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Robawesome
Jul 22, 2005

35 bitcoins missing!.....and then back again (self.Bitcoin)

submitted an hour ago by tony_bds

I synced my MyTrezor Lite earlier and discovered I had 35 bitcoins less than I should have. This is greater than my total holding and left me with a negative balance. wtf. I dropped my phone, the back came off and the battery popped out. After putting it back together and powering up again I went straight back to my wallet and my balance was as it should be. Sorry I didnt get a screenshot of the negative balance for you guys, I didnt know it was possible.

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Just-In-Timeberlake
Aug 18, 2003

Robawesome posted:

35 bitcoins missing!.....and then back again (self.Bitcoin)

submitted an hour ago by tony_bds

I synced my MyTrezor Lite earlier and discovered I had 35 bitcoins less than I should have. This is greater than my total holding and left me with a negative balance. wtf. I dropped my phone, the back came off and the battery popped out. After putting it back together and powering up again I went straight back to my wallet and my balance was as it should be. Sorry I didnt get a screenshot of the negative balance for you guys, I didnt know it was possible.

be your own blackberry

indigi
Jul 20, 2004

how can we not talk about family
when family's all that we got?
do you guys think there's even one nonwhite sov cit

hobbesmaster
Jan 28, 2008

indigi posted:

do you guys think there's even one nonwhite sov cit

yes

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2008/0805.carey.html

Jabberwocky
Jan 15, 2003

mommy's little monster

indigi posted:

do you guys think there's even one nonwhite sov cit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOuRE86Tl_s

indigi
Jul 20, 2004

how can we not talk about family
when family's all that we got?
I kinda can't believe they aren't dead

A Pinball Wizard
Mar 23, 2005

I know every trick, no freak's gonna beat my hands

College Slice

indigi posted:

do you guys think there's even one nonwhite sov cit

http://www.rawstory.com/2014/08/sovereign-citizens-express-fears-of-lawlessness-by-rejecting-laws/

Joementum
May 23, 2004

jesus christ
"Moorish Law" has been a thing longer than sovcits

hobbesmaster
Jan 28, 2008

AnoHito posted:

hey, they win sometimes. you know, by accident.

http://kevinunderhill.typepad.com/Documents/Opinions/RvDuncan.pdf

i like to imagine that losing a case to a sovereign citizen is the legal equivalent of getting mugged by a first grader.

this is amazing because the prosecutor seemed to completely forget what he was supposed to be doing when the defendant started on the freeman on the land nonsense and forgot to tie his evidence to an actual offence

rjmccall
Sep 7, 2007

no worries friend
Fun Shoe
actually the offense was being impolite to a police officer

Improbable Lobster
Jan 6, 2012

What is the Matrix 🌐? We just don't know 😎.


Buglord
someone repost that judge thing that compared the sovcit sellers to medieval alchemists

indigi
Jul 20, 2004

how can we not talk about family
when family's all that we got?
thinking about it I actually kinda empathize with black sovcits

haveblue
Aug 15, 2005



Toilet Rascal

Improbable Lobster posted:

someone repost that judge thing that compared the sovcit sellers to medieval alchemists

http://www.canlii.org/en/ab/abqb/doc/2012/2012abqb571/2012abqb571.html

good luck, it's almost 200 pages

Improbable Lobster
Jan 6, 2012

What is the Matrix 🌐? We just don't know 😎.


Buglord

merci

The Management
Jan 2, 2010

sup, bitch?
it's actually fascinating reading. I wish he published a version without the level references cluttering it up

Improbable Lobster
Jan 6, 2012

What is the Matrix 🌐? We just don't know 😎.


Buglord
yeah, it's good

When gurus do appear in court their schemes uniformly fail, which is why most leave court appearances to their customers. That explains why it is not unusual to find that an OPCA litigant cannot even explain their own materials. They did not write them. They do not (fully) understand them. OPCA litigants appear, engage in a court drama that is more akin to a magic spell ritual than an actual legal proceeding, and wait to see if the court is entranced and compliant. If not, the litigant returns home to scrutinize at what point the wrong incantation was uttered, an incorrectly prepared artifact waved or submitted.

Improbable Lobster
Jan 6, 2012

What is the Matrix 🌐? We just don't know 😎.


Buglord
[669] In his poem Inferno at Cantos 26-30, Dante placed the “evil counsellors” ‑ those who used their position to advise others to engage in fraud, and “the falsifiers” ‑ alchemists, counterfeiters, perjurers, and imposters, into the inner canyons of the eighth circle of hell. As sinners, the evil counsellors and falisifiers were matched by those who induce religious schisms, and surpassed only in fault by oath‑breakers.

[670] Persons who purposefully promote and teach proven ineffective techniques that purport to defeat valid state and court authority, and circumvent social obligations, appear to fall into those two categories. That they do so, and for profit at the expense of naive and vulnerable customers, is worse.

[671] William S. Burroughs in Naked Lunch (New York: Grove Press, 1962, p. 11) wrote: “Hustlers of the world, there is one Mark you cannot beat: The Mark Inside.” I believe that is true for you. At some basic level, you understand that you are selling lies, or at the very most generous, wildly dubious concepts.

[672] It does not matter whether you frame your ‘business’ as a joke, religion, for educational purposes only, or as not being legal advice; your ‘business’ harms your naive or malicious customers, their families, and the innocent persons whom your customers abuse as they attempt to exercise what you have told them are their rights.

[673] You cannot identify one instance where a court has rolled over and behaved as told. Not one. Your spells, when cast, fail.

