Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
On 5/2/14, 10:41 PM, Aaron Voisine wrote: I have to agree with Mike. Human language is surprisingly tolerant of overloading and inference from context. Neurotypical people have no problem with it and perceive a software engineer's aversion to it as being pedantic and strange. Note that bits was a term for a unit of money long before the invention of digital computers. Of course people *can* manage, when they need to; natural language is full of such overloading. But the clashes are not costless, they add mental load for first-time learners and low-context users. So the concern is, when there's a free choice, why not bootstrap words that are less fragile and context-dependent? Why add extra comprehension gotchas into what is already a challenging domain? And it's exactly the aspect that makes 'bit' attractive – it's right there in the name _Bit_coin! – that equally presents the clash – because the sense of 'bit' honored in the Bitcoin name, and central to the systems' essential properties, is the binary digit. It's like intentionally introducing a 'false friend' word-correlation between the vernacular of the casual Bitcoin user, and the language of Bitcoin experts. And the word pair is nearly auto-antonymic in some essential dimensions: indivisible vs. divisible, base-2 vs. base-10, composed-geometrically vs. composed-arithmetically. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_friend - interferes w/ lang learning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-antonym In naming amounts, there's no desperate need to stay in the shallow crowded pool of words just derived from bit and coin. Real currencies have many names for their units, including subunits with highly-unrelated sounds. The contrasting words help create more shades of meaning for different purposes. Some examples: dollars/bucks - bits (1/8ths) - dimes (1/10ths) - cents (1/100ths) pounds/quid - shillings (1/20ths) - pence (1/100th; formerly 1/240th) yuan/kuai - jiao (1/10ths) - fen (1/100ths) Regarding the cute example of contextual disambiguation... On 5/3/14, 11:15 PM, Aaron Voisine wrote: Bit by bit, it's become clear that it's a bit much to worry even a little bit that overloading the word bit would be every bit as bad as a two bit horse with the bit between it's teeth that bit the hand that feeds it, or a drill bit broken to bits after just a bit of use. That there are many existing definitions doesn't reassure that one *extra* definition will still be costless, especially for low-literacy/low-context/low-numeracy users or learners. Note that this example *doesn't* showcase the new proposed '100-satoshi-value' usage, nor activate the 'binary digit' meaning. (It does activate the part/quantity, usually small or imprecise sense of 'bit', 7 times depending on how you classify the idioms.) Try instead this mash of concepts, which someone deciding whether to trust 'bits' will face: Bitcoin uses the digital science of bits, the indivisible 1s and 0s of computer logic, to create a networked money measured in bits, which split into 100 indivisible cents called satoshis. Bit amounts are represented as 64-bit integer counts of 1/100th of a bit, so 64-bit integers can represent any balance from the smallest positive bit total, 0.01 bits (integer 1), up to a number over 92 quintillion bits (2^63-1, integer 9,223,372,036,854,775,808). That max value won't be needed, though, because a crucial bit of the original Satoshi design is a maximum issuance of 21,000,000,000,000.00 bits (21 trillion bits, 21 terabits). These new bits are awarded to computers racing to complete a digital verification task on an algorithmic schedule: currently 25 million bits (25 megabits) arrive about every 10 minutes. That is, the total number of Bitcoin bits is increasing at 6.33 Kbps, though that arrival slows to 0 bps by around the year 2140. The most important bit to remember is that your ability to spend bits is controlled by secret 256-bit numbers, called private keys, bits of info that only you know. The fact that these keys are 256-bits long is what makes them practically unguessable, even if someone had a computing budget of all the bits in the world, or built a computer out of all the bits in the universe. (That is, even though the network can create 25 million bits every 10 minutes, it can't guess your secret 256 bits in the lifetime of the universe!) Watch out, though: human-chosen passwords and 4-8 word phrases typically provide much less than 128 bits of security, far too little to create a 256-bit key. And in the math of bits, having half as many bits doesn't mean half the security, it means the square-root as much security. (For a 128-bit shortfall, that's 2^128 or 340 billion billion billion billion times less strength.) If your secret has enough bits, though, you can be confident that you can put millions of dollars into bits, because of the cryptographic power of hundreds of bits. The current value of
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
Bit by bit, it's become clear that it's a bit much to worry even a little bit that overloading the word bit would be every bit as bad as a two bit horse with the bit between it's teeth that bit the hand that feeds it, or a drill bit broken to bits after just a bit of use. Aaron There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you -- Will Rodgers On Sat, May 3, 2014 at 10:18 PM, Drak d...@zikula.org wrote: +1 On 4 May 2014 02:06, Chris Pacia ctpa...@gmail.com wrote: Absent a concerted effort to move to something else other than 'bits', I would be willing to bet the nomenclature moves in that direction anyway. 'Bits' is just a shorten word for 'millibits' (or microbits, if you will). It's easier to say and my guess is people would tend to use it naturally own their own. Kind of like 'bucks' for dollars. The other synergies are: -bit is part of the word Bitcoin. The currency unit bit is part of a whole bitcoin. -bit symbolically represents the tech nature of the bitcoin. -bit used to be a unit of money way back when. This largely reclaims it. -when used as money bit when in references to a precession metal coin. The name 'bitcoin' references that as well as the mimicking of the gold standard in the protocol rules. All around I don't think there is a better fit. I doubt people will get confused by it. The context it's used in will distinguish it from other uses of the word. On 05/03/2014 12:27 PM, Mike Caldwell wrote: I agree with the sentiment that most people don't understand either computer science or Bitcoin. The goal of getting people to understand enough about Bitcoin to use it is achievable and a goal that is in scope of our efforts. Getting them to understand computer science at large at the same time, less so. The fact that people routinely confuse RAM and hard drive sizes has much to do with the fact that the average lay person has little need to prioritize this as something to keep in the forefront. They don't get horribly confused, they just simply don't get worked up over what looks to them like a rounding error, much to the dismay of anyone who believes that everyone should be an expert at computer science. The average joe may assess (accurately from his perspective) that the distinction isn't important enough to merit significant mental resources and he is justified in not expending them that way even if someone else thinks he should. Poor understanding is precisely what a proper effort to name this would be to avoid. It is not frill or aesthetics, it is a planned targeting of language to achieve the clearest communication to the widest possible target audience using the language most likely to be understood by them in light of our objectives. It's marketing. Mike Sent from my iPhone On May 3, 2014, at 9:49 AM, Christophe Biocca christophe.bio...@gmail.com wrote: Context as a disambiguator works fine when the interlocutors understand the topics they're talking about. Not a day goes by without me seeing neurotypical people get horribly confused between RAM and Hard Drive sizes, because they share the same units (not that that can be helped, as the units are supposed to be the same, base 1000 vs 1024 notwithstanding). Bit (as a unit) is already really confusing for anyone who doesn't deal with it on a regular basis. I think people who don't see an issue are making an assumption based on their own lack of confusion. We understand computer science AND Bitcoin. Most people have zero understanding of either. Bitcoin already has a ton of issues with terrible names for things: - Mining (for transaction validation). - Addresses (which are meant to be one-time use, and don't even really exist at the network level). - Wallets (which don't hold your bitcoins, can be copied, and all backups can be stolen from equally). I end up having to make the distinctions obvious every time I explain Bitcoin to someone new to it. There's an acceptable tradeoff here, because there were arguably no better words to assign to these concepts (although I'd argue mining is a really awful metaphor, and is the one that prompts the most questions from people). Then add to the pile a bunch of third parties naming themselves after parts of the protocol (Coinbase,Blockchain.info). Not blaming them for it, but I've definitiely seen average people get confused between the blockchain and blockchain.info (not so much Coinbase, because that name doesn't come up in beginner explanations). It seems downright masochistic to add yet-another-word-that-doesn't-mean-what-you-think-it-means to the pile for no reason other than aesthetics. Are we actively trying to confuse people? -- Accelerate Dev Cycles with Automated Cross-Browser Testing - For FREE
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
+1(bit) for your bit on bits. On 4/05/2014, at 2:18 pm, Aaron Voisine vois...@gmail.com wrote: Bit by bit, it's become clear that it's a bit much to worry even a little bit that overloading the word bit would be every bit as bad as a two bit horse with the bit between it's teeth that bit the hand that feeds it, or a drill bit broken to bits after just a bit of use. Aaron There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you -- Will Rodgers On Sat, May 3, 2014 at 10:18 PM, Drak d...@zikula.org wrote: +1 On 4 May 2014 02:06, Chris Pacia ctpa...@gmail.com wrote: Absent a concerted effort to move to something else other than 'bits', I would be willing to bet the nomenclature moves in that direction anyway. 'Bits' is just a shorten word for 'millibits' (or microbits, if you will). It's easier to say and my guess is people would tend to use it naturally own their own. Kind of like 'bucks' for dollars. The other synergies are: -bit is part of the word Bitcoin. The currency unit bit is part of a whole bitcoin. -bit symbolically represents the tech nature of the bitcoin. -bit used to be a unit of money way back when. This largely reclaims it. -when used as money bit when in references to a precession metal coin. The name 'bitcoin' references that as well as the mimicking of the gold standard in the protocol rules. All around I don't think there is a better fit. I doubt people will get confused by it. The context it's used in will distinguish it from other uses of the word. On 05/03/2014 12:27 PM, Mike Caldwell wrote: I agree with the sentiment that most people don't understand either computer science or Bitcoin. The goal of getting people to understand enough about Bitcoin to use it is achievable and a goal that is in scope of our efforts. Getting them to understand computer science at large at the same time, less so. The fact that people routinely confuse RAM and hard drive sizes has much to do with the fact that the average lay person has little need to prioritize this as something to keep in the forefront. They don't get horribly confused, they just simply don't get worked up over what looks to them like a rounding error, much to the dismay of anyone who believes that everyone should be an expert at computer science. The average joe may assess (accurately from his perspective) that the distinction isn't important enough to merit significant mental resources and he is justified in not expending them that way even if someone else thinks he should. Poor understanding is precisely what a proper effort to name this would be to avoid. It is not frill or aesthetics, it is a planned targeting of language to achieve the clearest communication to the widest possible target audience using the language most likely to be understood by them in light of our objectives. It's marketing. Mike Sent from my iPhone On May 3, 2014, at 9:49 AM, Christophe Biocca christophe.bio...@gmail.com wrote: Context as a disambiguator works fine when the interlocutors understand the topics they're talking about. Not a day goes by without me seeing neurotypical people get horribly confused between RAM and Hard Drive sizes, because they share the same units (not that that can be helped, as the units are supposed to be the same, base 1000 vs 1024 notwithstanding). Bit (as a unit) is already really confusing for anyone who doesn't deal with it on a regular basis. I think people who don't see an issue are making an assumption based on their own lack of confusion. We understand computer science AND Bitcoin. Most people have zero understanding of either. Bitcoin already has a ton of issues with terrible names for things: - Mining (for transaction validation). - Addresses (which are meant to be one-time use, and don't even really exist at the network level). - Wallets (which don't hold your bitcoins, can be copied, and all backups can be stolen from equally). I end up having to make the distinctions obvious every time I explain Bitcoin to someone new to it. There's an acceptable tradeoff here, because there were arguably no better words to assign to these concepts (although I'd argue mining is a really awful metaphor, and is the one that prompts the most questions from people). Then add to the pile a bunch of third parties naming themselves after parts of the protocol (Coinbase,Blockchain.info). Not blaming them for it, but I've definitiely seen average people get confused between the blockchain and blockchain.info (not so much Coinbase, because that name doesn't come up in beginner explanations). It seems downright masochistic to add yet-another-word-that-doesn't-mean-what-you-think-it-means to the pile for no reason other than aesthetics. Are we actively trying to confuse people? -- Accelerate Dev Cycles
