Seeing as it seems to be of interest.
An entertaining and well sourced piece of stand-up by comedian Robert Newman found here:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5267640865741878159#

is a good staring point for getting a handle on other interpretations of various bits of history.

Al Jazeera does tend to be impartial and has good breadth of coverage especially compared to American News, but it is still very selective about what it chooses to report - especially when it comes to financial matters, as is - for example, the BBC, whose impartiality is 'famous', only outside the UK.

I suppose I was mainly making a point about the uniqueness of bitcoin as being a currency not backed by military might - rather by the power of mathematics.

Yes, and America knows it.

This explains most of their foreign policy - The Iraq invasion being the most obvious example, almost so obvious as to be  intended as a blatant message to the world, "keep your oil in dollars or else..."

However, as soon as currencies are no longer backed up by armed force, or the armed force of friends with interests - the currency fails.
Bitcoin does seem to be the only candidate for a currency free from this one common attribute.
Or is it?

Although it doesn't mention bitcoins...


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703313304576132170181013248.html


It is my belief that the current state of bitcoins worth being valued in it's exchange rate with other currency (especially the dollar) is only a superficial and temporary state of affairs, because the currencies it is being compared with are worth the might of weapons backing them up, but bitcoins need no backup from weapons.

So, the value of bitcoins becomes dependent on other factors. Obviously it's value will partly be defined by it's exchange rate with other currencies, but perhaps the uniqueness of it's qualities as a means of holding and exchanging (and representing) wealth will start to emerge.
It is not just another currency. It is being treated like one, but the differences are real and practical.

I was looking at xkcd and this one reminded me of this thread.

http://xkcd.com/844/

Notice that the requirements only change if you code well, rather than fast.
If you code fast enough then it is possible (I have heard) to finish a project before they change the spec and you have to start all over again.

Also, if you are working as a pair, when they introduce ridiculous specs, you can say "we are right and they are insane", rather than "I am right and they are insane", for a change.

I think that you may be in a unique position to try this project. It certainly wouldn't work well in the west with western students I feel.
I suspect you are not being *entirely*evil. The potential to develop some very useful skills and explore the implications of bitcoins strengths and weaknesses in this environment is intriguing.
I am following with interest.

Well put. This describes my best experiences with pair programming. Pulled a few all-nighters and gotten through a few kilos of coffee in this way. And produced some solutions that prove that two heads can be better than one.

Depends on a lot.
I have had good and bad experiences with this - and learned a lot.
It seems to work if you can keep things object oriented and compartmentalize the tasks based on the skill difference.
And have periods of going over with each other what you are doing and why. Actually the skills gap diminishes quickly.

The worst was me with my background in dbase and pascal working with someone who had been handed a VB project that was over-running - he brought me into the project to help identify why it was over-running and help with working on finishing it.
Turns out the problem was really that it was being done in VB - he was a really skilled guy, he had just been worn down by the insanity of it.
There is just so very much difference with the way that VB does stuff compared to how it represents doing it and how a programmer would expect it to work that you end up getting into this kind of never-ending work/wtf?/debug/drugs/attempted suicide/fail/work cycle.
With a pair of you doing it,  you end up forming the kind of bond that I imagine soldiers formed in WW1 in the trenches after having gone over the top and survived.

Haggy.