rkbabang

For one he took drug dealing off the streets and made it safe and reliable. There was a rating system where people could build trust in their "brand". For the first time you actually had a safe and easy way to purchase products for which the government doesn't approve and could be reasonably sure about the quality of what you'd receive. How many lives did this save? Probably thousands. The government (or anyone else) does not have any right to push products it doesn't like underground without the protections of the above-ground marketplace (trust/brand/product liability/etc). He did a heroic thing despite knowing what would happen to him if he were ever caught, which unfortunately he was. It is dangerous to be right when your government is wrong. I'd never have to guts to do what he did. Nor would most people, which makes him a hero.

He is. He is aa freedom fighter and martyr on par with Mandela. Future generations will curse the USA for their cruwelty. And about the murder for hires: those were CIA agents pretending to blackmail him for huge amounts via one username and offering to take out the blackmailers via another. It's quite obvious why they dropped this from the charges. It was done not to charge him, but for propaganda/character assassination purposes. It worked.

Extremely sad. Tragic. The man is a hero and hopefully will someday be widely recognized as such.

Disagree with this idea. The profit bitcoin generates is earned by miners. Bitcoin holders don't have any share of that profit. I continue to think Bitcoin should be valued based on comparing overall system costs per transaction with alternatives including Western Union, MoneyGram, Paypal, credit cards, bank transfers, etc. That will give you a floor price, anything on top of that is speculative. I disagree with both valuation methods. You can't value something by how much it costs, otherwise a bridge to nowhere would have value and a diamond you found in the sand at the beach wouldn't. We know the supply of bitcoin has an absolute limit, so its value will vary entirely with its demand. If a billion people use it as a medium of trade and depend on it for exchange, then its value will be enormous. If not, then it doesn't matter how much it costs per transaction, its value will be 0.

I agree $200k isn't much. But $27M is. And Helion received over $3M. I try to keep up with this, but it is hard to know what to believe. The PR out of all these companies make it sound like they are close, but who knows? They've been 'close' for two decades. I'll believe when I see it. :-) Well they are even closer now. :)

I agree $200k isn't much. But $27M is. And Helion received over $3M. I try to keep up with this, but it is hard to know what to believe. The PR out of all these companies make it sound like they are close, but who knows?

I've heard the story before, but I didn't realize it had become a holiday. Happy Bitcoin Pizza Day

It looks like some of the Fusion companies have been finding some funding lately. The Malaysian government invested ($27M) in General Fusion, the largest fusion energy program in Canada. Abell Foundation Invests Additional $200,000 in LPPFusion Nuclear Fusion Company Helion Energy and others have received ARPA-E funding

Sure. Generally, if someone tells me to do something, it's probably not going to happen. I don't appreciate people acting as though they have any say in how my life works. If they ask me, I may do it to be helpful, but it depends on my own priorities as well. A big part of this is standing up for yourself. At a previous job I once got in trouble over a perceived HR violation and was sent to lunch with an HR employee, who was aiming to get me to apologize. I explained my situation to him and told him that if I was asked to apologize, I'd just quit. He actually ended up agreeing with me, and I never had an HR issue again. A lot of times you just have to throw off the notion that people that people have power over you. Because no one really does, so long as you're willing to adjust your expectations in life based on any potential consequences. One thing I'll add to your excellent answer is that in the case of family. Once you are an adult, no one in your family has a claim on you. The saying "blood is thicker than water" is bullshit. Ask yourself "if this person wasn't related to me, would I choose to spend my time with him/her? Would I choose to be friends with this person?" And really think about the answer. Someone who takes advantage of a "family" relationship to get something out of you or force you to do things you do not want to do is not treating you very well, thus you should not feel any guilt about telling them to go to hell (in so many words) or just simply start saying no.