[674] If you believe what you teach is true, then do not encourage others to be the ones to execute those concepts in the courts. Present your ideas and concepts yourselves. You will get a fair hearing, and as detailed a response as your ideas warrant. The caselaw cited in these Reasons make that very clear. Canadian courts will hear you and will consider whether what you claim is or is not correct.

[675] In that sense, I acknowledge a grudging respect for David Kevin Lindsay, in that he has personally tested many of his ideas in court. That does not excuse his inciting others to engage in vexatious, illegal conduct, or his profiting from the same. Nevertheless, he has “walked the walk”. If you truly believe your ideas are valid, look at how Lindsay has been treated by Canadian courts and the careful analyses of his ideas. Yes, he has failed, but where he has approached Canada’s legal system with clarity and respect, he has received the same.

Alliterate Addict
Jul 10, 2012

dreaming of that face again

it's bright and blue and shimmering

grinning wide and comforting me with it's three warm and wild eyes

poik007 posted:

:toot toot:

ChickenOfTomorrow
Nov 11, 2012

god damn it, you've got to be kind

AnoHito posted:

hey, they win sometimes. you know, by accident.

http://kevinunderhill.typepad.com/Documents/Opinions/RvDuncan.pdf

i like to imagine that losing a case to a sovereign citizen is the legal equivalent of getting mugged by a first grader.

quote:

Other than a mildly annoying disinclination on his part to stand when addressing the court (although he did stand when questioning witnesses), he was a rather pleasant young man. Unfortunately, he was a rather pleasant young man whose mind was filled with what my late father would have called “notions”.

quote:

I should point out that Mr. Duncan preferred not to be called Mr. Duncan but rather Matthew. There was some mumbo-jumbo about the natural person and the administrator and that one of them might have been Mr. Duncan and one might have been Matthew and one, but not both, of them might have been the person speaking to me in court (while seated). However, when I read the “affidavit of truth” presented to me by Mr. Duncan, I noticed that it had been sworn by someone whose first name was clearly “Matthew” and whose second name looked very much like “Duncan” and certainly began with a “D” and a “u”. Since Mr. Duncan agreed that the affidavit had been sworn by him and accepted my proposition that there is no “D” and no “u” in the name Matthew, I continued to refer to him as Mr. Duncan through the proceedings.

quote:

For readers under the age of thirty or so, the “typewriter” was a mechanical device used for creating documents that pre-dated the computer and lacked some of the computer’s more annoying characteristics, in particular the computer’s facilitation of “cutting and pasting”, which is undoubtedly one of the four horsemen of the modern apocalypse and which has cost many trees their lives and many lawyers and judges their eyesight.

quote:

The “internet”, also known as the “world-wide web” is a bi-polar electronic Leviathan that has erupted on the world scene in the past two decades. In its benevolent manifestations, it has enormously increased and expedited access to useful information of all sorts, increased global awareness of myriad events, facilitated family and commercial communication across national boundaries in the blink of an eye and helped topple dictators; it is probably fair to say that its advent is of no less significance than the invention of the printing press. However, just as the printing press has been put to odious use from time to time, the internet has its own Jekyll and Hyde nature: it is a near certainty that future generations will look back at these decades, obsessed as we are with the twin behemoths of “reality” television and the “ooh, look at me, I must tell the world what I had for breakfast” narcissism of social media and at the billions of hours thus lost to a near psychotropic electronic escape from any useful pursuit and wonder if Aldous Huxley only got a few details wrong in Brave New World. For the purposes of this case, the relevance of the internet is its un-policed “garbage in/garbage out” potential and its free-market-of-ideas potential to lure in otherwise pleasant and unsuspecting folk with all manner of absurdity and silliness.

was this thing written by Rumpole

ChickenOfTomorrow fucked around with this message at 05:35 on Jun 8, 2015

ChickenOfTomorrow
Nov 11, 2012

god damn it, you've got to be kind

a bit of a derail but that led me to a zamboni dui and a fraud trial halted because the defense attorney was arrested for fraud.



gently caress

quote:


Answering paragraph 11 of the First Amended Complaint ..., Defendants admit that Led Zeppelin has been called one of the greatest bands in history and its members were and are exceptionally talented, but otherwise deny each and every allegation contained in paragraph 11 of the First Amended Complaint.

ChickenOfTomorrow fucked around with this message at 05:42 on Jun 8, 2015

rjmccall
Sep 7, 2007

no worries friend
Fun Shoe
low-level judges are a lot like most programmers: their actual work duties are really dull and repetitive, so they frequently search out ways to make things more interesting

unlike most programmers, at any given time there are at least three people who have to put up with their poo poo

higher-level judges have such varied work duties that nobody could ever possibly keep up with all the relevant law, so instead they just make new poo poo up all the time that the (more knowledgeable but less authoritative) lower-level judges are then required to follow, to their eternal frustration

Boxturret
Oct 3, 2013

Don't ask me about Sonic the Hedgehog diaper fetish

ChickenOfTomorrow
Nov 11, 2012

god damn it, you've got to be kind

rjmccall posted:

low-level judges are a lot like most programmers: their actual work duties are really dull and repetitive, so they frequently search out ways to make things more interesting

unlike most programmers, at any given time there are at least three people who have to put up with their poo poo

higher-level judges have such varied work duties that nobody could ever possibly keep up with all the relevant law, so instead they just make new poo poo up all the time that the (more knowledgeable but less authoritative) lower-level judges are then required to follow, to their eternal frustration

"I'm a little surprised [the Supreme Court] didn't have a hearing on it just so they could all come down off the bench and punch him in the face one at a time."

