Define long standing tradition; modern money hasn't been around for all that long.  Then again, neither has America, even tho it feels like both have been around forever.

Cold storage   I know it's a little late, but, a lot of people have had their accounts hacked in the past by various different exchanges.  I never keep too much in them, myself, knowing that it could strike at any time.

I always wonder if it's the exchanges themselves who do it...I mean, it's not like I held the private keys to any of those wallets.

They're clogging up the off-topic board   I once called that home.  Now I have to wear a suit and tie everytime I decide to look at it.

I noticed that too.  I lost at least $10 worth of PeePeecoins there   I hope it comes back up so I can get my coins back.  Luckily, I'd stored most of what I had on there on my computer.  But $10 could buy me a pizza.

So you're like, the anti-Satoshi?

Can we officially start the Church of Satoshi now? 

RoyalCoin - the coin that isn't Bitcoin.

Whatever happened to Bytecoin?  I hear that coin was also the coin that isn't Bitcoin.

When do we get to post outside the newbie area?  This is taking seriously forever

That would be a good direction; not all students learn at the same pace, and I believe all public schools acknowledge this as fact, yet refuse to make any reasonable changes to their system.  Really, all study is independent; the only thing a teacher can do is point a student in the right direction.  As the learning process is a completely individual activity, it is up to the individual to decide how they learn.  A teacher can do their absolute best and still cannot teach all students; it is up to the individual to take in that knowledge and understand it.  If we can assume that a lot of any individual's learning process occurs both in and out of school, and primarily without school once an individual decides they no longer want to attend school (lets say, when they turn 18, or maybe after they get a bachelor's), then it would be reasonable to also assume that the most important thing a teacher can impart in their students is how to learn without the need for a teacher.  However, this would be counter-productive to the business of education, as the point is to keep a student for life, not turn them into self-efficient think-tanks who can study completely independent from any institution (which is exemplified with how much learning material there is on just the Internet, not including downloadable textbooks and other more 'official' learning materials.)

So then schools would want to create a dependency effect...  At which point, it would be up to the populace to snuff out deliberate crippling.  Unless people realize this is bad, however, it would likely become a very popular business practice, as it is a good thing that colleges today are taking in students with a dependency on official school systems for their core influx of knowledge.  Instead, I imagine a school, as you said, to be a place to go to be free to explore your desire to understand, at ones own pace; in adulthood, it would be a quiet area with access to knowledge, but then we could call these highly advanced libraries, right?  Libraries with classes, where it's more so people coming together on a popular subject and ironing out the kinks of their understanding of said subject, possibly with a senior to ensure they're headed in the right direction (whereas instead today, this senior would simply preach to a mass.)  This, I believe, is the true vision of school, on all levels, from primary to postgrad.

Ohh!  Sorry, I thought you were referring to something else   You mean specifically how the schools themselves would operate.

Well, in my vision of education, they would all operate differently (otherwise, if they operated the same, they'd probably be owned by Bill.)  The school I would look for is the school which emphasizes philosophy.  Once you get someone yearning for knowledge, there's no stopping them.  The barrier is helping someone understand why they'd want knowledge; it's like Pandora's Box.  Once you understand, you can never not understand.  I'd like to introduce the idea of philosophy to my children at a young age; if I cannot do this myself (due to time constraints, of course,) I would seek a school which focused more on general education than the specifics, being math and science.  Those are important, too, but math and science don't develop thinking people; they develop logical robots.  Once someone develops a proper understanding of the world around them, then they can worry about why they'd want to learn math and science (of course, to change the world to their, and ultimately our, liking,) or they can worry about whatever it is they happen to enjoy.  Maybe they're really into art, or woodworking, or whatever the hell they think is neat.  Maybe they like computers.  Maybe they like animals.  I don't know; when I was a kid, I wanted to draw, and so I did, whenever everything else didn't take a priority.  A school which accommodates children, not children who accommodate the school.

I do not believe, however, that school is the end-all to produce a thinking child; as I said, it all boils down to the parent, the real educator, who shapes the child's attitude and wants.  So the question is, not what I would want to see in a school, but what society wants to see in their schools.  Now we're in tricky territory, as we're talking about a population which generally enjoys TV and gossip more than rational debate.  What would the previous generation want?  More than likely, the exact same thing they received, or better.  A school like mine would be hard pressed to succeed as a business, and likely wouldn't exist, unless I were the one to create it, as I don't believe many people share my same philosophy.  I would have to think long and hard, however, if I were to be an educator in such a school; what would I teach?  I'm not sure.  How do you teach someone to love to learn?  I'd essentially be getting the kids hooked on knowledge, thus increasing the businesses of any other school.  Perhaps such a philosophy would be popular after all.

