Damn it...

It's fixed now.

Such a transaction is invalid, so you won't find any examples in the block chain. But Bitcoin Core crashes upon detecting its invalidness in a valid-PoW block (not when the transaction is free-floating). The crash is caused by an optimization which had incorrect assumptions; the fix simply disables the optimization, changing a false to a true.

The "#MeToo" stuff is often guilty-until-proven-innocent, which I absolutely hate, but the accuser in this case apparently has some years-old records of the accusation. It may be a stronger case than usual, though it still has plenty of the guilty-until-proven-innocent smell, and CoinCube brings up a lot of interesting points that I hadn't heard in the media coverage of this.

Whether it's true or not, I wouldn't be surprised. Kavanaugh has been groomed by the Federalist Society for decades, so the Democrats could've easily set up the accuser's corroborating records long in advance. I really wouldn't put it past them. But I also wouldn't put it past Kavanaugh to sexually assault someone; it sounds like he was part of a disgusting rich-kids culture where that kind of thing could easily happen.

It was politically a smart move by the democrats to delay the announcement until now. If the Republicans force through the nomination, then the Democrats can use that as "Republicans hate women!" in the election. If they stop it, then that's a win for the democrats in itself.

Personally, I hope that Kavanaugh gets replaced by Amy Coney Barrett, though that's probably unlikely.

The member search page only returns a maximum number of results. Currently there are 3145 copper members. Maybe I'll compile stats over time later. For now, you could search the Bitcoin block chain for transactions of the copper-member amount.

Important update: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5034070.0

If you are currently running Bitcoin Core, then you must upgrade to 0.16.3 as soon as possible. You can download it from bitcoin.org or bitcoincore.org or via BitTorrent, and as always, make sure that you verify the download.

If you only occasionally run Bitcoin Core, then it is less urgent, though it would be best to upgrade as soon as convenient.

A bug was found which allows anyone capable of mining a sufficient-PoW block to crash Bitcoin Core nodes running versions 0.14.0 to 0.16.2. Stored funds are not at risk.

Since most altcoins are based on Bitcoin Core, I would guess that many of them are also affected, though I don't have any specific info on that at this time. Also, Core derivatives such as Knots are affected and have their own updates.

Main release thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5032424.0

New stat: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats=topsendban

Note that only "autobans" count. ("Autobans" are not actually automatic, but are a subset of bans done using the quick-ban tools. Most mods can only do autobans.)

Where are you seeing that, on the cloudflare page?

I remember the JS-less version from recaptcha v1 (retired), but I didn't think that v2 supported that. Maybe it's new.

You can, but there isn't much point in doing so.

I forgot to wipe non-demoted newbies. Fixed, thanks.

Also, I just realized that I did wipe 0-merit Jr Members who were also copper members. I undid that.


Newbies are subject to additional filtering which has a higher rate of false positives.

Oh, it's very decentralized. It uses the VWYF algorithm (now with added blockchain™) to ensure complete decentralization. How it works is very simple: if you don't like it, go make your own forum.

Manafort's guilty plea surprised me a lot. I hope at some point we get all of the details behind this.


Agreed.

Buying merit or normal ranks is like buying yourself a bunch of trophies to put on your shelf. It's stupid, and it's an insult to everyone who achieved it legitimately. I can't see ever doing that. I don't particularly mind letting people pay for some of the privileges of these things, such as with copper membership, but it should be a parallel system.

Copper membership is good. Now, if you want to participate in signature campaigns, you can either pay the $10-$20 for copper membership or accomplish the herculean task of making one good post. I don't think that it's unreasonable in either case.

If people are making good posts but are still struggling to get merit, then that's a problem with the merit system and should be fixed on my end. Demanding money in order to bypass a broken system would be really bad. But AFAICT the merit system actually is reasonably effective at identifying good posters.

P.S. I copied all of the signatures and personal texts before wiping them from the demoted users. If bounty managers need info about this, send me a PM like "Please send me a list of all demoted users who had '_______' in their signature".

Due to excessive garbage-posting, you now need 1 merit to be a Jr Member. All existing Jr Members who didn't meet the requirement were demoted. Also, newbies can no longer set any signature or personal text.

Note that this does not affect:
 - PM rate-limiting, which is based purely on activity & whitelisted status.
 - "You must wait ___ seconds...", which is based purely on activity & whitelisted status.
 
But it does affect:
 - Voting in polls
 - Patroller jurisdiction
 - The "ignore newbie PMs" option.
 - "The body is omitted from this email because the sender is a newbie."
 - BBCode limits
 - Reduced-accuracy link filtering
 - Board restrictions

Many of these limitations can be eliminated with a copper membership. In particular, you can set a signature at Member level if you wear a copper membership.

One reason that I was hesitant to do this before is that there are an awful lot of newbie restrictions, and I don't want the forum to be unwelcoming to good newbies. I'll think about tying some of those to activity instead of rank in the future.
 
With help from DdmrDdmr, I just added 36 new merit sources, which should help newbies achieve the requirement. But if you're incapable of posting anything worthwhile, then you will never rank up, and you shouldn't: this isn't the forum for you.

It's low on my to-do list. I have to rewrite most of the queries on that page.

I accidentally broke something temporarily, sorry about that. It should be fixed now, and your post should be in your drafts.

You're considered to have woken up if your last login time is 180+ days ago, and the message remains for 30 days.

Recently the idea occurred to me that it might be cool to have a bitcointalk.org YouTube channel. It could contain things such as:
 - Bitcoin information
 - Summaries of recent high-quality posts
 - Summarized crypto news, but from a neutral perspective, without any pump-and-dump

If there was regular (eg. weekly) content, this might be a good way of attracting good new users and making existing users feel more engaged in the community.

Does this sound like a good idea? Is anyone interested in producing this content? I suppose we'd need at least someone with good camera presence, someone skilled at video editing, and one or more script writers. I might be willing to dedicate some forum funds to this.

As a somewhat popular incumbent, Trump will have a big advantage. He'll especially have an advantage if the Democrats win the House this year and then spend two years doing nothing but investigating Trump scandals; it'd be similar to the Bill Clinton impeachment pushback.

The Democrats don't have a great lineup of possible candidates. Cory Booker and Kamala Harris seem to be the two main front-runners, but IMO they're far too establishment to win against Trump. Bernie is probably too far left, and the Democratic party won't let him win the primary anyway. Biden is very popular, but he's also very old; he'd be a shoe-in if he were 10 years younger, though he might still be the best option. As ridiculous as it sounds (and is), Oprah Winfrey might be able to pull it off due to her large fanbase, even though she's even less ideological/intellectual than Trump.

At this point I'd give Trump 2-to-1 odds. The biggest question is really how successful the deep state will be at undermining him rather than any real political factors.