Psi


Psy

Just as a FYI, it's not my country. I just choose to live here. My own country has plenty of problems of its own though.

I'm going to say for my project that that's largely out-of-scope and that this allows you to execute physical security. Think of it like a paper wallet in that context.

The general public probably thinks a fractal is one of them funny pictures where you cross your eyes and see a boat.

Psht. I had the pound do that on me a couple of years back. It still hasn't recovered though. I also had property in the UK so double busted

Edit: My mistake, it was 20%. Frikkin' Gordon Brown...

If there's one thing I can't stand, it's when a bank starts restricting what I can do with my funds. I nearly had an aneurism on the phone one day trying to sort out an international money transfer. I can understand them putting a temporary halt on a potentially questionable transaction but once identity and willful intent have been established, get your damn nose out of my business.

I'd be looking for a different bank.

I think that would be tricky as one of the things an exchange like mtgox has going for it is typically trust. They are effectively escrow for the exchange. If you are just brokering, I think you'll end up with a lot of angry customers. I may be mistaken though.

You have a pretty good opportunity with mtgox's Barclay's account down. I was looking to trade on there but fees would have eaten things up quickly. I'll be interested to see how things go for you. I may even try a bit of local trading here. Bitcoin might play well with certain types of people here.

That gets funnier every time you do it.

Free was, perhaps, the wrong word. Unmetered would be a better one. Just pay for service and use what you like.


Now that private exploitation of space is starting to become a reality, it's starting to look affordable. If you thing ground-based solar arrays have anything on space-based ones, you have to be kidding me. Zero gravity and no atmosphere? Of course, you have to get these things out of the gravity well but there's a handy big white ball in the sky with 1/6th of the gravity and plentiful quantities of the raw material for solar. The government got bored of that one in the early 70s of course.


It has been very hard for development of space exploration to occur due to the government, yes. I have no doubt it would be the same in your country if it was a place worth launching from.


I counter your probably with a "probably not"


It is because the government spends with no consequences. The only way to prevent it is to rein in government. When you can just write another check, why not? (until the day you can't).

Bear in mind that the UK is pretty tech savvy and the mtgox Barclays bank account got closed down making it expensive to buy BTC through them. I wouldn't mind being able to buy some more BTC with GBP myself but I believe I have found a good trader and will wait for him to get some more.

Don't you know, the answer to broken government is *more* government. Just we'll get it right, this time

They'll still send you the scam emails. Heck, likely they don't know enough English to even read the post you made more than what's needed to send the boilerplate scam response anyway.

Personally, I've never had any problems with Paypal, nor ebay and the couple of issues I've had with sellers have been resolved quickly and to my satisfaction. I am aware of the horror stories though and am definitely not happy with the way Paypal has taken things (once upon a time, you didn't have to have an account to buy things)

+1. Where's my solar satellite beaming free power directly to my house? (Oh, that's right, the government has been monopolizing space exploration for the past 2/3 century too). Where's my nuclear pile providing cheap, unmetered electricity?

Hey, here's an idea. Maybe if the government wasn't subsidizing the monopoly electric companies by using eminent domain to force right-of-way across people's land, perhaps all that solar and wind power the socialists love so much might actually be economically viable. And might therefore have been researched enough to be even cheaper than current electrical costs. Perhaps we'd be energy independent and not subsidizing terrorist attacks against our fellow countrymen.

Nah, let's just keep the monopolies in place and pump money into trying to fix the problems they cause. What could possibly go wrong?

A huge amount of the spectrum is effectively wasted because it is reserved for broadcast technologies when much better technologies for the use case exist. Once locked in, government control has been subverted to special interests.

But that's besides the point, it's not a natural monopoly. Unless you're positing some transmitter that transmits on all frequencies at enough power to drown out anything and somehow from every location also (cause it would have to mask directional transmission too). And it would have to do this by default since if it were designed to do so, well, there's that artificial monopoly again.


Let's look at what actually is rather than relying on definitions which advance an agenda. "Cuts" and "progressive" won't play well around me either.



Question: Is light a natural monopoly?

Nope. And efficiency or lack thereof does not imply a "natural" monopoly.


Right. So the government comes in and creates an *artificial* monopoly with laws and FCCs and whatnot.

Though it is somewhat circular. Arguably technology would improve to adapt. You know we got spread spectrum technology because the goverment's monopoly on force ran up against another government's monopoly on force, right?


I guess picking a definition so you can blame nature in support of your agenda is the way to go. What next? "The devil made me do it"?

Neither of these are really examples of natural monopolies. There is nothing but government regulation preventing competition in the first and in the second, it is perhaps arguable that a regulatory body is advantageous (though it is also arguable that they have stifled many great advancements from occuring) but monopoly it ain't.

Not sure. I'd never even heard of him/the song until a couple of weeks ago on that SNL sketch. Maybe it's that.


To return to the topic, I'd already started turning libertarian back in 2001. Since then, I've paid a bit more attention to the political process and, quite frankly, I find it astounding what they are getting away with and how badly things are actually going if you pay attention to what's going on. We're being robbed blind and only quite incredible increases in productivity have allowed it to be sustained for so long. I'd heard of bitcoin in the background in a few places and hadn't really paid attention but when I actually looked into it recently, it seemed clear to me that it's going to have a pretty major impact in the near-to-mid future, one way or another.

I don't go for the "intrinsic value of gold" either *but* there's no doubting that it would still have some trade value (even greatly reduced) should the worst happen. If nothing else, *someone* will want an ostentatious display of their wealth.

No one is giving it to anyone. It is the mechanics of the thing.

The government could easily print up a couple of billion and distribute it evenly or give it directly to the poor (not that I would approve of either) instead they reward people for, uh, well, is there any good reason for giving it to the banks?

At least with deflation, those who benefit most tend to be those who have actually earned their money.

Yes. You actually own bitcoin. You never really own a dollar.