They may have jumped him while he was fast asleep.  I don't remember the exact details.  A dog and/or a good surveillance system are, in my opinion, as or more important than a gun.

As for packing a gun around at all times, no thanks.  The cost/benefit is certainly not there for me.  Once in a while I will carry but only when the bears are around in number or when I am specifically investigating suspicious conditions such as a car spending to much time driving on the county road which goes through my property at 2:30am.

In a practical sense, sawing off a shotgun the wrong way can and has given the state all of the authorization they need to blow your wife's head off.  I keep firearms exactly to avoid such unpleasant events.

There may be a time when the insults against 'our liberty' justifies a fight, but it won't be a winning strategy to whine incandescently and harass people who are for the most part just trying to do their job and pay the bills.  In the mean time I find the 'Sovereign Citizens' most useful for a laugh in the 'owned' vids on youtube.

This is actually kind of a shame.  I'll bet that some of these SC folks are actually on to some things buried deep under their mountain of bullshit.  If only they could come up with a more effective way of communicating.  Oh well.

I'd point out that there is a big usability difference between a bird gun and a (legal length) defensive shotgun.  The first shotgun I bought was an ancient Browning semi-auto.  It was just something I saw in a mom-n-pop gunshop for what I considered to be cheap so I bought it.  Later I bought a few el-cheapo Chinese shotguns.  The longer gun is genuinely cumbersome.  The Chinese ones are vastly better in this regard and reasonably usable.  The M16 was the same.

After watching footage of how home invasion gunfights tend to play out naturally, I would put a lot more emphasis on how many rounds are available between re-loads.  This argues against a shotgun even though the hit probability and stopping power can be somewhat better in some situations.  In terms of capacity the assault style carbine has the upper hand.

I was surprised at how difficult it was to load the magazine of the 9mm I mentioned.  I could re-fuel my 357 revolver more quickly and the shotgun beats both.  (I do keep one of those elastic butt-stock cartridge holders on my shotguns.)  I would say that it is good practice to have a couple of spare magazines to put in one's pocket when grabbing the automatic.

BTW, the only reason I have several shotguns is that my property is somewhat expansive and if I met problems on one end of it it would be impractical to go to my house to retrieve the shotgun there.

One of the home invasion stories I ran across was three home invaders overpowered a home owner, chocked him out (or thought they had), and threw him in his closet.  They didn't check the closet first and it turned out that this is where he stored his guns.  The result was bad for the criminals.

WOTUS interpretative rule was a jaw-dropping LAND grab.  It gave the EPA the ability to control all land which might have a puddle on it once in a while as well as land through which water might be moving under the surface (but above the water table.)

The EPA already has the ability to ensure that water is clean.  They had plenty of power to deal with the lead problem in Flint for instance.  What they choose to do was to keep their water tests results from the state for a year.  They also choose to 'accidentally' dump a whole mountain's worth of mine waste into the Animus river so that they could un-block some superfund money.  There is simply no way to break the seal to the mine shaft and not know full well what was going to happen.

I can say with confidence that what the EPA was planning to do with WOTUS was to interfere with anyone who wanted to put so much as a culvert under their driveway.  Doing so would take years and cost thousands of dollars in permits and such.  Particularly hard-hit would be any small time farmer since, on a system-wide basis, this class of producer competes with corporate ag and doesn't allow them to bring the prices of their product up as high as they wish.  The social planers are 'predicting' a 400% food price increase over our currently low food prices here in the U.S. and they need to ensure that the plan can happen.  Of course corporate entities who are big enough to have lobbyists will have no trouble doing whatever they want with water.  Probably they would often get the tax payers to fund their water related projects even.

One of the interesting things I learned in the whole WOTUS struggle (which interested me because I personally got fucked by the regulators and found that they had zero interest in actual environmental issues) was that the EPA is a very flawed organization.  They had employees shitting in the halls in their big office in Denver and had to hire human relations consultants to advise about the problem.  They had a guy who spent 5 hours of his day watching internet porn at work and claiming he had nothing else to do...and they still did not fire him!  There were also other absurd problems that I've forgotten the details of.  Oh ya.  Some under-cover vid of one of their gala's had some woman bragging about how they fucked some old miners out of their property for like 10% or 20% of the actual value.

If Trump totally kills off the EPA and starts over from scratch I would be perfectly happy with that.  Same with the Department of Education.

