(Technically, he was 17 when he started bitcoinica, and might be 18 now or something, I'm not sure. But yeah.)
Yeah, it's pretty amazing Also, I'm a little jealous

There's a decent amount of younger people here. They play videogames, and play around with bitcoin, and get familiar with it. This will help a generation to convert, if bitcoin grows in the next decade.
There's also a decent amount of older people. Some are just interested, some run businesses supporting bitcoin.

There's also zhoutong. He's 17 and accounts for about a third of the MtGox trading volume.

On that note, I'm going to smoke a faggot now.

@zhou: Thank you for the concise reply to my concerns. Having bitcoinica around still worries the heck out of me, but I am very glad it is you who is running it. You seem like a trustworthy guy. I hope you do not let us all down. Since you won't open your order books (maybe for good reason) then would you consent at some stage to third party auditing of your accounts and your platform?


Libertarian nonsense. I don't HAVE to wear clothes when I go out in the snow, but do you think maybe I should? Similarly there is nothing stoping me from wiping my ass with poison ivy, but do you think that would be a wise thing to do? Please inform yourself. Here, I'll help that process along:

1) Bitcoinica is not an exchange.

2) Bitcoin is not unregulated, it is regulated by the network as a whole. You are mixing up unregulation with decentralization. And it does have rules - I cannot alter the blockchain in a way that the rest of the network does not agree with.

3) Leveraged margin trading is EXTREMELY risky, not just for the end user, but for all of the participants in the market. You cannot just open an account like this in the US without holding professional qualifications in economics/business, and for good reason. I am ALL for a decentralized currency, nowhere did I say I 'don't like it'. Read my post again if you failed to understand my concerns about bitcoinica. I assure you they are justified.

4) Just because we don't HAVE to follow well established financial 'rules' does not mean we SHOULD not. Some of them are archaic and outdated, others are VERY important. Financial institutions and market makers are audited carefully in real world finance due to the many concerns surrounding the fact they have more information available to them and can use this information to bet against their. Zhou has access to the stop/limit positions and liquidation points of all his clients. He can use this to get a better understanding of the market than the rest of us can, or he can move the price with his own capital on MtGox to force liquidation of his clients. He would know exactly how much would be required to do this.

So please inform yourself a little better before posting your vacuous libertard claptrap.

They even have cars and microwaves, and internet!  Fucking poors.   

If those OWS a-holes have android phones, I'll punch them myself.  WTF are they spending money on an android phone if they are worried about paying for s**t they "need." 

I don't own an android phone, and I seem to get along just fine.  Maybe that will help them balance their checkbook...

I disagree that NA corporations are more profitable than ever; some are doing great, and many are not. Most of the corporations doing well are only doing well by outsourcing to China and India, and that's another can of worms that will come back to bite us in the ass. But I digress....

Here's the problem with college these days: first, kids take out huge loans they cannot hope to repay when they graduate, and then they expect to be hired and paid a reasonable salary. Hey, I graduated in CS, took a job as an entry-level programmer earning $45K, got laid off (quite a while back), and ten years later I'm *still* trying to pay off my student loans -- and I only had about $20K in loans. I know idiots people that took out $100K for a liberal arts education, and it's ludicrous for them to expect to pay it off. Whose fault is it that they decided to go to a school that charges $20K in tuition? Hint: it's not the "system" but rather the entitlement generation.

I'd argue that the problem with the US right now (and much of the first world countries) is that there are too many college graduates that only learned to jump through the hoops necessary for graduation. I've read some studies that show the quality and productivity of an employee has essentially no correlation whatsoever with whether or not they graduated from college, and my experience in the work force backs that up. I've met people that never attended a university at all that are amazing at what they do (in the computer field), and I've met people with masters and doctorate degrees that don't know squat.

Funny thing is I hear people talk about Atlas Shrugged as though it has something to do with OWS. I'd say the fundamentals of Atlas Shrugged (or Ayn Rand's Objectivism) is the exact opposite of what OWS is asking for. Yet another example of how OWS people seem to be clueless about what they're doing. Couple that with the vandalism, trash, etc. they generate with no regard for those around them, and if they were in the world of Atlas Shrugged John Galt would be saying, "Let them rot and die with the system they expect to help them."

We don't really need income equality. Some people are lazy and some are hard working. They deserve to be treated differently.

Actually all we need is social mobility - everyone has a fair chance to get wealth through competition. All kinds of economic regulation, taxes, etc are plainly adding friction to the society. Economic growth is pretty much an excuse for degrading society today.

I mostly disagree on the protesters. The real people we should care about are the ones without the opportunity to protest. College graduates who are in the debt trap deserve empathy, but how about the other people who couldn't even go to college? With proper management skills, there should be no problems about the educated groups of people.

I don't feel sad for poor people who blame the rich for making too much money. The real problem is how fast can wealth be redistributed.

Coincoin: a name so nice, you'll say it twice.

Mtgoxlive is eerily tranquil at the moment. Looks like people are on the fence at 2.30.
Will it go up, or will it go down? Only the manipulator knows.

That's exactly what we need: An inflow of liberal blowhards with their hands out. Sounds awesome.