As I continue to explore -BitCoin, I've starting to wonder -what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws -and regulations here in Norway. Here are some random notes.
- -One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are -verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction -is known to everyone. This means that if a BitCoin address has been -published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is -possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to -that address. There is even a web service to look at the details for -all transactions. There I can see that my address -15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b -have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the -1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3 -address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address -1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt -of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far. Thank you to each and -every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The -fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given -address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to -generate and hand out a new address for each transaction. I'm told -there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or -organisation without the person or organisation revealing it -themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.
- -In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and -regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border -without declaring it. There are money laundering, tax and accounting -laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin. -If the Skolelinux foundation -(SLX -Debian Labs) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to -normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted? -Given that it is impossible to know if money can across the border or -not, should everything or nothing be declared? What exchange rate -should be used when calculating taxes? Would receivers have to pay -income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in -BitCoin? I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.
- -For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and -accepted by a lot of users. It must be possible to get easy access to -the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be -easy to spend it. At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get -access to, but there are very few places to spend it. I am not really -a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin, -so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins. I -would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs -and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time -if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby -to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular. I'm sure they -will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which -probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I -believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming -currencies.
- -The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is -CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is -competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles -to see which one get the next lump of cash). The "winner" get 50 -BitCoin when this happen. Yesterday I came across the obvious way to -join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins, -by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines -and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50 -BitCoins. Check out -BitCoin Pool -if this sounds interesting. I have not had time to try to set up a -machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones -own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining -yet.
- -Update 2010-12-15: Found an interesting -criticism of bitcoin. Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought -it was interesting to read. The arguments presented seem to be -equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.
+The video format struggle on the web continues, and the three +contenders seem to be Ogg Theora, H.264 and WebM. Most video sites +seem to use H.264, while others use Ogg Theora. Interestingly enough, +the comments I see give me the feeling that a lot of people believe +H.264 is the most supported video format in browsers, but according to +the Wikipedia article on +HTML5 video, +this is not true. Check out the nice table of supprted formats in +different browsers there. The format supported by most browsers is +Ogg Theora, supported by released versions of Mozilla Firefox, Google +Chrome, Chromium, Opera, Konqueror, Epiphany, Origyn Web Browser and +BOLT browser, while not supported by Internet Explorer nor Safari. +The runner up is WebM supported by released versions of Google Chrome +Chromium Opera and Origyn Web Browser, and test versions of Mozilla +Firefox. H.264 is supported by released versions of Safari, Origyn +Web Browser and BOLT browser, and the test version of Internet +Explorer. Those wanting Ogg Theora support in Internet Explorer and +Safari can install plugins to get it.
+ +To me, the simple conclusion from this is that to reach most users +without any extra software installed, one uses Ogg Theora with the +HTML5 video tag. Of course to reach all those without a browser +handling HTML5, one need fallback mechanisms. In +NUUG, we provide first fallback to a +plugin capable of playing MPEG1 video, and those without such support +we have a second fallback to the Cartado java applet playing Ogg +Theora. This seem to work quite well, as can be seen in an example +from last week.
+ +The reason Ogg Theora is the most supported format, and H.264 is +the least supported is simple. Implementing and using H.264 +require royalty payment to MPEG-LA, and the terms of use from MPEG-LA +are incompatible with free software licensing. If you believed H.264 +was without royalties and license terms, check out +"H.264 â Not The Kind Of +Free That Matters" by Simon Phipps.
+ +A incomplete list of sites providing video in Ogg Theora is +available from +the +Xiph.org wiki, if you want to have a look. I'm not aware of a +similar list for WebM nor H.264.