I believe the best method is private education.  But this can only be accomplished when people aren't being robbed to pay for state schools that fail entirely to successfully educate (I'm speaking specifically of America, as I haven't lived anywhere else thus far.)  If we're going to talk about the best way to operate grade school, we have to include everything which causes public school (AFAIK, there's no country which doesn't want to indoctrinate their students with state-owned schools; if anyone knows of a country that doesn't, I'd like to know.)

So it works like this: lets say Bill owns 90% of the schools in a country.  We can agree, when a sole entity dominates the market, it's essentially a monopoly, right?  As the effects of a monopoly go, the price goes high, and the quality goes low.  As Bill receives a protection fee from his fellow citizens, he can afford to keep these schools running, and he can also control what the schools teach; he can also create a rule which requires his fellow citizens to attend some form of school, thanks to the fact that he has a monopoly on the security business, as well.  Because most people are already paying for the public schools, and most people cannot afford to pay for public schools and private schools, most people opt to send their children to the public schools; they also generally have no option to home school, as both parents are probably working to make ends meet, and also no option to keep their kids out of school, thanks to Bill's rule.  This is generally how our public school system works in America.

How, then, can we improve such a system?  Now that we have outlined the flaws of the American public school system (at its core, because the school system is a monopoly founded by coercion, the quality of service deteriorates dramatically, while parents have no choice but to use the public school system,) we can develop a system which will solve these flaws.

First, and foremost, we must raise the standard of living.  This can be achieved when we allow the American citizen his every dollar earned; this, however, goes much deeper than taxation, which would require the government to lose enough power until it could stop allowing corporations to purchase it.  Because the government currently has a lot of power, it becomes much easier for those with a lot of money to push this power in any given direction with the use of money.  For example: nobody wants to pay $500 for a vacuum cleaner which doesn't suck very well.  Likewise, a government with very little power will not help a corporation; to buy a government like that, you would also have to buy its citizens, who, because their government is weak, hold much more power individually.  All this adds up to people having the ability to actually function as their own businesses; corporations can no longer play dirty, and smaller businesses will have much more room to prosper.  This will help further distribute money from massive intercontinental corporate empires, to the average Joe across the street.  So now, your mom, or your dad, either own a businesses, or work for a guy who likely pays well, lest his employees leave for better wages elsewhere (we're assuming people have the spines to stand up to shit wages, which brings me to my next point.)

Next, you abolish minimum wage.  This video will explain it better than I can.  Long story short, if you need work, you will find it, until you can figure a better method of selling your time.

Anyway, this all adds up to a better living; you draw money out of the rich by stop giving them your money, and instead, buy from mom and pop.  Everyone gets a little more prosperous.  So lets assume, because we're doing so well, we, together, decide to no longer pay taxes; we support our own infrastructure and all that jazz.  Now our public schools cannot be funded.  So how do we make schools?  Well, educators in every country don't simply vanish in this event; instead, they go forth, and create their own businesses, and compete with one another to create the best god damned educational institutions in the world.  Since Bill's power over his country is now slashed, he can no longer legalize any monopolies, and these businesses known as schools are forever destined to compete with each other, whether it be grand institutions like Harvard or guitar prodigy Jim Smith teaching music theory at the rec center.  Specifically, in the case of primary school, because parents are no longer forced to give up their hard-earned cash for protection money, nor do they have to send their children to school, or which school, or for how long they go to school, the parents can decide which school they would be able to best afford in their budget, for the best service, and could even decide to teach their children on their own, or perhaps hire a tutor; really, anyone can teach a child basic math and writing skills, you just need someone to do it.  There will, specifically, no doubt, be schools appealing directly to children, or there could be schools which appeal to all ages; depends on what people want in any given area, and what the business owner would believe is best for his business.

Essentially, you take a monopoly out of the hands of the government, and give people the opportunity to own their own businesses, again.  This will provide a much healthier environment for children to learn, in general, and give them better opportunities to grow up and be something.  At which point, it is up to the parent to decide what is best for their children, and takes the matter out of the hands of the faceless entity known as government.  Our children are not a public matter.  Our children are the public.  Alas, as we can see, now, this entire matter boils down to the parent; the very core of the issue, the true creator of future societies.  But, having never been a parent, I believe there are others better suited to continue that argument.

I stopped shopping at Walmart a long time ago.  If Amazon is gonna play dirty and be the new e-Walmart, they can rot in hell, too.  Sides, they still owe me some $1 red-blue 3D glasses that I never received.  I will not stand for this!

