I believe that Michael is absolutely correct in this interview of the economic situation and where it is certainly going.
How can he be so obviously correct and the population so oblivious as to what is happening to them. It is like the Iraq military officer that said there are no invading Americans. Or the multitudes that thought that they were not to be sent to death camps.
The collapse is going to happen.
They listened to Paul Revere.
Nobody is listening now.
It is the 99% that will pay.
The money of the 1% is going to South Dakota
Saturday, December 28, 2013
Friday, December 20, 2013
If The NSA Can Track Cell Phones Then......
Google the subject line in quotes. Or: Just click on this link and see the results.
Nada thinga. Not for the phrase in qoutes. Since nobody has ever yet entered that specific phrase into the google search data base then I claim bragging rights for the origination of the phrase and the first ever to use it on the web. It seemed so easy to pick this extremely low hanging fruit that nobody ever thought to express. Must be a complex thought.
It seems like a simple enough phrase that someone with some degree of curiosity and imagination might have simply wondered what might be done by the NSA with that information. What thing beyond getting bad guy terrorists which is the sole purpose objective of doing it.
Hmm...terrorists are murderers. Bad guys. Not all murderers are terrorists. Non-state, foreign terrorists have killed how many Americans in the USA this year? They destroyed how much American property in attacks/
About 15,000 Americans were murdered last year.
How many were captured? Convicted?
Americans love murder mysteries. Murder is a popular cultural entertainment subject. In real life and death murders are crimes to be solved. Clues lead to apprehension. Some cases are easier than others when there is a solid clue combined with some unique aspect of the crime.
Murder victims are discovered somewhere maybe dumped away from the scene of the crime.. This google search link will take you to today's news reports of "body discovered".
For example: A body discovered in a more or less remote or infrequently visited area.
If the NSA tracks cell phone location then it has geo location and time data. That is meta data. Data about data. Not any conversation.
Take the location the body was discovered and search the geo/time cell tracking data base and as easy as a google search the results pop out if the perp (we can all talk police talk because we watch so much crime in the media) had a cell phone they just incriminated their self rather seriously! At least they had some explaining to do. Perhaps their dog swallowed their cell phone or they lost it. Circumstantial evidence. But in the case of a serial killer then it becomes convincing.
The NSA can, I am sure, do this. They could do it for any serious crime. They could pass the information to police authorities. Give authorities access to the geo/time cell phone tracking data base. (Keys to the kingdom...yea, sure)
The NSA can do that but they don't. It would reveal that they have the ability to do it. That is called secret sources and methods that cannot be revealed. But...we all know it. But it is secret so we are not supposed to and besides it would incriminate the NSA. I suppose they have the right to remain silent.
The info, good intelligence info, is there to identify suspects. That is why it is collected. To be used after the fact of a crime to discover who did it. All information all the time gives all the answers to all future questions.
The NSA would pull itself out of a PR hole by showing how effective it is at identifying serious criminals through intelligence gathering. Then only criminals would not have cell phones. Criminals are often not very smart. Might justify our giving up more freedom to really catch some bad guys. We gave up enough to catch none. Why not more to catch more than none? Logic?
Look at this link to today's news the old "routine traffic stop" trick. You will find it in the news any day that you look. When will that become a worn out joke? Seems to have a long run. Funny how many other things are found. Must be serendipity! Nobody has to know that the NSA can do it. Except police agencies and they are not telling. Criminals are not that smart.
Cell phone ownership is contractual. A contract has to be agreed to by the owner/user. Just put it in the contract that the user accepts the conditions of meta-data usage recording and retention. The government must observe civil rights. Companies do not. The government has already gotten the cooperation of business in its spying. If the government simply makes an offer they can't refuse then it is done.
So you don't want a cell phone and be monitored?
It is a free country.
Don't have one.
It is like businesses that have video cameras. Don't want to be in the video? Don't shop there. Freedom of choice. Don't want to be on a traffic cam or have your license plate read by an automatic reader? Don't drive a car. It is a privilege, not a right. Don't want your house to be seen on google street view? To late.
Want the NSA to help find murderers and other real domestic bad guys through intelligence gathering? They are already invading privacy and will never stop. We cannot stop it. It is a police state. We do not have the power to do that. Might as well have the NSA do something useful with it rather than chasing terrorists they never catch.
What do you have to hide if you are an honest citizen? A real American for truth, justice and the American Way?
Perhaps this news link is the new "routine traffic stop: excuse:
Nada thinga. Not for the phrase in qoutes. Since nobody has ever yet entered that specific phrase into the google search data base then I claim bragging rights for the origination of the phrase and the first ever to use it on the web. It seemed so easy to pick this extremely low hanging fruit that nobody ever thought to express. Must be a complex thought.
It seems like a simple enough phrase that someone with some degree of curiosity and imagination might have simply wondered what might be done by the NSA with that information. What thing beyond getting bad guy terrorists which is the sole purpose objective of doing it.
Hmm...terrorists are murderers. Bad guys. Not all murderers are terrorists. Non-state, foreign terrorists have killed how many Americans in the USA this year? They destroyed how much American property in attacks/
About 15,000 Americans were murdered last year.
How many were captured? Convicted?
Americans love murder mysteries. Murder is a popular cultural entertainment subject. In real life and death murders are crimes to be solved. Clues lead to apprehension. Some cases are easier than others when there is a solid clue combined with some unique aspect of the crime.
Murder victims are discovered somewhere maybe dumped away from the scene of the crime.. This google search link will take you to today's news reports of "body discovered".
For example: A body discovered in a more or less remote or infrequently visited area.
If the NSA tracks cell phone location then it has geo location and time data. That is meta data. Data about data. Not any conversation.
Take the location the body was discovered and search the geo/time cell tracking data base and as easy as a google search the results pop out if the perp (we can all talk police talk because we watch so much crime in the media) had a cell phone they just incriminated their self rather seriously! At least they had some explaining to do. Perhaps their dog swallowed their cell phone or they lost it. Circumstantial evidence. But in the case of a serial killer then it becomes convincing.
The NSA can, I am sure, do this. They could do it for any serious crime. They could pass the information to police authorities. Give authorities access to the geo/time cell phone tracking data base. (Keys to the kingdom...yea, sure)
The NSA can do that but they don't. It would reveal that they have the ability to do it. That is called secret sources and methods that cannot be revealed. But...we all know it. But it is secret so we are not supposed to and besides it would incriminate the NSA. I suppose they have the right to remain silent.
The info, good intelligence info, is there to identify suspects. That is why it is collected. To be used after the fact of a crime to discover who did it. All information all the time gives all the answers to all future questions.
The NSA would pull itself out of a PR hole by showing how effective it is at identifying serious criminals through intelligence gathering. Then only criminals would not have cell phones. Criminals are often not very smart. Might justify our giving up more freedom to really catch some bad guys. We gave up enough to catch none. Why not more to catch more than none? Logic?
Look at this link to today's news the old "routine traffic stop" trick. You will find it in the news any day that you look. When will that become a worn out joke? Seems to have a long run. Funny how many other things are found. Must be serendipity! Nobody has to know that the NSA can do it. Except police agencies and they are not telling. Criminals are not that smart.
Cell phone ownership is contractual. A contract has to be agreed to by the owner/user. Just put it in the contract that the user accepts the conditions of meta-data usage recording and retention. The government must observe civil rights. Companies do not. The government has already gotten the cooperation of business in its spying. If the government simply makes an offer they can't refuse then it is done.
So you don't want a cell phone and be monitored?
It is a free country.
Don't have one.
It is like businesses that have video cameras. Don't want to be in the video? Don't shop there. Freedom of choice. Don't want to be on a traffic cam or have your license plate read by an automatic reader? Don't drive a car. It is a privilege, not a right. Don't want your house to be seen on google street view? To late.
Want the NSA to help find murderers and other real domestic bad guys through intelligence gathering? They are already invading privacy and will never stop. We cannot stop it. It is a police state. We do not have the power to do that. Might as well have the NSA do something useful with it rather than chasing terrorists they never catch.
What do you have to hide if you are an honest citizen? A real American for truth, justice and the American Way?
Perhaps this news link is the new "routine traffic stop: excuse:
Texas Police Can Now Obtain Search Warrants Based On ‘Prediction Of A Future Crime’
Thursday, December 19, 2013
Brevity Demands Elegance of Action
When action is necessary, a thousand words do not get the job done like yelling: FIRE! does.
If a picture is worth a thousand words then I can reduce the excessive length my narrative expansion on the subject line of my blog entries with a picture. Why reduce the volume of words I use to express only to myself what I wish to say to myself? That has always suited me in the past because I did not write for anyone but myself.
If I want to write something to others then I need to make a point. Brevity in doing that is elegance. To observe and apply my new view purpose of what I am doing:
Brevity is elegance!
Clarity is Clear!
The point is the point!
Yea! I'm good!
Good at brevity, clarity and making a point.
I previously explained my point system in a blog entry.
The Picture: It came from a wide variety of google search images expressing the metaphorical meaning.
This is another expression of the metaphor;
Rome did burn but Nero probably did not set the fire nor play his fiddle (Liar) while it burned. Wikipedia cites these stories:
"At least five separate stories circulated regarding Nero and the fire:
So, get the picture?
Elegance mode off here. Well, I made a good start.
Expository mode on.
Michael Hudson is a giant among economists. A midget would be a giant in that crowd but Michael is more than head and shoulders above the rest. This is an interview with Michael Hudson expressing his view Trade Advantage Replaced By Rent Extraction.
This is his elegant, clear and concise view expressed almost at the end of his laying out his conclusion of the situation he describes: "The whole world is sort of falling apart." It took him a long time to get to it but the joy of the journey is in the pleasure of the travel. The destination is just link point in time to past and future. Yes, at this instant the world is falling apart. The world is being consumed by a destructive fire.
Expository Mode off here.
Elegance Mode on.
Maybe I should try music as the method mode in my madness: Help me out here Billy! Check out the link. Billy is brilliant.
The video. Its iconic.
Bruce, help me out Boss with your voice of the common man! Check the link. The Boss is brilliant too. They both do the job in a couple minutes. Brevity, Clarity, Elegant.
"You can't start a fire
You can't start a fire without a spark
This gun's for hire
Even if we're just dancing in the dark"
The video.
"I'm sick of sitting 'round here trying to write this book
I need a love reaction
Come on now baby gimme just one look."
Wow! "Just one look" Brevity! That is all it takes.
Bruce Parody on Cris Christie! Awesome! Nuff said? He says it so well.
Brevity mode off here.
I got one look once. The only time a woman ever winked at me. Every time I go to Kona and walk by the same street restaurant I remember it. I was shocked by the unexpected brevity of it all. Thought she must be winking at someone walking behind me. Maybe it amused her to do it because I was looking at her at the time? It was like my tire blowing out just after I took the lead in what might have been my best ever Ironman race. Could'a been a contender! I thought in an instant that it must be the bike behind me. In that instant I lost control because of my failure to react. Concussion, broken ribs, out of the race. Bloody. Only race I never finished in 20 years.
The situations were not important. What continues to gripe me is that I simply failed to act in the situation because my re-action was not just slow but not just there. The equivalent of playing the fiddle.
What will gripe President Obama when he looks back at the few opportunities he had to act decisively? Will he be like me finding that at that time he did just not know what to do? Consequently did not or could not do something simply decisive to change the outcome?
The power of an instant of brevity.
The paradigm shift.
The shift point?
Crises.
The result of crises?
Fight the fire and win.
Fiddle or run and it wins. The fire consumed part of Nero's palace while he fiddled.
There is no home anymore.
It now has to be rented from those those that got it at a fire sale price.
Carpe Dium
Tomorrow I leave for Tucson and an adventure that I seek in order for it to find me.
Brevity, Clarity, Elegance.
All focused down to one single thing in time. One thing where it all converges and begs for an appropriate elegant reaction. Having what it takes at that moment of time live into eternity.
If a picture is worth a thousand words then I can reduce the excessive length my narrative expansion on the subject line of my blog entries with a picture. Why reduce the volume of words I use to express only to myself what I wish to say to myself? That has always suited me in the past because I did not write for anyone but myself.
If I want to write something to others then I need to make a point. Brevity in doing that is elegance. To observe and apply my new view purpose of what I am doing:
Brevity is elegance!
Clarity is Clear!
The point is the point!
Yea! I'm good!
Good at brevity, clarity and making a point.
I previously explained my point system in a blog entry.
The Picture: It came from a wide variety of google search images expressing the metaphorical meaning.
