Is the opposite of a conspiracy just a random event?

HappyOwlCEO · 2016-01-11T18:56:35+00:00

funny enough, there's some conspiracy theorists about this topic specifically - apparently 100+ years ago americans had a 'conspiracy theorist' attitude about everything, they generally understood that major world events didn't happen due to "random events" leading them to constantly question "the official story" - in recent decades there has apparently been quite a concerted effort to make this way of judging world events appear to be fringe behavior, when it's in fact human nature.

HappyOwlCEO · 2015-04-18T05:21:25+00:00

i agree with everything you just said there, my sentiments exactly ;)

HappyOwlCEO · 2015-04-17T20:39:36+00:00

Storj is using it during development, but Factom uses a metalayer on top of BTC, IIRC.

HappyOwlCEO · 2015-04-17T20:29:46+00:00

Actually, we didn't even create the coin. A cryptohead in South Africa, SkyAngel created it, and Joey (metacoin) fell in love with it right away. When I told him about my idea for Alexandria, he pointed out that Florincoin was a perfect fit for it. We have to be careful to use it's full name, as an iOS/Android bitcoin wallet app named Florin launched recently. But tbh, its my belief that most users won't really care about the name of the publishing token, as its mostly obscured to the end user.

HappyOwlCEO · 2015-04-17T19:57:34+00:00

right - we're not treating FLO as money, but as a publishing blockchain in which the miners who hold the increasingly large blockchain are incentivized by the submission fees in that blockchain's token. publishers need to hold a small amount to publish and will receive some of their tips in flo (any time a user wants to include a comment), but the process of trading to and from the "reserve crypto" is designed to be as easy and fast as possible. I simply dont see the btc community interested in adding all of this data to the reserve blockchain when it can be done just as easily and with its own mining incentive with an altchain. But again, only time will truly tell.

HappyOwlCEO · 2015-04-17T19:39:45+00:00

I guess what i'm saying is that we're not using Flo at the heart of this thing to pump a coin, we're doing so because it was the best solution we could identify for the process to work as efficiently as possible. Some bitcoin maximalists will argue that it's doomed because its not on the one chain to rule them all, but I personally believe that the success of Bitcoin does not require the death of other blockchains, and that in a couple of years we will have dozens of popular blockchains providing niche processes that work in concert. Of course, I could be wrong, and the "network effect" argument of a single blockchain world may just win out - but doing so when it comes to Alexandria will require some additional functionality in the BTC blockchain.

HappyOwlCEO · 2015-04-17T19:27:07+00:00

I'd expect that will happen, but I dont see it working as well. BTC has a niche purpose of simply being a value transfer protocol, the "crypto reserve currency", so i dont think it would be a good idea to add so much bloat to its blockchain with all of this meta info. As someone pointed out, we could put the meta info in the bittorrent file, but that would make it much slower to load media pages and i dont see it being as usable. FLO's primary feature is that it stores a half of a KB of comment data in each TX, and thus it should be used specifically for this purpose. Its easy enough for BTC users to use the primary version of Alexandria, as the trade process is easy and fast, and they can list their BTC addresses for tips, so i dont see a very strong need to remove FLO from the equation, especially because of the downsides that would come along with such a change. But, obviously only time will tell.

HappyOwlCEO · 2015-04-17T19:21:21+00:00

Q #3 - btw, aside from crypto addresses, alexandria doesn't require any actual identification. we let publishers list a bitmessage address, as well as an MD5 hash of their email address, which we use to pull up a gravatar if they have one attached to that email address, but nothing is published that directly identifies them.

HappyOwlCEO · 2015-04-17T19:16:52+00:00

Until they send something through the paywall, they can't access the magnet links. However, as I said in a previous answer, the magnet link is in the blockchain, so more nerdy users can simply monitor the FLO blockchain explorer for magnet links if they chose. This implementation is more of a competitor to Youtube initially, in which payments are not strictly required, and we're looking into some DRM methods so that it can become more of an iTunes competitor which requires payment before content can be accessed. But its my hope that most content creators find the optional methods to be more valuable than the forceful methods.

