In a capitalist system, money is power. Handing over Bitcoins would be transferring power from one person to another. For the anti-capitalist, Bitcoin is not ideal. Freicoin would be better-suited for participating in an anarchistic community. I confess, I have not yet contributed hash-power to that alt-coin. I have also failed to set up a testnet server for darkwallet testing.


I vaguely recall believing I "owned" my ideas. I don't know if that was nature or nurture. I have since realized that ideas do not happen in isolation. Independent co-invention is common when conditions are just right. There was I time when was about 5 that I thought I invented the word "okey-dokey." It turns out that when trying to come up with a non-sense word, I simply came up with one I had probably heard about once or twice before.

Patents scare me because independent co-invention is not a defense. Violence is clearly implied when people are prevented from using their own inventions for a period of up to 20 years. For example, GM was not able to use the battery technology developed for the EV1 in the Chevy volt. They sold the patents to an oil company that went on to restrict high-capacity NiMH batteries (over 3 Amp-hours (AA size)). It took me a while to figure out how Toyota was able to use NiMH batteries, and still offer a "plug-in" hybrid. The answer: the "plug-in" model uses the more expensive Lithium-ion battery chemistry.

I recently had my bike helmet stolen. It is a nice helmet, worth about $70 new. I realized that used helmets have no resale value. I hope somebody is making good use of it, rather than it sitting in the trash somewhere. I am a pack-rat, so I have a spare I can use until I can buy a replacement.

I have not been following this thread much, and don't have time to explain how Bitcoin has refined my views of the world. However, I still think anarcho-capitalists are delusional. Capitalism always involves violence. Before Bitcoin, I thought this was simply because the "price system" relies on government intervention. However, it goes deeper than that. Note: No "C" word below this line.

Property rights revolve around the concept of scarcity. One of the left-wing anarchists on this board pointed me to "Sex at Dawn". That book explains that in hunter-gatherer societies, there is no scarcity. The commons provide all that is need. If supplies need to time to replenish, they can simply move to the next area. With no property to defend, wars are avoided simply by walking away.

Scarcity is now being applied to ideas as well. It was devastating to read right-wing accounts (no link, sorry) of how homesteading is a fair way to decide who owns property; immediately after reading Melancholy Elephants. In that short-story, the set of possible copyrighted works has been homesteaded. The crisis the story revolves around is that legislators are considering perpetual copyright terms.

In a word, yes.

Longer answer: I would expect the merchant to wait for the 0 confirmation transaction to show up on their screen, hopefully with an independent network connection.

Notably for food establishments, "dine and dash" is a problem regardless of the payment method.


There is not much the software can do to reduce the risk of zero confirmation transactions (other than wait as dabs mentioned). The point of contention is how long it takes to get similar risk mitigation with competing technologies.

Where you say "confirmation which is probably less than 2 minutes" with respect to credit cards. The "credit available" check is essentially equivalent to a 0 confirmation transaction. In the case of fraud, your name does not help the retailer. It is not like they check ID for most transactions.

1 µt = 1gram.
1 mt= 1kg

Tonne is weird: we call it a tonne instead of a Mega-gram (Mg).

I think the SI base-unit for mass is the kg, further adding to the confusion.

/tangent

I suspect that that one is just laziness. Satoshi was probably using an x86 compatible machine.

As mentioned, Bitcoin is not ideal for in-person transactions: we have cash for that.

However, you are incorrect when you say your credit card is faster. The payment may be authorized within seconds: but all they are checking for is whether you have enough available credit to cover the purchase. Edit: (You can even exploit this to "double spend" more than your credit limit (there is a charge for doing that)) A careful reading of your credit-card bill should reveal that the "Posting date" is sometimes several days later than the "Transaction date". Unlike Bitcoin, such transactions can be reversed for up to 6 months in the case of fraud.

Bitcoin really competes with wire transfers: which can still take several days. Often the intermediate banks will take up to $50 in order to pass it on to the next bank in the chain. To get 6 confirmations within 2 hours is cheap and reliable in comparison.

