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I used to have fun trolling bitcoiners on craigslist - soooo many miner ads back when one of the big crashes happened around a year or so ago [and when ASICs started really taking off], I put up ads like "Beware of anyone mentioning 'mining', or 'bitcoin'!" warning people that the cheap video cards were likely toast and the mining rigs were already completely worthless. Yeah those ads lasted maybe a day before I'd have to go repost them. e. I guess I don't know if trying to stop desperate scammer assholes from selling dead hardware and worthless mining rigs counts as trolling or consumer protection vv
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# ? May 27, 2015 04:48 |
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# ? May 30, 2024 04:26 |
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muscles like this? posted:The best part is what "Mt. Gox's" name means. Magic The Gathering Online Exchange. You know, like a reputable bank. Despite the name, they never actually did anything with MTGO. The website was set up for that originally, then they caught the bitcoin bug. EDIT: I guess they did actually run an MTGO service in 2007 for three months, then abandoned it but held on to the domain name. Star Man has a new favorite as of 05:44 on May 27, 2015 |
# ? May 27, 2015 05:41 |
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IIRC it was literally an online trading center for physical MtG cards, not MtG Online stuff. I shouldn't know this poo poo.
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# ? May 27, 2015 05:47 |
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Nope: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mt._Gox
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# ? May 27, 2015 05:55 |
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flosofl posted:The one great gifts of Bitcoin was to give us the Ross Ulbricht money-laundering trial. That thing was pure, unadulterated schadenfreude from the beginning to end. And he still hasn't been tried on the conspiracy to commit murder charges as far as I know (that may be happening, but I lost interest). One of the highlights was the Forbes reporter (I can't remember her name) covering the trial. Her articles and tweets were hilarious and basically boiled down to "How can anyone be this stupid and not be in an assisted living facility?" I think at one point she stopped by the bitcoin thread. Sarah Jeong, and her tweets were indeed impressive. The murder-for-hire trial is a different court and will probably either start after sentencing or be dropped after he gets life-without-parole.
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# ? May 27, 2015 06:09 |
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someone in one of the YOSPOS buttcoin threads tried to help an acquaintance actually cash out $20000 worth of bitcoins. he offered a 50% discount or something like that to anyone to would pay in cash. posted on local BTC forums and Craigslist. the conditions was that they meet in a bank, verify that the cash was real and stay there until the BTC transfer went through. no takers.
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# ? May 27, 2015 09:42 |
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axolotl farmer posted:one of the YOSPOS buttcoin threads There's only ever been one but it's distributed.
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# ? May 27, 2015 09:56 |
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I found a little bitcoin miner attached to a raspberry pi hidden in the false ceiling of a place I was fitting out a few years ago. Had a wifi dongle and was mining away at nothing as the WPA password was changed monthly at this company. Some poor ex employee must have hidden it up there hoping to make easy money, was fired or quit, and had no time or opportunity to retrieve their stuff. All in all, I have a stupid looking USB stick that does nothing and a free raspberry pi. EDIT: On old tech, today at my new job I found two of these in the attic where they store all the excess stock: I think I'm cursed (gifted?) in finding junk in ceilings/attics. Humphreys has a new favorite as of 10:15 on May 27, 2015 |
# ? May 27, 2015 10:02 |
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axolotl farmer posted:someone in one of the YOSPOS buttcoin threads tried to help an acquaintance actually cash out $20000 worth of bitcoins. he offered a 50% discount or something like that to anyone to would pay in cash. posted on local BTC forums and Craigslist. Part 1: http://www.buttcoinfoundation.org/easy Part 2: http://www.buttcoinfoundation.org/easy-like-sunday-morning Part 3: http://www.buttcoinfoundation.org/easy-come-easy-go
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# ? May 27, 2015 10:27 |
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Collateral Damage posted:Was that the three part story that ended up on buttcoin(foundation).org? yeah
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# ? May 27, 2015 10:34 |
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Lurking Haro posted:So iPhones have the necessary software for any carrier worldwide loaded? iPhones have the necessary hardware for any network. They require a firmware element, the radio or baseband, to define the frequency bands to transmit and receive on, and the formats for transmitting and receiving on those bands, and to translate the software's data into the appropriate format, so that the hardware can transmit it. A GSM phone can connect to any network with the appropriate SIM because, as you say, the GSM protocol is standard, and because the provisioning is linked to the SIM; CDMA systems are linked to the device itself and don't give you any easy way of swapping networks because they're assholes, but it can still be done. Neither of these have anything to do with the physical radio; they're handled by the baseband. The transmitting hardware for an iPhone is identical regardless of carrier region, or network protocol; I won't guarantee that a CDMA handset has a SIM slot, as I haven't handled one. A Nexus 5 does, and in fact defaults to a LTE/CDMA/GSM radio mode. Sprint rolled out new, additional LTE bands not long ago, and they had to push a radio update to everyone so that their devices could use them. Updated basebands are typically released with OS updates, and you shouldn't have to know about it as a day to day user. Custom basebands do in fact exist to allow a handset to connect to other carrier's networks that they would otherwise be unable to recognize. Adding a new network band or protocol would involve writing that new network band and protocol into the baseband for whichever device you planned to use it with; unless your desired band was far outside those allocated for either wifi or mobile data use, you are correct, it would not require any custom hardware.
