How is that not different from our current system? Early participants acquired huge savings that continue to accumulate, so the rich get richer, requiring newer participants(immigrants) to help prop up the system and make the rich even richer. The only difference is bitcoins are a pyramid scheme that governments cannot control.
So if it's the same as the status quo (only less flexible, usable, stable and secure) then which should I or anybody else care ?
And this idea that governments couldn't control Bitcoin is just laughable. They could get into the mining business and distort the currency beyond repair. They could setup Bitcoin->USD/JP/etc exchanges to track people. They could simply unite together and declare it illegal internationally. Plenty of things.
Point is that it's going nowhere. I do want an alternate way of paying for things and sending money. But I want security, identity and fairness built into it.
>And this idea that governments couldn't control Bitcoin is just laughable. They could get into the mining business and distort the currency beyond repair. They could setup Bitcoin->USD/JP/etc exchanges to track people. They could simply unite together and declare it illegal internationally. Plenty of things.
Getting into the mining business would only help bitcoin, by further securing the network. It certainly won't allow them to distort the currency, since the rate of coin generation is built into the protocol.
Setting up exchanges really wouldn't undermine anything, people just won't use them if they know they're being tracked by them.
Uniting together and declaring it illegal is their only option, but they will have trouble justifying why it should be illegal. And they will also have trouble enforcing it, short of shutting down the entire internet.
It really is a fascinating technology, and if you truly want an alternative way of securely sending money, I'd suggest doing more research on it.
A big enough mining pool could DoS some or all users by consistently producing a longer block chain than anyone else's (which clients would accept as authoritative) while omitting any transactions they don't wish to let through.
This is true. A 51% attack in which the attacker prevents all transactions from going through is probably bitcoin's largest vulnerability.
However, even at today's difficulty levels, this attack would be very expensive to maintain. With the introduction of dedicated mining ASIC's coming soon, the difficulty will rise substantially, which will offer even more security against this type of attack.
On the other hand, even with those ASICs, the government could buy more of them than anyone else. And then make us pay for them. I don't think the threat is worth discounting.
At google, you are thrust into a new environment, you are but a naked noogler, and your past a distant memory. Old, young, female, male, fat, skinny, likes sports, hates sports, prefers sushi, blah de dah, shut the hell up, no one gives a shit. It doesn't matter until you have proven yourself.
A lot of problems come from when nooglers expect the world to do their bidding, but have nothing to show for it. At the end of the day, profit matters, lines of code matter, cleaning up and maintaining code matter, how much you help your coworkers matter, these things lead to you creating new features, these things matter and increase profitability, but you wouldn't know which new shit to add if you didn't earn your licks. Do your job, then improve things around you while doing your job, then we talk.
Before I came to google, I was very successful, making kick ass fast, scalable systems, doing the job of many people, bringing glory to my managers but not to me.. Didn't matter though because for years I studied coding from what I would call masters, taking my licks, being humble and learning from anyone and anything. I didn't mention my past to my new team members at google.. Some of them ridiculed me at the first site of any minor bug I introduced, but inside I laughed like an insane hobo. The years of shit code I have refactored, bugs that drove me insane because they had to be fixed and no one else wanted or could tackle them.. I endured, so with a silent knowing I set out to rip apart the hearts of my naysayers with a blood curdling smile.
Now I'm being promoted while those who ridiculed me are not, they in fact respect me and head my advice, usually because when they don't, they get ridiculed when their code is the source of design problems.
What you did before google matters, not in how much you boast about it, but in that it gives you the skills to rise above the rest. Otherwise, you're just a blowhard talking about the olden' days that no one gives a shit about.
In that way, I have found that google is a meritocracy, with people challenging each other, making everyone better, and it's something I never got at a previous employer. Before google, employers just took advantage of me. So, yeah, I would defend google to the death and recommend it to anyone who isn't a whining wimp.
