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“What the hell is a bitcoin?”

Started by Kate the Bionic Uterus, December 20, 2013, 11:35:32 PM

Quote from: Camazotz Automat on July 10, 2014, 05:07:05 AM
off topic...
This.

Shatner's ego in the flesh/stone. Eerily foreshadowing GWAR's front man, recently deceased:


The giant android you see in back ground of the b_dubb/Kirk picture is Ted Cassidy, better known as "Lurch" in the Addams family.  In the beginning, he worked as a disc jockey in my neck of the woods, WFAA-AM Dallas. And he was one of the first newsmen of WFAA-TV to interview W.E. Newman, Jr. and Gayle Newman on the day of the Kennedy assassination.

On Star Trek he voiced both the Gorn commander as well as the aggressive voice of Baylok. Easily two of my favorite fun episodes.

He also played Bigfoot on the Six Million Dollar Man. (the later Bigfoot episodes... the first two-parter being played by Andre the Giant.)

Just scanning the wik, I was stunned by all the things to which he was connected.

Even his cremated remains leave on a high note (shades of Crowley and Castaneda) and play a mysterious role...  "buried in the backyard of his Woodland Hills home. The exact location of his remains is unknown."

One hell of an interesting person whose acting career began in Dallas, with AM radio being a seed to his great success.

Six Foot.

Nine Inches.

He died the same year Phantasm came out. 

One Tall Man leaves, another enters...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Cassidy



Here's a coincidence to hurt your head: I'm thinking of Cassidy and wondering, in the back of my mind, if he somehow influenced Coscarelli's Phantasm in some subtle way.

So I googled "Don Coscarelli" and "Ted Cassidy" and found gold.

Flash forward to 2005 when Cosacrelli directed a Masters of Horror episode called Incident On and Off a Mountain Road.

In that flick, the serial killer, "Moonface" is played by John DeSantis. (Tall Man Agnust Scrimm also appears in this MOH episode.)

John DeSantis played LURCH in The New Addams Family series 1998-1999.

How TALL is John DeSantis?

YES.

Six Foot.

Nine Inches.

BAM!

Proof Coscarelli's Tall Man was influenced by Cassidy?  Hardly.

Just fucking weird, man.

I've read a little about him, and he was definitely a fascinating person.  I really enjoy the scenes where he plays harpsichord in the Addams Family, with his expression of of utter rapture and the graceful hand flourishes.  Speaking of which, he also lent his hand to the portrayal of Thing in most of the scenes in which it appeared.  And he played Harvey Logan, the guy who challenges Paul Newman to the knife fight in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid."

Quote from: Robert Ghostwolf's Ghost on July 10, 2014, 09:37:53 AM
I've read a little about him, and he was definitely a fascinating person.  I really enjoy the scenes where he plays harpsichord in the Addams Family, with his expression of of utter rapture and the graceful hand flourishes.  Speaking of which, he also lent his hand to the portrayal of Thing in most of the scenes in which it appeared.  And he played Harvey Logan, the guy who challenges Paul Newman to the knife fight in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid."

I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall back then, when, while attending the shoot of an episode of The Addams Family, I might hear:

"Okay, Ted ... it's time to do your Thing."

Years later, I heard Mick Jagger playing the harpsichord on "Angel In My Heart," on his Wandering Spirit solo album. The first thing I thought of was Lurch.

(and then, I admit it, Trelane from Star Trek came to mind.)

Holy God. I just noticed my mis-key of "Angus" above. It IS time for vacation.

Mick Jagger - Angel in My Heart

Quote from: Camazotz Automat on July 10, 2014, 09:59:28 AM

(and then, I admit it, Trelane from Star Trek came to mind.)



Yes, the good Squire, played by William Campbell, who also appeared as the Klingon Captain Koloth in "The Trouble With Tribbles."  Another fun fact:  his ex-wife, Judith Campbell Exner, was the mistress of Mafia kingpin Sam Giancana and also had a fling with JFK.  Some assassination theorists believe that was one of the reasons JFK was killed.