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# ? May 27, 2015 13:20 |
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Star Man posted:Despite the name, they never actually did anything with MTGO. The website was set up for that originally, then they caught the bitcoin bug. Nope its worse than that. Magic The Gathering Online Exchange was a website set up to trade magic cards, that traded a few. IIRC somebody else who got the bitcoin bug simply bought the name and domain from them so he could use it to give an air of legitimacy to his new exchange Humphreys posted:I found a little bitcoin miner attached to a raspberry pi hidden in the false ceiling of a place I was fitting out a few years ago. Had a wifi dongle and was mining away at nothing as the WPA password was changed monthly at this company. It terrifies me how many of these probably exist.
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# ? May 27, 2015 18:33 |
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Zaphod42 posted:Nope its worse than that. Magic The Gathering Online Exchange was a website set up to trade magic cards, that traded a few.
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# ? May 27, 2015 23:40 |
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Humphreys posted:EDIT: On old tech, today at my new job I found two of these in the attic where they store all the excess stock: These drat things were the bane of my existence from 2004 until they (and later models) were phased out at retailers in the late 2000s. At the time I was a field technician for Fujifilm and both of the major accounts in the US (Walmart/Sam's Club & Walgreens) had them in addition to the one-hour equipment in the lab itself. The worst part was the loop of "Kodak Picture Maker - it's fun, easy and fast! Try it! No charge until a print is made!" carnival barking 25 second audio clip that it constantly ran through. It got old after 15 minutes and absolutely ground your nerves raw on longer multi-hour service calls. I would often touch the screen and walk away, which would begin the actual customer interface and shut the drat thing up for five minutes until it timed out and went back to the looping demo. Geoj has a new favorite as of 00:11 on May 28, 2015 |
# ? May 28, 2015 00:09 |
The bitcoin discussion reminded me that a) bitcoins are still a thing and b) the shopping center near my office has one of these: According to the website it is one of three in Australia and that they're buying bitcoin at nearly 300AUD each. I was just amazed to find a real website at that address though I have no idea how up to date it might be. The machines seem to defeat the main purpose of bitcoin though since apparently you need to scan your drivers license and let it photograph your face to use it. I mean I guess that's fine if you're using bitcoins for totally legit purposes...
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# ? May 28, 2015 00:32 |
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What sucks about bitcoin is that digital currency would be fantastic, because gently caress credit card companies. Not just for online purchases, but also at POS for normal retailers. But like everything libertarians touch, the golden goose got squeezed by Lennie who thought he was petting it with brilliant economic theory.
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# ? May 28, 2015 02:09 |
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ryonguy posted:What sucks about bitcoin is that digital currency would be fantastic, because gently caress credit card companies. Not just for online purchases, but also at POS for normal retailers. But like everything libertarians touch, the golden goose got squeezed by Lennie who thought he was petting it with brilliant economic theory. just get a debit card from a real bank then.
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# ? May 28, 2015 05:30 |
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ryonguy posted:What sucks about bitcoin is that digital currency would be fantastic, because gently caress credit card companies. Not just for online purchases, but also at POS for normal retailers. But like everything libertarians touch, the golden goose got squeezed by Lennie who thought he was petting it with brilliant economic theory. What sucks about bitcoin is everything. It is truly a terrible idea as a form of currency.