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
On Sun, May 4, 2014 at 8:15 AM, Aaron Voisine vois...@gmail.com wrote: Bit by bit, it's become clear that it's a bit much to worry even a little bit that overloading the word bit would be every bit as bad as a two bit horse with the bit between it's teeth that bit the hand that feeds it, or a drill bit broken to bits after just a bit of use. +1 good summary And I think that's a good conclusion to this discussion about unit names on the development mailing list. Everything has been said now. Wladimir -- Accelerate Dev Cycles with Automated Cross-Browser Testing - For FREE Instantly run your Selenium tests across 300+ browser/OS combos. Get unparalleled scalability from the best Selenium testing platform available. Simple to use. Nothing to install. Get started now for free. http://p.sf.net/sfu/SauceLabs ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
Wladimir, what is missing is a decision to pull for the reference client. Or did I missed that bit? signature.asc Description: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail -- Accelerate Dev Cycles with Automated Cross-Browser Testing - For FREE Instantly run your Selenium tests across 300+ browser/OS combos. Get unparalleled scalability from the best Selenium testing platform available. Simple to use. Nothing to install. Get started now for free. http://p.sf.net/sfu/SauceLabs___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
On Sun, May 4, 2014 at 8:36 AM, Tamas Blummer ta...@bitsofproof.com wrote: Wladimir, what is missing is a decision to pull for the reference client. Or did I missed that bit? No opinion - we'll follow whatever the rest does. Wladimir -- Accelerate Dev Cycles with Automated Cross-Browser Testing - For FREE Instantly run your Selenium tests across 300+ browser/OS combos. Get unparalleled scalability from the best Selenium testing platform available. Simple to use. Nothing to install. Get started now for free. http://p.sf.net/sfu/SauceLabs ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
I will drink to that! Bitte ein Bit! (A Bit please - aka Bitburger Beer) Mike Sent from my iPhone On May 4, 2014, at 12:17 AM, Aaron Voisine vois...@gmail.com wrote: Bit by bit, it's become clear that it's a bit much to worry even a little bit that overloading the word bit would be every bit as bad as a two bit horse with the bit between it's teeth that bit the hand that feeds it, or a drill bit broken to bits after just a bit of use. Aaron There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you -- Will Rodgers On Sat, May 3, 2014 at 10:18 PM, Drak d...@zikula.org wrote: +1 On 4 May 2014 02:06, Chris Pacia ctpa...@gmail.com wrote: Absent a concerted effort to move to something else other than 'bits', I would be willing to bet the nomenclature moves in that direction anyway. 'Bits' is just a shorten word for 'millibits' (or microbits, if you will). It's easier to say and my guess is people would tend to use it naturally own their own. Kind of like 'bucks' for dollars. The other synergies are: -bit is part of the word Bitcoin. The currency unit bit is part of a whole bitcoin. -bit symbolically represents the tech nature of the bitcoin. -bit used to be a unit of money way back when. This largely reclaims it. -when used as money bit when in references to a precession metal coin. The name 'bitcoin' references that as well as the mimicking of the gold standard in the protocol rules. All around I don't think there is a better fit. I doubt people will get confused by it. The context it's used in will distinguish it from other uses of the word. On 05/03/2014 12:27 PM, Mike Caldwell wrote: I agree with the sentiment that most people don't understand either computer science or Bitcoin. The goal of getting people to understand enough about Bitcoin to use it is achievable and a goal that is in scope of our efforts. Getting them to understand computer science at large at the same time, less so. The fact that people routinely confuse RAM and hard drive sizes has much to do with the fact that the average lay person has little need to prioritize this as something to keep in the forefront. They don't get horribly confused, they just simply don't get worked up over what looks to them like a rounding error, much to the dismay of anyone who believes that everyone should be an expert at computer science. The average joe may assess (accurately from his perspective) that the distinction isn't important enough to merit significant mental resources and he is justified in not expending them that way even if someone else thinks he should. Poor understanding is precisely what a proper effort to name this would be to avoid. It is not frill or aesthetics, it is a planned targeting of language to achieve the clearest communication to the widest possible target audience using the language most likely to be understood by them in light of our objectives. It's marketing. Mike Sent from my iPhone On May 3, 2014, at 9:49 AM, Christophe Biocca christophe.bio...@gmail.com wrote: Context as a disambiguator works fine when the interlocutors understand the topics they're talking about. Not a day goes by without me seeing neurotypical people get horribly confused between RAM and Hard Drive sizes, because they share the same units (not that that can be helped, as the units are supposed to be the same, base 1000 vs 1024 notwithstanding). Bit (as a unit) is already really confusing for anyone who doesn't deal with it on a regular basis. I think people who don't see an issue are making an assumption based on their own lack of confusion. We understand computer science AND Bitcoin. Most people have zero understanding of either. Bitcoin already has a ton of issues with terrible names for things: - Mining (for transaction validation). - Addresses (which are meant to be one-time use, and don't even really exist at the network level). - Wallets (which don't hold your bitcoins, can be copied, and all backups can be stolen from equally). I end up having to make the distinctions obvious every time I explain Bitcoin to someone new to it. There's an acceptable tradeoff here, because there were arguably no better words to assign to these concepts (although I'd argue mining is a really awful metaphor, and is the one that prompts the most questions from people). Then add to the pile a bunch of third parties naming themselves after parts of the protocol (Coinbase,Blockchain.info). Not blaming them for it, but I've definitiely seen average people get confused between the blockchain and blockchain.info (not so much Coinbase, because that name doesn't come up in beginner explanations). It seems downright masochistic to add yet-another-word-that-doesn't-mean-what-you-think-it-means to the pile for no reason other than aesthetics. Are we actively trying to confuse people?
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
Context as a disambiguator works fine when the interlocutors understand the topics they're talking about. Not a day goes by without me seeing neurotypical people get horribly confused between RAM and Hard Drive sizes, because they share the same units (not that that can be helped, as the units are supposed to be the same, base 1000 vs 1024 notwithstanding). Bit (as a unit) is already really confusing for anyone who doesn't deal with it on a regular basis. I think people who don't see an issue are making an assumption based on their own lack of confusion. We understand computer science AND Bitcoin. Most people have zero understanding of either. Bitcoin already has a ton of issues with terrible names for things: - Mining (for transaction validation). - Addresses (which are meant to be one-time use, and don't even really exist at the network level). - Wallets (which don't hold your bitcoins, can be copied, and all backups can be stolen from equally). I end up having to make the distinctions obvious every time I explain Bitcoin to someone new to it. There's an acceptable tradeoff here, because there were arguably no better words to assign to these concepts (although I'd argue mining is a really awful metaphor, and is the one that prompts the most questions from people). Then add to the pile a bunch of third parties naming themselves after parts of the protocol (Coinbase,Blockchain.info). Not blaming them for it, but I've definitiely seen average people get confused between the blockchain and blockchain.info (not so much Coinbase, because that name doesn't come up in beginner explanations). It seems downright masochistic to add yet-another-word-that-doesn't-mean-what-you-think-it-means to the pile for no reason other than aesthetics. Are we actively trying to confuse people? On Sat, May 3, 2014 at 1:41 AM, Aaron Voisine vois...@gmail.com wrote: I have to agree with Mike. Human language is surprisingly tolerant of overloading and inference from context. Neurotypical people have no problem with it and perceive a software engineer's aversion to it as being pedantic and strange. Note that bits was a term for a unit of money long before the invention of digital computers. Aaron There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you -- Will Rodgers On Fri, May 2, 2014 at 7:06 PM, Gordon Mohr goj...@gmail.com wrote: [resend - apologies if duplicate] Microbitcoin is a good-sized unit, workable for everyday transaction values, with room-to-grow, and a nice relationship to satoshis as 'cents'. But bits has problems as a unit name. Bits will be especially problematic whenever people try to graduate from informal use to understanding the system internals - that is, when the real bits of key sizes, hash sizes, and storage/bandwidth needs become important. The bit as binary digit was important enough that Satoshi named the system after it; that homage gets lost if the word is muddied with a new retconned meaning that's quite different. Some examples of possible problems: * If bit equals 100 satoshis, then the natural-language unpacking of bit-coin is 100 satoshi coin, which runs against all prior usage. * If people are informed that a 256-bit private key is what ultimately controls their balances, it could prompt confusion like, if each key has 256-bits, will I need 40 keys to hold 10,000.00 bits? * When people learn that there are 8 bits to a byte, they may think, OK, my wallet holding my 80,000.00 bits will then take up 10 kilobytes. * When people naturally extend bit into kilobits to mean 1000 bits, then the new coinage kilobits will mean the exact same amount (100,000 satoshi) as many have already been calling millibits. I believe it'd be best to pick a new made-up single-syllable word as a synonym for microbitcoin, and I've laid out the case for zib as that word at http://zibcoin.org. 'Zib' also lends itself to an expressive unicode symbol, 'Ƶ' (Z-with-stroke), that remains distinctive even if it loses its stroke or gets case-reversed. (Comparatively, all 'b'-derived symbols for data-bits, bitcoins, or '100 satoshi bits' risk collision in contexts where subtleties of casing/stroking are lost.) (There's summary of more problems with bit in the zibcoin.org FAQ at: http://zibcoin.org/faq#why-not-bits-to-mean-microbitcoins.) - Gordon On 5/1/14, 3:35 PM, Aaron Voisine wrote: I'm also a big fan of standardizing on microBTC as the standard unit. I didn't like the name bits at first, but the more I think about it, the more I like it. The main thing going for it is the fact that it's part of the name bitcoin. If Bitcoin is the protocol and network, bits are an obvious choice for the currency unit. I would like to propose using Unicode character U+0180, lowercase b with stroke, as the symbol to represent the microBTC denomination, whether we call bits or something else:
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
