Jeffrey Tucker: A Message about CryptoCurrency Conference, October 5, 2013
"You can register here http://www.cryptocurrencycon.com/ " Continue reading →
"You can register here http://www.cryptocurrencycon.com/ " Continue reading →
"Aubrey McIntosh has taken up mining in his spare time, and he's finding it hard and hot—even if it's prospecting for a virtual currency and a computer is doing all of the work. Mr. McIntosh, a semiretired chemistry professor in Morris, Minn., is among the growing ranks of enthusiasts who use powerful computers to 'mine,' in insider parlance, 'bitcoins,' an unregulated digital currency. Mr. McIntosh keeps his specialized computer, which he said cost about $1,500 and is custom-built to find bitcoins, near the chimney flue in his basement to try to get rid of all the heat it generates." Continue reading →
"'We don't do PayPal, we don't do any of the credit cards. They charge too much, that eats into our profits, and we have to pass that on to the consumer. Direct payment and Bitcoin, they cost us nothing.' Yes, Bitcoin. Honest Beef started accepting the digital currency earlier this year. Is anyone using it? 'Plenty,' Moloney said. 'The last two animals we sent off, we had [those] two pay by Bitcoin, and we've got a third waiting. We're probably getting 10 to almost 20 percent of our customers paying by Bitcoin now.' Now, there's nothing particularly high-tech about Honest Beef. There's a website and Bitcoin, sure, but the rest is just telephones and trucks, emails and evisceration." Continue reading →
"Swiss company builder Centralway is opening a new seed and early stage investment arm that will invest $50 million per year into 20 to 30 startups — including both small seed-stage investment and larger Series A rounds. It said its 'preferred case' will be to do a smaller investment at the seed stage, followed by larger investment into the same company at a later round. Buttercoin‘s model is to open a local Bitcoin exchange in each country where it operates — starting with Europe (where it’s due to launch in around two months’ time) — and then partner with local money transfer businesses to gain legal compliance in the country." Continue reading →
"Muslim women in headscarves and elaborately embroidered dresses took to the stage Wednesday for the finale of an Islamic beauty pageant in Indonesia, a riposte to the Miss World contest that has sparked hardline anger. 'We’re just trying to show the world that Islam is beautiful,' Obabiyi Aishah Ajibola, a 21-year-old contestant from Nigeria, told AFP backstage in the capital, Jakarta, before the final got under way. 'We are free and the hijab (Muslim headscarf) is our pride,' she said, adding that the pageant was 'nothing like Miss World, where women expose their bodies'." Continue reading →
"France’s first 'cat cafe' opens on Saturday in Paris with an in house troupe of nine rescue cats ready and waiting to be made a fuss of by cat-loving customers. Already popular in Tokyo where there are dozens, cat cafes allow customers who cannot have a pet at home to enjoy a cup of something hot with a purring cat perched on their knees. Margaux Gandelon, the woman behind the new Cafe des Chats in Paris’s trendy Marais district, says the cats were carefully selected for their social skills and stresses that hygiene and their welfare are her top priorities." Continue reading →
"Multi-billionaire Zong Qinghou, China’s second richest man, was attacked and injured by a would-be job applicant wielding a knife, official media said Wednesday. Zong, China’s richest man until he was dethroned last week, is chairman of the country’s leading beverage producer Wahaha Group. Forbes magazine estimates his personal wealth at $11 billion, second only to Wang Jianlin, head of conglomerate Wanda Group, on $14 billion. Zong started his business in 1987 on a tricycle selling soft drinks and ice cream and built Wahaha into one of the top 500 private firms in China, according to the company’s website." Continue reading →
"California suffers from one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation and the state is under court order to release 10,000 inmates, yet state agents are jailing people who manage to find home-improvement work. After placing ads on Craigslist, California State License Board investigators go undercover posing as homeowners, when landscapers, painters, and other contractors show up, the agents give them the 'To Catch a Predator' treatment. CSLB recently announced that agents from the Statewide Investigative Fraud Team had completed operation 'California Blitz.' SWIFTers busted 79 perps for contracting without a license; they face $5,000 in fines and up to six months in jail." Continue reading →
"When it appeared in 2012 that plans to put even a 4-mile streetcar line through downtown Detroit were dead, Andy Didorosi was fed up. Only 25 at the time, he was already a serial entrepreneur in Detroit, launching a co-working space called Paper Street, a local racing event called the Thunderdrome and numerous other projects. So he bought a bus, hired graffiti artist Kobie Salomon to paint it, and named it Bettis. That old school bus became the Detroit Bus Company, Didorosi's first experiment to show how mass transit could be improved in Detroit." Continue reading →
"The article describes heroic foodies in New York who celebrate and arrange unique dining experiences for folks who voluntarily want to partake of these experiences and pay their hosts a worthwhile fee to provide them with a desired service. Great chefs are doing this not just for a profit, but also because of their love for food culture and the desire to foster unique dining experiences for their own enjoyment. Meet-Ups have been forming here in Detroit doing the same sort of thing. I am going to my first 'illegal' event soon." Continue reading →