This is another expression of the metaphor;
Rome did burn but Nero probably did not set the fire nor play his fiddle (Liar) while it burned. Wikipedia cites these stories:
"At least five separate stories circulated regarding Nero and the fire:
- Motivated by a desire to destroy the city, Nero secretly sent out men pretending to be drunk to set fire to the city. Nero watched from his palace on the Palatine Hill singing and playing the lyre.[20]
- Motivated by an insane whim, Nero quite openly sent out men to set fire to the city. Nero watched from the Tower of Maecenas on the Esquiline Hill singing and playing the lyre.[21]
- Nero sent out men to set fire to the city. Nero sang and played his lyre from a private stage.[2]:XV.38–44
- The fire was an accident. Nero was in Antium.[2]:XV.38–9
- The fire was caused by Christians.[2]:XV.44
So, get the picture?
Elegance mode off here. Well, I made a good start.
Expository mode on.
Michael Hudson is a giant among economists. A midget would be a giant in that crowd but Michael is more than head and shoulders above the rest. This is an interview with Michael Hudson expressing his view Trade Advantage Replaced By Rent Extraction.
This is his elegant, clear and concise view expressed almost at the end of his laying out his conclusion of the situation he describes: "The whole world is sort of falling apart." It took him a long time to get to it but the joy of the journey is in the pleasure of the travel. The destination is just link point in time to past and future. Yes, at this instant the world is falling apart. The world is being consumed by a destructive fire.
Expository Mode off here.
Elegance Mode on.
Maybe I should try music as the method mode in my madness: Help me out here Billy! Check out the link. Billy is brilliant.
The video. Its iconic.
Bruce, help me out Boss with your voice of the common man! Check the link. The Boss is brilliant too. They both do the job in a couple minutes. Brevity, Clarity, Elegant.
"You can't start a fire
You can't start a fire without a spark
This gun's for hire
Even if we're just dancing in the dark"
The video.
"I'm sick of sitting 'round here trying to write this book
I need a love reaction
Come on now baby gimme just one look."
Wow! "Just one look" Brevity! That is all it takes.
Bruce Parody on Cris Christie! Awesome! Nuff said? He says it so well.
Brevity mode off here.
I got one look once. The only time a woman ever winked at me. Every time I go to Kona and walk by the same street restaurant I remember it. I was shocked by the unexpected brevity of it all. Thought she must be winking at someone walking behind me. Maybe it amused her to do it because I was looking at her at the time? It was like my tire blowing out just after I took the lead in what might have been my best ever Ironman race. Could'a been a contender! I thought in an instant that it must be the bike behind me. In that instant I lost control because of my failure to react. Concussion, broken ribs, out of the race. Bloody. Only race I never finished in 20 years.
The situations were not important. What continues to gripe me is that I simply failed to act in the situation because my re-action was not just slow but not just there. The equivalent of playing the fiddle.
What will gripe President Obama when he looks back at the few opportunities he had to act decisively? Will he be like me finding that at that time he did just not know what to do? Consequently did not or could not do something simply decisive to change the outcome?
The power of an instant of brevity.
The paradigm shift.
The shift point?
Crises.
The result of crises?
Fight the fire and win.
Fiddle or run and it wins. The fire consumed part of Nero's palace while he fiddled.
There is no home anymore.
It now has to be rented from those those that got it at a fire sale price.
Carpe Dium
Tomorrow I leave for Tucson and an adventure that I seek in order for it to find me.
Brevity, Clarity, Elegance.
All focused down to one single thing in time. One thing where it all converges and begs for an appropriate elegant reaction. Having what it takes at that moment of time live into eternity.
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
The NSA a Rock and a Hard Place
This link is an analysis that covers this news which is welcomed news to Eric Snowden.
Reading the ruling (.PDF here) independent of what is being reported about it is most interesting.....If you like reading the arcane or call it esoteric court report finding.
Arcane: Known or understood by only a few: arcane economic theories. See Synonyms at mysterious.
Esoteric: intended for or likely to be understood by only a small number of people with a specialized knowledge or interest.
Legal language as a highly structured form of Natural Language is about as close to the highly structured Artificial Language of Programming as Natural Language could be without actually, technically being called a program language. Someday it will evolve to a programming language. That time will come when it crosses the bridge created by the abstraction of rights I examined in a prior post:
"Block chain triple entry bookeeping for every thing in the world that has some property right associated with it. Public property or private property. Social concept or real thing.
Stakeholder is a social concept that has both public and private aspects. The real conflict we have in the world is failure to structurally organize our public and private stakeholding property rights and the values of those rights. Separate the two conceptually and they get easier to understand and manage."
The court finding is logic expressed in language to create structure. That is a recurring fundamental idea I have expressed in many prior blog entries. The court finding is written in English. Tedious reading but it was not meant to be entertaining as well as informative for public consumption that loses much in translation to a higher level language of the vernacular with a consequent introduction of noise and bias.
It is the court finding that is the most rigorous rock of logic legal examination and precise English language expression finding that puts the NSA between a rock of logic and a hard place.
Logic --- Legal Language ----Hard place structure. The language of the court tells how the NSA is between the rack and hard place and court decision is that NSA loses.
NSA violated privacy rights. Rights are not absolute. If there was enough reason to violate the constitutional right to privacy then it is permissable, legal to do so. There exists a special need to do so. Judge Richard Leon ruled there was no special need to do what NSA had been doing. NSA said Terrorists, writ big and often.
If Terrorist and if existing info collection system, a fact, then prove efficacy by result.
There is no result
"Turning to the efficacy prong, the Government does not cite a single
instance in which analysis of the NSA's bulk metadata collection
actually stopped an imminent attack, or otherwise aided the Government
in achieving any objective that was time- sensitive in nature," the
judge writes.
The efficacy prong! The prong that hoists the NSA on its own petard. I have use expression but never examined its origin described by Wikipedia here.
Petardiers were used during sieges of castles or fortified cities. The petard, a rather primitive and exceedingly dangerous explosive device, consisted of a brass or iron bell-shaped device filled with gunpowder fixed to a wooden base called a madrier. This was attached to a wall or gate using hooks and rings, the fuse lit and, if successful, the resulting explosive force, concentrated at the target point, would blow a hole in the obstruction, allowing assault troops to enter.
The word remains in modern usage in the phrase hoist with one's own petard, which means "to be harmed by one's own plan to harm someone else" or "to fall into one's own trap," implying that one could be lifted up (hoist, or blown upward) by one's own bomb.
If the NSA could show a preponderance of reasonable benefit from its collection of information on citizens then it might be a permissible reason to outweigh the right to privacy.
The NSA would have to show that it did in fact catch a lot of terrorists. It can't. However if the NSA could show that it caught a lot of really bad people that are also US Citizens but harming our country greviously by their actions, then presto: Good reason for surveillance. That of course is police work. Not war on a non-state actor.
The only way out of the rock and hard place that NSA finds itself in necessary to continue its institutional existence is to justify its existence by finding criminals other than terrorists and turning the focus of public opinion for their capture and prosecution on them.
Banksters? I wish.
War on drugs? That war is declining.
Who is really harming the USA as much as the hyped up threat of Terrorists?
Mass murderers?
The situation is much like the DOD found itself after the Cold War was over. It had to find a new enemy. One that was a real threat that we absolutely must protect ourself against.
Find one or create one. Finding or Creating one has to be based on a great real death and destruction attack. Round up the usual suspects for selection.
All that resource at NSA an nowhere to go.
MHOP is not an option. They have been Snowdend once severely. Twice shy. There are to many Snowdens out there. To much dispersed network information and knowledge that cannot be protected. Cryptology might be secure and unbreakable but human beings are not.
If the NSA cannot find or create enemies to justify its existence then how about a paradigm shift of beating swords into plow shares and using its vast information big data and big data mining ability. Turn its mission into one aimed at the greater social good of out country.
Information is the new medium of exchange. Perhaps the NSA should be the new quasi governmental entity of information like the Federal Reserve was created to handle the nation's monetary system a hundred years ago.
The new crypto money itself is just data information that requires an extreme degree of security and trust.
NSA is a big player in the crypto world and the greatest threat to our security is the loss of the US Dollar as the world reserve currency.
A new mission for the NSA.....Duh! It is the only way for us to maintain our financial leadership of the free world. Or has that already been taken over by world wide Corporatocracy?
Corporatocracy: That other non-state actor that is a threat to society. On the other hand it is where all the money is.
Rock and a Hard Place.
World wide financial collapse and loss of world dominance is the greatest threat we face.
Disaster has always resulted in greater centralized authoritarian control. No good disaster goes unused to get it.
The Shock Doctirne
Couple financial disaster with loss of world wide communication and there is a double whammy.. Start the disaster with cutting communication, which means cutting all financial transactions as well as fun on Facebook and Netflix movies. It only has to happen for a short time.
Who has their finger on the internet kill switch?
This prior blog looks at that.
Destroy a village in order to save it? While the origin of the phrase and who said what is controversial, the meaning is not. Save it for what and whom? Cui Bono?
Reading the ruling (.PDF here) independent of what is being reported about it is most interesting.....If you like reading the arcane or call it esoteric court report finding.
Arcane: Known or understood by only a few: arcane economic theories. See Synonyms at mysterious.
Esoteric: intended for or likely to be understood by only a small number of people with a specialized knowledge or interest.
Legal language as a highly structured form of Natural Language is about as close to the highly structured Artificial Language of Programming as Natural Language could be without actually, technically being called a program language. Someday it will evolve to a programming language. That time will come when it crosses the bridge created by the abstraction of rights I examined in a prior post:
"Block chain triple entry bookeeping for every thing in the world that has some property right associated with it. Public property or private property. Social concept or real thing.
Stakeholder is a social concept that has both public and private aspects. The real conflict we have in the world is failure to structurally organize our public and private stakeholding property rights and the values of those rights. Separate the two conceptually and they get easier to understand and manage."
The court finding is logic expressed in language to create structure. That is a recurring fundamental idea I have expressed in many prior blog entries. The court finding is written in English. Tedious reading but it was not meant to be entertaining as well as informative for public consumption that loses much in translation to a higher level language of the vernacular with a consequent introduction of noise and bias.
It is the court finding that is the most rigorous rock of logic legal examination and precise English language expression finding that puts the NSA between a rock of logic and a hard place.
Logic --- Legal Language ----Hard place structure. The language of the court tells how the NSA is between the rack and hard place and court decision is that NSA loses.
NSA violated privacy rights. Rights are not absolute. If there was enough reason to violate the constitutional right to privacy then it is permissable, legal to do so. There exists a special need to do so. Judge Richard Leon ruled there was no special need to do what NSA had been doing. NSA said Terrorists, writ big and often.
If Terrorist and if existing info collection system, a fact, then prove efficacy by result.
There is no result
The efficacy prong! The prong that hoists the NSA on its own petard. I have use expression but never examined its origin described by Wikipedia here.
Petardiers were used during sieges of castles or fortified cities. The petard, a rather primitive and exceedingly dangerous explosive device, consisted of a brass or iron bell-shaped device filled with gunpowder fixed to a wooden base called a madrier. This was attached to a wall or gate using hooks and rings, the fuse lit and, if successful, the resulting explosive force, concentrated at the target point, would blow a hole in the obstruction, allowing assault troops to enter.
The word remains in modern usage in the phrase hoist with one's own petard, which means "to be harmed by one's own plan to harm someone else" or "to fall into one's own trap," implying that one could be lifted up (hoist, or blown upward) by one's own bomb.
If the NSA could show a preponderance of reasonable benefit from its collection of information on citizens then it might be a permissible reason to outweigh the right to privacy.
The NSA would have to show that it did in fact catch a lot of terrorists. It can't. However if the NSA could show that it caught a lot of really bad people that are also US Citizens but harming our country greviously by their actions, then presto: Good reason for surveillance. That of course is police work. Not war on a non-state actor.
The only way out of the rock and hard place that NSA finds itself in necessary to continue its institutional existence is to justify its existence by finding criminals other than terrorists and turning the focus of public opinion for their capture and prosecution on them.
Banksters? I wish.
War on drugs? That war is declining.
Who is really harming the USA as much as the hyped up threat of Terrorists?
Mass murderers?
The situation is much like the DOD found itself after the Cold War was over. It had to find a new enemy. One that was a real threat that we absolutely must protect ourself against.
Find one or create one. Finding or Creating one has to be based on a great real death and destruction attack. Round up the usual suspects for selection.
All that resource at NSA an nowhere to go.