Quote from: Robert Ghostwolf's Ghost on July 10, 2014, 10:46:43 AM
Yes, the good Squire, played by William Campbell, who also appeared as the Klingon Captain Koloth in "The Trouble With Tribbles."  Another fun fact:  his ex-wife, Judith Campbell Exner, was the mistress of Mafia kingpin Sam Giancana and also had a fling with JFK.  Some assassination theorists believe that was one of the reasons JFK was killed.

All roads lead to JFK, be it Ted Cassidy in Dallas that day or "Presidential Nibbles with Tribbles."

I swear to God, some of this is like lazy coding in the Matrix.

I picked the wrong youtube without previewing. The album version is very very good, harpsichord flavor-wise and Mick played the instrument for the recording. I think the harpsichord portion in the file above is played live on a guitar by the bass player.


Quote from: wotr1 on July 09, 2014, 11:26:13 PM
No, no... I must have mistyped that.  What I meant was that the general layman believes would be the most important piece of equipment in your field only uses twice as much energy as a completely useless process called "bitcoin mining."  What produces only heat is a bitcoin miner.  Feed 1000 megawatt hours into it each day and come away with a few "newly minted" bitcoins.

I was simply meaning that you may find it particularly depressing to think that people spend 50% of the energy necessary to run such an amazing piece of technology that really does teach us something to product bitcoins (and heat...)  As a matter of fact, add in all of the other cryptocurrencies and the air conditioner (many large "farms" are hosted in data centers) and I bet the energy used to mine for virtual coins is more than that used to power the collider.  Hell, I find that thought depressing (and I run a miner in the corner...)

Can you imagine if people actually spent some of the time, effort, money an energy that is wasted on bitcoin to produce something useful.  (As mentioned, there is talkcoin and curecoin that seem to suggest that at least there are a few people asking if the hundreds of PH could be used to produce something useful...)

I really did not mean to suggest that the Hadron collider only produced heat- and I only brought the collider up because the comparison between it and bitcoin was used as example of the massive waste of energy  and was quoted in Forbes and Bloomberg awhile back.  I found it an interesting comparison between energy used for a purpose and energy wasted.  There was also a comparison to how many homes it would power... but that is useless as many people waste huge amounts of energy and it does not drive home the point nearly as well.  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-12/virtual-bitcoin-mining-is-a-real-world-environmental-disaster.html

***Edit: is the Hadron collider really the most important thing in your field of work... or are there things that are not as discussed or hyped in the media that are more important?***

Those are some terrifying statistics.
The LHC is pretty much the cutting edge right now. My specific field is astronomy related so the Hubble, Chandra and other space-based observatories are most important to me personally.

Sorry, I must have missed what Curecoin and Talkcoin are?
And how many coins have you mined up personally?

WOTR

Quote from: Agent : Orange on July 10, 2014, 05:52:42 PM
Those are some terrifying statistics.
The LHC is pretty much the cutting edge right now. My specific field is astronomy related so the Hubble, Chandra and other space-based observatories are most important to me personally.

Sorry, I must have missed what Curecoin and Talkcoin are?
And how many coins have you mined up personally?

I am going to have to listen to the podcast tonight to hear the interview...

I have only briefly looked at talkcoin.  It seems that they have managed to work "chat" into the blockchain.  Basically, your computer mines the coins and you can then spend them "chatting" (spent coins get destroyed.)  I do not know if they had managed it- but they were looking at putting anonymity in and making chat very secure when sending it with the blockchain.  I know it caught on in China- so some good may come out of it.  On the other hand, much like TOR, it is a double edge sword.  Should it catch on in the middle east...

I had not looked into curecoin too closely.  I know that it is associated with the "folding @ home" project run by Stanford.  They are trying to research Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.  I do not believe that curecoin is actually associated with the university or the project directly- but somebody wrote code so that you mined and helped at the same time... I am really going to have to look closer at that one now.  There have been hundreds of coins released lately and while I caught a "blip" from that one, I never did look very closely at it.