Excellent points Christophe! Although moving to 1e-6 units is fine for me and I see advantages of doing this, I don't get that people on this mailing list are fine with calling such unit bit. It's geeky as hell, ambiguous and confusing. slush On Sat, May 3, 2014 at 5:48 PM, Christophe Biocca christophe.bio...@gmail.com wrote: Context as a disambiguator works fine when the interlocutors understand the topics they're talking about. Not a day goes by without me seeing neurotypical people get horribly confused between RAM and Hard Drive sizes, because they share the same units (not that that can be helped, as the units are supposed to be the same, base 1000 vs 1024 notwithstanding). Bit (as a unit) is already really confusing for anyone who doesn't deal with it on a regular basis. I think people who don't see an issue are making an assumption based on their own lack of confusion. We understand computer science AND Bitcoin. Most people have zero understanding of either. Bitcoin already has a ton of issues with terrible names for things: - Mining (for transaction validation). - Addresses (which are meant to be one-time use, and don't even really exist at the network level). - Wallets (which don't hold your bitcoins, can be copied, and all backups can be stolen from equally). I end up having to make the distinctions obvious every time I explain Bitcoin to someone new to it. There's an acceptable tradeoff here, because there were arguably no better words to assign to these concepts (although I'd argue mining is a really awful metaphor, and is the one that prompts the most questions from people). Then add to the pile a bunch of third parties naming themselves after parts of the protocol (Coinbase,Blockchain.info). Not blaming them for it, but I've definitiely seen average people get confused between the blockchain and blockchain.info (not so much Coinbase, because that name doesn't come up in beginner explanations). It seems downright masochistic to add yet-another-word-that-doesn't-mean-what-you-think-it-means to the pile for no reason other than aesthetics. Are we actively trying to confuse people? On Sat, May 3, 2014 at 1:41 AM, Aaron Voisine vois...@gmail.com wrote: I have to agree with Mike. Human language is surprisingly tolerant of overloading and inference from context. Neurotypical people have no problem with it and perceive a software engineer's aversion to it as being pedantic and strange. Note that bits was a term for a unit of money long before the invention of digital computers. Aaron There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you -- Will Rodgers On Fri, May 2, 2014 at 7:06 PM, Gordon Mohr goj...@gmail.com wrote: [resend - apologies if duplicate] Microbitcoin is a good-sized unit, workable for everyday transaction values, with room-to-grow, and a nice relationship to satoshis as 'cents'. But bits has problems as a unit name. Bits will be especially problematic whenever people try to graduate from informal use to understanding the system internals - that is, when the real bits of key sizes, hash sizes, and storage/bandwidth needs become important. The bit as binary digit was important enough that Satoshi named the system after it; that homage gets lost if the word is muddied with a new retconned meaning that's quite different. Some examples of possible problems: * If bit equals 100 satoshis, then the natural-language unpacking of bit-coin is 100 satoshi coin, which runs against all prior usage. * If people are informed that a 256-bit private key is what ultimately controls their balances, it could prompt confusion like, if each key has 256-bits, will I need 40 keys to hold 10,000.00 bits? * When people learn that there are 8 bits to a byte, they may think, OK, my wallet holding my 80,000.00 bits will then take up 10 kilobytes. * When people naturally extend bit into kilobits to mean 1000 bits, then the new coinage kilobits will mean the exact same amount (100,000 satoshi) as many have already been calling millibits. I believe it'd be best to pick a new made-up single-syllable word as a synonym for microbitcoin, and I've laid out the case for zib as that word at http://zibcoin.org. 'Zib' also lends itself to an expressive unicode symbol, 'Ƶ' (Z-with-stroke), that remains distinctive even if it loses its stroke or gets case-reversed. (Comparatively, all 'b'-derived symbols for data-bits, bitcoins, or '100 satoshi bits' risk collision in contexts where subtleties of casing/stroking are lost.) (There's summary of more problems with bit in the zibcoin.org FAQ at: http://zibcoin.org/faq#why-not-bits-to-mean-microbitcoins.) - Gordon On 5/1/14, 3:35 PM, Aaron Voisine wrote: I'm also a big fan of standardizing on microBTC as the standard unit. I didn't like the name bits at first, but the more I think
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
bit has a lot of meanings to geeks, so what. bit means for average people: - something very small, that 100 satoshi is. - part of the name Bitcoin - easy to get conversion 1 coin = 1 million bits = 1 Bitcoin Regards, Tamas Blummer Founder, CEO http://bitsofproof.com On 03.05.2014, at 18:02, slush sl...@centrum.cz wrote: Excellent points Christophe! Although moving to 1e-6 units is fine for me and I see advantages of doing this, I don't get that people on this mailing list are fine with calling such unit bit. It's geeky as hell, ambiguous and confusing. slush On Sat, May 3, 2014 at 5:48 PM, Christophe Biocca christophe.bio...@gmail.com wrote: Context as a disambiguator works fine when the interlocutors understand the topics they're talking about. Not a day goes by without me seeing neurotypical people get horribly confused between RAM and Hard Drive sizes, because they share the same units (not that that can be helped, as the units are supposed to be the same, base 1000 vs 1024 notwithstanding). Bit (as a unit) is already really confusing for anyone who doesn't deal with it on a regular basis. I think people who don't see an issue are making an assumption based on their own lack of confusion. We understand computer science AND Bitcoin. Most people have zero understanding of either. Bitcoin already has a ton of issues with terrible names for things: - Mining (for transaction validation). - Addresses (which are meant to be one-time use, and don't even really exist at the network level). - Wallets (which don't hold your bitcoins, can be copied, and all backups can be stolen from equally). I end up having to make the distinctions obvious every time I explain Bitcoin to someone new to it. There's an acceptable tradeoff here, because there were arguably no better words to assign to these concepts (although I'd argue mining is a really awful metaphor, and is the one that prompts the most questions from people). Then add to the pile a bunch of third parties naming themselves after parts of the protocol (Coinbase,Blockchain.info). Not blaming them for it, but I've definitiely seen average people get confused between the blockchain and blockchain.info (not so much Coinbase, because that name doesn't come up in beginner explanations). It seems downright masochistic to add yet-another-word-that-doesn't-mean-what-you-think-it-means to the pile for no reason other than aesthetics. Are we actively trying to confuse people? On Sat, May 3, 2014 at 1:41 AM, Aaron Voisine vois...@gmail.com wrote: I have to agree with Mike. Human language is surprisingly tolerant of overloading and inference from context. Neurotypical people have no problem with it and perceive a software engineer's aversion to it as being pedantic and strange. Note that bits was a term for a unit of money long before the invention of digital computers. Aaron There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you -- Will Rodgers On Fri, May 2, 2014 at 7:06 PM, Gordon Mohr goj...@gmail.com wrote: [resend - apologies if duplicate] Microbitcoin is a good-sized unit, workable for everyday transaction values, with room-to-grow, and a nice relationship to satoshis as 'cents'. But bits has problems as a unit name. Bits will be especially problematic whenever people try to graduate from informal use to understanding the system internals - that is, when the real bits of key sizes, hash sizes, and storage/bandwidth needs become important. The bit as binary digit was important enough that Satoshi named the system after it; that homage gets lost if the word is muddied with a new retconned meaning that's quite different. Some examples of possible problems: * If bit equals 100 satoshis, then the natural-language unpacking of bit-coin is 100 satoshi coin, which runs against all prior usage. * If people are informed that a 256-bit private key is what ultimately controls their balances, it could prompt confusion like, if each key has 256-bits, will I need 40 keys to hold 10,000.00 bits? * When people learn that there are 8 bits to a byte, they may think, OK, my wallet holding my 80,000.00 bits will then take up 10 kilobytes. * When people naturally extend bit into kilobits to mean 1000 bits, then the new coinage kilobits will mean the exact same amount (100,000 satoshi) as many have already been calling millibits. I believe it'd be best to pick a new made-up single-syllable word as a synonym for microbitcoin, and I've laid out the case for zib as that word at http://zibcoin.org. 'Zib' also lends itself to an expressive unicode symbol, 'Ƶ' (Z-with-stroke), that remains distinctive even if it loses its stroke or gets case-reversed. (Comparatively, all 'b'-derived symbols for data-bits, bitcoins, or '100 satoshi bits' risk collision in contexts where subtleties of
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
I agree with the sentiment that most people don't understand either computer science or Bitcoin. The goal of getting people to understand enough about Bitcoin to use it is achievable and a goal that is in scope of our efforts. Getting them to understand computer science at large at the same time, less so. The fact that people routinely confuse RAM and hard drive sizes has much to do with the fact that the average lay person has little need to prioritize this as something to keep in the forefront. They don't get horribly confused, they just simply don't get worked up over what looks to them like a rounding error, much to the dismay of anyone who believes that everyone should be an expert at computer science. The average joe may assess (accurately from his perspective) that the distinction isn't important enough to merit significant mental resources and he is justified in not expending them that way even if someone else thinks he should. Poor understanding is precisely what a proper effort to name this would be to avoid. It is not frill or aesthetics, it is a planned targeting of language to achieve the clearest communication to the widest possible target audience using the language most likely to be understood by them in light of our objectives. It's marketing. Mike Sent from my iPhone On May 3, 2014, at 9:49 AM, Christophe Biocca christophe.bio...@gmail.com wrote: Context as a disambiguator works fine when the interlocutors understand the topics they're talking about. Not a day goes by without me seeing neurotypical people get horribly confused between RAM and Hard Drive sizes, because they share the same units (not that that can be helped, as the units are supposed to be the same, base 1000 vs 1024 notwithstanding). Bit (as a unit) is already really confusing for anyone who doesn't deal with it on a regular basis. I think people who don't see an issue are making an assumption based on their own lack of confusion. We understand computer science AND Bitcoin. Most people have zero understanding of either. Bitcoin already has a ton of issues with terrible names for things: - Mining (for transaction validation). - Addresses (which are meant to be one-time use, and don't even really exist at the network level). - Wallets (which don't hold your bitcoins, can be copied, and all backups can be stolen from equally). I end up having to make the distinctions obvious every time I explain Bitcoin to someone new to it. There's an acceptable tradeoff here, because there were arguably no better words to assign to these concepts (although I'd argue mining is a really awful metaphor, and is the one that prompts the most questions from people). Then add to the pile a bunch of third parties naming themselves after parts of the protocol (Coinbase,Blockchain.info). Not blaming them for it, but I've definitiely seen average people get confused between the blockchain and blockchain.info (not so much Coinbase, because that name doesn't come up in beginner explanations). It seems downright masochistic to add yet-another-word-that-doesn't-mean-what-you-think-it-means to the pile for no reason other than aesthetics. Are we actively trying to confuse people? -- Accelerate Dev Cycles with Automated Cross-Browser Testing - For FREE Instantly run your Selenium tests across 300+ browser/OS combos. Get unparalleled scalability from the best Selenium testing platform available. Simple to use. Nothing to install. Get started now for free. http://p.sf.net/sfu/SauceLabs ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
