don't have much of an education, work their normal hard low level jobs, and are perfectly happy. Personally, I think they just don't know any better, and that's their business. Ignorance is bliss, as they say.
The phrase "I don't know and I don't care" is also something that my family and have never encountered before coming to America. And I think it embodies shameless intellectual laziness. I don't like ignorance or laziness.

Okay, so don't associate with such people.  They don't represent myself or anyone that I know.
3464  Other / Off-topic / Re: Libertarians Are Sociopaths on: October 28, 2011, 07:31:34 PM
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That forcing to study also taught discipline, priorities, and that you have to work hard in life.

BS.  How many of your classmates went on to a career that required such discipline?  Very few, indeed.  Yourself included.  
How many? I would guess all of them. In all of my jobs and business ventures I was also required to studdy stuff, even if I may not have interest in it, stay disciplined, work hard, and get the job done and on time. I would honestly much rather stay home and catch up on some movies or reading instead.


Then you are the exception.  Not many factory workers or construction types in your graduating class, I take it?  I've literally met great, hard working and very skilled adult men who couldn't even read, but were some of the best blocklayers, millwrights and pipefitters you could find.  I've met dozens who couldn't do simple algebra if their life depended upon it.  It's patently false that everyone needs the same kind of education, or an education at all in the modern sense, to succeed and live happy and productive lives.  I was once sheltered about these kinds of things too, believing that these people were condemed to hard and short lives.  Their educations were just different.

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Public education =/= lack of choice. I had tutors and went to non religious weekend school as my supplemental education, and am all for parents supplementing the basic stuff their kids learn in school.
Then you are simply for homeschooling and private education, because that is what they are doing.

No, I differentiate between tutoring to suppliment specific areas of education, and straight out home schooling that doesn't involve a public or private school at all.

You differentiate.  That doesn't meant it's different.  Reality doesn't much care how you differentiate.

You don't believe there is a difference between going to a public school while being tutored in somewhat more advanced areas of the topic you are learning about, and just getting exclusively homeschooled?


No, I don't.  In part because "homeschooling" is a misnomer.  They don't stay home.  I've met homeschooled children that study music with the Louisville Symphony (http://www.louisvilleorchestra.org/?page_id=320), acting with the Louisville Shakespeare-in-the-Park (http://www.kyshakespeare.com/Kentucky_Shakespeare/Camp_Shakespeare.html) and technical skills with the Louisvlle Makerspace club (http://www.lvl1.org/).  My daughter could do Juliet's major lines at seven years old.  Institutional education, whether public or private, takes vastly more scheduled time than a comparable homeschooled education.  Putting 30 kids into a single math class is time efficient for the teacher and cost effective for the school, but it is not effective for the individual student.  This is why the national spelling bee is regularly dominated by homeschooled children.  Not because they are smarter than their privately or publicly educated peers in the competition; but because their form of education permits more time to be dedicated to the study of spelling for the purpose of competition.

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Do you equate the education you get from home schooling with what you get in school? (Wait, don't you home school?)


My children are tested each year.  My 11 year old could easily pass the GED right now, testing at a second semester freshmen in college across the tested subjects.  My son, 8, rings in as an average junior in high school in the subjects of math and reading comprehention, but sucks at actuall reading speed.  He was born without irises, and the public schools would have put him in the Kentucky School for the Blind, where he would have learned to only be dependent upon others.

And yes, he can actually read, with the aid of very expensive perscription glasses that correct & tint to light levels and a set of fresnal lenses to enlarge teh text.  I'm considering a Kindle for him.  He's visicous on TF2, using a monitor that is 35 inches wide.  What does that teach?  Hand-eye coordination, situational awareness, rapid assesment and decision making.

Supposedly games like that are also good for future surgens as well.

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Why is there no home colleging btw?


There is in many disciplines that don't require a master's or doctorate path.  

