7 Community, Politics, and Regulation in Bitcoin

Lecture 7 in the series.

1. Consensus in Bitcoin
2. Bitcoin Core Software
3. Stakeholders : Who’s in Charge?
4. Roots of Bitcoin
5. Governments Notice Bitcoin
6. Anti Money-Laundering Regulation
7. Regulation
8. New York’s BitLicense Proposal

[Source]
[Download here]

Ubuntu issues and problems

So after about a year of using my Acer Aspire laptop I decided to get myself a new solid sate drive to replace the hybrid drive. And with this I thought why not try installing Ubuntu instead of the ol' windows setups. Here's my experience so far.

My major issues that made the laptop unusable or simple irritate me:

• Mouse freezing! to fix: ctrl+alt+f[1-5] and then again with ctrl+alt+f7 to get back to gui
• Memorizing/Save the screen brightness upon selecting when adjusted [source]
• Better use of gpu, install best (even if proprietary driver) to use it better come back from standby mode when opening screen

Lack of things that I wish it had:

File manager:

• easier manipulation of saved favorites in connect to server -- modify this file ~/.cache/nautilus/servers [source]
• percentage of disk space used (on left side when clicking computer) -- see filesystems of system monitor

Update Aug 2015: I have upgraded to windows 10

does hubs.ly work after cancling or without hubspot subscription

So we use hubspot for couple things, and they use the hubs.ly URL shortner in social media posts.

I was wondering if those links would still work after cancelling our subscription, so far the information I got was Yes it will work. But no analytics on the links of course - since you cannot access the dashboard, naturally.

We will see if this is true, only time will tell. Updates coming in the next month (after migration to wordpress)

Let me know in the comments if you had experience with hubs.ly and hubspot migration blog to wordpress.

Thanks for visiting

6 Bitcoin and Anonymity

Lecture 6 in the series.

1. Anonymity basics
2. Overview of Bitcoin deanonymization
3. Mixing
4. Decentralized mixing
5. Zerocoin and Zerocash
6. Tor and the Silk Road

[Source]
[Download here]

Latest phishing email - Re; Proposal Penny Lee markweb06@outlook.com

As the title, this is the latest phishing email I got with the subject: Re; Proposal
from the email: Penny Lee markweb06@outlook.com
With attachment: DOC.pdf - https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/3308b7b049d73b589b40dbe8d8c6254280749395d8bcfb58524b7e95f6df015f/analysis/1426696615/

XMP toolkit 2.9.1-13, framework 1.6
This PDF document has 1 page, please note that most malicious PDFs have only one page.
 This PDF document has 10 object start declarations and 10 object end declarations.
 This PDF document has 2 stream object start declarations and 2 stream object end declarations.
 This PDF document has a cross reference table (xref).
 This PDF document has a pointer to the cross reference table (startxref).
 This PDF document has a trailer dictionary containing entries allowing the cross reference table, and thus the file objects, to be read.

Raw/original message: http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=aLAKCxU8

Let me know what you think.

5 Bitcoin Mining

Lecture 5 in the series

1. The task of Bitcoin miners
2. Mining hardware
3. Energy consumption & ecology
4. Mining pools
5. Mining incentives and strategies

[Source]
[Download here]

4 How to Store and Use Bitcoins

Lecture 4 in the series

1. Simple storage (Availability, Security, Convenience)
2. Hot and cold storage
3. Splitting and sharing keys
4. Online wallets and exchanges
5. Payment services
6. Transaction fees
7. Currency exchange markets

[Source]
[Download here]

My simple git cheatsheet

Of course there are many of these out there but I just needed the simplest one so here it is:

got to the directory and do this:

git add --all .

git stage .

git commit

[add message and click control x, yes and enter]

git push

[enter your password]

done.

Hope this helped, let me know if there's anything wrong, different, etc in the comments below.
Using ubuntu 14.04 with git installed.

3 Mechanics of Bitcoin

Lecture 3 in the series

1. Transactions (Inputs and outputs.)
2. Scripts (OP_RETURN)
3. Application of bitcoin scripts (Smart contracts)
4. Bitcoin blocks
5. Bitcoin network
6. Limitations & improvements (Transactions per second, Crystallographic algorithms, Forks (hard and soft))

[Source]
[Download here]

2 How Bitcoin Achieves Decentralization

Lecture 2 in the series

1. Centralization vs. Decentralization:

1. Who maintains the ledger?
2. Who has authority over which transactions are valid?
3. who creates new bitcoins?
4. who determines how the rules of the system change?
5. how do bitcoins acquire exchange value?

2. Distributed consensus

3. Consensus without identity: the block chain

4. Incentives and proof of work

1. How to pick a random node?
2. How to avoid a free-for-all due to rewards?
3. How to prevent sybil attacks?

5. Putting it all together

1. What can 51% attacker do?

[Source]
[Download here]

Smart Traffic lights are the way of the future

First came heard of this idea when I was attending a hackathon, that team won. I had a feeling I should join but they were a very large team already... Anyway, recently thought about it again and found globalnews and torontostararticles and after reading them I remembered what realization I had back in the summer, when self driving cars are allowed on the roads, they will work with the smart lights to coordinate the commute to be even faster! that is just great :)

Let me know what you think. Comment below.

