The 80's Mac were also two other things that made them less desirable for home users: they were seen as very slow (compared to "contemporary" home computers of the time - "instant-on" Apple IIs, Commodore 64s, and DOS machines), and they were monochrome. No colour = terrible for gaming.
Only if they're on the receiving end. You need to remember that businesses also buy things, and often by credit card.
Chargebacks exist in the real world because long, long ago people recognized that electronic payment systems are fertile soil for scammers. The "lack of chargeback risk" that cryptobros keep chirping about is nowhere near the flex they think it is.
It's a flex when you compare it to a government based currency where the bank or government can freeze your bank accounts or just empty it.
Plenty of stories from The USA and Canada from the last decade of that very thing being done.
Sure. The vast majority of those stories being the freezing of proceeds from criminal activity or funds that are part of a legal dispute and for which there is a high probability that the holder of those funds will attempt to illegally hide or move those funds.
Again, this is by design. Such safeguards exist for a good reason. They are tools that are as necessary as a policeman's gun. Yes, they are tools that can be (and have been) abused and for which there should also be guardrails and oversight in place. But saying that crypto is better than "government based currency" because crypto has no such safeguards in place is the same thing as saying Wal Mart security officers are better than police officers because they don't carry guns. It is a naive thought at best.
As much as some amount of defiance towards contemporary governments is warranted, believing that the crypto world is more trustworthy is an insane take. Especially post MtGox and all what followed…
The Epstein class and the Bankman-Fried class are the same people (and don't get fooled by their patronyms, it has nothing to do with Jews, and all to do with the American elite). And Trump is both an friend of Epstein and a proponent of cryptocurrencies.
Meanwhile with cryptocurrencies you have the choice between getting blocked by your exchange or losing your wallet (from your own negligence or a hack)
You lose your wallet, you make a few phone calls or walk into a bank and get a new card. You lose very little more than some time. Losing your crypto key means you lose your crypto.
The same institutions that caused the 2008 crash, the same institutions that in the last 5 years have printed 50% more of the total US dollar supply, the institutions that keep the poorest and lowest classes perpetually poor and stuck by constantly inflating their savings away?
Yes, I think I will trust Bitcoin and my hardware wallet more.
> The same institutions that caused the 2008 crash
You rightly call that a “crash” that is nowhere near the scale of the regular bitcoin price fluctuations!
> that in the last 5 years have printed 50% more of the total US dollar supply,
Better trust an ecosystem that has created an endless amount of virtual money over the past 15 years instead then…
> the institutions that keep the poorest and lowest classes perpetually poor
Did you miss the fact that you now need an entire data center worth of specialized hardware to mine bitcoin? It was supposed to be a democratic hacker currency that anyone can mine, yet it is entirely controlled by a handful of hyperscalers… Pretty much no individual can even hold a full bitcoin now, talk about keeping people poor.
> I think I will trust Bitcoin and my hardware wallet more.
Are you sure about that? Things that didn't happen in the US but did happen in [insert corrupt any country] should be prevented. Even things that only happen in books/movies should still be prevented early just in case.
Up until recently, fares for the LRT system in my city were enforced by a random check by transit police, typically by having an officer board trains and check riders' tickets at random times during random days and handing out fines to fare evaders who they caught.
Between around mid-2006 and the end of 2008 I rode the train to work downtown every day. The trains were so crowded during rush hour that it was impossible for Transit police to board trains to check fares, and even outside rush hour, fare checks were very occasional. A monthly pass at the time was around $75 and a fine for fare evasion was around $200 (the first violation was less than $200, and I think it increased until a cap of something like $250 for repeat offenders). I'd worked it out that if I was caught without paying a fare less than once every three months, it would be cheaper to just pay the fine if/when I got caught rather than buy a pass. So I didn't buy a pass and decided to see how long it would take to actually get caught.
The answer was about 18 months. Got a $170 fine. Which I then forgot about and never actually paid. The statute of limitations on that fine has long since expired.
You're lucky with that system of fine capping. I had the same mentality with the very expensive trains here, probably saved upwards of 2-3000£ until I got caught. Problem is they actually prosecute you in the courts for repeat offenders so I can no longer risk it.
Diesel locomotives are already hybrids (pretty much all diesels built since the mid-20th century are diesel-electric). I imagine that a generator large enough to charge up a locomotive would add too much extra weight to the design, however I could see a modified diesel locomotive being utilized to both push a dead electric train and to at least partially recharge that train's batteries during the journey.
Diesel-electric drivetrains are not "hybrids" in the sense that they have an energy storage device. The same type of drivetrain was used in submarines and tanks during WWII, no one calls those a hybrid.
Theo: I'm not sure if you still read this echo, but I've been trying to call you about my pre-order, but it looks like your BBS is still down. If you can get back to me, send me netmail. I'm at 1:342/76 for Fido and 11:420/69 for MJNet.
