The Mystery of Bitcoin

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussions' started by nosborne48, Aug 27, 2022.

Loading...
  1. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    M.C.'s Hammer. "You Can't Touch This." YAY!
     
    Rich Douglas likes this.
  2. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    Nice grab.

    In the context of the post, "you" really meant "you all." And I certainly don't recall a consensus.
     
  3. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    Ironically, the name of that album is Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em.
     
    Johann likes this.
  4. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Oh, I've been predicting bitcoin at zero for years. Hasn’t happened yet.
     
  5. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    They say PT Barnum didn't say the line about a sucker being born every minute, but crypto tells me it's true anyway. That will keep it from going to zero until it is consumed by internal fraud and scandal, like we're seeing with some of it.
     
  6. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    $23, 817 right now. Where the patient was, 6 months ago. He seems to have stabilized.
    Dr. Nosborne, I think we should consider discharging patient BTC - I can't stand him much longer. :(
     
  7. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Anyway, if you really want to see a threat to Bitcoin, look a little further ahead at quantum computing. So much of what we do relies on certain mathematical processes being trivially easy to do in one direction and impractical to nearly-impossible in the other direction, yet throw enough qubits at it and the latter goes to being inconvenient to nearly-effortless.
     
    Johann likes this.
  8. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Yeah. Qubits. That's power! Goliath was "six Qubits and a span," IIRC. :)
     
    Rachel83az likes this.
  9. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    There exists considerable suspicion that Bitcoin's price is being propped up, especially around round numbers. It gets to $16K and magically hovers there while other currencies fall. Then it creeps up to $16.5K and does it again. And so on.

    Because crypto has no inherent value and it rather small as a currency, it would not take much to manipulate the price by buying and selling it back and forth among a few players (or even one) at an agreed price range, essentially setting the price for the currency, and then slowly ratcheting up. A couple of researchers found as much in 2017 and are saying they're finding signs of the same now.
     
  10. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Quantum computing. Yeah. I can't wrap my tiny head around how quantum computing actually arrives at answers. It does work I guess. It isn't just a terrifyingly expensive chimera like fusion power.

    But I guess it gives answers with probabilities? How does that work?

    My technical brain was hard wired at a time when you could make a living replacing tubes in people's color TVs.
     
    Rachel83az likes this.
  11. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    We did it at our local Thrifty Drug store. You would get this kit with numbered stickers, open your TV set and mark each socket and its tube with the same number. Then you removed all the tubes and took them to Thrifty where they had a testing machine. One by one you'd plug in the tubes to test them, and then buy the one needing to be replaced. Then you'd go back home and put them all back in and, hopefully, your TV would work. If not, you called a guy.
     
    Rachel83az and nosborne48 like this.
  12. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Those tube testers weren't all that accurate actually. After all, the store was selling tubes...
     
    Rachel83az, Rich Douglas and Johann like this.
  13. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    I snickered, as a kid, when a light on the tube-tester machine told me a tube had "gassy shorts." :)
     
    nosborne48 likes this.
  14. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Gassy Shorts was a blues man in downstate Illinois in the 30s, wasn't he?
     
  15. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Yeah. Not the best. VERY monotonous recordings. Mostly one note... and no sense of timing...
     
    nosborne48 likes this.
  16. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    @nosborne48

    You want GOOD blues in the 30s - in Illinois? They had 'em in Chicago. Tampa Red, (Hudson Whittaker or Woodbridge), Memphis Minnie (Douglas, McCoy), Big Bill Broonzy - and blues piano men like Josh Altheimer, and "Black Bob" ... loads of others. I got 'em all. The 1930s First Generation of Chicago blues players is legendary - as are the Blues artists of succeeding generations.

    Bit of intro here - but there's nothing like listening. YouTube is your friend. So are blues sites.

    https://www.jazzhistorytree.com/chicago-blues/
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tampa_Red
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memphis_Minnie
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bill_Broonzy
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Altheimer
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Bob_(musician)
     
    Last edited: Feb 3, 2023
  17. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Trumpet player if I remember aright.
     
  18. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    My revered (and increasingly strict) piano teacher does her level best to shift me from concentrating on Baroque/Classical to add some jazz and blues. I think she's a closet blues player herself being from 1940's Atlanta and all. When I walk in, though, she's usually playing some impossible Chopin piece so she hasn't tipped her hand yet.

    The subject keeps coming up, not often but it never quite goes away. Last lesson she had me sight play some standard blues progressions and riffs. Sight playing exercise? Sure! But it doesn't have to be blues! It just often is.

    She's right of course. Playing the simplest blues will charm the average American listener where the Mozart sonata I'm working on probably wouldn’t.
     
  19. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    I nominate this thread for Most Thoroughly Hijacked 2023.
     
    Rich Douglas and Johann like this.
  20. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Yeah - and I'm diggin' it. :)

    Your piano teacher was born in 1940s Atlanta? Cool! Lots of blues, in Atlanta's past days! I got Peg Leg Howell, Blind Willie McTell, Barbecue Bob, Charlie Lincoln ... Atlanta has a strong Blues artists' community today. People like Delta Moon (band) and the late, much-loved Chick Willis.

    I bet that lady is a GREAT teacher. You might want to secretly study up on Atlanta blues and surprise her... :)
     
    Last edited: Feb 3, 2023
    nosborne48 likes this.

Share This Page