Absent a concerted effort to move to something else other than 'bits', I would be willing to bet the nomenclature moves in that direction anyway. 'Bits' is just a shorten word for 'millibits' (or microbits, if you will). It's easier to say and my guess is people would tend to use it naturally own their own. Kind of like 'bucks' for dollars. The other synergies are: -bit is part of the word Bitcoin. The currency unit bit is part of a whole bitcoin. -bit symbolically represents the tech nature of the bitcoin. -bit used to be a unit of money way back when. This largely reclaims it. -when used as money bit when in references to a precession metal coin. The name 'bitcoin' references that as well as the mimicking of the gold standard in the protocol rules. All around I don't think there is a better fit. I doubt people will get confused by it. The context it's used in will distinguish it from other uses of the word. On 05/03/2014 12:27 PM, Mike Caldwell wrote: I agree with the sentiment that most people don't understand either computer science or Bitcoin. The goal of getting people to understand enough about Bitcoin to use it is achievable and a goal that is in scope of our efforts. Getting them to understand computer science at large at the same time, less so. The fact that people routinely confuse RAM and hard drive sizes has much to do with the fact that the average lay person has little need to prioritize this as something to keep in the forefront. They don't get horribly confused, they just simply don't get worked up over what looks to them like a rounding error, much to the dismay of anyone who believes that everyone should be an expert at computer science. The average joe may assess (accurately from his perspective) that the distinction isn't important enough to merit significant mental resources and he is justified in not expending them that way even if someone else thinks he should. Poor understanding is precisely what a proper effort to name this would be to avoid. It is not frill or aesthetics, it is a planned targeting of language to achieve the clearest communication to the widest possible target audience using the language most likely to be understood by them in light of our objectives. It's marketing. Mike Sent from my iPhone On May 3, 2014, at 9:49 AM, Christophe Biocca christophe.bio...@gmail.com wrote: Context as a disambiguator works fine when the interlocutors understand the topics they're talking about. Not a day goes by without me seeing neurotypical people get horribly confused between RAM and Hard Drive sizes, because they share the same units (not that that can be helped, as the units are supposed to be the same, base 1000 vs 1024 notwithstanding). Bit (as a unit) is already really confusing for anyone who doesn't deal with it on a regular basis. I think people who don't see an issue are making an assumption based on their own lack of confusion. We understand computer science AND Bitcoin. Most people have zero understanding of either. Bitcoin already has a ton of issues with terrible names for things: - Mining (for transaction validation). - Addresses (which are meant to be one-time use, and don't even really exist at the network level). - Wallets (which don't hold your bitcoins, can be copied, and all backups can be stolen from equally). I end up having to make the distinctions obvious every time I explain Bitcoin to someone new to it. There's an acceptable tradeoff here, because there were arguably no better words to assign to these concepts (although I'd argue mining is a really awful metaphor, and is the one that prompts the most questions from people). Then add to the pile a bunch of third parties naming themselves after parts of the protocol (Coinbase,Blockchain.info). Not blaming them for it, but I've definitiely seen average people get confused between the blockchain and blockchain.info (not so much Coinbase, because that name doesn't come up in beginner explanations). It seems downright masochistic to add yet-another-word-that-doesn't-mean-what-you-think-it-means to the pile for no reason other than aesthetics. Are we actively trying to confuse people? -- Accelerate Dev Cycles with Automated Cross-Browser Testing - For FREE Instantly run your Selenium tests across 300+ browser/OS combos. Get unparalleled scalability from the best Selenium testing platform available. Simple to use. Nothing to install. Get started now for free. http://p.sf.net/sfu/SauceLabs ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Accelerate Dev Cycles with Automated Cross-Browser Testing - For FREE Instantly run
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
+1 On 4 May 2014 02:06, Chris Pacia ctpa...@gmail.com wrote: Absent a concerted effort to move to something else other than 'bits', I would be willing to bet the nomenclature moves in that direction anyway. 'Bits' is just a shorten word for 'millibits' (or microbits, if you will). It's easier to say and my guess is people would tend to use it naturally own their own. Kind of like 'bucks' for dollars. The other synergies are: -bit is part of the word Bitcoin. The currency unit bit is part of a whole bitcoin. -bit symbolically represents the tech nature of the bitcoin. -bit used to be a unit of money way back when. This largely reclaims it. -when used as money bit when in references to a precession metal coin. The name 'bitcoin' references that as well as the mimicking of the gold standard in the protocol rules. All around I don't think there is a better fit. I doubt people will get confused by it. The context it's used in will distinguish it from other uses of the word. On 05/03/2014 12:27 PM, Mike Caldwell wrote: I agree with the sentiment that most people don't understand either computer science or Bitcoin. The goal of getting people to understand enough about Bitcoin to use it is achievable and a goal that is in scope of our efforts. Getting them to understand computer science at large at the same time, less so. The fact that people routinely confuse RAM and hard drive sizes has much to do with the fact that the average lay person has little need to prioritize this as something to keep in the forefront. They don't get horribly confused, they just simply don't get worked up over what looks to them like a rounding error, much to the dismay of anyone who believes that everyone should be an expert at computer science. The average joe may assess (accurately from his perspective) that the distinction isn't important enough to merit significant mental resources and he is justified in not expending them that way even if someone else thinks he should. Poor understanding is precisely what a proper effort to name this would be to avoid. It is not frill or aesthetics, it is a planned targeting of language to achieve the clearest communication to the widest possible target audience using the language most likely to be understood by them in light of our objectives. It's marketing. Mike Sent from my iPhone On May 3, 2014, at 9:49 AM, Christophe Biocca christophe.bio...@gmail.com wrote: Context as a disambiguator works fine when the interlocutors understand the topics they're talking about. Not a day goes by without me seeing neurotypical people get horribly confused between RAM and Hard Drive sizes, because they share the same units (not that that can be helped, as the units are supposed to be the same, base 1000 vs 1024 notwithstanding). Bit (as a unit) is already really confusing for anyone who doesn't deal with it on a regular basis. I think people who don't see an issue are making an assumption based on their own lack of confusion. We understand computer science AND Bitcoin. Most people have zero understanding of either. Bitcoin already has a ton of issues with terrible names for things: - Mining (for transaction validation). - Addresses (which are meant to be one-time use, and don't even really exist at the network level). - Wallets (which don't hold your bitcoins, can be copied, and all backups can be stolen from equally). I end up having to make the distinctions obvious every time I explain Bitcoin to someone new to it. There's an acceptable tradeoff here, because there were arguably no better words to assign to these concepts (although I'd argue mining is a really awful metaphor, and is the one that prompts the most questions from people). Then add to the pile a bunch of third parties naming themselves after parts of the protocol (Coinbase,Blockchain.info). Not blaming them for it, but I've definitiely seen average people get confused between the blockchain and blockchain.info (not so much Coinbase, because that name doesn't come up in beginner explanations). It seems downright masochistic to add yet-another-word-that-doesn't-mean-what-you-think-it-means to the pile for no reason other than aesthetics. Are we actively trying to confuse people? -- Accelerate Dev Cycles with Automated Cross-Browser Testing - For FREE Instantly run your Selenium tests across 300+ browser/OS combos. Get unparalleled scalability from the best Selenium testing platform available. Simple to use. Nothing to install. Get started now for free. http://p.sf.net/sfu/SauceLabs ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
[resend - apologies if duplicate] Microbitcoin is a good-sized unit, workable for everyday transaction values, with room-to-grow, and a nice relationship to satoshis as 'cents'. But bits has problems as a unit name. Bits will be especially problematic whenever people try to graduate from informal use to understanding the system internals - that is, when the real bits of key sizes, hash sizes, and storage/bandwidth needs become important. The bit as binary digit was important enough that Satoshi named the system after it; that homage gets lost if the word is muddied with a new retconned meaning that's quite different. Some examples of possible problems: * If bit equals 100 satoshis, then the natural-language unpacking of bit-coin is 100 satoshi coin, which runs against all prior usage. * If people are informed that a 256-bit private key is what ultimately controls their balances, it could prompt confusion like, if each key has 256-bits, will I need 40 keys to hold 10,000.00 bits? * When people learn that there are 8 bits to a byte, they may think, OK, my wallet holding my 80,000.00 bits will then take up 10 kilobytes. * When people naturally extend bit into kilobits to mean 1000 bits, then the new coinage kilobits will mean the exact same amount (100,000 satoshi) as many have already been calling millibits. I believe it'd be best to pick a new made-up single-syllable word as a synonym for microbitcoin, and I've laid out the case for zib as that word at http://zibcoin.org. 'Zib' also lends itself to an expressive unicode symbol, 'Ƶ' (Z-with-stroke), that remains distinctive even if it loses its stroke or gets case-reversed. (Comparatively, all 'b'-derived symbols for data-bits, bitcoins, or '100 satoshi bits' risk collision in contexts where subtleties of casing/stroking are lost.) (There's summary of more problems with bit in the zibcoin.org FAQ at: http://zibcoin.org/faq#why-not-bits-to-mean-microbitcoins.) - Gordon On 5/1/14, 3:35 PM, Aaron Voisine wrote: I'm also a big fan of standardizing on microBTC as the standard unit. I didn't like the name bits at first, but the more I think about it, the more I like it. The main thing going for it is the fact that it's part of the name bitcoin. If Bitcoin is the protocol and network, bits are an obvious choice for the currency unit. I would like to propose using Unicode character U+0180, lowercase b with stroke, as the symbol to represent the microBTC denomination, whether we call bits or something else: http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/0180/index.htm Another candidate is Unicode character U+2422, the blank symbol, but I prefer stroke b. http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/2422/index.htm Aaron There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you -- Will Rodgers On Apr 21, 2014 5:41 AM, Pieter Wuille pieter.wuille@gm... wrote: On Apr 21, 2014 3:37 AM, Un Ix slashdevnull@... wrote: Something tells me this would be reduced to a single syllable in common usage I.e. bit. What units will be called colloquially is not something developers will determine. It will vary, depend on language and culture, and is not relevant to this discussion in my opinion. It may well be that people in some geographic or language area will end up (or for a while) calling 1e-06 BTC bits. That's fine, but using that as official name in software would be very strange and potentially confusing in my opinion. As mentioned by others, that would seem to me like calling dollars bucks in bank software. Nobody seems to have a problem with having colloquial names, but US dollar or euro are far less ambiguous than bit. I think we need a more distinctive name. -- Pieter -- Accelerate Dev Cycles with Automated Cross-Browser Testing - For FREE Instantly run your Selenium tests across 300+ browser/OS combos. Get unparalleled scalability from the best Selenium testing platform available. Simple to use. Nothing to install. Get started now for free. http://p.sf.net/sfu/SauceLabs ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Accelerate Dev Cycles with Automated Cross-Browser Testing - For FREE Instantly run your Selenium tests across 300+ browser/OS combos. Get unparalleled scalability from the best Selenium testing platform available. Simple to use. Nothing to install. Get started now for free. http://p.sf.net/sfu/SauceLabs ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