MHOP is not an option. They have been Snowdend once severely. Twice shy. There are to many Snowdens out there. To much dispersed network information and knowledge that cannot be protected. Cryptology might be secure and unbreakable but human beings are not.
If the NSA cannot find or create enemies to justify its existence then how about a paradigm shift of beating swords into plow shares and using its vast information big data and big data mining ability. Turn its mission into one aimed at the greater social good of out country.
Information is the new medium of exchange. Perhaps the NSA should be the new quasi governmental entity of information like the Federal Reserve was created to handle the nation's monetary system a hundred years ago.
The new crypto money itself is just data information that requires an extreme degree of security and trust.
NSA is a big player in the crypto world and the greatest threat to our security is the loss of the US Dollar as the world reserve currency.
A new mission for the NSA.....Duh! It is the only way for us to maintain our financial leadership of the free world. Or has that already been taken over by world wide Corporatocracy?
Corporatocracy: That other non-state actor that is a threat to society. On the other hand it is where all the money is.
Rock and a Hard Place.
World wide financial collapse and loss of world dominance is the greatest threat we face.
Disaster has always resulted in greater centralized authoritarian control. No good disaster goes unused to get it.
The Shock Doctirne
Couple financial disaster with loss of world wide communication and there is a double whammy.. Start the disaster with cutting communication, which means cutting all financial transactions as well as fun on Facebook and Netflix movies. It only has to happen for a short time.
Who has their finger on the internet kill switch?
This prior blog looks at that.
Destroy a village in order to save it? While the origin of the phrase and who said what is controversial, the meaning is not. Save it for what and whom? Cui Bono?
Monday, December 16, 2013
iBeacons
This blog entry is a placeholder for future additions regarding iBeacons as their application increases. I have already made blog entries related to iBeacons and location identification. There will be more and this is where they will be collected.
15 Dec. 2013:
The Internet of iThings: Apple's iBeacon Is Already In Almost 200 Million iPhones And iPad
15 Dec. 2013:
The Internet of iThings: Apple's iBeacon Is Already In Almost 200 Million iPhones And iPad
Solution To The Accouting Problem Described in the Prior Post
Triple entry accounting is the solution to the financial reporting problem that hides control fraud. Multi Dimensional Accounting. Vector Accounting. Double entry accounting is old school version 1.0 accounting that not only deserves to die but must die. It is causing a great social dysfunction in an Information/Knowledge era.
Financial Accounting is all about value. Values associated with a property. Real and conceptual property. The value of a real thing is an abstraction of the thing itself separating its conceptual attributes from its physical attributes. The cornerstone of the Information Age is to manage the conceptual properties of a thing independent (by design) from its physical representation. Nothing really new. Natural Language always did that. We now have super powerful artificial languages and systems in which they operate that move us into conceptual virtual worlds. Worlds where first generation abstractions from real things are input to 2nd generation abstractions of the 1st generation abstraction and so on through higher levels of structural abstractions.
Thing get so abstracted that we long for the connection to reality. That is why we take a walk in the woods.
If: Levels of abstractions are connected back to the first level and that level connected to something real, like a definitional truth "I think therefore I am" is a foundation of conscienceless or the physical representation reality of a thing in time and space.
Then: There is meaning. A reference for confidence in perception. Something to hold onto. Something trusted.
Value of a pure concept grows the more it is trusted. If attached to a physical object the value of the attached object grows in relationship if inseparable from its conceptual association.
From this link:
vector accounting (or property accounting) provides a valuation-free description of the property transactions underlying the value transactions of ordinary accounting, thus avoiding their valuation controversies. According to Ellerman, it is called property accounting because it keeps accounts directly in terms of the stocks and flows of the underlying property rights. It attempts to stake out the objective territory that involves no valuation in order to delineate the real issues of valuation. Property is understood to change by: transactions between parties and appropriations ("or, metaphorically, with Nature"). He states:
Property rights are a conceptual abstraction built on or asscociated with a conceptual abstraction of their variable value. Property rights are conveyed in trade. Each trade is a new time based transfer of property right and if recorded makes a chain of historical property holders.
Sound like Bitcoin?
If so you get the idea. Bitcoin in but a specialized application of the idea of separating "property" accounting from value accounting. If fact it is a superior way of accounting! It applies the same model of evolutionary progress that we as humans have always used as our finest ability: Abstracting conceptual identity attributes from a physical object and managing the conceptual attributes independent of constraints imposed by the physical object. We do not have to hold a rock to convey the meaning of a rock.
Block chain triple entry bookeeping for every thing in the world that has some property right associated with it. Public property or private property. Social concept or real thing.
Stakeholder is a social concept that hs both public and private aspects. The real conflict we have in the world is failure to structurally organize our public and private stakeholding property rights and the values of those rights. Separate the two conceptually and they get easier to understand and manage.
Bitcoin is a test of that extremely universal idea?
We do not have to manage most things in common terms of their related common denomination in money value anymore. We can manage things directly as things. We can equally extract money itself from its tight conceptual binding its value and manage it directly as an conceptual object independent of its value.
Money in the Bitcoin world is the transaction. A two party transaction conveying property right. There is no higher level abstraction necessary to divide money into a double entry debt relationship. Bitcoin is not a debt money representation.
Some say that money by definition is a representation of debt involving a counterparty. Bitcoin therefore is not money it is an asset. Absolutely. An absolute expression of pure absolute property right independent of value. In that separation the pure value stands alone as expectation that the property right will be accepted by someone in trade for something. The fact that it must be accepted or it is the only medium of acceptance in payment for something might have been true in the history of money but no longer the fundamental basis or reason for existence for what money is.
The third dimension making a triple entry system out of a double entry accounting system beyond current property right ownership and value is connecting the holding of a property right back to the underlaying object and the sharing of that property right with other stakeholders in non-money value terms.
Perhaps that is a 4th dimension. There are currently by popular understanding 10 dimensions of the universe. We have some ways to go in the dimensional evolution of our conceptual and increasingly virtual world.
Financial Accounting is all about value. Values associated with a property. Real and conceptual property. The value of a real thing is an abstraction of the thing itself separating its conceptual attributes from its physical attributes. The cornerstone of the Information Age is to manage the conceptual properties of a thing independent (by design) from its physical representation. Nothing really new. Natural Language always did that. We now have super powerful artificial languages and systems in which they operate that move us into conceptual virtual worlds. Worlds where first generation abstractions from real things are input to 2nd generation abstractions of the 1st generation abstraction and so on through higher levels of structural abstractions.
Thing get so abstracted that we long for the connection to reality. That is why we take a walk in the woods.
If: Levels of abstractions are connected back to the first level and that level connected to something real, like a definitional truth "I think therefore I am" is a foundation of conscienceless or the physical representation reality of a thing in time and space.
Then: There is meaning. A reference for confidence in perception. Something to hold onto. Something trusted.
Value of a pure concept grows the more it is trusted. If attached to a physical object the value of the attached object grows in relationship if inseparable from its conceptual association.
From this link:
vector accounting (or property accounting) provides a valuation-free description of the property transactions underlying the value transactions of ordinary accounting, thus avoiding their valuation controversies. According to Ellerman, it is called property accounting because it keeps accounts directly in terms of the stocks and flows of the underlying property rights. It attempts to stake out the objective territory that involves no valuation in order to delineate the real issues of valuation. Property is understood to change by: transactions between parties and appropriations ("or, metaphorically, with Nature"). He states:
...vector accounting shows that an accounting equation can still be used in the presence of incomparability between dimensions by using vector equations. This is a mathematical fact independent of the content. the content of the vector accounting formalism could be property accounting, social accounting, accounting for physical inventories at different locations, and so forth.
Property rights are a conceptual abstraction built on or asscociated with a conceptual abstraction of their variable value. Property rights are conveyed in trade. Each trade is a new time based transfer of property right and if recorded makes a chain of historical property holders.
Sound like Bitcoin?
If so you get the idea. Bitcoin in but a specialized application of the idea of separating "property" accounting from value accounting. If fact it is a superior way of accounting! It applies the same model of evolutionary progress that we as humans have always used as our finest ability: Abstracting conceptual identity attributes from a physical object and managing the conceptual attributes independent of constraints imposed by the physical object. We do not have to hold a rock to convey the meaning of a rock.
Block chain triple entry bookeeping for every thing in the world that has some property right associated with it. Public property or private property. Social concept or real thing.
Stakeholder is a social concept that hs both public and private aspects. The real conflict we have in the world is failure to structurally organize our public and private stakeholding property rights and the values of those rights. Separate the two conceptually and they get easier to understand and manage.
Bitcoin is a test of that extremely universal idea?
We do not have to manage most things in common terms of their related common denomination in money value anymore. We can manage things directly as things. We can equally extract money itself from its tight conceptual binding its value and manage it directly as an conceptual object independent of its value.
Money in the Bitcoin world is the transaction. A two party transaction conveying property right. There is no higher level abstraction necessary to divide money into a double entry debt relationship. Bitcoin is not a debt money representation.
Some say that money by definition is a representation of debt involving a counterparty. Bitcoin therefore is not money it is an asset. Absolutely. An absolute expression of pure absolute property right independent of value. In that separation the pure value stands alone as expectation that the property right will be accepted by someone in trade for something. The fact that it must be accepted or it is the only medium of acceptance in payment for something might have been true in the history of money but no longer the fundamental basis or reason for existence for what money is.
The third dimension making a triple entry system out of a double entry accounting system beyond current property right ownership and value is connecting the holding of a property right back to the underlaying object and the sharing of that property right with other stakeholders in non-money value terms.
Perhaps that is a 4th dimension. There are currently by popular understanding 10 dimensions of the universe. We have some ways to go in the dimensional evolution of our conceptual and increasingly virtual world.
International Financial Reporting Standards
International Financial Reporting Standards dances to the tune of the financial investment community and gives them exactly what they want to launder control fraud, if that is their intent. IFRS solicits financial community input and approval of financial "principals". All to often those principals are driven by the moral hazard of the huge money making opportunity of control fraud and the need to hide it by manipulating the financial reporting.
Look! There is no fraud here. Look at the financial reports! The best way to rob a bank is to own one. The biggest financial institutions own the "bank" of financial paper. Everything in the financial industry is controlled by the the top level of the financial industry. That top level has more power to control than the government.
Bill Black is a fraud fighting super hero! He gives a lengthy explanation of a control fraud situation at this link here. Excellent Bill. How many start reading it vs how many complete it? Understand it? Here is a key statement from the link:
"I leave to the reader the reason a principles-based accounting system should be interpreted in a manner that supports rather than defeats the underlying anti-fraud purpose of the rule. But what if the accountants or the international accounting standards setting boards choose to defeat the anti-fraud purpose of the rule? That would create the perfect fraud."
Exactly Bill! However, just like me you use so many words to bury the nugget in the discourse!
In my opinion the IFRS is an institutionalized control fraud structure. It is the laundering system for financial fraud. Real financial fraud is perpetrated, run through the IFRS and comes out looking like a rose in a financial report but reeking of financial stench that the sanitized report intends to cover up.
IFRS is a financial accounting principals based system. It asks the financial system to give input on which to design the reporting system. There is a difference between a system of principles and a system of law. The financial industry may define its principals but the law defines the rules. That is why the industry does not want government rules or enforcement because they dictate principals. The law rules. When "financial accounting principals" are applied to determine financial report output they can just as easily be for the purpose of control fraud as well as controlling fraud.
In the financial world what makes the most money? Bad business drives out good business. Fraud then makes the most money. No financial system is designed to report systemic control fraud. It is designed to expose low level fraud. Fraudsters at that level do not control the system.
IFRS is a means for the masters of the financial world to control the fraud for their benefit.
International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) are defined by Wikipedia here at this link. It describes this background to the to the current standards.
"IFRS began as an attempt to harmonise accounting across the European Union but the value of harmonisation quickly made the concept attractive around the world. They are sometimes still called by the original name of International Accounting Standards (IAS). IAS were issued between 1973 and 2001 by the Board of the International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC). On 1 April 2001, the new International Accounting Standards Board took over from the IASC the responsibility for setting International Accounting Standards. During its first meeting the new Board adopted existing IAS and Standing Interpretations Committee standards (SICs). The IASB has continued to develop standards calling the new standards International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).
The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) is the independent, accounting standard-setting body of the IFRS Foundation.[1]
The International Financial Reporting Standards Foundation, or IFRS Foundation, is a nonprofit accounting organization. Its main objectives include the development and promotion of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs) through the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), which it oversees.[1][3]
The foundation was formerly named the International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC) Foundation until a renaming on 1 July 2010, and as of 2012 is governed by a board of 22 trustees.[4]
The IFRS website is at this link here.