Buttcoin purse
Apr 24, 2014

QuarkJets posted:

what kind of bitcoin research has been going on in brazil, please post about it

Erenthal posted:

what does jk rowling have to say about bitcoins?

is there perhaps a lenghty text out there that combines the concepts of harry potter and the block chain?

:suicide:

Magrov
Mar 27, 2010

I'm completely lost and have no idea what's going on. I'll be at my bunker.

If you need any diplomatic or mineral stuff just call me. If you plan to nuke India please give me a 5 minute warning to close the windows!


Also Iapetus sucks!

QuarkJets posted:

what kind of bitcoin research has been going on in brazil, please post about it

jorge stolfi, a renowned brazillian comp sci professor, wrote a trip report

quote:

Travel Diary [27]:
One Day in Bitcoinistan

On my way back from Tuva, I had to transfer planes in Shremograd, Bitcoinistan. I arrived late night on Friday the 11th, only to learn that my connection flight had been cancelled, and the next one would be leaving only on Monday afternoon. I was not too unhappy; that left me a whole weekend to relax and see a bit of that tiny but quite interesting country. (That is what my friend Rick had told me, back in Stockholm. I now know why he was giggling as he said that.)

Changing money, the Bitcoinstani way

Before going to the hotel I thought of changing some rubles for the local currency, the bitč. Then, while waiting in line at the money changer booth, a weird incident happened, a harbinger of what I would experience in the next day.

Right ahead of me in the line was a frail old man, who took out from his valise a shoebox full of hundred dollar bills in neat bundles, and anxiously handed it over to the cashier. I thought that he could well be a pensioner and those were his life savings. To my surprise, the cashier took the box under his arm, closed the booth hurriedly, and then darted across the lobby and out the airport's door, disappearing among the crowd in the stret.

The old man just stood there, stunned, still staring at the booth as if he hoped it to reopen at any moment and somehow return his money. A policeman nearby had watched the whole thing without budging. I tried to call him with gestures to come help the old man, but he just shrugged. (Later I learned that theft of bitč is not considerd a police matter in Bitcoinistan.)

As I was wandering about the hall, a person in a burka approached me and asked if I wanted to exchange the rubles that I still had in my hand. I was rather worried at first and instinctively pulled back, but then I remembered the guidebook saying that mistrust is a capital offense in Bicoinistan, especially mistrust of masked anonymous strangers. So I pretended to be calm, and negotiated the deal with him (the voice was that of a young man, with a strong Chechen accent).

He took my rubles and handed me a crumpled piece of paper, which he said was a "be-your-own-bank debit card", with a couple of QR codes printed on it. I was pretty sure that I had been scammed; but no -- as I found out later, it was indeed valid and charged with the correct amount, 3.50 bitč.

The plan

Anyway, I then went straight to the hotel (with taxi and room paid by the airline). After a refreshing night's sleep and a decent breakfast (the majik bean paste was quite good) I asked the receptionist about excursions. She recommended a bus trip to the old town of Vercz, just three hours from Shremograd. The pamphlet she gave me promised gorgeous views along the winding road through the Karpelian Mountains, a lunch stopover at the ruins of Count Popescula's castle, and a view of Lake Utxo at sunset on the way back. Wonderful, I thought.

Shremograd's Central Bus Station was only a ten minute walk from my hotel. It was still a bit cold but sunny, a perfect day for the trip. Along the way I stopped at a Starbucks (can't avoid them anywhere, amazing!) for a frappucino. I tried to pay with my bitč card, but the cashier did not know what it was (it seems that very few people use the national currency there, strangely).

I tried to pay with a Starbucks gift card that I had in my wallet, but the cashier gave me such an alarmed look that I had to apologize and tell him by signs that it was a just a joke. In the end he accepted a Zimbabwean one trillion dollars bill, and even gave me an extra mint wafer for change.

The ticket

The bus station was spacious and quite modern-looking -- all steel, glass, and digital displays. But there were scaffoldings all over the place, and the faces of the people there emanated a vague feeling of aimlessness and confusion. Sleek ticket dispensers were scattered through the hall, but I looked in vain for a company roster, a timetable, or a fare table.

I had to ask the girl at the information booth, a lively brunette called Shasha who spoke fairly good English. She explained that there was only one bus company in Bitcoinistan, Satoshi Lines, with a single route that went through all the country's towns. She also told me that the buses had no fixed time schedule (not surprising for a monopoly, I thought), but that was not a problem because a bus would come every 10 minutes, on average, day and night, every day. And also that the trip was totally free.

"What do you mean, free? I thought it was a private company," I asked. I pointed to their slogan on the billboard over the booth, which said, in several languages, "SATOSHI BUS LINES - We take you where no government would".

"Indeed, it is not a government company," she said, giggling. "We here in Bitcoinistan would never use it if it was. But all costs are paid by our non-traveling citizens, in a way that is too complicated to explain. So travel is free, but you still need a ticket to get on the bus."

Well, learning about the country's economic system was not in my plans for the day, so I thanked her and went back to the ticket machine. Indeed, next to the number keypad there was a big green button labeled "ZADÁRM/TASUTA/FREE". It spit out a ticket with "0.00000000 Ƀ" printed on it, in big red letters.

Meeting with a remarkable man

A door with a turnstile led to the single boarding platform, which was already fairly packed with the most varied and colorful crowd you could imagine. I found myself surrounded by three drunk soldiers with feathers on their helmets, a Gipsy family on their way to a soccer match, a Buddhist monk in a bright orange robe, and an elderly man in shepherd clothes, with a concertina on a shouder belt and a goat on a leash.

