All is well now, thank you everyone for your help!
 
My laptop is only 3 years old roughly, it's a Dell, top of the line when I bought it. The best way to get Bitshares Client installed, although it took about 45 minutes, was to go to the bitshares github and copy every line into your Terminal to build/make the bitshares client run properly:
https://github.com/BitShares/bitshares/blob/master/BUILD_UBUNTU.md
 
The first time you start up the bitshares client, let it run and run and run till it syncs first!
Then after a few hours it should be done, from there, come to this forum for your free bitshares faucet deposit, then once that deposit shows up in your bitshares client, THEN you can register your name, shapeshift a few bucks into your new account, and voila, you're up and running with bitshares.
 
Everyone here is awesome, you just gotta be patient getting it all setup, it's worth it, no worries!
Cheerz from Munich!
   -ken

Quote from: toast on February 19, 2015, 11:37:22 pm

VOTE and DNS should be understood as killed and the merger should be understood as buying out post-feb28 AGS/PTS holders. This leaves the 30m BTS stake for adam which has effectively been repurposed as a marketing fund.  (edit: but that's just my opinion, mind you)

That sounds about right. And as it should be. What is the point of screwing around with low value (and difficult, time-wise, to establish) services like VOTE and DNS when the cash cow (BitAssets) are apparently not even yet ready to gain adoption?

Quote from: toast on February 19, 2015, 11:37:22 pm

Ask me why proposals keep getting swept under the rug and then interpret my lack of response however you want.

I'm curious why you think proposals are a huge priority? By the way, are you talking about binding proposals that allocated diluted pay directly, or improving the client-side features of the delegate slate negative int hack for non-binding proposals which inform everyone (particularly the delegates) of what the shareholders want and thus allow the delegates to direct funds captured from the existing delegate pay system to make those proposals happen?

Either way, it doesn't seem like it should be a priority at the moment. People would use the proposals to all say the same thing: we need a stable lightweight wallet, we need liquid bridges, we need a lightweight wallet with exchange support. Until then, there is little hope for BTS price to recover, which means there is little hope in having enough resources to pay for the development of any other proposals the shareholders could possibly want.

asabovesobelow

svk's bitsharesblocks is an invaluable tool

The report notes the existence of DACs in section 3.4.6.

http://www.ericsson.com/industry-transformation/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2014/11/ict-and-the-future-of-financial-services.pdf

Quote

Conclusions:

The financial services industry is exhibiting some early
indicators of potentially dramatic industrial disruption.
With the advent of cryptocurrencies and associated
underlying protocols and APIs, there is an emerging
potential for highly decentralized networks of people
and even machines to collaborate and coordinate not
just for financial outcomes but in order to create entirely
new financial structures themselves. From enabling
individuals to coordinate and finance new ventures
via crowdfunding to permitting people to create new
banks, insurance mechanisms and financial methods
for the sharing economy, ICT provides the potential
to disrupt not just Financial Services, but the foundations
of capitalism itself.

...

More significant digital transformation is emerging,
however, through the increasing use and functionality
of cryptocurrencies, which redefine the basis of
trust and governance of currencies in our society. In
effect, they offer consumers the ability to take the
financial services industry into their own hands and
build innovative services that can compete with the
largest banks and financial services companies. Due
in part to the level of distrust towards the financial
system after multiple crashes, these digital innovations
may offer attractive alternatives for many customers.
Incumbents and regulators alike must therefore carefully
assess their role with regards to these emerging
technologies.

...

Quote from: DataSecurityNode on February 16, 2015, 01:04:14 pm

If we are going to raise millions for something.. it's not going to be to buy out someone else right now.. that money is better spent in the development of our own ecosystem. I use the word 'development' in the largest sense of the word too.. from marketing to coding.

So you recommand just shrugging off what could be our once in a life time opportunity to make it big, keep doing more of the same, and hope that the world will suddenly awake one morning and realize that we exist?

Quote from: DataSecurityNode on February 16, 2015, 01:04:14 pm

How about betting on your own horse that has a running chance instead of wanting to put your money behind the one with the broken leg?

That analogy is desingenuous. Our horse may be the most pure thouroughbred the world has ever seen but it's running a race no-one cares about with little prospect of ever being noticed. BTER's horse may be a common breed, but it's been winning its share of races so far; it may have twisted its leg right now but it's still a good horse with a massive following running the league-1 races at every season. And now we get a change of buying that horse and make it run our race as well, and get all the attention we deserve. But you don't want because you know it twisted its ankle at last race.

You are vocal about how BTER is broken but I think that it's not an objetive assessment of reality. BTER's exchange business is the same money making machine it was last week, with a large and loyal user base and well positionned on a large market. They have two problems: a weak security, a 7170 BTC debt. The former can be addressed by running audits, and moving the wallet management to multisig. The second can be addressed by a bail out. Fix the two problems and BTER is back on track like if none of that ever happened. Let's also not forget that for all its technical shortcomings, BTER has been doing much better than us in terms of marketing and they are the ones sending us business, not the other way round.

Quote from: DataSecurityNode on February 16, 2015, 01:04:14 pm

Love the enthusiasm about the opportunity..  I just think it's misdirected.. our enthusiasm should be getting translated into well targeted messaging and invites to the rest of the world welcoming them to decentralization.

Messages no one will listen because they just don't care. Bitcoiners have the attention span of a 5-year old. If you don't have special effects, you suck and that's it. Look at Paycoin: a complete pile of bullshit from the start, and they managed to make it big for a while with something as lame and ridiculous as a completly unsubstanciated and unrealistic USD 20 floor claim. How they did that: they just dared, it's as simple as that. I'm not saying that we should take them as example, but it's important to realize that user base, marketing and PR is what makes or breaks a product. If you still think that market leaders are winning because they have the best product, you should ask yourself why Bitshares is still that notably unpopular after it has released the most kickass appliction of game theory since the inception of Bitcoin whereas everyone has heard of Dogecoin and its 5-min copy-pasta Bitcoin clone.

marketing and PR is what makes or breaks a product.