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Bitcoin's Predecessors and What We Can Learn From Them
Thomas Kim has an interesting paper at PLOS one that analyzes virtual currencies in online games that have been voluntarily managed by individuals since 1990s to study whether the recent price patterns and transaction costs of Bitcoin represent a general characteristic of decentralized virtual currencies. Kim's conclusions:
We find that more mature game currencies have a price volatility of one-third of that of Bitcoin, at a level similar to that of small size equities or gold. The decentralized structure of Bitcoin does not seem to be the cause of the recent price instability, as game currencies are also managed by non-government entities. We observe a similar price instability from the game currencies that are launched around the time when Bitcoin gained much of its current public attention (around the year 2011). The contrast between mature and newly introduced virtual currencies indicates that the Bitcoin price may stabilize over time.
The transaction costs of virtual currencies are sometimes lower than that of real currencies. With more competition among virtual currency exchanges, the transaction costs may drop further making virtual currencies a lower cost alternative to real currency transactions. Economists agree that a properly functioning currency should include a method of transaction, a unit of account, and store value (Yermack [3]). Bitcoin may meet the criteria if it can combine its low transaction costs with more stable prices.
However, there are a few caveats for our projection. Bitcoin is the first virtual currency that is attempting to substitute the role of real currencies. Until this point, other virtual currencies, like game currencies, remain as auxiliary currencies that aid in transactions that real currencies cannot easily do, such as transactions within an online game. Game currencies currently have considerable trading volume, but their role is tied to the gaming industry. It is difficult to estimate how widespread Bitcoin will be. Also, our analysis does not justify that virtual currencies should have greater value. A large volume of Bitcoin trading in these days is speculative trading, betting on the possible appreciation of Bitcoin prices. Speculative trades are necessary to discover the reasonable exchange rates of Bitcoin, but it is unknown when the market will reach the equilibrium. As we demonstrate from the comparison of exchanges with varying degrees of competition, various regulations imposed on Bitcoin exchanges may be a dragging factor in the price discovery process.
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The Programming Talent Myth
Jake Edge writes at LWN.net that there is a myth that programming skill is somehow distributed on a U-shaped curve and that people either "suck at programming" or that they "rock at programming", without leaving any room for those in between. Everyone is either an amazing programmer or "a worthless use of a seat" which doesn't make much sense. If you could measure programming ability somehow, its curve would look like the normal distribution. According to Edge this belief that programming ability fits into a bi-modal distribution is both "dangerous and a myth". "This myth sets up a world where you can only program if you are a rock star or a ninja. It is actively harmful in that is keeping people from learning programming, driving people out of programming, and it is preventing most of the growth and the improvement we'd like to see." If the only options are to be amazing or terrible, it leads people to believe they must be passionate about their career, that they must think about programming every waking moment of their life. If they take their eye off the ball even for a minute, they will slide right from amazing to terrible again leading people to be working crazy hours at work, to be constantly studying programming topics on their own time, and so on.
The truth is that programming isn't a passion or a talent, says Edge, it is just a bunch of skills that can be learned. Programming isn't even one thing, though people talk about it as if it were; it requires all sorts of skills and coding is just a small part of that. Things like design, communication, writing, and debugging are needed. If we embrace this idea that "it's cool to be okay at these skills"—that being average is fine—it will make programming less intimidating for newcomers. If the bar for success is set "at okay, rather than exceptional", the bar seems a lot easier to clear for those new to the community. According to Edge the tech industry is rife with sexism, racism, homophobia, and discrimination and although it is a multi-faceted problem, the talent myth is part of the problem. "In our industry, we recast the talent myth as "the myth of the brilliant asshole", says Jacob Kaplan-Moss. "This is the "10x programmer" who is so good at his job that people have to work with him even though his behavior is toxic. In reality, given the normal distribution, it's likely that these people aren't actually exceptional, but even if you grant that they are, how many developers does a 10x programmer have to drive away before it is a wash?"
The truth is that programming isn't a passion or a talent, says Edge, it is just a bunch of skills that can be learned. Programming isn't even one thing, though people talk about it as if it were; it requires all sorts of skills and coding is just a small part of that. Things like design, communication, writing, and debugging are needed. If we embrace this idea that "it's cool to be okay at these skills"—that being average is fine—it will make programming less intimidating for newcomers. If the bar for success is set "at okay, rather than exceptional", the bar seems a lot easier to clear for those new to the community. According to Edge the tech industry is rife with sexism, racism, homophobia, and discrimination and although it is a multi-faceted problem, the talent myth is part of the problem. "In our industry, we recast the talent myth as "the myth of the brilliant asshole", says Jacob Kaplan-Moss. "This is the "10x programmer" who is so good at his job that people have to work with him even though his behavior is toxic. In reality, given the normal distribution, it's likely that these people aren't actually exceptional, but even if you grant that they are, how many developers does a 10x programmer have to drive away before it is a wash?"
