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Bitcoin

One Bitcoin By the Numbers: Is There Still Profit To Be Made? 239

Posted by timothy
from the nature-of-money dept.
massivepanic writes with an article that "runs through the logistics of mining a Bitcoin on everyday gaming computers while keeping an eye on power consumption, time spent, and return on investment. From the article: 'I have mined a Bitcoin. This was not much of an accomplishment a year or two ago, but in 2013, after the infamous early-April peak at $260, unearthing a Bitcoin is no easy task. Competition is on the rise and we are getting close to the end of the good ol' days of Bitcoin; the time when a desktop computer or two have any real mining capabilities.'"
Australia

World's Oldest Fossils Found In Australia 85

Posted by Soulskill
from the but-do-they-run-linux dept.
Dexter Herbivore sends this quote from the Washington Post: "Scientists analyzing Australian rocks have discovered traces of bacteria that lived a record-breaking 3.49 billion years ago, a mere billion years after Earth formed. If the find withstands the scrutiny that inevitably faces claims of fossils this old, it could move scientists one step closer to understanding the first chapters of life on Earth. The discovery could also spur the search for ancient life on other planets. These traces of bacteria 'are the oldest fossils ever described. Those are our oldest ancestors,' said Nora Noffke, a biogeochemist at Old Dominion University in Norfolk who was part of the group that made the find and presented it last month at a meeting of the Geological Society of America."
Twitter

Legislators Call On Twitter To Ban Hamas 486

Posted by Soulskill
from the sticks-and-stones dept.
An anonymous reader sends this excerpt from The Hill: "The past week's violence in Gaza has rekindled calls for Twitter to shutter the accounts of U.S.-labeled terror groups such as Hamas. Seven House Republicans asked the FBI in September to demand that Twitter take down the accounts of U.S.-designated terrorist groups, such as Hamas, Hezbollah and Somalia's al Shabaab. The letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller was spearheaded by Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas), who said Wednesday that the recent events vindicated the request. 'Allowing foreign terrorist organizations like Hamas to operate on Twitter is enabling the enemy,' [Poe said] 'Failure to block access arms them with the ability to freely spread their violent propaganda and mobilize in their War on Israel.'"
Transportation

+ - With Pot Legal, Police Worry About Traffic Safety 13

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes "AP reports that with Pot soon legal under state laws in Washington and Colorado, officials in both states are trying to figure out how to keep stoned drivers off the road as law enforcement officials wonder about whether the ability to buy or possess marijuana legally will bring about an increase of marijuana users on the roads. "We've had decades of studies and experience with alcohol," says Washington State Patrol spokesman Dan Coon. "Marijuana is new, so it's going to take some time to figure out how the courts and prosecutors are going to handle it. But the key is impairment: We will arrest drivers who drive impaired, whether it be drugs or alcohol." Marijuana can cause dizziness and slowed reaction time, and drivers are more likely to drift and swerve while they're high and Marijuana legalization activists agree people shouldn't smoke and drive. But setting a standard comparable to blood-alcohol limits has sparked intense disagreement because unlike portable breath tests for alcohol, there's no easily available way to determine whether someone is impaired from recent pot use. If scientists can't tell someone how much marijuana it will take for him or her to test over the threshold, how is the average pot user supposed to know? "A lot of effort has gone into the study of drugged driving and marijuana, because that is the most prevalent drug, but we are not nearly to the point where we are with alcohol," says Jeffrey P. Michael, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's impaired-driving director. "We don't know what level of marijuana impairs a driver.""
The Internet

Kim Dotcom Outs Mega Teaser Site, Finalizes Domain Name 195

Posted by timothy
from the oh-you-actually-big-tease dept.
hypnosec writes "Kim Dotcom has let out more information about the launch of Megaupload's successor Mega, which he claims will be 'bigger, better, faster, stronger, [and] safer.' Mega is currently looking for partners willing to provide servers, support and connectivity to become 'Mega Storage Nodes.' The prime requirement, according to Dotcom, is that the servers should be located outside the U.S. and that the companies should also be based outside of the U.S. For this reason, Dotcom has decided that the new service will be launching with 'Me.ga' domain name."
Businesses

