Fingernail on 1/6/2011 at 07:41
Quote Posted by Al_B
It's definitely worth a watch, although I couldn't help feeling at times that it was the sort of programme that would have suited radio more than television. Some aspects (e.g. the feedback flowcharts) that benefited from the visual presentation but there were so many other scenes that were recycled that it distracted from what was being said.
That's very much his style, his other series (The Power of Nightmares is probably the most famous, about neoconservatism and islamism) follow the same blueprint. I find that the images and music combine to make whatever he's arguing quite powerful - perhaps unfairly so, it could almost be seen as propaganda. He has a tendency to link things together which don't necessarily follow as neatly as he presents them, but the ideas are usually compelling and thought-provoking at least.
Shug on 1/6/2011 at 10:51
Quote Posted by Muzman
There's a point there where your account says you don't have the money any more and the other guy doesn't have it yet either.
To my knowledge this is pretty standard procedure with bank transactions, particularly international situations which I deal with constantly, and the delays are far worse. Bitcoin makes a claim that it's an average of ten minutes, and less problems with chargebacks (pretty big deal particularly in the gambling industry). Also, not getting slammed with transaction fees is pretty handy.
I think it's got some potential, and I might look into doing a bit of mining just in case.
Hesche on 1/6/2011 at 11:06
From what I read you need to invest a lot into beefy hardware (especially graphic cards) in order to be a halfway efficient miner. With growing computing power of the network the probability for you as a single miner to calculate a new set of bitcoins is pretty low. Even after years chances are high your initial investment will never pay off.
Oh yeah and (
http://launch.is/blog/l019-bitcoin-p2p-currency-the-most-dangerous-project-weve-ev.html) this guy thinks that
Quote:
After month of research and discovery, we've learned the following:
1. Bitcoin is a technologically sound project.
2. Bitcoin is unstoppable without end-user prosecution.
3. Bitcoin is the most dangerous open-source project ever created.
4. Bitcoin may be the most dangerous technological project since the internet itself.
5. Bitcoin is a political statement by technotarians (technological libertarians).*
6. Bitcoins will change the world unless governments ban them with harsh penalties.
Since it seems so easy to buy bitcoins and bitcoins themselves are not taxable this could be a nice object for speculation apart from usual stock exchange. 22% profit in 48 hours doesn´t sound too shabby. Definitely more profitable and risky than mining.
Muzman on 1/6/2011 at 11:54
Quote Posted by Shug
To my knowledge this is pretty standard procedure with bank transactions, particularly international situations which I deal with constantly,
Oh absolutely. The point was that, should problems arise there that's where a bank and ultimately the government guaranteeing the transaction and currency comes in.
I'm not sure how it'll work out exactly, but for all the distributed exchange goals there are circumstances where bitcoin in effect possesses people's money. Which strikes me as something that could turn against it, or someone could use against it.
I dunno though.
Yakoob on 1/6/2011 at 13:11
I'm not very knowledgeable in networking and don't know jack shit about cryptography, so could someone explain how this whole thing works in lamen's terms?
As far as I, probably wrongly, see, the whole system seems to be prone to complete hackery, without a regulatory body to protect it (like a bank or a government). I mean, who has how much money has to be stored somewhere doesn't it? They say "across the network" but the network only exists on the computers connected to it. Which means that if you are part of it, you hold some information about who owns what. So what's stopping someone cracking the encryption eventually and just infusing thousands of bitcoins into their account? Like I said, it's not a bank or a gov with shitton of security and regulations that make detecting such a fraud and irregularity possible and provide the means to fix that / punish those responsible.
Also, I don't get the mining process. Doesn't it effectively translate to "keep pc idle = make money?" Doesn't that just sound like it would lead to endless inflation and money being creating effectively for nothing (rather than as "payment" for a "labor" of some sort)? And what's stopping someone from just making their own mining program that tells the network it has "mined" more bitcoins than it's actually supposed to?
Clearly I am not understanding this whole thing :confused:
demagogue on 1/6/2011 at 15:09
I remember while studying different brands of international regulations that int'l banking regulation is one of the more successful examples of self-regulation (on the international level), where the banks themselves set international standards & regulations, not states or treaties.
Ostensibly, you'd think if this group were smart it'd match a lot of those regulations itself just to build confidence in its integrity. The internal pressure for needing confidence & predictability is why self-regulation works so well for banking to begin with.
But then again you see the catch; at least from that quote it seems the whole ethos of this thing is distrust with the big banks in smoke filled rooms setting the rules for everybody & controlling the flow of money, and this is the pop-anarchic hacker's alternative. Maybe I wasn't so far off seeing the connection to Freedom Dollars in my previous post after all.
ZylonBane on 1/6/2011 at 15:18
Bitcoin is financial LARPing.
Hesche on 1/6/2011 at 16:13
Quote Posted by Yakoob
I'm not very knowledgeable in networking and don't know jack shit about cryptography, so could someone explain how this whole thing works in lamen's terms?
(
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Um63OQz3bjo&feature=player_embedded) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Um63OQz3bjo&feature=player_embedded
Yakoob on 1/6/2011 at 17:23
yeah i watched that, and it doesnt explain the actual implementation details of the whole thing or address my questions.
Hesche on 1/6/2011 at 18:48
You could try this (
http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf) scientific publication. It´s all in there with calculations on how probable a success of an attack on the system would be and so on. I only got some of it since I´m no computer expert and these equations just make me feel dumb. Maybe the FAQ can simplify it enough to get more than from the video without this world formula stuff from the publication.
I think I know now what´s so fascinating about this whole thing. It just reveals how important basic human emotions are in daily life. This one is about trust. Trust this system and it will work. Of course, this is true for every other (monitary) system out there but here it´s so simple because it´s only open source code, written by one, maybe a couple of individuals. No big institutions involved, just a code. Matrix style. It just reveals how trust holds together our societies.
Man, that sounds like the closing lines of some lofty blockbuster movie.