That's actually a little worrisome. In Russia/Ukraine, a lot of advanced subjects are taught in school. Things like algebra begin in 3rd grade (Italy is even more bruital, with multi-variable advanced algebra already starting in 4th), and by end of 12th grade you're already done with things like advanced calculus and theoretical physics. When you go to college there, it's usually for one focused subject. There are no required lit, language, science, or other stuff, just things you need for your degree. Here, school education is much much slower and greatly lags behind other countries. However, the college here do require all those other classes on top of your degree requirement. In the end, although American students are severely behind in education levels after finishing high school, they quickly catch up to and are equal to students in other countries once they graduate. So, doing a focused home colleging I guess would likely limit you in the same way as getting a certificate from a technical institute...

That's just a guess, but how does a tech cert limit you, if that is the field that you want to pursue?  I never finished college either, while my wife did with a BS in Biology.  I work for a major international corporation for a brutal 6 figure income, while my wife home educates the kids.  She was pre-vet, but never becasme a vet.  Didn't want to become an MD, because she likes animals more than people.  A wide based education is right for some people, while a more focused education is better for others, and a vocational trainig course best for yet others.  There is no "correct" educational system, so the publicly defined curriculum is always wrong for someone.
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Those are not trivial details

Granted, but they are also not the topics often debated on regarding what kids should learn, and don't really negate my position that kids should have access to at least those minimums of basic education.

Do you believe that homeschooled children don't have access to broad educational resources?  I can cite many more such professionally provided educational resources besides those I already have, that students of institutional schools don't have access to due to schedualing conflicts.
3465  Other / Off-topic / Re: Libertarians Are Sociopaths on: October 28, 2011, 06:02:17 PM
Hmm, not sure where you find these children who have an "interest in education," but I sure as heck never saw anyone like that.

Then you have never spent any time around homeschoolers, unschoolers, or montessori students.  Their lust for subjects that interest them is often palatable.

Everyone is interested in subjects that interest them. It's the subjects that don't interest yet are required in life, and subjects that they aren't even aware of, that I am concerned about.


Such as?  And as for your personal interests, doesn't reading unto itself constitute language practice?  Never discovered a new word in your private reading that was not covered by your teacher?  I've got a great list of fiction works that teach economics, history and civics accidentally.

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I guess parents can simply follow teaching guides when home schooling to make sure they don't miss anything,


They can try, but everyone has gaps in their education.  Absolutely everyone.  It's only those who think otherwise who are truely educated fools.

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but then they are still following generally accepted required subjects, and the only difference seems letting kids work and learn at their own pace (life doesn't work that way), and avoid uncomfortable social interraction.


Care to guess what the "generally accepted required subjects" are in my home state, as defined by the educational laws?

Math, English (reading & writing) and Civics.  Homeschoolers have to document these subjects every year, everything else is elective which is equally true for the private schools and the public school districts.  If a parent feels the need to have their children tutored on the weekends, then they are just privately educating them by following the direction of the school while they are baby-sat during the school week.  There are many kids who would literally do better entirely on their own, and many have.  It's called child directed education, and is usually called "unschooling" to differentiate from "standard" homeschooling.

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Hell, I was a total nerd/dork in school, spent most of my time reading books, and during lunch, instead of playing outside, spent all my time in the library playing on computers, and even I hated studying and homework, preferring to spend my time in front of a TV or my Genesis.

You are conflating education with schooling.  You were learning while reading and playing video games.  

I see where you're going with this, but personally, I wouldn't call that learning. At least not anything useful. Compared to more valuable alternatives, I was wasting my time.


I was wasting my time playing on Qlink, too.  Of course, I also ended up knowing more about html v.1 when it hit the public than literally anyone else I have ever met in person.

My children waste time on Portal, which I bought specificly for the problem solving and critical thinking involved.  I plan to buy my toddlers a copy of the games Spy Fox and Freddie Fish for similar reasons.  Can't learn from play?  Bullsh*t.  That's all I ever did learn from.  I literally studied for precisely one test as a child, and that was the first didterm I had in high school.  I went to private schools my eintire life, and I can honestly say that the best things that they did for me is introduce me to new interests and interesting  people, two things that happen quite often for homeschoolers and rarely occur in public schools.  My children use a curiculum calle Sonlight.com, which has the motto "The way you siwh you had been taught" and it's true.  I've learned huge amounts about my world from reading their school books, and since it's a Charloote Mason derivitive (lit based education, no textbooks except for the hard sciences) they are all fiction stories.  And I haven't the time to read half of them.  My kids eat them up.
3466  Other / Off-topic / Re: Libertarians Are Sociopaths on: October 28, 2011, 01:19:23 PM
Publicly funded education does not incentivize laziness, by itself.  But add in compulsory schooling, which both forces kids who have no interest in education to attend a public school and also forces the schools to accept them, and you have a condition of devolving morale.  Both for the teachers that must attempt to educate, or at least control, the children who do not wish to be there; as well as the other children who do, but cannot afford a private education to escape the influences of proximity to the other children.

