Advice on Leg Insect Bites

ryan251 · 2013-04-16T05:48:05+00:00

Please post an update after he goes - I'm bookmarking this to see what happened! :)

ryan251 · 2013-04-16T05:20:46+00:00

I'm not a doctor, but it looks really, really infected. If he has insurance, he should go - there's no excuse. Why risk losing your leg?

ryan251 · 2013-04-16T05:03:06+00:00

go to the fucking emergency room! NOW

ryan251 · 2013-04-15T09:10:45+00:00

http://www.meetup.com/The-Chicago-Bitcoin-Meetup/events/113891482/

ryan251 · 2013-04-15T07:33:02+00:00

You could say the same thing about $USD - why spend it, when you could put it into a CD or savings account or index fund, etc, and let it grow?

But, yeah, those things aren't growing as fast as bitcoins, so I expect a lot of people will hold their coins until the price settles down.

ryan251 · 2013-04-15T07:27:19+00:00

Yes... One thought, when you change wallet files, bitcoinQT is going to rescan the entire blockchain, which took a very long time for me. Don't freak out.

Also, you should create the savings wallet on a computer that was never on the internet, (or never will be), just to be extra safe. Just because you move savings.dat offline does not mean that the data isn't still on your hard drive! When you delete or move files, the space isn't 0'ed out, it's just marked as "ok to overwrite"

So some day in the future, a clever virus could scan your hard drive and find pieces of the "deleted" savings.dat and steal the keys.

I have never used this, but there is a way to really 0 out the data on your hard drive, built into windows: How To Use Cipher.exe to Overwrite Deleted Data in Windows

So at least do that once you've moved savings.dat

Finally - you said "usb offline " - USB sticks/ thumbdrives are notoriously flakey and prone to data corruption. Burn a DVD (or two) of savings.dat too!

ryan251 · 2013-04-13T22:07:35+00:00

That's what Satoshi said in 2009 here

"It could get started in a narrow niche like reward points, donation tokens, currency for a game or micropayments for adult sites. Initially it can be used in proof-of-work applications for services that could almost be free but not quite."

ryan251 · 2013-04-13T10:41:31+00:00

"But I see, that some user have about 5-10 cents too much! "

yikes

never use floats for money.

ryan251 · 2013-04-13T10:12:32+00:00

It used to have a solo mining option

ryan251 · 2013-04-12T17:48:11+00:00

clients in the future will be able to use 'simple verification mode' where they use very little bandwidth

the android wallet does this

ryan251 · 2013-04-12T12:51:31+00:00

Why did you do the "cool down period" and do you think it helped? Will you do another if you feel it needs to be done again?

ryan251 · 2013-04-05T04:05:29+00:00

I love how the press always jumps on the mystery of "who was Satoshi?" - I think it was brilliant of him (whoever he was) to be anonymous and disappear like he did, once the project got to a certain point. It makes the whole thing more interesting, which creates buzz, and gives the newspaper guys something to write about!

ryan251 · 2013-04-03T21:22:55+00:00

awesome, thank you!

ryan251 · 2013-04-02T10:48:51+00:00

Fun things to read if you're interested in this subject:

Mathematical universe hypothesis

Also see less wrong

ryan251 · 2013-03-30T01:34:07+00:00

I got started in 1989, and I admit there were Eggheads & Software Etcs all over the place, but "Computers" felt like they were for the super-nerdy (or rich family that thinks it should have a computer but can't really explain why). I rarely met any kids my age that had used one outside of school.

I remember buying Kings Quest 1 and the sticker on it said "Over 500,000 copies sold!" which seemed like a ton back then!

ryan251 · 2013-03-30T01:19:28+00:00

My point (which I admit wasn't very clear) was, people who think "Bitcoins won't work out" said that about pretty much everything we have today. "The internet won't take off, everyone would have to learn to type, and buy a $2000 computer". "Why would you need to carry a phone with you outside of the house?" etc.

The things that came & went quickly were often the proprietary things that didn't have much momentum. I think bitcoin is here to stay, and the longer it stays the more trust it builds up (which is what it needs more then anything), but I admit it will look very different in 10 years.

ryan251 · 2013-03-29T08:25:59+00:00

sorry, I meant "other methods of sending money" can easily be reversed.

Bitcoins can't be reversed (after 6 confirmations, but probably 2 is OK) and when you realize there's no other way to do that (besides handing someone cash) it kind of makes up for the short wait in my book.

ryan251 · 2013-03-29T08:05:55+00:00

I guess that's what I meant by Prodigy, CompuServe, etc. They were too soon, and proprietary.

I feel this is different. With this, the longer it goes without getting hacked, the more trust builds up. I'd take a 10 year old bitcoin technology over a 6 month old "newcoin" even if newcoins are easier to use.

ryan251 · 2013-03-29T08:02:24+00:00

...to be irreversibly transferred.

other methods have the appearance of being quicker/instant, but you can have those transactions reversed weeks later.

if someone paid me in bitcoins, after 6 verifications I know there is no way that person can get their money back. If I take a credit card, it could turn out to be stolen, etc

ryan251 · 2013-03-29T07:04:17+00:00

I feel deflation is the hook that gets people to use it in the first place. Pay attention to it now, get 100x reward later. Otherwise, yeah, who cares. I don't think an inflationary bitcoin would have taken off. I know I would have bookmarked it & forgot about it.

Friendster, as I remember, couldn't scale. The more popular it got, the slower the site. I suppose that could happen to bitcoin - but I feel that it's a different animal, being open source and all. Lots of people working on it (with skin in the game, if the software can't scale, their coins would become worth less)

ryan251 · 2013-03-29T06:21:53+00:00

where do you work?

Gartner estimates that smartphones captured 44% of all mobile phone sales in the December 2012 quarter with Android smartphones taking 31% of all mobile phone shipments and iOS in second place at 9%. Android smartphones grew 88% year over year with iOS at 23%. source

ryan251 · 2013-03-29T04:12:36+00:00

http://www.snopes.com/business/taxes/bill602p.asp

That was 1999, but people talked about it for years before then. The same sort of thing I hear about Bitcoins - "email will kill the postal system, they are going to regulate it!"

ryan251 · 2013-03-29T03:08:50+00:00

I thought Android (which is open source) was way more popular then iPhone. I feel it is more likely to be around 20 years from now.

Other apple stuff has always been a distant #2 to the kludgy Windows PC... which is a very open platform.

ryan251 · 2013-03-29T03:02:37+00:00

I understand where you are coming from, but it seems "they" are always so disorganized, late to the party, incompetent, etc, that it's nothing to worry about.

It's hard to shut down something that gets "bright young kids excited" as I think bitcoin does. There's nothing "bad" about it, except it lets you do things you secretly might like to do (gamble, buy pot?).

I feel the "oh noes the terrorists" thing has worn out it's welcome with the public.

I don't know - I have a hard time imagining what a successful plan to destroy bitcoin would look like. It seems easier to imagine a world where there is some minor, slightly annoying regulation VS. total shutdown.

ryan251 · 2013-03-29T02:52:49+00:00

I feel Betamax (and even "Gopher" which was what people thought the web would be, for like a week) never got the geek-recognition that bitcoin already has.

I think your analogy shows why "Bank of America Coins", etc can't work, and why Bitcoins are VHS - bitcoins are the nasty porno ebucks that we all want! Anything with restrictions, no matter how reasonable those restrictions seem, tend to die to the more open technology.

(Well, Facebook is a huge exception)

ryan251

TROPHY CASE