This analysis is egregious. From the paper: They include ridiculous negative externalities like: "externalities associated with the use of road fuels in vehicles, such as traffic congestion and accidents (most important)". Are electric cars not going to crash or cause congestion on the roads? Is it really right to attribute this stuff to fossil fuels? It's clear that they make every effort possible to attribute costs to fossil fuels. I didn't look into it but I'd venture to guess that the estimated 'costs' of CO2 emissions- a necessarily rough estimate- aren't conservative. Where do they account for hidden benefits? The value of driving your spouse to the emergency room is supposedly equal to the $3.00 paid for a gallon of gas. What about the incalculable number of positive externalities that result from living in a society where everyone has access to cheap, reliable energy? Stern says fossil fuel use "damages economies, particularly in poorer countries." The very reason poorer countries are particularly affected by climate is because they are not industrialized- they don't have access to the cheap reliable energy fossil fuels provide. These sorts of 'studies' do not attempt to look at the cost/benefit analysis of fossil fuels in totality. They are almost all focused solely on the negative aspects of fossil fuels. IMO, the widespread nature of this bias (and a few others) is indicative of an ideological phenomenon. I agree, these things are impossible to calculate anyway. This is why direct government subsidies should be ended, as well as any government restrictions. Level the playing field and just let the market decide what each form of energy costs.

Why the hate for Samsung? You weren't asking me, but I'll chime in. I hate Samsung because of the front loading washer and dryer we got about 1-2 years ago. The timer will say 45 minutes and 90 minutes later it is still going. About the same time we bought our daughter a Whirlpool front loading stacked washer and dryer for her condo. We actually like using her washer and dryer when we visit, probably because we hate our Samsung units. Oh, there was our 50" Samsung TV we got back when we got it for a deal at $3,500. After about 6 months it developed this intermittent problem with the picture. Every time someone would come out to look at it the picture was fine. We have bought our last Samsung products. It isn't just you, I bought a Samsung dryer and it lasted less than 2 years, the plastic tub developed a crack which got worse and worse until it would no longer spin. POS, it was cheaper than Maytag or Whirlpool, but sometimes you get what you pay for. So I ended up buying a Whirlpool to replace it. I'd never buy another Samsung appliance.

+1. I never did get around to reading 3001. I've read a lot of his books though.

I assume you don't own a car? Because if you own one you must think the value it provides outweighs the lifetime cost (including depreciation). Even if you don't own one, I'm sure you can imagine other people with different life circumstances who get enough value from their car to justify ownership. Hating specific cars or car companies is fine but hating all cars because they depreciate seems... weird. They are a necessity (if you live outside of a major city), but that doesn't mean you have to like them. When the day comes that you can summon a robotic flying car on your personal communication device (embedded in your brain) and have it arrive to pick you up in 30 seconds and quickly bring you where ever you want to go, car ownership as we know it today will seem as ludicrous as owning and taking care of horses for transportation does to us now. I hate car ownership, although I own 2, I hate airline travel although I do it when I have to. You can certainly hate something even if it is the best that is available at the current time. Car ownership is expensive and car travel is extremely dangerous, there is a lot to dislike.

LOVE: Amazon Prime, Netflix, iPad, Linux, XEmacs, Kerrygold butter, http://grasslandbeef.com/ HATE: Microsoft Windows. Anything done by, heavily protected by, or subsidized by government. Some Examples: Comcast, Taxi cab companies, the medical industry, the military industrial complex (Halliburton, Raytheon, et al.), Big-Food (Monsanto, et al.), Public schools/transportation/radio/....

Why are they so long?! ;D ;D Gio You know it is a good book when you finish a thousand page book and wish it didn't have to end so soon.

Thanks. I used to read a lot of fiction, but now I pretty much only read non-fiction. I need to free up more time to be able to do both :) I try to read both, although I used to read more fiction than I do now. I used to read every new book by Stephen King, Dean Koontz, John Grisham, Ken Follett, and many others, but there are only a few fiction authors I rush out to buy every new book now. Neal Stephenson is definitely one of those, F. Paul Wilson is another.

Anathem, and probably Seveneves after that, although I'm less than a quarter through it, it is very good so far. Then probably Reamde. I enjoyed Reamde, although it was lighter on the Science than many of his other works, it could be turned into a great action adventure movie. Next would be The Baroque Cycle, slow at times, but really good over all. Then The Diamond Age and finally Snowcrash. They are both good (especially Diamond Age), but not at the level of his later stuff. As far as his first books go, I couldn't get into Zodiac and I've never read his first novel (I forget the name and too lazy to look it up). I've read both Cryptonomicon and Anathem twice, plus listened to the audiobook versions once. All the others I've only read once.