Look! There is no fraud here. Look at the financial reports! The best way to rob a bank is to own one. The biggest financial institutions own the "bank" of financial paper. Everything in the financial industry is controlled by the the top level of the financial industry. That top level has more power to control than the government.
Bill Black is a fraud fighting super hero! He gives a lengthy explanation of a control fraud situation at this link here. Excellent Bill. How many start reading it vs how many complete it? Understand it? Here is a key statement from the link:
"I leave to the reader the reason a principles-based accounting system should be interpreted in a manner that supports rather than defeats the underlying anti-fraud purpose of the rule. But what if the accountants or the international accounting standards setting boards choose to defeat the anti-fraud purpose of the rule? That would create the perfect fraud."
Exactly Bill! However, just like me you use so many words to bury the nugget in the discourse!
In my opinion the IFRS is an institutionalized control fraud structure. It is the laundering system for financial fraud. Real financial fraud is perpetrated, run through the IFRS and comes out looking like a rose in a financial report but reeking of financial stench that the sanitized report intends to cover up.
IFRS is a financial accounting principals based system. It asks the financial system to give input on which to design the reporting system. There is a difference between a system of principles and a system of law. The financial industry may define its principals but the law defines the rules. That is why the industry does not want government rules or enforcement because they dictate principals. The law rules. When "financial accounting principals" are applied to determine financial report output they can just as easily be for the purpose of control fraud as well as controlling fraud.
In the financial world what makes the most money? Bad business drives out good business. Fraud then makes the most money. No financial system is designed to report systemic control fraud. It is designed to expose low level fraud. Fraudsters at that level do not control the system.
IFRS is a means for the masters of the financial world to control the fraud for their benefit.
International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) are defined by Wikipedia here at this link. It describes this background to the to the current standards.
"IFRS began as an attempt to harmonise accounting across the European Union but the value of harmonisation quickly made the concept attractive around the world. They are sometimes still called by the original name of International Accounting Standards (IAS). IAS were issued between 1973 and 2001 by the Board of the International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC). On 1 April 2001, the new International Accounting Standards Board took over from the IASC the responsibility for setting International Accounting Standards. During its first meeting the new Board adopted existing IAS and Standing Interpretations Committee standards (SICs). The IASB has continued to develop standards calling the new standards International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).
In the absence of a Standard or an Interpretation that specifically applies to a transaction, management must use its judgement in developing and applying an accounting policy that results in information that is relevant and reliable. In making that judgement, IAS 8.11 requires management to consider the definitions, recognition criteria, and measurement concepts for assets, liabilities, income, and expenses in the Framework."
The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) is the independent, accounting standard-setting body of the IFRS Foundation.[1]
The International Financial Reporting Standards Foundation, or IFRS Foundation, is a nonprofit accounting organization. Its main objectives include the development and promotion of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs) through the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), which it oversees.[1][3]
The foundation was formerly named the International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC) Foundation until a renaming on 1 July 2010, and as of 2012 is governed by a board of 22 trustees.[4]
The IFRS website is at this link here.
Saturday, December 14, 2013
Data Portraits - Visual Data Mining
There is no Wikipedia entry for the term "Data Portrait" ---yet. Somewhat surprising. All data representations are portraits but obviously there is an emerging conceptual sub-set view.
Images of various data portraits here at this link.
A fascinating data portrait has stuck in the back of my mind since seeing it a year ago. It displayed one day of geo cell phone tracking movement in a European (Helsinki?) city. The city had both a major bridge in the center and also a ferry system across a lake or river. It was time lapse video that showed the influx of cell phones to the city from outskirts and then the return to the suburbs in the late afternoon. Concentrated inner city movement during the day. It looped at the end of the video and the impression was one of a city breathing in and out with the cyclical movement of cell phones.
Speaking of breathing, this link examines the environmental quality of air we breathe related to monitoring traffic using cell phone geo traffic movement information.
Each cell phone of course representing a very high correlation to a single person. Tracking was certainly done by recording real time geo cell phone signal to tower communications and the passing of the signal from tower to tower.
This type of macro geo tracking of cell phones in a specific selected map area has some fascinating information applications. The first obvious one is traffic flow for traffic management purposes in planning and maintenance of traffic patterns. Another data map that is analogous to cell phone tracking is geo tracking airline flights. I have seen them represented as a video time lapse. A video of the all real airline traffic for all aircraft similar to the map showing all flight connections of an airline that we can see in the back of airline magazines that are the last passenger refuge of boredom on a flight.
For example: Couple cell phone tracking to airports, flights across a geographic area and then cell phones from airports to destinations and the Data Map would reveal something interesting. Commercially valuable? The cell phone data filter would be the key to value of macro cell phone movement data which is the same filter problem faced by the NSA. All data has to be recorded but a means to pick a needle out of the haystack has to be devised. All needles have to be tagged somehow for later filter application once a target or target has been selected.
If target selection is based on all cell phones entering/leaving an airport then there has to be a track back in time to the path from an to the airport. At some point in that path the generation of data input for subsequent search comes up against privacy barriers that must be overcome by anonymizing the info, authorizing the info or disregarding any privacy barriers.
This link presents a cell phone tracking data portrait model and discusses privacy and anonymous identity.
Data Portraits paint fascinating visuals.
This link maps the web as artwork.
Yesterday I saw a graphic showing cell tower transmissions in Chicago. It applied coloring to the the various bandwidth hopping transmissions to create a rainbow effect.
This link creates personal portraits of people related somehow to their quantified self. I would have to dig to see how it is done but it uses the term. " Albiac asked people to submit photos of themselves to his site, where they were turned into triptychs using images from the Hubble Space Telescope." It is a higher level of abstraction to manipulate a data information representation into an somewhat abstract but recognizable painting portrait of a specific person. How would Mona look as a result of this view?
A technical discussion of data portraits at this link. It is one of the most interesting links that I have examined recently. There are some golden nuggets in the link:
"In the world of information visualization, the goal is to depict the data as objectively as possible. This is
the opposite of art, where the artist’s subjective vision is central. Data portraits sit between these extremes:
their techniques come from the world of statistical analysis, but their purpose is artistic. Some may be
closer to one extreme or the other – neither is “right”, but understanding where a particular portrait falls in
this subjectivity continuum is a key element in understanding its function."
"Privacy and control are closely intertwined: having a relatively innocuous piece of information revealed without your consent may feel like a violation, while freely displaying personal information of your own volition can be empowering. Privacy depends on audience."
Perhaps the best way to preempt privacy is to make "non-privacy" the default mode on a web connected device or the price of entry to interaction on the web. This is an startling example of pin pointing location using photo related location info publicly revealing privacy information.
This is a fascinating data portrait: Facebook's migration station: what our location updates say about human movement.
This link is a selfie data portrait of personal travel tracked by a cell phone for 3.5 years. The author is a co-founder of software that conserves battery life and provides device tracking info.
Search travels around web revealed the term Visual Data Mining relates to Data Portrait.
Visual Data mining image search results here at this link.
This link presents a visual representation of traffic noised mined from some data base of information related to traffic in Helsinki produce by HeatMiner software. Helsinki is probably the location of daily cell phone traffic patterns that I mentioned earlier in this post although I still cannot find the specific link. HeatMiner is a fascinating product I found at Cloud'n'Sci.fi An aggregator of news related to Algorithms as a Service. I like the logo at the site! From the site that has a model of building a business on Open Data.
Images of various data portraits here at this link.
A fascinating data portrait has stuck in the back of my mind since seeing it a year ago. It displayed one day of geo cell phone tracking movement in a European (Helsinki?) city. The city had both a major bridge in the center and also a ferry system across a lake or river. It was time lapse video that showed the influx of cell phones to the city from outskirts and then the return to the suburbs in the late afternoon. Concentrated inner city movement during the day. It looped at the end of the video and the impression was one of a city breathing in and out with the cyclical movement of cell phones.
Speaking of breathing, this link examines the environmental quality of air we breathe related to monitoring traffic using cell phone geo traffic movement information.
Each cell phone of course representing a very high correlation to a single person. Tracking was certainly done by recording real time geo cell phone signal to tower communications and the passing of the signal from tower to tower.
This type of macro geo tracking of cell phones in a specific selected map area has some fascinating information applications. The first obvious one is traffic flow for traffic management purposes in planning and maintenance of traffic patterns. Another data map that is analogous to cell phone tracking is geo tracking airline flights. I have seen them represented as a video time lapse. A video of the all real airline traffic for all aircraft similar to the map showing all flight connections of an airline that we can see in the back of airline magazines that are the last passenger refuge of boredom on a flight.
For example: Couple cell phone tracking to airports, flights across a geographic area and then cell phones from airports to destinations and the Data Map would reveal something interesting. Commercially valuable? The cell phone data filter would be the key to value of macro cell phone movement data which is the same filter problem faced by the NSA. All data has to be recorded but a means to pick a needle out of the haystack has to be devised. All needles have to be tagged somehow for later filter application once a target or target has been selected.
If target selection is based on all cell phones entering/leaving an airport then there has to be a track back in time to the path from an to the airport. At some point in that path the generation of data input for subsequent search comes up against privacy barriers that must be overcome by anonymizing the info, authorizing the info or disregarding any privacy barriers.
This link presents a cell phone tracking data portrait model and discusses privacy and anonymous identity.
Data Portraits paint fascinating visuals.
This link maps the web as artwork.
Yesterday I saw a graphic showing cell tower transmissions in Chicago. It applied coloring to the the various bandwidth hopping transmissions to create a rainbow effect.
This link creates personal portraits of people related somehow to their quantified self. I would have to dig to see how it is done but it uses the term. " Albiac asked people to submit photos of themselves to his site, where they were turned into triptychs using images from the Hubble Space Telescope." It is a higher level of abstraction to manipulate a data information representation into an somewhat abstract but recognizable painting portrait of a specific person. How would Mona look as a result of this view?
A technical discussion of data portraits at this link. It is one of the most interesting links that I have examined recently. There are some golden nuggets in the link:
"Using metaphor: Metaphor is a powerful, but sometimes tricky, way to introduce meaning. Metaphors
help us understand one thing in terms of another – it has been argued that all of our ability for abstract
thought is by using metaphor to building up understanding from a physical foundation."
"The metaphorical poetics of PeopleGarden [9], which portrays the participants in a discussion group as
flowers and the group as a garden, makes interpreting meaning intuitive. As the height of a real flower
indicates its age, the height of a PeopleGarden flower indicates how long someone has been posting to the
group. The number of petals represents posting frequency: a lush blossom indicates an engaged
contributor. A petal’s color indicates whether it is an initial posting or response and the color fades over
time: it is easy to remember that a faded flower is an inactive participant. The flower metaphor makes the
portraits easily legible. It gives them visual appeal and a sense of vitality: rather than a dry statistical graph,
here the data appears as an enticing garden. The problem is that the metaphor overwhelms the content it
depicts. A person is portrayed as a pretty flower no matter what he or she is saying."
A data Selfie????? We are still the nominal owners of our own privacy so no privacy rules violated in using our own private info for any expression we choose.
Referring again to the prior link examining Data Portraits
"Privacy and control are closely intertwined: having a relatively innocuous piece of information revealed without your consent may feel like a violation, while freely displaying personal information of your own volition can be empowering. Privacy depends on audience."
"Privacy and control are central issues in portraiture. When the subject controls the portrayal, and chooses
to reveal little other than the public image, the result portrait is often dull and lifeless: e.g., many official
portraits of politicians and executives. Portraits that reveal the subject’s vulnerability, such as Nan
Goldin’s photographs, are more interesting to the audience, but they may be very discomforting to the
subject. How much is revealed by a portrait and who controls it is the center of the tension between artist,
subject and audience."
Perhaps the best way to preempt privacy is to make "non-privacy" the default mode on a web connected device or the price of entry to interaction on the web. This is an startling example of pin pointing location using photo related location info publicly revealing privacy information.
This is a fascinating data portrait: Facebook's migration station: what our location updates say about human movement.
This link is a selfie data portrait of personal travel tracked by a cell phone for 3.5 years. The author is a co-founder of software that conserves battery life and provides device tracking info.
Search travels around web revealed the term Visual Data Mining relates to Data Portrait.
Visual Data mining image search results here at this link.
