You send the coins at home (you "sign the transaction" at home). You're only signing a message with the same address you sent from at the service window so groceries go to you instead of some other random guy.

We already have technology and code to handle signing. Mycelium can already do this on Android, but most don't (and none are "automated" -- there isn't a URI protocol for sending pre-grenerated messages for the phone to sign, AFAIK) - but this could change if there's investment in an automated store handling BTC. It's not terribly complicated stuff. Coinbase might be able to come up with a solution for this (BCI can handle this since users control keys), but if not, there are alternative web & Android-native clients which can.

(sorry to hijack, OP)

ETA: Of course, for store-owners who aren't risk-averse, they could still accept credit/debit at the service window, or even cash (cash'd be super-risky, though, because you have to transport it from a man-less store). This could happen without bitcoin... the real challenge is in writing a script to handle things like bagging (a store COULD have users bag themselves like "no frills" grocery stores, though), figuring out how to shelve and move all these items, and determining when the store needs to sell on clearance or dispose of inventory (including factors like humidity and temperature)... but if the community's underserved or unserved, it's not like you need to spend any thought on things like marketing. In my town and in a good few other rural areas, Dollar General's stepped in to provide a very limited number of extremely over-priced groceries, but it's really a piss-poor solution as far as the community members are concerned.

I'd have a different idea for underserved or completely unserved rural and rural-suburban areas (towns of <~1k people which can't sustain a manned store). It could work in urban and urban-suburban areas, but it'd necessarily need to be a new structure built, so retrofitting a store and giving scanners would be better there. An old one can't really be retro-fitted cost-effectively. A grocery store could be fully automated, possibly even including stocking if a way could be figured out to have that outsourced to the trucking/logistics company at the time they unload.

A user would place their order online, go to the service window where they sign the public key they used to pay (with some automated solution), and then their order is then bagged inside (would probably need to be paper), coming straight out to the user, almost like how an ATM works, but with conveyor belts and many "non-standard" products. This design may also even allow some type of third-party utility for vehicles (either each user buys their own, or the store could provide a chained or maybe even just keyfobbed version), which'd get around issues where an incapable person requires help to grocery-shop (excluding getting groceries from the car to the house).

The store would look like a warehouse with a little conveyor belt coming out through one or a few services windows with a small BT/RFID communicator for phones or dedicated HW wallets (since payment would be made at home, a phone is probably fine for signing the address). Other payment sources would also be valid. No scanners or individually scanning products - it'd work just like Amazon but without the shipping costs, pantry schemes, drones, or waiting. It also allows stores to get a couple confirmations in to prevent double-spending since it'll take a short while for the user to drive to the service window.

Hmmm... I've never tried pumpkin in a pecan pie. Cinnamon, pumpkin, pecan, cloves, lemon juice?

Not sure why the morons at BBC had me scroll half-way down before they got to the real issue about rape threats. Was it supposed to be ironic that they were trolling readers? Of course it shouldn't be legal to threaten to rape someone. The UK really doesn't already have laws on that which could be applied to online communications just like they'd be applied to in-person rape threats?

If your mom's texting you saying she'll kill you, maybe she should be locked up, too. Who the Hell does that anymore? I have a temper, but I don't ever threaten to kill my daughter. ... Well, I suggested we could cook her in with the day's soup since we didn't have thawed meat on-hand....

3600*385=$138.6k

Blue heard a turkey. Pink heard a duck. In truth, it was a duck. Blue insisted it was a turkey and was frustrated by Pink's inability to hear the non-existent turkey. Blue pressed the issue, raising stakes until they split up. Eventually, Blue realized it was a duck and admitted his mistake, and hooray, they were back together again (and maybe had good make-up sex - I'm not sure if that was implied or not, but the sun [God?] seemed to enjoy watching it, either way).

Down here on Earth, it's clear Blue and Pink have complex underlying issues, likely irreconcilable, and that this truce is temporary until the next little thing's blown out of proportion. That or Blue's crazy. Either way, the police will probably wind up frequenting the domicile for domestic assault. Blue at least has a temper.

-Or maybe there was no duck.

That's pretty clever. I'd guess they get the added bonus of being able to create fake/implied loss leaders while getting high margins on their "normal" set of items by offering only a slight discount relative to the decreased purchase cost on their end, but it all looks discounted to the consumer. Would be fantastic for markets where there's little competition, I'd guess.

On an unrelated note - I went to a local grocer a town over a few weeks ago for their major monthly one-day meat sale. Unfortunately, they decided to include products with the MSRP listed on the packaging. -So on the advertisement, you see this $1.29 bag of chips reduced to $.89. -But then right on the packaging, you have the MSRP of $.69. Broke out laughing when I noticed it, but then I was disappointed because I always liked that there was actually a local grocer there, run by a kindly, old hunchback man, rather than a Walmart. Totally ruined my image of the guy.

Not applicable. Almost every Christian adheres to (... or rather, is supposed to) an explicit ruleset created in the New Testament along with some additional axioms carried over from the Old Testament. Each denomination has specific interpretations (by man) providing a strict ruleset, but obviously, there can be only one truth with regards to God's and Christ's intentions, and most denominations declare their ruleset follows that intent. For example, some denominations have rules where phrasing that last sentence as "God's and Christ's" would be blasphemy, and there would be no room for interpretation because their men have interpreted the intent of God's and Christ's intent in that way. -But most denominations have liberalized over the years, some even becoming secular/"non-denominational," conceding morality in exchange for a larger member base accepting a vague, flexible - useless - ruleset.