I have to agree with Mike. Human language is surprisingly tolerant of overloading and inference from context. Neurotypical people have no problem with it and perceive a software engineer's aversion to it as being pedantic and strange. Note that bits was a term for a unit of money long before the invention of digital computers. Aaron There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you -- Will Rodgers On Fri, May 2, 2014 at 7:06 PM, Gordon Mohr goj...@gmail.com wrote: [resend - apologies if duplicate] Microbitcoin is a good-sized unit, workable for everyday transaction values, with room-to-grow, and a nice relationship to satoshis as 'cents'. But bits has problems as a unit name. Bits will be especially problematic whenever people try to graduate from informal use to understanding the system internals - that is, when the real bits of key sizes, hash sizes, and storage/bandwidth needs become important. The bit as binary digit was important enough that Satoshi named the system after it; that homage gets lost if the word is muddied with a new retconned meaning that's quite different. Some examples of possible problems: * If bit equals 100 satoshis, then the natural-language unpacking of bit-coin is 100 satoshi coin, which runs against all prior usage. * If people are informed that a 256-bit private key is what ultimately controls their balances, it could prompt confusion like, if each key has 256-bits, will I need 40 keys to hold 10,000.00 bits? * When people learn that there are 8 bits to a byte, they may think, OK, my wallet holding my 80,000.00 bits will then take up 10 kilobytes. * When people naturally extend bit into kilobits to mean 1000 bits, then the new coinage kilobits will mean the exact same amount (100,000 satoshi) as many have already been calling millibits. I believe it'd be best to pick a new made-up single-syllable word as a synonym for microbitcoin, and I've laid out the case for zib as that word at http://zibcoin.org. 'Zib' also lends itself to an expressive unicode symbol, 'Ƶ' (Z-with-stroke), that remains distinctive even if it loses its stroke or gets case-reversed. (Comparatively, all 'b'-derived symbols for data-bits, bitcoins, or '100 satoshi bits' risk collision in contexts where subtleties of casing/stroking are lost.) (There's summary of more problems with bit in the zibcoin.org FAQ at: http://zibcoin.org/faq#why-not-bits-to-mean-microbitcoins.) - Gordon On 5/1/14, 3:35 PM, Aaron Voisine wrote: I'm also a big fan of standardizing on microBTC as the standard unit. I didn't like the name bits at first, but the more I think about it, the more I like it. The main thing going for it is the fact that it's part of the name bitcoin. If Bitcoin is the protocol and network, bits are an obvious choice for the currency unit. I would like to propose using Unicode character U+0180, lowercase b with stroke, as the symbol to represent the microBTC denomination, whether we call bits or something else: http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/0180/index.htm Another candidate is Unicode character U+2422, the blank symbol, but I prefer stroke b. http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/2422/index.htm Aaron There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you -- Will Rodgers On Apr 21, 2014 5:41 AM, Pieter Wuille pieter.wuille@gm... wrote: On Apr 21, 2014 3:37 AM, Un Ix slashdevnull@... wrote: Something tells me this would be reduced to a single syllable in common usage I.e. bit. What units will be called colloquially is not something developers will determine. It will vary, depend on language and culture, and is not relevant to this discussion in my opinion. It may well be that people in some geographic or language area will end up (or for a while) calling 1e-06 BTC bits. That's fine, but using that as official name in software would be very strange and potentially confusing in my opinion. As mentioned by others, that would seem to me like calling dollars bucks in bank software. Nobody seems to have a problem with having colloquial names, but US dollar or euro are far less ambiguous than bit. I think we need a more distinctive name. -- Pieter -- Accelerate Dev Cycles with Automated Cross-Browser Testing - For FREE Instantly run your Selenium tests across 300+ browser/OS combos. Get unparalleled scalability from the best Selenium testing platform available. Simple to use. Nothing to install. Get started now for free. http://p.sf.net/sfu/SauceLabs ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Accelerate Dev Cycles with
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
I'm also a big fan of standardizing on microBTC as the standard unit. I didn't like the name bits at first, but the more I think about it, the more I like it. The main thing going for it is the fact that it's part of the name bitcoin. If Bitcoin is the protocol and network, bits are an obvious choice for the currency unit. I would like to propose using Unicode character U+0180, lowercase b with stroke, as the symbol to represent the microBTC denomination, whether we call bits or something else: http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/0180/index.htm Another candidate is Unicode character U+2422, the blank symbol, but I prefer stroke b. http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/2422/index.htm Aaron There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you -- Will Rodgers On Apr 21, 2014 5:41 AM, Pieter Wuille pieter.wuille@gm... wrote: On Apr 21, 2014 3:37 AM, Un Ix slashdevnull@... wrote: Something tells me this would be reduced to a single syllable in common usage I.e. bit. What units will be called colloquially is not something developers will determine. It will vary, depend on language and culture, and is not relevant to this discussion in my opinion. It may well be that people in some geographic or language area will end up (or for a while) calling 1e-06 BTC bits. That's fine, but using that as official name in software would be very strange and potentially confusing in my opinion. As mentioned by others, that would seem to me like calling dollars bucks in bank software. Nobody seems to have a problem with having colloquial names, but US dollar or euro are far less ambiguous than bit. I think we need a more distinctive name. -- Pieter -- Accelerate Dev Cycles with Automated Cross-Browser Testing - For FREE Instantly run your Selenium tests across 300+ browser/OS combos. Get unparalleled scalability from the best Selenium testing platform available. Simple to use. Nothing to install. Get started now for free. http://p.sf.net/sfu/SauceLabs ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
It seems to me that xbit is no more distinct or intuitive than µbit. In either case it's simply an arbitrary character in front of the word bit. Of course, for the majority of the world familiar with SI, the µ actually adds additional meaning that is lost with the x. Furthermore, given the multiple concerns voiced about the overuse of the word bit, µBTC seems to solve the problem. Since we are talking about how it would be displayed in software, we don't need to be concerned about how people will pronounce it, or what the nickname will be. If most of the wallets start displaying amounts in µBTC quantities, it will be obvious that a µBTC is a different magnitude than a BTC. Nobody is going to look at their 100,000 µBTC balance and think they have 100,000 BTC. People will immediately make the mental adjustment to the new order of magnitude even if they don't specifically know that µ means micro, or that micro means 1e-6. Nicknames will form organically (much like buck, fin, large, k, grand, and benny for U.S. currency), I've always been partial to milly (or millie) and mike (or micky) as nicknames for mBTC and µBTC. I've personally used those when speaking with people, and they seem to catch on pretty quickly. As has already been mentioned, you're going to be hard pressed to find software that denotes U.S. balances in bucks. There isn't any good reason to be coding a nickname like bit, xbit, or mike into wallet software. - Danny Hamilton On Tue, Apr 22, 2014 at 8:51 AM, Aaron Axvig aa...@axvigs.com wrote: That piece of horse equipment is called a bit in the US too. But the point stands: most people don't use bit on a daily basis other than referring to a little bit of something. -Original Message- From: Wladimir [mailto:laa...@gmail.com] Sent: Sunday, April 20, 2014 11:27 AM To: Chris Pacia Cc: Bitcoin Dev Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account On Sun, Apr 20, 2014 at 6:19 PM, Chris Pacia ctpa...@gmail.com wrote: The term bit is really only overloaded for those who are techy. 95% of the population never uses the term bit in their daily lives and I doubt most could even name one use of the term. Plus bit used to be a unit of money way back when, so this is kind of reclaiming it. I think it's a great fit. That's a very anglocentric way of thinking. Here in the Netherlands, a bit is something you put in a horses's mouth. It's also used as imported word (in the information sense). We've never used the term for money. Wladimir -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Start Your Social Network Today - Download eXo Platform Build your Enterprise Intranet with eXo Platform Software Java Based Open Source Intranet - Social, Extensible, Cloud Ready Get Started Now And Turn Your Intranet Into A Collaboration Platform http://p.sf.net/sfu/ExoPlatform ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Start Your Social Network Today - Download eXo Platform Build your Enterprise Intranet with eXo Platform Software Java Based Open Source Intranet - Social, Extensible, Cloud Ready Get Started Now And Turn Your Intranet Into A Collaboration Platform http://p.sf.net/sfu/ExoPlatform___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
The problem is µBTC that bit tries to solve. BTC, mBTC and µBTC are just too similiar for enyone else than engineers. The mixed use of them leads to misunderstanding. I think adoption would benefit of a single unit with easily remembered and associated name that has no smaller than 1/100 fractions called satoshis. Regards, Tamás Blummer Founder, CEO http://bitsofproof.com On 23.04.2014, at 11:44, Danny Hamilton danny.hamil...@gmail.com wrote: It seems to me that xbit is no more distinct or intuitive than µbit. In either case it's simply an arbitrary character in front of the word bit. Of course, for the majority of the world familiar with SI, the µ actually adds additional meaning that is lost with the x. Furthermore, given the multiple concerns voiced about the overuse of the word bit, µBTC seems to solve the problem. Since we are talking about how it would be displayed in software, we don't need to be concerned about how people will pronounce it, or what the nickname will be. If most of the wallets start displaying amounts in µBTC quantities, it will be obvious that a µBTC is a different magnitude than a BTC. Nobody is going to look at their 100,000 µBTC balance and think they have 100,000 BTC. People will immediately make the mental adjustment to the new order of magnitude even if they don't specifically know that µ means micro, or that micro means 1e-6. Nicknames will form organically (much like buck, fin, large, k, grand, and benny for U.S. currency), I've always been partial to milly (or millie) and mike (or micky) as nicknames for mBTC and µBTC. I've personally used those when speaking with people, and they seem to catch on pretty quickly. As has already been mentioned, you're going to be hard pressed to find software that denotes U.S. balances in bucks. There isn't any good reason to be coding a nickname like bit, xbit, or mike into wallet software. - Danny Hamilton On Tue, Apr 22, 2014 at 8:51 AM, Aaron Axvig aa...@axvigs.com wrote: That piece of horse equipment is called a bit in the US too. But the point stands: most people don't use bit on a daily basis other than referring to a little bit of something. -Original Message- From: Wladimir [mailto:laa...@gmail.com] Sent: Sunday, April 20, 2014 11:27 AM To: Chris Pacia Cc: Bitcoin Dev Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account On Sun, Apr 20, 2014 at 6:19 PM, Chris Pacia ctpa...@gmail.com wrote: The term bit is really only overloaded for those who are techy. 95% of the population never uses the term bit in their daily lives and I doubt most could even name one use of the term. Plus bit used to be a unit of money way back when, so this is kind of reclaiming it. I think it's a great fit. That's a very anglocentric way of thinking. Here in the Netherlands, a bit is something you put in a horses's mouth. It's also used as imported word (in the information sense). We've never used the term for money. Wladimir -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Start Your Social Network Today - Download eXo Platform Build your Enterprise Intranet with eXo Platform Software Java Based Open Source Intranet - Social, Extensible, Cloud Ready Get Started Now And Turn Your Intranet Into A Collaboration Platform http://p.sf.net/sfu/ExoPlatform ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Start Your Social Network Today - Download eXo Platform Build your Enterprise Intranet with eXo Platform Software Java Based Open Source Intranet - Social, Extensible, Cloud Ready Get Started Now And Turn Your Intranet Into A Collaboration Platform http://p.sf.net/sfu/ExoPlatform___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development signature.asc Description: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail -- Start Your Social Network Today - Download eXo Platform Build your Enterprise Intranet with eXo Platform Software Java