As Shasha had promised, after ten minutes or so a bus pulled up. The driver stepped out of the bus, looked at the tickets of the people crowding around him, let some of them board the bus, and departed, leaving most people behind.

I was quite upset at that, because I could see that the bus was still half empty when it left. The Buddhist monk volunteered some words of advice about attachment to material things and accepting one's destiny as it comes. He did manage to calm me down a bit, and we struck a conversation.

He spoke excellent English, with only a slight British accent. He told me that he had previously been a computer scientist working for a large toy manufacturer, but some five years ago he had an epiphany, and quit his job to become a monk in a monastery in Mempul, near the Tibetan border. Since then he had been working, dawn to dusk, on a private project for a distributed, peer to peer belief system, called BitGod (that is what I thought he said), that would transcend churches and governments and bring frictionless salvation to humans anywhere on the world, without the need for a trusted divinity.

Yet he could not easily disconnect from the world that he had left behind; since the monastery did not have TV or internet, once a year he took time off his project to come to Shremograd, the nearest place where he could buy a copy of The Times and the latest issue of Newsweek. He was on his way back now; he intended to take the bus only to Konșenșu, the first stop, and then a footpath through the mountains that went to Lhasa through Mempul.

Even though the things he said made no sense to me, he was very lucid and convincing -- the kind of person who could easily start a religious cult, even without trying.

To fee or not to fee, that's the question

We had to wait a good half an hour for the next bus. As before, the driver only admitted half a dozen of the waiting passengers -- including my monastic friend, but not me! Leaning out of the window, the monk glanced at my ticket and told me that it was no good, I had to pay a minimum fee. It tried to object -- Shasha had been quite emphatic that bus travel was totally free in Bitcoinistan -- but he interrupted me, and only had time to shout, as the bus was leaving: "If you don’t believe me or don’t get it, I don’t have time to try to convince you, sorry."

I pondered his words, and thought that I should clear the matter up with Shasha. To my chagrin, I discovered that there was no way to leave the platform, and no station staff that I could talk to. In the end I found a way, by climbing up some pipes, squeezing through a ventilation opening, and tiptoing hurriedly through the ladies' bathroom.

Shasha was apologetic and explained that, yes, I *could* travel for free, but that would put me in the lowest priority category, and then I may have to wait many hours, or even days, for a driver willing to carry me. Bitconistani residents were quite used to it, but she understood that foreigners may find it inconvenient. To improve my chances of being picked up, she explained, I indeed had to pay a minimal fee. (There was once a time when no one had to pay any fee at all, but that ended years ago, when General Dashjur deposed King Gawain and changed the rules.)

She tried to explain how to compute the correct fee; but then, sensing that I was not exactly a math genius, she offered to do it for me insead. She measured my height with a surveyor's sight, then took out a large caliper-like tool and measured the width of my skull, from ear to ear. Then she asked how long it was since the last time I traveled by bus. She entered all that data into her tablet, and wrote down the amount on a slip of paper.

For good measure, she followed me to the ticket machine and helped me to use it. I was about to enter the amount she had written down, but she stopped me and explained that it did not work that way. Instead, I had to first let the machine scan the QR code of my bitč card, then enter the amount of change that I expected to get back. The machine then would compute the fee as being my account balance minus the change amount. Finally I got a new ticket with "0.00010023 Ƀ" on it, and a new bitč "debit card" for the return change.

Shasha escorted me to the turnstile, giving me tips about the local cuisine. Before crossing, I tried to rub her nose, which, according to the guidebook, was the traditional way to say goodbye to a female [sic] in Bitcoinistan. But I must have skipped some important detail, or the guidebook author did not know what he was writing about; because she instead slapped me on the face and marched away, stiff and stomping like a Lithuanian Mēmskadets at the Changing of the Guard.

When the minimum is not enough

Well, anyway, I was back on the platform, suddenly feeling eager and hopeful -- as if I was a freshly ordained knight, and the new ticket in my hand was my Excalibur.

A bus arrived only a minute later; but the driver did not even open the door, and drove off -- with the bus totally empty, as it came. The next one, on the other hand, picked up enough passengers to fill most of the seats -- but not me! Worse: I managed to read some of the tickets of the lucky guys, and some of them were quite a bit lower than mine, even zero. I tried to protest to the driver, but he just shrugged. After the bus left, a young tourist explained to me, in Swabian, that each bus driver indeed had the right to choose his passengers as he wished, and did not even have to explain why.

Then I noticed that most of the passengers around me were holding tickets with higher value than mine. As I feared, the next bus driver let them board, but left me and all the other cheap guys behind. And the next bus, again, just drove by, empty, without stopping.

I thought that I had better get a higher-valued ticket too. By then it was already luchtime, but I was determined to get on that drat bus, even if it took me the whole day. I called the airline and postponed the return flight to Wednesday, and then went back to the station hall by the same unorthodox route as before.

I did not dare to ask Shasha for help again. Fortunately I found in my guidebook a whole chapter on the operation of Bitcoinistani ticket machines; which started off with a bold red warning that I had to be extra careful, because I could easily lose all my bitč with a single banal mistake. But it all went well, and soon I was back on the platform, holding a ticket for 0.00020046 Ƀ.

Success, finally... ?

While waiting, I noticed that my rivals too had decided to upgrade their tickets, and I was again one of the lowest. My heart sunk, and I felt like I was trapped in a Kafkian nightmare. I pinched myself. The pain, the noise, my sore feet, the smell of diesel fumes and goats -- everything told me that, unfortuntely, it was not a dream. I pondered whether it would be worth to top up my ticket again, or whether I should just sit in a corner and wait for the janitor to sweep me away.