As I was raised, a Catholic wouldn't be considered a true Christian because of their repeat violations both explicitly in their laws and implicitly by actions done in the name of Christ (rather, the Pope and, in older times, government controlling the pope). They've scrubbed Christ's words for their own ends and functioned as an authoritarian, militant government with some ridiculous claim that they have the authority to kill people before living through their natural life and possessing all opportunities to accept their obligations as was intended by God. They're considered idolaters who insist on putting decadent false prophets before Christ, and are necessarily disconnected from the message of Christ. I mean -- forget Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, Confucians, and Buddhists, because these Catholics are running around like wolves in sheep's clothing who all need to be explicitly excommunicated - at least everyone else has a different ruleset. -but I was raised Baptist (really, Anabaptist) with a strong iconoclast sentiment pounded into us where a church owning property is itself a sinful act. It's not "no true Christian," it's "here're the rules you've institutionalized violation of, thus becoming a puppet of the devil." There wasn't some exhaustive text on what kind of ideas and rules you had to accept to be a Scot, but there are exhaustive texts on what you need to accept to be a Christian.

Incidentally, I haven't fully shaken Baptism from my own code. I found myself mildly offended when a great-aunt-in-law "baptized" my daughter when she was an infant (she didn't realize she was seen), not because my daughter was being involuntarily associated with stupid Christian rituals with absolutely zero effect, but because it made a statement to God that she accepted Christ and His ruleset without her being able to declare it herself. It's like a government forcing someone to be a citizen because they were born in a certain location. -Like, she can't even speak and you violated her sacred obligation as a creation of God (which, by God, only she has liberty to reject or accept) -- the very idea that a Catholic implies they have God-given authority over my daughter's soul offended me, as well as being offended on God's behalf since I was raised to be very sure this was an explicit rule violation. I know it's dumb as Hell, but it initially struck me as a rule violation which'd piss God off, because now if she wants to make a commitment to adhere to Christianity, she has to reject the Catholic soul-fascism at her real baptism, which means I have to talk to her about why her great aunt is an unwitting agent of Satan.

What's the story there? Were they printed just to be physically accounted for when certain types of other IOUs were exchanged?

I don't know what you're talking about, OP.

Impossible question. It depends on all sorts of things since the cost isn't determined entirely by mining now, but also the cost of data transmission in the future and how blocks and the blockchain are compressed. How do these millions of transactions affect data drive and RAM MTBF and what's the cost to replace damaged components? What's the price of CPU cycles in the future? Each transaction today is a burden on our kids, our kids' kids, and our kids' kids' kids' kids, and those burdens would have to be accounted for in determining what's fair, which is impossible (or at least very time-consuming to estimate). -And unless the protocol changes radically, there's no way to pay them this theoretical fair price, anyway, since it all goes to miners.

... maybe $.08-25.

I don't disagree. Those are possible factors. I've never noticed food prices decreasing in my lifetime (which I'd assume would happen if prices were subject to a high level of volatility), but I'm sure it's happened at some point. I think it's worth noting again that the 2014 prices came from a regional chain while the 1991 prices came from a specialty, local meat market with two stores. Both sets of prices came from their circulars, and maybe they include less enticing sales on these -- you're probably right on that since the meat market only had one page while Kroger's is seven or eight, though this could also partially be due to Kroger's relatively massive size and selection.

I included all items which were in both circulars to try preventing too much biasing, but obviously, it's a pretty small data set, but maybe it's worth pointing out that few beef or veggie products were included in that, where prices are generally 250%+ higher -- moreover, especially for fruits and vegetables, the time of year doesn't match. Broccoli could be tossed out for that reason.

... A Sam's Club with a digital copy of historical price data would probably be best... I don't suspect they'd be too willing to turn that over.

Mmmmm... Sorry for all the mistakes in writing that. I was probably drunk. I don't really remember... I'm pretty sure I added the comment about the "z" at the end without realizing it was ironic, too.

I'd guess people who die of ebola are disposed of pretty quickly. In case of expedited closed-casket burial, maybe it isn't completely impossible to see a twitchy cadaver thump in a coffin. Maybe there'll be a West African Pagan renaissance. Ahhh.... that's not funny.

It was worth >$8.5k 2014 dollars when it was printed! $900 is a steal!

Isn't a terrible thread. IMO, you guys are agitated because you read it incorrectly. You look through the pictures first, then read what he was trying to paint. I thought the first was of a sideways goat shooting red van de graaff generators from its head. Then you have your kid on one leg whose heart is being tractor beamed from his body. The heart has a black outline, so either it's some kind of reference to colonialism in Africa or it's a strange new punishment judgment from God.

My favorite was the woman hooked up to a breast pump.

3/5

In my super-paranoid mind, this is an indication the privacy war is lost. FBI officials know they're getting significant press over this, so it seems to me like an intentional media circus trying to show the public that Google and Apple are pioneers in security, and that the public can trust them to guard their data. I think they're intentionally trying to make themselves look weak and unable to control this.

Black helicopter going overhead confirms.

If someone spent a little time on writing a really basic script (I don't think you get locked out for wrong Captcha submissions... someone could just have it repeatedly submit "rhythm and blues" until it comes up or click confirm if no text box is detected), it'd probably be pretty profitable if the faucet remains for at least a few more weeks and the provider for text Captchas isn't changed. A more advanced script could try detecting which Captcha appeared (it doesn't need to be accurate at all -- it can guess even if it can only recognize a couple letters) since the pool of text Captchas the provider cycles through is very small. ... but that wasn't the point I was trying to make.

It wasn't Winter when I wrote I'm not mining anything because it's not Winter, and it still isn't Winter, so none of them are running. With propane prices, though, I think I'm going to wind up heating the house like a normal person this year... I'll let them run on a Scrypt multi-pool for a week and see if it's worth it.