So sad and predictable to see the anti-tech media once again taking down hardworking crypto entrepreneurs for the “crime” of being successful, and money laundering
— Jeff Bercovici (@jeffbercovici) February 8, 2022
Maybe it’s just that I’m a Cynic, but the plethora of details emerging about the Lichtenstein/Morgan FIVE BILLION BITCOIN HEIST have me wondering how much of this is an announcement of intent to other Bitcoiners. Playtime’s over, kiddos; you wanted grown-up respect, you assume grown-up responsibilities.
Cryptocurrency gets the “master criminals” it deserves: clowns. https://t.co/w5jK3o5OaV
— TED (@EpicureanDeal) February 13, 2022
From the self-proclaimed Paper of Record, Could this goofy young couple have been Bitcoin’s Bonnie and Clyde? The grubby Depression-era stickup artists, or the romantic Faye Dunaway / Warren Beatty film version?
… In the strange and sometimes shadowy world of cryptocurrency, it was as if the earth shook. In the years since the Bitfinex hacking, crypto had exploded into the mainstream, and the theft had become notorious: a bounty worth over $4 billion. At last, it seemed, the hackers had emerged from hiding.
But it was not the hackers who had moved the stolen Bitcoin — it was the government, which had seized it as part of an investigation into two New York City entrepreneurs: one a little-known Russian émigré and tech investor; the other, his wife, an American businesswoman and would-be social media influencer with an alter ego as a satirical rapper named Razzlekhan.
Charged with conspiring to launder billions of dollars in Bitcoin, the couple, Ilya Lichtenstein, 34, and Heather Morgan, 31, were accused of siphoning off chunks of the purloined currency and trying to hide it in a complex network of digital wallets and internet personas. If convicted of that and a second conspiracy count, they could face up to 25 years in prison.
The arrests shocked some acquaintances of the couple, whose goofy online lives appeared at odds with prosecutors’ description of them as sophisticated criminals with stacks of foreign currency, multiple fake identities and dozens of encrypted devices stashed in their Manhattan apartment. As they awaited a Monday court hearing in Washington on whether they should be freed on bail, Mr. Lichtenstein and Ms. Morgan remained the subject of a confounding question: Could they really be at the center of one of cryptocurrency’s enduring mysteries?
The charges were a watershed in the evolving regulation of digital currency and, to some, a step forward in the government’s ability to trace its illegal laundering…
idk much about crypto security but this person shouldn’t have been able to steal 4.5 billion dollars of it pic.twitter.com/i86nu7naKK
— jack wagner (@jackdwagner) February 8, 2022
… The Bitfinex hacking was the stuff of legend, but Mr. Lichtenstein and Ms. Morgan hardly appeared to be suave, or subtle, digital cat burglars — or the tip of a grand conspiracy…
Those who know Ms. Morgan said her social media stunts were part of an elaborate act to confront social pressures.
“She works to free herself from a lot of the scripts that are embedded in our society,” said Morgan Brittni Sonnenfeld, who said she is Ms. Morgan’s cousin. “I admire her for that, she has a lot of strength.” Ms. Sonnenfeld acknowledged that news coverage of Ms. Morgan had made her “sound a bit crazy,” and she wondered whether Ms. Morgan’s persona may have drawn the authorities to her.
“I wonder, why do they want people looking at her? Who are we not looking at? Why are they choosing this specific person?” Ms. Sonnenfeld said.
The arrests also surprised Ms. Morgan’s friends, who described her as a disarmingly honest colleague in an industry defined by cutthroat competition…
Posted the day before the hack lol pic.twitter.com/cmkCEmLYV6
— charlie ?? (@ground_chuck7) February 8, 2022
… In court papers, the government has called Mr. Lichtenstein and Ms. Morgan “highly sophisticated criminals.” Prosecutors said they believed the couple had significant additional assets, including hundreds of millions of dollars in virtual currency stolen from the Bitfinex exchange that had not been recovered, as well as access to numerous fraudulent identities bought on the so-called darknet, a hidden portion of the internet used for illicit transactions.
The government says the couple had also established financial accounts in Russia and Ukraine, and appeared to have been setting up a contingency plan for a life in one of those countries before the pandemic.