The Medical Bill Mystery
Elisabeth Rosenthal writes in the NYT that she has spent the past six months trying to figure out a medical bill for $225 that includes "Test codes: 105, 127, 164, to name a few. CPT codes: 87481, 87491, 87798 and others" and she really doesn't want to pay it until she understands what it’s for. "At first, I left messages on the lab’s billing office voice mail asking for an explanation. A few months ago, when someone finally called back, she said she could not tell me what the codes were for because that would violate patient privacy. After I pointed out that I was the patient in question, she said, politely: “I’m sorry, this is what I’m told, and I don’t want to lose my job.”" Bills variously use CPT, HCPCS or ICD-9 codes. Some have abbreviations and scientific terms that you need a medical dictionary or a graduate degree to comprehend. Some have no information at all. Heather Pearce of Seattle told me how she’d recently received a $45,000 hospital bill with the explanation “miscellaneous.”
So what's the problem? “Medical bills and explanation of benefits are undecipherable and incomprehensible even for experts to understand, and the law is very forgiving about that,” says Mark Hall. “We’ve not seen a lot of pressure to standardize medical billing, but there’s certainly a need.” Hospitals and medical clinics say that detailed bills are simply too complicated for patients and that they provide the information required by insurers but with rising copays and deductibles, patients are shouldering an increasing burden. One recent study found that up to 90 percent of hospital bills contain errors and an audit by Equifax found that hospital bills that totaled more than $10,000 contained an average error of $1,300. “There are no industry standards with regards to what information a patient should receive regarding their bill,” says Cyndee Weston, executive director of the American Medical Billing Association. “The software industry has pretty much decided what information patients should receive, and to my knowledge, they have not had any stakeholder input. That would certainly be a worthwhile project for our industry.”
So what's the problem? “Medical bills and explanation of benefits are undecipherable and incomprehensible even for experts to understand, and the law is very forgiving about that,” says Mark Hall. “We’ve not seen a lot of pressure to standardize medical billing, but there’s certainly a need.” Hospitals and medical clinics say that detailed bills are simply too complicated for patients and that they provide the information required by insurers but with rising copays and deductibles, patients are shouldering an increasing burden. One recent study found that up to 90 percent of hospital bills contain errors and an audit by Equifax found that hospital bills that totaled more than $10,000 contained an average error of $1,300. “There are no industry standards with regards to what information a patient should receive regarding their bill,” says Cyndee Weston, executive director of the American Medical Billing Association. “The software industry has pretty much decided what information patients should receive, and to my knowledge, they have not had any stakeholder input. That would certainly be a worthwhile project for our industry.”
Why Scientists Love 'Lord of the Rings'
Julie Beck writes in The Atlantic that though science and fantasy seem to be polar opposites, a Venn diagram of “scientists” and “Lord of the Rings fans” have a large overlap which could (lovingly!) be labeled “nerds.” Several animal species have been named after characters from the books including wasps, crocodiles, and even a dinosaur named after Sauron, “Given Tolkien’s passion for nomenclature, his coinage, over decades, of enormous numbers of euphonious names—not to mention scientists’ fondness for Tolkien—it is perhaps inevitable that Tolkien has been accorded formal taxonomic commemoration like no other author,” writes Henry Gee. Other disciplines aren’t left out of the fun—there’s a geologically interesting region in Australia called the “Mordor Alkaline Igneous Complex,” a pair of asteroids named “Tolkien” and “Bilbo,” and a crater on Mercury also named “Tolkien.”
“It has been documented that Middle-Earth caught the attention of students and practitioners of science from the early days of Tolkien fandom. For example, in the 1960s, the Tolkien Society members were said to mainly consist of ‘students, teachers, scientists, or psychologists,’” writes Kristine Larsen, an astronomy professor at Central Connecticut State University, in her paper “SAURON, Mount Doom, and Elvish Moths: The Influence of Tolkien on Modern Science.” “When you have scientists who are fans of pop culture, they’re going to see the science in it,” says Larson. “It’s just such an intricate universe. It’s so geeky. You can delve into it. There’s the languages of it, the geography of it, and the lineages. It’s very detail oriented, and scientists in general like things that have depth and detail.” Larson has also written papers on using Tolkien as a teaching tool, and discusses with her astronomy students, for example, the likelihood that the heavenly body Borgil, which appears in the first book of the trilogy, can be identified as the star Aldebaran. “I use this as a hook to get students interested in science,” says Larson. “I’m also interested in recovering all the science that Tolkien quietly wove into Middle Earth because there’s science in there that the casual reader has not recognized."