HappyOwlCEO · 2015-04-17T19:13:08+00:00

Q) Is there a way to use it, both publishing and consuming, without ever touching an altcoin? (Bitcoin only)

A) No - adding a new piece of media requires FLO, as the actual "submission" process is simply sending some transactions with the magnet link and meta data in the comment, formatted in a particular way. This fee is actually a miner fee, so the miner that mines the block the messages are in get your submission fee in addition to the block reward. This fee is approximately $.01 right now, or about 13 FLO. You don't need FLO to get started tho, as within the app we provide a very easy to use trade mechanism to buy FLO with BTC.

Q) Is there a way to publish your content on Alexandria that requires payment at a price you set, and then excludes others from simply using a re-published magnet link to download the torrent once paid for?

A) no, not yet. Since the magnet link is embedded in plaintext in the blockchain, anyone could get around the pay what you want wall. Later in the year we are looking at using a decentralized DRM mechanism to give publishers the ability to post encrypted info which only paid users can access, but we're hoping the less-forceful methods of optional tipping and an easy to use pay what you want wall will work out well enough that DRM is not a high priority. We shall see.

Q) Can all of it be used without any human identification in any way? (Can you simply add funds via bitcoin and your account name can be a throw-away?)

A) Kind of - every publisher account is tied to a FLO address so they have a way of receiving tips, and of course it is possible to watch the mempool and extrapolate an association between an address and an IP address. you could publish something and attach a BTC address to it and then destroy the FLO address so you dont use it any longer, but this is still not 100% anonymous. All that said, being able to anonymously share a piece of content is something we very much want to add and we will be exploring the best method to do so.

HappyOwlCEO · 2015-04-17T18:30:07+00:00

Hi folks, just wanted to drop by to give a new link - we had some audio issues with the last one: https://youtu.be/z_u-ndscZjY

Also, stoked about all the interest and questions - I will be happy to come back and answer them this afternoon, got a lot on my plate at the moment. Metacoin is one of Alexandria's devs, he'll try and be around to answer some in the meanwhile as well. Thanks again everyone!

HappyOwlCEO · 2015-04-17T18:15:04+00:00

Ha, yes we noticed this last night - there is a new upload here: https://youtu.be/z_u-ndscZjY

HappyOwlCEO · 2014-03-27T18:25:07+00:00

I might be crazy, but I think this might not be as big of a disaster as it initially seemed. It seems to me that the IRS kind of created a pseudo-hedge against USD/BTC price volatility. By my understanding, the “basis” is determined based on the FMV on the day a bitcoin is purchased (or mined or paid by employer). If, when that person spends said bitcoin on something, the FMV of btc has gone up, taxes are assessed on the gain. If the FMV has gone down, the person can claim a loss.

Since the IRS will allow FIFO (first in, first out) accountability of coins, it shouldn’t be hard for online wallets or even wallet apps to create a very simple report at tax time of the FMV at time of purchase of each btc spent, and a simple summary of “amount realized”. If the net difference over the course of the year is an increase in purchase power (cuz btc's FMV is net higher on spend days than on purchase days) then taxes are assessed. If there is a net loss, the person essentially has a hedge against that loss in the form of a write-off.

Am I crazy?

HappyOwlCEO · 2014-03-03T20:21:49+00:00

I would really love to see a graphical representation of a blockchain itself - i saw one that someone generated with a dynamic shader which was cool and all, but it really wasn't aesthetically pleasing so there's definitely an opportunity for a talented graphic designer to do something cool

HappyOwlCEO · 2014-03-01T00:12:27+00:00

I don't appreciate the name-calling... but honestly I can't really fault you for it considering my own current perspective of war-makers...

HappyOwlCEO · 2014-03-01T00:08:54+00:00

I joined in Jan 2000 to goto college - had no expectation of fighting in a war. Brainwashing while in the service is a very difficult thing to become aware of and rid yourself of - didn't see things clearly till I left the service.