Hmm, not sure where you find these children who have an "interest in education," but I sure as heck never saw anyone like that.


Then you have never spent any time around homeschoolers, unschoolers, or montessori students.  Their lust for subjects that interest them is often palatable.

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Hell, I was a total nerd/dork in school, spent most of my time reading books, and during lunch, instead of playing outside, spent all my time in the library playing on computers, and even I hated studying and homework, preferring to spend my time in front of a TV or my Genesis.


You are conflating education with schooling.  You were learning while reading and playing video games. 

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That forcing to study also taught discipline, priorities, and that you have to work hard in life.


BS.  How many of your classmates went on to a career that required such discipline?  Very few, indeed.  Yourself included.  Even the teachers' cert is just a hoop to jump through.  You can't honestly tell me that four years of post-secondary education prepared you to be a school teacher, because I know what it entails.  When you finally had your degree, you had to spend a year or so either with a mentor teacher or subbing, did you not?  Or co-oping while still in school yourself.  Otherwise you wouldn't have been prepared to teach.

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What you aredescribing there is actually the glaring difference I noticed in school cultures here and in Europe and Japan. Whether you have interest or not doesn't matter. You are a part of a class and your class is your team. You all work together and you don't let your teammates down. If you do, your teammates either shun you, shame you, or try to help you. Here, it's the opposite. Everyone is shuffled around different classes, everyone is for themselves aside from meaningless clicks, bad boys are popular, and smart kids are at the bottom of the social food chain instead of the admired guys who can help your class outcompete the other classes. I wasn't even aware of the whole smart kids are antisocial nerdy outcasts thing until I came to this country. So, maybe as with guns, it's not the laws, the regulations, or the money, it's the culture.

Maybe it is the culture.  It would then still not be the wisdom of the educators then, would it?
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Public education =/= lack of choice. I had tutors and went to non religious weekend school as my supplemental education, and am all for parents supplementing the basic stuff their kids learn in school.
Then you are simply for homeschooling and private education, because that is what they are doing.

No, I differentiate between tutoring to suppliment specific areas of education, and straight out home schooling that doesn't involve a public or private school at all.

You differentiate.  That doesn't meant it's different.  Reality doesn't much care how you differentiate.
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Why is there no home colleging btw?


There is in many disciplines that don't require a master's or doctorate path. 

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I know what is the best education for children.

You don't, and can't.  Evidence enought that the professional education establishments the world around do not, and cannot, know the best kind of education for all children is the fact that such educators are constatnly trying to 'reform' a broken system.  If the professionals cannot agree what the best kind of education is, you as an idividual teacher cannot honestly claim to have a monopoly on such information.

I don't really see other countries complaining about broken education systems, or doing any reforming other than tweaking and updating curriculums with more modern material. Certainly not in any of the places I've studied or have friends in. Again, this seems like a very American problem. If you mean the ones here, I guarantee you every one of those educators will agree with my list of essentials. The question mostly ends up being around how to teach it, and what more advanced topics to get into (or whether to teach evolution of sex ed).


Those are not trivial details.
3467  Other / Off-topic / Re: Libertarians Are Sociopaths on: October 28, 2011, 12:59:21 PM
I don't really see other countries complaining about broken education systems, or doing any reforming other than tweaking and updating curriculums with more modern material. Certainly not in any of the places I've studied or have friends in. Again, this seems like a very American problem.

i have difficulties following this overlong thread but I'd like to respond to this quickly.

in France a new method called 'méthode globale' has been introduced recently to teach children how to read.  It basically consisted in NOT teaching kids the alphabet.  Instead, kids were taught to recognized small words directly, as if they were ideograms. 