“It has been documented that Middle-Earth caught the attention of students and practitioners of science from the early days of Tolkien fandom. For example, in the 1960s, the Tolkien Society members were said to mainly consist of ‘students, teachers, scientists, or psychologists,’” writes Kristine Larsen, an astronomy professor at Central Connecticut State University, in her paper “SAURON, Mount Doom, and Elvish Moths: The Influence of Tolkien on Modern Science.” “When you have scientists who are fans of pop culture, they’re going to see the science in it,” says Larson. “It’s just such an intricate universe. It’s so geeky. You can delve into it. There’s the languages of it, the geography of it, and the lineages. It’s very detail oriented, and scientists in general like things that have depth and detail.” Larson has also written papers on using Tolkien as a teaching tool, and discusses with her astronomy students, for example, the likelihood that the heavenly body Borgil, which appears in the first book of the trilogy, can be identified as the star Aldebaran. “I use this as a hook to get students interested in science,” says Larson. “I’m also interested in recovering all the science that Tolkien quietly wove into Middle Earth because there’s science in there that the casual reader has not recognized."
Statues of Assange, Snowden And Manning Go Up in Berlin
RT Times reports that Alexanderplatz square in Berlin has become the stage for a provocative art piece which celebrates whistleblowers and encourages ordinary citizens to speak out. "They have lost their freedom for the truth, so they remind us how important it is to know the truth,” says sculptor Davide Dormino. The life-sized statues of the three whistleblowers stand upon three chairs, as if speaking in an impromptu public meeting. Next to them is a fourth, empty chair. "The fourth chair is open to anyone here in Berlin who wants to get up and say anything they want," says the artist. Dormino, who came up with the idea together with the US journalist Charles Glass, specifically chose a classical bronze statue for his depiction – and not an installation or abstract piece – since statues are usually made of establishment figures. According to Domino while men who order others to their deaths get immortalized, those who resist are often forgotten, so “the statue pays homage to three who said no to war, to the lies that lead to war and to the intrusion into private life that helps to perpetuate war.” Activists and members of Germany’s Green party unveiled the life-size bronze statues on May Day.
The Pioneer Who Invented the Weather Forecast
Peter Moore has a fascinating article on BBC about how Admiral Robert FitzRoy, the man who invented the weather forecast in the 1860s faced skepticism and even mockery in his time but whose vision of a public forecasting service, funded by government for the benefit of all, is fundamental to our way of life. Chiefly remembered today as Charles Darwin's taciturn captain on HMS Beagle, during the famous circumnavigation in the 1830s, in his lifetime FitzRoy found celebrity from his pioneering daily weather predictions, which he called by a new name of his own invention - "forecasts". There was no such thing as a weather forecast in 1854 when FitzRoy established what would later be called the Met Office. With no forecasts, fishermen, farmers and others who worked in the open had to rely on weather wisdom - the appearance of clouds or the behavior of animals - to tell them what was coming as the belief persisted among many that weather was completely chaotic. But FitzRoy was troubled by the massive loss of life at sea around the coasts of Victorian Britain where from 1855 to 1860, 7,402 ships were wrecked off the coasts with a total of 7,201 lost lives. With the telegraph network expanding quickly, FitzRoy was able to start gathering real-time weather data from the coasts at his London office. If he thought a storm was imminent, he could telegraph a port where a drum was raised in the harbor. It was, he said, "a race to warn the outpost before the gale reaches them".
For FitzRoy the forecasts were a by-product of his storm warnings. As he was analyzing atmospheric data anyway, he reasoned that he might as well forward his conclusions - fine, fair, rainy or stormy - on to the newspapers for publication. "Prophecies and predictions they are not," he wrote, "the term forecast is strictly applicable to such an opinion as is the result of scientific combination and calculation." The forecasts soon became a quirk of this brave new Victorian society. FitzRoy's forecasts had a particular appeal for the horseracing classes who used the predictions to help them pick their outfits or lay their bets.
