United Kingdom VII: Taking Pride in Your Success

[Hirst]

Bitcoin mining is the most stupid waste of resources I've ever seen. And I've seen an episode of "Gogglebox".

[charlesr]

A real indicator of how fragile the whole cryptocurrency thing is. It's largely nonsense of assigning value to basically nothing (before people jump in - yes, normal currency shares the same issues) but the whim of a single person can alter the trajectory of the value.

It's announcements like that which could topple the whole thing. Value dropped 17% overnight. Perhaps suddenly it's no longer possible to make money from mining. Mining ceases. Bitcoin collapses.
[MENTION=42]MartyG[/MENTION] and [MENTION=3822]fuse[/MENTION] posted some interesting links about the future of ownership and proof of work in the chat channel. Currencies that bypass the silicon arms race for mining will be the only long term winners surely? Note: I have no idea what I'm talking about.

[Neon Ignition]

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/coronavirus-variant-found-in-india-may-spread-faster-than-type-detected-in-kent/ar-BB1gFCTP

Evidence appears to be growing that the Indian variant is more transmittable than the Kent variant that caused the second wave.

[fuse]

Whatever Musk's play is here (given he's still pushing another daft meme cryptocurrency), Tesla bought $1b+ of bitcoin, and there is no way they did not know about the environmental concern before.

Also who wants to bet that 'green' alternatives are actually, you know, not? Chia's one that came to my attention this week, that's causing a new new type of hardware shortage, proving to wreck SSDs in as little as six weeks.

[Brad]

Currencies that bypass the silicon arms race for mining will be the only long term winners surely? Note: I have no idea what I'm talking about.

This ^^^^

Blockchain is cool. Mining is ****ing stupid and needs to be stopped

[fishbowlhead]

All currencies, unless there’s something behind it to back it, are absolute made up nonsense.

[MartyG]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...inister-admits
A Minister has warned that the rising number of Indian variant cases may mean the 21 June restrictions lifting being delayed, something that might matter if all the meaningful ones including hugging weren't shot to hell come Monday anyway.

But Johnson said it's irreversible. He said it. With words.

[Dogg Thang]

Whatever Musk's play is here (given he's still pushing another daft meme cryptocurrency), Tesla bought $1b+ of bitcoin, and there is no way they did not know about the environmental concern before.

100%. And you can be pretty sure he is not making a loss on this change.

[Golgo]

Being cross-examined now, David Cameron says his secret lobbying was all done with the greater public interest in mind to help reverse the national economic downturn, so that's that all cleared up. What a trouper!

[Brad]

Good old Dave!

[QualityChimp]

Cameron is sweating like a pig and if there's anyone who knows how sweaty a pig can get, it's him.

Love QC.

[Asura]

Can I play Devil's Advocate here, for a sec? Just because I've thought this for a while, and I suspect I'm wrong, but I want to voice the thought and see if someone can shoot it down.

When the government makes deals with and contractor or company for anything, obviously they have to deal with their CEOs and KAMs and what-have-you. But my understanding is that most of the people serving as MPs come from narrow range of backgrounds; businesspeople, lawyers and so on.

I guess what I'm asking in a roundabout way is this... Recently, a we've seen many incidents where the government gives a contract, and people cry sleaze because they play six-steps-of-Kevin-Bacon to show how the owner of that company is Michael Gove's university roommate or something. But if you were to check all of the possible choices for a contract, would you not find that all of them have connections to cabinet members, because they just move in the same circles?

[Dogg Thang]

Can I play Devil's Advocate here, for a sec?

The devil needs no advocates. He's in power. Advocate for those who need it more.

[QualityChimp]

• It's not six steps, it's about two.
• They're not going through the correct channels.
• The companies aren't experienced in their contracts (PPE etc.)
• Companies that are experienced are being ignored.
• Companies are months old, yet get contracts.
• VIP WhatsApp chats with MPs get you to the top of the queue.
• They're not delivering what they've been paid for.
• Or they're delivering sub-standard equipment.
• Nobody is getting penalised for non-delivery.

[Anpanman]

Genocidal Bosnian-Serb maniac Radovan Karadzic coming to a UK jail. Just one more reason to be proud to be British, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab actually said.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57090123

In your face, Europe! All your war criminals are belong to us!

At least it's easier for Tony to visit, they could swap stories.

All currencies, unless there’s something behind it to back it, are absolute made up nonsense.

Like the Euro....

Being cross-examined now, David Cameron says his secret lobbying was all done with the greater public interest in mind to help reverse the national economic downturn, so that's that all cleared up. What a trouper!

Bollocks.