Quote from: Agent86 on May 09, 2014, 02:19:00 am

FYI:

https://nxtforum.org/general-discussion/bithaus-the-very-first-nxt-fiat-exchange-is-near!/40/

One of the more interesting quotes:

"In fact Bitshares was VERY excited about funding and working with Bithaus. This can be verified independently by looking at the posthistory over at bitshares websites.

*However* BitsharesX IPO is risky business and might land them in hot water with SEC, so Bithaus decided to pull out since they are a serious business and don't want to be tangled up in a legal mess.

I know Charles of Ethereum warned Bithaus of this personally aswell as Dominik consulting with his lawyers about it."

We are an independent company that creates solutions for all crypto-currencies - this is the first project we are launching. I want to work with the community and the people behind a project that show the greatest support towards my endeavor. I have several reasons to why I approached the Nxt community but I don't think that they ought to be discussed here.

I am very impressed on the reaction of the Nxt community and their ability to sit down and invest money in such an important project without blinking an eye.

After mtGox, NeoBee and bitcoin marketprice taking a dump I've run out of investment money I can spend without blinking quite a while ago, actually I've long since run out of funds to invest with loads of blinking as well, but you can bet I'd be happy to be in a position to invest without blinking man. On the other hand, I don't know who you directed your advertisement towards, but I do not recall seeing anything I could even invest in from you. There was very little information and I don't think you can blame people for being a bit careful with their money after all the recent disasters with failing startups in the crypto-scene.

I hope this doesn't mean you aren't interested in working with bitshares anymore, should bitshares have even a fraction of the returns nxt-holders have seen you can bet I'd not only be in the position, but also willing to help projects like yours in any way I can.

Talking about non violent solutions is also a bit of a luxury problem. I'm not at all certain that no conflict of interest will occur about some basic necessities of life, such as drinking water for example. I'm also not that confident that the peaceful solution will prevail when things go sour even a little bit. The sustainability of the rapid growth of human population is another thing I'm not very certain of, but that might partly be caused by me having grown up in rather densely populated country. I'm bearish about the organization, structure and philosophies of most current market-leader countries and I've been expecting an economic "crisis" on a far bigger scale than the one we're in at the moment, for quite a while now.

From what I gather even though the current human species is a lot older than our recorded history, our modern civilization and success coincides with the recent period of unusual stable climate (from the last ice-age up till now). In that regard I don't have high hopes that our current specialized system of food production is very robust against even small climate changes which are bound to happen, pollution or not. I wonder what'll remain of human civilization and sensibilities once the going gets though. Of course I don't know if we'll life to see changes on that scale, but I'm hearing signals of a change from several different sources, from studies of repeating patterns in history (some matching it to some kind of 300 year or so climate cycle of our sun), right up to NASA predicting imminent climate changes based on their measurements. Curiously most seem to suggest things will start to get interesting sooner rather than later with estimates from the latter part of 2014 or 2015 extrapolated from patterns in human-history and NASA estimating a tipping point in climate change around the 2025 mark.

So for me the efforts to create robust, self-regenerative, corruption resistant means of communication and collaboration are also partly motivated out of hope to create a framework to help overcome bad times. In that regard I hope the short term estimates of 2015 are wrong, because I think of open-source, bitcoin, bitshares-dacs and the like as only the first small steps and I don't think they've penetrated human consciousness and culture far enough to cope with the effects of a short term more significant global downtrend.

I'll try to get skype up and running, but it seems I'll have to install another operating system to get that to work. That still leaves the problem that skype is not an open discussion platform and at best you'll only be able to address me personally and not all the others that have similar concerns as I do.

I'm inclined to agree in principle. It does seems strange to witness a lot of Ethereum hostility when OT actually presents a much greater existential threat to BitShares X. Ethereum is a fairly foundational technology that will be interoperable with everything from Ripple to Bitshares. Also it is the only platform being developed that can currently enable general purpose autonomous agents living on blockchain. It seems such things would be useful for funds like AGS and management of distributive orgs.

In the mean time I think you went to far when you used the word hostility, especially considering  the discussions I've seen here. I agree that opinions about Ethereum might differ quite a bit from your own, but Bitcointalk is a helluva lot more hostile towards your project. There have been discussions on this forum how Ethereum would be a great fit as one of the DAC-chain projects and I bet people would even be prepared to alot AGS-funds for it. Hell Ethereum is even listed on the bitshares website as one of the possible blockchain solutions to certain categories of DACs. Not being convinced by your design decisions or voicing concerns about aspects of your project like PoW and a single vulnerable blockchain, is not the same as hostility.

I have no information about what's been going on between you and Dan Larimer. Personally I have not noticed Larimer speaking negatively about you and I have even seen him and other Invictus-employees, as you call them, jump in to defend your project and the people involved on several occasions on this forum. This makes your assessment of an act of aggression a bit strange from my point of view. Also Dan Larimer is not the only one and most certainly not the biggest celebrity in the CC-world to have raised concern about the exact same "loaded question" and the technical feasibility or risks of your proposed design. In those discussions I have not encountered anyone who had seen or referenced the video you've mentioned. Although the video might not be made in the way you would have liked it, I think you're reading much more into it than what it is. It's not like Larimer was the only one recording or asking questions and it was very clear (at least to me it was) that the video was about DL's view on one aspect of the design of your project.

@Hoskinson: I'll admit to having my own fair share of fear, uncertainty and doubts about Ethereum, but that was mostly caused by things you've said or written yourself, not by what I've heard others say/write. What would you suggest to be a good place or way to publicly address these misunderstandings or differences in point of view? Preferably one where people like myself who are unable to attend conferences can still participate if only by providing questions and listening.

