@pre@boing.world2025-11-22 10:39:50
Despite much opinion to the contrary, the government money we use is crappy.
I'm at bitfest in Manchester to find out if Bitcoin could be a better money.
It could hardly be worse.
The mood is still good, people are joking about recent devaluation rather than crying. Those who aren't all in are trying to buy more at the discount.
After an introduction by Mad Bitcoins, Joe Bryan explains the problem with government money.
He imagines an island on which two types of money are tried, with a dividing wall between them.
When economic problems hit, government can just print more money on the fiat side. Everyone now using money which is worth less. Distorting prices, inflating asset prices, making the rich (who hold assets) richer and the poor (who have to pay inflated prices) poorer. Driving wealth inequality.
On the hard money side, government must tax properly. Take in more from the rich rather than inflating to take it from the poor. Reducing wealth inequality.
On the government money side, the wealthy monitize houses, stocks, resources. Saving in money is impossible, its inflated away. So they save in assets and hording resources. Capital is misallocated. The youth can't afford houses. Poverty traps are caused. The only way out is printing more for benefits. Making it all worse. More economic crises, more printing. More government debt.
Eventually, the wall is broken. Government money people can save in the hard money instead. It reduces the value of government money further. More printing. More inflation.
Eventually, war. Funded by printed money.
The dollar is the best of a bad bunch all other government money is falling in value even faster.
I wonder, is bitcoin really this better money though? It's limited, hard, and can't be printed without energy investment.
I'm still unsure that fixing money fixes the world.
--
Note: "crypto" is mostly more like government money than bitcoin. It can be printed indefinitely by it's makers, does not cost it's makers to print. Crypto is usually just a scam people to get more bitcoin. Bitcoin is not crypto.
#bitfest #bitcoin
@vosje62@mastodon.nl2025-12-22 23:00:48
@Techmeme@techhub.social2026-01-22 15:25:41
Adobe rolls out Firefly Foundry, which creates AI-generated "commercially safe" images, video, and more grounded in a brand or franchise's creative universe (Dade Hayes/Deadline)
https://deadline.com/2026/01/adobe-firefly-foundry-ai-caa-wme-1236692649/…
@Sustainable2050@mastodon.energy2025-11-22 08:55:08
Oh great. Sales of pesticides containing PFAS 'forever chemicals' growing explosively, as more and more types are allowed on the market.
https://www.nieuweoogst.nl/nieuws/2025/11/12/afzet-gewasbeschermingsmiddelen-met-pf…
@burger_jaap@mastodon.social2026-01-21 09:01:53
‘Get that electric feeling’: new 🇬🇧 campaign to show savings and benefits of electric driving
https://cleanenergy.campaign.gov.uk/electric-vehicle/ (more background:
@LillyHerself@Mastodon.social2025-12-21 05:18:28
Who do they think they're fooling?
@Mediagazer@mstdn.social2025-11-21 20:16:30
Nexstar's FCC filing in its $6.2B proposed merger with Tegna asks for urgent approval, which would require changing rules that limit station ownership (Al Tompkins/Poynter)
https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2025/nexstar-perry-sook-t…
@pre@boing.world2025-12-22 17:18:37
The mechanics sorted out filling the adblue tank.
The warnings have stopped beeping and the 10 l bottle that was in the back is gone, so presumably I can trust it's in the tank now.
Sounds like much of what I have paid for was for them doing what I did: Looking all around the car for an ad-blue tank hole and taking things apart trying to find it.
But none of that is the correct solution, which is to put it up on the ramp and clamber underneath to find the tank which has some sort of lowering mechanism, to then lower it and fill it and raise it again.
Not a job for me then. Next time it'll maybe be cheaper coz of them knowing what to do now and not spending half a day trying to figure it out.
Apparently there is a second emissions reduction mechanism which doesn't take a wattery bottle of urea, but instead needs a pouch of oily tar stuff.
This is more likely to empty and need replacing next, rather than the piss bottle.
And even for normal cars that haven't been screwed up for wheelchair access this is a mechanics job anyway. And the garage will have to order in the tar pouch especially.
Back in the 90s, my first car cost about 200 quid. Today I paid 200 quid to get someone to fill it up with purified piss for emissions reduction. Oh how things change. 😆
@Techmeme@techhub.social2025-11-20 15:11:00
Google launches Gemini 3 Pro Image, aka Nano Banana Pro, with more control, improved text rendering, and enhanced world knowledge, for free in the Gemini app (Abner Li/9to5Google)
https://9to5google.com/2025/11/20/gemini-3-nano-banana-pro/
@Techmeme@techhub.social2025-11-20 11:01:47
Letterboxd plans to launch the Letterboxd Video Store, a curated rental platform with undistributed festival standouts, restorations, and more, in December 2025 (Letterboxd)
https://letterboxd.com/journal/letterboxd-video-store/