But then another bus came, and this time the driver just let everybody on board, without looking at their tickets. Even the old goat shepherd, who was still stoically holding his zero-bitč ticket.

I was so relieved that I promptly forgot all the time and bitč that I had wasted. The bus was modern and comfortable, and I had a double seat all by myself. I folded my legs in the lotus position and, with my eyes closed, went through all muscles in my body, one by one, commanding each one to relax until further notice.

A most unexpected incident

I opened my eyes again when the bus was pulling out of the station. I tweeted to my followers "Off to Vercz, finally". Rick promptly tweeted back "Are you sure? ;-)" I was about to ask what he meant, but I was interrupted by the most extraordinary event of all my life.

Without any warning sign, without a poof or a wisp of smoke, the bus and its diver simply disappeared! I found myself tumbling over the pavement, with some light scrapes and bruises, in the midst of a jumble of passengers, luggage, and assorted farm animals.

I got my backpack and tried to help other passengers to gather their belongings. I was in a shock, and did not know what to think or feel. Was that mint wafer really just a mint wafer, I wondered. On the other hand, while some of the passengers were grumbling and cursing, they did not seem baffled by the miracle -- as if it was just an unpleasant but quite banal incident.

Not even the goat seemed to be overly upset; it just stood there on the sidewalk, staring at me with his devilish goat eyes. I led it to the owner, and, as we were walking back to the station, I tried to communicate my bafflement with gestures to the old man. But he just kept repeating the same incomprehensible word, "Ør'fun! Ør'fun!"

Well, sorry, but I did not see any fun in it, not at all.

indigi
Jul 20, 2004

how can we not talk about family
when family's all that we got?
as Staind said, "it's been a while"

This story happened to me during the summer of 2012. I was a 23 year old French developer who just got out of engineering school. I had found a job at a large German automotive company, and was expected to start working in September in Munich.

For the last few months, I had been talking on IRC with a Brazilian girl, my age, named Maria-Teresa. She was studying arts at the UFPA university in Belém, and planned to go to Europe the year after to visit historical sites in Italy, Greece and France. We were flirting a little during those chat sessions, and she invited me to come and visit her during her two weeks vacation in July. Her family lived in Pracuúba, a small town in the Northernmost province of Brazil.

I happened to have bought 2000€ worth of bitcoin in February after I earned my first salary as an intern, which amounted to a bit more than 600 grams at this time. I didn't have enough money in my bank account alone to pay for the plane tickets, so I sold back 250 grams for 1500€ to cover the rest.

The flights went well, even though it was a bit long to go from Paris to São Paulo, from São Paulo to Belém, from Belém to Macapá, and from Macapá to Porto Grande. From there I took a bus to Pracuúba, and I arrived there around 9PM, 38 hours after having left Paris. Despite it being the winter there, it was much hoter than under Paris summer.

Pracuúba could not be more different from what I had expected. In France, many small towns with less than 1000 inhabitants have a very lively and vivid village life. With its 2500 registered inhabitants, Pracuúba was pretty much a ghost town, with nobody to be seen around. Maybe I should have checked Wikipedia more carefully, I would have noticed that the population density was around one person per square mile. When you realize that the average household size is 6 people, you can imagine that houses can be far away from each other.

Fortunately, a cellular network was available, and I could reach Maria-Teresa. She explained to me that she was not sure I was really coming, and that his brother would come and give me a ride to their place.

Half an hour later, an antic pickup truck arrived with a thirty something man behind the wheel. He stopped the car abruptly just in front of me, and when I went to open the passenger door, he just showed me the rear cargo area. I was quite surprised, but climbed into it and we left on the dirty roads. 10 miles later, I was already covered in dust when we stopped before a medium size wooden house. I jumped off the car and followed the driver inside.

In the main room, dimly lit, four people were seated. Maria-Teresa was one of them and she greeted me with a big hug, and introduced me to her parents, to her 15 year old sister Manuela, and to her brother, my driver, João Paulo. The introduction lasted only a short instant because none of them spoke French or English, and I did not know a word of Portuguese.

Right after, while I was hoping to get offered something to eat, the father uttered some order and Maria-Teresa explained to me that they were all going to bed. The parents went into their room, while I wondered if the four of us had to fit in the bunk bed that I could see in a corner of the room.

Maria-Teresa told me that when she comes back during her vacation, she uses to sleep with Manuela in the lower bed while João Paulo sleeps in the upper one. However, since I was here, we would share the lower bed while Manuela would join her brother.

I asked about the bathroom. Maria-Teresa told me that it was located in their parents room and that I would have to go outside or wait until the morning. I went out and peed on a tree 100 feet away. When I came back, the light had been switched off, but with the pale moon light coming through the window I was able to distinguish a nude muscular male body as João Paulo was washing himself from the kitchen sink while the sisters talked together.

Maria-Teresa told me I could freshen up if I wished. I waited until the brother, apparently still nude, climbed into his bed, and I went to the sink. From there, the rest of the room looked pitch black, and I decided not to care and undressed completely. I used a towel from my luggage to clean myself up, trying to water half of it while keeping the other half dry.

As I put on some boxer shorts, the younger sister came to the sink and started undressing as if I was not there. The partial obscurity did not hide the fact that she was wearing nothing but her dress, and she was done washing before I went to my luggage to store my dirty laundry. She then climbed into the upper bed, and I could hear her talk briefly to her brother.

