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Here's an idea: A smartphone application that allows users to stream audio and video to a server in the cloud. This could be used to protect citizen against unlawful police (or any other) force. Currently smartphones have the ability to record data, but these devices can be easily destroyed or confiscated. Applications such as Periscope and Meerkat enable users to broadcast live video streams, but, as far as I know, don't enable them to store the video for later reference. The idea application would allow for this storage and later reference. A use-case would be: A user is stopped by the police; the user starts the application and the phone's video camera begins observing the interaction; the data from the device is streamed over the Internet to an online server; when the stream is disconnected it is stored securely and indexed to the user's account for later retrieval. I'd be happy for any feedback on the idea, and if anyone is interested in working to bring it to fruition please let me know. I have the skills to work on creating such an application, but not the manpower to do it in any sort of realistic time frame.

The Small print “Oh, and btw this community is closed to outsiders and new ideas” I know this not just by what is said but what is done. The message I am getting is, “We have are fearless leader Stefan to do all are thinking for us. All we do, it talk about how smart he is and how stupid everyone else is for not listening to him. Oh if you don’t agree with him, then you must not understand what he said. Here read the Bible, .. oh I am sorry I mean UPB. There's a difference between having information and having knowledge, and there's even a difference in terms of being able to apply it. Sorry regurgitating information, is not going to work, everyone has to do their own homework. Maybe in art history you can get buy with regurgitating of other peoples ideas, but if you want to learn to program, you got to do the work, or it’s not going to work out so well for you. Do you really want change, or is it more fun to poke fun at people, and turn your noses up at ever knew idea, because it might smell to you like statism. You are Stephan’s representatives, if this is how you treat people that are willing to cough up money for this silliness, than enjoy your footnote in history because you will be the anchor around his ideas. If you do not take seriously my questions, and scoff at me, as an uneducated pedaphilic Moran. Then you deserve the syspool of misfits that this forum will become, if it has not already become that backwater of malcontents. No one is free of biases, and yes that means me. It was once said to me, “If you find me at fault go and make yourself a better person.” The knife cuts both ways and I am more then willing to use it on myself, but are you willing to use it on yourselves You need me far more than I need you, there are other communities, that might actually understand the importance of new ideas, and work with me instead of against me. I have come here to work, and I put my pocket book where my mouth is, and I don’t have it to give. So far all I have seen is intellectual cowardness, when it comes to real application, you duck and cover. No Michael DeMarco I am not hunting unicorn, and the mere fact that you would suggest it, Confirms that I am dealing with an intellectual lightweight, but deffently a coward. Prove me wrong, because I love eating crow. I have a waistline to confirm it. Yes, I am willing to use what ever props I have at my disposal, to get a point across, does that seem familiar?

So I figured I'd post it here as my first post. My major is history. I am applying as a transfer student. The topic was up to me to decide. I chose Indiana Jones and adventure. My all-time favorite movie character is Indiana Jones. As a child I would watch Indiana Jones movies almost every day. I would even imitate him by using a leather shoestring as a whip. My parents wouldn't let me have the real thing. Even as I've gotten older I still watch all of the Indiana Jones movies. The movies have given me a love of history. But now, every time I watch one of them a desire overcomes me. A desire for adventure. Soon I will be 19 years old. And, as others have told me, I have my whole life ahead of me. And my goal is to make the most of it. I want to set myself apart from what everyone else has done and is doing. The melancholy of daily life is not for me. I want my life tomorrow to be as different from today as I can possibly get it. But most importantly I want it to have meaning. If what I do 20 years from now is meaningless then I would consider my life a failure. The same monotonous task every day has no meaning. There is no progress. There is no change in a melancholy life. If 20 years from now I have not progressed, then I have not changed and I have no meaning. And to truly change anything, to truly make progress, one has to be brave enough to take the initiative. One has to be brave enough to venture out into the unknown, be it a foreign student in an exotic land on a new campus, or an archaeologist trekking the sands of Egypt searching for the Ark of the Covenant. They are both brave enough to go on an adventure that changes their lives. The foreign student changed they're life by becoming educated. And Indiana Jones changed not his life, but other people's lives. Instead of the Ark of the Covenant continuing to be lost he changed people's entire beliefs. My goal is to take that adventure that changes, not just my life, but others lives as well.