1 Intro to Crypto and Cryptocurrencies

Lecture 1 of Preston University online course of the series

1. Cryptographic Hash Functions
2. Hash Pointers and Data Structures
3. Digital Signatures

[Source]

[Download here]

How long does it take to learn bitcoin?

First hearing about bitcoin in 2013, I had to do a lot of research which mainly consisted of wikipedia and bitcoin.it along with as many various youtube videos and other crypto related websites and videos from all over the web, and even in-person meetups.

Finally on Feb 16, 2015 Prinston University released a video with Ed Felton Lecture 1 — Intro to Crypto and Cryptocurrencies.

This is amazing, as far as I can tell it is the first of its kind course offered by a well known university and I can't wait to see the subsequent videos. I decided that I will review and understand what's in these videos in depth and since there are many sections in each video I used the youtube timemarks and links so anyone can reference the topics. Find those posts here.

Let me your thoughts on bitcoin and on the learning of these technologies in the comments.

Thanks for visiting.

State of communication - or how messaging apps work these days

Quick summary of best, most used forms of communication I am faced with in the North American culture:

Text - sms messaging
Facebook messaging
WhatsApp
Telegram
Google hangouts
Skype

All the above have web version, mobile app version, group chatting, read receipts (some with less detail) and some have conference call with video options


What else to be covered? how to combine them? which ones do you use? how secure are each of them? only telegram (from what I can tell) is open source, does this matter?

Let me know in the comments below

Reddit error page

Seems to change often

datalist html5 options limit

There seems to be a limit to the amount of options that can be provided for the datalist feature which is like a suggestion to textbox, built into html5. here's an example I use:

<datalist id="suggestions">
<?php
$getShows=getShows();
if($getShows){
foreach($getShows as $show){
echo '<option value="'.$show['showname'].'" >';
}
}
?>
</datalist>

<input placeholder="Search shows" id="q" name="q" value="<?php if(isset($_GET['q']))echo $_GET['q']; ?>" onkeypress="if (event.keyCode == 13) window.open('?q='+this.value,'_self')" list="suggestions" />
<img src="images/search.gif" onclick="window.open('?q='+document.getElementById('q').value,'_self')" style="cursor:pointer">

If this makes sense to you, know this; the limit from my testing for today's version of google chrome (40) is about 100, maybe 130 but didn't always work.

UPDATE Jan 28, 2015: It seems the issue was with the queries and there were too many for the server to load or something. Works with larger amounts (over 200).

Let me know what methods you use for this if any and if you use this feature. Thanks.

Je Suis Charlie Notepad plus plus update January 10, 2015 edition

I updated my notepad++ (which is one of my favorite free software, by the way) and something started typing on it's own!

I was able to capture some amateur video view it on youtube

Screen shot of the page:

The complete typed out:

Freedom of expression is like the air we breathe, we don't feel it, until people take it away from us.

For this reason, Je suis Charlie, not because I endorse everything they published, but because I cherish the right to speak out freely without risk even when it offends others.
And no, you cannot just take someone's life for whatever he/she expressed.

Hence this "Je suis Charlie" edition.
- #JeSuisCharlie


And I decided to see what's on twitter, after seeing some @notepad_plus tweets and their blog post:

The Notepad++ official site was hacked on 12th January 2015, due to its controversial new version 6.7.4 "Je suis Charlie" edition, released on 10th January 2015. The site was restored on the same day.
The binaries of this edition are on another server and they are not compromised (the SHA1 published on 11th January 2015 is always available on SF). The automatic typing in Notepad++ "Je suis Charlie" edition after installation is a feature. Sorry for the panic.

The message of the defacement accused Notepad++ of inciting hatred towards Islam and accusing Islam of supporting terrorism. The statements of Notepad++ "Je suis Charlie" edition support nothing but the freedom of expression and only that. The fact of Notepad++ supporting the "Je suis Charlie" movement has nothing to do with any accusation towards a specific community. In fact the "Je suis Charlie" movement in France, as far as I can tell, deserves no label of racism or of Islamophobia. I have many Muslim friends who are for "Je suis Charlie". And sincerely, I don't think that two extremist fools can stand for all Muslims or Islam itself.

If you don't like "Je suis Charlie" edition, that's fine. You can still use Notepad++ v6.7.3 - they are the same in terms of features and bug fixes. notepad-plus-plus.org could be hacked over and over again, but I will always find a way to distribute Notepad++ "Je suis Charlie" edition - that's my freedom of expression which I claim as my right. [Source]

Give me your thoughts in the comments.

Simplify bitcoin explanation

I've had an idea to give bitcoin as a present for Christmas, well from the resources I've found online nothing was exactly what I wanted. So I had to create my own.

I want something with short concise explanation of what it is and how to use it. where it's accepted and why bother using it. All the links are intentionally not linked because this is to be printed and it would look better without the underline and blue (if color printer). 

I was editing it in google doc. Please let me know if there's any corrections or other ways to explain which might be simpler or easier!

Airdroid desktop client download alternative

Since just released there could be server issues with everyone trying to get the client, so here's an alternative download link: http://www.mediafire.com/download/wbgx872lznrk47w/AirDroid_Desktop_Client_3.0.0.exe

I wouldn't recommend running any file you download without double checking with a virus scanner first: such as https://www.virustotal.com/ca/

Let me know how it goes!

All credits to: www.airdroid.com

How to remove playlist (hubspot youtube embed)

Remove the list part as so:

So it should look like this: