JDS vs Francis Ngannou was definitely one of the fights I was looking forward to the most.

Demetrious Johnson is receiving a lot of accolades, he's ranked #1 on many pound for pound lists. Many consider him to be the best overall MMA fighter actively fighting. It seems like he's gotten a bit jaded. Its strange how he's the champion and seems less happy with his place in things when he's being paid much more than most. I think maybe he doesn't appreciate how lucky he is and so I won't miss him not fighting.

Ray Borg is supposed to have a viral infection. I wonder what type of virus he is infected with.

Governments typically cater to the will of those who wield the greatest political influence. Money is correlated with political influence. The more money someone has & the more they're willing to spend it towards funding political campaigns and lobbyist efforts, this grants a person political influence. Owning guns and weapons also gives a person or group political influence. It might be fair to say the reason the united states had the most political influence in the world was due to it having a lot of money, a wealthy economy and having a powerful military.

In asking which policy a government is likely to embrace, the question of which policy is advocated by those who wield the greatest political influence comes into play. If those with the most political influence want bitcoin to be recognized as a currency, that is typically the policy politicians will adopt.

I think california and texas have both petitioned to secede from the united states over the last year. There are undoubtedly states who wish to split from the USA the way the UK split from the EU. That's one potential way america could become a failed nation if those states which pay greater revenue into the federal system than they receive from the federal government in the form of grants, welfare, subsidies, etcetera decide they're better off on their own.

The federal government being $20 trillion in debt is another potentially devastating blow which could eventually cause the USA to fail the way the USSR failed when it defaulted on debt.

America's traditional values are things like freedom of speech, innovation, individualism, right to bear arms. In many ways the united states has embraced the opposite of what its traditional values once were. That's another potential way the USA could become a failed nation.

It is possible the relationship between net neutrality and ISP's (internet service providers) could apply to a cashless world.

Many support net neutrality with the idea that ISP's will raise rates/fees and resort to exploitive behavior if net neutrality is abandoned. The way ISP's are structured, some consumers only have 1 ISP as an option in their geographic area. having only 1 ISP as an option creates something like a monopoly which could pave the way towards ISP's adopting exploitive and predatory business practices as many have no recourse but to accept them.

Banks too could have something resembling a monopoly over buying/selling/exchange if cash transactions were banned, leaving only electronic transactions. Banks having a large majority of the electronic payment industry could give them something like a monopoly which could also pave the way towards banks resorting to exploitive and predatory business practices if paper money were ever banned.

Night king is listed as a 9.00.


King's Landing could be burned & abandoned(as in Daenery's vision). It could imply people decided to live in other places which have a better climate. If there was enough real estate damage inflicted on King's Landing it might be cheaper to abandon it, rather than repair it. Haha. I'm kidding.

George R.R. Martin seems to enjoy killing off main characters & showing that no one is immune. Maybe his end game is for everyone to die, as you say. Cersei couldn't work together, cooperate or prioritize the survival of the human race above her own greed. Maybe none of them will survive that.  

On the other hand, not all visions and prophecies in game of thrones come true. Daenerys child was prophesized to conquer the world. That vision/prophecy never came true. There's a chance Daenerys vision will not happen.

I think in some US states, if a person earns less than $600 a year, they aren't required to pay income taxes. This could be an extension of that where low sums of bitcoin exchanged for fiat would not be subject to taxation.

The bill being introduced by senators from arizona and colarado could imply arizonans could have a use for this which might correlate with arizona being a state ranked with a low average cost of living within the USA. Colorado having legalized marijuana could be a motive for this push as well with their end goal possibly being weed purchasable via bitcoin/crypto. The cannabis industry is becoming a big tax revenue earner for states which makes sense for them to expand options enabling purchase of it.

Still waiting for an update on senate bill 1241 which will have an effect on bitcoin & crypto if it is passed.

