The Democratic People's Republic of Best Korea is reporting their successful test of a thermonuclear weapon following an 4.9 to 5.1 magnitude earthquake originating from a shallow depth at one of Best Korea's known nuclear testing sites (archived). North Korea tested their first nuclear weapon on October 9th, 2006 to alleviate doubts expressed by diplomats from other nations about their nuclear weapons status. A successful thermonuclear weapons test means that Best Korea has transitioned from an entry level membership in the Nuclear Club to a Diamond Level Nuclear Club membership.
Category Archives: Altcoins
Radeon Refresh Gets Shrink To 14 nm
In what would have been Bitcoin mining news during the ancient stretch from summer 2010 and to the close of 2012, AMD's next refresh of their Radeon graphics cards will include a process shrink from 28 nm to 14 nm (archived). The new parts are set to arrive in the Summer of 2016 placing their availability within a few months of the next Bitcoin subsidy halving, if current trends in Bitcoin network difficulty continue.
Militia Liberates Oregon Land From Federal Occupation
Lead Top Performing Metal of 2015
Out of all the metals traded on open markets in 2015, lead was the top performer posting only a 5% loss closing the year at 0.80 United States Dollars per pound and 1623.27 Euros per ton. Humble lead's 5% loss was enough to outperform all of the precious metals, the rare earth metals, and the other base metals. Price information on metals with less established markets in 2015 is unavailable.
7 Month Investigation Catches Alleged Refund Fraudsters
In another incident highlighting weaknesses underlying the fiat system, it took the Volusia County Sheriff's Department in Florida 7 months to investigate an operation they allege used gift cards to launder value derived from stolen retail merchandise (archived). The Sheriff's Department alleges that Cash for Gift Card stores operated by a father and his adult son knowingly sent thieves to steal from retail stores and return the merchandise in exchange for gift cards. The Cash for Gift Card stores were alleged to buy these gift cards at half their face value and then resell them in bulk on the Internet. How the Sheriff's department supposes the thieves were enlisted by Cash for Gift Card as opposed to self motivated is unknown at this time. There is however no ambiguity that there exists an extraordinary number of places where the fiat system leaks value big and small, online and offline.
Paxful Gets Desperate, Priced Out Of Bitcoin
Paxful, a website that claims to do "peer to peer" matching of Bitcoin buyers and sellers, issued a desperate plea on their blog (archived) threatening to move to an altcoin as they get priced out of Bitcoin. Because Paxful specializes in facilitating very small trades any pricing of transaction fees in an actual market obliterates their market niche, and Bitcoin is definitely moving towards a healthy market for block inclusion fees. Paxful claims to: Continue reading
The False Dilemma of XT Versus Blockstream
Since the beginning of the XTCoin affair a substantial amount of social engineering has been directed into framing the Bitcoin blocksize as a polarized dispute between exactly two camps. Continue reading
CoinBase Bug Bonanza
In late 2012 Coinbase was cultured by startup incubator, YCombinator on a plate of Thayer-Martin agar with the "mission" of "Becoming the Paypal of Bitcoin." The company seems to have had some success on the surveillance side of their mission by tracing user transactions and a slew of ex-customers who claim to have been banned with minimal explanation – a problem Coinbase seems to have despite their penitent userbase. Of special note here is Coinbase's security outsourcing that frequently results in vulnerabilities. Continue reading
US DO"J" Stops Sharing Bounty Of Theft With Locals
Today it was declared that the United States Department of "Justice" would cease to share value acquired through asset forfeiture and other forms of theft with local "law enforcement" agencies under the Equitable Sharing Program (archived). The program allowed local gangs incorporated as "law enforcement" agencies choose to partner with the DO"J" and receive federal assistance in seizing assets alleged to be connected with drug activity, even in spite of the demonstrable criminal innocence of parties from whom the assets were stolen. Through the Equitable Sharing Program local partners could receive up to 80% of the proceeds of their joint larceny. The Do"J" blames budget cuts for forcing its hand in suspending the program and insists the suspension will be temporary. It is unknown how many other perks presently enjoyed by local "law enforcement" gangs for cooperating with federal agencies will find themselves eroded in the near future.
Desperate United States Revives Plutonium-238 Production
Oak Ridge National Laboratory operated by the United States Department of Energy has issued a press release announcing the resumption of Plutonium-238 production in the United States (archived). Since the United States ceased production in the late 1980's they have filled their appetite for the isotope through foreign purchases supplemented by their dwindling stockpile. The increasingly frosty relationships between the United States and developed countries that maintained Plutionium-238 production capability has forced the United States into independently producing the material again at great cost. Plutonium-238 is used as a radio thermal power source in medical and space related applications. The ongoing decline of relations between the United States and the developed world is likely to continue injuring the ability of the United States government to participate in international markets.