I have only occasionally had the opportunity to do pair programming, but I would choose it every time when the opportunity arises.

I have done it with two seats at one desk with one keyboard and monitor. We never "took turns" on any formal basis, but we were always sliding the keyboard back and forth to each other without any formality. I have also done it with two seats at a larger desk with two keyboards and monitors. With that setup, we would sometimes drift off into non-pair programming, but would come back together as a pair anytime someone said anything.

In my opinion the whole strength of pair programming has nothing to do with the coding itself. It's that you are constantly discussing things with each other. This boosts both people's skills, because everyone has strengths and weaknesses, and both people naturally learn from the other person's strengths. And it's much more productive than two people working separately, because both people tend to work at the productivity of the most efficient team member. Finally, it's much more interesting than solo programming. You never find your mind drifting off onto other matters.

This part is not weird at all.

MtGox has a withdrawal limit of $1000 per day. With bitcoin trading around 30 cents per coin, it would have taken three days to withdraw 9000 BTC.

No, the delivery is on me. I did OK out of that BTC purchase

Just PM your delivery address to me.

Speaking for myself rather than for Mike...

Suppose I'm happy to lend money to my friend Fred, but not directly to Fred's friends. With RipplePay, Fred's friend Sue can get the use of my money, though it's Fred who has the ultimate liability to pay me back.

But if Sue disappears and doesn't pay Fred back, it's going to ruin my friendship with Fred when I pressure him to pay me back Sue's loan out of his own pocket. It doesn't help the friendship if I say to Fred "It's your fault because you decided that you trust Sue".

If you can use it, I have a surplus 12 inch 1024x768 LCD monitor that I'm happy to send you at no cost, just to keep it out of landfill.

The color balance shifts occasionally, but it would be quite OK to use on a temporary basis.

I foresee two more slashdottings on the way then!

Sure, and why not? That counts as "living off bitcoins", as far as my bounty is concerned.

Six blocks in ten minutes, between 14:51 UTC and 15:01.

Friendsofkim, you might find this video about the Bettermeans organizational tools very relevant to your idea. The Bettermeans tools are free for projects whose tasks are public.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAlnMWlvw9g

That's problematic, because politics depends on promising goods to voters at election time.

Rather than politics needing to be reframed, I think it needs to be made irrelevant by being superseded by direct interaction amongst individuals and voluntary communities.

The term "price discovery" represents a fallacy. It suggests that there is some "true price", and if only the market can allow everyone to discover it we'll all be happy.

In fact there is no "true price" to be discovered. A "market price" emerges as the net effect of transactions that actually take place, and it has no meaning until after those trades occur.

Oh but we are trying to make the world a decent place!

It's just that voluntarists know that different people have different ideas of what constitutes a "decent place". So our idea of a "decent place" is one where a coercive state does not impose its own idea of a "decent place" on other people.

I really like this idea. But before people get too excited, there is strong evidence that in such situations, monetary reward leads to worse results for any task requiring creativity. Therefore, you can't expect to duplicate the motivation and productivity experienced by voluntary software projects.

See this video for an overview of the research on money and motivation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

Rather than having a centralized bureaucracy in an open collaborative business, I think it could be run by allowing anyone to create and manage one or more of the "cogs" that make the business work. Each cog (person) chooses which other cogs to interact with, and the net result is the overall business.

For example, suppose you had a project to create forum software like the one that runs this forum. Fred might write the code that reads the database and formats the web pages. Susan might write a CSS stylesheet which Fred will use. But if Tom wants to write a better one, Fred is free to use that instead. And Susan is free to enhance her stylesheet until Fred prefers to use hers. Or Susan and Tom might choose to combine their efforts.

Sam would prepare some graphics, which Fred and Susan would be free to choose or not. And for file uploads (attachments), one of the bitcoin-based file upload services would be used.

I don't know how well I'm explaining that, but the idea is that there's no central committee making decisions. The people who are working on each part of the business are free to decide how they interact with the neighboring parts of the business, and the business as a whole emerges from the sum total of all those decisions.

Insider trading brings a price closer to the underlying asset's "true" value as soon as possible. By doing so, it protects outsiders who would otherwise be buying and selling at a "false" price based on their lack of insider knowledge.

Laws against insider trading mean that the biggest profits go to those who break the law, at the expense of everyone else. Legalized insider trading would minimize the profits that can be made by insider trading, because the market price would become accurate sooner.

I defer to fornit.

Not if the Bitcoin exchange rate rises in the meantime.

OK, I'll put my bitcoins where my mouth is.

I'll give 200 bitcoins to the first person who lives for a month making all of their transactions in bitcoins.

They are welcome to buy things informally from their bitcoin buddies. They are welcome to get food from food banks with or without donating bitcoins. They are welcome to use fiat to charge up their phone credit before the month starts, or to pay for things like rent in advance.

But for the designated month all of the transactions that they make must be denominated in bitcoins.

I reserve the right to withhold the bounty if there's nothing avant-garde being done. For example, if a teenager just lived normally for a month, and their parents paid for everything using fiat currency, that wouldn't earn the bounty.

(If it's later than 1st June 2011 when you start this, check with me first to confirm that the bounty is still on offer.)

I haven't seen any statement from MtGox that resembles "dishing out a guilty verdict", or anything other than "I'm looking into this".

The small investor can watch the market, and isn't forced to advertise his intentions, When there is a suitable ask or bid on the market, the small investor joins the market and makes a trade.

A dark pool just automates this process for the big investor.


This is the core difference. You believe in the sanctity of "free market forces". I believe in the sanctity of the "free market" and I don't care about it's supposed "forces", because in a free market I'm not subject to any forces. If someone else wants to trade at a price that suits me, I trade.

I've never used a dark pool myself, because I consider it in my interests to openly advertise my intentions, to increase the likelihood of making a trade. But I'm perfectly happy for others to use dark pools if it suits their purposes.

There's no stench from a voluntary trade.

It's your bounty, mpkomara, so of course you can set the rules. But consider this.

By the time it becomes possible to buy food and shelter from "REAL bitcoin merchants", then Bitcoin will already have arrived in the mainstream and this undertaking will not be so interesting.

On the other hand, we are now at the stage where no-one has ever lived for a month using just Bitcoin, no matter how they do it, so it is an interesting exercise. Even if someone buys food, shelter and transport direct from other Bitcoiners, what's wrong with that? Why should a purchase only be meaningful if it's from Wal-mart or McDonalds?