I would lobby for capital punishment for people who engage in pedophilia or make a living servicing those who do.  Some estimates are that between 20% and 30% of those in power (esp congress) are involved, and after analyzing things during the ongoing 'pizzagate/pedogate' citizen investigation I actually don't doubt it.  The mechanism would be that deep state actors select people for important positions and install them BECAUSE of their ability to be controlled.  This would explain the mystery about why people inevitably 'go bad' once they get into the presidency or whatever.  Both the politician-class people and their extortionists would likewise be subject to capital punishment if I were running things.

Looks to me like the same basic mechanics apply in the corporate entertainment world only worse in various ways.  I am not the least bit surprised that 1/3 of the pedo round-ups (which seem to have started just after Obama left office) were in state of California.  The place is a cesspool.

I would make an exception to the above.  People who have been themselves traumatized as children and later become abusers might be eligible for life in prison instead of the death penalty.  It does seem that abuse in childhood tends to promote problems in adults which is a very good reason to hit the problem with full force.

If I were Trump I would tell everyone in government that if they have skeletons in the closet they have 6 months to bow out of govt 'service' to 'spend more time with the family' because we're coming for you.  You might not get off the hook, but we'll be prioritizing those who are on the taxpayer dole.

Also I would make it know that any pedos who land in U.S. jurisdiction will be subject to U.S. enforcement so they would do best to just stay the hell out of the country.

I would consider that to be three pieces of bad advice in rapid succession, but of course it is just my personal opinion.

After screwing around the the automatic I mentioned, I think I would prefer one of those for dealing with multiple waskuwee wobbers in an indoor environment should I miss the opportunity to get them at the door or window.

Thinking back, I have used an M1911 (45 ACP) in the military but I don't remember it being as usable feeling as the 9mm.  And the alternative was the M16 which was quite applicable and nice in a variety of situations.

The ability to sign a transactions without access to the secret key in enough instances is the only thing I really worry about.  Say through an undetected weakness in the necessary cryptography and/or built in back door in some crypto and/or hardware implementations.

Absent that I don't think it possible that Bitcoin would 'die', though various things could drastically change it's trajectory.

I am fond of shotguns because of the adaptability.  The only time I've used mine in 'defense' was to discourage a bear.  I came home and startled a sow and her cub, and she climbed 15 feet up a tree very close to my deck to keep an eye on me.  I selected a rubber slug and never saw her or her cub again.  A lead slug is a whole different thing, and there is everything in between.  (BTW, a lead slug or even buckshot is quite 'effective' well beyond 10 meters.)

Shotguns can also be fairly intimidating, and in the hands of a territorial property owner they demonstrably strike fear into the soul of a criminal.  If an uninvited person invades one's property the very best outcome is if they leave on their own and don't come back.

I have a lot of respect for people who will take risk to themselves to give a potential criminal a break.  Many home invasions are stupid teens and there is at least a 50% chance that they would grow up.  OTOH, there is another 50% chance that they'll continue to cause misery for a few years until they get shot or incarcerated.  Further, a stupid but relatively harmless dead teen probably keeps 100 more from getting started in the breaking and entering habit.

A few years ago in the Portland area some guy nailed a teen who was crawling in his window with a rubber slug.  The kid self-reported to the emergency room with hairline skull fractures and a hell of a bruise.  Last year in my town some guy held three teens at gunpoint in his home and made them call the cops on themselves.  Kudo's to these merciful adults, but I would not recommend it and especially not if one has any questions about their own skill or situation awareness.  I honestly don't know what I would do, but I would hold it against no-one to _completely_ neutralize the threat.

As I said, the 'technical points' of the article struck me as largely bunk.

My comment about butt-hurt was related to years of observation on this forum.  It remains the most powerful explanation of the driving force for garden variety minions, but these minions are animated (unconsciously or otherwise) by people who see a threat in the aspects of Bitcoin which I personally consider to be liberating.

I welcome competition while those who have a monopoly in other financial instruments see it as a significant threat.  My biggest mis-calculation so far has been in predicting the likely form of attack from corp/gov.  I didn't expect them to be so shrewd in their attack.  Chuck Schumer's strategy was the one I anticipated taking hold and it was kind of a surprise when he was told to put a sock in it and let the professionals handle this.

My summation of the article is that the author is saying, "Oh no!  Lighting might make Bitcoin work."  From my perspective I would classify the guy's concerns as mostly either advantages, neutral, or no problem, and it looks to me like his main beef is that it would interfere with the bloat-it strategy to quash or control Bitcoin.

The guy tries to scare people about paper-vs-gold.  He relies on the well implemented mass ignorance of the populous and conspicuously neglects to point out that there is no problem with paper notes circulating in lu of gold and it makes a lot of sense in that context.  The trouble lies in fractional reserve monetary inflation where banks create $1000 worth of notes and back them with $100 worth of gold (then pocket the interest on the remaining $900.)  This is simply not an issue with a properly designed Bitcoin-backed exchange currency.

