Ozyman wrote:

how about a lifetime membership option?  berickf mentioned that at one point.  I wonder if that would help anyone?  It might still be a hassle getting it paid, but you'd only have to do it once.

That would definitely be the best option if the funds were to be wired or sent via money order for people in circumstances such as my own.  That way the sender would just deal with the bank charges once, and not annually (as they can be a bit exorbitant for international transactions).  If by money order it might be a bit of a pain for Tom having to collect the funds, but wire transfers are directly into the receiver's account, so, no-hassle for Tom for that method.  But, depending on the amount he set it at would determine what the most preferable method of transfer were (for the sender).  Less money favours money order, more favours wire transfer - fee wise versus the benefit of a lower exchange rate.

No related to the this discussion in particular but a general gripe: 

It's the digital age. If I decided not to use cash anymore, at all, I could manage it. Why can't we move money between ourselves with convinience!?!!?

ratsy wrote:

No related to the this discussion in particular but a general gripe: 

It's the digital age. If I decided not to use cash anymore, at all, I could manage it. Why can't we move money between ourselves with convinience!?!!?

Because then banks wouldn't make as much money?

BAH! Like banks don't make enough money. BAH!

wargear needs to accept bitcoin!

Ozyman wrote:

wargear needs to accept bitcoin!

Wargear doesn't need to do any work to do that.  Anyone who likes bitcoin can do it.  Just advertise that you'll accept bitcoin and gift memberships to the person who sent it to you.

You could do it tomorrow if you found it keeping it up to be worth the hassle.

What is bitcoin?

berickf wrote:

What is bitcoin?

http://www.giyf.com/  ;)

Patton wrote:

If Risk is to represent war, isn't all fair?  There is both intelligence and misinformation involved in war and the army that is victorious is usually the one that can distinguish between the two and can take advantage of it. 

Great Question +1

Well put. +1

Toto wrote:

berickf wrote:

What is bitcoin?

http://www.giyf.com/  ;)

Yeah, thanks Toto.  I've got a pretty good handle on how to use google.  I actually meant a more informed perspective from those here who have mentioned it, have used it before and can give their first-hand perspective.

I honestly was talking out of my ass a bit.  I know that bitcoin is the hot new digital currency.  A currency completely separated from any government control.  It resides in some sort of cryptographic space, where people can 'mine' new bitcoins by having their computer solve very hard math problems.  This allows the supply of bitcoins to grow in the medium term, but at some point there will be a fixed supply so no inflation.

It is anonymous in some ways, although I guess there is a "blockchain" of previous owners of bitcoins and you are relying on third party exchanges to verify bitcoin transfers.  I'm not really sure about the details.  Supposedly it is used a lot in the black market & by libertarians and crypto-anarchists.

The value of bitcoins has been very very unstable (50% valuation swings in hours has happened often), but in general has gone up dramatically over the last year (up 1000%+?)  There seems to be a lot of uncertainty if this is a real growth in value or just a bubble.

One other major advantage of bitcoins is that fees for transfer are minimal (nonexistant?), so that was why I mentioned it in this discussion.

The wikipedia articles are pretty good:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto-anarchism

Ozyman wrote:

I honestly was talking out of my ass a bit.  I know that bitcoin is the hot new digital currency.  A currency completely separated from any government control.  It resides in some sort of cryptographic space, where people can 'mine' new bitcoins by having their computer solve very hard math problems.  This allows the supply of bitcoins to grow in the medium term, but at some point there will be a fixed supply so no inflation.

It is anonymous in some ways, although I guess there is a "blockchain" of previous owners of bitcoins and you are relying on third party exchanges to verify bitcoin transfers.  I'm not really sure about the details.  Supposedly it is used a lot in the black market & by libertarians and crypto-anarchists.

The value of bitcoins has been very very unstable (50% valuation swings in hours has happened often), but in general has gone up dramatically over the last year (up 1000%+?)  There seems to be a lot of uncertainty if this is a real growth in value or just a bubble.

One other major advantage of bitcoins is that fees for transfer are minimal (nonexistant?), so that was why I mentioned it in this discussion.

The wikipedia articles are pretty good:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto-anarchism

What I find to be unexplained, is how someone like I could go about using it?  It says you can "mine" bitcoins, or buy them from the "exchange", but what the heck is an "exchange"?  You explained the mining thing a bit, but, for practicality, can someone in one country go somewhere, buy some bitcoins from this "exchange", perhaps a scratch card or something, go to their computer, open a bitcoin account, input their scratch number, or however it would work to put them into the cyber world, transfer them to someone else... etc?  It's the actual practical application of such or how one goes about obtaining them and then using them that seems a bit lacking in the information available.  If they want to be more accepted as a currency they really ought to consider making their usability a bit more accessible.  So, has anyone any experience such that they can describe how to use such as an exchange client, and not via mining, and are these exchanges in all countries, some countries or very few countries such that it is actually a practical solution to cross border money transfers, or not?

Also, maybe these last few posts talking about payments via bitcoin should be moved to Recon's Life Time Membership thread as they are a bit more applicable there and are sort of derailing the topic of this thread a bit?  Sorry Footfungus.

Yeah - I don't have any practical experience with bitcoins.  Just what I've picked up from various conversations on the interwebs.

Found this wiki page about buying bitcoins:

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Buying_Bitcoins_(the_noob_version)

I took a look through a list of vendors: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Buying_bitcoins. ; It looks like due to a lack of a local exchange, it would still require wiring funds, or a money transfer, to an out of country vendor, so back to square one?

Derailed topic is derailed.. :3

Re-railing to the derailed topic:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57609880-71/man-forgets-he-once-bought-$25-of-bitcoins-now-worth-$848k/

just set your settings to get an email when someone posts to your wall. done. 

weathertop wrote:

just set your settings to get an email when someone posts to your wall. done. 

Which is the default, I think.

weathertop wrote:

just set your settings to get an email when someone posts to your wall. done. 

People get so many emails from WarGear. this turn, eliminated, tournament over, new private message, new inbox message, etc.  My experience is that most people don't even catch the one that says they have a new wall message.  I think most inbox messages would go unread if not for the blinking envelope, so, it would need something like that.

i've got mine set up so that i only get important emails. new PMs, inbox msgs, wall postings and elims.

all the my turns, etc i've elected to not receive any more as i'm checking often enough i don't need them and RT games i'm actually there, so don't need them anymore either (especially with growls working again)...