Stop you're making me blush

I wager most people are made dumb; the rest are merely unfortunate.  I may be an optimist (I doubt it), but I believe most everyone is born relatively equal (give or take a few potential IQ points), and they are designed, from then on, to fail.

I believe this is our disconnect.  You're under the impression that most knowledge can only be attained through school; there seems to be no in-between for you.  You believe that, unless someone tells you, you can never know.  The man who discovered electricity had to have been told by God, I guess, before he could ever know about electricity, and how it could power certain things.  He wasn't born brilliant; he was born exactly like you, a drooling baby who had to learn literally everything from the ground up, per usual for all human beings.  Why, then, did he become such a "brilliant" inventor, and Joe Schmoe was just a farmer?  It's very easy to fall into the trap of, "He must've been born a genius!"  In reality, people are not.  All people are born with very like minds (excluding actual edit: mental disabilities,) and it is through their experiences that they reach a level no other people have ever reached before.  There is no such thing as a genius; this is a subjective impression.  The smart man can only be smart when everyone else isn't.

Now the question becomes: How does someone become brilliant?  And the answer is simple: they stop assuming everything Ms. Smith says is God-given fact, and pursue an unbiased, objective understanding of the world around them, which is achieved first through observation, otherwise known as an intake of information, then interpretation, which can be related to processing that information--then repeat.  You take info in, you put info out, until you form an understanding; I believe we can call this the thought process.  Put food in, chew, swallow.  Of course, there are many advanced subjects which this process does not work, where you'd either have to be the guy to discover said subject, or read about the findings of others (again, take info in, put info out.)  Unless you're making the point that only a school can supply the flow of quality information into a person, I believe it's clear that calling someone brilliant is just another way of calling someone an autodidact; they understand that schools aren't the only method to acquire information, and seek to educate themselves, even, in the case of Einstein, when schools have nothing more to teach.  Why, then, do you insist that only "normal" people can become educated through college?  I promise you, I've come a long way since the dark ages (a.k.a high school), but I owe very little of my general competence to my brief adventure as a now sophomore in college.  I can't legitimately claim myself to be brilliant, for I don't believe any "official" can define what makes someone brilliant or not, but I promise, college is in no way the sole method to achieve an education; rather, it can help, but in the end, you, the individual, are doing the heavy lifting, with or without college.

And lets not forget the dangers of trusting an institution with every bit of information you receive.  I've repeatedly caught my professors making blatantly opinionated statements passed along as fact, and sometimes unintentional lies on matters I happen to know more about, but I digress.  I wonder how many other people notice these things...  They're not exactly bad, but, a student is more easily shaped when he believes everything his professor says, even taking the biases into account for his own method of thinking.


I will admit, colleges do a good job at teaching people how to learn, but they shouldn't have to.  When a legal adult still does not know how to think on their own, following 13-14 years of supposed education, can we agree that we're facing an epidemic of stupidity?  On one end, I want to blame the individual, but when I consider the fact that all individuals in this country are forced into attending a school which refuses to teach people how to think for themselves, it's hard to set the blame on society, unless we can assume that society is in true control of their government, which I tend to believe they aren't.

I would argue that forced schooling contributes to a nationally lower average IQ, simply because people who do not want to go to school have to go, and make life a living hell for anyone who does want to go to school.  This sets a blanket over all students in public school systems who generally hate their experience (either because they didn't want to go or because they had to put up with the people who didn't want to go), which gets mistaken as a hatred for learning in general.  I recall clearly, in my high school days, that, if college was any experience like I had in high school, I did not want to go.  So I didn't, for a year or two, but got pressured into it by an ex-girlfriend who didn't want to date a dumb guy without an education  I generally liked my experience, but after a while, I felt I really was back in high school, learning the same subjects I didn't learn back then, the same subjects I didn't care about but was required of me.  I think most people have, by this point, given up on their individuality and simply go for the associates like good students, because, as they've been taught for 13-14 years, thinking for themselves couldn't fit into the public school's agenda of being thought for by their grade school teachers so they can pass state-defined scores, else the school faces a risk of being shut down.

So now we have a nation full of people ready to go to college who are failing accuplacers on material they freshly "learned", staring with blank faces at their professors, writing down anything said to study it later, afraid to answer when any professor asks a question, lest they get called on, where they'll refer to their notes, but very willing to talk to their neighbor about what was on TV last night, or that girl, remember her?  You remember that girl who used to always...  The problem cannot be colleges, then, who only operate as businesses (except for Phoenix and all the other highway colleges, whose owners are welcome to rot for their crimes against the American populace); the real problem of education is primary.  It's the difference between voluntary education and involuntary education, and I believe our American experiment has shown the results of one side of it: we cannot force someone to learn and expect the outcome to be a thinking individual.  Once this is changed, I believe we'll see colleges following suit, once, finally, people are no longer satisfied with being treated as children, and will, in turn, themselves, no longer act like adults, but be adults, thinking adults, the kinds that go to college because they really wanna know more, because they wanna create and work to supplement their desire for creation, and then we'll see a real shift in the world.