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# ? May 28, 2015 13:01 |
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ryonguy posted:What sucks about bitcoin is that digital currency would be fantastic Someone's never heard of Flooz, which got a toxic reputation before its shutdown due to its use in money laundering. Probably never heard of eGold either, which was primarily used to buy kiddy porn or buy into pyramid schemes claiming a daily 1% ROI. Pretty much every "digital currency" has failed in part because of its use in illegal activity - bitcoin just went the extra step and created a currency market that, if it were practiced on any regulated national currency, would itself be an illegal activity. The fact that bitcoin has gotten any legitimate market penetration is astonishing, though I've seen some places that had offered bitcoin payments stop offering them after the Silk Road fiasco.
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# ? May 28, 2015 14:46 |
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As an oddity related to the early digital currencies and even the digital ones like bitcoin of today, I seem to remember about 15-16 years ago reading a short story in Popular Mechanics or some other magazine of that sort about someone developing a digital currency of their own. it was sort of prescient in some ways on how the user perspective on the currency would become as I think the story's big focus was literally how the government was intentionally trying to destroy any and digital currencies and how people were viewing digital currencies as making them truly liberated from big government. edit: I think I found it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Simoleon_Caper Holy poo poo, is this describing Bitcoin in 1995?! quote:In the story, the protagonist is an underemployed mathematician who resides in the house of his brother's family in Chicago. The brother, owner of an advertising agency, has won a large contract to create ads for "Simoleons," a form of non-governmental electronic "currency." To launch the product, they plan to give away 27 million Simoleons to the winners of a contest. The contest is based on the long-used format of "guess the number of jelly beans in the container," with Chicago's Soldier Field and 26 other football stadiums being the containers. JediTalentAgent has a new favorite as of 15:01 on May 28, 2015 |
# ? May 28, 2015 14:57 |
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Yep, sounds like it. I like how they're called "Simoleons", isn't that the currency from The Sims? I wonder if that's where they got it. It wasn't much later in 1999 that Cryptonomicon was published which deals even more literally with cryptocurrencies.
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# ? May 28, 2015 15:22 |
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Zaphod42 posted:Yep, sounds like it. I like how they're called "Simoleons", isn't that the currency from The Sims? I wonder if that's where they got it. Its an old slang term for dollars. Bitcoins seem pretty pointless with Paypal, Google, Apple, and probably others having phone apps that are starting to be accepted in retail stores. I guess there's still the anonymity side of it though.
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# ? May 28, 2015 16:16 |
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Fooley posted:Bitcoins seem pretty pointless with Paypal, Google, Apple, and probably others having phone apps that are starting to be accepted in retail stores. I guess there's still the anonymity side of it though. Drugs.
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# ? May 28, 2015 16:27 |
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Fooley posted:Bitcoins seem pretty pointless with Paypal, Google, Apple, and probably others having phone apps that are starting to be accepted in retail stores. I guess there's still the anonymity side of it though. Although as the whole silk road trial has shown, that "anonymity" thing can really bite you in the rear end. Since there's a perfect record of all transactions (better records than even banks would have) all you have to do is trace down who owns what address and now you know literally every transaction that person has ever made. And its all out there, recorded on every mining computer, so there's no loving way you can delete your "history". The only reason you'd prefer Bitcoin to Paypal is if you're all about the USD and inflation.
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# ? May 28, 2015 16:27 |
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Fooley posted:I guess there's still the anonymity side of it though.
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# ? May 28, 2015 16:28 |
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Zaphod42 posted:Yep, sounds like it. I like how they're called "Simoleons", isn't that the currency from The Sims? I wonder if that's where they got it. Both written by the same guy.
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# ? May 28, 2015 17:11 |
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Kugyou no Tenshi posted:Someone's never heard of Flooz, which got a toxic reputation before its shutdown due to its use in money laundering. Flooz was awesome in its terribleness. I remember Whoopie Goldberg doing some fluff interview in People magazine and sticking Flooz into every other answer. Like, "what's the best gift you ever got?" The gift of Flooz!". I guess a lot of DotCom start-ups tried to get celebrity endorsements by offering a percentage in the company, creating these desperate circle-jerks as everyone tried to make it to an IPO. I think William Shatner is the only one who actually made money doing that with Priceline.