That's called "sight words" in the US, and was also a freaking disaster.
3468  Other / Off-topic / Re: Libertarians Are Sociopaths on: October 27, 2011, 08:48:35 PM
You seem to be advocating for equality at the cost of uniformity, which terribly reminds me of "The brave new world".  You are basically saying that parents should not have the right to make decisions regarding the education of their offspring

Socialist equality is evil because under it one person chooses not to work, the other works hard, and the one who chose not to is compensated by the hard worker. It both deminishes incentive to work and takes hard workers earnings. Children have no choice. Their wealth or place of residence is no fault of their own.


Although this is true enough, it is not the responsibility of the successful to make up for the inequalities of birth, nor the place of government to act as equalizer.  That said, as a modern compromise to the "social responsibility to the least able" versus the anarchistic "blame your parents if your childhood sucks" question; I would not be opposed to the idea that every child (born to provable, net tax paying, citizens) be allocated a 'defined benefit' social net at birth, to be used as necessary until depleted.  For example, the cost of childhood health care could be subsidized in this manner by granting each newborn a (as an example) $15K Health Savings Account when they are issued a social security number.  (It's really difficult to fake out the SSA and get a new SSN)  The SSA would be in charge of tracking the funds, and parents (or adult account holders) couldn't access those funds directly, but only as a tax fileing reimbursement with evidence that 1) the expenses were real 2) for the child in question and 3) the parents really didn't have the resources to pay for it.  Even if the parents are denied recompensation, the fund remains the asset of the child, forever.  

And I can solve the 'Universal health care' debate in two minutes.  A state block-grant fund wherein any procedure or prescription drug that was medically available to the richest American 50 years prior to the current year could be paid for in it's entirety, regardless of who is asking for it.  Excluding prescriptions that are now over the counter.  And the procedure cannot have an updated version, either.  So no heart surgery, no brain surgery, and very little cancer treatments for the destitute (pretty much exactly like it is now by default, with the 'obligation to treat' emergency room laws) but break a bone and you can go to any emergency room or urgent care center and have it set and cast without so much as the question "are you a US citizen".

These are certainly not libertarian viewpoints, but I think that they would be preferable to even the most hardcore libs to what we have now.

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So, public education does not incentivize laziness or entitlement. You still have to work hard for your grades (in other countries, anyway), and it helps build an educated employee pool beneficial to business.


Publicly funded education does not incentivize laziness, by itself.  But add in compulsory schooling, which both forces kids who have no interest in education to attend a public school and also forces the schools to accept them, and you have a condition of devolving morale.  Both for the teachers that must attempt to educate, or at least control, the children who do not wish to be there; as well as the other children who do, but cannot afford a private education to escape the influences of proximity to the other children.

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Perhaps if there was no such thing as publically funded education, all schools would be funded by local and international business, teaching using well researched and accepted methods, and school attendance would likely still be free and compulsory. But since that is not the case, businesses will just continue to relocate and hire people from countries with best public education.


History doesn't bear out your assumptions.  There was enither compuslory education nor publicly funded education in the majority of the United States prior to 1890, and was not nationwide until 1910.  The population of the United States of America was more literate and better educated, on aggragate, in 1780 than in 1930, or 1970; if you account for advances in sciences.

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Public education =/= lack of choice. I had tutors and went to non religious weekend school as my supplemental education, and am all for parents supplementing the basic stuff their kids learn in school.
Then you are simply for homeschooling and private education, because that is what they are doing.
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An other reason why this is wrong is that nobody knows what is the best education for children, if such a thing exists.  And if it does exists, I very much doubt that public centralization of decision regarding pedagogic methods is the best way to find out what it is.  Giving the responsability of educating millions of children to a few technocrats is a total madness, imho.

I know what is the best education for children.