Now all they have to do is send take-down notices to the 100k+ people who downloaded these guns.  What a waste of trees, anyway.

Don't drink the water.  It'll kill you.

Edison dropped out of school after just 2 months of it, B. Franklin dropped out after 2 years, and Einstein was gone by the time he was 15  As it goes for college, I know Bill Gates and that one guy who used to run Apple dropped out of college early, but they knew what they were doing, and I probably would've done the same thing.  Anyway, I just find it sad that, even as adults, schools feel it necessary to discipline their students.  If I had such an interest in the courses I was taking, why should they feel the need to grade me on it?  If I had a real understanding of the subject matter I sought to understand, I should know, myself, what it is I know and what it is I still need help on.  The modern college has no time for this; they must keep the order, and they must record grades, for the student is not there to learn, but to listen, and memorize, and return to the lecturer what they have been lectured, and so there must be a system with which we can monitor whether the student can play Simon Sez as well as the next guy.  We can describe the average student by their GPA; I don't like this fact, but it's become a standard; if Sally has a 4.0 GPA, she's likely going to live a very good life, and if Joe has a 2.5 GPA, he's average.  But we know this isn't true all the time, it's a mere generalization, and a very serious generalization when it comes to the even higher education and then, the work force.  So we must submit to this generalization and realize that we are but numbers.  Most of us have a number pegged to our names; I know I do, but I can never remember it.  But the point I'd like to make, is that we're missing the point of education.  If a college, as a business, only has the intention to educate, why such intricate systems which have nothing to do with any given subject matter?  Who created these mandatory systems to peg the student at this level or that level?  Why do we subject ourselves to judgment?  It feels like all we're doing is trying to look good under someone else's eyes.  I wouldn't mind paying a guy to teach me about History if he'd just stop trying to test my understanding; I know what I know and what I don't know (though I do see how this can be a problem for people who can't figure out they don't know squat.)  I didn't take the History course for someone else (technically, in this case, sadly, I did, but for sake of example,) I took it so I could have a better understanding of American history.  That's the point: this education is for me.  That's why I bought it, right?  Nobody buys a TV for someone else, unless they plan on giving it away.  I bought lunch for me to eat, and I'm the only person that should care about that--well, maybe my partner would care.  Why, then, is my education treated as a public matter, even in a (state-adhering) private institution?  I suppose that's simply society today; we developed our American society, and so we bear the fruit.  We developed a working society, where math and science aren't quite as important as profitable skills, and now we're stuck with what we've sought: that being, employers expecting degrees from this school or not from that school, to weed out the riff-raff.  I can't say colleges are helping this matter along, merely sticking to the business plan, even when the quality of education goes downhill (cough UTA.)  When will McDonalds serve food that's good for me?  Not until enough people stop buying the food they're already putting out.

Good news is, I'm pretty sure I passed my History final.  I spent a few good hours reading the sparknotes version and developed an understanding I didn't get from my lecturer; mostly because I could pace myself, I suppose.  I now know more about the Civil War than I ever really wanted to know.  Lincoln was a dick.  I'm still trying to figure out whether or not I needed a professor to help me understand why Lincoln was a dick, but I won't know that until I attempt to take on a subject offered by college by myself.  It would be an interesting test, I think.

Also, sorry for the long posts.  They're not necessarily aimed at you, Rassah, mostly just me thinking out loud

I'm assuming it's because the state of Texas mandates specific classes to be taken, one of them being US History, while other states do it differently.  I don't know how it is in other states, but in mine, I'm required to take this course before I can even grab my associates degree.  But I'm with you, I shouldn't be taking a class I have no interest in, and yet, I'm between a rock and a hard place, because unless I'm taking these classes I have no interest in, I have no hopes of attaining a degree in anything.  Which is why I'm contemplating dropping out, or in the very least, ignoring my "core" classes to pursue classes I actually do have interest in, despite not getting a little piece of paper once I'm finished.  I'm not really interested in the job market either way; I can't imagine the suck involved in ass-kissing an employer, but I've only had to do that for jobs paying minimum wage thus far, so I wouldn't know how it is being in a position requiring a college degree.  I'd rather be an indie-something than be a cog in a machine.


