Saluton, kaja !

Ni babilis en freenode #esperanto, cxu ne ?

I know very well how to hide my identity if I want to.  I have several nicknames that I use on different forums/websites, depending on how anonymous I want to be on that forum/website.  The thing is that if sometimes I can write silly things, some times (hopefully), I can also write smart things that I may be willing to be able to claim for paternity, in some future.  That's why I like the rot13 function :  it hides the original nick but it's easy to show what it is really, if we just let people know that it is a rot13-ed word.

Now, I don't exactly "request" you to do it, since I know very well that I have no power to coerce you to do it.  I also know that some other program miht just be doing it without us even knowing it.  I just think it might be some kind of courtesy.  If you don't do it, it won't be the end of the word for me, I don't care that much.


Masking the nicks of people is not exactly hiding information.  What is important is what people say, not who actually said it and with which pseudonymous.

Doesn't matter,  I just want not to make things too easy.  Using rot13, at least my nick won't be indexed by Google or other robots.

Think about chinese government :   it owns about G$ 2,500.

Does it try to sell it ASAP ??

No :  it tries to keep it and support the value of the dollar.  Of course, at some point it will try to get rid of it, but it will do this slowly.

What you say is true, but it's the same for almost all commodities.  After all the Hunt brothers tried to corner silver once.

Nobody could prevent a corner on BTC.

A monetary corner exposes population to possible arbitrary inflation.  But it's a one-time shot.  Once the money is put back in market, it's not easy to get it back.  So imo it's short-term pain, but good for long term, since we'd got rid of the corner.


I'd even add this :  somehow the fact that a corner is "possible" gives some value to the money.  As people try to corner the market, they spend other money and efforts to do so.  By doing so, they give some value to what they are buying.  It's just the same for gold.  Some gold buyers (most of them actually) dream of owning "all the gold in the world", which is an amount that, as a recall, holds in a 20meters sided cube.   As long as people will dream of that, however crazy it is, it will keep value to gold.

I can very well understand why some people don't feel comfortable about IRC logs.  Sometimes on IRC you write silly stuffs that you're not pride off.  Not necessarly offended things, but just silly remarqs that might may have you look dumb.

However, requesting for a deletion of a particular user might be too much either.  So I'm ok with logs, but I'd like the log not to makes my nick appear too easily.  What about using a rot13 filter on the nicks of people who ask so ?

Well I'll do :  if you log this IRC chann, please rot13 my nickname.

Oh, using diaspora in conjonction with bitcoin seems like a pretty good idea.

Now, I want to say first that Bitcoin is a great invention.

But obviously it's not the perfect tool for commerce.  I mean, it's an excellent electronic commodidty, perfectly suitable for use as a money.  But still, with a money you have to deal with the problem of the "exchange".

Bitcoin allows you to perform money transfer, in an irrevokable way.   Therefore it is perfect for donations, but unfortunately not for commercial transaction, for a commercial exchange is a bit more than just "two symetric transfers".

Say Alice want to buy Bob some service or good, let's say a nice cake for Xmas.

Alice sends her order to Bob and Bob accepts and tell her to send him the money.

Alice does it, and now she waits for her cake, that she is supposed to get delivered before Xmas.

At Xmas eve, if Alice did receive her cake, she's happy and can tell everyone that Bob is an honnest marchand.

If she didn't, she's unhappy and tell everyone that "Bob is a thief".

She might also say "Bob is a thief" even if she DID receive the cake.  In that case, Bob will say "Alice is a liar".

Now, in the market, reputation of people will be defined by three characteristics :  honnest, thief, and liar.   People will call each other by those names, and somehow one has to find a way to make sure everyone has been correctly qualified for what he is.

Such a situation reminds me of the famous game theory example of "doves" and "falcons".

Somehow I wonder if game theory could be of any help in order to design a rating system that would be efficient.

After some thinking it seems to me that BrightAnarchist was adressing a different issue.

PGP web-of-trust deals with making sure that a certain PGP fingerprint belongs to a certain person.

the kind of trust that is relevant in commercial exchange is not about who people are, but whether or not one can trust them to perform a transaction honnestly.  This is a different fonction, I guess.

I see on this thread that some people made a french translation.  Still, I don't see it on the main page.

I made one myself, in html format.  It's just a basic translation of the main page.

Very funny, some people just can't admit that at some point, small numbers are really virtually zero.

I've read somewhere that the total number of atoms in universe is around 10^80.

10^94 is thousands of billions (10^14) times bigger than that.  So we're talking about odds that are far less likely than picking a specific atom amongst the total number of all atoms in universe.  This is ridiculously small.

AFAIK I very much think bitcoin is just about as much a money as gold is.   Some people don't think gold is money, and it might be quite difficult to convince them that BTC is.

Personnaly I don't agree with the fourth Aristotle's characteristic of money.  I doubt money should have any intrinsic value.  More precisely, such a value according to me comes from the compliance to the three first characteristic.

For instance, I think that gold has really very few intrinsic value, but since prehistocical ages men have noticed the fact that gold could be used as a exchange medium (it obviously complied to the three characteristics :  durable, divisable, portable).  This is this usage that gave it its value.  with time people started to wear it as jewelry only becauses by this way they could show off their weilth.

Actually I think that the fourth characteristic should be replaced by the "hard-to produce" aspect, or scarcity.  Water, for exemple, is durable, divisable and portable (as long as you have a bottle ).  It also has much value (especially when you're thirsty ).   However, water can be produced in many ways, and is far too present on earth to be used as a currency.