As evidence of what they depicted as a complicated money-laundering scheme, prosecutors say in a court filing that they had traced stolen cryptocurrency to more than a dozen accounts held in the true names of the couple or their businesses.
The government says in the court filing that when agents executed a search warrant at the couple’s Lower Manhattan apartment on Jan. 5, they recovered more than 50 electronic devices, including a bag labeled “burner phone,” and more than $40,000 in cash. Many of the devices were partially or fully encrypted or otherwise password protected, the court filing says…
Sophisticated criminals!
Global regulators going 'full steam' to tame crypto currencies https://t.co/LSrmMdB6ls pic.twitter.com/8j2MJFvurX
— Reuters (@Reuters) February 9, 2022
Money is SERIOUS, people:
… The Financial Stability Board, which groups regulators, central banks and finance ministry officials from the G20 economies, is looking at what needs to be done with cryptoassets such as bitcoin and stablecoins.
Crypto assets are currently treated differently across the world, ranging from bans to no rules at all even though they are traded by international firms. The European Union is approving a comprehensive set of standards for authorising and supervising participants in crypto asset markets.
Robert Ophele, chair of France’s markets watchdog AMF and a member of the FSB, said regulators were following the “universal basic principle” of same rules to cover the same risks…
Regulators were behind the curve because cryptoassets were not yet a threat to financial stability, but this was now top of the FSB’s agenda, Ophele said…
Regulators are also trying to catch up with other parts of a rapidly digitalising financial market, such as social media and smartphones becoming more heavily used by retail investors to buy and sell shares.
EU securities watchdog ESMA is scrutinising “finfluencers” or social media influencers who give stock tips without safeguards on their credibility, its chair Verena Ross told the webinar…
Jerzy Russian
The writers of this timeline should be fired and escorted out to the parking lot by security.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Behold, Cryptoland!
For those of you missed out on that shit show last month
Zzyzx
All of the crypto ads have either been completely random or “What? Are you chicken?”
You know it’s a scam if no one can say why the product is good.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Zzyzx:
Yes, this! The Larry David one was the worst
Chetan Murthy
But but but [checks notes] I was informed that code is law!
dmsilev
@Chetan Murthy: Code of Laws was always one of the techs I beelined for when playing Civilization.
mrmoshpotato
Yes, flee to Russia, and have Putin steal all of your stolen Bitcoin.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Why am I not surprised?
Eolirin
@mrmoshpotato: I would not be surprised to find out the Russian expat was already part of Russian organized crime or an intelligence asset.
Feathers
Great Tweet:
Super Bowl ads are always the best place to see where the dumber venture capitalists are wasting their money this year
– Patrick Wyman
* Wyman does the excellent Tides of History podcast.
Ella in New Mexico
i still don’t understand how you can trade–or steal–something that does not exist and have it manifest into real world wealth.
I’m officially old.
tom
@Eolirin: he came here with his parents when he was six.
mrmoshpotato
Bringing this up from downstairs:
Social investing? How about they all suck a horse’s ass?
Oh really?
On a serious note, I really want to know who’s pushing crypto so hard lately.
Eolirin
@Ella in New Mexico: It exists in roughly the same way the digits in your bank account exist. There’s a line entry in a ledger that says it does. You can trade that line item to other people and then the ledger gets updated to say they own it.
It’s only different in the mechanism by which transactions occur and the currency they occur in, from online banking
As to value, it’s easiest to think of it in terms of an asset like beanie babies or tulip bulbs. They have value only because people are willing to trade actual currencies for them. But they’re purely speculative assets, since they hold zero intrinsic value and the only reason people are willing to hold them is because they think they’ll appreciate.
mrmoshpotato
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
18:35? No.
mrmoshpotato
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): And fuck Matt Damon too.
Another Scott
@mrmoshpotato: It could be just everyone rushing to make their quick buck before the music stops. Kinda like the dot.com bubble.
“Sure AOL is worth more than $226,000,000,000.00…”
There may be more going on – I dunno, but there doesn’t have to be too much more than greed.
Cheers,
Scott.
Eolirin
@Another Scott: I meant to say thank you for the kind words last night and totally spaced, so thanks! :)
Major Major Major Major
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): my favorite comment on it I saw was something like “in a horror movie, this is what’s playing on loop in the blood soaked visitor’s center of Crypto Island”
mrmoshpotato
@Another Scott: Most definitely. But who’s putting up the money for these damn commercials?
