Display Comb 4

/ featured media, post meta, title, read more link and full content

My Thoughts On Bitcoin

I think one of the most fascinating things going on right now is Bitcoin.  What is Bitcoin?  Don’t feel dumb.  Even my aunt, who is in banking, hadn’t heard of it.  The best explanation I have heard was on this Podcast on Vice.  Sidenote, Vice is the best thing on YouTube.  I have been interested in cryptography for some time.  One of my favorite non fiction books is The Code Book by Simon Singh.  In 2012 I was fascinated by an article in Wired that discussed The Silk Road and ones ability to buy just about any nefarious product using a new “crypto-currency” called Bitcoin.  How was it that people were buying illegal drugs on the internet?  And what was this new currency?  Not long after I head the Winklevoss twins invest $11 in Bitcoin or 1% of all of Bitcoin.  Then Techcrunch started reporting all kinds of Bitcoin startups.  RoboCoin, Coinbase, BitPay, KryptoKit, Mt Gox just to name a few.  You can find more by looking at the Bitcoin tag on Techcrunch.

I can understand why some people are hesitant.  The government could outlaw the currency.  The currency could get hacked.  The price of the currency is still very volatile.  I think those three reasons are very valid.  The government could outlaw the currency.  But I think if it was going to outlaw it, it would have done something sooner.  After all, the government is in possession of some of the currency.  The FBI shut down the Silk Road and when it did that, it came into possession of 144,000 Bitcoins.  You can go to Mt.Gox to see the current price, but as of today, it is trading at $954 USD.  That means the FBI is sitting on $137 million dollars.  Which is a drop in the Federal bucket.  I get that.

The currency could get hacked.  From what I keep hearing, the NSA is the only ones that could do it.  I think we shouldn’t underestimate other governments, especially considering money is at stake.  But if I understand the currency like I think I do, the bigger the currency gets, the harder it gets to hack.  And there are large computers out there mining Bitcoin all the time.

The price is volatile.  I think volatility fixes itself as people lose there fear of the currency, as it becomes more clear the government is not going to regulate it, and more institutions and people accept and use it.  And of course, more people will accept and use it when it is less volatile.  Well, that and they figure out there are no transaction fees.  Did I mention that.  Imagine a world with no credit card transaction fees.  Credit card companies charge 3% plus a flat rate per transaction.  And I don’t know about you but I don’t carry cash anymore.  You can say what you want about Bitcoin, but it is a huge threat to Visa, Mastercard, Discover Card, and, well, any business that charges a transaction fee to exchange money for a good or service.  Why do the nerds want Bitcoin?  That is why.

There is just one thing that doesn’t add up.  One thing that makes me a little nervous and excited about Bitcoin.  Who made it?  No one knows!  They have a name but they are pretty certain it isn’t a real name.  That seems legit.  I have heard people speculate that the currency is so clever and such an innovation in more than one way that it must have been done by more than one person.  Could it be that a think tank in our government created Bitcoin?  Maybe they didn’t want to risk devaluing any market or the dollar, so they introduced it in this way.  Cryptically.  They hid their involvement.  And are waiting to see what happens.  I think the reason the NSA hasn’t hacked the currency is the currency was made by the NSA.  BAM!  That is my hot sports opinion for the day.  Why?  Here is another interesting characteristic of the currency: it keeps a public ledger of itself and all its users and transactions.  If you make a transaction with Bitcoins, that transaction is in the public domain.  Wait.  What!?!?!  YES SIR!!!  This is not an anonymous currency.  Which begs the question: why were all these people using it on The Silk Road?  Of course they were going to get caught.  It was like shooting fish in a barrel.  Or it was like figuring out what the drug dealers account number was and watching who he made transactions with.  Could you imagine a world where every transaction was public record?  There would be no more illegal activity.

Quebec City Christmas Trip 2013

The trip up was pretty exciting.  It was about as icy a journey as I have ever driven.  Even though it was below freezing, it was raining, which I did not think that was physically possible.  Ice and sleet covered the roads yet we maintained about 60 the whole way.  We left about 9am and got into Quebec City around 7pm.  We were stopped at the boarder and there was a great deal of speculation as to why they might have stopped us.  I had pulled up too soon and possibly my eagerness or possibly perceived impatience was being punished.  Or maybe they just couldn’t believe anyone would want to spend their Christmas in Canada and the story sounded fishy.  Whatever the reason, we were pulled aside and examined further but that only took about another 15 minutes and then we were on our way.

We are staying in old Quebec which is enclosed by a very old city wall that goes all the way around.  Down by the river it looks like a fortress and like it would have been impossible to have attacked.  I took a couple pictures of some of the gates at various stations around the wall.

Our first day we started out going to the Fairmont’s Le Chateau Frontenac.  It is truly the centerpiece of the city much as the Back of America tower is to Dallas or the Empire State Building is to New York City.  It is about 20 degrees and it feels very cold.  By the end of the day I was use to it but this morning it felt like I woke up on a polar ice cap.  So we started off with a little coffee and mapped out our plan of attack.  We decided to take the Funiculaire, which is a tram that goes down a steep rock face to the rivers edge where there are several shops.  We checked out some wood carving and a few art galleries but other than that it was just lunch.  It feels like you have been transported to Switzerland but everything is French.  We spent our afternoon at a museum that was a little lame.  We walked back up and Rebecca and Dad headed back to the flat and I walked around a little.

Christmas Eve about 10pm one of the churches (pictured I think) started ringing the church bells for a whole hour.  They would ring for ten minutes at a time and then stop for about a minute and then ring another ten minutes.  It was great.  It really made it feel like something fantastic was happening.  Again Christmas morning at 10am they did the same thing.  Christmas day we camped out in our flat but that night we ventured out for dinner at a place Rebecca and Dad had found that was open.  It turned out it was in a building that was the oldest house in Quebec dating from the 1630s.