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
I have a rather off-beat suggestion. Perhaps decimal was not satoshi's intention. In old English money 1 guinea is 21 shillings. I wonder if 1 million guineas is more or less the total number of bitcoins = 21 million shillings. There was also the notion of bits (two bob bits = 1 florin = 2 shillings). I quite like the idea as it's absolutely not expected. Old English money is a funny mix of decimal and imperial (base12) measures but may have some interesting properties, one of which would be to have multiple names for overlapping layers not just the 2 or 3 that has been mentioned here and elsewhere. I wonder in the long run if this will not just naturally occur anyway. Regards Chris D'Costa Email: chris_dco...@meek.io Sent from my iPhone On 23 Apr 2014, at 11:56, Tamas Blummer ta...@bitsofproof.com wrote: The problem is µBTC that bit tries to solve. BTC, mBTC and µBTC are just too similiar for enyone else than engineers. The mixed use of them leads to misunderstanding. I think adoption would benefit of a single unit with easily remembered and associated name that has no smaller than 1/100 fractions called satoshis. Regards, Tamás Blummer Founder, CEO email.png http://bitsofproof.com On 23.04.2014, at 11:44, Danny Hamilton danny.hamil...@gmail.com wrote: It seems to me that xbit is no more distinct or intuitive than µbit. In either case it's simply an arbitrary character in front of the word bit. Of course, for the majority of the world familiar with SI, the µ actually adds additional meaning that is lost with the x. Furthermore, given the multiple concerns voiced about the overuse of the word bit, µBTC seems to solve the problem. Since we are talking about how it would be displayed in software, we don't need to be concerned about how people will pronounce it, or what the nickname will be. If most of the wallets start displaying amounts in µBTC quantities, it will be obvious that a µBTC is a different magnitude than a BTC. Nobody is going to look at their 100,000 µBTC balance and think they have 100,000 BTC. People will immediately make the mental adjustment to the new order of magnitude even if they don't specifically know that µ means micro, or that micro means 1e-6. Nicknames will form organically (much like buck, fin, large, k, grand, and benny for U.S. currency), I've always been partial to milly (or millie) and mike (or micky) as nicknames for mBTC and µBTC. I've personally used those when speaking with people, and they seem to catch on pretty quickly. As has already been mentioned, you're going to be hard pressed to find software that denotes U.S. balances in bucks. There isn't any good reason to be coding a nickname like bit, xbit, or mike into wallet software. - Danny Hamilton On Tue, Apr 22, 2014 at 8:51 AM, Aaron Axvig aa...@axvigs.com wrote: That piece of horse equipment is called a bit in the US too. But the point stands: most people don't use bit on a daily basis other than referring to a little bit of something. -Original Message- From: Wladimir [mailto:laa...@gmail.com] Sent: Sunday, April 20, 2014 11:27 AM To: Chris Pacia Cc: Bitcoin Dev Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account On Sun, Apr 20, 2014 at 6:19 PM, Chris Pacia ctpa...@gmail.com wrote: The term bit is really only overloaded for those who are techy. 95% of the population never uses the term bit in their daily lives and I doubt most could even name one use of the term. Plus bit used to be a unit of money way back when, so this is kind of reclaiming it. I think it's a great fit. That's a very anglocentric way of thinking. Here in the Netherlands, a bit is something you put in a horses's mouth. It's also used as imported word (in the information sense). We've never used the term for money. Wladimir -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Start Your Social Network Today - Download eXo Platform Build your Enterprise Intranet with eXo Platform Software Java Based Open Source Intranet - Social, Extensible, Cloud Ready Get Started Now And Turn Your Intranet Into A Collaboration Platform http://p.sf.net/sfu/ExoPlatform ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
I am in favor of xbit, my only concern is if average Joes will consider that name stupid (like various attempts at cool branding with unusual letters like Q, X, Z, etc). We should see if we can get support for it in the community and if there would be any notable opposition against it or not. If there's no significant opposition and most people are in favor, I'd say go ahead. - Sent from my phone Den 21 apr 2014 11:38 skrev Tamas Blummer ta...@bitsofproof.com: Thomas V: Your proposal misses the points that: - this is about a unit with 1e-6 Bitcoins or 100 satoshis. - it is not about people who know Bitcoin and are techies, but about those who don’t and aren’t. The reasons for such a unit are more than shifting the comma some places for convinience, but to align Bitcoin with capabilities of existing financial software and customs of finance and average people, and ISO standard of currency abbreviations. bit and XBT seems to check the boxes. I would love to have some feedback on xbit as per my previous mail. Regards, Tamas Blummer http://bitsofproof.com -- Start Your Social Network Today - Download eXo Platform Build your Enterprise Intranet with eXo Platform Software Java Based Open Source Intranet - Social, Extensible, Cloud Ready Get Started Now And Turn Your Intranet Into A Collaboration Platform http://p.sf.net/sfu/ExoPlatform ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Start Your Social Network Today - Download eXo Platform Build your Enterprise Intranet with eXo Platform Software Java Based Open Source Intranet - Social, Extensible, Cloud Ready Get Started Now And Turn Your Intranet Into A Collaboration Platform http://p.sf.net/sfu/ExoPlatform___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
Here is one to please those looking for a “fully qualified” slang word, that links with the official XBT: xbit (spoken: ex-bit) would rationalise XBT (where X comes from supranational use) and is unique. I personally associate from x to six also supporting the 1e-6 divisor of Bitcoin. Regarding XBT: No matter who used it for what. The way Bloomberg will use it will define its use in finance, and since that did not happen yet, we are not late to shape. Regards, Tamas Blummer http://bitsofproof.com On 21.04.2014, at 07:41, Pieter Wuille pieter.wui...@gmail.com wrote: On Apr 21, 2014 3:37 AM, Un Ix slashdevn...@hotmail.com wrote: Something tells me this would be reduced to a single syllable in common usage I.e. bit. What units will be called colloquially is not something developers will determine. It will vary, depend on language and culture, and is not relevant to this discussion in my opinion. It may well be that people in some geographic or language area will end up (or for a while) calling 1e-06 BTC bits. That's fine, but using that as official name in software would be very strange and potentially confusing in my opinion. As mentioned by others, that would seem to me like calling dollars bucks in bank software. Nobody seems to have a problem with having colloquial names, but US dollar or euro are far less ambiguous than bit. I think we need a more distinctive name. -- Pieter -- Start Your Social Network Today - Download eXo Platform Build your Enterprise Intranet with eXo Platform Software Java Based Open Source Intranet - Social, Extensible, Cloud Ready Get Started Now And Turn Your Intranet Into A Collaboration Platform http://p.sf.net/sfu/ExoPlatform___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development signature.asc Description: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail -- Start Your Social Network Today - Download eXo Platform Build your Enterprise Intranet with eXo Platform Software Java Based Open Source Intranet - Social, Extensible, Cloud Ready Get Started Now And Turn Your Intranet Into A Collaboration Platform http://p.sf.net/sfu/ExoPlatform___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
Let me make a sacrilegious proposal: keep using the name bitcoin, and shift the decimal point. There would be a short adaption period, where people will need to talk about new bitcoins and old bitcoins in order to disambiguate them. However, Bitcoin users are techies, so I don't think that the ambiguity will be a big issue. I don't think lots of people will mistakenly send 1000 times more than the amount they intended. The name bitcoin has a huge advantage over any other proposal, because it is already established. No marketing is needed. This kind of renaming has already taken place many times in history, because the currency was debased. Bitcoin would be the first time it happens in the other direction. -- Start Your Social Network Today - Download eXo Platform Build your Enterprise Intranet with eXo Platform Software Java Based Open Source Intranet - Social, Extensible, Cloud Ready Get Started Now And Turn Your Intranet Into A Collaboration Platform http://p.sf.net/sfu/ExoPlatform ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
Thomas V: Your proposal misses the points that: - this is about a unit with 1e-6 Bitcoins or 100 satoshis. - it is not about people who know Bitcoin and are techies, but about those who don’t and aren’t. The reasons for such a unit are more than shifting the comma some places for convinience, but to align Bitcoin with capabilities of existing financial software and customs of finance and average people, and ISO standard of currency abbreviations. bit and XBT seems to check the boxes. I would love to have some feedback on xbit as per my previous mail. Regards, Tamas Blummer http://bitsofproof.com signature.asc Description: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail -- Start Your Social Network Today - Download eXo Platform Build your Enterprise Intranet with eXo Platform Software Java Based Open Source Intranet - Social, Extensible, Cloud Ready Get Started Now And Turn Your Intranet Into A Collaboration Platform http://p.sf.net/sfu/ExoPlatform___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
Tamas, xbit is only a typo or spelling error away from XBT, and some folks may assume they refer to the same unit of measure, not knowing the new currency system as developers here do. From your email, I got the idea of using x as a suffix at the end of a number of bits e.g. 17500x, like cents or centavos. I guess this might clash with formal S.I. notation but it's easy to read and has less ambiguity, IMHO. On 21/04/2014, at 2:21 pm, Tamas Blummer ta...@bitsofproof.com wrote: Here is one to please those looking for a “fully qualified” slang word, that links with the official XBT: xbit (spoken: ex-bit) would rationalise XBT (where X comes from supranational use) and is unique. I personally associate from x to six also supporting the 1e-6 divisor of Bitcoin. Regarding XBT: No matter who used it for what. The way Bloomberg will use it will define its use in finance, and since that did not happen yet, we are not late to shape. Regards, Tamas Blummer http://bitsofproof.com On 21.04.2014, at 07:41, Pieter Wuille pieter.wui...@gmail.com wrote: On Apr 21, 2014 3:37 AM, Un Ix slashdevn...@hotmail.com wrote: Something tells me this would be reduced to a single syllable in common usage I.e. bit. What units will be called colloquially is not something developers will determine. It will vary, depend on language and culture, and is not relevant to this discussion in my opinion. It may well be that people in some geographic or language area will end up (or for a while) calling 1e-06 BTC bits. That's fine, but using that as official name in software would be very strange and potentially confusing in my opinion. As mentioned by others, that would seem to me like calling dollars bucks in bank software. Nobody seems to have a problem with having colloquial names, but US dollar or euro are far less ambiguous than bit. I think we need a more distinctive name. -- Pieter -- Start Your Social Network Today - Download eXo Platform Build your Enterprise Intranet with eXo Platform Software Java Based Open Source Intranet - Social, Extensible, Cloud Ready Get Started Now And Turn Your Intranet Into A Collaboration Platform http://p.sf.net/sfu/ExoPlatform___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Start Your Social Network Today - Download eXo Platform Build your Enterprise Intranet with eXo Platform Software Java Based Open Source Intranet - Social, Extensible, Cloud Ready Get Started Now And Turn Your Intranet Into A Collaboration Platform http://p.sf.net/sfu/ExoPlatform___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