Matt Damon and Larry David had to have dump trucks of cash offered to them.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@mrmoshpotato:
Dude, it’s in “so bad it’s good” territory. The animation is like it was made by people who hate cryptocurrencies and NFTs. The coin mascot is literally named “Conny” for fuck’s sake lol
There’s even cringy parody music numbers from Grease
Chetan Murthy
@mrmoshpotato: @Another Scott: We’re all speculating here, but …. it’s a pyramid scheme. The longer it goes on, the more marks there are. The master criminals have a great interest in keeping the scheme going on as long as possible, and since the takings grow alongside the # of marks, they have a ton of money to spend. Look at this Bitfinex Bonnie&Clyde here: $4.x Bllion. Sooner or later, buying off Damon and David is …. chump change. It’s what they say about money-laundering, right? “you’re dealing with stolen *money*, so really, the amount you’d be willing to, to keep the rest, is sky-high”.
I’m just speculating.
mrmoshpotato
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Alright, man. I’ll see how much I can watch sometime.
Chetan Murthy
@mrmoshpotato: @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Goku, I have to confess, I tried to watch it back when it was first circulated and … after 5min … *yawn*. Didn’t make it past that. Sorry, buddy, it was just to boorrrrring.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Major Major Major Major:
LMAO! That’s pretty good
AFAIK, the deal fell through for the island, so Cryptoland is never happening. It just blows my mind. How was Cryptoland even going to be governed? The Fiji government?
Kirk Spencer
@Ella in New Mexico: It does exist. As Eolirin said (basically) it’s as real as pretty much any other money is.
That’s the core problem, of course.
Major Major Major Major
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): it’s at most worth reading a twitter thread mocking it.
Raven
Go Rams!! Half the ads were for crypto!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@mrmoshpotato:
@Chetan Murthy:
I’d recommend skipping to 6:50 for the best part
Xavier
@Kirk Spencer: No, real money has a real promise and a real agency behind it. Specifically, the US Government promises that you can pay your taxes with its dollars, and I suppose more importantly will send Federal marshals to your house if you don’t. Bitcoin is real enough, but there is no promise backing it up, it’s pure speculation.
Jackie
@Ella in New Mexico: I still can’t understand why every end of the day post is about this. I’m on the west coast, so these late posts have become blah. Which may explain why they tend to die?
Chetan Murthy
@Raven: “ When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done”, JM Keynes
Holey moley. That’s not good. Not good at all.
beef
Didn’t watch the Superbowl, so can’t comment on the ads. But I am amused to note that Coinbase crashed during the game, and that the price of Bitcoin went down today.
As for Bitcoin and related stuff… I can see how it would be attractive if you were a citizen of…say.. Turkey or Argentina. Most people on Earth don’t have the luxury the dollar affords us.
Villago Delenda Est
Bitcoin was, is, and always will be a scam.
Steve in the ATL
@Raven: another Dawg gets a ring!
Chetan Murthy
@beef: Two thoughts:
Zzyzx
@Kirk Spencer: Terry Pratchett did a great job of explaining it in Making Money. The dollar is backed up by belief that the US Government is going to continue to exist. Bitcoin has nothing like that.
And also, the logistical act of actually trading bitcoin for goods and services is incredibly difficult as opposed to doing so with dollars.
Mike E
Meyers Taylor just finished her best monobob run of the games and is on the podium!
LeftCoastYankee
If you understand that “Tech Entrepreneur” means “unemployable grifter”, then this all tracks pretty well.
Urza
@Zzyzx: Wouldn’t that belief the US government will continue to exist be at the very least slightly suspect in modern times? At this point while I might not pick a specific crypto coin, other than Bitcoin, I’d go 50/50 on crypto lasting longer than the US government as we know it.
Mike E
American bobsledders Kaillie Humphries, Elana Meyers Taylor go gold, silver!
Gin & Tonic
@beef: You can’t walk 10 feet down Calle Florida in Buenos Aires without being accosted by some guy looking to buy dollars. Yes, I saw one (1) Bitcoin ATM, in a time when I saw probably hundreds of cambio guys.
Kevin
I always label my burner phones.