But FitzRoy soon faced serious difficulties. Some politicians complained about the cost of the telegraphing back and forth. The response to FitzRoy's work was the beginning of an attitude that we reserve for our weather forecasters today. The papers enjoyed nothing more than conflating the role of the forecaster with that of God and the scientific community were skeptical of his methods. While the majority of fishermen were supportive, others begrudged a day's lost catch to a mistaken signal. FitzRoy retired from his west London home to Norwood, south of the capital, for a period of rest but he struggled to recover and on 30 April 1865 FitzRoy cut his throat at his residence, Lyndhurst-house, Norwood, on Sunday morning. "In time, the revolutionary nature of FitzRoy's work would be recognised," says Moore. "FitzRoy's vision of a weather-prediction service funded by government for the benefit of its citizens would not die. In 1871, the United States would start issuing its own weather "probabilities", and by the end of the decade what was now being called the Met Office would resume its own forecasts in Britain."
For FitzRoy the forecasts were a by-product of his storm warnings. As he was analyzing atmospheric data anyway, he reasoned that he might as well forward his conclusions - fine, fair, rainy or stormy - on to the newspapers for publication. "Prophecies and predictions they are not," he wrote, "the term forecast is strictly applicable to such an opinion as is the result of scientific combination and calculation." The forecasts soon became a quirk of this brave new Victorian society. FitzRoy's forecasts had a particular appeal for the horseracing classes who used the predictions to help them pick their outfits or lay their bets.
But FitzRoy soon faced serious difficulties. Some politicians complained about the cost of the telegraphing back and forth. The response to FitzRoy's work was the beginning of an attitude that we reserve for our weather forecasters today. The papers enjoyed nothing more than conflating the role of the forecaster with that of God and the scientific community were skeptical of his methods. While the majority of fishermen were supportive, others begrudged a day's lost catch to a mistaken signal. FitzRoy retired from his west London home to Norwood, south of the capital, for a period of rest but he struggled to recover and on 30 April 1865 FitzRoy cut his throat at his residence, Lyndhurst-house, Norwood, on Sunday morning. "In time, the revolutionary nature of FitzRoy's work would be recognised," says Moore. "FitzRoy's vision of a weather-prediction service funded by government for the benefit of its citizens would not die. In 1871, the United States would start issuing its own weather "probabilities", and by the end of the decade what was now being called the Met Office would resume its own forecasts in Britain."
Patent Trolls Aren't The Problem - Broad, Vague Patents Are
Timothy B. Lee writes at Vox that the PATENT Act is focused on dealing with patent trolls: fly-by-night companies that get rich by exploiting flaws in the way the courts handle patent lawsuits. If trolls are the primary problem with the patent system, then the PATENT Act will go a long way toward fixing it. But according to Lee patent trolls aren't the primary problem with the patent system. They're just the problem Congress is willing to fix. The primary problem is the patent system makes it too easy to get broad, vague patents, and the litigation process is tilted too far toward plaintiffs. But because so many big companies make so much money off of this system, few in Congress are willing to consider broader reforms.
A modern example is Microsoft, which has more than 40,000 patents and reportedly earns billions of dollars per year in patent licensing revenues from companies selling Android phones. That's not because Google was caught copying Microsoft's Windows Phone software (which has never been very popular with consumers). Rather, it's because low standards for patents — especially in software — have allowed Microsoft to amass a huge number of patents on routine characteristics of mobile operating systems. Microsoft's patent arsenal has become so huge that it's effectively impossible to create a mobile operating system without infringing some of them. And so Microsoft can demand that smaller, more innovative companies pay them off.
But according to Lee there is hope that the courts may help.The most important decision might have been last year's Alice v. CLS Bank ruling, which addressed the patentability of software for the first time. Lower courts are still working out the exact implications of that decision, but the ruling led to the destruction of a dozen software patents within three months. It's likely to destroy hundreds more in the future. "Over the last decade, the high court has handed down a series of opinions that have very slowly corrected the law's pro-patent tilt," writes Lee. "The pro-patent laws that produced today's patent litigation crisis were developed by the courts over a 25-year period, from about 1980 to 2005. Since 2005, the Supreme Court has been working to restore balance to the patent system, but it could take another decade or more for them to complete their work."
Pope Attacked by Climate Change Skeptics
The Telegraph reports that as the Vatican forges an alliance with the UN to tackle climate change, skeptics accuse Pope Francis of being deeply ill-informed about global warming. The Pope discussed climate change with Ban Ki-Moon, the UN Secretary-General, who then opened a one-day Vatican conference called "The Moral Dimensions of Climate Change and Sustainable Development". Organized by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, SDSN and Religions for Peace, the goal of the conference is to help strengthen the global consensus on the importance of climate change in the context of sustainable development.
