All About Bitcoins...

Yay Bitcoins! So wait...what is a Bitcoin? If you are anything like I was, you might be totally unaware of what Bitcoins are (which seems exceptionally out of place now considering how groundbreaking they are). Anyway, if you don't know what they are, I'm about to unravel the mystery. This blog will explain: exactly what Bitcoins are, where they come from, what they can be priced, what something called Bitcoin mining is, why the government does not like them, and I'll finish up with some advantages and disadvantages of them.

So Bitcoin is a network. A network where peers act as suppliers and consumers of a product with no centralized middle man (like banks). It is the first spawn of the concept called "cryptocurrency," which I have found to mean digital form of exchange or payment --so internet cash, a pretty simple concept. It was introduced by a man named Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009. He did not stay with Bitcoin, and there is still not much known about him. Since then, it has become an open source network where other users collaborate to change it.

Satoshi Nakamoto, initial creator

So we know what Bitcoin is, but how does it work? If you don't want to know anything about how Bitcoin works but just want to use it, it's as simple as downloading an app and computer program that offers Bitcoins and you've created a "wallet."

Well, beyond that, the network is based on two keys (a private key and a public key, the public key being the Bitcoin address) and digital signatures to verify the transactions with Bitcoins. A Bitcoin transaction consists of the senders address, the receivers address, and then how many Bitcoins you possess. The sending party signs the transaction with its private key. The transaction is then broadcast to all nodes of the Bitcoin Network, which creates a "block chain."

Two illustrations of the Bitcoin block chain

So the block chain is a record of every transaction, which makes verifying the transactions much more accurate and prevents any occurrences of false transactions or double spending on something.

How do you get Bitcoins now that you know what they are and how they work? Much like regular money, you can get Bitcoins as payment, you can exchange Bitcoins, you can purchase Bitcoins, or you can "mine" for Bitcoins.

So, as of today, one Bitcoin costs $868.33 in US dollars. Below you will see the prices all over the world. 

Now, you have to understand that Bitcoin value fluctuates with supply and demand. When a lot of people use Bitcoins, the price increases and if they don't, the price decreases. They become highly valuable, but also completely worthless. This can be said about any currency, so Bitcoin isn't necessarily different in that case.

If you don't want to buy Bitcoins, there is the option to mine them. This means to earn them by processing transactions using special software. Mining software listens for transactions sent through the network to process and confirm said transactions. For new transactions to be confirmed, there are a lot of steps and calculations to be completed by miners. So, miners keep the network secure. It's not easy to do this and becomes harder as the task becomes more popular and competitive. 

You may be wondering where Bitcoins are even accepted. There are sites like this one that have a master list of websites that have users who accept Bitcoins for payment. Though Bitcoins are sparse, there are very many websites that actually accept them and are not hard to find.

With no middleman or businesses controlling the use of Bitcoins, can you see why the government may have an issue with Bitcoins? Just a few days ago actually, Bitcoins were in the news for this same reason...

Click here to read the full article

Citizens of China are still free to use Bitcoins, but the banks and organizations now are banned from using them. It's very shocking as Bitcoins were a hit there. In fact, they were largely responsible for the recent rise in price of a Bitcoin and their banning of the currency has brought it down to it's $800 price now.  The reason for the ban? The government does not believe Bitcoin has the same legal status as regular money?

There's no profit to be made for them, they can't control it...it's virtually anonymous and can allow for anyone to buy anything over the internet and money laundering (which means concealing sources of money). There are also concerns that Bitcoin is limited in design. It is feared among the Bitcoin community that the government will try to take control of Bitcoins here as well, but as of right now they are still completely legal.

I'll lay these out in the simplest way...

Pros

1. You can send and receive money at any time regardless of holidays.

2. You are in control of your own transactions.

3. No personal information on the transaction.

4. Peer-to-peer transactions so you don't have to bother with your bank.

5. Converts to other units in money exchange.

6. Not credit based.

Cons

1. Ongoing development, so it could use improvements.

2. Very expensive for one unit with it's popularity.

3. Never enough of it (chances of deflation).

4. Interest is not addressed.

In conclusion, I believe Bitcoins to be a needed breath of fresh air. With more development and perhaps with making them less scarce and thus less expensive, they could really change the way things work. Despite the recent ban in China, the future of Bitcoin is very bright. A recent convention is even bringing a little light to the subject and with more knowledge of it, I think it will become even more popular than it already is!

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Life is so much easier with a sense of humor...