For years the accounting trade publications went on and on about how crypto and digital ledgers were the next big thing. Funny that seems to have quieted down quite a bit lately.
Chetan Murthy
@Urza: Ah, we have a tout arriving on station.
Anyone who thinks that the US Government will go bust and leave a functioning Internet in its wake …. is trying to sell you something. Dear commentariat, Urza is trying to sell you something.
Major Major Major Major
@Urza:
I too think it’s likely that math will outlast this country. Not a terribly interesting prediction…
HumboldtBlue
@Ella in New Mexico:
Stamp my old-ass passport as well.
Zzyzx
Bitcoin requires stability. If the US falls apart, will there be regular electricity and reliable connectivity enough for bitcoin to work?
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike E: Monobob is cool.
Chetan Murthy
@HumboldtBlue: @Ella in New Mexico: Eventually we all end up old enough (or more likely, lacking knowledge) so that we have to rely on experts. I mean, I know about as much about mRNA vaccines, as you do about cryptocurrency. I trust the mRNA vaccines for covid b/c I trust the respected authorities who say it works. Sure, I can pretend I understand what’s in the textbooks I read when I was in high school, what I’ve read in various articles, but that’s ….. well, without the backing of respected authorities, those articles are just as trustworthy as the articles touting the marvels of bitcoin.
I trust the many, many scientists who vouch for these vaccines. And I don’t trust at all the many, many touts who are pushing cryptocurrency.
Chetan Murthy
OT, but hey: I read that Eminem took the knee today during his performance. Good. This is good.
Jackie
@Chetan Murthy: I saw that and applauded. NFL was NOT HAPPY ?
Major Major Major Major
Alright, let’s try this show Valhalla Murders, a serial killer drama set in a country with one murder per year.
opiejeanne
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I dunno, I thought the QR code just bouncing around the screen was right down there.
Chetan Murthy
@Major Major Major Major: I watched it a while back, thought it was good.
Major Major Major Major
@Chetan Murthy: I think I got the rec from here. Maybe you!
HumboldtBlue
I wonder if this post-game proposal is worth an NFT? I hope their personal investment pays off.
opiejeanne
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes, but watching them bounce around last night on the preliminary runs, hitting the walls and skidding, that was rough.
Omnes Omnibus
@opiejeanne: Apparently the runners were tuned for softer ice. They made adjustments for today.
HumboldtBlue
@Chetan Murthy:
I have a platoon of nieces and nephews who fit that profile, we all see it.
CaseyL
Crypto makes me incredibly angry for all the reasons already stated, plus this: I suspect the gamblers and con artists who are pushing crypto into what was once considered “respectable” investment brokers is they want to be able to show up with their hands out when their commodity tanks.
They want to be in a position to demand FDIC insurance for it, or eligibility for government handouts (like banks getting bailed out). So they eventually want us all on the hook to bail them out when the whole house of cards comes tumbling down.
Another Scott
@Eolirin: ?
Cheers,
Scott.
NotMax
@Major Major Major Major
Insofar as Icelandic noir goes it’s no Trapped but okay enough, if at times plodding.
Omnes Omnibus
@HumboldtBlue: Millennials don’t get to have Dre and Snoop. Dre is basically my age and Snoop is my brother’s age.
opiejeanne
@Omnes Omnibus: good, because I wondered if they were getting beat up inside those sleds.
someone, maybe here, said they couldn’t get into the games because of the dry brown hillsides adjacent to the ski runs. It was snowing there yesterday and last night, enough that it was hard to see the skiers on the Giant Slalom at one point.
Chetan Murthy
@HumboldtBlue: Well-put. Well-put. I don’t have to like rap[1] in order to appreciate that The Kids These Days love it, and to appreciate that Eminem is a star in that world. And as a star, he did an excellent thing today.
[1] My knowledge of rap ends pretty much with Tribe Called Quest, Public Enemy, KRS-One, and …. well, that entire era. And I love that stuff — just not so much the more recent stuff from that genre. Good thing I know not to yell at the kids on my lawn.
