Im glad y'all took time to read the laws.
(1) Prohibited conduct
Whoever knowingly and with knowledge of the character of the
material, in interstate or foreign commerce by means of the World
Wide Web, makes any communication for commercial purposes that is
available to any minor and that includes any material that is
harmful to minors shall be fined not more than $50,000,
imprisoned not more than 6 months, or both.
(3) Civil penalty
In addition to the penalties under paragraphs (1) and (2),
whoever violates paragraph (1) shall be subject to a civil
penalty of not more than $50,000 for each violation. For purposes
of this paragraph, each day of violation shall constitute a
separate violation.
(B) Engaged in the business
The term "engaged in the business" means that the person who
makes a communication, or offers to make a communication, by
means of the World Wide Web, that includes any material that is
harmful to minors, devotes time, attention, or labor to such
activities, as a regular course of such person's trade or
business, with the objective of earning a profit as a result of
such activities (although it is not necessary that the person
make a profit or that the making or offering to make such
communications be the person's sole or principal business or
source of income). A person may be considered to be engaged in
the business of making, by means of the World Wide Web,
communications for commercial purposes that include material
that is harmful to minors, only if the person knowingly causes
the material that is harmful to minors to be posted on the
World Wide Web or knowingly solicits such material to be posted
on the World Wide Web.
(6) Material that is harmful to minors
The term "material that is harmful to minors" means any
communication, picture, image, graphic image file, article,
recording, writing, or other matter of any kind that is obscene
or that -
(A) the average person, applying contemporary community
standards, would find, taking the material as a whole and with
respect to minors, is designed to appeal to, or is designed to
pander to, the prurient interest;
(B) depicts, describes, or represents, in a manner patently
offensive with respect to minors, an actual or simulated sexual
act or sexual contact, an actual or simulated normal or
perverted sexual act, or a lewd exhibition of the genitals or
post-pubescent female breast
Ok, read it, does not apply to this site. |
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interesting though that it seems to offer even older unsupported software? Does msdn still offer vc6 ?
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Thank you for posting this. I shut the website off for a moment. Doesn't affect mining.
Give me a namecoin address, I'll send you some coin.
Ah nice, will be my first namecoin. N6Si7xRzjVtjoHCZB9FQTRFeDhvrxfBqLe |
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It's for everyone. Why are you sending so many PMs?
I was sending so many pm's because all of the sudden three people where asking me about the amazon gc's I was selling, and they were asking more questions to my replies etc. |
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Do you have this issue with other pools?
I was getting a ridiculous amount of stale shares at bitparking (>10%).
I went solo for a while because of the problems.
I just started a new namecoin pool if you're interested in trying it out. No fee during the first week.
Seems to need some work, I went to it and it says 'Welcome, drew!' and gives me an option to logout, though it is my first visit ever. |
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The root of this problem resides in Bitcoin not having a configure script.
That has absolutely nothing to do with this problem. It has a lot. The configure script's job is to find out what's available. It would activate that option depending on the compiler that is used. It uses makefiles? Could just have it be a line in the makefile that someone can comment in or out for now. |
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Depends on the size of the company.
Since you own stock in them, tell me when is the last time they asked you to vote for much of anything more then the board members?
Do you remember seeing the vote to add the phone bill payment method for example? How much of a say did you have with the negotiations with thenine and/or netease, which have a far bigger impact on the company and revenues then adding a payment method.
Well that's why I said indirectly. A shareholder speaks with their wallet. If I disagree with ATVI's vision, I sell. Same as any other shareholder, institutional or otherwise. Yep, and thats why I said it would not be a stockholders level decision and no need to sell them on it. We both agree blizzard is not going to do this at this time. Let's say they do though, and lets say it does not work out well for them. It would have been started out and used on such a small scale, they they would end if before most stockholders even knew it started. |
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No, that is not the target.... at all.... since when is adding a payment method a board/shareholder level decision?