What's a better way to wrap up the blogs for the semester than a humor blog? Okay, maybe one that gives away money or prizes or something but whatever...this will do. So here are a couple websites you might get a laugh from!

So first, we have The Oatmeal. Everything on the site comes from a dude named Matthew Inman. He has created a blog with his illustrations featured on his comic strips and quizzes. What's really awesome that I discovered when surfing through the site..I actually already own a (small) book by Inman that was first a comic strip!

This comic strip to be exact....

(And after reading it I determined Snowball indeed showed all signs of plotting to kill me, so if I ever show up dead..well you know what hellcat to blame)

The comics can all be bought in either poster form or like what I purchased, an actual book, which is really cool. There is a whole collection of other funny comics on the site, a few of my favorite, aside from the one above, being: What it means when you say "literally" , What we SHOULD have been taught in our senior year of high school, and How Everything Goes to Hell During a Zombie Apocalypse. 

                                     

And the quizzes are just as quirky as the comics. I discovered that my body could feed 39 hungry weasels which has created a feeling of purpose in my life....along with a new found fear of hungry weasels.

Next, there's Cracked. The layout of this website is oddly reminiscent of like, CNN to me. Almost a parody of CNN...yeah..that's how I'm gonna phrase it. The site is comprised of articles and videos that make fun of pretty much anything pop culture (television shows and games) and then there's some science stuff and some other stuff on top of the other stuff. (I have a way with words, I'm aware)

Anyone can become a writer on this website. With the articles and videos, there are also podcasts. When you look around, there's more than just snarky articles, but as well as very informative articles (the one I found most interesting was 5 Lost Documents That Shatter Your Image of Famous People)

But because I am very childish I really liked 15 Texts from Last Night From Famous Superheroes

(how I will envision every conversation with Batman and Robin)

Engrish is the next humor site. It can simply be summed up as repeated mistakes foreign countries make when translating to English. They have a "brog" (lololol AKA blog) and a store for all their merchandise. Here are a couple of my favorite wonky translations:

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Mini Blog: Free News Feed Reader

Feedly is an RSS news reader available on the internet, android phones, and tablets. Instead of going to multiple websites to gather your news, you just visit Feedly. It is integrated with Twitter, Facebook, Google+ (kind of...you habve to go through one thing to the other to get them) and Evernote. There is no search or analytic option. I don't really like Feedly, so I have found an alternative news feed reader. And that alternative issssss........

Netvibes! There is a free version and a paid version, as with most software these days. With the free version, you can do all things you could with Feedly, as in subscribing to different news generators, and more. You can create your own dashboard on the site, which you can arrange to your own liking as I have done below.

Contrasting Feedly, there is search capability and an analyzing option. Along with these features, you can also add your email, Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ (in an easier fashion than on Feedly) onto your dashboard. You can also add a multitude of other widgets to the dashboard, like weather for instance, so you can do more while catching up on the news. It also uses more pictures and features from the news websites than Feedly does, creating something better to look at.

So Netvibes over Feedly in my book.

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Mini Blog: Darknet and Tor and Other Things I Shouldn't Know About

From what I've gathered, Dakrnet is the "hidden internet." You must connect to regular internet and the Tor network to access Darknet. Before I explain further about Darknet, let me first explain what Tor is.

Tor is an acronym for "The Onion Router." It is considered a privacy tool. It is a downloadable software, for computers and Android phones, that allows its users complete anonymity online by bouncing from internet severs and website traffic.

 It keeps people, whether it be groups like the government or individuals like your wife, from tracking your online habits. It was initially developed by the US navy in 2002. It is used by people wanting to avoid advertising websites from tracking them, people concerned about spying, and even political activists in other parts of the world. 

Okay, back to Darknet...

So there are a lot of good things on Darknet and bad. A huge portion of it is really people seeking a place to discuss or learn about politics because they live under a tyranny. There's also a lot of illegal stuff going down, and there have been quite a few busts on the site - especially where the Silk Road is concerned. (Which I have unwittingly found out is like the website for all things illegal on Ebay..fun)

So, being that Darknet is so anonymous and a little sketchy, links can be hard to find within it. You follow a list of links and clicking on anything within a page can take you somewhere else. And you never know what you'll see on there. 

It is not completely impenetrable, as I mentioned there have been busts. You are just as susceptible to viruses and hackers as you would be on the internet. It goes to say, do not trust any sites for information that you wouldn't normally on the regular internet just because you think you're untraceable.

So, Darknet (and Tor) isn't all good or all bad. There are indeed illegal activities going on, but that's not what it's all about. Tor Metrics shows countries under hard rule are using the network more and more.

