Okay, how was this problem solved?

  Okay, not guarantee.  What about Quark makes mining with GPUs or Asics difficult?


Bitcoin has the ability to use two different hashing algos right now, but just uses one twice.  This kind of thing coudl be spliced onto Bitcoin without stopping the running network, I'm just curious as to the merits of such a thing.  As you noted, there is a case of deminishing returns with adding extra locks onto the same door.

Just a couple questions...

1) with a target block interval of only 30 seconds, aren't block orphaned at a high rate?

2) how can cpu mining be guaranteed?

3) what is the advantage that Quark has that those in this thread consider to be deficient in Bitcoin?

Seriously, I don't understand the attraction.

We were the first through the door!  Of the first 1000 or so forum members here, roughly four were NOT of the libertarian persuasion.  The political debates at the time were between flavors of libertarianism.  Of course, that all changed as the popularity of Bitcoin (and thus the membership here) exploded, but it was nice having a safe haven while it lasted.

I think that you would, but IANAL.

Well, I never bought anything on that site, but I sure wouldn't relish the thought of the FBI, ATF etc up my business for a mere $30K; but I strongly suspect that number is going to continue to rise. 

No, I think you misunderstand the point.  The core right of mankind is the right to life.  If I own myself, which I obviously do, I own my life.  If I truly own anything, that means I have the right to destroy that thing.  I have the right to destroy myself, and I can actually sell the right to destroy myself to another.  However, if I were to sell myself to a human-hunter for sport, and he fails to follow through, he's also 'quit' his claim and, by reason of my own continuing to exist, have immediately homesteading my corporeal body once again.  It's not the selling of self in the moment that's impossible, it's the ongoing arrangement that is impossible, because I can change my mind at any time.  And if I can change my mind and walk off the chain gang, then it's not really slavery, is it?


Not in my experience.  Both issues seem pretty well settled.  The first isn't prohibited in any way, it's just impossible to sustain; and the second is obvious.  If I own myself, which I obviously do, and I have the right to destroy myself, which I do, then I have a right to part myself out.  The tricky part is proving after the fact that it was an agreement I freely entered into without coercion.  If I'm only selling one kidney for a very large sum of money, and am still alive after the fact to assert that my kidney wasn't stolen from me, then I shoudl be able to sell that kidney; and I should be able to buy one in like manner.  However, selling all my parts is tricker, since it becomes less obvious that I actually gained anything. ; but I can think of a scenerio or two where even that would make sense.  Say, for example, I had an inoperable brain tumor, but my heart was in excellent shape.  My own doctors gave me six months to live.  Then some really rich guy comes and offers to pay my next of kin an ungodly sum of money for my heart, because he has a teenaged son who needs a heart transplant in the next 3 months and I'm a match.  IF I coudl verify that my own bills woudl be paid, and a fund set up for my kids to go to college, such a trade woudl be rational as long as I truly believed (and had not been decieved) that my own life was short.

Ah, a state sanctioned militia.  That makes sense, actually.

I've got to say, you're stretching the limits of imagination trying to squeeze that conclusion out of that verse.

I'm sure that you have to realize on an intellectual level that this statement is impossible.  Even the S&M sex slaves aren't really slaves, they're just play-acting.  You cannot 'sell yourself' beyond a limited term and under very limited conditions, thus nothing like chattel slavery at all.  Even those same S&M sex slaves have that 'safe word' that makes it all stop.

Wait, what?  Are you serving in the National Guard and donating your service pay to the Iraqi Orphans' Fund or what?

That's actually a very common misquotation of the verse in 1 Timothy 6:10, which started with a poor translation under King James...

"For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows."  -King James

But a much more accurate translation is this....

"For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And some people, craving money, have wandered from the true faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows."  -New Living Translation

The latter is a better translation into more modern English.  There are many independent translations that come up with pretty much the same take on things. http://biblehub.com/1_timothy/6-10.htm

To put it another way, to love money is the source of a great many evils that men commit against one another, but it's not quite the only cause.  However, the very nature of money does not make it evil, nor is the possession of money alone a sin.

I was raised Catholic, my wife was Protestant.  We get along fine.

Utopians don't see the impossibility of the end goal, nor the value in a partial victory.

You're inside it.  The lifeblood of any civilization is it's trade currency.  Up until Bitcoin, a dependable trade currency pretty much required the intervention into the monetary policy by the soveign, if only to garrantee that gold was indeed gold if it had his face on it.  This is no longer neccessary.  The transaction fees you may or may not choose to pay for are this society's voluntary taxation.  Nothing more is 'required' of you here.


Very well.  But by doing so, you also choose to accept the culpablity of the wrongs persecuted in your name, because you can't really separate the taxes that you pay for paving roads from those use to kill brown people that don't speak English.  You can imagine that your taxes are paying for education of inner city kids all you like, but someone is paying to catch, prosecute and incarcerate addicts for victimless crimes against the state.  I pay taxes as well, but I'm not under any illusions that anything more than a very small minority of it is used to pay for anything I would volutarily contribute towards.  My taxes are 'protection' money, from the greatest protection racket around, and there is nothing noble about it at all.

No, sir.  That is why it's realistic.  Even libertarians regard a libertarian society on a sliding scale, not an absolute.  That is why striving towards the goal would, and should, become harder with successes.  Unlike socialism, however, an imperfect liberty isn't a broken society.  An imperfect socialism simply requires that a iron-fisted government 'correct' the imperfections with force.  This is what we saw happen during the last century, all the while the Politburo complained that the problems the people saw was a result of an imperfect socialism, and that more work need be done.  Libertarianism, however, is fundamentally different.  A libertarian minded society can tolerate a socialist sub-culture, even while most people consider it a mistake.  A socialist minded society cannot tolerate a libertarian sub-culture, because that is the very embodiment of the 'imperfect socialsim' that they must eradicate.  Socialism cannot exist, because it requires forcing some minority to participate against their own desires and/or nature.  Libertarianism doesn't care what your personal desires or nature is, if you don't like liberty, you are (ironicly) free to dispose of it however you like.  No one is going to bother to 'force' you to live free.  However, that absolute libertarian society that you speak off is at the end of the long tail of the political bell curve.  We know that we can never get there, but that doesn't imply that doing our best isn't worthwhile; in part because an imperfect liberty is still a good place to live in the meantime.

Way more than a few, but most of us are long past having such conversations on an open Internet forum.  Most of the important stuff is still in the archives, though.

Then you are regressing, not maturing.

So far...

Because I had already been taken by another online wallet service that closed with much of my funds.  Mybitcoin.com IIRC.  So I figured that a hidden website that doesnt' even pretend to be legal wouldn't be a worse risk.  I figured (incorrectly) that as long as it had already been up and not seized, that DPR must have known what he was doing in the security realm.  I was keeping it there as I transitioned from one computer system to another and moving from one home to another.  I just hadn't gotten around to logging back into it and sending myself the funds yet before the FBI takedown.  I was procrastinating.

I was using SilkRoad only to store a selection of bitcoins offsite.  I've never bought any drugs from the site, and I'm sure that I'm not the only one.  They took about 30 bitcoins from me when they snatched Silk Road, and I'm considering sueing them now considering their present value.  Anyone else thinking about this?  Anyone here have any experience with such a claim?

Or the heat trace cable asic miner, so that institutions can freeze protect their plumbing assets while also protecting their bitcoin assets.  No, really, I'm not joking here.