There was some discussion on the mumble-server to try and organize a regular public discussion round about topics like PoW vs PoS between some of the more knowledgeable people on the subject with opposing opinions. I believe Dan Larimer proposed a similar idea himself and the discussion with Sunny King seems to be one of the first results of that. Would it be possible then to organize a similar public mumble-session like discussion with someone from the Ethereum team? Might be a good chance to address at least some of the FUD you've been referring to or at the very least clear up some misunderstandings.

Listened to the first 2 and I actually kind of like the informal semi chaotic feel to the conversations. So apart from maybe little improvements on the production-side of these I hope you can keep that level of informality.

I also like the sound quality of the mumble-session, most video-chat recordings tend to have far worse audio.

I'd like to compliment Legend66, who has a great radio voice btw, but I don't know how to reach him, so if you could convey our support of his efforts that would be greatly appreciated fuznuts. Also kudos to you for your work on setting up the open discussion platform.

Actually the last link illustrates the point I was trying to make and what I fear has become irreversible, the whole thing has gotten completely out of hand. Nobody controls anything anymore, they are just keeping up appearances and all the while the deceptions keep on going and misconduct and problems keep piling up one after the other. I have no trust in banks being able to regulate themselves and I am completely abhorred by the invention of the too-big-to-fail principle. However, I do not see it as the acts of a disciplined, controlled well thought out strategy, such as for example causing disruption along the old-silkroad while maintaining control of the sea-trading-routes (The old England rules the waves strategy). But I look at it as the reaction of a gambling addict trying to hide the fact that he has messed up, while at the same time trying to get more cash to feed his addiction. Junkies won't kick the habit on their own volition, but they never stop talking about how clean they are.

I also wasn't trying to say that money does not corrupt, or that banks would not want to have a stake in the crypto-action as well. But not at the current minuscule market caps, the current evaluation of the entire crypto scene wouldn't cause them to bat an eleyid. The points I was trying to make was that the new systems we are trying to setup, should be resistant to them doing bad things. Disillusioned bankers might actually be a great help in this space, because of their unique insights and expertise.

Although I do think you went a bit far with the triangle comparison, I do agree with you that people should pay attention to who is paying the bills and what kind of effect that might have on the choices being made by the development team. I just listened to the LTB-show with Amir Taaki today and in the few moments he got to speak, he said some very interesting things on the subject. Another strange thing that was mentioned during that show in regards to single entities being able to influence centralized dev-teams, was them mentioning that Ethereum was the platinum sponsor of the conference and that they had loads of marketing and goodies, with piles of t-shirts and such. That does make me wonder how truthful their claims are about being entirely self-funded and that they sleep in a single room because they have no more money. Then again I don't know how wealthy the team-members are and how much being a platinum sponsor of a conference would cost, but I did find that a very strange observation in light of the topic of the discussion. I was under the impression that the IPO had not yet begun.

I think those are valid points solaaire.

Yeah I've seen my fair share of those students around me as well. And the common line of thought was, that once they've climbed the corporate ladder high enough, they'll change things and make everything better from the inside out, but first you need to be high up and the end justifies the means. Apparently it didn't occur to them that the current higher-ups that they were looking down on, very likely started with the exact same mindset and that it was that mindset that might have made them the way they are today.

I'm not that convinced that banks, certainly not upper management, are very interested in small potatoes like the crypto-currencies at the moment. I'm also very doubtful about the level of coordination in large companies, my belief is that things get out of hand rather fast and there is no fixing it anymore. Just imagine trying to do something coordinated with a bunch of your relatives to see what I mean, now imagine doing that with a couple of strangers who not only don't care about you, but want you out of their way so they can move up more easily.

Your point about creating an us versus them mentality is indeed a dangerous pitfall and we should be very wary of not falling in it.  There is the risk that when you focus on one point of view long enough, that you start to lose sight of the people who are unfamiliar with your concepts. I think that was a very important point of the discussion in the podcast.

There is also the hurdle of DPoS being so brand new that it does not have the trust of a bitcoin-like PoW solution. Also to be honest it is a very experimental new solution, which we cannot say for certain will work without issues. Maybe it's time for a wiki or a comparison list easy enough for a layman to get their heads around. Things like why DPoS does not suffer the same problem as other PoS coins like the nothing-at-stake-issue. And vice-versa why mining is a bad idea and causes centralization and points of failure. I know Dan Larimer mentioned these things in videos, but not everyone is watching all the videos. Clicking a link requires a lot less a "effort" and might make referencing certain points more easy.

There are also things that the Ethereum team/project is doing better than the bitshares project. I'm not a coder so I'm unable to make any judgements by reading their code or their proposed solutions. But I do notice their marketing and community building is on a whole different level compared to bitshares and I don't think it would hurt to figure out why that is. They seem to be getting a lot more attention eventhough for a layman like me they do not appear further on in development. Although I have heard many say the exact opposite and that ethereum is making way more progress than bitshares in a shorter amount of time. If this is a marketing trick or not I'm unable to confirm or dismiss because as I said I can't read code and I don't know anyone who can, so I can't tell how far they've gotten.

EDIT
It seems it was Adam B. Levine who made those criticisms in the last alinea on the bitshares reddit. He seems to be very pissed off for some reason, but other than him mentioning "saying" things and "warning" I can't really follow what he's talking about. I've tried searching his post history on this forum, but I have been unable to find the discussions he's referring to or the point he is trying to make.

I'm not seeing a very heavy cpu-load for clpts though, even though I'm not using pci-3 for every card. Oh I've tried the "-a 1" option again and that does seem to be a lot faster than -a 0, but it also takes longer to get up to speed and fluctuates more.

It looks like I'm now averaging very close to 5200 c/m, with my 280Xs, with some up and down swings.