This type of thing is common.  What is going on?  Synched then it need 36k blocks... it just jumps all over the place.  The last message jumped up  to 255k blocks.  This doesn't make sense to me.

--- syncing with p2p network, 25721 blocks left to fetch
Peer 54.79.50.241:1776 disconnected us: You offered us a block that we reject as invalid
--- in sync with p2p network
--- syncing with p2p network, 21720 blocks left to fetch
--- there are now 19 active connections to the p2p network
--- in sync with p2p network
--- syncing with p2p network, 36350 blocks left to fetch

How does this work?  What is the difference between a DPOS block and a POW block that allows 1 block  vs 6 blocks recommended confirmation times?  Is this because the delegates are elected and thus the trust level is higher for the block-signers?  Or is it something else?

Ok so there is tendency of people to react in a manner that is related to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_aversion .. (whether you notice it empirically or read some sociology studies) .. This is a very well understood cognitive bias.

The problem here is that people are by nature horrible at determining what they are losing versus what they are gaining because of subconcious cognitive biases.  This comes into play when voting for a diluting delegate.

Background -
I was never against the dilution idea, but also not 100% for it.  One thing that is for certain is once we crossed that line we need to take full advantage of it.  At this point vote in anyone who has shown a positive volunteerism.  These people without  a doubt producing value.

Result
So please please consider your cognitive biases and try your best to weight out the pros and cons.  If we make 50% mistakes voting people in, but the other 50% are really solid members of the chain gang - then BTS wins immensely.


Peronally
Please try to understand the value equation and do not be scared of inflation at this point.  The people motivated to run at this point are all solid supporters of BTS.

Please comment.

THis has been one of my of my favorite shows.  I was not happy with all the changes recently but I said what I wanted. The hangouts were kinda a sad affair in my opinion.  Not a lot of positive to be had by most.

Now I feel like things have changed.  I really believe we're only going up from here and I'm not even really talking about market cap!  If I didn't believe in this, I would have left.  So give this a listen and I think you will be pleased.

https://soundcloud.com/beyond-bitcoin-hangouts/beyond-bitcoin-dan-talks-about-new-marketing-2014-11-07

0:00 Dan Larimer starts off talking about meeting with John Underwood and the remittance business.  Talk about the snapshot for BTS timeframes.  What has happened this week.
2:12 Bytemaster talks about the new vision for marketing and the ways in which BTS will be pitched.  He goes into discussion on how the vision has changed and where we're currently at. The future of banking!
11:00 Legal concerns about issuing stocks on the blockchain and the different approachs one might take to hopefully remain within the letter of the law.
13:30 A user asks about diverging away from traditional crypto-anarchists views.  The difference between currencies, stocks, and assets.
17:45 Value of a company being able to invest in public on the blockchain?
19:56 More discussion about what Bitshares is and isn't and how it relates to the masses.
23:10 Sending value over phone text messages?  Security issues and how it relates to the different class of BitShares users?  Those who own shares in a bank versus those who use the bank.
26:35 Discussion on civil asset forfeiture.
28:45 How do we differentiate what Bitshares provides vs. the banking industry ?
32:34 Is there possible to have a reputation system that is not tied into a real life identity ?
35:25 How does working for a DAC work within the traditional banking system ?
37:02 What about loans and credit that are available from traditional banks?  How does this play into marketing?
38:40 Discussion of negative interest rates at banks in Europe.  Are banking fees compareable to negative interest?
41:00 What about the possibility of crytp-currencies being blocked at the router level ?
45:33 On-ramps ?
47:00 Changes in marketing in the near term ?
51:05 Any estimation on block #  for the hardfork for BTS switchover?
52:41 Lets talk about the status and issues with the forums.
1:01:37 Lets talk about Proof of Waste !
1:03:05 Sidechains?
1:06 What about the analogy of mining?  Discussion of Ethereum and Dan gives a high level analogy that points out the wonky logic.

If you are curious what was killed and what might be resurrected if DNS DAC can find the right developers, then listen to this show.  Originally I planned on cleaning this up even more, but it got the standard annotation + once over edit.  Only show I ever hosted and thanks to all the guys who showed up and helped ask some great questions.

https://soundcloud.com/beyond-bitcoin-hangouts/beyond-bitcoin-hangout-greg-slepak-dnschain-2014-10-24

0:00 Show begins with Greg Slepak aka Tao Effect.
1:10 Greg gives an introduction to DNSChain and what the goals of the project are.
4:05 The distinction on leasing accounts versus true ownership that a blockchain provides.
4:40 How is this related to Namecoin which was the first project to use DNSChain?
6:15 Isn't this a resolver for DNS?
7:10 How is this implemented to enable the security? Browser extension? What about the SSL specification? How about light-weight clients?
8:35 Greg delves into the differences in lightweight clients types.
11:57 Talk about how you should be able to have DNSChain on a router so that every household could have a secured copy of the blockchain.
14:17 What are the security issues if your blockchain becomes isolated from the main network?
17:02 Is there a reason why DNSChain isn't implemented in the OS?
18:53 Using a proxy server to prevent Man-In-The-Middle attacks?
20:05 How does Greg feel about this being accepted into the TLS/SSL specifications? Conversation of how the security issues impact national security and how the NSA might operate.
23:55 How centralization can be used as a tactic against decentralized protocols like email.
25:44 Lets talk about TrueCrypt and what happened with it being shutdown? Greg talks about a different product similar he has worked on, similar to TrueCrypt - Espionage (espionageapp.com)
31;00 For more information on DNSChain,
31:42 How does the product secure the link between the user and the DNSChain? And how about any user and any particular website?
35:12 How about resolving across multiple-DNSChain servers?
36:30 What about the talk of plausible of deniability on the okTurtles site?
41:12 Discussion goes into legality and political issues involving crypto and the drug war.
45:43 What about people who put forth the effort that national security agencies need access to our lives to protect us?
50:34 Discussion of social media removing power of traditional media.
52:20 Could DNSChain used to verify communications on platforms such as Twitter? Conversation transitions into talk about interaction with the Great Firewall.
55:26 When is this tech available?
57:05 What about combining DNS DAC and Namecoin at the same time?

Empty out all fiat reserves and go into BTSX NOW.

Can anyone explain why bitUSD is so far off the peg?  Is it something to do with the needs of the short/long positions?

Idea 2 - (Partially stolen from someone's comment in a thread) - Last idea for the day, I promise.

Mimic Bitcoin's inflation ?

I understand a lot of our targeted demographic is not crypto people, but it would be an effective tactic to hush critics.  It is also a bit of a marketing point.  Sweeten's the medicine.

"We're doing no different than what Bitcoin does, we just put the money back into development and growing the network instead!"

Something like that.... thoughts ?