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  • Locked thread
GameCube
Nov 21, 2006

OldAlias posted:

What bothers me is the SA culture in general. I've thought about it at length yesterday, and realized that SA are essentially a bunch of jealous ludites. Here are some examples why that is true:

1) Furry fandom is a community of incredibly artistic people, full of painters, writers, musicians, and entertainers, who organize, put together huge international conventions, and raise hundreds of thousands for charity while contributing tens of millions of dollars to local economies of the cities hosting those conventions. The only thing SA contributed is to make fun of them.

2) SecondLife allowed for unprecedented communication, collaboration, and creativity. Players there got a chance to explore design, fashion, and architecture skills they never even knew they had. They used their creative skills to make new games, experiment with fashion in virtual space, and practice things like investment and business/real estate management before building real life businesses using those skills. People there earned from thousands to millions of dollars using nothing other than their brains and creativity. The only thing SA contributed is to make fun of them by making random penises fly around, and when told that they are causing serious damage and costing actual money, their only reply was, "don't take it so seriously."

3) Bitcoin is a new financial concept entirely without precedent. We are only scratching the surface of what is possible with it. The only reason it has any value (and the thing SA seems to focus most on) is that it is impossible to duplicate, and has a guaranteed limit on quantity, which is extremely unusual in the copy/paste digital world. But besides inflation resistance, it can do awesome things like, for the first time ever, allow software to own valuable property. This was never possible before, w/ closest thing being that a program could control bank accounts or own contracts in someone else's name. Now, for the first time, it's possible for a program or a "virus" to own money, decide on its own how to spend it, and actually take it with it as it travels around the web. The possibilities for AI, concept of property, and ownership/copyright law are mind boggling. This is just one example of many that Bitcoin allows for, and those that realize such possibilities are working hard to make them come true, earning real money in the process (as much as $6,000 a day, or $2.3mil a year). The only thing SA has contributed was to willfully stay ignorant of basic finance and economics and make fun of those involved with bitcoinOther than that, all they are able to do is stare at the system without understanding it, or being able to figure out how to make anything out of it. As they have with SecondLife, or any other fandom or technology.

All this makes me think that SA goons have absolutely no imagination or drive. On the contrary, the group seems to be based around making fun of anyone who shows any sort of imagination, or attempts something out of the ordinary. They are like a pot of crabs, grabbing and dragging anyone who dares try to escape and achieve something back down with them. The group has no accomplishments to its name, other than being a nuisance to everyone else, and providing a circle-jerk of entertainment to its members in the style of bullying people they don't even want to understand. Any discovery of scammers or bad people in other communities is at most a purely accidental result of them being so eager to try to attack anything and anyone. This of course suggests that the SA group consists primarily of losers, who lack any initiative, imagination, or drive, and who's actions only suggest that they are jealous of those who do (which is perfectly exemplified by their whining about how Bitcoin is unfair, benefits early adopters, and their insistence on the belief that everyone involved with it is a selfish idiot who's only philosophy is "F*** you, got mine."). And judging by the few people I know in that group, including even my ex, that seems to be completely true.

My biggest pet peeve is ignorance; especially willful ignorance. Racists, religious extremists, jingoists, and ludites who believe they are right, and everyone else is an idiot, who are afraid of anything they don't understand, and actively try to avoid understanding or learning new ideas. SA is in that group, and that's why I hate them.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)


bullshit

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GameCube
Nov 21, 2006

uh oh what the hell happened

I only clicked this thread to see if bfl was in jail yet

GameCube
Nov 21, 2006

FCKGW posted:

OK so I glanced at the original article a while ago but really read it more and the follow up today and I'm not sure I'm on-board with the content of it

I've always though of Buttcoin as a "observe and report" blog, Don't touch the poop (which is why we don't take Bitcoin donations) and don't champion for certain sides. The Moolah saga has lots of angles but taking the angle of some dude who might off himself is depressing and not the tone I like to see on the site. This guy has plenty of outlets if he's looking for sides but the whole Bitcoin ecosystem is filled to the brim with nothing but scammers that geting involved in stuff like this can backfire on the site in a big way. I'm not trying to say that Buttcoin should have "journalistic integrity" like we're a major news org, but when it involves taking up pitchforks against someone in a he-said she said situation, especially in Bitcoin, it's going to end up blowing up in our face.