I still disagree about the point of college.  As I've mentioned elsewhere (I think...), a university was originally meant to be a safe-haven for people to go and be educated, for no reason outside of a general want for knowledge.  Nobody goes to college anymore for knowledge; they only go because most every college nowadays has some logo saying "Get a better job today!  Apply now!", and there aren't a whole lot of Americans who feel they're perfectly happy with where they are in life--so I assume, from my time working in low-paying part-time jobs.  Once, I took a sociology class, and the professor asked everyone why they went to college; most said they wanted to get a better job.  I told him I was going because I was bored of working all the time, so I guess that fits the bill, too--although, my reason now is much different than back then, but I also haven't been working 50 hours a week lately, so I figure that has something to do with it.  Anyway, there's nothing I'm going to learn in college that's going to teach me how to swing a golf club perfectly on my first try so I'll get a hole in one.  Certainly, self-learning can never provide me everything I need to know for "what's out there", but that isn't solely solved by college; I can also go out there, and learn for myself what's out there (which I doubt wouldn't be lurking somewhere on the Internet anyway.)  Though you're right; you can't learn what you don't know about, I'm generally content with what I currently do know; I'm not a complex man, I don't believe, and I'm certainly not very compelled to learn too deep on other cultures, and I have no real penchant for science, though I do enjoy reading about it (not sci-fi, the real stuff )  Knowledge begets knowledge, and I don't believe it's accurate to say only a college can supply that hidden knowledge that apparently no other entity knows about, but for a good 4k a semester, they'll let you in on the secret.  If anything, the only thing I'd miss is the social interaction, which, as I've come to understand, is the key to getting that job you want, so I suppose I'll have to find that elsewhere if I do leave.

Besides, Ivy League colleges keep pumping out Presidents with a complete and utter disconnect from reality.  This is not normal.  I once met an Ivy Leaguer; he was a dick.  Felt he was above everyone else.  He couldn't be wrong about any subject, because if he was losing, he'd remind you that he was an Ivy Leaguer and you were welcome to suck his hoo-haw.  But I can't really speak for all of them, based on my shallow experiences.  Anyway, I don't believe the point is why is people go to college, but how colleges are trying to adapt to student desires, and the student desire generally revolves around the prospect of money, and thus, a higher social status.  But maybe I'm wrong; I base this all on the only colleges I could hope to afford, which appeal to the lower class, from where I stand.  So I'm not entirely sure why rich folks go to college.  I'll have to ask one some day.

About my friend: he still hates nursing.  I believe this is a valid point; he's planning on dropping the debt-bomb to learn to do something he doesn't like for the prospect of money.  I don't believe it's a good idea for him to pursue a career like that, especially considering there are plenty of people in the world with a genuine interest in helping other people.  He just wants to live "comfortably", as he puts it.

Good point; if anything, a few years of basics (reading, writing, arithmetic) is all a child really needs as a foundation for everything else they can learn, and that can be taught by any functional adult.  I got into an argument the other day with a friend of mine who decided to go for a business degree in fashion.  She's currently in a load of debt, despite having government assistance from FAFSA.  Anyway, the argument was that people could learn just as well without a formal education, and often times become even more intelligent than usual.  Her main retort was that nobody can get a job without a college degree and that's the main reason why anyone should go, which I couldn't fault her for, as she was right; that's the only reason people go to college anymore.  It has nothing to do with wanting to learn, but those 13 years of mental beat-down teach people that they have to learn, or else they'll "never amount to anything."  I should note, my friend is Asian, and happens to have the typical Asian parents who push their kids so far, some commit suicide.  She still doesn't know why the hell she's in college or what good a business fashion degree will do her   She noted, however, that she doesn't like to argue, which leads me to believe she mostly just wants to do the "minimum" so she can live a good life, while also believing there's no hope she'll get a job doing fashion, which she admits she now hates and hoped for another major, but she's already graduating so it's too late.  It's kinda strange to watch someone be on two sides like that, but she's not the first.  My best friend also follows the "do what you hate so you can get money and then you can do what you love" ideology.  He wants to be a male nurse.  I've already explained the field is oversaturated, and the fact that he doesn't like bodily fluids will probably stop his career early, but it doesn't seem to stop him.


I know what you mean.  I've learned far more from YouTube and Wikipedia, of all things, than I've learned from mandatory education, and even more educational sites are cropping up; I've been using a website to learn how to code in python, at that.  Yet because I don't get a slip of paper to show for it, I suppose I'm always runner up to the guy who hocked however many thousands it took to get an "official" education.

You should already be storing your coins in a personal wallet.  Don't be the guy who loses all his cash from yet another successful hack attempt.