xbit is close to XBT because it would be the same unit, both would mean 100 satoshi or 1e-6 Bitcoin. xbit would be for everyday use, XBT for ISO. I know, the XBT was used by some sites to be a synonym for BTC that is however in my opinion not yet graved in stone until it is used by e.g. Bloomberg. Regards, Tamas Blummer http://bitsofproof.com On 21.04.2014, at 14:14, Un Ix slashdevn...@hotmail.com wrote: Tamas, xbit is only a typo or spelling error away from XBT, and some folks may assume they refer to the same unit of measure, not knowing the new currency system as developers here do. signature.asc Description: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail -- Start Your Social Network Today - Download eXo Platform Build your Enterprise Intranet with eXo Platform Software Java Based Open Source Intranet - Social, Extensible, Cloud Ready Get Started Now And Turn Your Intranet Into A Collaboration Platform http://p.sf.net/sfu/ExoPlatform___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
I told him specifically to bring it here (on a pull request for Bitcoin Core), as there is no point in making such convention changes to just one client. I wasn't aware of any discussion about the bits proposal here before. On Sun, Apr 20, 2014 at 4:28 PM, Tamas Blummer ta...@bitsofproof.com wrote: People on this list are mostly engineers who have no problem dealing with magnitudes and have rather limited empathy for people who have a problem with them. They also tend to think, that because they invented money 2.0 they would not need to care of finance's or people's current customs. The importance of their decisions in these questions will fade as people already use wallets other than the core. Bring this particular discussion elsewhere, to the wallet developer. BTW the topic was discussed here several times, you have my support and Jeff Garzik's. Regards, Tamas Blummer http://bitsofproof.com On 20.04.2014, at 15:15, Rob Golding rob.gold...@astutium.com wrote: The average person is not going to be confident that the prefix they are using is the correct one, The use of any 'prefix' is one of choice and entirely unnecessary, and there are already established 'divisions' in u/mBTC for those that feel they need to use such things. people WILL send 1000x more or less than intended if we go down this road, Exceptionally unlikely - I deal every day with currencies with 0, 2 and 3 dp's in amount ranging from 'under 1 whole unit' to tens of thousands - Not once in 20 years has anyone ever 'sent' more or less than intended - oh, they've 'intended' to underpay just fine, but never *unintended*. I propose that users are offered a preference to denominate the Bitcoin currency in a unit called a bit. Where one bitcoin (BTC) equals one million bits (bits) and one bit equals 100 satoshis. I propose that for people unable to understand what a bitcoin is, they can just use satoshi's and drop this entire proposal. Rob -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
If you absolutely want a name for some small unit (which may be valuable, not knocking that part of the idea), please use anything other than bits, which is already a massively overloaded term that will confuse the hell out of people: Harddrive costs measured in bits per gigabyte? An itunes movie download that costs 200,000 bits and takes 804.2 megabytes of space? Or a 10-megabit internet connection costing 10,000,000 bits per month? It's especially bad given that bitcoin will likely be adopted first for online use, where the competing (and more recognized) meaning of bit is most prevalent. Not to mention the overlap within bitcoin itself, with people already using millibits in conversation as a shorthand for mBTC. Hence one new bit is exactly 1/1000 of the old millibit. Make something up if you have to, or just use satoshis. On Sun, Apr 20, 2014 at 10:28 AM, Tamas Blummer ta...@bitsofproof.com wrote: People on this list are mostly engineers who have no problem dealing with magnitudes and have rather limited empathy for people who have a problem with them. They also tend to think, that because they invented money 2.0 they would not need to care of finance’s or people’s current customs. The importance of their decisions in these questions will fade as people already use wallets other than the core. Bring this particular discussion elsewhere, to the wallet developer. BTW the topic was discussed here several times, you have my support and Jeff Garzik’s. Regards, Tamas Blummer http://bitsofproof.com On 20.04.2014, at 15:15, Rob Golding rob.gold...@astutium.com wrote: The average person is not going to be confident that the prefix they are using is the correct one, The use of any 'prefix' is one of choice and entirely unnecessary, and there are already established 'divisions' in u/mBTC for those that feel they need to use such things. people WILL send 1000x more or less than intended if we go down this road, Exceptionally unlikely - I deal every day with currencies with 0, 2 and 3 dp's in amount ranging from 'under 1 whole unit' to tens of thousands - Not once in 20 years has anyone ever 'sent' more or less than intended - oh, they've 'intended' to underpay just fine, but never *unintended*. I propose that users are offered a preference to denominate the Bitcoin currency in a unit called a bit. Where one bitcoin (BTC) equals one million bits (bits) and one bit equals 100 satoshis. I propose that for people unable to understand what a bitcoin is, they can just use satoshi's and drop this entire proposal. Rob -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
Here is an earlier reference to bits: https://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development%40lists.sourceforge.net/msg04248.html I forgot that Alan Reiner was also supporting a unit equals to bits : https://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development%40lists.sourceforge.net/msg04264.html and here the earlier going back to March 2013 and a poll at that time pushing for XBT being 1 bit https://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development%40lists.sourceforge.net/msg04256.html Regards, Tamas Blummer http://bitsofproof.com On 20.04.2014, at 16:53, Pieter Wuille pieter.wui...@gmail.com wrote: I told him specifically to bring it here (on a pull request for Bitcoin Core), as there is no point in making such convention changes to just one client. I wasn't aware of any discussion about the bits proposal here before. On Sun, Apr 20, 2014 at 4:28 PM, Tamas Blummer ta...@bitsofproof.com wrote: People on this list are mostly engineers who have no problem dealing with magnitudes and have rather limited empathy for people who have a problem with them. They also tend to think, that because they invented money 2.0 they would not need to care of finance's or people's current customs. The importance of their decisions in these questions will fade as people already use wallets other than the core. Bring this particular discussion elsewhere, to the wallet developer. BTW the topic was discussed here several times, you have my support and Jeff Garzik's. Regards, Tamas Blummer http://bitsofproof.com On 20.04.2014, at 15:15, Rob Golding rob.gold...@astutium.com wrote: The average person is not going to be confident that the prefix they are using is the correct one, The use of any 'prefix' is one of choice and entirely unnecessary, and there are already established 'divisions' in u/mBTC for those that feel they need to use such things. people WILL send 1000x more or less than intended if we go down this road, Exceptionally unlikely - I deal every day with currencies with 0, 2 and 3 dp's in amount ranging from 'under 1 whole unit' to tens of thousands - Not once in 20 years has anyone ever 'sent' more or less than intended - oh, they've 'intended' to underpay just fine, but never *unintended*. I propose that users are offered a preference to denominate the Bitcoin currency in a unit called a bit. Where one bitcoin (BTC) equals one million bits (bits) and one bit equals 100 satoshis. I propose that for people unable to understand what a bitcoin is, they can just use satoshi's and drop this entire proposal. Rob -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development signature.asc Description: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
I've been a staunch supporter of microbitcoin and would like to do anything I can to make sure that we jump directly to it if we're going to promote changing the default units. And I'm happy to integrate it into Armory as a default (with appropriate explanations and settings/options). I'm not so convinced about the bits name though -- I do like it, but I do also think that word is too overloaded. Though, I think we could get away with it. (Sadly, I still use microbes occasionally (as in *microb*itcoin) when I'm talking to coworkers, because it slips off the tongue and is actually a good combination of brevity and self-explanatory -- it just doesn't instill the right visuals...) We started integrating alternative units into Armory. But, of course, there were a few more loose ends than I expected, which will require some work. We want to put it in but not necessarily change the default right away. I'd /prefer/ we get some commitments from some other wallet developers, so we can make a unified push for it. I'm happy to lead that and make it default as long as I'm not the only one in the world doing it. -Alan On 04/20/2014 11:05 AM, Tamas Blummer wrote: Here is an earlier reference to bits: https://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development%40lists.sourceforge.net/msg04248.html https://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net/msg04248.html I forgot that Alan Reiner was also supporting a unit equals to bits : https://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development%40lists.sourceforge.net/msg04264.html https://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net/msg04264.html and here the earlier going back to March 2013 and a poll at that time pushing for XBT being 1 bit https://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development%40lists.sourceforge.net/msg04256.html https://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net/msg04256.html Regards, Tamas Blummer http://bitsofproof.com On 20.04.2014, at 16:53, Pieter Wuille pieter.wui...@gmail.com mailto:pieter.wui...@gmail.com wrote: I told him specifically to bring it here (on a pull request for Bitcoin Core), as there is no point in making such convention changes to just one client. I wasn't aware of any discussion about the bits proposal here before. On Sun, Apr 20, 2014 at 4:28 PM, Tamas Blummer ta...@bitsofproof.com mailto:ta...@bitsofproof.com wrote: People on this list are mostly engineers who have no problem dealing with magnitudes and have rather limited empathy for people who have a problem with them. They also tend to think, that because they invented money 2.0 they would not need to care of finance's or people's current customs. The importance of their decisions in these questions will fade as people already use wallets other than the core. Bring this particular discussion elsewhere, to the wallet developer. BTW the topic was discussed here several times, you have my support and Jeff Garzik's. Regards, Tamas Blummer http://bitsofproof.com On 20.04.2014, at 15:15, Rob Golding rob.gold...@astutium.com wrote: The average person is not going to be confident that the prefix they are using is the correct one, The use of any 'prefix' is one of choice and entirely unnecessary, and there are already established 'divisions' in u/mBTC for those that feel they need to use such things. people WILL send 1000x more or less than intended if we go down this road, Exceptionally unlikely - I deal every day with currencies with 0, 2 and 3 dp's in amount ranging from 'under 1 whole unit' to tens of thousands - Not once in 20 years has anyone ever 'sent' more or less than intended - oh, they've 'intended' to underpay just fine, but never *unintended*. I propose that users are offered a preference to denominate the Bitcoin currency in a unit called a bit. Where one bitcoin (BTC) equals one million bits (bits) and one bit equals 100 satoshis. I propose that for people unable to understand what a bitcoin is, they can just use satoshi's and drop this entire proposal. Rob -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
