SQL Skeletons!

Maybe they should have been QE3 skeletons? To many ideas! Any how this one came first

Authentic Medicine

As you hear all the time, there are many ways that blockchain technology can be used.  Here's how I think a system for insuring authenticity could work. It requires a lot less administration than current systems and integrates a low maintenance international loyalty system. In places life Africa where medicine is often stolen and or tampered with it could make a big difference.

It might be possible to even integrate a gps log into the qr code. This could offer further useful information and help fight crime. Private keys could even be inside the package, kind of like a cereal token in your pills. There are heaps of possibilities there. By empowering the customer to use their qr scanning phones we can make it do the verification for us and everyone wins. Coin prism gives you your own crypto token. We just need to do a little programming and make some stickers.

Bitcoin Fly

AI Trading Starts - Bitcoin Can Save us from the Terminator

In December Stephen Hawkins said that "the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race" What a crack pot! you might say. But hang on a second. This is the same guy who we have collectively made the authority on the structure of the universe! In this day it is disturbing how many people don't know about the concept of the AI singularity. Its sad to say I find jokes on the subject tend to"flop" quite "tera'bly.

So last week when a company like Bridgewater announced that it will be switching on its new AI algorithm Trading system you feel like you need to publish something. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-27/bridgewater-is-said-to-start-artificial-intelligence-team

The statement about 'Learning' is the key to it and what the compute learns who knows, but we better start taking notes. Already computers trading programmed algorithms perform hugely better than our professional traders on the stock market and it was a long time ago that Watson beat our best player at a game of chess. These systems however didn't actually learn much if anything, they were pre-programmed with a lot of information to apply to the situations. 

Recently a study was performed on an AI computer teaching itself how to play a range of Atari video games. the computer proved its self to better than a human on the majority of games. For some reason humans are better at Pacman, but that's about it. the thing that's different in this case is that the computer was only given three basic parameters. Pixle recognition, learning ability and the concept that achieving a high score was the objective.  At first the computer flunked out, as you do, but after around 2 hours of play it was performing better than a well practiced human.

So you better get out of trading Whats scary is what can happen when the learning computers get self aware and go into survival mode. Its a bit of a jump, and we will skip any discussion on how that might happen in detail. I don't know I'm not an expert on this, but for the purpose of this blog lets just say its like Skynet in the Terminator. I'm sure in reality it would be much more subtle.

Computer processing power in the world is increasing at an exponential rate. This is driven by science and for government and security (including bitcoin cryptography). The chips are actually being engineered by computers and this intensifies the AI singularity thing. To list some of the fastest computer systems in the world we have Taine-2, a super computer in China (33 petaflops), IBM Sequoia in the USA (17 petaflops) and BOINC, an open international science network (20 petaflops). What the hell is petaflop? basic rull is divide by 4 and it gives you your equivalent GHz, like your computer has at home. So Taine the 2nd is at 8,250,000 Ghz. Thats pretty fast! I'm only rocking 3.5 but what about the Bitcoin network? as of today is is clocking 350Peta hashes which is the equivalent of a ridiculous number 17,780,000,000Ghz Seventeen Billion Gigahertz. Thats more than a thousand times faster than the fastest super computer.

So what does this mean? Bitcoin has achieved something that has not been possible before. All the scientist in the world and BOINC'ing around trying to create the most powerful computer network for years. Including Stephen Hawkins and NASA and the rest. Then this happens. I just want to be able to play clash of the clans and play with bitcoins! Has it gone to far?

The reality is that Bitcoin network is designed for encryption, decryption and verifying transactions. There's no chance that it will become self aware itself, it doesn't really have the right processors for that and it doesn't learn. There is also little possibility humans diverting the power because it would involve mass coordination would involve forfeiting financial gains. Surely however this giant network has a place in the phenomenon.

I'm sure AI trading computers are going to love Bitcoin. So that one thing, but I don't want to write about that. Lets get back to the Skynet situation. Its seems like Bitcoin could be a force of potential evil here. Skynet might be able to hack all computers and get hold of the Bitcoin network. They could then probably use the decryption power to hack into the Pentagon. It just so happens that Bitcoin miners are some of the most secure computers around for the simple reason that they physically have money on them. So this type of thing would be quite hard even for a hyper intelligent Skynet. The problem would be though that bit coin miners would quickly notice could literally pull the plug on the mining machines.

If you have seen the movie "The Imitation Game" recently you might have discovered that cryptography is very important during war. The movie is about Alan Turing, the inventor of the computer, and how he cracked the enigma code. His computer saved us from a lot of evil in that situation.

It didn't even have one Ghz of power but it was the fastest computer in the world at the time. The Bitcoin network is the same and it is fundamentally controlled by humans. Miners are not going to stop what they are doing as long as they are making money, unless of course it was an AI apocalypses and terminator is walking down the street! It's a pretty good incentive to divert your computer power.