I'm all for long-form stuff as well as short, newsey/look what happened today/dumb comment of the day stuff, but getting involved in disputes or people's lives is not where I think i want to go.

lol what the gently caress were you thinking

GameCube
Nov 21, 2006

wait who actually owns buttcoin foundation. I assumed it was fckgw

GameCube
Nov 21, 2006

If he was just a scam artist, he’s still owed a lot of money, and all I did was help him get some of it back.

lmfao

GameCube
Nov 21, 2006

hi i just skipped the entire thread but i just wanna make sure this has been posted http://ia902308.us.archive.org/32/items/gov.uscourts.mowd.117531/gov.uscourts.mowd.117531.110.0.pdf

have i missed any other bitcoin hilarity

GameCube
Nov 21, 2006

oh cool i finally stumbled onto the case docket where i can see all the court docx http://ia802308.us.archive.org/32/items/gov.uscourts.mowd.117531/gov.uscourts.mowd.117531.docket.html

later bitches

GameCube
Nov 21, 2006

Greyhawk posted:

yeah buttcoinfoundation has a writeup up on this

oh ok cool i haven't looked at buttcoin foundation since that guy enabled a korean scammer or whatever the gently caress that was

GameCube
Nov 21, 2006

idk how someone in the year 2014 doesn't just assume that every single thing they do on the internet is being monitored

GameCube
Nov 21, 2006

here's his twitter https://twitter.com/blakeeb

GameCube
Nov 21, 2006

Greyhawk posted:

BREAKING!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/reuters/article-2824044/U-S-charges-Texas-man-running-bitcoin-Ponzi-scheme.html

U.S. charges Texas man with running bitcoin Ponzi scheme
By REUTERS
PUBLISHED: 17:28 GMT, 6 November 2014 | UPDATED: 17:28 GMT, 6 November 2014


By Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK, Nov 6 (Reuters) - A Texas man who operated Bitcoin Savings and Trust was charged on Thursday with bilking his investors, in what prosecutors called the first federal criminal securities fraud case arising from a bitcoin-related Ponzi scheme.

Trendon Shavers, 32, of McKinney, Texas, was charged with misappropriating about 146,000 of the 764,000 bitcoin, then worth more than $4.5 million, that he raised from September 2011 to September 2012, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan said.

Bitcoin is a virtual currency that trades on the Internet, without the backing of any government or central bank.

The criminal case follows a Sept. 18 order by a federal judge in Texas that Shavers and his company pay a total of $40.7 million comprising illegal profit, interest and fines in a related U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission civil lawsuit.

Known online as "pirateat40," Shavers allegedly gained control of as much as 7 percent of the bitcoin market by promising investors up to 7 percent weekly interest, or 3,641 percent annualized, based on his ability to trade the currency.

Instead, Shavers allegedly used new bitcoin to repay old investors, add to his account at the now-bankrupt Mt. Gox exchange, and fund expenses such a used BMW M5, casino visits and a $1,000 dinner at Gallagher's Steakhouse in Las Vegas.

About half the investors in Bitcoin Savings and Trust lost some or all of their investments, prosecutors said.

