Everyone seems to believe that the 10 commandments are obvious, but it's not really (and subject to much debate today)....

Let's just take an obvious case (and one that most people agree with) : Don't Kill
- what is the definition of life, and what constitutes killing?
- is it OK to kill one person to save the life of another?
- the Romans seemed to think that killing non-Romans was not that big of a deal, but killing a Roman Citizen WAS a big deal
- in semi-recent times, Hitler seemed to think it was not a bad idea to kill a significant portion of the German (and conquered territories) population
- Stalin, Pol Pot, and others held similar views (ie: ethnic cleansing?)
- some religions believe that "Convert or Die" is OK (ie: it's OK to kill to further a particular system, or for the greater good)
- there was the concept of an eye-for-an-eye - ie: if somebody kills your brother, should you be able to kill that person?
- is it OK for governments to have capital punishment? (ie:certain crimes have the death penalty)?
- is WAR OK? (that seems to be mass killing)
- what about the wanted dead or alive posters/statements? - this seems to imply that its OK to kill some persons?
- didn't the president sign the NDAA (and nobody complained)? - which implies that our society believes that it's OK for SOME people to kill others but not the other way around?
- that's not to mention suicide - ie: what about killing yourself?
- what timeframe are we looking at - ie: is smoking, and eating high fat, high salt, high cholesterol foods a way of slowly killing yourself?
- what about high risk activities - are you really just trying to kill yourself?
- what about Kevorkian and his assisted suicides?
- what about mercy killing?
- if mercy killing is OK, is it OK to kill somebody to prevent them from sinning and going to hell?

(I could probably go on for a lot longer, but I think you get the point) ...
... so is it really obvious, even today?

That which is accepted by government to pay taxes are a result of LEGAL TENDER and legal tender laws.

Money existed before governments - the oldest forms of money were gold and silver (silver is probably an older form of money than gold).

Governments want to control the flow of money (the ancient Romans debased their silver coins with base metals, and fiat currencies over time have been inflated away) - that's why many governments have capital controls. Governments are concerned about the movements of gold and silver (which are not defined as money according to Ben Bernanke). Isn't part of the rules for accepting IMF money - to not create a gold/silver based currency but one that uses the US Dollar as it's reserve?

Is bitcoin money? Doesn't matter. (that becomes a tax, legal, and political question)

If it is used as a medium of exchange, a store of value, fungible, and divisible, who really cares? If offline bitcoin wallets mean that your bitcoins cannot be stolen, doesn't that make safe storage of Bitcoins cheap (and even obviate the need for banks)?

VLAB (MIT-Stanford Venture Lab) in Silicon valley is doing an event on Privacy on October 15th, from 6:00 PM - 8:30 PM at Stanford University (in Palo Alto, CA) - Vidalakis Dining Hall.

Panelists will include Philip Zimmerman (PGP + Silent Circle), Nico Sell (Wickr), and Casey Openheim (Disconnect). The question being asked is, is privacy possible today?

The web site for the event is : http://www.vlab.org/article.html?aid=480

Naturally, the panel will look at technologies like data mining (and anti-data mining) and encryption. VLAB is interested in business opportunities for startups with disruptive technologies, the panel will be seeing what's possible.

VLAB usually looks for major disruptive trends, events, and technologies. The Snowden leaks (and also the Google, Facebook, etc. reactions) may have started something significant, and sparked an awareness.

In any case, it should be an interesting event. If you're in the area, you might want to check it out. (full disclosure - I'm the event chair for the privacy event).

Best Regards,
Tony

Let's see - the Pi costs $35, you'll need an SD card, and the ADC board costs $35, so it's probably about $70 but you get a lot more than an arduino - (i.e.: you won't worry about memory, you can run a web server, etc).