Here's an example for your edification:   Samuel Pierpoint Langley (government funding) vs. the Wright brothers (private funding).

Source: http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi32.htm

Another article explains why private funding worked *better* than government funding:
Source: http://www.economicthinking.org/technology/noballoonattached.html

Well, if the idea of "ad-hominem" is be played out, let's try a new term, "Occam's razor".

Assuming that the claims of support by some businesses for libertarianism are correct, does it follow that "Libertarianism was created by big business lobbyists" in the United States in the 1950's?

It appears that the historical use of the term dates back to the 19th century, so that's quite unlikely.

It's much more plausible that organizations, such as the real-estate lobby found a common objective with the libertarians: reduction in government regulation, particularly rent controls. From the point of view of landlords, big-government Democrats (e.g. FDR) would be an enemy and big-government Republicans (e.g. Hoover) would also be an enemy.  An organization which proposed that government interference was often counterproductive would be seen as an ally.  From the PoV of libertarian evangelists, being paid to promote their own viewpoint would be win-win.

Also, as has been pointed out above, there are limits to the alliance between libertarians and big business.  First, many big businesses (e.g. General Electric, Lockheed, Boeing), while wishing for reduced government regulation in their businesses, are very happy to have a customer who can print up a virtually infinite supply of money to pay his bills. Second, properly formulated regulations can help erect barriers to entry for competitors.  The revolving door between business and government helps to ensure that regulations are "properly formulated" for best effect.  As an example, look at the requirements for setting up a bank or stock exchange.

What's the maximum number of PPC that can be minted?

There's a small particle of truth in that:

Some people value the projected appreciation of the asset more than the immediate liquidation thereof.  When there's a spike in the value of an asset, whether it's Bitcoin or Google stock, the projected rate of return (relative to other assets) goes up, making "hoarding" more attractive.

However, on cannot get any tangible benefit from the appreciation of some Bitcoin without eventually spending it. 

In some ways, Bitcoin is demonstrating Gresham's law, as users who prefer it to fiat currencies keep the BTC somewhat out of circulation.

Looks interesting, but I don't see any activity there (yet!).

Curious though, it appears you have to get a counterparty to your exact prediction to have a "wager". Right?

I guess you couldn't see my tongue in my cheek! 


Perhaps, although it's the "free market" setting those prices. If no one would work for those wages, then it's likely the going rate would rise.  Of course, that kind of work (e.g. determine if this address is a business or a residence) has some, but limited value to the requester. Also, since CrowdFlower asks each question of multiple workers, the individual payment is a fraction of what the requester paid for the question.


Looks like using CrowdFlower provides a stream of questions to be answered, so it has some value.  It may be that CrowdFlower evaluates which "labor partners" are best suited for different tasks, and allocates jobs accordingly.  If that's the case, then if/as better workers join CoinWorker, better, higher paying jobs will be assigned.

Looks like someone's been making a small fortune there: 
Working: http://coinworker.com/activity/1M1VbdoakFcTgJpHX8SSX5wJDnJBoboKty
Getting paid: http://blockexplorer.com/address/1M1VbdoakFcTgJpHX8SSX5wJDnJBoboKty

Just found this topic.  Anything happening? 

Are there any patent issues?  That is, does Amazon or someone else have patents on the Mechanical Turk idea?

Questions for OP:

• Where are you getting your exchange rate (USD to BTC)?
• Do you have different rates for the $10, $20, and $50 increments?

Comments:

• I was hoping I could pay with credit card points, but it appears not.
• Looks like I can pay with Amazon gift cards, though.
• The $50 denomination shows $0.00 for shipping/handling.  I think that goes with Amazon's free shipping on orders > $25.

Likewise. 

Can we get a tally of folks interested in a 1-hour (or so) coffee-shop meetup in Austin?

Seems like most people are using the analogy of agent as an animal, able to migrate from computer to computer and "roam the net".  It may be some time before a significantly useful agent is capable of doing that.

A more realistic short-term goal is to make one more like a plant, and maybe not such a fantastic one.

It may need human assistance to be installed in some vendor's hosting arrangement.

Once there, hopefully it can survive, and become autonomous.  Reproduction, like seed broadcasting in plants, would require help from an outside agent, possibly human, who would propagate a copy of the agent to a new environment.

A couple of questions which I think were touched on a little:

First, would the recommended approach be to add calls to the API?  For example, a call that allows low-level crafting of the transaction or at least the script could be used by multiple UI's so that the presentation is separated from the inner workings.

Second, the case of buyer-seller-mediator can be handled with a 2-of-3 signature transaction.  My question is: does the mediator get paid in a separate transaction?  What if the mediator expects a small fee if the transaction goes properly, and a larger one if he has to intervene?

Thanks for the hard work.  Usually the work of documenting software can teach you better than almost any other way how it actually works.

Thanks for uploading a complete build environment. 

I've run into challenges trying to build on my box (XP). 

Yes, I know it dates back to April, but this should get me started.

By the way, if your system doesn't know what the XZ extension is about, you need the latest 7-Zip from http://www.7-zip.org/.

Nice job on the web site.  Looking forward to seeing the API.

Excellent instructions.  Can't wait to try it out.

Thank you!

Wonder if a nominal charge for quotes, orders, and/or cancels, on the order of a few Satoshi or so would counteract the harmful effects. 

I'm not sure what you meant by "rented".  Could you explain, please?

Definitely.  Let them be as ubiquitous as coffee shops. 

There are already some open source projects for exchanges: Bitcoin-central and Intersango are two that I'm aware of.

Good article. Thanks.