As for myself- I had mined a bitcoin or two, dozens of litecoins, a few darkcoins...  I am far from fanatical about it- there is no A/C and I mine for amusement rather than profit.  I really only have two older graphics cards (6970's if memory serves) running on a dedicated, old machine.  I had mined on the computer that I used until I upgraded and turned the old into a dedicated miner.  I believe the Mobo has 4 slots- but it would require upgradding the PSU and producing more heat and wasting more electricity for no reason.  When bitcoin started most miners were doing it as an exercise in economic theory- it was still quite abstract.  No federal reserve, no way to inflate it, no chargebacks, no central bank, no borrowing, no counterfeiting.  It was worth pennies.  Now there are industrial farms and it is worth hundreds

... I am still just somebody who likes the idea and the theory.  No ASIC miners, no spending money looking for a profit (outside of a little electricity.  However, the smile that it affords me every time I look at the miner is worth it to me.)

Quote from: wotr1 on July 10, 2014, 10:40:06 PM
However, the smile that it affords me every time I look at the miner is worth it to me.

I get a kick out of sometimes allowing a randomizer to run when I am not at the computer. It's nothing to do with mining, but is some abandonware that Art used to talk about, called Shape Changer. 

It tracks "hits" over time and provides a detailed, chronological report for experiments similar to the famous "Princeton Eggs."

I don't know why I like it so much, but I do.

Here's a screen shot after having chosen a Tiger and the Taj Mahal with the Tiger being intended:

[attach=1]

This is the software Ed Dames incorrectly remote viewed. Ed claimed that any "hits" were not due to any quantum field disturbance or mysterious factors or even to chance, but were due to the software detecting the magnetic field generated by your heartbeat!  And so if you were near the com, the hits would increase and provide the illusion of "mind over matter." If you walked away from the com, the hits decreased.

Art liked to talk about using it for proximity experiments and allowing it to run when he was out of the room versus watching it up close, and how he was amazed at how many hits he got when concentrating on it up close.

So Dames focused on discrediting that situation. He completely ignored the option, mentioned in the instructions, about using the software while the user is in another location entirely throughout the experiment to search for any time stamped correlations to events in a person's day.

When Dames revealed his "solution", I HAD to hunt down a copy to see if his explanation for such a thing were even ~remotely possible~ with the code used in the program. Never mind the problem of not having some kind of magnetometer jacked into the program.

Not even close.

IDIOT.

Dames dismissed the software, even though it's obviously a "scientifically neutral" randomizer.

Again, WHAT AN IDIOT.


And this is the live superposition of the images as pixels are randomized to see if either image becomes significantly dominant in the time alloted:

Too bad that technology wasn't around in the seventies, because that would have been an immensely popular dorm room poster.  It would also make a hell of a challenging jigsaw puzzle.  Hope you're just getting started, because the possibilities for making cool stuff with that are endless.

Quote from: Camazotz Automat on July 10, 2014, 11:56:40 PM
I get a kick out of sometimes allowing a randomizer to run when I am not at the computer. It's nothing to do with mining, but is some abandonware that Art used to talk about, called Shape Changer. 

It tracks "hits" over time and provides a detailed, chronological report for experiments similar to the famous "Princeton Eggs."

I don't know why I like it so much, but I do.

I am very interested in this. Do you know how I can get it/learn more about it?

Quote from: Mind Flayer Monk on July 11, 2014, 12:43:06 AM
I am very interested in this. Do you know how I can get it/learn more about it?

MFM,

I imagine any number of others here could point you to an online location to download it. It is old abandonware and you might have to run it on a simulator (unless like myself, you have multiple old computers littering the house)

I went about it old school.  I wanted a CD copy.  I want to say Art interviewed Dr.  Pearsall, co creator of ShapeChanger, and maybe Noory did, too, but I honestly don't know.  But I am fairly certain Pearsall died AFTER Noory took over, because I remember a somewhat belated announcement on the C2C website.

Once I discovered that the ShapeChanger CD came with one of Pearsall's books as a free bonus, it all easily fell into place. I found an extremely cheap used copy of the book, titled "Wishing Well : Making Your Every Wish Come True" by Paul Pearsall, Ph.D. and I verified from the seller that it still had the CD within the book.