Eventually, someone will devise a reliable method to evaluate ICO's in terms of individual value. At the moment, most ICO value is derived from their affiliation with crypto and bitcoin and in some cases their affiliation with celebrities like Floyd Mayweather who are endorsing ICO's. The question of what an ICO is worth by itself, without its value being derived from other things, isn't a subject which appears to have been given much focus.

On a fundamental levels, appraising an ICO could be comparable to appraising an investment or business venture. There are basics like expected growth, targeting demographics, business plan & possibly a somewhat diverse number of factors which determine how successful an ICO is expected to be.

Could you post the entire article with a link for verification purposes? As opposed to only a link with no article? It sucks having to open a proxy everytime I want to read something, not wanting to risk being hit by clickbait malware.

This story of china moving towards policies which are less friendly towards the united states is nothing new. Its only the latest in a long chain of events which has undermined the united states as a global superpower over the past 5 decades.

Someone could easily write up a massive conspiracy theory about how the united states has deliberately been attacked from outside and from within with the end goal of destroying any advantage america has in terms of business, defense, education, wealth. While nations like china have been given preferential treatment with the possible end goal of ensuring they emerge as a global power. There's a lot of evidence for it.

We need better terminology and metrics to describe what a bubble is. There isn't much real debate when it comes to whether bitcoin is a bubble. There isn't much of an established school of thought on what set of circumstances might define a crypto bubble.

In a stock market analysts could look at the ratio of price to earnings which would help to identify bubbles or assets that were overvalued. In crypto there isn't a similar metric that has been tried and proven over time to be a good indicator. Crypto isn't structured like stocks and bonds. This could make it more difficult to identify or predict bubble behavior in crypto as its non traditional and subject to variables which do not exist in other markets.

One observation that may be made of true capitalism, true socialism and similar "true" based systems. All might be defined in terms of being very centralized. True socialism is defined by a structure where power is centralized within a state or government. True capitalism is defined by a structure where power is centralized primarily within the private sector.

The most successful systems of socialism & capitalism may be defined in terms of being decentralized. Power being decentralized between government socialism and private sector capitalism. A decentralized balance rather than monolithic centralization.

Good question. Many banks cover up to $100,000 insurance where sums over $100,000 are not insured. In exchanging btc to fiat avoiding sums over $100k could work in principle. Other concerns might be things like transfer fees and the amount of interest yield on deposit. IRA roth and other "high interest yield" savings accounts could be one option for those who intend to save their converted btc in fiat. Another option could be converting to fiat to invest in stocks, bonds & other investments. DRIP (dividend reinvestment plan) could be a good option there.

Its difficult to imagine a scenario where btc is difficult to convert to fiat. If someday 1 satoshi (0.00000001 btc) is worth more than $100,000 there might be some difficulties finding a basic bank account to keep it in to insure your money. But if 1 satoshi was ever worth that much I think most of us would say the benefits are far outweighing any negative drawbacks.

There's a NFL pick em' contest hosted on SBR (sports book review) forum every year which pays out something like $40,000 in prizes. Its known as their "beat the prick" competition.

@ sportsbookreview.com

I think to be eligible to win prizes from the contest a person needs to pay $100 for membership which comes with a number of perks in terms of the site hosting prizes which can be redeemed for sbr points.

The idea of widespread economic and financial changes caused by simply raising or lowering rates isn't something that I strongly believe in.

If someone decides to save money in a bank, many don't bother to check interest rates or shop around to find the savings account which pays out the highest annual percentage yield. If people want to save, they save. If they decide they want to spend, they spend. The only ones who look at interest rates to decide whether they're saving or buying or what their financial outlook and planning for the next year looks like are probably one percenters, the wealthy, the elites. The vast majority of people don't know what current interest rates are, much less what the term means.

This idea that people have where they think interest rates will have widespread consequences for normal people could be farfetched. Interest rates are treated like a keyboard that has only 1 button in it. Economists claim they can cause widespread economic prosperity or disaster simply by pressing a single button. The truth is 99% of people will buy/sell/save and don't care what interest rates are. Most people don't care about their credit rating or interest rates and many of them don't understand how either of those things affect their credit card payments, house or car loans. The only people who care about interest rates are the wealthy, thus interest rates only affect the financial/economic behavior of those who are rich.