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# ? May 28, 2015 17:29 |
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Zopotantor posted:Both written by the same guy. I should have clicked on the link. In retrospect that makes so much sense.
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# ? May 28, 2015 17:42 |
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I was reading a magazine article (that's not the obsolete technology in question) about 3D printing and it reminded me of a device I first saw back in the 1970s. Behold... the MOLD-A-RAMA! For a quarter the machine would make a hot wax model of various things, in this case a miniature Hollywood Bowl. The one I saw at Universal Studios would make a wax shark (Jaws tie-in) or a movie monster, like Frankenstein's head with a slot for coins. The models were still warm when they came out and you had to be careful with them as they were soft until they cooled. They were thin-walled as well and prone to crumbling.
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# ? May 29, 2015 23:25 |
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Dick Trauma posted:I was reading a magazine article (that's not the obsolete technology in question) about 3D printing and it reminded me of a device I first saw back in the 1970s. These are awesome! I know there was one at the Henry Ford in Michigan that makes little F150s and Mustangs as of about 2 or 3 years ago.
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# ? May 29, 2015 23:34 |
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I love the atom symbol on the machine at the top. Back when I was a kid you'd still see that fairly often as a sign that you have arrived in THE ATOMIC FUTURE!
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# ? May 29, 2015 23:36 |
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Dick Trauma posted:I was reading a magazine article (that's not the obsolete technology in question) about 3D printing and it reminded me of a device I first saw back in the 1970s. I saw one of these at a zoo that had a choice of animals! I had completely forgotten about it but I thought it was neat at the time. My parents thought it was a waste of money so I never got to see it in action.
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# ? May 30, 2015 00:12 |
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They still have them at the Henry Vilas Zoo in Madison I think (and they may still have one in the Field Museum). Okay this is cool http://www.moldamania.com/ Humbug Scoolbus has a new favorite as of 01:56 on May 30, 2015 |
# ? May 30, 2015 01:54 |
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Last time I was there, the Science & Industry museum in chicago had a few in the stairwells.
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# ? May 30, 2015 01:57 |
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:They still have them at the Henry Vilas Zoo in Madison I think (and they may still have one in the Field Museum). Madison has one as of last summer.
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# ? May 30, 2015 02:18 |
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It's not really the same thing, but those machines that stamp a souvenir coin are still popular where I live (Japan).
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# ? May 30, 2015 02:25 |
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Armacham posted:These are awesome! I know there was one at the Henry Ford in Michigan that makes little F150s and Mustangs as of about 2 or 3 years ago. Hell, there's half a dozen in there. One makes F-150s, one makes Mustangs, one makes Weinermobiles, one makes the Rosa Parks bus, one (I think) makes a bust of Ford's head, and I can't remember what the last one does. Whenever I take my kids there we try to get a new model, they're pretty cool. I got one of the Rosa Parks Bus ones for my wife about ten years ago and it's still in fantastic shape.
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# ? May 30, 2015 02:39 |
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Krispy Kareem posted:Flooz was awesome in its terribleness. I remember Whoopie Goldberg doing some fluff interview in People magazine and sticking Flooz into every other answer. Like, "what's the best gift you ever got?" The gift of Flooz!". Stock Options, where you weren't being paid in money OR stocks but instead the promise of stocks later. They were big in the late 90s/00 tech bubble because they didn't really cost the company anything unless they actually succeeded.
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# ? May 30, 2015 03:00 |
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:They still have them at the Henry Vilas Zoo in Madison I think (and they may still have one in the Field Museum). Oh man, now I want to go to the zoo. I haven't been there since I was a kid.
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# ? May 30, 2015 04:38 |
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# ? May 30, 2024 04:26 |
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:They still have them at the Henry Vilas Zoo in Madison I think (and they may still have one in the Field Museum). Maybe I'm conflating my memory of Wisconsin zoos but I'm pretty sure there are still a handful of these at the Milwaukee zoo as well, at least as of two or three years ago.
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# ? May 30, 2015 07:22 |