If Bitcoin was just a payment method (which it's not, but I'll get on to that in a second) it would probably go to multiple department heads (finance, legal, customer services) I suspect. We're talking however of Blizzard taking payments in an unproven, highly volatile currency with limited ability to guarantee they can get their money back out again, or use the currency in any straight forward manner (e.g. to pay staff). Yes, that would probably go to the board if a case could be made for it, and it's difficult to see the advantage to them at this point. They would have to address the conversions issues. They would put contract in place to handle that, and it would behave just like another payment method to them. If they can't get those in place, they would not accept it. It would never rise to a board level decision, unless some board member became obsessed with it to push it top down instead. It would be dropped if they could not get the contracts for the volumes they want not made a board level issue for a gaming company, too far afield for that to be allowed to become such. |
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The target for this is not yet the average adult anyway. Target would be precocious kids. The average adult is absolutely your target. Your average adult is the one with a brokerage account, 401(k), IRA, etc. etc. You seem to be forgetting who the owners of the Company are. Senior management is not answering to "precocious kids" they're answering to shareholders. You know, the average adult? No, that is not the target.... at all.... since when is adding a payment method a board/shareholder level decision? So adding a payment method is not a decision made by the owners of a Company? It affects revenues. Maybe if Bitcoins only added users but you have to take into account existing users switching from their current form of payment to Bitcoin. Now you're talking about switching relatively stable revenues to relatively volatile revenues. Management's main concern with a public company is the preservation of their stock so it is indirectly a shareholder decision. Everything is. We can go back and forth on this but I don't think it's worth the effort. The ironic thing is I'm an owner of both Bitcoin and ATVI, believe it or not. I'm just trying to look at this objectively. Depends on the size of the company. Since you own stock in them, tell me when is the last time they asked you to vote for much of anything more then the board members? Do you remember seeing the vote to add the phone bill payment method for example? How much of a say did you have with the negotiations with thenine and/or netease, which have a far bigger impact on the company and revenues then adding a payment method. |
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Please come up with a more concise list of steps that you would tell someone to ensure that they were able to turn their dollars into bitcoins into a WoW subscription. Not gonna waste time on that since you have made up your mind anyway. Psst...it's because you can't. Well at least you are open about being close minded.
Ahh excellent...and how do I get those bitcoins exactly? And how does the merchant turn those bitcoins into real money?
How you get them is irrelevant if I am only adding to the options and not taking ones away. Those like you who can't figure it out just keep using the old methods to pay. Now the merchant does need to know how to convert the payment into forms that let them pay their bills. Since it is being used as a medium of exchange you probably already know you use of the term 'real' is misleading. However anyone that is going to take bitcoin on anyscale needs to have that answered for themselves before doing so. |
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The target for this is not yet the average adult anyway. Target would be precocious kids. The average adult is absolutely your target. Your average adult is the one with a brokerage account, 401(k), IRA, etc. etc. You seem to be forgetting who the owners of the Company are. Senior management is not answering to "precocious kids" they're answering to shareholders. You know, the average adult? No, that is not the target.... at all.... since when is adding a payment method a board/shareholder level decision? |
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Another issue besides volatility is the fact that only a very small fraction of the populace has even heard of Bitcoin at this point. Forget about the kids playing the games because they're not the ones that matter. They don't own the stock and they're already paying to play right now so the current options have to be working to some degree.
So now Activision-Blizzard comes out and announces Bitcoin adoption. Lets be REALLY generous and say 10% of outstanding shareholders have heard of Bitcoin. The rest are finding out through disclosures in Blizzard's 10-K, press release, or other medium. Okay so now Blizzard has introduced a new exposure risk that 90% of their shareholders have never heard of. Obviously, they're going to do some research. We already know how the media has painted Bitcoin. You think these shareholders are going to be thrilled reading these articles with keywords like "drugs" "guns" and "child pornography?"
And Blizzard is going to take all of this risk because of credit card transaction fees? Beyond delusional.
Look, I'm not saying what the OP is doing is bad. It's just wasted effort. Blizzard is the wrong type of company to be aiming for right now. Bitcoin is in its infancy and people have to come to grips that a company like Blizzard is not going to be an early adopter. You need to focus your efforts on a company that has a minority amount of shareholders that is willing to take some risks. Not a company worried about their stock plummeting on the NASDAQ.