It may be fair to say time management is one of the key differences separating a successful person from one who is unsuccessful. This is a topic Bill Gates discussed awhile ago in saying one of the most important qualities determining success or failure was: focus. No matter who someone is or where they come from no one has more than 23.9 hours in a day to focus on their goals. How they choose to spend that time & not allow themselves to be distracted could well be key.

Full odds are out. Numbers come courtesy of bestfightodds.com. (Wonder when we'll have a similar website for crypto books?)



More notes.

-Ketlen Vieira is a brazilian wrestling champion & decorated amateur wrestler. She may not be as famous a wrestler as olympic silver medalist Sara McMann but Vieira should be a good enough wrestler to not be completely dominated. Ketlen Vieira fights out of Nova Uniao, the gym Jose Aldo trains in. Her boxing and skills are very good & she's definitely the toughest opponent Sara McMann has faced in a long time.

-This will be Sara McMann's fight fight training out of team alpha male(gym). It will be interesting to see improvements she might have made.

-This will be Gilbert Melendez 2nd fight after testing positive for steroids. Some claim steroids have negative long term effects on cardio.

-Out of the 10 women who were on the Ultimate Fighter, Ronda Rousey vs Miesha Tate, reality show Sarah Moras is one of the 4 women who were on the show that is still fighting.

Struve may not be the same person after being KO'ed by Mark Hunt or having that life threatening heart surgery. That has to suck considering Struve TKO'ed Stipe Miocic years back and looked to be a future contender at one time in his career. Alexander Volkov looks to be training harder and preparing better in the UFC than he did when he fought in bellator. Its not like Struve is losing against unskilled low tier fighters, Volkov deserves credit for stepping his game up big time.

There's a lot of things in Jon Jones latest USADA positive that don't add up. Jones could be innocent. Using steroids 3 weeks before a fight doesn't make sense. The last time Jones tested positive for clomiphene there were only trace amounts in his sample that wouldn't have an effect on his fight or be enough to serve as a masking agent. The quantity of steroids in Jones sample will be one key issue once more info on the situation is released.

GGG being a big favorite confuses me.

Canelo seems to have fought the bigger more established names and tougher competition.

Is Canelo the underdog due to him being shorter and smaller than GGG? I see some sources claiming Canelo is 5'7 or 5'8 while GGG is 5'10.

Conor McGregor probably weighed around 170 lbs the night he fought Floyd. I get the impression height and weight are less important in boxing than they are in MMA.

Are there other reasons which could explain GGG opening as such a large favorite?

Goldman Sachs and other analysts predicted bitcoin would reach $3,900. That turned out to be accurate. The question is why? Was there a coordinated effort to raise the price of bitcoin to make goldman sachs prediction come true?

I'll be interested to see what their next call is. If there's a unified front of analysts and predictions, that's something that could require explaining. I get the impression many "bitcoin is a bubble" predictions are being made by people who know less about crypto than I do about brain surgery(I know absolutely nothing about brain surgery btw).

I would like to see someone interview Robert Schiller and others who claim bitcoin is a bubble. It would be interesting to see if Schiller could answer basic questions about bitcoin to see if they have good comprehension on the subject.

Its normal for things to decline after bad news.

Here's a chart of the DOW (US stock market average) after jetliners crashed into the world trade centers in the attacks of 9/11/2001.



There may not be much of a direct relationship between tragic & unfortunate terrorist attacks and stock market performance.

Bad news may not need to be strongly related to have an impact.

Bitcoin could be one of the greatest inventions & innovations made in decades.

It could cause a widespread revolution in financial and banking industries where people are forced to rethink the way they've done things over the last 50 years and realize a better method has been found which makes our old ways of thinking about those things obsolete.

The segway was once hyped as being the next big thing. From a historical perspective its difficult to think of anything that has the potential to completely change how we think about and use money the way that bitcoin has. That could be significant within the grand scheme of things.