What’s up today? (Part 1)

I figure rulers have always tended to be kind of nasty. But with modern weapons and surveillance technology they are becoming so effective at it. You can’t really oppress people good and proper with muskets and a telegraph. It’s a different story with nukes, drones and satellites. And the ones with the most resources to get the stuff seem to be the nastiest.

Yep. Technology is such a gift to those who would wield power over us. An example of this is the $10K reporting rule in the USA. In the USA, $10K deposit or withdrawal from your bank account goes on a “suspicious activity” list that is sent to the gov. It’s also the number that you must report if it’s in an overseas bank or if you are travelling with it. This all started in the USA way back in 1970, when we implemented the “Bank Secrecy Act”. $10K in 1970 is the same as $63K now, but this threshold has never been raised. ($10K today would be equivalent to $1.6K in 1970). Computers have allowed them to deal with the huge increase in reported transactions that not raising the threshold with inflation has created, giving gov 6x more visibility into people’s financial lives than they had when the act was implemented.

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Then I’m in real trouble. Coffee or Tea? Will I go to hell if I choose wrong…

You should be proud! Such courage, not backing down from even mathematics itself :rofl:

It’s a weird thing when critics of a Western government have to go underground or have to go in jail…

I wonder how decentralization (of the internet I presume) is the solution for everything. Maybe if you mean decentralizing the governments, but how would you go about that one?

What we often forget is that these things are readily available for everyone, not just governments. Anybody with a bit of money can deploy a killer drone army, if not right now then within 2-3 years. We can of course expect legislation that outlaws that, but a) could it be enforced even? b) if it could, then it’s really just the government who’ll have it.

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More along the lines of reducing the scope of what governments can achieve. They have grown far too large and powerful.

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I’m not sure about the exact numbers, but my feeling is it’s even worse in Finland. I suspect the amount required to be “suspicious” varies depending on how much money the you have in the fist place. If you have a lot and move some - it’s not suspicious, but if you don’t have a lot and move the same amount it becomes suspicious. (Finns here, please correct me if I’m wrong.) And we are very much dependent on our banking system. Again, I’m not positive, but I think this is how it works here in practice.

IANAL, but I think the US constitution with its basic rights is considered a more important document than, say, the Finnish constitution. I believe the laws here are more open to interpretation even on paper than in the US. Of course, this doesn’t mean the US government necessarily follows the constitution.

No, Charon doesn’t accept ETH.

Have no fear… thats how they’ll drag you down.

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There is a Finnish saying: “Herran pelko on herran alku.”, i.e. something like “Fear of the master is the origin of the master.”

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Hello, you Finn there :grinning:

“Herra” means both “master” and “the Lord”. The saying is originally: “Herran pelko on viisauden alku.” Fear of lord is the origin of wisdom.

“Herran pelko on herran alku.” Fear of master is the origin of master. This is a word play of later origin AFAIK.

I myself think more along the lines of the later version, to be sure.

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The Future of the Cloud Depends on Magnetic Tape:

It could be an advantage for the Safe Network if the price of (tape) backup increases for the Cloud giants.

Another thing is: will storage capacity continue increasing with the same rate in the future?:

BM’s Lantz says he’s always searching for better storage technologies, with little to show for it so far. Optical storage, which was supposed to be faster and cheaper than tape, turned out to be neither.

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Scary to think what power this guy now has.

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8 posts were merged into an existing topic: Continuing the Discussion of Court’s power over net neutrality

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Illegal file-sharing: You can’t get away with blaming a family member, says top court

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Bonkers… The courts should insist on more evidence, not less. There could have been a bot net using his computer as a node to distribute the software for all we/they know. Guilty until proven innocent - isn’t that what tyrannical states do?

It is high time IP law was shaken to its core.

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:stuck_out_tongue:

For all those that moan about the pace here, I think it is becoming crystal clear how much is actually happening here… at pace I might add.
Perspective is coming in hot :joy:

The report, which is dedicated to what EY dubs the “The Class of 2017,” revisits the same projects the firm first analyzed back in Dec. 2017; the sample comprises over 141 “top” ICOs, representing 87 percent of total ICO funding that year.

One year later, EY’s statistics are stark: 86 percent of project tokens are reportedly currently trading below their listing price, with 30 percent having lost “substantially all value.” Overall, the report continues, “an investor purchasing a portfolio of The Class of 2017 ICOs on 1 January 2018 would most likely have lost 66% of their investment.”

Beyond investment returns, the auditor also analyzed the development of working products or prototypes, finding that at present, only 29 percent of studied projects had either – up just 15 percent from at the end of last year.

71 percent of projects have “no offering in the market at all.”

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