"Trendon Shavers managed to combine financial and cyber fraud into a bitcoin Ponzi scheme that offered absurdly high interest payments, and ultimately cheated his investors out of their bitcoin investments," Bharara said in a statement. "This case, the first of its kind, should serve as a warning to those looking to make a quick buck with unsecured currency."
Shavers was arrested at his home on Thursday and charged with securities fraud and wire fraud. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison and a fine on the securities fraud count.
He is expected to appear on Thursday in U.S. District Court in Sherman, Texas, and on Nov. 14 in federal court in Manhattan after the case is transferred.
Shavers' lawyer could not immediately be identified. The federal public defender's office in Sherman had no immediate comment. Shavers did not immediately respond to an email request for comment. His ability to pay the SEC judgment is unclear.

The cases are U.S. v. Shavers, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 14-mag-02465; and SEC v. Shavers et al, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Texas, No. 13-00416. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler)

:toot:

GameCube
Nov 21, 2006


spurting so hard omfg

GameCube
Nov 21, 2006

Dren posted:

silk road might be doomed to happen over and over again

all it takes is one idiot with enough ego, enough arrogance, and the technical skill to set up a webserver and put it on tor

the guy was a ruby programmer, it fits perfectly

GameCube
Nov 21, 2006

evilweasel posted:

laffo he cracked and confessed everything the instant they looked at him funny:

:stare:

GameCube
Nov 21, 2006

fermun posted:

Blake Benthall ‏@blakeeb Apr 21
@PorterHaney working from Vegas for the next three days, would love to hang again!

http://twitter.com/blakeeb/status/458414073147715584

this loving guy

GameCube
Nov 21, 2006


lmao i almost wanna donate bitcoins to this guy

GameCube
Nov 21, 2006

fermun posted:

https://www.reddit.com/user/blakeeb

here is his reddit account, someone get ..! or robawesome to go look through this poo poo for funny things.

idk, most of his poo poo just gives the impression of the naive, blindly optimistic silicon valley guy who does too many drugs. i've known people like that irl and they can be super nice but still have dumb opinions about bitcoin and Teh Darknet

GameCube
Nov 21, 2006

ok that last bits pretty good

so did this guy go to college or just learn ruby from _why's big book of chunky bacon

GameCube
Nov 21, 2006

According to his various social networking pages, Benthall came to San Francisco for work around 2009 after attending Florida College, a private Christian school in Temple Terrace, Florida.

apparently an aborted bachelor's fromchristian college is not going to teach you how to elude the fbi

GameCube
Nov 21, 2006

Aleksei Vasiliev posted:

DEAR ROBOCOIN OPERATOR JORDAN KELLY IS TRYING TO gently caress YOU


so why is the robocoin ceo trying to "gently caress you"? well it turns out that anonymous bitcoin atms are illegal so he's forcing an update to make them collect customer info, all robocoin atms not updated no longer work

lol this is the same guy who had to be shamed into refunding a guy via reddit.

GameCube
Nov 21, 2006

trucutru posted:

So reddit is still in the middle of a TIPPING frenzy but there are a couple of threads about the silk road issue... which quickly devolve into "how would I have done it" masturbation.









Anyways, the thread also has this:


talented developer, terrible team player, show up to work at random hours and he'd never communicate. So, basically, just your regular programmer.

To be honest, his music is much better than dank's.

i just realized that the starry-eyed bitcoin enthusiast burning man guy i know was also homeschooled and went to christian college. wouldn't be surprised if he's in line to be dpr 4.0

GameCube
Nov 21, 2006

Magrov posted:

also, somehow he spent $1,900 in the last month. i have no idea about the cost of living in america, but isn't this sum a bit excessive?

uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh lol

GameCube
Nov 21, 2006

https://twitter.com/blakeeb/status/532133461193408512

GameCube
Nov 21, 2006


why does EVERY loving "biohacker" have this stupid loving facial hair

GameCube
Nov 21, 2006

being a good christian, i'm sure all his drug profits went to charity

GameCube
Nov 21, 2006

theflyingorc posted:

I really, REALLY want to hear how he combines "Christian with a Bible always in his car" and "Enabling people to sell heroin over the internet".

if god didn't want us to sell each other drugs, he wouldn't have invented the opium poppy, nor the human brain that developed drugs from it.