Chetan Murthy
@CaseyL: your last para: yes indeed. Angry-making.
senyordave
Having trouble sleeping and was looking at Yahoo news and came across this:
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan says he wants to go back to a sane GOP, not one that ‘attacks people who don’t swear 100% fealty to the Dear Leader
I live in Maryland and see this from our governor every few weeks these days. Where the hell was Hogan when Trump was president? This piece of shit was silent for almost the entire four years. Now he’s brave. BTW, Hogan is a pretty typical GOP shitbag in his politics, he just seems somewhat decent compared to the rest of the lunatic Republican governor.
And when has the GOP sane in the past few decades? When they lost their collective minds because we had a non-white president? When they had a president lie an manipulate his way into a war?
HumboldtBlue
@Omnes Omnibus:
Oh no, they were kids, just as we were with The Who, EWF, Led Zeppelin, funk, disco and whatever genius that was Hall and Oates
joel hanes
@Zzyzx:
Terry Pratchett did a great job of explaining it in Making Money
Should read Going Postal first, for M von Lipwig’s epiphany that people would spontaneously use postage stamps, guaranteed by the government as currency in place of metal money or barter
JoyceH
Okay, it doesn’t say Open Thread, so first let me say that I can’t BELIEVE they’re setting up mechanisms whereby people can invest their RETIREMENT savings into crypto – and that there’s a market for it. But I guess if there’s a sucker born every minute, some of them must convert later in life, because there are a lot more suckers than there have been minutes.
There. Now – off topic – I just today decided that I want to buy a new desktop computer. I’ve been on a laptop for the last couple years when my old workhorse finally croaked, and I just haven’t gotten around to getting my sister’s gaming computer set up for me to use. Today it finally dawned on me that I just don’t feel comfortable using Jane’s computer, because to me it is so utterly associated with being Jane’s. (For those here who don’t know me, my sister died just before the pandemic.)
But I do want a desktop computer, I’ve been laptopping at the dining table which is Suboptimal, and I have this entire office-library room that I’m just not using. That’s where I wrote all my books, and I’ve been having trouble writing in the dining room.
So I’ve been scanning the listings on Amazon and I don’t even know the lingo anymore! What should I be looking for and what should I beware of? I can afford pretty much anything I see listed, but I’m sure I don’t really need the firepower of higher end.
sdhays
@senyordave: Atrios has his problems, but I appreciate how he often brings up just how awful George W. Bush and his Republicans were.
They were just has bad then, they just hadn’t yet destroyed as much, like an infection working through the enamel of a tooth. W’s DOJ was the template for the politicization of the Dump DOJ, for example.
JoyceH
@sdhays: Bush admin and Trump – did you see that Trump is all bent out of shape because Scooter Libby is going to a Liz Cheney fundraiser, and he’s been asking if he can RESCIND a pardon? What. A. Jackass!
dmsilev
@JoyceH: Why not just get a keyboard and monitor, put them in your office, and plug the laptop in?
If you do want a dedicated machine for the office, first question would be ‘what do you use it for?’ If the answer is writing, researching stuff on the web, things like that, pretty much any vaguely modern machine will be fine. I’d suggest only looking at machines with SSD-based storage (much faster than traditional hard drives, enough so that you’ll notice even with a light workload) and at least 8 GB of RAM. Those two specs taken together will rule out the cheapest options, but will give you a solid foundation.
Kay
Leiper is a City councillor in Ottawa. The residents have been blocking and then chasing out the Right wingers for days. There were 4000 residents out opposing the “truckers” yesterday.
Steeplejack
@JoyceH:
Probably want to repeat this at a more “normal” blog time. I have thoughts, but not right now.
Kay
They make friends wherever they go, these people. Hearts and minds. The vaccination rate in Canada will probably go from 80 to 90%.
Steeplejack
@JoyceH:
Pretty much agree with dmsilev at #73. I’d say goose it up to 16 GB of RAM.
NotMax
@JoyceH
Obvious first question: Windows or Mac?
Major Major Major Major
@JoyceH: definitely a solid state hard drive (SSD). Wouldn’t go higher or lower than 16gb ram unless you do a lot of multimedia processing. Can’t speak to much else when it comes to desktops… USB-C is good to have… but it depends on what you’re gonna be doing. If I didn’t game or program I would never use my graphics card or more than 16gb ram… or even need much in the way of a processor probably… but it’s nice to have excess capacity.
JoyceH
@NotMax: oh, Windows. My laptop has 10, I’m seeing desktops with 10 or 11. Thoughts on 11?