I would first like to preface this by saying that it is a relatively advanced discussion of bitcoin. If you do not understand the basics of what bitcoin is, then it will likely not make much sense to you. For the absolute basics on the bitcoin currency app, feel free to read my Bitcoin: Getting Started thread. If you understand everything in there and want to research and move to the next level, this post will provide my initial thoughts and then this thread will hopefully develop from there. Explaining a New Technology Using Bad, Old Terms It is one of the banes of any new technology that you have to explain it in terms of something that already exists. As many of you have figured out by the terms used around bitcoin, about none of them actually apply to bitcoin. For instance, bitcoin is not a coin. You don’t have a wallet full of coins. You don’t even send coins really. Bitcoin is a store of value that is cryptographically embedded on a distributed ledger. This ledger uses Proof-of-Work (POW) to verify and confirm transactions. Bitcoin is just numbers that move around on the ledger. They can only be spent when a mathematical signature says the coin is now located at a new place in the ledger. Simple, right? Not at all! Bitcoin makes no sense to people who are new to the idea. Even using “old” terms, bitcoin is still confusing and leads to many people criticizing it according to old standards which do not apply to bitcoin. It makes things very difficult to explain. Thus, all of these old terms that do not apply exactly need to be used in order to analogize bitcoin with our existing ideas about money. The TWO Meanings of Bitcoin This brings me to the bitcoin name itself. The truth is that Bitcoin the network is just a distributed proof-of work protocol. On top of this, we have the application called bitcoin that is used as a exchange of value system. What This Means Bitcoin the network will very quickly have a lot built on top of it. Think about the internet. You have TCP/IP as the base protocol. On top of this, you have built the HTTP protocol. On top of this, you have many browsers that you use which bring these complexities to the "user" level. On top of this, you have the various apps and plug-ins which bring things down to an "individualized" level. Bitcoin is exactly the same. In fact, several years from now, very few will know what bitcoin is but they will use it- or a derivative- every day (similar to how few know what TCP/IP is, but use it every day). The Next Layer There are a few companies popping up that are trying to build the next layer. Mastercoin is one that is just starting. It would allow titles of property, assets, stocks, bonds, etc to have registered ownership titles in a distributed system. It would also allow anyone to make their own “coins” for a project or for themselves in order to parse out value, or stake in a project or company. I am not aware of others, but I am sure that a few may exist and the next couple years will see a lot of development in this area. Beyond That There are many places where bitcoin could go, but in time there will be many layers of apps on top of the system that the technical knowledge you currently need to use bitcoin will be silly and obsolete for the average user. Things will become second-nature and basic exchanges will happen instantly without much thought. Advantages of Bitcoin Revisited Thus, besides the many, many advantages of lessened counterparty risk and lessened third party risk and lessened overhead and lessened centralization and increased anonymity and more that bitcoin the current realization of bitcoin the currency provides, these things can be applied in the future to all assets, transactions, interactions and more. The limits are only in the imaginations of entrepreneurs as to where bitcoin can go. This post as a bit shorter as I do not know as much about the topic as it is new, and that it introduces a lot of new topics and ideas even to people who are potentially familiar with bitcoin the currency. If you have any questions, trouble, additions, or edits, feel free to ask them and I will try to respond as best I can. Also, if you want to see another post or topic about bitcoin, you can PM me or add it below and I will research or put something together- especially if I think others would benefit from the post. Thanks for reading!

I'm having a problem with committing to a philosophical approach to my choices. Each time I have an idea of a course of action that will further my pursuit of self-knowledge(for example talking with my mother about my early childhood or journaling or going for a run) I resort instead to acting in a self-soothing manner(eating too much when I probably shouldn't be or playing videogames or youtube etc). It seems I'll do just about anything to avoid bringing all the abstract ideas I accept about the virtue of self knowledge into concrete behavior and I find that strange. This problem goes into my intellectual and creative pursuits too, and when I stop and see what I'm doing I feel very frustrated with myself. I can sometimes start to get myself to do some self-knowledge but the harder I try to start again the harder I snap back into the self-soothing. In this way I see the self soothing as an addiction. An exaggeration for sure, but I think it helps frame the action as wrong or unhelpful. It may not be or may not have been in the past, but it is getting in the way of my pursuit of a better life. I also see the behavior as running away. Turning tail and running from the truth, as if it's something to be afraid of. If I stop and think about it I feel incredibly anxious and restless. I want to act courageously but it seems to be the most difficult thing for me to do. I would like some thoughts or questions or if anyone has gone through similar struggles I'd like to hear the story of how you dealt with it. If anyone wants to hear a bit about my childhood, ask.