Philosophically, I have no problem with illegal downloading of abandonware, but in this case, you might also want to read/skim the book, since Pearsall co-created the ShapeChanger software. (There is a significant amount of text within the program, too, but mainly just instructional in nature.) The book reads somewhat like a low level magic(k)/self affirmation science text manual. Personally, I enjoyed it, but it might be a little too airy for some. I mean, it's not like reading a mind-bending Kenneth Grant maze of a book. hahaha

I checked on Abebooks and found many copies for less that $4. SHIPPING INCLUDED.

You would want to check with the respective dealer to verify the CD is present. I saw at least one dealer go out of their way to mention the CD in their description but I would imagine many of them are unaware it's even in there.  I would lean toward the first edition hardcover to narrow down the search that most likely includes the CD, though it very well might have been available with the paperback edition:

http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=paul+pearsall&bi=h&tn=Wishing+Well

If you go the download route, the version you will be looking for is SHAPECHANGER 2.2 by Mindsong 1999.

Hope this helps.

C

Quote from: Robert Ghostwolf's Ghost on July 11, 2014, 12:30:56 AM
Too bad that technology wasn't around in the seventies, because that would have been an immensely popular dorm room poster.  It would also make a hell of a challenging jigsaw puzzle.  Hope you're just getting started, because the possibilities for making cool stuff with that are endless.

The selection is limited to the 48 images in the program, but that's enough for a large variety of results. Eight of those are straight out block colors, no image.

But I wanted to see if it would allow me to modify. I substituted some of the native files with my own images and it would not recognize my images. I am assuming this is because any two images have to have exact specs to qualify as farm-ready random input and that what I switched in was incompatible to the math used.  This only lends credence to it being a legitimate randomizer, and not just some "digital blending" of any two images.  It's really checking each pixel for the images used and documenting a true comparison.

The program can also be used as a glorified coin flip, as it also allows two people to log on and pick targets for a specified round and it keeps separate records to compare as to who scored the highest during a defined run/race.

If it accepted custom images, I think the famous Farrah Fawcett poster juxtaposed to Boris Karloff as The Monster would be an iconic method to detect a quantum disturbance.

"Feed my.... Frankenstein........." - Alice Cooper

Quote from: Camazotz Automat on July 11, 2014, 03:00:38 AM
The selection is limited to the 48 images in the program, but that's enough for a large variety of results. Eight of those are straight out block colors, no image.

But I wanted to see if it would allow me to modify. I substituted some of the native files with my own images and it would not recognize my images. I am assuming this is because any two images have to have exact specs to qualify as farm-ready random input and that what I switched in was incompatible to the math used.  This only lends credence to it being a legitimate randomizer, and not just some "digital blending" of any two images.  It's really checking each pixel for the images used and documenting a true comparison.

The program can also be used as a glorified coin flip, as it also allows two people to log on and pick targets for a specified round and it keeps separate records to compare as to who scored the highest during a defined run/race.

If it accepted custom images, I think the famous Farrah Fawcett poster juxtaposed to Boris Karloff as The Monster would be an iconic method to detect a quantum disturbance.

"Feed my.... Frankenstein........." - Alice Cooper

Too bad you couldn't modify it.  That would have provided countless hours of cheap amusement.

I bet a "Fawrloff" combination would yield some amazing and entertaining results.  The mind boggles.

Cam, I know what Fawrloff looks like.  It was right there in front of us the whole time.



[attachimg=1]

Quote from: Robert Ghostwolf's Ghost on July 11, 2014, 06:08:43 PM
Cam, I know what Fawrloff looks like.  It was right there in front of us the whole time.

R E P O R T E D

(as quantum disturbance)

Quote from: Robert Ghostwolf's Ghost on July 11, 2014, 06:08:43 PM
Cam, I know what Fawrloff looks like.  It was right there in front of us the whole time.
[attachimg=1]

WOTR

Quote from: Camazotz Automat on July 10, 2014, 11:56:40 PM
I get a kick out of sometimes allowing a randomizer to run when I am not at the computer. It's nothing to do with mining, but is some abandonware that Art used to talk about, called Shape Changer. 

