rockyleal

Intel NUCs are pretty neat

The first 2 lines of the article are these:

"The fundamental theories on which the modern science of political economy is based are these:

    That under primitive conditions men lived and live by barter"

The basic premise, that barter was (and is) by which 'primitive' (whatever that is) live, has been thoroughly debunked by contemporary anthropologists of money. David Graeber's 'Debt: The first 5000 years" is a must read for anyone interested in the topic of theory of money from the anthroological (i.e., empirical) perspective:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt:_The_First_5000_Years

I share your contempt towards Jobs and everything his work and Apple represent, but man your arguments are weird lol.

This is the typical comment where preconceptions are so strong that they ignore, and even go literally against, the evidence at hand. In this case, the news is precisely about the Indian regulator standing against the wealthy lobbyist (who happens to be an American company, by the way). Talking about how corrupt countries are, or how corrupt they are perceived to be, I wonder if the same result would take place in the US.

Bitcoin miner's dilemma: Should I mine where it's hot for the free solar energy or should I mine where it's cold for the extra refrigeration?

Who said I am American?

Legally? Going by whose laws? The legitimate owners of all that wealth are the indigenous inhabitants of the territory it was extracted from by invaders. According to indigenous law, it is definitively NOT legally owned by Spain.

Me too. It would be cleaner, unpolluted, less bloody, and the native cultures would probably be blossoming and making interesting stuff by combining their knowledge with outside influences. Too bad most of them were exterminated and dispossessed (the galleon being just one instance of that dispossession), and too bad they continue to be institutionally and structurally marginalised, decimated, and dispossessed.

Empire which was revoked due to being an illegitimate and genocidal regime. Your argument suggests they should be allowed to re-steal now what they would have stolen back then.

There's tons of better sources, but this can give you an idea:

"NSA 'engaged in industrial espionage' - Snowden"

http://www.bbc.com/news/25907502

Looking forward to see who sanctions who.

Everyone should remember that the Washington Post is owned by Jeff Bezos while reading this article. Even the title is propagandistic in style "...can fly safely over U.S. skies"

I wholeheartedly agree with you.

The tone is admittedly aggressive, but his feet are way more in the ground than those of the authors of the article. What those guys are doing is essentially illegal.

The righteous West is -has always been- corrupt and unworthy of trust.

Indonesia

How is that distinction relevant? I want my data not to be with NSA as much as I want it not to be with hackers or marketers. In some ways, even moreso.

That's just being consistent with the reality of the Bitcoin market. BTC-e, whatever its structure, is one of the main Bitcoin exchanges, and as such it is necessary that it is represented in the index, else the index would present a distorted picture of the real market.

This is clearly not the place to ask this question about mining. This is a thread about a software development on a whole different side of Bitcoin. If you are genuinely curious about the theme of your question, and not just interested in derailing threads, you are very welcome to educate yourself at bitcointalk, the main Bitcoin forum. There have been thousands -if not millions- of man hours in thinking, development, research and debate about the topics you enquire about. Head there and find the answers, and if still in doubt don't be afraid to ask (on an appropriate thread).

Every single Bitcoin news thread here at Hacker News is hijacked by some for of another of negativity. Every single one, top comment is always negative. The day Paypal announced its first approaches to Bitcoin, the top comment was about how someone was resented with Bitpay for some unrelated reason.

Although especially noticeable with Bitcoin, it is in general a prominent flaw of HN, the top comment is always something negative. Maybe its because users here feel thay are smarter by trashing stuff and dont want to be caught liking the wrong stuff, so they upvote whatever negative comment is gaining momentum.

Parent in this case, by the way, is wrong. Blockchain.info is a remarkably well designed and implemented site, if not fully consistent with Bitcoin's spirit, pretty close to it.

What really blows my mind is that Australia is still highly regarded as a low-corruption country. Same goes for the UK, after they were caught fixing the Libor rates, essentially fucking over the whole planet.

They are more familiar with the current system, but after you have done it for the first time, you realise that electrum is actually way easier than banks. People just think its harder, but it is not really.

I have owned for a long time. This is not a good time to spend, that is all. The price seems to be artificially depressed right now, especially considering all the big companies starting to accept it. In a few months I will use them way more.

So, you start by assuming the answer to your own question:

"This means either merchants aren't seeing too many bitcoin sales OR a lot of these sales are happening offchain through coinbase/bitpay." (...) "in the latter scenario..."

And then you say something that makes little sense... what giant fee are you talking about?? Merchants are actually offering DISCOUNTS for payments via Bitcoin.

It is way easier to "be your own bank", using free software like electrum or the reference Bitcoin client, than trying to "be you own email" by setting up your own email service and whatnot.

Coinbase or Bitpay are optional facilitators, for people who want to buy or accept bitcins. That is not centralisation, that is just providing a service. Lots of people use Coinbase to buy their coins and then withdraw them to their offline-decentralised cold wallts created in electrum.

The design of Bitcoin is such that no one, not even the "average consumer" is ever unable to operate directly in the decentralised backend. All that is required is some open source free-free software, of which there are already several versions.

About your second point. I was one of the people who had coins at Gox. Hundreds of them. I still think the parent is right and you are wrong.

These companies offer a service that facilitates adoption, but Bitcoin itself does not require the use of any of them. Dell is free to implement their own solution and GUI for their customers, and maybe eventually they will.

As for KYC procedures, YES YOU DID provide a lot of information to Paypal. To open the bank account that you need to use Paypal in the first place, you were required to provide lots of personal info and ID, and sign lots of forms.

On the other hand, to create a Bitcoin wallet you could just throw some dice (or download electrum, among other options), and no one can even ask you any questions. Send coins to that wallet, and you can buy at Dell or wherever you like, with ton more privacy than with Paypal.

The fallacy you just made is basically that you represented the KYC requirements to BUY coins from SOME companies as if it were a property of the whole Bitcoin system. You can absolutely use Coinbase-Dell to SPEND your Bitcoins, and it will have the same privacy as if it were a P2P transaction, no ID required. Source: I have bought stuff from vendors who accept bitcoins via Coinbase.

Because it smells like a manipulative post. The goal (it seems) is not to discuss the topic, but to deformm the opinion of the readers and the general mood of the thread.

If you want an answer, it is easy: companies like coinbase or bitpay know very well what they are doing, and participate in the market in ways that minimise the exposure risk. OP does not deserve to be top post in a site that is supposed to have quality debate like HN.

Have patiencce. Bitcoin is a very new technology and mass adoption will definitively take time, but precisely because of that you will see significant rewards by being an early adopter.

[citation required]