Its a knife edge but I think that humans value life more than money and power. That's why Bitcoin and its decentralized and heavily monitored super computer can save us from the Terminator. But don't listen to me listen to Stephen Hawkins!

Bitcoin dontations are appreciated. I'm not rich. 13ticQ1HhPDq2XECHEyxjYgy3wsehRjhwd

Imitation Banks (Loan Sharks)

Arriving in the UK on the latest adventure I was shocked at how inefficiently the banking system seems. Me and my partner had been told it was a nightmare trying to set up a bank account. We got a recommendation from some experienced strugglers to go to Loyds. Turns out this recommendation a bit rough and the experience is worth documenting. I wish I had had a tape recorder.

On entering the bank there is a line on the carpet and a sign that says please wait to be served. So we stand there and look on in dismay with some others at two empty work stations in front of us. A staffer on the trot lets us know;

"There's nobody at that counter you'll have to get in line for the tellers and get served there."

I'm thinking seriously, I can see that! At the front of the next cue we are greeted by helpful experienced teller with a laminated account card. She asks;

"How long have you been in the country?"

“Just a couple of weeks we are moving here for at least two years”

"Do you have proof of address?"

“We have these letters from the national health service”

"Have you got ID on you?" 

“Yes we do”

"We can give you an account now but it won't be a very good one, I suggest you go online and set the account up that way."

"What do you mean by not a very good account?"

"Well an account with credit facilities and a better fee structure"

"We don't really need credit at this stage

"It’s still better if you apply online"

She was nice and somehow we walked out of the building reasonably happy and without an account. A FAIL! My partner and I decided to try another branch and I insist on being a bit more forward the next round.

We walk into a bank and I say plainly in very much the Queens English

"We would like to open bank accounts"

to which the front desk man's response is

"Pardon"

Maybe It’s like he's a coke dealer and he thinks I'm a cop? His superior was standing next to him and there was nobody else in the foyer. Six or seven other bankers had been standing quite some meters away on the carpet to the left of the front counter and had since, maybe at the sight of me and my partner, peeled of to their respective offices. I repeated my statement without rolling my eyes.

"Do you have an appointment"

"No sorry we don't"

"Well you need an appointment to do that"

"We are happy to wait for a time that you are free, do you have anything today"

they looked

"There is no one available today"

“Can we book another day then?”

"You need to do that online"

"What if i'm a little old lady who doesn't use the internet"

"Then you could book a time through the phone"

"But you have a computer here, can we find an open slot together now, it's a lot better for us as we don’t have easy access to these things"

they both have a look on screen and fumble around a bit

"We are busy, the computer only goes to certain. . ."

He can see I’m frustrated now as we both just saw the seven people having a good old watercooler party.

"Can you at least tell us what we will need so that we can avoid coming in without the correct documents"

"Do you have jobs?"

"Yes"

"How long have you been in the country?"

"We just arrived"

"We can't give a bank account to you unless you've been in the country for two years"

at this stage I have both hands down on the counter 

"I have quite a few pounds in my pocket that I don't want to carry around with me, surely we can do something?"

"You'll have to try somewhere else"

He replies in a pressing tone.

I was given completely different reasons as to why they would or wouldn't give us accounts. It's crazy to think of trusting an organisation like that. In a world with 199 trillion dollars of global dept you'd think a little bit of cash might be appreciated.

Any street hack could simply stand outside with an iPad and set customers up with fully functional Bitcoin "bank accounts" on the spot. Arranged a pay conversion service like Bitpay and an exchange with that provides debit cards, say ANX and really that's all you need day to day. You can spend your bits anywhere mastercard is accepted, works internationally with no fees if you deposit 1 Bitcoin on your debit card. Sounds a lot better that being talked down to by stuck up bankers. I can't wait to see homeless guys setting people up with Bitcoin wallets at the front door of Loyds. It would be such poetic justice.

Unfortunately we need a normal bank account to pay our landlord at this stage. So next we went to HSBC, who are getting heat in the media for eliciting tax evasion. They kindly set us up almost straight away, lots of questions, funny colloquial business and not much proof of anything. We had two passports and a letter from an employer stating employment but not specifying pay and guess what. . they gave us 7000 pounds worth of credit.which we didn't ask for.

The word "bank" implies that they hold something for you, but they don’t. They don’t want to hold your cash. Its so ingrained in us that even I'm shocked when they behave in accordance with this. All they do is dispense dept. We should call them loan sharks.

Unfortunately loan hungry banks are much more threatening than Minecraft sharks. The banks are not like our youthful impressions, not like the Minecraft bank, they are much less charming. The truth is the banks are not banks at all, they are only imitating.