Friday, November 29, 2013

Why One Bitcoin Will Be Worth More than One Troy Ounce of Gold

Coming from someone who is invested in both the answer is simple: you can easily hold and spend Bitcoins, or BTC. As a currency, BTC is infinitely better than gold.

Gold is a relic of a prehistoric monetary system. It is not suited for the modern digital economy. Paper money was a solution to the inherent inconvenience of gold. Bank-backed gold certificates of the deposits were used as money simply because of convenience. Unfortunately, banks started to issue more of these certificates than they actually had on hand. Moreover, the issuance of paper money enabled the rise of a powerful and elite class of bankers that to this day that remains outside of public scrutiny. Bitcoins were invented to circumvent the dilution of currencies via governments and fractional-reserve banking.

Bitcoins are more suited to the modern global economy. Like gold, there is a limited supply of them. But unlike gold, they are easily transmitted from payer to payee via the internet. For this very reason, Bitcoins are a more legitimate investment than gold is. However, in the event of societal collapse gold will be the only asset that will still "work." I don't see such a collapse happening anytime soon so I recommend investing more of your hard-earned cash in BTC than gold.

Monday, November 4, 2013

My first world problem: Cruddy products put out by Samsung, Google, and Verizon

Ever since I got this device I've had problems. I originally bought it when it first launched in 2011. Before that I had a Samsung Galaxy S which had GPS problems like you wouldn't believe. I took a leap of faith with this Google backed Samsung phone and thought it was a good decision. It has taken many years of tinkering and updates to finally get it working as a daily. LTE is absolutely horrid on this phone. It is slow and eats battery life like candy. To make it usable I have disabled LTE on this LTE-capable device. The reasons get pretty technical but basically Verizon phones are on CDMA but LTE is based on the GSM standard. The Galaxy Nexus has 2 radios, one for each system.

Android 4.2.1 also had its share of problems. Bluetooth was broken on it and it would crash and the phone would self-reboot once in a while. Unfortunately, this is the latest official version of this phone. Google released 4.3 many months ago but Verizon has not pushed the update out onto the phones. Sprint is pushed out the update at the end of October 2013. To remedy my bluetooth woes I am using Shiny ROM 4.3 which some awesome developer produced for those that love this phone (or simply because they are stuck with it).

Now I am at a crossroad. I love the customizability of the Android platform and what you can do with it. However, I just want a darn functional phone and if it took 2 years to update this phone into something usable then I don't know what to say. Just when things are finally turning around, Google has decided to abandon support of the Galaxy Nexus. Kit Kat is not coming with official support.

Is it because Google has finally figured things out in terms of hardware?

I don't think so. The Nexus 5 is impressive but after seeing 2/3 Nexus 4's die of the flashing red LED I I will stay away.

I'm tired of being patient with you Google. My next phone may very well be an iPhone. The build quality and reliability of Apple products is undeniable.