Actually, it could be a problem for anyone stupid enough to use a fractional reserve subordinate exchange currency.  Given an option (and some knowledge) many people would not make this choice.  That's why corp/gov has to force them to do so and quash any other options.

If 1000 trinket purchases were made on a subordinate chain for every balancing transaction on the Bitcoin chain, transaction fees could be $5.00 while the trinket buyers pay $0.005.

This would net infrastructure operators about $1.5M per day compared to your $0.135M.  In short, much better security.

In monetary terms, there is no difference between a subordinate chain user and a main-chain user.  Any currency which exists on a subordinate chain is taken out of the Bitcoin reserve.  From Bitcoin's perspective, a subordinate chain is just a particularly active individual user who can afford realistic fees.  In both cases, it is critical to the users that Bitcoin itself remains healthy and robust.

From a trinket-class user's perspective, they can choose subordinate chain solutions tailored to their particular needs.  e.g., privacy, speed, fees, etc.  So, they get a much better user experience.

There are a raft of other advantages as well, but I won't get into them.  The main 'disadvantage' seems to be that someone feels butt-hurt if their candy bar purchase does not bloat the permanent record on the 'real' blockchain.  Never mind that this 'critical need' impacts every entity who wants to support Bitcoin since they need to carry the data around forever.

I think we've had this discussion before, but it was a while back.  I personally prefer a shotgun for home defense (and investigating issues on my property be they human, sub-human, or animal), but one can have both.

In this case, it was a struggle to get the family member to have anything at all.  The anti-gun propaganda strongly effects a lot of people.  A small firearm is a good first step and I hope that once the shame and guilt of being a gun owner subsides there will be upgrades in the mix.  Additionally, the people who need guns the most tend to be those who are the least physically capable of dealing with their operation because the scumbags who are a threat target them specifically.

The primary load I choose for my shotgun(s) are 00-buck and slugs.  This in case I need to defend against bears or engine blocks.  I personally don't have much of an issue with the recoil but everyone is built differently.

Camera technology is increasing rapidly.  I just put some effort into hooking everything into zoneminder.  There is a fair chance that by the time an attacker and I meet I will have been watching them for 15 minutes or so and will have selected the proper mix of weapons, but this is due to the layout of my property as much as anything.

I just got a 9mm which is a caliber I've not had any experience with.  Actually I got it for someone else, but might buy them a different one and trade them.  It is a Taurus 709 slim which is sort of targeted at the concealed carry crowd.  I'm mostly familiar with my 357 mag.  The 9mm is quite manageable by comparison.  Even with the relatively small automatic I feel that I could put a number of bullets into someone breaking through a door in under a second.

For home defense purposes I would suggest a more full sized automatic mostly because it holds more rounds.  Might be even easier to rack and fire also.  Not sure since I've not played around with one.  The one I got was sort of a spur-of-the-moment purchase for a family member since there have been troubles with tweekers in my area of late.

In contemplating tactics recently and watching some of the home invasion footage on youtube, I would suggest that the most important thing a person can do is to have a well thought out and well rehearsed plan about where in the house to retreat to. and how to mount an attack or defense from there.  Practice it a bunch so it is Pavlovian should one's window breaking be what wakes a person up.

I would also suggest to analyze various available footage paying attention to the behavior of the home invaders and put yourself into their minds remembering that in the common case they will be learning the layout of the house as they go.  It is interesting to note how common it is for home invaders to work in groups of three.

Not sure if it's been posted on this board or not, but here is a rather delightful bit of footage:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stOcTAADa38

Shows how useless 911 can be and it is awfully amusing when the woman loses patience and hangs up on 911 to call her husband in order to get some actual help.  Apparently Asian restaurant owners are specifically targeted because they close late and often take the night's earnings home.  Interestingly and not surprisingly the strong consensus is that this woman should be granted instant U.S. citizenship if she wants it.

It's now about 8 years since Bitcoin was released.  Nothing I read in the white-paper said anything about 'several decades'.  At least not that I remember.  At $1200/BTC it seems logical that we would start to see transaction fees become noticeable.

I don't know Greg so I cannot speak for him.  From what I do see in casual observation, the direction he and some of the other core team members are focusing on are exactly what I would do if I wanted Bitcoin to survive and thrive, particularly considering the complexities in forking.  It is for this reason more than anything that I have confidence in the trajectory of the solution and why I don't dump.


