The first question that comes to my mind is, "What the fuck is the point of 2 Gbps service for residential customers?"

Not having to worry about my Steam downloads interfering my family's streaming video and still leaving enough room for comfortable web browsing and a torrent or two? All the while a computer is making a cloud backup?

Excess resources is what allows for growth, you know.

It would seem to me that society (both public and corporate) ought to be looking at the areas that are lucky to get T-1 speeds before it worries about upgrading cities that already have access to double and triple digit Mbps connections.

A city upgrading to Gbps service makes countryside seem backwards in comparison, increasing the chances that local public services win their legal battle against entrenched private interests and are allowed to increase speeds.

That about sums it up

Watching from the outside, it sure seems so. I wonder why, though? It couldn't possibly be because the country refused to give up racism when offered the carrot of a dream, so now it gets the stick of fire and brimstone, now could it?

Humanity seems utterly unable to learn tgat injustices are weaknesses that lead to destruction yet the universe seems just as unable to stop hammering the lesson home. Unmovable object of human stubborn evil meets the unstoppable force of obvious consequences. We haven't met any aliens because they're addicted to, mesmerized by and terrified of the epic farce that's human history. Assuming they're even alive anymore - not helping when able inserts them right back into the same pattern, after all, most likely by opening old scars.

We should really make ethics a branch of national defence, since most problems and threats originate from someone racking up bad karma in the name of short-term benefit.

"Did you seriously just say something that exists only in the digital realm"

Seriously are we back in the 90's? Some of the most valuable things on earth only exist in the digital realm, see microsoft office and windows, google, and everything produced by the television and movie industries.

"which solves a cryptographic puzzle nobody actually asked or cares about"

The puzzle of money that can't be counterfeited, doesn't require inflation, and doesn't depend on a central bank? I'm not sure how that falls under a cryptographic puzzle nobody cares about. Using bitcoin to trade with the Chinese would certainly solve some massive problems for the US very quickly.

Technically true even if deliberately obtuse. I will amend myself. Innate value to people. Suddenly food, shelter, and short of globally reverting to a barter system, currency, qualify.

Other things that have innate value do if they didn't bitcoin wouldn't be unique and my argument would be invalidated. Things have an innate value "to people" (qualifier for the benefit of other dude who replied to you) because they have innate properties which make them useful to us. Short of reverting to a pure barter system we will always have need of a currency and if there is one thing with innate properties that makes it most useful to function as one it becomes innately valuable in that respect.

Well, I'd agree which extends the validity of my point beyond Argentina. But for now we are talking about Argentina and it's an easier case to make.

But, unlike Greece, nobody is willing to give Argentina a bail out.

Nobody is willing to bail out Greece, either. What's being done in eurozone is transferring risk from private investors to taxpayers. Who, for some odd reason, seem to be turning against EU and its "socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor" economic ideology.

"Genius sells and idiot buys", like Helsingin Sanomat once said about modern art.

That is the price on the speculators market not the value. Most of those involved in those price shifts aren't even utilizing bitcoin and those markets only come into play when seeking liquidity in a secondary currency. Bitcoin has innate value as the only currency (along with clones):

1. Divisible to an infinite number of units so there are always enough pieces to grow to any transaction volume. (Gold has this flaw, there aren't small enough bits to use to transact in actual gold.)
2. No known method of counterfeiting.
3. Innately digital and transmittable in all major ways.
4. De-centralized system of initial creation and distribution.
5. Innate value in the sense of a useful commodity.
6. Is universal and requires no secondary currencies exchange once critical mass is achieved.

In other words, Bitcoin is the only currency that has innate value in the form of utility where that utility is to function as a quick assured universal means of value transmission where the assurance is not subject to the interests of a third party. Fiat currencies must be valued against other fiat currencies at critical mass. If bitcoin ever reaches critical mass it eliminates the utility of all other currencies except goods with valuations based on supply and demand so the speculative currency market becomes a non-entity.

So if I go on vacation and someone moves into my house while I was gone, it's just "too bad, you weren't using it, just wait for them to leave and you can take it back?"

What ever made you think it's different? Not nature; leave a nest unguarded and some other critter claims it. "Property" is a social construct. If it becomes a tool for tyranny - if a few hoard everything and claim "property" as an excuse to enslave the rest - then it's on its way to the wastebasket of history.

Not that property is likely to last anyway. If 3D printers and other microproduction fulfils its promise, they'll finish what the industrial revolution started. Then what would be the point of hoarding, when you can instantiate any physical object you need, and let it be dissolved/recycled again when you no longer do?

If bitcoin can be spent at businesses you don't need to convert to pesos and that is the only point the government has visibility into things. Even if you do convert to pesos no government has the resources needed to trace every transaction in every business to determine if the bitcoin funds originally came from tourists vs locals.

This is an oppressive government with immoral laws that are being circumvented. It doesn't let them avoid reporting income altogether unless bitcoin usage reaches critical mass but it does circumvent being legally forced to rely on the corrupt Argentinian fiat system by the corrupt Argentinian government.

Yes, but they are both just different sides of the corporatist party. They divide on talking points, they each use a different flavor of spin to achieve the same objectives.

Look at healthcare for example. The US spends more tax dollars per capita providing no healthcare to it's citizens than most nations with total healthcare (including dental) spend per capita without providing notably better care according to any real objective metric. Implementing real state health care neither requires outlawing private medicine nor increasing taxes. The republicans lie saying it requires both, that's their flavor of spin, the Democrats also lie and promote models that both increase taxes AND funnel money to insurance companies.

Both flavors of spin are targeted at the same result, increasing profits for the big private medical industry at the expense of the citizens. It doesn't matter which rhetoric you buy into, they are just different spins on the corporatist agenda. There is no populist party in the United States and if there were they'd get no substantial mainstream media coverage or if so popular it couldn't be avoided would be a Ron Paul comical and dismissive spin on their coverage because the mainstream media is run by massive corporations.

If you pay attention you will see the "two parties" are divided on very very carefully chosen lines.

Actually most massive organizations do exactly this. In the private sector you will find two or three major competitors with the same major stakeholders. See pepsi & coke, visa & mastercard, etc.

The real problem here is that IT is regarded as something like a janitorial service, rather than an integral business function. That's a recipe for a slow burn into the ground. There is plenty of cog work to be done, sure. But if you don't use IT to actually change how you do business, you're not doing IT.

I'm not surprised then that Disney is only making money by buying IP, and riding old IP. They're organizationally prohibited of producing something new.

You're in the Bay Area and out of work? Fuck, they're hiring here like it's 1999. If you don't have a job right now, it's your own problem.

Mind you, that was just frustration talking... because seriously, what is anyone going to do about this?

Stop believing in imaginary entities such as Disney, thus leaving all their "property" free for taking. For that matter, stop believing in imaginary chains of ownership altogether; if someone's not personally using some resource, it doesn't belong to him, no matter any paper says.

Capitalism is just a secularized religion. It's gods, and the divinely ordained order they live in, are no more immune to final sanction than any others that have guided civilizations in ages past. Invisible Hand either gets its shit together or smashes into the Ragnarock of reality, just like Historical Inevitability did in the USSR. Past accomplishments don't excuse continued lousy performance forever, for men or their gods.