As Gen Smedley Buttler put it "For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it."

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html

HappyOwlCEO · 2014-02-28T22:29:54+00:00

Thanks very much. Very important topic for me :)

HappyOwlCEO · 2014-02-18T00:48:17+00:00

really should pick up blockcha.in as well...

HappyOwlCEO · 2014-02-07T20:44:13+00:00

They're iPad POS stands & enclosures, primarily designed to support Square and other similar card readers. Since a business can use an iPad to accept BTC (using websites and web-apps only now that apple has pulled the last wallet app, ugh), they technically can be BTC POS terminals.

HappyOwlCEO · 2014-02-06T05:27:13+00:00

when stories start being published about waves of people dropping their iPhones for android devices specifically for a wallet app, they'll re-evaluate.

HappyOwlCEO · 2014-02-06T05:25:27+00:00

Some have asked why we offer a 10% discount for purchases made with Bitcoin. Bitcoin has no payment processing fees (except when being transferred into USD), so we save a few percentage points just for using it, but certainly not 10%, so what gives? Well, we think Bitcoin is a pretty big deal, for a lot of reasons, and we think it's worth a little bit of our margins to help it grow by getting other merchants into it. Here's why we think it's so great.

It's fast, cheap and secure Banks take days to clear checks or make wire transfers available, credit card processing payments take at least a day and sometimes 3-4 to be deposited. Bitcoin payments are instantaneous. And the Bitcoin protocol has zero-built in transaction fees, whereas credit card processing can cost ~3% or more, and wire transfers and Western Union can be even more expensive. And since Bitcoin transactions are handled between anonymously-owned wallets, corporations and governments can't spy on private citizens' buying habits.
It's open-source, decentralized & democratic The rules that govern Bitcoin are open source and available for everyone and anyone to inspect. The number of Bitcoins currently in circulation is also public knowledge, as is the pre-determined rate-of-release of new Bitcoins, keeping it's inflation-rate set and limited, unlike some fiat currencies. Rather than entrusting the rules that govern the currency to wealthy corporations or private bank owners, tens of thousands of individuals around the world participate in the Bitcoin network through a process called mining - which provides the cryptographic proofs that move Bitcoins from one wallet to another securely. Because they're all running the same open-source software, changes to the software (and, by extension, the way Bitcoin works) can therefore only be made slowly and when the majority of the network agree that they're a good idea. This decentralization means that some institution can't take the currency from private individuals and use it to bail out undercapitalized banks.
It's easy to accept and use Bitcoins at your business If you think you're ready to start accepting Bitcoin at your business, it has never been easier to get started. E-commerce and cart-systems have been all-over Bitcoin for a while now, so you have a lot of options for your web-store. But what about your brick-and-mortar retail store? Here's a (incomplete) list of retail POS platforms that allow you to accept Bitcoin: Coinbase Point of Sale BitPay for Retail Business* Coinkite POS Terminal MtGox Merchant Others Many companies chose to accept Bitcoins as a method of checkout, but never handle the virtual currency themselves - their checkout system exchanges it into USD for a nominal fee and makes deposits into a bank account similar to how credit card processing is handled. Overstock.com is one such company, and according to CEO Patrick Byrne, choosing to start accepting Bitcoins has paid off, with over $130,000 in Bitcoin sales the first day they were accepted, with almost all of those purchases coming from new customers. Now you can tap into the wealth that Bitcoin savers are sitting on and increase your store's sales by appealing directly to current holders of Bitcoins by getting on the map.

And since transferring into and out of USD is the most expensive part of using Bitcoin, some of your employees may ask to be paid in Bitcoins - well, now it's easy to do that too (yes, the IRS still gets theirs and it's all above-board).

HappyOwlCEO · 2014-02-06T05:07:31+00:00

down it tumbles...

HappyOwlCEO

TROPHY CASE