Its been a while since I programmed (basic) <-- dont laugh.. gorilla was an awesome game!

anyways I'd like to learn to make scripts or programs that can help bitcoin, I'm just wondering if I had to learn one which would be the best.  Should I learn C or should I learn php for web stuff.   Kinda leaning toward php.  But just wondering what others think.  When i go to learn something I go balls to the wall.

What is the bitcoin client programmed in?

Anyways thanks.

90% of programmer's job is "google->copy->paste", so choose the language with largest amount of available code)

C and C++ look terribly outdated, if you code with them why not go directly for VHDL its even more efficient)

(But yes, a GPU farm in space would have AWESOME cooling, provided it was kept in the shade)

I had a similar idea, but I think you can use the bitcoin transaction protocol for this.

The gist is that, if you trust the transaction creator to not double-spend (not much trust required), you don't need to wait for the transaction to confirm in a block.

So, if you receive a transaction from a "bank" you trust, you can act immediately on the transaction.  If it is not from a trusted source, you must wait for confirmation.

To prove a transaction came from a particular source, the bank creating the transaction would sign it with a private key (the corresponding public key could be put in their DNS entry).  They could either add the signature to the bitcoin transaction (I believe there is a way to add arbitrary data) or the signature could be stored in a separate database.

This is a pretty minor (and backwards compatible) addition to the current protocol.  We just need the big players (MtGox, mybitcoin, etc) to agree to a standard and start signing their transactions.

That's a very complicated protocol for a vending machine.

Alice wishes to buy a neat toy for her daughter from Bob for two Bitcoins.

Alice asks Bob if she can pay with a check from her bank, ABC. Bob says 'yes' and gives her the public key to make the check out to (call it PK).

Alice contacts ABC and asks for a check payable to PK for the amount of two Bitcoins. ABC checks Alice's account for two Bitcoins. Alice's account has at least two Bitcoins, so ABC puts a hold on her account for, say five minutes, of the amount two Bitcoins. ABC then creates a check of the following form and gives it to Alice:

Alice gives this check to Bob.
Scenario 1 (Bob doesn't have a bank):
Bob verifies he can accept the check. Bob contacts ABC and asks to cash a check. Bob gives the check to ABC. ABC verifies the check, and gives a nonce to Bob. Bob encrypts the nonce with the corresponding private key of PK and gives the result back to ABC. ABC verifies the result with PK, and asks Bob for a receiving address. Bob gives a receiving address to ABC. ABC sends two Bitcoins to the address and notifies Bob that Bitcoins have been sent.

Scenario 2 (Bob's bank is XYZ):
Bob contacts XYZ and asks to deposit a check. Bob gives the check to XYZ. PK is the public key for XYZ, so they perform the steps in Scenario 1. Upon success, XYZ informs Bob that his account has been credited the amount on the check.

The transaction is now complete, so Bob gives the neat toy to Alice.

OK, so can we agree that tools are tools? Or would a better hammer suddenly make the deck leap together? Maybe, a Nailgun?

And How, pray tell, do the businesses restrict access to affordable loans?

Well, that's when the original company starts to sell certificates of authenticity. I see nothing wrong with making an identical as long as you claim its not from another company than your own. It's their property.

The vanilla GPL wasn't made for a world of software-as-a-service, which is why the AGPL was written to fix this modern loophole. In the era of the vanilla GPL, software was actually distributed to end users. If copyright was abolished we'd still see locked down versions of free software desktop apps, and sites hosting AGPL software without the source code.

Ohh.... I see your point now. Profit is evil, huh? Does the worker get no say in this equation? What about what he values his labor at?

Yeah controversial statement I agree, but Stallman's GNU project did build a lot of the free software we use. I tend to write open source software which can be locked up as proprietary myself, my favourite licenses being MIT or WTFPL. However, I do think we'd see a hell of a lot of copyleft code being locked up as proprietary if there were no copyrights on software, and copyleft does help protect user-freedoms.

Scarcity and enforceability (without holding people's REAL property hostage).

Wait, which is it?

Information is not property.