I just started Neal Stephenson's Baroque cycle yesterday! Another one to add to the pile then. He's one of my favorite authors. The depth and scope of his books are amazing. The Baroque cycle is excellent, everything he's written since Snowcrash is excellent, but my favorites are still Cryptonomicon and Anathem. I'm almost 200 pages into Seveneves after one night, it is hard to put down.

I just started Seveneves yesterday, but this one will be next.

For quotes I love many by Robert A. Heinlein. Here's a few: "Don't handicap your children by making their lives easy." "Yield to temptation. It may not pass your way again." "Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors... and miss." "I never learned from a man who agreed with me." "Everything is theoretically impossible, until it is done." "An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life" "I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do." "One man's 'magic' is another man's engineering. 'Supernatural' is a null word." "Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea." "One man's theology is another man's belly laugh." "Being right too soon is socially unacceptable." "No statement should be believed because it is made by an authority." "Man is not a rational animal, he is a rationalizing animal." "Take sides! Always take sides! You will sometimes be wrong — but the man who refuses to take sides must always be wrong." "Nobody ever wins a lawsuit but the lawyers." "A committee is the only known form of life with a hundred bellies and no brain." "There is no such thing as luck; there is only adequate or inadequate preparation to cope with a statistical universe." "The less respect an older person deserves the more certain he is to demand it from anyone younger." "There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him." "Progress doesn't come from early risers -- progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things." "You live and learn. Or you don't live long." "The hardest part about gaining any new idea is sweeping out the false idea occupying that niche. As long as that niche is occupied, evidence and proof and logical demonstration get nowhere. But once the niche is emptied of the wrong idea that has been filling it -- once you can honestly say, "I don't know", then it becomes possible to get at the truth." "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

Another factor is getting into space costs hundreds of millions of dollars, it isn't something that can be done by hobbyists in their garage. Airplanes can be built by individuals or small teams for not a lot of money, which is why many people killed themselves when flight was a new thing. You just aren't going to see people building rockets for fun in their back yards and blasting themselves into space in the foreseeable future. It is just too hard to do and too expensive.

It's an interesting tangent: in some areas we as civilization have become so risk averse that it's a miracle we progress at all. How many people died during the voyages of exploration in the past. Now we want to protect at 99.9% even people who volunteer for risky missions... Anyway, I understand that the "value" of human life has increased a lot since the past. So we can't really go back. But it's still possibly slowing down progress. (On the third hand, space exploration might not be necessary for progress...). I wonder if we have to wait until consciousness uploads and copying is commonplace to get back into risky possibly-no-return exploratory missions. Anyway, possibly OT. I have no problem with people doing risky things as long as they understand the risks. The first mission to Mars will probably be a one way trip and may not end well, but there is no shortage of people willing to do it.

Hopefully you're buckled in for that ride! Its a testament to the whole "space" community that they spend millions if not billions on safety features like this, many of which may never even need to be used in order to protect the lives of their crew. Pretty sure SpaceX didn't spend that much on this particular feature. They just have a modern design that was built for safety from the ground up. Trying to retrofit that stuff on older designs would probably be very expensive, but the Dragon capsule has the ability to land under its own power, so they're just using that to double as a safety mechanism. Everybody assume that everything cool must be expensive, but developing the first iPhone is reported to only have cost 150m :) As for the ride, yes, you must feel like quite the pancake for a bit. But I suppose that's better than being dead. I was reading on g force earlier today, and rocket sled pilots have been exposed briefly to up to 45+ g forces... Crazy! What astronauts would go through here probably isn't too different from what some fighter jet pilots go through. Sounds like fun actually. I could see buying tickets for a ride where you get strapped into the Dragon, experience some massive acceleration, then parachute back down. No going into space at all, but the ultimate amusement park ride. I'd go out of my way to do it even if it was costly. Maybe they could use a stripped down version of the capsule with large windows built in, since it isn't going into space.

SpaceX tested their innovative abort system which is built right into the Dragon capsule. SpaceX successfully tests Dragon launch abort system "SpaceX hopes to bring crewed launch missions back to the US by 2017"

Well, that's why Zuckerberg Zuckerberged his neighbors... Nice house I have to say. Not worth $2.16M though. The other house seems underpriced, that one seems overpriced. The website shows a complete lack of class, no one who would want to live near WEB is going to want to pay more than a house is worth to some jerk who would put up such a website. Just my opinion of course. Maybe they'll sell it.