This link presents a visual representation of traffic noised mined from some data base of information related to traffic in Helsinki produce by HeatMiner software. Helsinki is probably the location of daily cell phone traffic patterns that I mentioned earlier in this post although I still cannot find the specific link. HeatMiner is a fascinating product I found at Cloud'n'Sci.fi An aggregator of news related to Algorithms as a Service. I like the logo at the site! From the site that has a model of building a business on Open Data.
This branches from the discussion of Data Portraits but connects to Bitcoin. The developers of Bitcoin were more crypto algorithm scientists/Engineers/Builders than just programmers. Cloud'nSci.fi has an interesting presentation at this link on how Algorithm specialists can build a startup. Like Bitcoin? Algorithms. The new gold.
Friday, December 13, 2013
This Blog
I write this blog for myself. Myself alone as a means of self expression that is not intended to communicate anything to anyone but myself by structuring my own thoughts. I learn both from the creative structure process of exploring ideas that come out of nowhere and then looking at them after they fit somewhere in a structure of abstract conceptualizations that are entirely of my own object oriented design. This blog is just building blocks that I play with to assemble my thinking. They can be put together in many ways and that is the fun. If they amount to something to me then that is good.
This blog does not fit the normal frame of a blog. I do not fit normal frames. Blogs are objects to be passed as messages to others. That is their purpose. While this blog is open to discovery, nobody really looks at it. It has only once been commented on and that was by a dear friend. If anyone cares to look at what I express, they may. Who cares? I don't. I do not write with the intention of laying out clear, concise, briefly elegant structures of information creating insight and new knowledge for others. I do not have to explain what I am saying to myself. Just say it in hopes of grasping where it fits. Sometimes it does and I feel I get somewhere. Otherwise the blog would dead end.
That is the framing of this blog. It is for me. That is not the frame of expectation that others view blogs. In their frame the first and most obvious failing of the blog is what the frame of blogs is all about. Communication. Quality communication based on general judgements of presentation and degree to which it "says something" effectively to others.
I really do not care to manage anything I say in this blog to fit that "other oriented" frame. I could fit that frame if I refined whatever I have to say by wordsmithing in to be a more effective message. That does not matter to me. Previously I wrote about that in terms of not having to get my ducks in a row anymore. Unbound freedom of expression from worry that someone else will not get what I am saying because I failed in communication.
No fear of failure here with the intent of this blog. For a mission oriented guy who will focus on the external accomplishment of significant external objectives; a navy career, crossing the country several times on a bike or doing Ironman multiple times that seems to be contradictory. The final objective and focus at this later stage in life is just me. Proof of work in my block chain of life has already been done and the proof is good enough for me. Externally, however I still like a good challenge. This blog plays with challenging concepts. Focus in on play and there are many challenging concepts to play with.
Much of what I say to myself is half baked, half-assed, off the wall excursions beyond reality to fantasy and back again with stops and diversions along the way while I climb a tree to the moon. I know a little about a lot which to some might as well be worth nothing. I am the first to say that the words and concepts I use might imply some great knowledge. What I truly know a mile wide and an inch deep. Like the Platte River: "To thick to drink and too thin to plow, a mile wide and an inch deep". What is it worth?
If your frame is a farmer, this blog is worth as much at the Platte River. Farmers are anchored to the land. I am not. My free range mind likewise. It roams wherever I wish to go entirely for my own purposes which are unrestricted by any fences. Whatever may be fences defining given frames of reference restricting others to the order of their conceptual boundaries I just walk through. They would have to jump over them and cows don't jump. Horses do but eagles fly.
One frame that I do acknowledge is the frame of Logic, Language and Structure. Jump or fly out of that frame and the other side of the fence is a cliff of eternal free fall and eagle flew to close to the sun.
This blog does not fit the normal frame of a blog. I do not fit normal frames. Blogs are objects to be passed as messages to others. That is their purpose. While this blog is open to discovery, nobody really looks at it. It has only once been commented on and that was by a dear friend. If anyone cares to look at what I express, they may. Who cares? I don't. I do not write with the intention of laying out clear, concise, briefly elegant structures of information creating insight and new knowledge for others. I do not have to explain what I am saying to myself. Just say it in hopes of grasping where it fits. Sometimes it does and I feel I get somewhere. Otherwise the blog would dead end.
That is the framing of this blog. It is for me. That is not the frame of expectation that others view blogs. In their frame the first and most obvious failing of the blog is what the frame of blogs is all about. Communication. Quality communication based on general judgements of presentation and degree to which it "says something" effectively to others.
I really do not care to manage anything I say in this blog to fit that "other oriented" frame. I could fit that frame if I refined whatever I have to say by wordsmithing in to be a more effective message. That does not matter to me. Previously I wrote about that in terms of not having to get my ducks in a row anymore. Unbound freedom of expression from worry that someone else will not get what I am saying because I failed in communication.
No fear of failure here with the intent of this blog. For a mission oriented guy who will focus on the external accomplishment of significant external objectives; a navy career, crossing the country several times on a bike or doing Ironman multiple times that seems to be contradictory. The final objective and focus at this later stage in life is just me. Proof of work in my block chain of life has already been done and the proof is good enough for me. Externally, however I still like a good challenge. This blog plays with challenging concepts. Focus in on play and there are many challenging concepts to play with.
Much of what I say to myself is half baked, half-assed, off the wall excursions beyond reality to fantasy and back again with stops and diversions along the way while I climb a tree to the moon. I know a little about a lot which to some might as well be worth nothing. I am the first to say that the words and concepts I use might imply some great knowledge. What I truly know a mile wide and an inch deep. Like the Platte River: "To thick to drink and too thin to plow, a mile wide and an inch deep". What is it worth?
If your frame is a farmer, this blog is worth as much at the Platte River. Farmers are anchored to the land. I am not. My free range mind likewise. It roams wherever I wish to go entirely for my own purposes which are unrestricted by any fences. Whatever may be fences defining given frames of reference restricting others to the order of their conceptual boundaries I just walk through. They would have to jump over them and cows don't jump. Horses do but eagles fly.
One frame that I do acknowledge is the frame of Logic, Language and Structure. Jump or fly out of that frame and the other side of the fence is a cliff of eternal free fall and eagle flew to close to the sun.
Bitcoin Venture Capital and CoinBase
News today at this link: How Coinbase Became the Top-Funded Bitcoin Startup
History shows that a few of the 49er miners made money. A larger number made money on goods and services provided to miners. Coinbase is selling wallets to put money in.
An idea that could not be sold to traditional VC investors relates to who makes allocation of resources decisions using money as a tool, risk and asymmetrical knowledge. Focus on the last term: Asymmetrical knowledge.
Wikipedia defines asymmetrical information. But not Knowledge Asymmetry. At this link Wikipedia says there is no page for that term but gives references to its use.
"Less than two years ago, Brian Armstrong had to struggle just to explain the idea of Bitcoin to investors. On Thursday, his startup announced that it had raised what may be the largest funding round to date in the Bitcoin space."
Brian had asymmetrical subject matter expert knowledge of the problem domain. Traditional VC investors do not. They know information, seek asymmetrical information advantage to reduce the risk of investing. Generally, financial Information they can extract knowledge from in the problem domain of money. They might have tech experts that can advise them regarding the domain of investment. How good are the advisors. If they were really good they would more likely be sitting in the chair of the investment seeker. Maybe that is where startup failures go to live out their remaining days.
Brian had the knowledge of Bitcoin but it was difficult to communicate to non-knowledgeable VC investors or even their tech advisers. His knowledge was bleading edge stuff.
Emerge here the tech oriented, knowledgeable VC investor. Investor who themselves have created a personal fortune in a tech area that do not have to be "educated" in order to have the knowledge, not just the information to make an investment decision. Netscape founder Marc Andreessen for example.
On a smaller scale look at Interwest Partners Raising capital to invest in tech oriented startups but focusing on two areas: Information Technology and Health Care. The VC business has a knowledge base of experts in both areas. Knowledge advantage wins over information advantage. A VC seeker with a tech idea in these areas does not face the formidable challenge of educating the decision makers.
VC has the big advantage today of both being the domain of bigger players that get in first and if the VC entity has a deep subject matter knowledge base it also has the asymmetry advantage over traditional VC that is more financial information oriented. Often using that information asymmetry not for the advantage of investors but, as exemplified by Wall Street, to take moral hazard advantage of investors with less information, much less knowledge.
Perhaps at the basic level that is the difference between traditional financial VC investing and Tech oriented and knowledgeable investing.
Financial VC is motivated by money, any way it can be made on financial information terms based on their knowledge of money and the extent to which they can be educated (or bluffed) by a capital seeker.
Knowledge Based VC in high tech areas is more likely to be motivated exactly by what motivated them to get to the position of making decisions to invest in the ideas and knowledge of those looking for financial support. Passion for the state of the art and its advancement. Financial rewards? Tech is evolving toward Open Source Systems. Those that have benefited financially and greatly from technology are perhaps more inclined to Open Source inclinations of contributing to the commons of the domain than experts in money and how to wring it out of the financial system in whatever way is possible. A financial oriented domain where the contributing back to the commons was expressed by "leave a little on the table, pigs get slaughtered". That is not even the generally shared inclination of their domain. Now the inclination of the financial world is that if you do not know who the mark is then it is you. Always play with other peoples money.
History shows that a few of the 49er miners made money. A larger number made money on goods and services provided to miners. Coinbase is selling wallets to put money in.
An idea that could not be sold to traditional VC investors relates to who makes allocation of resources decisions using money as a tool, risk and asymmetrical knowledge. Focus on the last term: Asymmetrical knowledge.
Wikipedia defines asymmetrical information. But not Knowledge Asymmetry. At this link Wikipedia says there is no page for that term but gives references to its use.
"Less than two years ago, Brian Armstrong had to struggle just to explain the idea of Bitcoin to investors. On Thursday, his startup announced that it had raised what may be the largest funding round to date in the Bitcoin space."
Brian had asymmetrical subject matter expert knowledge of the problem domain. Traditional VC investors do not. They know information, seek asymmetrical information advantage to reduce the risk of investing. Generally, financial Information they can extract knowledge from in the problem domain of money. They might have tech experts that can advise them regarding the domain of investment. How good are the advisors. If they were really good they would more likely be sitting in the chair of the investment seeker. Maybe that is where startup failures go to live out their remaining days.
Brian had the knowledge of Bitcoin but it was difficult to communicate to non-knowledgeable VC investors or even their tech advisers. His knowledge was bleading edge stuff.
Emerge here the tech oriented, knowledgeable VC investor. Investor who themselves have created a personal fortune in a tech area that do not have to be "educated" in order to have the knowledge, not just the information to make an investment decision. Netscape founder Marc Andreessen for example.
On a smaller scale look at Interwest Partners Raising capital to invest in tech oriented startups but focusing on two areas: Information Technology and Health Care. The VC business has a knowledge base of experts in both areas. Knowledge advantage wins over information advantage. A VC seeker with a tech idea in these areas does not face the formidable challenge of educating the decision makers.
VC has the big advantage today of both being the domain of bigger players that get in first and if the VC entity has a deep subject matter knowledge base it also has the asymmetry advantage over traditional VC that is more financial information oriented. Often using that information asymmetry not for the advantage of investors but, as exemplified by Wall Street, to take moral hazard advantage of investors with less information, much less knowledge.
Perhaps at the basic level that is the difference between traditional financial VC investing and Tech oriented and knowledgeable investing.
Financial VC is motivated by money, any way it can be made on financial information terms based on their knowledge of money and the extent to which they can be educated (or bluffed) by a capital seeker.
Knowledge Based VC in high tech areas is more likely to be motivated exactly by what motivated them to get to the position of making decisions to invest in the ideas and knowledge of those looking for financial support. Passion for the state of the art and its advancement. Financial rewards? Tech is evolving toward Open Source Systems. Those that have benefited financially and greatly from technology are perhaps more inclined to Open Source inclinations of contributing to the commons of the domain than experts in money and how to wring it out of the financial system in whatever way is possible. A financial oriented domain where the contributing back to the commons was expressed by "leave a little on the table, pigs get slaughtered". That is not even the generally shared inclination of their domain. Now the inclination of the financial world is that if you do not know who the mark is then it is you. Always play with other peoples money.
Thursday, December 12, 2013
Bitcoin Kill Switch - Skinning the Cat
All my blog entries ramble on excessively to get to a point.....if I have not lost sight of what it is and redoubled my efforts to get there.
Tip: Skip to the end. There is always an end of the entry. If there is a point it is there. Short cut to it.
This is true of my last previous post. So true and such a worthwhile point in my opinion that I have extracted the last best of the prior post to be the first Point of this post. After I had to write the preceding just to explain my thinking first!