You assume they'd be OK with that. You also assume there wouldn't be 50 other people clamoring to pay for their worth.

However, without copyright we wouldn't have free software or huge investments in proprietary software

We are so sorry you don't have the power to loot and murder in the name of whatever whims and desires you may deem acceptable. We are sorry you can't make yourself entitled to other's earnings nor enslave others to provide for people you may deem worthy.

However, if you believe your use of violence is so acceptable, then you can try your luck against our armed populace and our competent and competitive set of judicial systems and authorities. I'm sure if your murder and theft is so loving and caring, there won't be an issue.

Say I wanted to take a data file (like an excel file), and display it as an image.  I would imagine that it would just look like a bunch of white noise, but I've always been curious to see what kind of patterns develop.  I've already converted some excel files and other files to audio in the past, so I've listened to pictures and spreadsheets.  Anyway, how would I go about opening a file in a format that wouldn't cause an error (e.g. "This is not a valid .jpg format").  May a RAW?  Or BMP?

(...)
Deflation is supposedly bad because:


Those arguments against deflation are typical Keynesian dogma.  In fact I actually wrote out the exact same three arguments before I even read Krugman’s article, but I figured it would be better if I listed them off right from the horse’s mouth.

So let’s address the first argument that people become less willing to spend, and particularly less willing to borrow, and this somehow leads to unemployment.  There will ALWAYS be some unemployment if the economy is not in equilibrium (which it never is, since human desires change over time).  As people shift their desires from wanting notebook computers to iPads, some unemployment will result from this.  Consider that if the demand for notebooks drops while the demand for iPads increases, notebook producers will end up having to lay people off or go out of business while iPad producers will be hiring more people.  The people in transition are going to be unemployed while they look for new work.

But setting that point aside, we have to look at why money undergoes deflation in the first place!  It is not surprising that Krugman doesn’t mention the reasons why deflation occurs in a currency.  There are basically only two reasons (on a macro scale) why a currency would undergo deflation:

1.  The economy is producing more new goods and services at a rate that is above the growth rate of the money supply…. or

2.  In a fractional reserve system, debt is being wiped out through widespread bankruptcies.

Consider that in the first case, this is entirely normal and healthy!  If the money supply is held constant, yet the productive capacity of the economy increases, there will be the same number of dollars chasing more goods.  Inflation is the exact opposite of this, whereby same dollars are chasing fewer goods (or more dollars chasing same/less goods).  Clearly deflation in this sense is beneficial for consumers.  We see this taking place in the electronics industry which is largely free from government regulation and subsidies.  When competition is fierce, the productive capacity of industry over-rides the inflationary aspects of our fractional reserve economy and we see prices come down as more and more electronic goods are produced more efficiently.

Imagine if the electronics industry operated like the government subsidized and regulated healthcare industry.  You would buy all the electronics you could now, because in the future, they would be so expensive you might not be able to afford them!  So yeah, in this sense, inflation encourages spending.  But clearly this is UNHEALTHY spending caused by people fearing the loss of their purchasing power.

Inflation creates a fear based economy that motivates people to spend above their means because the future value of their purchasing power is constantly decreasing.  It would be foolish to try and save money for future expenditures in an inflationary economy, which obviously destroys savings.  People who save for their retirement by putting money in a bank would be fools in an inflationary environment.

In fact if the inflation gets bad enough and interest rates are artificially low, people would be motivated to take out excessive loans and credit card debt to try and get as many things as they could now!  Boy that sure sounds like a problem we are all familiar with doesn’t it?

Krugman’s argument that people would be less willing to spend and borrow, and this would lead to unemployment, is as ridiculous as saying that because computers keep getting better and cheaper into the future, people would be less willing to spend money on a computer today because they could simply wait and buy an even better/cheaper computer in the future.  That is obviously not how people think.  People have needs and desires that have to be met, and they will purchase things as soon as their desire for the product is larger than their desire for future earnings on savings.  That, by the way, is how a healthy economy should operate.  Notice there is no fear involved.  Electronics companies are not going out of business because their products are becoming more abundant and cheaper.

