Cloud Storage (by alaric)

Currently, you can go to various providers and buy online storage capacity (IMHO, rsync.net is best, after research I did to find an offsite backup host for work). It's more expensive than a hard disk in your computer, and miles slower, but it has one brilliant advantage: it's remote. So it's perfect for backups.

And that's the heart of a free market - storage is cheap to the cloud providers (they just buy disks, and in bulk at that), but their storage has more value to you than your own storage because of it's remoteness. So they can rent it to you at a markup, and you get a benefit, and everyone is happy. Money flows, the economy grows, and one day we'll get to have affordable space tourism et cetera.

But large, centralised, cloud storage providers are attractive targets for people who want to steal data. They become centralised points of failure; if they go bankrupt, lots of people lose their backups. Therefore, it's smart to do your backups to more than one of them, just in case. But that means setting up your systems to talk to each one's interfaces, arranging payment and agreeing to terms and conditions with them all individually, and so on.

Surely this state of affairs can be improved? With ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY?

Well, I think it can, and here's how. Read more »

Lords of a new economy (by alaric)

Pondering Bitcoin, I recently opined:

Who sets the difficulty of the puzzle and all that? The computers in the network do - when the system was created, rules were agreed, and written into the software. As everyone runs software following those rules, anybody solving easier puzzles or trying to award themselves more bounty for doing so will have their bounty-claiming transaction rejected as invalid. To loosen the rules, a majority of the computers in the system will all need to accept the new rules - so it will require consensus from the community.

I've been thinking more about this. Read more »

Bitcoin security (by alaric)

I've been learning about Bitcoin lately.

It's an electronic currency. I've seen electronic currency before - in the late 90s there were efforts to create them based on virtual banks issuing coins. The coins were basically long random serial numbers which, along with a statement of the value of the coin, were then signed by the bank. The public key of the bank is published, so people can check they're valid coins issued by the bank. The idea was that rather than withdrawing a bunch of notes from the bank, you can ask the bank to mint you a bunch of these signed numbers instead; and anyone who sees them can check their value, and eventually, return them to the bank (which can also check their value in the same way) to get their account credited.

Read more »

Well done Britain :/ (by sarah)

As an expected but highly depressing result sorry but Britain but collectively we are thick as two short bricks or votes are tampered with either I concede is possible but I feel the first option is the most likely.

And so as always change is feared and people opt for a system that allows compound error via rounding up maintaining a two party system which has lead to MP's believing they can take the funny bone out of the population.

The worse bit is that those who actually think and reason are starting to think that they have been the stupid ones for voting - as if my generation wasn't stressed out and disillusioned enough as it is.

Interestingly I know to people who were vocal about voting NO and at least they did it because it was part of their politicial beliefs - I don't agree with them but I respect them. I feel that the voting has been done by panic and scare mongering and that most people have followed like sheep. But that's the thing isn't it - most people are sheep and that means those that aren't have to look out for the majority which is why I still went around reminding people to vote even when I knew they would vote against what I wanted.

I am getting that twinge again that makes me want to go into politics to sort things out - I'm not going to as it is extremely stressfull and I think it would be just too depressing.

p.s. (I really wonder if there is an age democratic here with how people voted after all don't the 'greys' heavily out way all the other democratics?)

Propaganda (by sarah)

I am starting to come to the opinion that propaganda material should be not banned but discouraged - people need to be informed of choices they do not need one opinion rammed so far down their throats that they can not think.

The way I would do this is by having a leaflet with the urls and library where abouts of the official material for each group/side/party. That way people can choose what to look at. There can bee a phone number for the house bound so that leaflets can be delivered for the parties they want to know more about.

Why do I feel this?

There were lots of leaflets and bill boards saying vote NO so much so that I struggled to keep the phrase out of my head - now I was prepared for this sort of thing but first time voters and much of the population probably didn't even notice the subliminal message sinking in. The YES campaign had similiar things I just didn't see as many. And to make it worse there was a vote NO leaflet in the polling booth which threw me so much I had to recheck I'd done the ballad correctly. Especially with having to put an x next to the choice you want - I always think eek I'm marking it wrong due to x being used to mark things as wrong on childrens homework.

Not everyone in the UK is literate and I've known people who assumed you put the x next to the one you don't want. But that is a differnet matter.

My point is that humans are highly suggestible creatures we are designed to live in groups with some sort of hirachy even if it is only in times of danger. Politicians like any leaders have to know how to tap into the getting people to do things systems it is part of their job. But the thing is with propaganda is that it becomes a game of money - which group can put out enough flyers, adverts and fuzzybugs.

Alaric asked me how having a website with all the information on it was different from a leaflet and I said the thing is you choose to look at the website with leaflets and TV they just sit there even if say they are on the scrap pile looking at you, getting their message to sink in.

Now the thing is I am looking for this sort of thing as just having a baby I know I am highly susceptable to being swayed (it's so you listen to the rest of the group on how to look after babies first time mothers are affected worse) this is why advitising is not supposed to target new mothers.

And yet all those little tricks Darren Brown knows for getting people to vote a certain way/pick a certain box are nothing compared to what the population receives with every election.

Of course the general issue here again is apathy and the fact that most people do not care or worse think they are not intelligent enough to understand or even worse that it doesn't matter what or how they vote everything will still continue to be crap for them. So the issue then is how to get the population motivated to vote without it being a war of money - ie those who can afford the most brain washing techniques win?

I don't really have an answer other than perhapse the leaflets should have been about using your right to vote rather than YES or NO.