The stock holders are not the target. They would not be involved in this or the board any more then they would be been when the phone bill option was added. I think you are overstating what it takes to add a new payment option. The shareholders are not going to notice or care any more then then did when the phone pay was added or the zeevox points got added to RoM etc. (different company but same point). However I do agree completely with your last paragraph. I think targeting Blizzard right now is tilting at windmills. Though the cost is low enough that it does not hurt anything really either for them to be trying. |
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A couple issues. First daily volatility would only be an issue if blizzard were to try to sell their btc at the very moment they received them, every time they received them, and second the only reason the market is so volatile is because it is loaded with speculators. When more companies embrace BTC volatility will lessen thus speculators will not be able to profit as readily on short term margin trading. Most every market has some amount of volatility but that has never stopped anyone from embracing it eventually.
The coolest thing about BTC is the potential for lucrative opportunities for anyone with a little bit of vision and the ability to think about not what is but what could be. The problem is a company like Blizzard is not going to be an early adopter. It's easier to explain transaction fees to a shareholder than speculating in a new currency. I do agree with this, Blizzard is very unlikely to be an early adapter, only way it would happen is if it happened to tickle the fancy of someone very high up somehow. |
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I don't have any idea how much credit card fees are, but I have a feeling it is no where near the volatility of Bitcoin. I'm used to waking up every morning and having the price gone up/down 10%. And that's on a quiet day. A company like Blizzard doesn't need to expose itself to that kind of risk. Exactly. People need to stop using the transaction fee angle because it's nonsensical. The amount they pay in fees is a small fraction compared to the volatility exposure they would face with Bitcoins in its current state. I am guessing most of the people who keep harping on the volatility issue have never done any cross boarder trading. It is a long solved problem. I'm assuming you mean border. And Blizzard is not in the business of trading. If you meant hedging foreign currency exposure then yes that problem has been solved in a derivatives market for which one does not exist (on the proper scale) for Bitcoins. Right, but creating it would not take long if a large enough company provided a demand for it. |
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Heh, thanks, now I don't have to make a similar list  I was going to include writing a CV, getting a job, going through the hassle of getting IDd/rejected/reapplying for a bank account, waiting for your first paycheck etc. - since Jalum conveniently ignores the fact that US Dollars do not magically fall out of the air either. As an average adult in Western society, if someone tells me that something costs a dollar, I have the background knowledge about how I can attain a dollar, and the various means with which I can transmit that dollar to the other party. The target for this is not yet the average adult anyway. Target would be precocious kids.
The average adult does not know what a bitcoin is. Once you explain to them about anonymous cryptocurrencies, if they're still interested they will need to know how to obtain one. Please come up with a more concise list of steps that you would tell someone to ensure that they were able to turn their dollars into bitcoins into a WoW subscription. This is what Blizzard would have to do: if they advertise a payment method, they sure as hell make sure you know how to utilize it.
You sure like to take your staw men and run with them don't you. No, they have no reason to make sure as hell you know how to utilize every option they make available. They would only need to do this if it became the only payment options. Most would continue to do what they do now, and not even really notice if at a conscious level. Some would notice and shrug it off as probably some regional debit card network or a new value card from the local stores. Some especially those damn precocious kids would become curious and go learn about it. Yes, the products you can buy with bitcoins are "similar" to those you can buy with USD. They just cost 400% more.
So are the rent to own places and they are popular to a similar demographic of those cut out of the current banking credit system. |
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I don't have any idea how much credit card fees are, but I have a feeling it is no where near the volatility of Bitcoin. I'm used to waking up every morning and having the price gone up/down 10%. And that's on a quiet day. A company like Blizzard doesn't need to expose itself to that kind of risk. Exactly. People need to stop using the transaction fee angle because it's nonsensical. The amount they pay in fees is a small fraction compared to the volatility exposure they would face with Bitcoins in its current state. I am guessing most of the people who keep harping on the volatility issue have never done any cross boarder trading. It is a long solved problem. |
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hehe, I was just about to contact you, at least I learned MAgicka was on sale this way!
I think you can edit your title to add sold to it btw.
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Fine. Spend your time calling their CS reps in Indonesia, hoping that someone will pass on your brilliant idea. Attend Blizzcon wearing your "Who is John Galt?" shirt and fedora. Just please update us on your progress as you do these things.
lol, now I see why you think it is a stupid idea, because in your head it certainly is. No one said anything about John Galt shirts or fedora. You are right, given your thought process and view of it, for you it would be a waste of time. Don't worry we aren't asking you to be the one to do it, as we already know you would fail at it. |
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