GameCube
Nov 21, 2006


defcon

GameCube
Nov 21, 2006

yeah i know it's bs but i remember reading somewhere that it was supposedly hard for a rich person to get a camel through it because the camel was loaded with all their poo poo. so they just needed to hire some guys to carry their bags through one by one, hence, job creators

GameCube
Nov 21, 2006

Magrov posted:

thats a declaration from a happy BFL costumer. just read the entire thing, it's on the docket.


http://ia902308.us.archive.org/32/items/gov.uscourts.mowd.117531/gov.uscourts.mowd.117531.docket.html

http://ia902308.us.archive.org/32/items/gov.uscourts.mowd.117531/gov.uscourts.mowd.117531.155.0.pdf


EDIT:



please, please, for the love of the almighty god, let the FTC answer this by submitting the buttcoin.org edited articles as evidence

omg there's declarations from jeff ownby AND josh zerlan. why can't i see them. where the hell are they

GameCube
Nov 21, 2006

GIVE THEM TO MEEEEE

GameCube
Nov 21, 2006

oh yeah in case anybody was wondering, nobody has donated to the bitcoin address on blake's twitter. either nobody cares about him or nobody fell for the hack https://blockchain.info/address/1Djziovi8gCjbtfh6WaBEjzt6p5YmFSbZ1

GameCube
Nov 21, 2006

holylemon posted:

i spent like $1 on PACER to get these, you're welcome

Josh:



Jeff:



some employee:


some other employee:


some idiot customer:




aww man he's just defending their mining, not his forum posts

notice though that he never denies that bfl told customers they weren't mining real bitcoins with their hardware :newlol:

GameCube
Nov 21, 2006

Ursine Asylum posted:



isn't that last statement literally provably false with the buttcoin thing

or are they trying to do some sort of semantic loophole with the word "profitable"

they didn't advertise its profitability, just its hash rate. they also posted hash rate->profitability calculators on their sites iirc but i don't see how that's related :downs:

GameCube
Nov 21, 2006

FCKGW posted:

their defense is that they never promised that these things would make money. independent blogs, news sites and magazine formed that conclusion wholly on their own.


except all this stuff posted on their website


and all over the bitcointalk forums




also jeff ownby from BFL bought the bitcoinx.com profitability calculator late october 2012 and added links to BFL and fudged the profitability numbers on his units

http://web.archive.org/web/20121217004154/http://www.bitcoinx.com/profit

Company: JEFFREY SCOTT OWNBY
Address: 130 N. PARK RD. GRANGE LA US
Phone: +17.086014170
Fax: +49 0000 00000
Most popular domain of this owner:
bitcoinx.com - Bitcoin and crypto currencies news, prices, charts, guides & analysis

yessssss

GameCube
Nov 21, 2006

Boxturret posted:

why are you quoting that inaba guy? he has nothing to do with bfl:confused:

inaba is zerlan

GameCube
Nov 21, 2006

it's not like he hides it or anything so idk how that's a joke.

GameCube
Nov 21, 2006


yessssssssssssssssss

GameCube
Nov 21, 2006

theflyingorc posted:

i have literally never understood the purpose of the skateboard in that scene

or of almost any scene in the movie but especially that bit

also complete side note a friend of mine went to vegas saw penn and teller and told penn jillette "you were great in Hackers", which appeared to visibly irritate him

knai

GameCube
Nov 21, 2006


this is hawaiian for "lmao." in hawaii you type with your right hand shifted one key to the left.

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GameCube
Nov 21, 2006

Thesoro posted:

if he didn't forget about it shortly afterward, he's forgotten about it by now

oh

i made myself really sad

lol

on this week's car talk they did a memorial episode for tom, who died of alzheimer's, and ray said "i guess he wasn't kidding when he said he couldn't remember last week's puzzler" :pwn:

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