Mining is a sore point in the solution.  My guess is that Satoshi did not properly foresee the evolution of this segment of the solution.  This is understandable.  When I first analyzed Bitcoin I did not put much focus on it.  The reason is that as long as a broad segment of the ecosystem can property validate transactions, miners don't have a lot of latitude to 'cheat'.

I suspect that Satoshi did not completely forsee the economies of scale for mining (which is now tied to hardware manufacture) and the pressure that the formed entities would have over evolution of the rest of the system.  Not that he could not have, but he had a lot of other things to think about and most of them were more interesting.

Anyway, from my perspective, bloating the system will only make it so that there will be fewer opportunities to validate and will force other aspects of the system into the same place we find ourselves today wrt mining.  At that point whitelisting/blacklisting will be feasible.

Once someone is sitting on $10,000,000 worth of hardware necessary to play a part in Bitcoin operation, I don't see them NOT doing what the political leadership in their jurisdiction wishes.  The alternative in, say, China could be not only to lose your $10M worth of hardware but to have your organs harvested.

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Looks to me as though segwit seeks to optimize the validation options to align with different classes of need and capability.  Once that is proven it will be practical to safely and efficiently edge up the system capacity trying to make sure that some of the concerns of excessive bloat don't become an issue.  This is not at all trivial and I have a lot of respect for those who attempt it.  As long as things are open-source the proposition that Maxwell-n-co are attempting a 'corporate monopolization' or whatever is, in my mind, a weak one.

You seem to be giving Greg to much credit.  It was Satoshi's idea to make the currency deflationary (eventually) by rolling from block reward to transaction fees as a means of funding the operational infrastructure.

As for 'corporate', I cannot think of anything more so than then Bitcoin bloating to the extend that only a handful of large corp/gov entities are able to operate it efficiently and profitably.  Such a scenerio is necessary for coin blacklisting/whitelisting and that seems to have been the primary objective of those who got the bloatchain idea rolling.

Or maybe it's demonstrating that the 'free shit army' are a bunch of ass-clowns who have little or no understanding of economics, systems analysis, etc.  They are vocal however.  I'll give them that.

I've always thought that it would be cool to have a growing selection of algorithms which could be used interchangeably to solve a block.  Those algorithms which are over-utilized would be progressively weighted in some manner (increasing refund of transaction fees perhaps?)

(edit:  Actually, each algo could easily have it's own difficulty which would be the most straightforward solution.)

This would make it less practical to whip up ASIC chips and as a consequence could put independents back into the mining game.  Basically anyone running a full node may as well throw some CPU power against it.

With interchangeable algorithms other possibilities to discourage superior resource attacks are possible.  For instance, for high confidence transactions a user might wait until {m} of {n} algorithm types have been used.  This would make it so that an attacker would have to achieve domination over multiple classes of miner.

I wouldn't say that the miners are 'evil', or if they are, they could be a lot worse.  They are self-interested which is perfectly understandable.  But they should be careful because fucking them over if the community decides they deserve it is but a hard-fork away.

'mined' != 'confirmed'.  In fact a miner cannot really cheat in major ways if other nodes are doing their jobs properly and not cooperating.  Even if they were cooperating the team could create a god-awful mess and halt the whole system for periods of time, but they cannot steal or lose people's properly secured BTC.

Now if the group of entities who can 'confirm' transactions is small enough they could conspire to keep the system running but discriminate certain transactions.  e.g., transactions which were not deemed 'valid' by the authorities in the jurisdictions in which they operate.  In short, they could create fungibility problems within the currency system and I would go so far as to say that this would be inevitable.  And genuinely destructive to the value and usefulness of the solution.

The very people who were early advocates of extreme growth knew that the system would 'work fine' with only a small integer number of copies of the blockchain, which is necessary for real validation, worldwide.  They were also advocates of various kinds of 'color-listing'.  Extreme blockchain bloat was the path to get to a small enough number of 'confirmers' so that black/white/red-listing was doable.

Last time I participated in these discussions was I think several years ago.  Right around the time that Hearn and Andressen were spouting dire warnings about how Bitcoin only had a month or two to live unless the blocksize was raised ASAP.  Now, years later, Bitcoin is going strong, setting new highs, and an actual well designed and well thought out solutions are available when needed.

Back then the fear-mongering actually convinced a surprising number of users.  Now not so much...just a few residual dead-enders like the OP.  In fact almost nobody seems to be buying the bullshit.  The consequence of the crying wolf by 'trusted figures' no doubt, but also more people who are on this board seem to have a better grasp of the technology, the threats, and the trade-offs.  That's pretty encouraging to me.