june gloom on 13/6/2011 at 02:39
They may not actually be bots. RPS has a number of spammers who cannot be gotten rid of because they're real people posting about shoes for kings.
Nameless Voice on 13/6/2011 at 16:13
SkyNet won't come into existence because of a secret military AI - it will be formed by the merging of sentient spambots.
Hesche on 14/6/2011 at 06:41
While not wanting to be like all the other currencies bitcoins sure acts like one.
(
http://www.dailytech.com/Digital+Black+Friday+First+Bitcoin+Depression+Hits/article21877.htm) Digital Black Friday.
Quote Posted by Daily Tech
But as bad a day as Friday was for NYSE traders, it was far worse for those who invested in an increasingly popular digital currency -- Bitcoins (BTC). At the opening bell at Mt. Gox, the world's largest Bitcoin exchange, a single BTC cost $28.919 USD. By mid-day that total had plunged to $20.01 USD -- a drop of 30.8 percent.
Judging from the amount of trades made on Friday a fair amount of people must have invested in bitcoin.
Quote Posted by Daily Tech
Well, today on Mt. Gox alone, approximately $2M USD in Bitcoins were bought and sold in 5,871 trades. That's unusual in and of itself -- only a total of $19M USD in trading volume occurred over the past six months.
Also PayPal draining the market liquidity by shutting down bitcoin purchases may have contributed to the market crash.
This article links to a (
http://www.quora.com/Bitcoin/Is-the-cryptocurrency-Bitcoin-a-good-idea?srid=pxt) discussion on bitcoins which I started reading, got bored, scrolled down and found a good summary of the discussion:
Inline Image:
http://d2o7bfz2il9cb7.cloudfront.net/main-qimg-a02dd353a489fc3158798345a33af952
Nameless Voice on 14/6/2011 at 11:23
Don't post XKCD without also adding the alt text. :p
Shug on 15/6/2011 at 14:41
Quote Posted by Fingernail
They would do well (as would everyone, actually) to watch Adam Curtis's current documentary series on BBC 2, "All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace"....
Such a very amazing link!
Seriously though, great watch. I'm up to the second part now, fascinating material.
Yakoob on 15/6/2011 at 17:24
It looks like Bitcoin is picking up quite a bit of publicity, which may be just what it needs to snowball to an unstoppable size and become a permanent fixture in the global economy. Interesting times ahead of us folks... interesting indeed.
I'm still too skeptical to use it due to its hackability, lack of central authority meaning you can spawn parallel but incompatible bitcoin networks, and the fact you can lose all of your life savings in a single hard drive crash. But it's definitely not something than can be dismissed anymore with a wave of a hand.
Gingerbread Man on 15/6/2011 at 19:15
It's sperg coin for people who can't spot a pyramid. Honest to god, I've been up to my eyes in threads on Other Forums wherein this is being discussed by economists, and the general consensus is "lol"
Totally dismissable via hand-waving. EMINENTLY so.
Yakoob on 15/6/2011 at 20:36
But you see Gingerbread Man, it doesn't matter how economically hollow or stupid the idea is; if enough people start using it, it WILL pick up steam, whether your professional analysts like it or not. How many stupid discredited shit has become big in the past due to sheer popularity and public pressure, much to everyone's surprise?
Gingerbread Man on 15/6/2011 at 21:25
It's an attractive thought, but actually I think "none" is the right answer to that. The problem here is not the sheer ludicrousness of the system. Or that it is run off the bones of a defunct Magic: The Gathering card trading system. Or the fact that this is what Nigerian Scams look like when white people do them.
This is just like trading cards, but without the card at the end of it. It's like casino chips, except that the value of them is unknown. The system is built on an a scam framework even if it isn't being used that way, and already a SINGLE INTERNET FORUM POST managed to cause a crash of something like 30%. And it wasn't even a public forum.
Anyway, read this for batshit craziness when it comes to justifying, defending, and just plain making up economic idiocy as they go along... (
http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=57.0)
If you think this is an actual economy (even that it could be if more people were into it), or bears any resemblance to an economic system that is more real-world sustainable and viable than virtual trading cards, then I really should warn you about multi-level marketing before you end up homeless.
Actually, the whole "this would probably be good if more people got on board" is precisely what the people who got in at the bottom and who have the most stored BitCoins and the same average chance (if not better, considering their mining operations) as collecting more as anyone else, want everyone to say. Look at the projected release schedule, think of it in terms of proportion.
Honestly.
Stop wasting brane on this.
Gingerbread Man on 15/6/2011 at 21:30
also wait are they actually calling it Mt. Gox? Instead of M:tGOX? It's the old Magic:The Gathering Online Exchange ffs. There are neckbeards in it.