Another Scott
@JoyceH: Graphics cards are still expensive because the crypto people use them for “mining”. That can be a big part of a new PC’s cost. Otherwise, because Windows is such a pig, you probably want at least a recent Intel i5 or i7 CPU or a recent AMD 7 Ryzen 5xxx or 5 5xxx CPU. I would say that 16GB of RAM is a minimum. SSD storage is moving to “M.2” “NVME” sticks on the motherboard. It’s really fast. How much you need depends on what you do (writing vs HD video editing).
B&H has a decent (but a little out of date) guide that talks about the budget tradeoffs
A good 4K monitor (nearly 4000 horizontal pixels) is nice but can be $500 or more. I’m using a 50″ LG 4k TV as a monitor at home. I had to play with the settings quite a bit, but it was much cheaper than a true 4K monitor.
Beware of really tiny PCs (and extra-thin laptops). It’s hard to get heat out of them, and computers still take a lot of power. I would recommend at least a “mini-tower” PC to have enough fans to get the heat out. (Apple is doing some amazing things on that front with their “Apple Silicon” chips (M1, etc).)
You should be able to get a very good machine for $1500 or so. It won’t be a great gaming machine, but I assume that is not important to you. If you’re a gamer, then the graphics card and fast monitor can easily double the price.
HTH a little. Good luck!
Cheers,
Scott.
Steeplejack (phone)
@JoyceH:
Win10 is very stable. I don’t see a compelling reason to upgrade to Win11 right now.
prostratedragon
@Raven: And Barbie. There was a Barbie ad mixed into a first half break. Don’t know what it means, but it can’t be good.
different-church-lady
So, I understand one of the two teams won the football game.
different-church-lady
@JoyceH:
I’m hardcore Mac, but I’ve been helping a friend with her Windows machines recently. We just got her a new machine with 11 to replace her old rig with 10, and so far I’m finding 11 a whole lot better on the interface front, much less confusing.
lgerard
Someone is obviously a WrestleMania fan
different-church-lady
@HumboldtBlue:
They tried the same thing back in 2004, and we all wound up finding out what a nipple shield was.
different-church-lady
@lgerard:
Well, you wouldn’t want to drink the airline coffee.
NotMax
@JoyceH
Nothing terrible to say about Win11 except it is still a work in progress. That’s not a bad thing, necessarily, just means that tweaks will be coming down the pike frequently for a while.
Only frowny face when it comes to Win11 is that it absolutely requires you get a Microsoft account. Again, an opinion on my part, not a brickbat. But it is the future, no doubt about it. Note that Microsoft is promising support for Win10 for at a minimum of about five years more.
As far as any other recommendations, I strongly lean to AMD Ryzen chips (Ryzen 5 or above) as opposed to Intel these days. As others have said, SSD (solid state drive) is the way to go for the main drive. Unfortunately there’s going to be a temporary price spike on SSDs since recently thousands and thousands of them were cranked out from a major supplier that had hardware contamination issues, and essentially junked by reputable PC manufacturers. For an auxiliary drive, HDD (non-solid state hard drive) is perfectly okay; you can always upgrade that if so inclined after prices on SSDs stabilize again.
For what it is worth, my Win10 PC (built in 2018, IIRC) has a 512GB SSD plus a 2TB HDD and couldn’t be happier with its performance.
Will also mention in passing that the way some manufacturers cut corners is with the power supply on a desktop. If delving into those stats while researching a machine, good rule of thumb if comparing models is that less is always less and more is better.
Dopey-o
I went to Microcenter and bought a refurbed Dell Opteron / Win 10 / Solid State Drive. And a docking station / port replicator. $450. Came with a one year warranty.
Works as a desktop, works as a laptop. Works in the cafe, works in the car. If your old laptop was powerful enough before it died, you probably don’t need to increase the horsepower. i5 CPU, 16 gb RAM, should serve you for 4 years.
Just don’t do cryptocurrency on it, for a lot of reasons!
Anne Laurie
For what it’s worth — not much — this is being typed on a full-sized external keyboard, plugged into a laptop, along with a full-sized monitor & an external mouse. It fills up a whole table, but (at least for me) it’s like using a ‘real’ desktop computer.
