I agree, but my point was that by making it hard for merit sources to find meritable posts, you deprive those who would have received merits of the chance to award them. sMerit awards have half lives as you know, and this means that every sMerit awarded by a merit source adds virtually one more merit for the community to award. It's even worse than that, because if a merit source ends the day with some unawarded sMerits, then the replacement of those is delayed by a day. I've tried to make spammers aware that their activities reduce the number of sMerit available for their associates as well as themselves. However, they don't seem to get the message.

I've been collecting eBooks from PackT publishing, and the latest free book is Scientific Computing with Python 3. They have a daily free book, and several of them are Python related, that's what stimulated my interest. If you want today's free book you've only got 7 hours to grab it, but they do cycle through the list, so it will turn up again. If you download it, don't forget to get the code file as well.

https://www.packtpub.com/packt/offers/free-learning

I haven't seen any mention of this, and the summit happens on September 10th. The website is -
https://blackblockchainsummit.com/

The objective is to improve the black communities with the use of blockchaintechnology. I think it's a shame that the emphasis is on skin colour, rather than on the improvement of under- privileged communities in general.

What do you think?

I don't think the first point is the issue. I agree that your second point is a major problem. If more good posts were seen and merited, then that would solve the first issue.

I think that the dollar is still seen as the ultimate safe haven asset. and the dollar has been strengthening recently. Gold. silver, stocks and cryptos are perceived as risky investments in manipulated markets. Unfortunately the dollar is not the safe haven that many people imagine, and current world affairs seem to indicate that it may be more of a risky investment than in past years. Gold has been a store of wealth for thousands of years, and this is unlikely to change, despite the extreme price manipulations. Bitcoin would appear to be the modern equivalent of gold, and will establish itself as such over the next few years in my opinion. Of course this presumes that it will be able to preserve its decentralisation. A few other crypros will establish themselves, and it will be interesting to see which ones manage to gain world acceptance.

Is this the fastest of the "leet" post count threads to be locked?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2245617.0

You should ask this question on the Meta board, or on Announcement.

The beginners board is not the place for discussions about the underworld here.

This is a post that a newbie with a copper membership tried to make. He tried to use html for his post. I copied the html onto a blank page, and added it to my hosting. http://kat1.com/spampost.html
I'll leave the page up for a day or so, and then I will delete it.

You guys have to decide if posts like that should be part of a Bitcoin discussion forum.

I've backed away from the forum for a few days to allow things to get sorted out. The obvious quick solutions are

- Delete or move any underworld threads or posts on the beginners board.
- Up the rank requirement to post in serious discussion.
- Restrict new members' thread starting permissions.
- Use the serious discussion and Ivory Tower boards, and moderate the posts there.

It's alternating with cloudflare archive pages for me.

I guess the bounty spammers and the Twitbook posters with their bots are soaking up most of the server power. It's time they were moved onto a sidechain.

Salvini and Orban are both anti-immigration, and critical of the EU. In fact, Italy is threatening to withhold it's payments to the EU. I've thought all along that Brexit meant Brexit, and the only option was for a clean break. Had this been started two years ago, then we would have been able to create good trade deals with various countries in the European dis-Union, and this would have been beneficial to all. The possible rebellion by Hungary and Italy is going to cause major disruptions at a time when the EU should be negotiating to continue trade with the strengthening United Kingdom. London is still the major financial capital in the world, and is ahead of New York by many standards. The banking crisis in Italy and other EU countries means that Brussels needs to preserve free access to the London financial services.

So what do you think Salvini and Orban will be discussing, and how will it affect EU policy towards immigration and their economies?

I don't like ETFs as most of them are ETNs ( Exchange traded notes), and are not backed by any real assets. For example, many people think that BAAKT will be great for Bitcoin as it has "physical" backing, but if you read the small print, then it allows for hypothecation, and that will increase the apparent supply of Bitcoin above the 21 million cap. I believe that will be bad for Bitcoin. It is also run by the globalist bankers, and I believe that they have realised that they cannot destroy Bitcoin, but they can render it useless for the public by removing most of the coins from the market place, and escalating its price to extreme levels.

Any financial instrument that can be settled in fiat currency is a bad risk in my opinion. All fiat currencies eventually settle at their real value, which is zero. History illustrates this. Zimbabwe is another example, and when their fiat currency collapsed, the government more or less stated that people could use whatever they wanted to to trade. The UK still has gold and silver coins that are legal tender, although the nominal value is far lower than the real value. The gold Britannia has a nominal value of £100, but if you want to buy one from the royal mint, it will cost around £1,000. These physical assets are much safer as a protection of wealth, than any instrument created or controlled by the central banks in my opinion. Bitcoin is a fairly unique product, and I consider it to be a modern equivalent to gold. Of course there is still a risk associated with it, but I believe that the banking elite are collecting as much as they can, and they will eventually push up the price to levels where they can use it as asset backing for other products.