It tracks "hits" over time and provides a detailed, chronological report for experiments similar to the famous "Princeton Eggs."
I honestly love this site.  Nowhere else will I ever run across somebody running this software.

I had never heard of abandonware until a few weeks ago when I read a journalists attempt to use DOS for a day on his computer with netscape? and he talked about abandonware.  It brought me back to a strange time before icons and when even microsoft used DOS as a base...

Quote from: wotr1 on July 15, 2014, 04:20:53 AM
I honestly love this site.  Nowhere else will I ever run across somebody running this software.

I had never heard of abandonware until a few weeks ago when I read a journalists attempt to use DOS for a day on his computer with netscape? and he talked about abandonware.  It brought me back to a strange time before icons and when even microsoft used DOS as a base...

haha
I'm guessing it was this one http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/07/dos-boot-ars-spends-a-day-working-in-freedos/


 ;) As I have predicted; U.S. federal trade commission watchdogs approve trading Bitcoin
http://online.wsj.com/articles/teraexchange-launches-bitcoin-derivatives-exchange-1410543989

This news was just posted online only 30 minutes ago. I can hear the foreheads dropping onto the desks as I type this with groans of, "I should of listed to that bitch."  :-X

Well you should of. Instead you chose to the predictable path of negativity and you got exactly what you deserved... nothing. While 99.9% of the membership of Bellgab dismissed cryptocurrencies and one member even declaring that this was the year it would jump the shark (still laughing at that one), what you missed out on was the crime of the decade. While everyone thought that all the problems with exchanges over seas and with the fbi silk road busts that the value of bitcoin would keep falling to zero, you missed out on the incredible buying opportunity that revealed itself right in front of your eyes.

As I yelled and screamed for everyone to wake the fuck up you were just too dumb to listen and recognize the greatest financial opportunity since the dot com craze of the 90's. So who was listening? Post after post I link articles of investors and financial groups investing billions of dollars into the framework and structure but the regular old man's brigade kept drinking and dribbling their regular bullshit. There was only ONE man who stepped up and said maybe she knows what she is talking about.

Don't worry about it guys. There will be another outstanding and even more financially fluid opportunity coming around in about 30 years. So you'll all have the chance to repeat your brilliance and do the exact same thing. At that time I'll be retiring off of the profits from the investments I have made into the capital management companies (some of which I listed in this thread) that have been major players.

So how many of you even own any bit coins?  Oh well then. Keep drinking and smoking weed. The aliens will be landing soon  :P

onan

I told ya so!

would have been more efficient.

Gd5150

Quote from: Kate the Bionic Uterus on September 12, 2014, 01:07:20 PM
;) As I have predicted; U.S. federal trade commission watchdogs approve trading Bitcoin
http://online.wsj.com/articles/teraexchange-launches-bitcoin-derivatives-exchange-1410543989

This news was just posted online only 30 minutes ago. I can hear the foreheads dropping onto the desks as I type this with groans of, "I should of listed to that bitch."  :-X

Well you should of. Instead you chose to the predictable path of negativity and you got exactly what you deserved... nothing. While 99.9% of the membership of Bellgab dismissed cryptocurrencies and one member even declaring that this was the year it would jump the shark (still laughing at that one), what you missed out on was the crime of the decade. While everyone thought that all the problems with exchanges over seas and with the fbi silk road busts that the value of bitcoin would keep falling to zero, you missed out on the incredible buying opportunity that revealed itself right in front of your eyes.

As I yelled and screamed for everyone to wake the fuck up you were just too dumb to listen and recognize the greatest financial opportunity since the dot com craze of the 90's. So who was listening? Post after post I link articles of investors and financial groups investing billions of dollars into the framework and structure but the regular old man's brigade kept drinking and dribbling their regular bullshit. There was only ONE man who stepped up and said maybe she knows what she is talking about.