This is what I wrote as the ending of the prior post: The more I think about it the more it makes sense. The conclusion is supported in a very roundabout tortured manner by what preceded it in the blog entry>
"Bitcoin is a global community money system. The communities, whatever their size such as the European Community, the USA, China or Cyprus, or any smaller "community unit" all the way down to the individual person will gain or lose substantially relative to other communities depending on when they convert to bitcoin from a national currency. When the tipping point comes and the world sees which way the wind of change is blowing for bitcoin it is fascinating to speculate exactly what will happen because the backbone of bitcoin is the internet."
"Is that what the internet kill switch is for?"
My Blog entry on the internet kill here.
Boggles my mind! When some "community" shouts Eureka! the new gold rush is on and the golden rule applies. Those with the gold rule! The price will bid up rapidly. What if it is the Chinese that lead the bid up in the world wide market. The Chinese People not the People's Bank of China? The People's bank that washed their hands and the hands of private banks (by direction) of dealing in bitcoin as currency. If the people choose to deal in it that is their business.
That is the beauty of peer to peer money! This is where the cards have to be called and bets laid on the table. Players either fold and get out or continue to play after one player has won big time! If they choose to get out then they would exit saying: China take all your bitcoin and welcome to it we will not play with bitcoin anymore we will make our own crypto currency.
Chinese are very clever people. They must leave enough bitcoin on the table to continue the game. Americans are not clever in the ways of war to para phrase Sun Tzu.
Pearl Harbor deja vu. but this time there is instant retaliation to stop the attack:
Internet kill switch. Surgically applied of course like a virtual drone strike.
Silk Road was nothing more than Bitcoin bomb testing Trinity Site?
How sublimely elegant. It is the application of my model for supreme elegance in accomplishing the objective by having the cat skin itself by virtue of jumping out of its own skin with one word that scares it to death.
If bitcoin is global community money the USA could shut down its own country community but what about the rest of the world?
That is why NSA is our new Department of Offense. We could kill bitcoin in our own country but if the rest of the world chooses to use it among themselves then who are we going to play the new game with? With the countries that would exchange their bitcooin for our dollars to give us bitcoin to play with? Who in this case has the power to dictate the conversion rate?
All depends on supply and demand I suppose.
For those that believe in "Market Rules" and rig the market to rule might it be poetic justice that they are done in by their own devices.
That is the lesson in how to skin the cat.
My prior posts regarding the elegance of cat skinning:
Here: Wild Thinking Inscrutable Humor
Doom Upon Gloom
Skinning Cats
Might the NSA skin itself, and us as well by means of its own devices?
Might the anonymous programmers that created the Bitcoin Model have been.....exactly who? Japanese? Chinese? Americans that wanted to change the world order is much as anyone else?
Why do I get a persistent error report in attempting to post this entry?
Tip: Skip to the end. There is always an end of the entry. If there is a point it is there. Short cut to it.
This is true of my last previous post. So true and such a worthwhile point in my opinion that I have extracted the last best of the prior post to be the first Point of this post. After I had to write the preceding just to explain my thinking first!
This is what I wrote as the ending of the prior post: The more I think about it the more it makes sense. The conclusion is supported in a very roundabout tortured manner by what preceded it in the blog entry>
"Bitcoin is a global community money system. The communities, whatever their size such as the European Community, the USA, China or Cyprus, or any smaller "community unit" all the way down to the individual person will gain or lose substantially relative to other communities depending on when they convert to bitcoin from a national currency. When the tipping point comes and the world sees which way the wind of change is blowing for bitcoin it is fascinating to speculate exactly what will happen because the backbone of bitcoin is the internet."
"Is that what the internet kill switch is for?"
My Blog entry on the internet kill here.
Boggles my mind! When some "community" shouts Eureka! the new gold rush is on and the golden rule applies. Those with the gold rule! The price will bid up rapidly. What if it is the Chinese that lead the bid up in the world wide market. The Chinese People not the People's Bank of China? The People's bank that washed their hands and the hands of private banks (by direction) of dealing in bitcoin as currency. If the people choose to deal in it that is their business.
That is the beauty of peer to peer money! This is where the cards have to be called and bets laid on the table. Players either fold and get out or continue to play after one player has won big time! If they choose to get out then they would exit saying: China take all your bitcoin and welcome to it we will not play with bitcoin anymore we will make our own crypto currency.
Chinese are very clever people. They must leave enough bitcoin on the table to continue the game. Americans are not clever in the ways of war to para phrase Sun Tzu.
Pearl Harbor deja vu. but this time there is instant retaliation to stop the attack:
Internet kill switch. Surgically applied of course like a virtual drone strike.
Silk Road was nothing more than Bitcoin bomb testing Trinity Site?
How sublimely elegant. It is the application of my model for supreme elegance in accomplishing the objective by having the cat skin itself by virtue of jumping out of its own skin with one word that scares it to death.
If bitcoin is global community money the USA could shut down its own country community but what about the rest of the world?
That is why NSA is our new Department of Offense. We could kill bitcoin in our own country but if the rest of the world chooses to use it among themselves then who are we going to play the new game with? With the countries that would exchange their bitcooin for our dollars to give us bitcoin to play with? Who in this case has the power to dictate the conversion rate?
All depends on supply and demand I suppose.
For those that believe in "Market Rules" and rig the market to rule might it be poetic justice that they are done in by their own devices.
That is the lesson in how to skin the cat.
My prior posts regarding the elegance of cat skinning:
Here: Wild Thinking Inscrutable Humor
Doom Upon Gloom
Skinning Cats
Might the NSA skin itself, and us as well by means of its own devices?
Might the anonymous programmers that created the Bitcoin Model have been.....exactly who? Japanese? Chinese? Americans that wanted to change the world order is much as anyone else?
Why do I get a persistent error report in attempting to post this entry?
An error occurred while trying to save or publish your post. Please try again. Dismiss
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Locavore Bitcoin City
Some rambling thought on bitcoin from a small city standpoint. This really rambles.
Bitcoins are being held as an investment -- by those that dare to do so. The upside is big.
To be a currency is has to be used in trade. Entities buying and selling in Bitcoin.
Entities: People and businesses trading. It is going to be a slow process initiated by those merchants willing to try something new, with some risk. Payments received on sales can be immediately converted at the going exchange rare to dollars. Alternately they can be held and a used as payment by merchants to other merchants that supply them. To the extent that a significant portion of trade among merchants is entirely within the domain of the city.
What if the Bitcoin currency exchange domain was a small city where the merchants agreed to sell in Bitcoin and then use Bitcoin as a community based money among themselves for participating businesses. The risk is accepting the rate of exchange difference when there is a loss over the period bitcoin is held. Or realizing a gain?
Risk/Reward. That is what business is all about.
Business converting Bitcoin to dollars upon receipt of payment would drain bitcoin from the community. To sustain the community, businesses would have to agree to spend the bitcoin they received among themselves and not convert it. It would be hard to abide by that agreement when the value of bitcoin is falling dramatically.
Sounds like a rock and a hard place.
In practice it appears that merchants selling in bitcoin are giving a discount for bitcoin to attract business. If it is worth it.
What mechanism would make bitcoin work well as a community money if business in the community agreed to accept it?
Bitcoin offers anonymous transactions. What if businesses all used a fixed publicly known address among community businesses that agreed to accept bitcoin and also agreed that they would deal in bitcoin with those businesses in the community participating in the bitcoin agreement. Not to the exclusion of dealing with other businesses but to the inclusion of dealing with participating businesses with bitcoin. Participating business would have to agree that they would not convert bitcoin to dollars except with other bitcoin participating merchants. All participating merchants would be dealing in both bitcoin and dolalrs. The block chain would show payment to any entity that was not participating in the bitcoin merchant community agreement. Sounds like an impossible situation to design and control.
On the other hand, if there is great bitcoin appreciation over time then a community would realize gains in the pool of bitcoin circulating among local business. Some portion of Windfall gain might be distributed back to the community by participating business in some way. It could be redistributed back to the precisely to those consumers that payed in bitcoin to participating businesses?
Is that possible to go back into the block chain to identify those customers that were due some return of bitcoin based on an increase in the value of bitcoin over time.??? If due to customers might it be paid back as a discount to future purchases?
Is this total fantasy thinking? Certainly. That is one of the beauties of bitcoin. It opens so many possibilities.
If customers speculated that using bitcoin for purchases from participating merchant would return "dividends" in the future as bitcoin gained value might they be more inclined to part with bitcoin than to hoard it? Wouldn't that be a reversal to socialize the gains but privatize the loss? What business is going to offer to do that or afford to do that? It is contrary to the bitcoin model that dictates that all payments are final. No future sharing of loss or gains due to change in bitcoin value.
Sounds impossible but so did bitcoin sould like that in the first place until a scheme was devised to make it possible.
Somehow something must be done to stimulate the use of bitcoin as a currency not a hoarding of asset.
A modern "Tale of Two Cities" One that took a chance on bitcoin as a community money and one that did not and remained on the old established money system. How might each fare in the future?
Might the Tale of Two Cities be the Tale of Two Countries?
If one city that used bitcoin by design found itself to have a large accumulated collective pool of bitcoin in the community and the value of bitcoin had increased dramatically they would be far more fortunate than a default city that did not decide by design to deal in bitcoin. On the other hand......Its risk.
Might the Tale of Two Cities be the Tale of Two People?
One person converts early to bitcoin, the other does not. The person using bitcoin is working from an account that has bitcoin in it as a revolving fund to receive and pay out bitcoin transactions. As the value of bitcoin increases over time, the person converting to bitcoin early, at a low conversion rate, realizes an increase of relative value of the revolving bitcoin fund over the value of having remained in dollars in a bank account.
The Tale of Two Entities scales to whatever level of magnitude the two entities are. What if the two entities chosen for example are the USA and China?
He who has the most bitcoin wins------or loses.
Where would you bet your bitcoin or dollars?
Locavore Bitcoin Money?
Community money systems are looking a bitcoin and trying to determine how it may integrate with community money.
Bitcoin is a global community money system. The communities, whatever their size such as the European Community, the USA, China or Cyprus, or any smaller "community unit" all the way down to the individual person will gain or lose substantially depending on when they convert to bitcoin from a national currency. When the tipping point comes and the world sees which way the wind of change is blowing for bitcoin it is fascinating to speculate exactly what will happen because the backbone of bitcoin is the internet.
Is that what the internet kill switch is for?
Bitcoins are being held as an investment -- by those that dare to do so. The upside is big.
To be a currency is has to be used in trade. Entities buying and selling in Bitcoin.
Entities: People and businesses trading. It is going to be a slow process initiated by those merchants willing to try something new, with some risk. Payments received on sales can be immediately converted at the going exchange rare to dollars. Alternately they can be held and a used as payment by merchants to other merchants that supply them. To the extent that a significant portion of trade among merchants is entirely within the domain of the city.
What if the Bitcoin currency exchange domain was a small city where the merchants agreed to sell in Bitcoin and then use Bitcoin as a community based money among themselves for participating businesses. The risk is accepting the rate of exchange difference when there is a loss over the period bitcoin is held. Or realizing a gain?
Risk/Reward. That is what business is all about.
Business converting Bitcoin to dollars upon receipt of payment would drain bitcoin from the community. To sustain the community, businesses would have to agree to spend the bitcoin they received among themselves and not convert it. It would be hard to abide by that agreement when the value of bitcoin is falling dramatically.
Sounds like a rock and a hard place.
In practice it appears that merchants selling in bitcoin are giving a discount for bitcoin to attract business. If it is worth it.
What mechanism would make bitcoin work well as a community money if business in the community agreed to accept it?
Bitcoin offers anonymous transactions. What if businesses all used a fixed publicly known address among community businesses that agreed to accept bitcoin and also agreed that they would deal in bitcoin with those businesses in the community participating in the bitcoin agreement. Not to the exclusion of dealing with other businesses but to the inclusion of dealing with participating businesses with bitcoin. Participating business would have to agree that they would not convert bitcoin to dollars except with other bitcoin participating merchants. All participating merchants would be dealing in both bitcoin and dolalrs. The block chain would show payment to any entity that was not participating in the bitcoin merchant community agreement. Sounds like an impossible situation to design and control.
On the other hand, if there is great bitcoin appreciation over time then a community would realize gains in the pool of bitcoin circulating among local business. Some portion of Windfall gain might be distributed back to the community by participating business in some way. It could be redistributed back to the precisely to those consumers that payed in bitcoin to participating businesses?