You don't, and can't.  Evidence enought that the professional education establishments the world around do not, and cannot, know the best kind of education for all children is the fact that such educators are constatnly trying to 'reform' a broken system.  If the professionals cannot agree what the best kind of education is, you as an idividual teacher cannot honestly claim to have a monopoly on such information.
3469  Economy / Goods / I'm looking for some older kids' games.... on: October 27, 2011, 05:30:43 PM
I'm looking for Mac disks for games by Humongous Entertainment, such a the Spy Fox and Freddie Fish series. 
3470  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Coming Soon! impossible to steal wallets on: October 27, 2011, 02:28:05 AM
1)  It wouldn't be your software alone, your prof would have a claim.

2)  Why should I trust you and

3)  Why should I trust your software?  What will your client do differently that the current one does not?
3471  Economy / Collectibles / Re: CASASCIUS PHYSICAL BITCOIN - In Stock Now! (pic) on: October 26, 2011, 01:36:01 PM



I obviously need a new camera, but the difference should be apparent.

Yes, but I'm talking about an organized criminal with the same tooling available to himself as Casascius passing off spent coins as unspent by putting a new hologram sticker on them.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to belittle his acheivement.  I'm just concerned that there will eventually be a determined criminal element that will undermine the trust in bitcoin in general if they can create distrust in physical bitcoins.  It's not like doing so would actually be illegal in most places, since bitcoin isn't an official currency anywhere.
3472  Other / Off-topic / Re: Libertarians Are Sociopaths on: October 26, 2011, 01:29:39 PM
Are you really so ideologically blinded to not see the collusion of corporate and government power that has greatly contributed to that very same stat you're referring to?

Are you really so ideologically blinded to think that in the absence of government, CEOs will turn into little fluffy bunnies that will always do what's best for the people? 

No, I'm not.  I'm not one to believe that the absence of government is a stable or desirable condition.  Nor am I under any illusions about the downsides.

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All of the stuff I'm talking about is driven by the need for greater and greater profits. How does removing government change that equation?

Government creates the concentration of wealth and power that attracts that 'profit driven need'.  Every one of the most profitable corporations on Earth have very cozy relationships with large Western governments.  Including Apple, despite Steve Jobs well hidden contempt for politicos.
3473  Other / Off-topic / Re: Libertarians Are Sociopaths on: October 26, 2011, 05:22:47 AM
Workers don't get exploited because they can choose between 20 other jobs that will exploit them in exactly the same way compete to hire them.

In Mexico, Brazil, China, India, Taiwan, Korea, Thailand, and soon Kenya and every other third world country, yes, that eventually becomes the case. With every third-world nation that people have complained about with regards to running sweatshops and exploiting workers for very little wages, that nation eventually (and quickly) reached employment saturation, where the number of cheap jobs greatly outnumbered the number of workers available to exploit. Once that happened, workers started to demand higher wages, and factories started to provide competitive wages and better working conditions to steal workers off each other. Those workers, now earning more money, in turn were then able to get specialized training, get education, move to managerial positions, and start their own businesses. In the end, the economies of those countries, and the quality of life for the workers, had greatly improved. Just compare India, Mexico, and Brazil from 20 years ago to today.
This has happened EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. There is NO REASON it will not continue to happen. So we have REAL WORLD EXAMPLES that what you propose would happen is total bullsh~~.

I have a real world example of American wages staying stagnant for 30 years now while executive salaries spiral out of control and the rich gobble up a larger and larger portion of the wealth. People should not live and die by the whims of market forces. I'd rather have stability. Decent wages are great until unemployment starts to crop up and businesses realize they can get more for less because people are desperate.


Are you really so ideologically blinded to not see the collusion of corporate and government power that has greatly contributed to that very same stat you're referring to?
3474  Bitcoin / Mining / Re: The myth about "free electricity" in winter on: October 26, 2011, 05:20:38 AM

The point isn’t that there aren’t more efficient ways to generate heat.  The point is you have heat that is a free byproduct of an activity you were already engaged in. This free waste heat reduces your need to purchase additional heat at whatever that would cost.  Nobody is suggesting that anyone purchase Bitcoin mining rigs to replace their high efficiency heaters.