People who know this stuff can tell you how it doesn’t make the cut for high-end graphic tools or playing games, but if what you want from a ‘desktop computer’ is 12 hours a day pounding out words / surfing the Netiverse, a decent laptop plus external keyboard & monitor may be all you need.
And if I need to take it somewhere (I have, in the past) it’s a lot easier to carry the laptop / keyboard / mouse along in a soft-sided bag to a hotel.
JoyceH
@Anne Laurie: I actually have a rather oomphy laptop right now, splurged on it, but I don’t feel “safe” having only one computer.
Joey Maloney
I spent an hour yesterday on a Windows 11 computer trying to figure out how to manually uninstall an application. It’s so locked down that only a “trusted installer” can remove files from the \Program Files and \Program Files (x86) directories. Even as an administrator, it was impossible for me to give myself the “special permissions” required to delete an app.
You may not care. I expect to be able to assume full control of any machine I own and if it’s clearly designed to prevent that it’s a big red flag for me.
Anne Laurie
@JoyceH: That’s a legitimate worry!
Since I live with a tech guy (Spousal Unit is a professional tech writer, but he’s succeeded at that job by being a pretty good shade-tree programmer), there are always some ‘backup laptops’ floating around the house. You could presumably buy a new/used laptop + externals, replicate your hard drive, and keep one or the other laptop as your ‘backup’.
Maybe even buy the external monitor/keyboard/mouse for your existing heavyweight laptop, and a lighter, less demanding laptop for travel-and-emergency use?
NotMax
@Joey Maloney
How to Uninstall an Application on Windows 11.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
RIP Ivan Reitman
His other movies included “Twins” (1988), “Kindergarten Cop” (1990) and “Junior” (1994).
Joey Maloney
@NotMax: Yeah, see, none of that worked because the app’s uninstaller (upon which all of that functionality depends) was broken.
JR
@Chetan Murthy: of course it’s a pyramid scheme. It has been for some time. The ads even underscore the “FOMO” mentality that’s required to keep it going.
Madoff just had bad timing.
JAFD
@HumboldtBlue:
Another guy who misspent his youth in Upper Darby says ‘Thanks’
JR
@Xavier: I think of it this way; if BTC was a national currency, a lot of folks would demand hard specie instead.
Central Planning
@JoyceH: my MIL and SIL both have Dell All-In-One computers. Easy to setup. Came with wireless keyboard and mouse so very few wires. Downside is if one component breaks the whole thing is broken. A good service program might mitigate that (I.e. they come to you vs send the unit back)
Also, I STRONGLY recommend some sort of backup solution. A Microsoft 365 subscription includes all the office products and can synchronize all your files to their cloud. The benefit is that you have access to all those files on all your computers.
Kirk Spencer
“Real” money is also imaginary. Money is a representation of trading power – of exchange potential – mutually agreed upon as acceptable / trustworthy between the parties using it.
There have been so called real moneys of the past that are no longer accepted as such, and likely nothing thought of as money today will be money in a thousand years.
Cryptocurrency’s weakness as money is that so few people trust it. Given current practice that’s unlikely to change. But it is as real as any other unit of exchange for those who do trust it.
Sure Lurkalot
@JoyceH: I bought a Dell all in one from Costco last year. It was about $900, 16 GB memory, both SS and 1T storage drives, touch screen. Compact and fast.
Soprano2
@prostratedragon: No, that was an ad for a mortgage loan app. I can see why you thought it was a Barbie ad, though.
prostratedragon
@Soprano2: Really?!8D Shows how closely I was paying attention. But on reflection that might be even worse somehow.
prostratedragon
@NotMax: Some Ryzen chips have graphics onboard, so there’s another way to save expense. Ryzen 9 does not, but I think all the ones from 7 on down do. User reviews suggest the graphics are pretty good for most purposes.
Even if you don’t buy from Microcenter, their website has a custom builder that’s handy, among other things for letting you estimate the power requirements of what you’re getting.
Villago Delenda Est
@Kirk Spencer: As Adam Smith pointed out, all money is fiat money.
opiejeanne
@prostratedragon: No one has mentioned the ad with the little kids drinking from what looked like beer cans and feigning wild drunkenness. It was just water, but that ad was deeply disturbing. What marketing genius thought that was a good way to sell their product?