Is that possible to go back into the block chain to identify those customers that were due some return of bitcoin based on an increase in the value of bitcoin over time.??? If due to customers might it be paid back as a discount to future purchases?
Is this total fantasy thinking? Certainly. That is one of the beauties of bitcoin. It opens so many possibilities.
If customers speculated that using bitcoin for purchases from participating merchant would return "dividends" in the future as bitcoin gained value might they be more inclined to part with bitcoin than to hoard it? Wouldn't that be a reversal to socialize the gains but privatize the loss? What business is going to offer to do that or afford to do that? It is contrary to the bitcoin model that dictates that all payments are final. No future sharing of loss or gains due to change in bitcoin value.
Sounds impossible but so did bitcoin sould like that in the first place until a scheme was devised to make it possible.
Somehow something must be done to stimulate the use of bitcoin as a currency not a hoarding of asset.
A modern "Tale of Two Cities" One that took a chance on bitcoin as a community money and one that did not and remained on the old established money system. How might each fare in the future?
Might the Tale of Two Cities be the Tale of Two Countries?
If one city that used bitcoin by design found itself to have a large accumulated collective pool of bitcoin in the community and the value of bitcoin had increased dramatically they would be far more fortunate than a default city that did not decide by design to deal in bitcoin. On the other hand......Its risk.
Might the Tale of Two Cities be the Tale of Two People?
One person converts early to bitcoin, the other does not. The person using bitcoin is working from an account that has bitcoin in it as a revolving fund to receive and pay out bitcoin transactions. As the value of bitcoin increases over time, the person converting to bitcoin early, at a low conversion rate, realizes an increase of relative value of the revolving bitcoin fund over the value of having remained in dollars in a bank account.
The Tale of Two Entities scales to whatever level of magnitude the two entities are. What if the two entities chosen for example are the USA and China?
He who has the most bitcoin wins------or loses.
Where would you bet your bitcoin or dollars?
Locavore Bitcoin Money?
Community money systems are looking a bitcoin and trying to determine how it may integrate with community money.
Bitcoin is a global community money system. The communities, whatever their size such as the European Community, the USA, China or Cyprus, or any smaller "community unit" all the way down to the individual person will gain or lose substantially depending on when they convert to bitcoin from a national currency. When the tipping point comes and the world sees which way the wind of change is blowing for bitcoin it is fascinating to speculate exactly what will happen because the backbone of bitcoin is the internet.
Is that what the internet kill switch is for?
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Spending Bitcoin Transactions
Is this the way it works??
Spending bitcoin is convenient term because we are used to spending dollars and cents. That is our frame for spending money. However that is not really how bitcoin is spent. What is spent from a Bitcoin Wallet is the transaction that brought the bitcoin into the wallet. A unique numbered transaction and an associated variable number of bitcoin transacted.
When the transaction in an account is spent, it appears that it is spent entirely. And there are two cases in which it is spent entirely.
Case 1: The amount spent from the wallet is less than the amount of the selected initial received transaction amount of bitcoin. In that case the amount to be paid to the recipient is deducted from the existing transaction amount in the wallet paid the payee and the remainder change is paid back to the same owners wallet in a new account.
Case 2: The amount expended from the wallet is equal to or greater than the amount to be paid to a recipient. If it happens to be coincidentally equal then the total amount associated with the transaction in the wallet is paid. In the case where it is greater then the additional amount is paid in accordance with case 1 or case 2 from a 2nd selected transaction in the wallet until the total amount to be paid to the payee plus change back to the owners wallet is is equal to a total of the on hand amount in all the selected transactions in the wallet necessary to make the transaction.
Transfer of bitcoin from one wallet to another is really done in denomination amounts. Not 1,5,10 or 20's but in whatever the variable amount of selected transactions in the wallet happen to be.
It might be more accurate to say that bitcoin is paid from the wallet in transaction denominations where the denomination amount is variable, not fixed. Perhaps roughly analogous to paying with a handful of IOU's each received from a different person in a different amount. Just like we might pay a $37 dollar bill with some combination of denominated dollar uniquely serialized bills.
Is that the way it works? If so then a logic map might be a better way to explain it.
If Bitcoin payments are viewed as spending transanctions as denominated amounts from a wallet then the spending concept falls into place in relationship to the entire system.
Looking at it in this way then a difference between the Bitcoin Model and my DigitalDollar mode is:
In the Bitcoin Model money is spent in variable denominations dictated by transactions in the spending wallet.
In my DigitalDollar model the only denomination of money spent is the single unit serialized dollar with a value of one. As many of these dollars are payed out as necessary to make the payment amount rounded up to the next whole dollar with change back from the payee as necessary to accomplish the exact amount of payment. Change may either be accumulated and converted when it reaches or exceeds one dollar or used to complete less than dollar payment requirements. That depends on which method is overall more efficient from a system standpoint.
Spending bitcoin is convenient term because we are used to spending dollars and cents. That is our frame for spending money. However that is not really how bitcoin is spent. What is spent from a Bitcoin Wallet is the transaction that brought the bitcoin into the wallet. A unique numbered transaction and an associated variable number of bitcoin transacted.
When the transaction in an account is spent, it appears that it is spent entirely. And there are two cases in which it is spent entirely.
Case 1: The amount spent from the wallet is less than the amount of the selected initial received transaction amount of bitcoin. In that case the amount to be paid to the recipient is deducted from the existing transaction amount in the wallet paid the payee and the remainder change is paid back to the same owners wallet in a new account.
Case 2: The amount expended from the wallet is equal to or greater than the amount to be paid to a recipient. If it happens to be coincidentally equal then the total amount associated with the transaction in the wallet is paid. In the case where it is greater then the additional amount is paid in accordance with case 1 or case 2 from a 2nd selected transaction in the wallet until the total amount to be paid to the payee plus change back to the owners wallet is is equal to a total of the on hand amount in all the selected transactions in the wallet necessary to make the transaction.
Transfer of bitcoin from one wallet to another is really done in denomination amounts. Not 1,5,10 or 20's but in whatever the variable amount of selected transactions in the wallet happen to be.
It might be more accurate to say that bitcoin is paid from the wallet in transaction denominations where the denomination amount is variable, not fixed. Perhaps roughly analogous to paying with a handful of IOU's each received from a different person in a different amount. Just like we might pay a $37 dollar bill with some combination of denominated dollar uniquely serialized bills.
Is that the way it works? If so then a logic map might be a better way to explain it.
If Bitcoin payments are viewed as spending transanctions as denominated amounts from a wallet then the spending concept falls into place in relationship to the entire system.
Looking at it in this way then a difference between the Bitcoin Model and my DigitalDollar mode is:
In the Bitcoin Model money is spent in variable denominations dictated by transactions in the spending wallet.
In my DigitalDollar model the only denomination of money spent is the single unit serialized dollar with a value of one. As many of these dollars are payed out as necessary to make the payment amount rounded up to the next whole dollar with change back from the payee as necessary to accomplish the exact amount of payment. Change may either be accumulated and converted when it reaches or exceeds one dollar or used to complete less than dollar payment requirements. That depends on which method is overall more efficient from a system standpoint.
Bitcoin For Dummies
On the Google scale of reading difficulty examined in a prior blog entry I am sure that this explanation of Bitcoin would fall into the basic category. On that basic basis it is exceptionally good. Written by Hasitha N. Liyanage
Difference Between Bitcoin And My Digital Serialized Dollar
The following statement excerpted from this link explains that the transaction sequence in Bitcoin block chain is the basic connecting thread of the model. In my digital dollar system it is the serialized unit dollar, each with a value of one unit dollar.
"There are two clever things about using transaction hashes instead of serial numbers. First, in Bitcoin there’s not really any separate, persistent “coins” at all, just a long series of transactions in the block chain. It’s a clever idea to realize that you don’t need persistent coins, and can just get by with a ledger of transactions. Second, by operating in this way we remove the need for any central authority issuing serial numbers. Instead, the serial numbers can be self-generated, merely by hashing the transaction."
Bitcoin transactions related to bitcoin are uniquely identified rather than the bitcoin itself. My digital dollar system uniquely identifies the dollar (coin) itself and its current owner and associates that dollar (coin) to an unbroken chronological history chain of every prior owner.
Bitcoin is infinitely divisible. My Digital Dollar is not. It is a serialized unit of 1 Digital Dollar. The problem in my Digital Dollar model is how to process the less than dollar amounts. Bitcoin has that same problem in its model that spends from incoming prior transactions in the wallet each having different amounts.
The solution is the same. Pay the higher amount. The solution to receiving change in the Bitcoin model is extremely elegant. The require amount of change necessary to be returned is computed and two transactions are made from the owner's wallet. One is payment of the exact amount to the recipient The other is payment in change to yourself but to a different account that you own. The amount of change is whatever is necessary to equal the total amount of the original transaction in your wallet from which payment was made. Elegant. Pay yourself the change. Reduce the amount in the the account from which payment was made both the other payee and yourself to a new amount of zero in the paying account. Put your change back into your wallet in a new account.
In Bitcoin that would be the unit transaction or transactions total as necessary to get to the higher amount to make the payment. Receive change in a return transaction.
In my Digital Dollar model it would round to the next highest dollar and receive change or have a change processing module in the owners wallet that would make and pay exact change. Either method would require maintenance of a small change record and process that would give change for a dollar and move the dollar ownership to a "Change Cashier" in the system or "return" (by change of ownership) a serialized dollar in exchange for an equal amount of small change.
The foundation of the Bitcoin model is the verb: Transaction in a block chain. Bitcoin is a verb entity. It is the message.
The foundation of Digital Dollar model is the noun: DigitalDollar. It is a noun object entity. Both the subject entity and the object entity in the basic language logic structure of: Subject---Verb---Object.
In the BitCoin model the verb is the fixed entity by extension of the block chain. The noun amount is variable.
In my DigitalDollar model the noun is a fixed entity with a fixed value of one attribute.
BitCoin is process oriented focus on the message (verb)
DigitalDollar is object oriented on the dollar object.
I agree, I guess, that focus on the block chain connection of transactions obviates the need to focus on serialization uniqueness of the digital dollar object.
Another difference in comparing objects to objects is the BitCoin universe is 21 billion Dollars. The market value of Bitcoin (in terms of what it will buy) is extremely variable over time.
The Digital Dollar universe equals, in the beginning, the National Debt, about 16 trillion dollars because our national debt is our national savings. The market value of the DigitalDollar can be manged to be relatively stable (in terms of what one dollar will buy) over time.
I admire the Bitcoin model and the explanation of the model that is the subject of this blog. I wish I had an equally well consolidated description of my DigitalDollar model that is scattered amongst the blog entries I have made in this blog over the past couple of years.
"There are two clever things about using transaction hashes instead of serial numbers. First, in Bitcoin there’s not really any separate, persistent “coins” at all, just a long series of transactions in the block chain. It’s a clever idea to realize that you don’t need persistent coins, and can just get by with a ledger of transactions. Second, by operating in this way we remove the need for any central authority issuing serial numbers. Instead, the serial numbers can be self-generated, merely by hashing the transaction."
Bitcoin transactions related to bitcoin are uniquely identified rather than the bitcoin itself. My digital dollar system uniquely identifies the dollar (coin) itself and its current owner and associates that dollar (coin) to an unbroken chronological history chain of every prior owner.
Bitcoin is infinitely divisible. My Digital Dollar is not. It is a serialized unit of 1 Digital Dollar. The problem in my Digital Dollar model is how to process the less than dollar amounts. Bitcoin has that same problem in its model that spends from incoming prior transactions in the wallet each having different amounts.
The solution is the same. Pay the higher amount. The solution to receiving change in the Bitcoin model is extremely elegant. The require amount of change necessary to be returned is computed and two transactions are made from the owner's wallet. One is payment of the exact amount to the recipient The other is payment in change to yourself but to a different account that you own. The amount of change is whatever is necessary to equal the total amount of the original transaction in your wallet from which payment was made. Elegant. Pay yourself the change. Reduce the amount in the the account from which payment was made both the other payee and yourself to a new amount of zero in the paying account. Put your change back into your wallet in a new account.
In Bitcoin that would be the unit transaction or transactions total as necessary to get to the higher amount to make the payment. Receive change in a return transaction.
In my Digital Dollar model it would round to the next highest dollar and receive change or have a change processing module in the owners wallet that would make and pay exact change. Either method would require maintenance of a small change record and process that would give change for a dollar and move the dollar ownership to a "Change Cashier" in the system or "return" (by change of ownership) a serialized dollar in exchange for an equal amount of small change.