I put myself under the sheets while Maria-Teresa went to the sink. As everyone, she proceeded to get naked, although she was wearing underwear, and I watched her while getting anxious about what would happen next. I was relieved when I saw her pick up a shirt long enough to cover her intimate parts. Life in the city may have made her more prude than the rest of her family.

She joined me into the bed, and for the first time since I arrived we could talk, while trying not to disturb her siblings. She asked me how the trip went, she told me she was happy I could come, and that she should have warned me that there weren't really any nightlife in her parents place. She promised to show me around the next morning and wished me good night.

Thanks to the jet lag, I slept very well. I woke up by the sound of the bed ladder; the brother was getting up, naked, with a morning erection he did not try to hide. He started making coffee, when Maria-Teresa opened her eyes. She said something to him, to which he responded. I asked her what she just said, and she had ensured that there would be enough coffee for me too.

Manuela then went down her bed. This time, I had a good look at her while she climbed done. She had small breasts, the hair covering her sex was very sparse and dark. She took her dress and went into her parents room. When she came back a minute later, she had put the dress on, and João Paulo, still half erect, dressed as well and poured the coffee into four cups.

Maria-Teresa got up. Still lying in the bed, I could not help looking under her shirt as she did so. This was the first time I had a glimpse at a real shaved sex. I only had had one sexual encounter at this time, and I can still remember the pubic hair getting in my way. This reinforced my morning wood, and I was wondering how I would get up when she told me to get up and eat my breakfast. I asked when her parents would wake up, and she told me that they already left when the sun rose to go sell their fruits to the market. Relieved, I reached to my luggage, got a pant and a shirt, and went to the bathroom with my clothes in front of me trying to cover my erection.

At this stage, I was very lost. I had come from France to the middle of nowhere to meet a girl I didn't know, and had landed into a family whose customs were unknown to me. Was it appropriate to look at each other while naked? Was it appropriate to be naked? Would it be possible to get involved in a romantic relationship with Maria-Teresa? I decided that I could not do anything about it but talk with Marie-Teresa when we get a chance, and went back to the main room. The bananas and another fruit I could not name were delicious.

João Paulo brought us to the city. The two sisters and I climbed into the cargo area, and Maria-Teresa told me there would be many people there because of the market. When we arrived, eight merchants, including her two parents, were selling fruits and vegetables to a dozen of customers. Also, the community center was open, and after a 20 minute wait I was able to access the only computer connected to the Internet. It was using an antique version of Internet Explorer, but it was enough to send a short mail to family to assure them that everything was ok, even though I had to use the HTML only version of gmail.

Maria-Teresa took me for a walk around the village. We seemed to be getting along, and she took my hand. We spent most of the day talking about her studies, my job, her being anxious to get to Europe. We had lunch in a tiny house where a woman talking loudly was cooking, and Maria-Teresa payed for both of us. We walked for the rest of the afternoon, resting from time to time under the shadow of a tree, getting a little bit closer from each other, then we walked back to the city.

On the path, João Paulo was waiting for us. He started to yell at Maria-Teresa, and they fought for more than 10 minutes, with me trying to ask Maria-Teresa what was happening. We went back to the car where Manuela was waiting, and during the ride back she explained that her brother had always acted jealous towards her and that he made a scene because we spent too much time alone together.

The night meal was pleasant, with her mother trying to communicate with me. Maria-Teresa spent the diner translating as much as possible while eating, and her father showed me on a map the countries where he would have wanted to go: Portugal, Angola, Cap-Vert. The mother then did the dishes while the father smoked a hand-made cigar, and it was time to go to sleep again.

However, Maria-Teresa told me that there would be a small change of accommodations. Her brother did not want her to sleep in the same bed as me any longer, so I was to sleep near her sister instead if it was ok with me. I was disappointed because I had hoped we could chat some more, but I convinced myself that this was not a big deal and that tomorrow was another day.

João Paulo turned off the light, the room went dim as the night before, and he undressed, washed, and got to bed. It was then my turn, and after freshening up, I put clean boxer shorts and went to bed. Maria-Teresa put a shirt, and waited for her sister to finish washing. When Manuela came to the bed, still naked, Maria-Teresa talked to her and they got into an argument. I seemed to understand that Maria-Teresa told her to wear something while Manuela pretexted that she had no shirt around, showing the parents room where the closet was with her hand. Maria-Teresa seemed to have the last word, in that she climbed into the upper bed, giving me once again a clear view of her intimacy, and she threw the shirt she was wearing to her sister.

Manuela took the shirt, put in on, and went into the bed on my side. After less than a minute, I felt her move as she was getting rid of the shirt, which she wasn't used to wear while sleeping apparently.

I spent an horrible night. While I was not interested in Manuela at all, I could not help having a giant erection imagining her nude behind my back. Every time I moved a little, the shorts over my dick were making me even more excited. I could feel the bed shake lightly, and I could not tell whether one of the siblings was masturbating, maybe ten centimeters away from me, or if I was myself slowly making the bed move by rubbing my shorts against the bed.

At this point, my only priority was not to come, as I would have been very embarrassed if that happened. I did the only thing I could think of, I put my shorts off, throw them onto the ground over Manuela, removed the sheet off myself and Manuela, and lied onto my back so that nothing touches my erect dick anymore. Manuela, who was either not sleeping or got woken up, turned around and looked at me, then at my dick. She did not look surprised nor shocked, and she simply closed her eyes, lying naked on her back.

