Interesting Links for 28-04-2014

[andrewducker]

• The world's newest mineral is unlike anything we've ever seen
  (tags: geology )
• Exercise during pregnancy gives newborn brain development a head start
  (tags: babies exercise pregnancy )
• Paedophiles to be treated as terrorists under new crackdown
  (tags: pedophilia terrorism censorship uk )
• As a first-born, it's nice to have scientific proof of my

Comments

[bohemiancoast]

On the one hand, that bike lock is adorable. On the other hand, it has a tiny key that you have to remove from your key ring, after having a drink, while wearing bike gloves, in the driving wind and rain, and dark, without dropping it down the drain. It had better come with spares (bear in mind that bike locks often come with up to 5 spares anyway because of the general problem).

[andrewducker]

Yeah, it's a neat piece of design, but the second I realised you couldn't keep it on a key chain it seemed like a non-starter.

I can't think of a way around that at the moment...

[resonant]

It would actually be easier to manufacture if it accepted a flat standard key with a hole. Slide the key into a slot perpendicular to the axis, rotate, then rotate on a second axis. No need for a fancy hook. You'd still need to unclip it from your keychain to make it perfectly unpickable, but there are lanyards that allow that to be done easily.

[naath]

Plus, it involves masses of extra faff that you have to do - to the end of a D-lock ,that is probably tangled up with someone else's bike, likely at either knee level or above head-height (we have some double-decker bike racks in Cambridge), whilst reaching around multiple other bikes (that are liable to attempt to fall over on you).

D-locks are IME a tremendous pain to use even in ideal conditions, and conditions are rarely ideal. And this one looks to make the pain much larger.

Plus thieves don't have to "pick the lock" they will "just" saw through it (it's tough, but do-able).

[gonzo21]

It's things like that Dark Market that will result in bitcoin being declared illegal sooner or later.

[andrewducker]

Naah. No more than The Pirate Bay led to BitTorrent being made illegal.

[octopoid_horror]

Actually, using bitcoins is already considered suspicious activity by some banks.

Or, more accurately, the dubiousness of various of the exchanges means that using btcis a good way to flag up as suspicious activity on your account if you are buying or sell BTC for currency. If you don't do this then of course, no one will ever know!

Given that, as far as I'm aware, the two main actual uses of bitcoins* are buying drugs and gambling (the latter of which is illegal if it's US cross-border gambling which I assume it's likely to be given the bitcoin usage stats I've seen online), no wonder banks look at transactions to/from exchanges with some suspicion.

*I'm aware there are other things you can use bitcoins for, but I think I remember something saying that about half the blockchain was gambling transactions, and as far as I know, many of the sites that purportedly take bitcoin see very few transactions.

[nancylebov]

Would just having DarkMarket software on your computer be enough to put you under suspicion?