It's all about how you use these types of websites!

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Free Music!

Time for another review...and this time it's free music!

Pandora Radio

I have the Pandora app downloaded onto my phone, so I use it regularly there, but I tried out the desktop version for this review. Used to be on the app, you only got 40 hours of free listening before it cut you off -- but the desktop version is always open and free to listeners. It allows you to put in artists you like (or you can choose from a list of popular genres) and it will generate music similar to that of which you selected. Something I really like about Pandora Radio is that it provides the lyrics to the song playing, some information about the artists, why it was picked for your station, and even some notes/chords playing in the song.

Also, another good quality is that Pandora allows you to "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" a song in order to personalize your station further, as well as allowing the option to add variety by adding another artist to the station you picked.

You get 6 skips per hour - so up to 12 a day, which is a little lame because sometimes Pandora just does NOT get it right so you have to suffer through bad music or stop listening until the hour is up. One thing that annoys me though, if you hit thumbs down, it counts as a skip. Lame. 

Every other song it seems there's an ad. A really long, annoying ad. It's crazy how many ads there are.

Pandora doesn't really recognize artists until they get on the nationally known charts which sucks. You're more likely to get a Pitbull song instead of a song from Passenger.

Pros: Phone apps, okay variety, great song recommendation, customization, provides song/artist information, learns from moderation

Cons: SO many ads, no playlists, no unpopular/unknown artists

Next up is Spotify!

When creating an account, I see that Spotify is connected with Facebook, and while this is pretty moot to me because I don't have a Facebook account, I can see how this probably boosts the usage of Spotify. I did some research on it, and turns out you can suggest music and also see what all your friends are listening to - which can help discovering music if you and all your friends listen to the same type of music. There is the decision to use the app or download the desktop version.

Compared to Pandora, Spotify allows 5 skips and they are really strict on that. BUT! Spotify counts the number of skips you have remaining (as seen in the picture below). On 

Pandora you can get a little skip happy and not realize you've ran out. Also, a thumbs down does not count for

skips!

(image via www.digitaltrends.com)

You can add your collection of music already on your computer for use on your phone or in the software on its own. So you select what you want to listen to and these playlists are saved in your account.

I was a little disappointed with the radio usage. When you select a station, there's really no variety. Then oh my GOD when an ad comes on, it's terrifying. The volume goes up? Or maybe it was me just not expecting it, I'm not sure. 

Pros: Playlists, phone apps, connects to Facebook, countdown of skips

Cons: Ads are louder than music, radio usage not great

Now, Slacker Radio!

When I moved on to Slacker Radio, I didn't even have to create an account to start listening to music...so happy for that. But I also noticed the interface was a lot cooler and more personable than the others I had seen.

There is Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ integration on Slacker Radio...finally something that helps me. I really like that. Also, there are playlists and stations to be created and Slacker also counts down the skips (you get 6 per hour like Pandora). It also provides background information on the song and artist. So pretty much all my favorite parts about both websites are on this one website. I went as far as 6 songs without an ad, which is very different than the others listed on a free version.

Pros: Google+, Facebook, and Twitter integration, cool website, creates stations and playlists

Cons: None....so far

And finally we have Grooveshark.

Grooveshark gave me a kind of social networky vibe. You can do live broadcasts and connect to the community, explore other users stuff or listen to their broadcasts. You can queue up songs in the Now Playing section, and loop the entire sequence, or individual songs.

(image via www.pcmag.com)

You can upload your own music to Grooveshark to listen to, but it has to be a certain type. I didn't get the chance to, because all my music files are not supported, but above is an example. 

There are unlimited skips on Grooveshark! And you can even skip to a certain part in the songs you are listening to! Sucky part is there is no Iphone app for this website/software. It's Android based.

Pros: Social networking, unlimited skips, rewinding/replaying

Cons: no app, limited music file supporting

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Top 10 IT Related Costumes

Some will dress as slutty bunnies, some will dress as pop culture references, but only few will show their inner nerd and dress techy related - and those few I respect. Without further ado, here are the 'Top 10 IT Related Costumes' in no particular order, I just like them all :)

10. Lego Indiana Jones

9. Pong 

(The bars on the side actually move with his hands and he controls the mark with his mouth!)

8. Facebook Profile

 7. Wii

(I don't know if the mustache is costume related....?)

6. Firefox Couple

5. Minecraft IRL

4. Pacman IRL

3. Words with Friends

(Omg...why are there letters on her face..I don't know) 

2. Google Maps Destinations

1. Iphone Lockscreen

(too cute..can't deal)

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