They day after Christmas Rebecca went shopping and I went exploring on my own.  I stopped in a pub for a beer.  Was a little discouraged with the service.  We went on a carriage ride which I thought was a little on the expensive touristy side, but Rebecca really had her heart set on it.  It was interesting.  It pretty much consisted of the coach, who sounded hammered off her ass, pointing out statues and telling us who or what it was and what or when they did something.  And even with theses heavy blankets, just sitting there you are going to get cold, but I think Rebecca liked it and we got a picture so I guess it was worth it.

Thursday I went on a walking tour.  Really interesting.  We ended the day with a really expensive French meal at La Continental.  Rebecca and Dad had the duck flambes.  I wish I had ordered that.  It was amazing.  Also had the Caesar.  Rebecca had the lobster bisque and shared generously.  We topped it off with chocolate mousse and creme brulee.  One of the best meals I have had.

Two Movies The Should Be Seen Together

If you have seen Hugo and haven’t seen the documentary The Extraordinary Voyage, then you are missing out.  The version I saw had the colorized copy of A Trip to the Moon play before the documentary started, which was a real treat.  If you haven’t seen Hugo, I won’t spoil it for you, I will just say this: it is about a boy who rediscovers a famous movie director who has retired.  The ex-director has lived an amazing life and is responsible for some if the first special effects ever made in the movie industry.  The story is almost tragic but has a happy ending.  But after watching the documentary you realize that Hugo, based on the book by Brian Selznick, the movie depicts pretty much what really happened.

The movie Hugo is directed by Martin Scorsese.  It isn’t a surprise to me that he would have picked this project.  He is one of the greats and probably because he studies the greats.  Last year I bought A Personal Journey With Martin Scorsese Through American Movies where he comments on some of the masters, walks you through scenes, explains why certain films are so great, and generally teaches film appreciation to you.  You can tell he has really spent some time studying the masters.  And Georges Melies was certainly a master.  It truly is a shame there isn’t more of his work the survived.  Be sure you take the time to see some of what did.  You won’t be sorry.

Criminal Companies You Can And Should Stop

I think there is nothing more frustrating and heart breaking than someone that tries to hold an honest job but is still living in poverty because they only make minimum wage or close to it.  McDonolds only pays $7.25 an hour, which is currently the minimum wage in the US.  I make as much as a whole crew and I struggle to get by.  I can’t imagine how someone makes it on an income that low.  God help them if they have children.  The fact is, I can’t stop fast food companies from paying low wages, but I can eat somewhere else.  I think that is something we need to be cognizant of.  Do the establishments we frequent pay a “living wage”?  A wage that someone can reasonably live on without assistance.  It’s bad enough these companies are selling unhealthy food, but if they can’t take care of their employees, maybe our country is better off without them.  I ask you, please don’t eat at restaurants like McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy’s, Taco Bell, KFC, Pizza Hut, Domino’s and Papa John’s.  You can make a difference just by choosing where you spend your money.  You can also go to lowpayisnotok.org and sign their petition.

So if the minimum wage is not enough, how much is enough?  In Chicago, there is a group called FightFor15, which, as you may guess, is fighting for a wage of $15.  If you worked 40 hours a week at $15 and took off two weeks a year, that would come out to exactly $30,000.  How do you incentivize businesses to spend that much on their employees?  McDonalds, for instance, might tell you they couldn’t afford to pay that much, but they have a huge marketing budget.  I think they could afford to pay it if they lowered their marketing spend.  What if people started going to businesses that paid a living wage?  What if you could give them a sticker they could put on their door or a plaque on the wall so people would know this business values its employees and pays a living wage.  If people stopped going to low wage paying businesses and started going to fair wage paying businesses, the increase in business might make it worth it for the fair wage paying business.  And if a few businesses go out of business, they are likely fast food businesses that serve unhealthy food anyway.

Can you think of ways we can encourage businesses to pay a living wage?

5 Facts Calculated from comScore’s October Online Video Rankings

Some friends and I took a stab at a YouTube channel.  Check out Red Flying Horse if you haven’t yet.  Ever since, I have paid more attention to online video metrics.  Online video is growing tremendously.  Every now and then I will check out comScore’s Online Video Rankings.  In particular I think the Top U.S. Online Video Content Properties Ranked by Unique Video Viewers is really interesting.  This is basically the biggest online sites based on the number of viewers.  If you want the highlights, I came up with the top 5 facts.

  • 188.98 MM Americans watched over 22 hours of online video
  • 87% of those watched an average of 8 and a half hours of video on YouTube
  • The top 10 Partner Channels represent 13% of the videos viewed
  • VEVO has 49.6 MM viewers directly and 47.8 MM indirectly through YouTube
  • Large paid video services like Netflix, Hulu, and HBO are not represented because they don’t have enough unique viewers

The first bullet is basically saying the AVERAGE America is watching just under an hour of online video a day.  Which means for many Americans, all the video they are watching is happening online.  Online video is way more than short online videos on YouTube.  You can also see that basically everyone that watches online video watches video on YouTube.  About 40% of online time is spent watching YouTube videos.  I was also surprised how much share the top 10 Partner Channels had.  I think that says that people like well produced content.  I think it is interesting that VEVO has such a strong direct channel but still maintains the YouTube channel.  I assume they make considerably more on the direct model.  I assume they believe if they stop the YouTube content, they will lose those views all together.  So Netflix, Hulu, and HBO must have less than 30 MM online viewers.  I wonder what the number is?

Let me know if you have any thoughts in the comments.

1 … 8 9 10 11 12 13