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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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They weren't targeting state institutions, just a whole bunch of them got trawled by the same net. It happened to me once and presented a dilemma: it was clearly worth my while paying the Danegeld (£50, I think) but I couldn't see why they would unblock my computer once the money was received. Why would they?
In the end I took it to my local computer man who proceeded to sell me a new computer for £200 with all my stuff transferred on to it. Actually, the best decision I ever made because ever since I have been poncing about with my Windows 17 and for the first time in my life space for everything thrown at me online. Thank you,blackmailers.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| Mick Harper wrote: | It happened to me once and presented a dilemma: it was clearly worth my while paying the Danegeld (£50, I think) but I couldn't see why they would unblock my computer once the money was received. Why would they?
In the end I took it to my local computer man who proceeded to sell me a new computer for £200 with all my stuff transferred on to it. Actually, the best decision I ever made because ever since I have been poncing about with my Windows 17 and for the first time in my life space for everything thrown at me online. Thank you,blackmailers. |
Perhaps acknowledgment in your latest tome would do the trick. Its a nice thing to do and would show your generosity of spirit.
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N R Scott
In: Middlesbrough
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| Wile E. Coyote wrote: | Hi Scott
You might like this. Life inside a Bitcoin mine. |
Thanks for sharing these :) I've just spent the last hour or so watching them and numerous other bitcoin vids on YouTube. They have however just confirmed my suspicions;
Bitcoin is Pokémon for grown-ups
Notice how much they try to sell the lifestyle in all these videos - secret Chinese mines, electronic music, the chance to strike it rich by sitting around playing computer games.
The guys in the first video start out looking like scruffy alternative youths, but end the video looking professionally slick and offering to help you start bitcoin mining. Didn't quite work out for them though did it.
Non of these guys are rich. Plus all that effort and real-world expensive equipment for what ..a few digital football cards :)
I'll stick with sterling.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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You've got some? My own impression was that Bitcoins are going to suffer the same fate as the gold standard. Either you have some fat controller keeping it stable -- as the US was pre-Nixon holding gold down to $3 dollars an ounce (yes, really!) -- or the value will fluctuate between supply and over-supply. Just as gold did when new mines came on stream in the nineteenth century.
Notice the Chinese miners were struggling to make it pay. I presume this is universal i.e. bitcoins are stable in value because that's the current state of technology for acquiring them, as it were, in the wild as opposed to via exchange. What happens when the miners become more proficient? Well, presumably demand starts pushing up to compensate ... but the whole mechanism rather defeats me. However I do have long term faith on general grounds. Mind you, one solution is always dangerous.
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N R Scott
In: Middlesbrough
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | However I do have long term faith on general grounds. Mind you, one solution is always dangerous. |
If bitcoin ever succeeds as an actual genuine currency it will mean the end of sovereignty for any country that accepts it.
A currency can only become truly legitimate if it is accepted for tax payment. Then it effectively becomes backed by a state with real land assets and an army.
For example, I might have a rare Pokémon card worth a thousand pounds, but the government would never accept this as tax payment. I'd have to sell it and convert it into pounds sterling to pay my taxes. Because of this no shopkeeper or employee would accept the card as payment either. If they did they'd be taking a huge gamble - only someone with knowledge of that particular market and confident in its market value would do this i.e. a pawnbroker or trader.
If any country did take the plunge and started accepting bitcoin as a form of tax payment they'd be substituting a currency they controlled for a currency they have no control over. Just like Greece and all the other slow-witted countries that accepted the Euro whilst still thinking they could have genuinely independent democratic government.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Made me laugh as well.
For my purposes (COIN) we are interested in currencie(s).
We looked a little at http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2011/02/15/131934618/the-island-of-stone-money
The people that "heroically" risk their lives to reclaim/mine unique stone from other islands, the "masons" that craft the stone are producing money err but not making as much money as others.
Are miners ever well paid?
Not in my pit.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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There is a lot of debate on the history thread about the Carolingians.
It's mainly about charters.
Let's not forget, according to orthodoxy the idea of 240 pennies to the pound was Carolingian, (Pepin the Short) and lasted in Britain to the 1970s......15/2/71
Or so they say.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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This is important. More please.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Well there are certain parallels.
Both Offa and the Carolingians issue significant numbers of charters.
Both consolidate the local coinage and replace it with a silver penny/denier featuring an emperor's head.
Alcuin links the two.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| Wile E. Coyote wrote: | | Hatty wrote: | | What could be more appropriate than a Hermes pillar to oversee wheelers and dealers. |
Your ancients were studying moons. The sequence was of course based round phases of waxing, waning the full (face) moon and no moon. (beheaded....or cap of invisibility)
The moon is located (like a messenger) between the Earth and the Stars in the Sky.
In fact the Moon is the Messenger (MS words) Her-Mes, Arte-Mis etc s/he is delegated by the celestial power(s) above to teach mankind how to decode their world.
One is the Hero (huntsman, beheading) messenger....One is the Artful (conservation, rebirth) messenger.....
They are two sides of the same ancient coin........ |
It took me a long while to realise but the Artemis later becomes Arthur whilst Hermes becomes Harold. Both relate to early understandings of historical time and space.
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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Tossing a coin -- like drawing lots -- is to do with luck and accompanied by the question 'Heads or tails'. Why? Do all coins have people's heads?
It could well be related to the expression 'can't make head nor tail of it' as etymologists suggest. Perhaps of relevance, Hermes-wise, it's difficult (and necessary!) to distinguish a snake's head from its tail.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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The devil is one of the few anthropomorphs with a tail. The head is of a deified emperor or a divinely appointed king. Anyway, definitely Godly.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| Hatty wrote: | Do all coins have people's heads?
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No some do not.
Of those that do.... Wiley makes a distinction between Kings and Heroes. .
So for example both Phillip and Alexander depicted Greek Heroes on their coins. In particular Alexander depicted Herakles (from whom he claimed descent) so you have a originating "hero" depicted who most probably Alexander did not cofuse with himself..... but it is likely that in many parts of his empire there would have been confusion. In fact there remains confusion in academia over many sculptured images. Is it a Alexander or is it Herakles ?
For Wiley a well known hero gets the job done very nicely... maybe even better than having a king on a coin. King/Coin
Maybe not all kings are quite what they seem?
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Maybe tails are not all they seem. Britannia for example.
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