So let us look at Krugman’s second argument that deflation makes debtors worse off.  What is left unsaid in this assumption is that debt is a good thing, while saving is a bad thing.  Does this make any logical sense to anyone?  Consider that if money is undergoing deflation, SAVERS benefit.  Shouldn’t the savers naturally benefit more than someone who is putting themselves into debt?  Savers are forgoing pleasure in the moment for the expectation of even greater pleasure in the future.  This means resources that could be consumed immediately for minimal productive gains are being put aside into bigger projects that could yield even greater gains in the future.  Savings is what builds strong economic foundations.  If the US wasn’t so wildly in debt at the moment we would be in a better economic position with larger prospects for growth!

But also let us consider the impacts of deflation on interest rates.  People who lend and borrow money will know that money will be worth more in the future if the money supply remains constant (like Bitcoins) yet the productive capacity of the economy continues to increase.  This leads to falling interest rates.  Interest rates will naturally come down in a deflationary environment because savings will increase, thereby making more money available to banks to lend.  When banks have a lot of people saving money with them, they will lower rates naturally.  This is in contrast to our present situation where rates are low strictly because the Fed is artificially depressing them by paying banks NOT to lend and by buying up government bonds.

Distortion of interest rates by the Fed also has other deleterious effects on the structure of production that I will not get into here, but according to Austrian Business Cycle Theory, inflation and its distortion of interest rates is the primary driver of business cycles.  Learn more about it by watching this video by Professor Roger Garrison.

Which situation sounds healthier to you?  Low interest rates because a lot of people are saving money or low interest rates because the Fed is artificially depressing them with tax payer money?

So let us address Krugman’s final argument that wages face downward rigidity which makes it more difficult for employers to adjust to the money that is gaining in value.

Consider if you were in this situation:

Your employer gathers up all the employees for a conference and tells you that because the economy is so productive and that the value of money is going up so much, that he is going to have to furlough the workforce to deal with the appreciating currency.

From your perspective, you are getting more time off while your income remains exactly the same in terms of purchasing power.  Who doesn’t want that?  Further, consider that if you don’t get a raise every year, YOU STILL GET A RAISE!  Employers don’t necessarily have to cut wages; they can cut hours or simply not give raises yet people would still be better off than they were the year before.

But let’s say the economy is so productive that money gains so much value that employers are simply forced to cut wages – if this was the case, would anyone seriously give a damn?  We would be living in a nirvana society that had absolutely ridiculous amounts of abundance.  Women could stay home to take care of the kids, one man could provide all the income necessary to take care of his family and still retire, kids wouldn’t have to work three jobs to put themselves through school, etc… etc… etc…

Less people would need to work in such an economy (like they did in the 50s and 60s) which would relieve the need of employers to cut wages.

Oh yes, one more thing.  I suppose I should address the second cause of deflation other than increasing productivity while the money supply remains constant – and that is a deflationary default spiral that results from the unwinding of a Ponzi scheme.  This is the real reason why Keynesian economists fear monger about deflation.  Since in our crazy society, money IS debt, if debtors get themselves into a position where they are so over-leveraged that they are forced into bankruptcy, it can cause a cascading series of defaults that wipe out the banking industry (along with the government and its welfare/warfare state).  As debt gets wiped out, the money supply decreases which leads to deflation.

Keynesian economists have to continually fear monger about deflation because even a tiny amount of it could wipe out our Ponzi debt based economy, and thereby wipe out their fat government aid fueled paychecks.  To learn more about the scam that is our debt based economy, check out The Case Against The Fed.  It offers a clear picture of how the modern banking system operates and why it was created.  If you are looking for something slightly more entertaining, yet still informative, check out The American Dream.  It is gives a great overview of what fractional reserve banking is and why it is nothing more than a Ponzi scheme.

Keynesian economists like Krugman don’t have your best interests in mind when they argue against deflation.  They are far more concerned about keeping the welfare/warfare state alive and well, along with their own paychecks.

This sounds interesting, this flavor in my mind may actually work! So who decides what is a coercive power relationship? My initial impression is that this is something like decentralized socialism.