For the same exact reasons, a CFL light bulb isn't nearly as cost effective as is advertised.  An regular bulb takes about 5 times as much energy to light up a room, but it only costs about a quarter; while a single CFL can cost $6.  And they don't have nearly the longevity that is claimed on the package, either.
3475  Economy / Collectibles / Re: CASASCIUS PHYSICAL BITCOIN - In Stock Now! (pic) on: October 25, 2011, 11:43:53 PM
Ironicly, I got the phishing email but not the warning.  Which I thought to be odd, since I've never given Casascius my address.  But the phishing site is very well done, and I would have been fooled if not for that detail, and the nagging desire to search this forum.  I must say, the physical bitcoins seem very well done, and I would consider buying some but for one nagging issue in the back of my mind.

What prevents a scammer from removing the hologram to get at the private key, glueing it back on, spending it and then nabbing the bitcoin value a month later?  Is the hologram obviously destroyed by the process?

EDIT:  I missed the part on the website about the hologram leaving behind a honeycomb pattern if peeled.  Does that mean that the peeled hologram is now honeycombed?

"Send it back in and have it reloaded and restickered as new - just 25.5 BTC plus return shipping."

Wait, what?  It can be 'restickered'?  There needs to be images on the website that show how the sticker should look if good, and how it might look if bad.  I assume that unauthorized reproductions of the hologram sticker is very hard to fake, but if I (as a general user) don't know how the hologram is supposed to look like, how hard would it be for someone to find a hologram sticker to defraud someone with?
3476  Economy / Collectibles / Re: CASASCIUS PHYSICAL BITCOIN - In Stock Now! (pic) on: October 25, 2011, 11:36:26 PM
Ironicly, I got the phishing email but not the warning.  Which I thought to be odd, since I've never given Casascius my address.  But the phishing site is very well done, and I would have been fooled if not for that detail, and the nagging desire to search this forum.  I must say, the physical bitcoins seem very well done, and I would consider buying some but for one nagging issue in the back of my mind.

What prevents a scammer from removing the hologram to get at the private key, glueing it back on, spending it and then nabbing the bitcoin value a month later?  Is the hologram obviously destroyed by the process?

EDIT:  I missed the part on the website about the hologram leaving behind a honeycomb pattern if peeled.  Does that mean that the peeled hologram is now honeycombed?
3477  Other / Politics & Society / Re: Intellectual Property - In All Fairness! on: October 25, 2011, 05:39:49 PM
http://c4ss.org/content/8683

Relevant to this topic.
3478  Other / Off-topic / Re: Libertarians Are Sociopaths on: October 25, 2011, 05:39:20 AM
I know you're not arguing for a stateless society, but rather a society with a state so small that it would be completely powerless. I see little effective difference. Even under current governments, big business routinely commits crimes without a second thought if they know that the punishment will be lacking or non-existant.

Under current governments, big business routinely commits crimes with the aid of governments.  A corporation is a legal entity that could not exist without the support of governments.  That is what they were invented for.

And the "state so small" that I advocate for is the very kind of state that the US had at the federal level post civil war and pre-1913.  Discounting the civil war and the first and second central banks (which were both relatively short lived), that "state so small" was pretty close to the ideal that the framers had intended.  Far closer, anyway, than what it looks like today.  Bear in mind that the 'robber barons' of the early part of the last century held fortunes rooted in monopolies originally granted by the federal government such as the railroad barons and oil tycoons.
3479  Other / Off-topic / Re: Libertarians Are Sociopaths on: October 25, 2011, 04:42:59 AM
both of you are conflating libertarianism and anarchism.  A "libertopia" wouldn't be stateless, and damn well wouldn't be lacking in an organized collective defense force that is normally called and "army".  Rainingbitcoins, the vast majority of libertarians, myself included, do no make the argument that a stateless society could long exist, nor that any social ills external to government itself could be solved by such a stateless society in any sustainable way.  Please don't take the idealistic extreme positions of a few vocal fellow travelers as authoritative of the majority position.
3480  Other / Off-topic / Re: Libertarians Are Sociopaths on: October 25, 2011, 12:28:17 AM
Publicly != coercively. Nice try.

I assumed by "publicly funded" you meant "tax funded". If you don't think taxes are coercive, what happens when an individual doesn't pay it?

Taxation without representation is immoral.

So is representation without taxation, if you think about it.
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