+ - Nokia's Credit Rating Slashed to Junk Status ->

Submitted by arielCo
arielCo writes "Quoth the International Business Times UK, among other sources: 'Nokia has had its creditworthiness downgraded to junk status by ratings company Moody's Investors Service after the troubled Finnish communications giant announced thousands of jobs cuts and warned of second quarter losses that are likely to be worse than expected. [...] Moody's had already warned in April that Nokia faced a downgrade to Ba1 — junk status — from Baa3, with a negative outlook.'"
Link to Original Source
Government

+ - Digital Storage, a Dictator's Delight->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "Governments will soon have the ability to permanently store everything that everyone within their borders does online. “... amounts to a surveillance time machine, enabling state security services to retroactively eavesdrop on people in the months and years before they were designated as surveillance targets.”"
Link to Original Source

+ - UK Authorities Threaten to Storm Ecuadorian Embassy to Arrest Julian Assange->

Submitted by
paulmac84
paulmac84 writes "According to the BBC, the UK have issued a threat to storm the Ecuadorian Embassy to arrest Julian Assange. Under the terms of the Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act 1987 the UK has the right to revoke the diplomatic immunity of any embassy on UK soil. Ecuador are due to announce their decision on Assange's asylum request on Thursday morning."
Link to Original Source
Twitter

Inside the Real Economy Behind Fake Twitter Followers 75

Posted by Soulskill
from the black-market-cares-what-you-had-for-breakfast dept.
colinneagle writes "People continue to pay money for Twitter followers, and, naturally, a deep network of developers and merchants has arisen to feed the market. A Barracuda Labs study found that the average dealer has the capacity to control as many as 150,000 followers at a time, sometimes more. Those who can control 20,000 fake accounts and can attract sales of $20 or more — the going rate is 1,000 followers for a minimum of $18 — stand to earn roughly $800 per day, according to Barracuda Labs. Keep in mind that very little of this work is manual; the dealers could easily control a system of botnets and set up a few software tools to automate much of the process. Using Twitter's API, developers can design programs that collect all the information of a given group of Twitter users, such as, for example, the 800,000 users following Mitt Romney's account. These programs don't necessarily hijack these accounts — they copy the images and text from their profiles and tweets. This pool of information can then be automatically ported into accounts based on an algorithm that automates the registration process on a massive scale."
Education

Forget 6-Minute Abs: Learn To Code In a Day 306

Posted by timothy
from the which-day-is-the-question dept.
whyloginwhysubscribe writes "The usually excellent BBC 'Click' programme has an article on 'Why computer code is the new language to learn' — which features a company in London who offer courses on learning to code in a day. The BBC clip has an interesting interview with a marketing director who, it seems to me, is going to go back and tell his programmers to speed up because otherwise he could do it himself! Decoded.co's testimonials page is particularly funny: 'I really feel like I could talk credibly to a coder, given we can now actually speak the same language.'"

+ - SPAM: What Type Of Investor Are Going To Be?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "So by now, you may know the basics of the stock market and may be wondering how to go about investing. The first thing you should determine though is, what type of investor are you going to be.

There are two types of investors in the stock market; fundamental investors and technical investors. Whichever one you choose to be is up to you but you must know the characteristics of both to make a decision.

A fundamental investor aims to study a company's financials, the economy and the industry of the company. If you decide to become a fundamental investor, you will have to be able to read financial statements, understand economic data and study different industries. Also, you will need to identify stocks that are "undervalued" so that in the future, they increase in value to make a profit. You should expect to hold stocks for a few months or even several years before selling, if you want to be fundamental investor.

Technical investors are almost the complete opposite of fundamental investors. They do not care as much about company fundamentals, industries and the economy. They simply study the price pattern of a stock using stock charts to identify good entry and exit positions (buy and sell positions). They believe that all company fundamentals and economic data has already been taken into account by the market so there is no point of studying it. Technical investors invest for the short term, holding stocks for a few minutes or for no longer than a few weeks. They aim to profit from short-term price changes in the stock price. An example of a technical investor is a day trader. They aim to buy and sell stocks within the same day to profit from small price changes.

So you know a bit about fundamental and technical investors and you now have to decide which one you are going to be. You can decide to take on both fundamental and technical investment styles but you have to have the skills to do both. Whichever you decide to do, learn the skills that are required to be successful with the investment style you have chosen. If you are going to be a fundamental investor, perhaps you can research successful people that have been successful with this approach like Warren Buffett and Benjamin Graham. What did they do to acquire great wealth, and can you replicate it? Keep learning, keep grafting and become your greatest asset."
Link to Original Source

When I left you, I was but the pupil. Now, I am the master. - Darth Vader

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