Don't worry about it guys. There will be another outstanding and even more financially fluid opportunity coming around in about 30 years. So you'll all have the chance to repeat your brilliance and do the exact same thing. At that time I'll be retiring off of the profits from the investments I have made into the capital management companies (some of which I listed in this thread) that have been major players.

So how many of you even own any bit coins?  Oh well then. Keep drinking and smoking weed. The aliens will be landing soon  :P

You can have your bitcoin and put it on the mantle next to your shares of AOL and Palm and 3com. Maybe you should invest in Herbalife too, its supposed to be a solid pyramid investment as well.

Mmm.. still only at $470 -- about as low as it's been since May.  Unfortunately I could only afford half a bitcoin back in January or February when it was still over valued, but I have confidence they will someday be the dominant internet currency and worth up to $100 000 each.  That's based on an internet economy of two trillion dollars.  Most will think my confidence is misplaced, but I was actually trying to conceive of an internet currency before I learned of bitcoin so I see the beauty in it.  Unfortunately I waited a year to act.

Bitcoin's not perfect and may fail in favour of another one, but it's gained so much traction I'm not willing to bet on the other cryptocurrencies like litecoin.

zeebo

I honestly thought about buying a bitcoin or two, just on a lark.  But I really couldn't figure out how to do it.  One guy wanted you to send him something weird like a deposit slip from your bank filled out by hand as part of some five step process.  I gave up and decided to stockpile Carnivora & Dinovite instead.

WOTR

Quote from: Kate the Bionic Uterus on September 12, 2014, 01:07:20 PM
;) As I have predicted; U.S. federal trade commission watchdogs approve trading Bitcoin
I find it very interesting that you are happy with this turn of events.  I am one of the few who (somewhat) agrees with you that a bitcoin in its purest form is actually superior to fiat currency.

This move seems to move further away from the bitcoin ideal.  When the US government sold the coins seized from the silk road and shut down exchanges I became more concerned.

When the idea behind the cryptocurrencies is the most free wheeling open market currency available you have to be concerned once it starts falling to the governments to regulate it.  Essentially, you are celebrating regulation, taxation, commodification and government control.

You go ahead and celebrate this "victory" and I will say it spells the begining of the end of the experiment.  Already governments have declared that bitcoin is taxable.  Now it will fall under "know your customer" laws.  Transaction fees are decried and hated in the crypto community, but they readily accept that fees paid to escrow are necessary.  Now we will have a financial products company taking their cut as well.

The only thing to make the destruction of bitcoin complete is a fractional banking system.  I have confidence that the best and brightest on Wall Street will have some way to bring that in within a few years (will it be deposit BTC and lend in USD?)  Who knows.

For now I will restate my displeasure at the very event that you celebrate.  Oddly, it is not because I believe it will drive the value down (it may well help legitimize BTC and drive the value up.)  However, I am in it for the principal and find this is a major erosion or the values behind crypto.

The easiest (and only) way the government was ever going to neutralize the threat that a freely traded "currency" that was out of their control posed was to regulate it until it was impotent.  Argue that this is an "opt in" model and that only a small number of investors have taken advantage if you choose- but in essence this paves the way for compete control over a system that was supposed to be outside of the governments control.  It opens the door to Goldman Sachs to game what was supposed to be ungamable and manipulate what was supposed to be out of their control.

Good bye Bitcoin...

Quote from: zeebo on September 12, 2014, 09:54:55 PM
I honestly thought about buying a bitcoin or two, just on a lark.  But I really couldn't figure out how to do it.  One guy wanted you to send him something weird like a deposit slip from your bank filled out by hand as part of some five step process.  I gave up and decided to stockpile Carnivora & Dinovite instead.

There are exchanges like BTC-E where I think you just load up money and then you can trade electronically any time you want.  Fees are so low that I see people doing this day and night and treating it like a video game.  There's a chat window (trollbox) so I often watch to get a handle on the latest news and trends.  I think some of them do pretty well. 