I could finally get to sleep, but woke up in the middle of the night and tried to assess the current situation. While sleeping, Manuela had turned towards me and on her tummy, her head looking away from me. Her right hand lied on my leg, my flaccid sex touching her arm. My own hand was trapped under her body, and I could feel her public hair on the back of my hand. I got an instant erection, which had the immediate and beneficial side effect of separating my sex from her arm, and started to slowly withdraw my hand from under her. As I did so, I felt the back of my middle finger going on top of her labia, and probably her clitoris. Finally, I managed to pull my hand completely, and confirmed what I felt by smelling my finger.

This was too much for me. Since everyone was sleeping, I started to masturbate very slowly to prevent the bed from moving. It looks like I was not discreet enough as Manuela turned her body towards me as I was nearing the end. I had planned to contain my ejaculation with my other hand, but seeing her looking at me was such as surprise that I ended up ejaculating all over my chest and also over hers. It was so powerful a feeling that I could not let it go and gave it a few more strikes while looking at her stupidly.

Without a word, or even a strange look, she got up and turned the sink faucet on to water a towel. She cleaned up herself while walking back to the bed, then handed me the towel. I cleaned myself while she looked at me doing it, then she brought the towel back. Maria-Teresa asked her something and she answered, then went back to bed. Without a smile, without an angry look, she closed her eyes while turned towards me and my still erect member.

I woke up the next morning when Manuela got out of bed. Her parents, fully dressed, were silently seated at the table and looking into our direction. As the day before, she took her dress from the floor and walked to the parents bedroom, while I unsuccessfully looked for the sheet to cover myself. As Maria-Teresa climbed off the ladder, I forced myself not to look too long to their shaved pussy, even though it looked like the parents would not care. As she was picking up the shirt to cover herself, she noticed that I was naked myself and let the shirt go. She came to me and kissed me hello, and said that she feared that I was shocked by their nudity and that she is happy that I'm not, because it is much too hot to sleep with clothes.

I did not know what to answer, especially when I didn't know what her sister would tell or not. Apparently, she did not tell much before we went out for a ride to the river with the parents and both sisters, and we spent an excellent day. Marie-Teresa, Manuela, and I, spent most of the day bathing nude in the river, while the parents seated around. Some physical contacts gave me light erections, but nobody seemed to care.

I was starting to feel that this was a very good trip, until we got home. João Paulo was waiting for us, visibly angry, with a towel in hand. I recognized it immediately. It was the towel Manuela and I used to clean ourselves during the night. He smelled the towel, shouted something at Manuela who shouted something back and started to sob. He threw the towel to Maria-Teresa, who also smelled it, and then she turned to me. I knew it could not be good.

She asked me how her sister towel could smell like sperm. She told me that her sister was a virgin, and that I had dishonored her family, and that now I have to marry Manuela. I tried to explain that I did not sleep with her sister, that I had never even touched her, but apparently she did not believe me, nor were her parents for whom she translated what I said. I explained that I had an accident and that I used the towel to clear it up, but she started yelling at me saying that she did not believe me.

Then the unexpected happened. The mother shouted an order to Manuela, who got undressed, still sobbing, and climbed onto the kitchen table, legs spread out. The mother then went to check that her daughter was still a virgin. The father, still saying nothing, also checked when the mother called him, then the brother, then Maria-Teresa.

Maria-Teresa seemed to calm down a little, then explained to me that I could not be trusted. I had to go, now. The father, apparently understanding the conversation, came to me and pushed me to the door. I shouted that I needed my suitcase, with my papers, my plane tickets, and my clothes, but Maria-Teresa yelled at me and told me that I must go. Now.

This is how I ended up walking in the direction of the city. I reached it in the middle of the night, and slept in front of the community center, hoping that nothing would happen to me until the sun rose. The operator found me seated at the door when he arrived. He was a rather nice guy who spoke a few English words. I asked him where I could do a Western Union transfer, he had never heard of it. I looked it up on the Internet, and it appears that there is no way to do a money transfer in this deserted area.

I sent a mail to my parents asking them for advice, but it was the middle of the night in France, so I was stuck here, and I wanted to move before the family comes to town and tells everybody what happened, as I didn't want an angry mob against me. So it struck me: French Guiana, a province of France, was only 200 miles away. If I could go there, I could probably get money transferred to me much more easily, and I could probably arrange a flight back to Paris.

I was able to install an IRC client on the community center computer, and talk with some strangers located in Cayenne, the prefecture of French Guiana. They all told me that I was out of luck for two reasons: I had no chance to be able to travel with no money, and I had no chance to be able to cross the border without papers, since they fight very hard against illegal immigration. One guy contacted me privately, and told me that he knew someone who could help me reach French Guiana, but that this necessitated money. I proposed to initiate a international money wire and to have him trust me that it will arrive, but he answered that not only he didn't know me and could not trust me, but also that he didn't want to let a financial trail.

Then it struck me: bitcoin. I told him to wait, while I checked how much the 350 grams I still had were worth. I could have cried when I looked at the exchange rate and saw that it was 7.28€/gram, and that I had the equivalent of 2500€ (approximately $3300) to get out of this mess. I went back to the guy and asked him if he could accept 2500€ worth of bitcoin. He didn't know about it, and I tried to explain, but he was not interested. I asked him to wait again as I checked on another IRC channel if I could find someone interested in the transaction. One person, with a good online reputation, was willing to do it if I sent the bitcoin first, and could deliver 2000€ in cash to anyone in Cayenne. After negotiating a bit, I could setup the deal, send the bitcoin, and have the cash brought to the guy.