But a group of British and American skeptics say the Pope is being fed “mistaken” advice from the UN and that he should stick to speaking out on matters of morality and theology rather than getting involved in the climate change debate. "The Pope has great moral authority but he’s not an authority on climate science. He’s a learned man but the IPCC has got it wrong,” says Jim Lakely of the Heartland Institute, a conservative American pressure group partly funded by billionaire industrialists who question climate change. "The Pope would make a grave mistake if he put his moral authority behind scientists saying that climate change is a threat to the world. Many scientists have concluded that human activity is a minor player. The Earth has been warming since the end of the last Ice Age.”
It was the first time the Heartland Institute, which is based in Chicago and has been described by the New York Times as "the primary American organization pushing climate change skepticism," has traveled to Rome to try to influence a pope. "The sideshow envisioned by these organizations will not detract from the deep concern that Pope Francis has for the truth and how it relates to the environment," says Dr. Bernard Brady, Professor and Chair of the Theology Department at the University of St. Thomas. "Pope Francis will probably follow his predecessor, Benedict XVI, recognizing the interrelatedness of climate change with other moral issues and calling for persons, organizations, communities, nations, and indeed the global community, to reconsider established patterns of behavior."
But a group of British and American skeptics say the Pope is being fed “mistaken” advice from the UN and that he should stick to speaking out on matters of morality and theology rather than getting involved in the climate change debate. "The Pope has great moral authority but he’s not an authority on climate science. He’s a learned man but the IPCC has got it wrong,” says Jim Lakely of the Heartland Institute, a conservative American pressure group partly funded by billionaire industrialists who question climate change. "The Pope would make a grave mistake if he put his moral authority behind scientists saying that climate change is a threat to the world. Many scientists have concluded that human activity is a minor player. The Earth has been warming since the end of the last Ice Age.”
It was the first time the Heartland Institute, which is based in Chicago and has been described by the New York Times as "the primary American organization pushing climate change skepticism," has traveled to Rome to try to influence a pope. "The sideshow envisioned by these organizations will not detract from the deep concern that Pope Francis has for the truth and how it relates to the environment," says Dr. Bernard Brady, Professor and Chair of the Theology Department at the University of St. Thomas. "Pope Francis will probably follow his predecessor, Benedict XVI, recognizing the interrelatedness of climate change with other moral issues and calling for persons, organizations, communities, nations, and indeed the global community, to reconsider established patterns of behavior."
How to Attract Female Engineers
Lina Nilsson writes in an op-ed piece in the NYT that she looks with despair at estimates that only about 14 percent of engineers in the work force are women but that there may be a solution to the disparity that is much simpler than targeted recruitment efforts. "An experience here at the University of California, Berkeley, where I teach, suggests that if the content of the work itself is made more societally meaningful, women will enroll in droves," writes Nilsson. "That applies not only to computer engineering but also to more traditional, equally male-dominated fields like mechanical and chemical engineering." Nilsson says that Blum Center for Developing Economies recently began a new program that, without any targeted outreach, achieved 50 percent female enrollment in just one academic year. In the fall of 2014, UC Berkeley began offering a new Ph.D. minor in development engineering for students doing thesis work on solutions for low-income communities. They are designing affordable solutions for clean drinking water, inventing medical diagnostic equipment for neglected tropical diseases and enabling local manufacturing in poor and remote regions.
According to Nilsson, women seem to be drawn to engineering projects that attempt to achieve societal good and cites MIT, University of Minnesota, Penn State, Santa Clara University, Arizona State, and the University of Michigan that have programs aimed at reducing global poverty and inequality that have achieved similar results. For example, at Princeton, the student chapter of Engineers Without Borders has an executive board that is nearly 70 percent female, reflecting the overall club composition. "It shows that the key to increasing the number of female engineers may not just be mentorship programs or child care centers, although those are important" concludes Nilsson. "It may be about reframing the goals of engineering research and curriculums to be more relevant to societal needs. It is not just about gender equity — it is about doing better engineering for us all."
According to Nilsson, women seem to be drawn to engineering projects that attempt to achieve societal good and cites MIT, University of Minnesota, Penn State, Santa Clara University, Arizona State, and the University of Michigan that have programs aimed at reducing global poverty and inequality that have achieved similar results. For example, at Princeton, the student chapter of Engineers Without Borders has an executive board that is nearly 70 percent female, reflecting the overall club composition. "It shows that the key to increasing the number of female engineers may not just be mentorship programs or child care centers, although those are important" concludes Nilsson. "It may be about reframing the goals of engineering research and curriculums to be more relevant to societal needs. It is not just about gender equity — it is about doing better engineering for us all."
I can't mate in captivity.
-- Gloria Steinem, on why she has never married.