I went your route and used a site called Local Bitcoins.  I had to deposit money in someone's private bank account at a huge mark up from the trading price, and within two hours send him a photo of the bank receipt with the Local Bitcoins transaction number written on it.  It was a bit dodgy especially since my tablet camera stopped working.  I had to drive about half an hour to find a branch for his bank as well.  Definitely a hassle and despite mediation from Local Bitcoins with the guy receiving positive reviews, not an experience I'd want to repeat very often.  Oh, also Local Bitcoins held the cryptocurrency in reserve until I completed the transaction.

I kind of feel like my stories are sounding like Whitecrow's experiences with Kenny as I write and read this.

WOTR

Quote from: zeebo on September 12, 2014, 09:54:55 PM
I honestly thought about buying a bitcoin or two, just on a lark.  But I really couldn't figure out how to do it.  One guy wanted you to send him something weird like a deposit slip from your bank filled out by hand as part of some five step process.  I gave up and decided to stockpile Carnivora & Dinovite instead.
If you actually want bitcoins often it is easiest to "buy in person".  You hand the person the cash, provide them with your wallet address, wait the required period of time for the funds to "clear".  In essence wait for several confirmations that are required and will take awhile (do it over coffee.)  After that is done you pick up your mobile device, make sure it is in your wallet and leave.  Up here people sell them on kijiji (and there are even ATM's where you can buy them with a debit card as well as a couple of "stores" where you can buy them direct.)  Search Craigslist.

With that said, don't hold me responsible if you buy 10 bitcoins in a dark alley for cash... I will not attend the funeral.  Also, it is volatile and like anything, I would not "invest" more than you want to loose.  Finally, if it is an investment where you are holding it you will want to search for "cold storage".  It moves your Bitcoin offline so that a hacker cannot thank you for your contribution to their lifestyle...  In short, it is still a risky proposition.

area51drone

Thanks but no thanks.  I'm putting my money into something real, a new house.   Sure, there might be some people using bitcoins and making money off of it.  But in the end, like any currency, it will come crashing down.   Good luck Bionic.


Quote from: onan on September 12, 2014, 02:02:06 PM
I told ya so!
would have been more efficient.

But not nearly as fun  ;D


Quote from: Georgie For President 2216 on September 12, 2014, 04:30:06 PM
Mmm.. still only at $470 -- about as low as it's been since May.  Unfortunately I could only afford half a bitcoin back in January or February when it was still over valued, but I have confidence they will someday be the dominant internet currency and worth up to $100 000 each.  That's based on an internet economy of two trillion dollars.  Most will think my confidence is misplaced, but I was actually trying to conceive of an internet currency before I learned of bitcoin so I see the beauty in it.  Unfortunately I waited a year to act.
Bitcoin's not perfect and may fail in favour of another one, but it's gained so much traction I'm not willing to bet on the other cryptocurrencies like litecoin.

Not many people can afford to buy Bitcoins. Bitcoin is divisible to up to 8 decimals so really anyone can afford them HOWEVER what my brother and I did was mostly invest in the venture capital firms who are invested in creating the foundation and framework of bringing it to market.  8)


Quote from: area51drone on September 14, 2014, 05:17:44 AM
Thanks but no thanks.  I'm putting my money into something real, a new house.   Sure, there might be some people using bitcoins and making money off of it.  But in the end, like any currency, it will come crashing down.   Good luck Bionic.

What, you mean like the housing market?  ::)

area51drone

Quote from: Kate the Bionic Uterus on September 14, 2014, 08:56:39 AM
What, you mean like the housing market?  ::)

At least when it crashes, you still have a house.  And since I'm building my own, I don't have to pay bloated contractor fees.

zeebo

Quote from: Kate the Bionic Uterus on September 14, 2014, 08:56:39 AM
...Not many people can afford to buy Bitcoins. Bitcoin is divisible to up to 8 decimals so really anyone can afford them ...

Hey Kate any idea why they put such a low cap on bitcoin supply?  I think the total it can get to is like 21 million.  Why didn't they dilute them so you'd get something closer to dollar supply which I think is like a trillion or so?  The fractional stuff might put some folks off I'm thinking.

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