Um, it is my understanding that MaidSafe is built on Mastercoin, which is in turn built on Bitcoin. It Bitcoin fails, so does MaidSafe.
Edit: Looked into it a little more:
- The Server Needs To Die To Save The Internet

Ugh, software patents. Not touching that one.

There are six topics in the first General Discussion page with the word "price" in the title.

If you want more in-depth analysis, try the Speculation Sub-forum.

Not everybody has a substantial mining set-up. If what you say about the prices on the exchanges being artificially low is true, then that presents an opportunity for the "minnows" to grab cheap coins.

I have even tried to start the paper work with FINTRAC so that I can register as a MSB here in Canada (the Canadian regulations do not appear to have the $1000/day exemption the US regulations do). If successful, I may buy low on the exchange, then sell slightly higher at locabitcoins. I have to be cautions, because, if I try it without informing my bank, they will probably close my account (when setting it up, I estimated 1-2 Bitcoin transactions per month, not 20-30).

I flagged two people as scammers for selling Class 4 hand-held laser pointers.

It is not that I thought they were scammers per se: I just wanted to trigger the "Caution: Trade with extreme caution" warning due to the careless way the product was being sold.

In the specific case of class 4 laser pointers, there is no safe way to use them. Lasers that can cause blindness due to reflection on matte surfaces should not be hand-held. A dedicated room with an interlock on the door to turn off the beam should be strongly considered.

No, it is not. It has been estimated that the network can handle about 7 transactions per second. If it gets "mass adoption" before the network migrates to larger blocks, it will only have a niche essentially replacing wire transfers. The fees would be too high for buying coffee or porn.

I am planning on buying in 2-3 weeks no matter what the price is. Just have to get my ID straightened out (Cavirtex lets you withdrawal CAD unverified but not deposit). I missed selling at the ATH as well (Cold storage FTW!).

I think I may be convinced Bitcoin is a market failure if the price drops below $32. That is not to say it would be a total failure. It is a very important computing science experiment.

I just figured that out myself

I suppose I should go apologize to my brother now

Thanks for the context.

I disagree with the notion that Bitcoin should be regulated as a foreign currency. I tried registering with FINTRAC the other day. In that e-mail, I explained when I think Bitcoin can not meet the requirements imposed on traditional MSBs:

Edit Not sure why the head of CaVirtex thinks that Bitcoin has only a $13 billion market cap (at 38:25) when it is actually closer to $4.5 trillion according to Bitcoin Charts. I almost get the impression that he is trying to minimize the size of the industry to make it seem easier to regulate (he was also corrected on there being only 20 alts, so maybe his info is a year out of date). Edit2: the video is from April) PEBKAC: only 4.5 Billion market cap.

My initial reaction is "no". Computers are not very good at generating random numbers. A mechanical computer would not do much better unless you find some way to capture entropy (without making the machine unreliable). Mechanical computers also have the disadvantage of working very slowly. Conversely, they have the advantage of being easier to inspect than traditional computer chips.

The Senator Belmar had a good question a 57:45 (I skipped some).

"I heard contradictory testimony. Is Bitcoin public or private (and thus subject to money laundering risk)?"
The response was that it was public. I am not entirely sure I am satisfied with that response.

The presenters seem to be arguing against further regulation. But not going as far as saying Money laundering laws should be repealed entirely.

It takes effort to learn how revolutionary Bitcoin really is. My room-mate does not want to take the time to read the white-paper.

My brother thinks Bitcoin is "useless". After asking which is more important: Games or Bitcoins, he answered "games". I then revealed that Bitcoin market cap (4.4 Trillion billion at this writing) exceeds the entire revenues of the world entertainment industry (2.8 Trillion in 2009).

Both my banker and sister classify Bitcoin as an investment, akin to the stock market. They see the volatility, but not necessarily the fundamental potential of the technology.

I also have an acquaintance that informed me they (as in the people in charge of it) "canceled" Bitcoin (this was in June or so). I resisted the urge to tell them they failed to tell me to shut down my node It appears people can't comprehend that it is decentralized.

Perhaps the OP is concerned that people need a smart-phone to present the ATM with a QR code.

This is simply not true. You can generate your own QR code on your computer and print it.
Even better: the private key does not even have to be on the same continent. This reduces the opportunity for theft.