The foundation of the Bitcoin model is the verb: Transaction in a block chain. Bitcoin is a verb entity. It is the message.
The foundation of Digital Dollar model is the noun: DigitalDollar. It is a noun object entity. Both the subject entity and the object entity in the basic language logic structure of: Subject---Verb---Object.
In the BitCoin model the verb is the fixed entity by extension of the block chain. The noun amount is variable.
In my DigitalDollar model the noun is a fixed entity with a fixed value of one attribute.
BitCoin is process oriented focus on the message (verb)
DigitalDollar is object oriented on the dollar object.
I agree, I guess, that focus on the block chain connection of transactions obviates the need to focus on serialization uniqueness of the digital dollar object.
Another difference in comparing objects to objects is the BitCoin universe is 21 billion Dollars. The market value of Bitcoin (in terms of what it will buy) is extremely variable over time.
The Digital Dollar universe equals, in the beginning, the National Debt, about 16 trillion dollars because our national debt is our national savings. The market value of the DigitalDollar can be manged to be relatively stable (in terms of what one dollar will buy) over time.
I admire the Bitcoin model and the explanation of the model that is the subject of this blog. I wish I had an equally well consolidated description of my DigitalDollar model that is scattered amongst the blog entries I have made in this blog over the past couple of years.
Monday, December 9, 2013
Google OSINT Searching Discovery: Reading Level
OSI or OSINT: Open Source Intelligence
Google is my OSINT tool I discovered something that makes Google a better tool for disicovery. It is at this point interesting but not a precise and valuable as potentially possible.
Note the following uses Google Plus.
This link is a "Bitcoin" Google search.
At that link select Search Tools and then from the drop down menu select Reading Level and you get this link Google search results. It shows degree of difficulty. Select Advanced and you will be looking at some high powered stuff.
Obvious there is a degree of difficulty algorithm that categorizes sites. Perhaps google should have a "For Dummies" level. It would be interesting to search on a variety of terms an examine results and distributions. This search link shows results for Obamacare with comparable results. Select the Advanced (2%) level and the results are shown at this link. Going one step farther: If google results were analyzed by a word term parsing program to evaluate something as basic as positive and negative terms what we we find for each category of Basic (29%) Intermediate (69%) and Advanced (2%). ????
All about the same? I sincerely doubt it. If not then why? Just because Advanced reading level uses bigger words or a higher accuracy analytical level?
This is a wonderful time to be in the field of Natural Language Processing. Google that term and this is the link that shows results. 3% basic and about 50/50 for Intermediate and Advanced.
I find the difficulty filter to give me more precisely what I am looking for if I am familiar with the basics of whatever I am looking for.
I have a theory that as the degree of difficulty increase the degree of propaganda BS decreases.
Google search on the popular F word returns a Basic reading level of 80% for all hits.
Google is my OSINT tool I discovered something that makes Google a better tool for disicovery. It is at this point interesting but not a precise and valuable as potentially possible.
Note the following uses Google Plus.
This link is a "Bitcoin" Google search.
At that link select Search Tools and then from the drop down menu select Reading Level and you get this link Google search results. It shows degree of difficulty. Select Advanced and you will be looking at some high powered stuff.
Obvious there is a degree of difficulty algorithm that categorizes sites. Perhaps google should have a "For Dummies" level. It would be interesting to search on a variety of terms an examine results and distributions. This search link shows results for Obamacare with comparable results. Select the Advanced (2%) level and the results are shown at this link. Going one step farther: If google results were analyzed by a word term parsing program to evaluate something as basic as positive and negative terms what we we find for each category of Basic (29%) Intermediate (69%) and Advanced (2%). ????
All about the same? I sincerely doubt it. If not then why? Just because Advanced reading level uses bigger words or a higher accuracy analytical level?
This is a wonderful time to be in the field of Natural Language Processing. Google that term and this is the link that shows results. 3% basic and about 50/50 for Intermediate and Advanced.
I find the difficulty filter to give me more precisely what I am looking for if I am familiar with the basics of whatever I am looking for.
I have a theory that as the degree of difficulty increase the degree of propaganda BS decreases.
Google search on the popular F word returns a Basic reading level of 80% for all hits.
Sleep and Creativity
This link tells why I wake up with a thought structure in mind that takes me to the keyboard every morning to explore it while it is fresh. In the afternoon I wonder what I was thinking in the morning. The structure is not there anymore. Just the keyword thought link that connected to it. The subject of the blog entry.
Why I wake up with these thoughts from September thru January every year for 50 years remains a mystery. It peaks around the beginning of November.
Hibernation response?
Why I wake up with these thoughts from September thru January every year for 50 years remains a mystery. It peaks around the beginning of November.
Hibernation response?
TPP Obama -- The Company Man
Obama the Company Man explains and exposes his political position and who it favors at our expense.
Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) is, of course, secret. We do not have a need to know.
Not!
This Wikileaks release of the secret position of every country exposes it and the position of the USA. President Obama's position.
Wikileaks was the medium of exposing the secret. I am sure that there are many that would like to know who told the secret. I would like to know too so that I can nominate them for a Medal of Freedom. Snowden already has one. We should take the prerogative to award this medal away from the president and make it an annual big Hollywood production.
Lack of judgment. The ultimate failure of someone in a high position of responsibility. How could Obama think that the treachery of TPP secrets would not be revealed when there are so many countries participating which means so many people, most all of them not even American (!!!) are participating.
Maybe President Obama will say that the leaker of the TPP secrets hates us for out freedoms?
It is not just the nail in the coffin of TPP. It nails shut the doubt about the influence of special interest and who is the instrument (tool) in government that dances to their tune. (Not intended to be an ugly stereotype.) Truth in black or white.
Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) is, of course, secret. We do not have a need to know.
Not!
This Wikileaks release of the secret position of every country exposes it and the position of the USA. President Obama's position.
Wikileaks was the medium of exposing the secret. I am sure that there are many that would like to know who told the secret. I would like to know too so that I can nominate them for a Medal of Freedom. Snowden already has one. We should take the prerogative to award this medal away from the president and make it an annual big Hollywood production.
Lack of judgment. The ultimate failure of someone in a high position of responsibility. How could Obama think that the treachery of TPP secrets would not be revealed when there are so many countries participating which means so many people, most all of them not even American (!!!) are participating.
Maybe President Obama will say that the leaker of the TPP secrets hates us for out freedoms?
It is not just the nail in the coffin of TPP. It nails shut the doubt about the influence of special interest and who is the instrument (tool) in government that dances to their tune. (Not intended to be an ugly stereotype.) Truth in black or white.
Sunday, December 8, 2013
Best Bitcoin Explanation So Far
Link here: How the Bitcoin protocol actually works
In my self appointed role as an OpenSourceCoin miner I have done proof of work examination of Michael Nielsen's explanation of how Bitcoin works and enter my validation of the truth and accuracy of his conceptual explanation into the block chain.
It is the best narrative explanation that I have read so far.
I recommend it.
I extended the block chain of knowledge..
I am rewarding myself with 25 OpenSourceCoins.
I sent 12.5 OpenSourceCoins to Michael Nielsen with a serialized thank you.
He is a good guy. Thinks good stuff and is generous with it. In the world that he describes it is proper and just to thank him for his contribution.
Michael talks about Open Science at this TEDxWaterloo link
This kind of guy is the reason that the technologically elite among us that generously contribute their extraordinary ability to the common good will put the tools (weapons) in the hands of the public to fight the counter-productive distribution of asymmetric financial, political or information power, in this world that feeds on society for its own special interest and advancement.
They follow in the block chain footsteps of Sir Tim Berners-Lee. Tim would say that he merely stands on shoulders of giants. Metaphorically he got some OpenSourceCoin that someone gave him and sealed the truth of that block chain. He passed on his reward to us in the amount of .000001 OpenSourceCoin each. No good unless we spend it by passing it on in the blockchain of Open Source knowldege and enhance the total value of the medium as a result. No value in hoarding it. That is not what OpenSourceCoin is all about. It is the other side that operate on the hoarding business model.
Michael puts the icing on the cake he has baked in describing the Bitcoin model:
"Can you get rich with Bitcoin? Well, maybe. Tim O’Reilly once said: “Money is like gas in the car – you need to pay attention or you’ll end up on the side of the road – but a well-lived life is not a tour of gas stations!” Much of the interest in Bitcoin comes from people whose life mission seems to be to find a really big gas station. I must admit I find this perplexing. What is, I believe, much more interesting and enjoyable is to think of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as a way of enabling new forms of collective behaviour. That’s intellectually fascinating, offers marvellous creative possibilities, is socially valuable, and may just also put some money in the bank. But if money in the bank is your primary concern, then I believe that other strategies are much more likely to succeed. "
I am convinced that Bitcoin will appeal greatly to those with a strong social conscience that see money as a social media for the allocation of resources beyond the sole purpose of amassing large quantities of it. It changes the nature of money so that it may become more of a tool for amassing to the commons the qualitative magnitude of quality of life and society.
Good job Michael Nielsen!
Well Done! Looking forward to more.
His ending footnote gives rich food for thought:
"[1] In the United States the question “Is money a form of speech?” is an important legal question, because of the protection afforded speech under the US Constitution. In my (legally uninformed) opinion digital money may make this issue more complicated. As we’ll see, the Bitcoin protocol is really a way of standing up before the rest of the world (or at least the rest of the Bitcoin network) and avowing “I’m going to give such-and-such a number of bitcoins to so-and-so a person” in a way that’s extremely difficult to repudiate. At least naively, it looks more like speech than exchanging copper coins, say. "
In my self appointed role as an OpenSourceCoin miner I have done proof of work examination of Michael Nielsen's explanation of how Bitcoin works and enter my validation of the truth and accuracy of his conceptual explanation into the block chain.
It is the best narrative explanation that I have read so far.
I recommend it.
I extended the block chain of knowledge..
I am rewarding myself with 25 OpenSourceCoins.
I sent 12.5 OpenSourceCoins to Michael Nielsen with a serialized thank you.
He is a good guy. Thinks good stuff and is generous with it. In the world that he describes it is proper and just to thank him for his contribution.
Michael talks about Open Science at this TEDxWaterloo link
This kind of guy is the reason that the technologically elite among us that generously contribute their extraordinary ability to the common good will put the tools (weapons) in the hands of the public to fight the counter-productive distribution of asymmetric financial, political or information power, in this world that feeds on society for its own special interest and advancement.
They follow in the block chain footsteps of Sir Tim Berners-Lee. Tim would say that he merely stands on shoulders of giants. Metaphorically he got some OpenSourceCoin that someone gave him and sealed the truth of that block chain. He passed on his reward to us in the amount of .000001 OpenSourceCoin each. No good unless we spend it by passing it on in the blockchain of Open Source knowldege and enhance the total value of the medium as a result. No value in hoarding it. That is not what OpenSourceCoin is all about. It is the other side that operate on the hoarding business model.
Michael puts the icing on the cake he has baked in describing the Bitcoin model:
"Can you get rich with Bitcoin? Well, maybe. Tim O’Reilly once said: “Money is like gas in the car – you need to pay attention or you’ll end up on the side of the road – but a well-lived life is not a tour of gas stations!” Much of the interest in Bitcoin comes from people whose life mission seems to be to find a really big gas station. I must admit I find this perplexing. What is, I believe, much more interesting and enjoyable is to think of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as a way of enabling new forms of collective behaviour. That’s intellectually fascinating, offers marvellous creative possibilities, is socially valuable, and may just also put some money in the bank. But if money in the bank is your primary concern, then I believe that other strategies are much more likely to succeed. "
I am convinced that Bitcoin will appeal greatly to those with a strong social conscience that see money as a social media for the allocation of resources beyond the sole purpose of amassing large quantities of it. It changes the nature of money so that it may become more of a tool for amassing to the commons the qualitative magnitude of quality of life and society.
Good job Michael Nielsen!
Well Done! Looking forward to more.
His ending footnote gives rich food for thought:
"[1] In the United States the question “Is money a form of speech?” is an important legal question, because of the protection afforded speech under the US Constitution. In my (legally uninformed) opinion digital money may make this issue more complicated. As we’ll see, the Bitcoin protocol is really a way of standing up before the rest of the world (or at least the rest of the Bitcoin network) and avowing “I’m going to give such-and-such a number of bitcoins to so-and-so a person” in a way that’s extremely difficult to repudiate. At least naively, it looks more like speech than exchanging copper coins, say. "
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