BitCoin is a public ledger

BitCoin is not so much a "currency" as an "emergent phenomenon". It makes things possible that have nothing to do with money.

For example, let’s say that you have a screen-play for a movie. Before shopping it around in Hollywood, you want to prove that it’s yours, so that a greedy producer can't steal it. Using BitCoin, you can add the signature (and date) of your screen-play to the "block chain", the "public ledger" where all Bitcoin transactions are stored. Now, if producers get greedy, you can (in theory) pull out this proof in a court and sue them.

As another example, let’s say that you have a great idea for a patent, but it’s not quite ready. Well, write it up into a file, then add the file’s signature to the block chain. Years from now, if somebody beats you to the patent filing, you can prove that you had the idea ahead of time.

You don’t need to really know how this works. There’s a website called http://proofofexistence.com that takes care of this for you. Put whatever it is you want in a file, the sign the file using that site. Years from now, you can prove to somebody then that this file existed right now, today.

This is just one example of many emergent phenomenon popping up around BitCoin. It’s not just about electronic currency, it’s about a lot of weird crypto concepts.

Video geeking: Revolution and biometrics

Watching TV/movies is becoming increasingly hard for us geeks. Each time they dramatize stuff on the screen, with hex dumps or code, we feel compelled to pause them, take a screen shot, and analyze what we see. I occasionally do this and blog out it. In this installment, I take a look at a screenshot from the TV show Revolution, season 1, episode 18, at around the 17:40 mark.

In this scene, a character attempts to enter a building with a handprint. What's the code to the left? A quick google search using unique keywords in that code sample finds the answer: https://github.com/biometrics/openbr. This is a project called "Open Biometrics".

At least this code is related to what's onscreen. Usually, the code chosen for dramatization is fairly random. The Ironman movie chose Lego Mindstorm code to power the first suit. A Charlie's Angle TV show used Obfuscated C contest code for a safe. At least this biometrics code relates to the biometrics security scanner in the show.

On the other hand, if you look at the "Open Biometrics" project, you'll see that it's designed for facial recognition, and related topics like gender/age determination. Hand print analysis isn't one of the options..

Anyway, I didn't know that there was an open-source facial recognition project. That's kinda cool, maybe something I can hook up with my Google Glass, should they ever start shipping.

Don't drone me, bro

Today President Obama gave a speech taking credit for assassinating an American citizen. His justification was:

And as President, I would have been derelict in my duty had I not authorized the strike that took out Awlaki

So what, precisely, is the president's duty? The following is the entire oath of office he took as president:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Note that the oath isn't to "defend the country", but to "defend the constitution". The constitution lists a number of additional duties, such as sign bills into laws, give a "State of the Union" speech, and so forth. But none of his constitutional duties include ordering terrorists killed.

Myth: buying in bulk

The next-gen gaming consoles (PlayStation 4, XBox One) contain 8-GB of RAM. That means a sometime jerkyness in games as the console loads scenes into memory from disk. Why so little memory? Wouldn't it be better to just put more RAM in the device, like doubling to 16-GB? Sure, while RAM is expensive for you and me ($50 for 8GB), Sony/Microsoft can buy in bulk and get a cheaper price, like $20. That doesn't make much difference when selling the console for over $400.

Actually, they don't get such savings. "Buying in bulk" is a myth. If it costs us $50/8-GB, then adding that memory to the console will jack up its price by $50. At least.

Let me prove it to you. On NewEgg right this second, you can get a single 8-GB DIMM for your desktop computer for $49.99. On the bulk spot market, the 4-gigabit chips themselves cost $3.11/chip when buying in very large quantities of 10,000 chips at a time. Since you need 16 of those chips to create a DIMM, that comes out to $49.76 per 8-GB.

In other words, within the margin of error, the price for a single DIMM on NewEgg roughly equals the bulk price on the spot market.

Apple's profits: 70% tax rate

Congress is grilling Apple on it's tax avoidance. The problem isn't with Apple, but with Congress rapacious theft of as much money as it can get its hands on.

The United States is unusual in two respects.

The first is that its corporate tax rate is 40% compared to 24% that is average in the world, and the 0% that economists think it should be. The reason economists believe this is because corporate taxes are double taxation: taxed once when the company earns the money, then a second time when dividends are paid to the stock holder.

The second problem is that, unlike other countries, the United States taxes foreign earnings. This causes another example of double taxation: once in the country where Apple earned the money, and then once again in the United States.

Combined, this means triple taxation. With the current max dividen tax rate of 39.4%, the corporate tax of 40%, and the average foreign tax of 24%, the total tax bill becomes 72%.

In other words, for every dollar Apple earns in profits, 72 cents goes to the taxman and 28 cents goes to the stock holder.

Here is a great CATO article on the subject.

Star Trek 2: warning - you can't unsee it

After the sucky Star Trek reboot, I assumed the series would get better. It didn't, the second installment in the series is much worse. If you are a fan of the Star Trek canon, do yourself a favor and don't see this movie. Once seen, it cannot be unseen.

Nobody reads the ToS -- not even those who write them

GoGo Inflight is running a promotion right now giving you free Internet access on airplanes from your Blackberry phone/pad. Even if you don’t have a Blackberry device, you can still get the free service by changing your browser identifier to match a Blackberry (instructions below). Here’s the question: is spoofing your browser ID like this in order to get free Internet service illegal under laws like the CFAA ("Computer Fraud and Abuse Act")?

That’s an interesting debate, but there is a further twist: GoGo Inflight’s promotion violates their own Terms of Service (ToS). According to the ToS, you need a "user account" to use the service. However, the Blackberry promotion doesn't give you one, because it triggers off the browser ID. Thus, even if you have a valid Blackberry (and aren't cheating), you are still technically in violation of the Terms of Service.