This was a real risk, as this could be a scam, and a bitcoin transaction cannot be reversed. Fortunately, both guys were honest, at least as far as our deal is concerned. Eight hours later, that I spent in the community center, a SUV came to pick me up. It happened that the guy was a French cop, apparently used to doing dirty jobs, and he was very nice. When we reached the border, he had me hide under a blanket, while he gave some cash to both the Brazilian and the French customs and police officers. We reached Cayenne in the middle of the night, and he dropped me in front of the main Cayenne police station. He explained to me that I had nothing to fear because even though I entered the country illegally, I had every right to be here as I was French.

Indeed, I told the police that I was visiting Brazil when I got mugged at gunpoint near the French Guiana border, and that someone I don't know anything about helped me cross the border. They checked my identity, made some temporary identity and travel documents so that I could board a plane to France, and directed me to a bank where I could get some emergency money transferred from my parents French bank account, at the cost of extravagant fees.

End of story, I was able to sleep in an hotel and take a plane two days later. When I came back to Paris, I told my parents that I had met a crazy family and that I got mugged and had no way to join them or the host family. I haven't told them about the bitcoin, I pretended later to have lost them all in a scam, but really: the bitcoin saved my life.

**tl;dr found myself lost abroad in the middle of nowhere with nothing but an internet connection after a rather strange family story, and bitcoin probably saved my life**

anthonypants
May 6, 2007

by Nyc_Tattoo
Dinosaur Gum
mods

OJ MIST 2 THE DICK
Sep 11, 2008

Anytime I need to see your face I just close my eyes
And I am taken to a place
Where your crystal minds and magenta feelings
Take up shelter in the base of my spine
Sweet like a chica cherry cola

-Cheap Trick

Nap Ghost

Magrov posted:

jorge stolfi, a renowned brazillian comp sci professor, wrote a trip report

idgi

this doesn't explain all the veiled hints at brazil throughout this thread

TVarmy
Sep 11, 2011

like food and water, my posting has no intrinsic value


i respect that boat, but it really needs the phrase "objection" worked in.

sovcits remind me of the sad sack puas you hear about. they buy books and classes full of bad advice and then predictably are unsuccessful. then they double down and decide they didn't try hard enough. it's also like when deregulation fails, libertarians explain it away by saying it's because the rest of society or the policy wasn't libertarian enough.

Buttcoin purse
Apr 24, 2014

Magrov posted:

jorge stolfi, a renowned brazillian comp sci professor, wrote a trip report

:five:

ayn rand hand job posted:

this doesn't explain all the veiled hints at brazil throughout this thread

brazil.txt shill spotted

OJ MIST 2 THE DICK
Sep 11, 2008

Anytime I need to see your face I just close my eyes
And I am taken to a place
Where your crystal minds and magenta feelings
Take up shelter in the base of my spine
Sweet like a chica cherry cola

-Cheap Trick

Nap Ghost
overstock is going to start issuing securities w/o sec approval because they're backed by math

Weatherman
Jul 30, 2003

WARBLEKLONK

Magrov posted:

jorge stolfi, a renowned brazillian comp sci professor, wrote a trip report

Only registered members can see post attachments!

Robawesome
Jul 22, 2005

[–]Uy9KC7OP2R2yn6TZVSMPBullish 8 points 7 hours ago

The theme this week is "gently caress consumers, we need institutions to use bitcoin". And I like that idea and a world where consumer usage is just a byproduct of the general adoption of btc instead of a direct result of efforts made to entice consumers. Make the blockchain valuable and the tokens will follow.

As far as trades go, I'm level headed right now (imo) and I can't see the über doom coming anytime soon, defend 220 and blow through 250 up to 275 within a two week range. Source : my rear end filled with random TA which people would discredit anyways.

[–]toomanynamesaretook [score hidden] 43 minutes ago

quote:

"gently caress consumers, we need institutions to use bitcoin".

That is the reason I bought in 2 years ago, well that and companies generally using the blockchain for whatever reason. It was pretty apparent to me early on that it is too clunky and complicated for Joe Blogs; but that the underlying payment network could facilitate numerous use cases which the consumer would be absolutely ignorant as to Bitcoin being used.

[–]Atyzze [score hidden] 17 minutes ago*

Same here. We don't need some "killer app" to get mass adoption for the general public. There already is enough use for Bitcoin as it is in optimizing and automating business operations. Saving them tons of money. Enough incentives right there.

The general public will probably never en mass use Bitcoin. They'll eventually rely on it without knowing the app or service they're using is using Bitcoin under the hood.

Just-In-Timeberlake
Aug 18, 2003
look at dem goalposts go go go

indigi
Jul 20, 2004

how can we not talk about family
when family's all that we got?
it truly is large-scale madness that the energy output of Ireland is going toward making some nerds happy


like


how depressing

Hammerite
Mar 9, 2007

And you don't remember what I said here, either, but it was pompous and stupid.
Jade Ear Joe

Magrov posted:

jorge stolfi, a renowned brazillian comp sci professor, wrote a trip report

this is great but the jokes are far too obscure for anyone to get except for, well, this thread really

mod saas
May 4, 2004

Grimey Drawer

Magrov posted:

jorge stolfi, a renowned brazillian comp sci professor, wrote a trip report

buschain

pgroce
Oct 24, 2002

Hammerite posted:

this is great but the jokes are far too obscure for anyone to get except for, well, this thread really

mods

FAUXTON
Jun 2, 2005

spero che tu stia bene

Adix posted:

buschain

Buskchain is the final revision of the blockchain.

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rjmccall
Sep 7, 2007

no worries friend
Fun Shoe
yospos, bitč

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