The Fit to Talk English project was created to help non-English speakers take part in the English sections of the forum. I hoped that we could gain some valuable insights into the emerging world of the crypto-currencies that will replace the dying fiat currencies. The first significant example is the Venezuelan Petro, and whilst this may have trouble in gaining acceptance, it is a precursor to the flood that will appear over the next few years. Bitcoin Talk has many members in countries that will be in the forefront of this revolution, and many of them do not have English as their first language. I believe that Bitcoin Talk will be the poorer without contributions from these members.

I am also of the belief that Bitcoin Talk will have to shake off its image as a trading ground for bounty spammers, and other discredited revenue sources from the crypto underworld. I don't approve of bot use to promote threads or posters, and I have recently had to moderate a post featuring this practice. The explanation of my moderation is quoted below.


The forum is there to help people to improve their English, and hopefully that includes modern Internet English, as well as the purer forms. Obviously if you are working on a post to start a thread in this forum (Bitcoin Talk), then it needs to be crypto related, or of interest to readers of the political board. If you are just chatting to improve your English, then there are a variety of boards that allow for a wide range of topics, and these include cooking,cars, traditional dances and many other subjects. It is even possible to post in your native language, and use Google to translate your post. We can then work on this to help you to create a post that will be of benefit to readers of this forum.

The trust system is meaningless when green trusted accounts can be sold, and the trust is transferred to the new owner.

This isn't new news, as the painting was sold last november, but I thought it was interesting as the painting was sold in 1956 for just £45. That price rise is nearly as good as Bitcoin. You can read the report here.
https://metro.co.uk/2017/11/16/leonardo-da-vinci-portrait-of-jesus-christ-salvator-mundi-sells-for-450000000-7083091/

On a more topical note. a 1962 Ferrari has just sold in California for a recorsd $48.4 million. It just shows what happens when people have got too much money, and they lose interest in stocks and bonds.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/27/most-expensive-car-ever-sold-at-auction-fetches-48-million.html

Lets hope that some of this money finds it way into crypto, but not too soon, as I need to acquire a lot more before the next bull run.

I've still got a big bag of sMerits to give away, and I want to help those of you who don't have English as your first language. I started the Fit to Talk English project a while ago, but it seems that not many Bitcoin Talk members are taking advantage of it at the moment.
This thread that was submitted a while ago, was a good merit earner for those who supported it.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4605291.0

With the world in turmoil at the moment, and fiat currencies collapsing all over the place, there is ample scope for members who are affected by these problems to create good information threads to help English speakers to understand some of the world problems. I understand that you can buy a chicken for 1/4oz of silver in Venezuela. Is this an emerging trend in other countries, please tell us about it, and if you need help to tidy up your English before you start a thread in this forum, then we can help you at Fit to Talk.

People don't seem to realise that ETFs are usually based on paper contracts, and this means they expand the apparently available amount of the asset. Bitcoin's value is based on scarcity, and the fact that only 21 million coins will be released. Just think of the effect on the price if ETFs add another 20 million "virtual" coins to the pool, and don't forget that their transfer will provide revenue for the banks, and not for the miners who are so important to the integrity of the Bitcoin economy.

I hope that ETFs never gain any approval, but they are such a valuable tool for banking control, that it is almost certain that they will be used for the benefit of the bankers.

I understand that they have already returned in Venezuela - a chicken costs 1/4oz of silver. I bought a bag of old silver three pence pieces a while ago, and I believe they are 98% silver. I can see coins like these entering into daily use in countries like Turkey, and others with high inflation rates and a devaluing currency. The Euro must be at risk with Deutschebank on the verge of collapse, and no apparent long term rescue in sight. In fact some of the other EU countries have similar banking problems, and I can see crypto and precious metal coins being used as the Euro becomes worthless. Thank goodness the UK didn't sign up to use the Euro, although our treasonous unicorn politicians are doing their best to push Sterling down to give the Euro a few more months of life.

So, do you think that precious metal coins will return as a stop gap until the new crypto currencies replace the dying fiat currencies?

Bitcoin Cash seems to own the .com, and that is another problem for the real Bitcoin.

I think the title is slightly misleading. It isn't investing in the purchase of sites that is the problem, but the scamming services that some offer. Buying a domain name and creating a Bitcoin information site, or an honest service can be a good investment. However, it requires hard work and good judgement, and it doesn't guarantee instant rewards for no effort.

SCAM - Sigger Chasing After Merits