Posts by Jonathan 29

Zapp could be great

Zapp is owned and run by Vocalink which manages Faster Payments and all your wages and bank transactions. Zapp just makes it possible to pay in real time a shop directly from your bank just as if you had setup a payment online. That means no fees for you and no fees for the merchant. Apple Pay obviously has lots of fees that have to be paid and lots of potential chargeback issues.

The only downside to Zapp as I can see is that are relying on banks to roll it out using ther own apps which may be highly inconsistent and confusing for consumers.

market value

For hundreds of years musicians have survived by touring the country and playing for tips. If they were lucky and talented they could get patronage from a wealthy supporter of the arts. All that is happening is that we are returning to this tried and tested model.

The generation that screwed this system up was once again the baby boomers who funded the creation of giant music companies and fuelled the egos of self entitled singers and musicians who believe that because they can write 2 catchy songs per album and sing in tune should be excessively compensated for life. Fuck em.

TransferWise

He invests in lots of businesses that provide alternatives to traditional bank services such as TransferWise. Given he owns a bank as well I guess you would call that effective hedging or indecisive gambling.

Sticking with 7

I have had a quick look over Windows 10, but I can't see any compelling reason to upgrade. Maybe if it was free, but otherwise I probably won't bother. I keep looking at Chromebooks and think it might be time to take them seriously.

Incredulous

I doubt there is another country in the world where removing a person's rights to life, liberty and security would be a vote winner.

Investing in bitcoin

If you put your money into bitcoin or other non income-producing assets that are dependent on what someone else values them in the future, you are in speculation, not investing

Picture the world’s entire gold supply melted together into a cube 68 feet (21 meters) on each side valued at $8 trillion. For the same amount, an investor could purchase all the farmland in the US, 11 replicas of Apple Inc or 20 Googles, and still have about $1 trillion of walking around money.

A century later, the farmland will be producing valuable crops no matter the currency, and dividends from the companies would probably add up to trillions of dollars. The 170,000 metric tons of gold will be unchanged in size and still incapable of producing anything. You can fondle the cube, but it will not respond.

Apologies to Warren Buffett

Password harvesting

There must be hundreds of websites that are setup purely for the means of attracting users and harvesting passwords. It is such an obvious scam. A completely different password for each site is a minimum in my book.

Swiper no swiping

I happened to be in line behind a bunch of American tourists the other day trying to pay by credit card. The shop only had an EMV (chip and pin) reader, so the poor girl had to go to the back to get an old card imprinter and be taught how to use it.

I dare say that by the time American banks have rolled out their new fangled dangled cards, the US will be the market leaders in contactless biometric secured mobile wallets, just as they were behind in mobile phone technology, but eventually bought and destroyed Europe's best known phone manufacturer.

Cheaper alternative

Also using the GoPro3 is the possibly better and cheaper hexo.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sqdr/hexo-your-autonomous-aerial-camera

unconvincing

I believe a singular ASIC operation will most likely come to dominate this proposed system. Individuals and smaller enterprises can currently make some profits providing they are members of the big successful pools. As the article states, time is everything with depreciating hardware and smaller pools make less money. This is one of the reasons GHash has grown so big and why miners are reluctant to leave. Take away the pools and there won't be many people left who can profit.

If ASIC manufacturers can't sell hardware to pools or individuals they will either stop making the stuff or focus on becoming a manufacturer/miner. The most successful companies will come together through mergers to take a greater share of profits until we are left with 1 or maybe 2 organisations responsible for the security of Bitcoin.

Reimbursements

Getting the data from the backup will not magically restore the coins, but it will help identify which users lost money and how much. This will be important if the operator or the community chooses to reimburse those who lost out as they did after another online dogecoin wallet site was hacked at Christmas time.

In the future we will probably move towards mandatory multi-signature transactions. That means that an attacker will have to compromise several servers and offline key storage areas to move coins. Please remember that all crypto currency is an experiment in progress. Bitcoin and dogecoin are in beta at the very least and serious money should not be invested unless you can afford to lose it.

Most sites do store the bulk of their coins in offline storage. We will have to wait to see why this wasn't the case with dogevault if the coins have indeed been stolen.

Sinking boat

i understand all the schadenfreude surrounding MtGox and the feelings of superiority that even bitcoiners feel because they were too sensible to use it, but lets be clear - all the crypto exchanges are operating on very shaky ground.

There isn't a country in the world that has welcomed bitcoin and several look like being 2 steps away from outright bans. The US is using the same tactic it used against the poker sites and accusing everyone within reach of money laundering and scaring people into submission.

It is unsafe to leave large amounts online anywhere currently and pretty risky leaving it on a PC that is connected to the Internet. So other than not being able to use it safely, bitcoin is great.

'criminals don't trust Bitcoin'

Of all the damning things I have heard about Bitcoin this has to be one of the worst. It was a good run, but I think it is time to pack up and go home now.

complexity

The data is well worth a quick skim through. Quite impressive how many people think disney and tigger are acceptable passwords. Stop it.