The world is rapidly becoming a place in which a solid grasp of orders of magnitude could be considered a basic mathematical skill. People are very likely to learn what mBTC and µBTC are simply because they risk their money if they do not. This is not a bad thing and I think stands only to help people who learn about these monikers for orders of magnitude this way. Any appropriate nicknames for these denominations is sure to develop in due course. Promoting an already-overloaded term that could just as easily be applied colloquially to refer to a small amount of value in any currency seems problematic. I've been a staunch supporter of microbitcoin and would like to do anything I can to make sure that we jump directly to it if we're going to promote changing the default units. And I'm happy to integrate it into Armory as a default (with appropriate explanations and settings/options). I'm not so convinced about the bits name though -- I do like it, but I do also think that word is too overloaded. Though, I think we could get away with it. (Sadly, I still use microbes occasionally (as in *microb*itcoin) when I'm talking to coworkers, because it slips off the tongue and is actually a good combination of brevity and self-explanatory -- it just doesn't instill the right visuals...) We started integrating alternative units into Armory. But, of course, there were a few more loose ends than I expected, which will require some work. We want to put it in but not necessarily change the default right away. I'd *prefer* we get some commitments from some other wallet developers, so we can make a unified push for it. I'm happy to lead that and make it default as long as I'm not the only one in the world doing it. -Alan On 04/20/2014 11:05 AM, Tamas Blummer wrote: Here is an earlier reference to bits: https://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development%40lists.sourceforge.net/msg04248.htmlhttps://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net/msg04248.html I forgot that Alan Reiner was also supporting a unit equals to bits : https://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development%40lists.sourceforge.net/msg04264.htmlhttps://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net/msg04264.html and here the earlier going back to March 2013 and a poll at that time pushing for XBT being 1 bit https://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development%40lists.sourceforge.net/msg04256.htmlhttps://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net/msg04256.html Regards, Tamas Blummer http://bitsofproof.com On 20.04.2014, at 16:53, Pieter Wuille pieter.wui...@gmail.com wrote: I told him specifically to bring it here (on a pull request for Bitcoin Core), as there is no point in making such convention changes to just one client. I wasn't aware of any discussion about the bits proposal here before. On Sun, Apr 20, 2014 at 4:28 PM, Tamas Blummer ta...@bitsofproof.com wrote: People on this list are mostly engineers who have no problem dealing with magnitudes and have rather limited empathy for people who have a problem with them. They also tend to think, that because they invented money 2.0 they would not need to care of finance's or people's current customs. The importance of their decisions in these questions will fade as people already use wallets other than the core. Bring this particular discussion elsewhere, to the wallet developer. BTW the topic was discussed here several times, you have my support and Jeff Garzik's. Regards, Tamas Blummer http://bitsofproof.com On 20.04.2014, at 15:15, Rob Golding rob.gold...@astutium.comrob.gold...@astutium.comwrote: The average person is not going to be confident that the prefix they are using is the correct one, The use of any 'prefix' is one of choice and entirely unnecessary, and there are already established 'divisions' in u/mBTC for those that feel they need to use such things. people WILL send 1000x more or less than intended if we go down this road, Exceptionally unlikely - I deal every day with currencies with 0, 2 and 3 dp's in amount ranging from 'under 1 whole unit' to tens of thousands - Not once in 20 years has anyone ever 'sent' more or less than intended - oh, they've 'intended' to underpay just fine, but never *unintended*. I propose that users are offered a preference to denominate the Bitcoin currency in a unit called a bit. Where one bitcoin (BTC) equals one million bits (bits) and one bit equals 100 satoshis. I propose that for people unable to understand what a bitcoin is, they can just use satoshi's and drop this entire proposal. Rob -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
On Sun, Apr 20, 2014 at 6:19 PM, Chris Pacia ctpa...@gmail.com wrote: The term bit is really only overloaded for those who are techy. 95% of the population never uses the term bit in their daily lives and I doubt most could even name one use of the term. Plus bit used to be a unit of money way back when, so this is kind of reclaiming it. I think it's a great fit. That's a very anglocentric way of thinking. Here in the Netherlands, a bit is something you put in a horses's mouth. It's also used as imported word (in the information sense). We've never used the term for money. Wladimir -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
You're correct, my impression of the term is based of what I experience in the US. If it is more widely used in other cultures that should be a consideration. On Apr 20, 2014 12:27 PM, Wladimir laa...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Apr 20, 2014 at 6:19 PM, Chris Pacia ctpa...@gmail.com wrote: The term bit is really only overloaded for those who are techy. 95% of the population never uses the term bit in their daily lives and I doubt most could even name one use of the term. Plus bit used to be a unit of money way back when, so this is kind of reclaiming it. I think it's a great fit. That's a very anglocentric way of thinking. Here in the Netherlands, a bit is something you put in a horses's mouth. It's also used as imported word (in the information sense). We've never used the term for money. Wladimir -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
As someone who has put a lot of thought into how to best help typical everyday people understand bitcoin, I strongly favor 1 bit = 1e-6 BTC as being very straightforward to explain to non technical types, and also XBT as one bit. There are a million bits in a bit coin is highly intelligible to average people. I consider overload/conflict with existing meanings of bit as a non-issue for typical population at large. Mike Sent from my iPhone On Apr 20, 2014, at 10:31 AM, Alan Reiner etothe...@gmail.com wrote: Whatever we call it. I'm happy to support it as long as it's 1e-6. -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
Hello, While SI units are great for people well versed in them, there is a very good reason people aren't asking for 100 micro dollars in change. The average person is not going to be confident that the prefix they are using is the correct one, people WILL send 1000x more or less than intended if we go down this road, and these mistakes will happen frequently. Labeling should be easy enough for kindergarten kids. Agree - but why do you propose not only a new label but also a different subunit? Also, everybody in the metric world is used to the milli- prefix due to meters and millimeters. It's not such a stretch to expect people to master that; but I agree that most people would struggle with microbitcoins. I propose that users are offered a preference to denominate the Bitcoin currency in a unit called a bit. Where one bitcoin (BTC) equals one million bits (bits) and one bit equals 100 satoshis. There have been many proposals for more or less arbitrary subunits. What would be the merit of your proposal? I don't really follow the reasoning that it's better if it's uncommon for everyone rather than just uncommon for people not used to metric units. Regarding the label of a bit: I have to agree with the others that bit is heavily overused as a unit, but I am a computer scientist, so I don't have the average joe's perspective on this. I find it weird to use as it's already in use in English - a bit of work etc I don't really see the advantage of a bit - it is part of bitcoin and it's short, but that's about it. I think we are free to pick anything we want for a label, so why not avoid ambiguities? See this thread for many creative ideas for labels (and another arbitrary subunit proposal: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=396522.0 Arne -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 I agree that a unit based on 1e-6 BTC is easier to use in practice than BTC. The name microbitcoin is ok-ish. Nearly all countries officially use the SI-system, but that doesn't mean that the average citizen knows all the SI prefixes. Mega, kilo and milli are universally understood, micro not so much. This is a serious accessibility concern. But I dislike the term bit for the already stated reasons: It's already used in various languages for various things. Simply using Satoshis may be easier and is universally understood. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.13 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ iQIcBAEBAgAGBQJTVAgZAAoJEBrvn3PsoRcmWYgP/0JMXmJjzdBFBQscl3+yA987 4zD+W+7o/wPqRmtCU9voJ1PFj9zM6zagHAz455wjnF4IwdgYZjqtadyfxgP5Mg8p WGoplGQPWJ5KorsQfbiJP8uTOfTzJK5p6Aw9DwscN4aBjCMaHskvyWGVpE8U7ibQ Pk+a6lX1UUOnjm/G7v5UDKFSlUGAe0GCTnI8FDjxAfF8mzS9XzMSPCfbZfoc7eEx F7yKkAQGZCDJKP4y6oenj4CGXn100KSZEmombNQ7PeOEwqcKsd1RgPtHWTZzb0Ya hk2sSnEEt05uwyYsGRnb1EYUwiSS/6sgT9m7fU3bpFf3dWqGuMweSVuGgCTMPrRb 3ei18TJAI59lF/du5zbhQOujpNx/ocmf538hcpFkqaM3RTpeXifaSAefp37S5Zbq xw013M5T55SmJZYQwdWTFA689kvmOT1N33ht2QtSszl6ZJDFOrwICdcIqMsS6a0a cGcigi2Ru4M9J7w7wk448ky22Z8VjZrKTQFqhiKzoRk2t0N/SQbKSFKCm7ffsAB/ 7EGB9cA3va5ZFBnDAae84Vj0RAMJDHYO7VZIg/mF5qNs8YWs6okQoeJ8FMfNAhW2 pDgZdJfl46lnzfQvgiV/jAMkFr/oSj0UZUPAWXbaGcAm3ZFNO4B0SgNB2VYUfLIe VNW1pzTKiwL83RjNTGfV =EPvS -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
It is a paradigm that is easy to explain and grasp for neurotypical people. The average mind has no problem overloading words and distinguishing the intended meaning from context. For most people, overloading a single syllable word with a new meaning is much less complicated than using a unique 3+ syllable word like satoshi or micro-anything. Doing software development warps our minds to demand fully qualified names for everything. We know our compilers would say bit? Fatal error 0xaaawtf, can't continue, not sure if you mean a Boolean or a dog bite. But this peculiarity should not be projected onto the people we are trying to get bitcoin to appeal to, not if we want them to feel like we think about their experience. If I were to say a Bitcoin can be divided into a million bits, less than 0.1% of average joes would think I was talking about German beers or the thing that goes in horses mouths. Really, most people are good at using context to relate this to a dollar can be divided into 100 cents and accepting it. This requires much less of their mind resources than using SI prefixes correctly or learning 3 syllable words that (to them) have no instantly apparent relationship to Bitcoin. Mike Sent from my iPhone On Apr 20, 2014, at 11:44 AM, Arne Brutschy abruts...@xylon.de wrote: I propose that users are offered a preference to denominate the Bitcoin currency in a unit called a bit. Where one bitcoin (BTC) equals one million bits (bits) and one bit equals 100 satoshis. There have been many proposals for more or less arbitrary subunits. What would be the merit of your proposal? I don't really follow the reasoning that it's better if it's uncommon for everyone rather than just uncommon for people not used to metric units. Regarding the label of a bit: I have to agree with the others that bit is heavily overused as a unit, but I am a computer scientist, so I don't have the average joe's perspective on this. I find it weird to use as it's already in use in English - a bit of work etc -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
Mainly because it is short, memorable, effectively leads the listener to infer the proper meaning, is culturally neutral, is easy to say by speakers of just about any language, and many other reasons. Mike Sent from my iPhone On Apr 20, 2014, at 12:23 PM, Arne Brutschy abruts...@xylon.de wrote: agree that overloading isn't an issue when necessary, but my point was that the necessity is lacking. If we're free to pick anything, why pick something that is overloaded? Moreover, bit is an abbreviation of bitcoin and might be confused with it. Most currencies use a work that is phonetically very different and short, so why not do the same? Pluk, or cred, or finney (as proposed the thread I posted), or whichever. We could call it unsp for unspent ;) Arne -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
Hello, just my two 'cents': Terms arises by itself. Just as most people speak of coins when they mean bitcoins. I do not see that bitcoin is currently in common use except for speculation. Therefore no term for smaller units has established yet. No problem in my eyes. Time will tell. - oliver -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
Culturally neutral? bit in French phonetically collides with slang for phallus (bitte, with a silent e). Apparently it means louse in Turkish as well. Not that this really would be avoidable with any short word (all the short possible words are usually taken), but it's not neutral. On Sun, Apr 20, 2014 at 2:43 PM, Oliver Egginger bitc...@olivere.de wrote: Hello, just my two 'cents': Terms arises by itself. Just as most people speak of coins when they mean bitcoins. I do not see that bitcoin is currently in common use except for speculation. Therefore no term for smaller units has established yet. No problem in my eyes. Time will tell. - oliver -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
People in the Bitcoin community are sometimes resistant to the idea of using the word credit as a unit of Bitcoin, because Bitcoin is not a credit-based system. However, given that the average person has close to no understanding of what credit means, and probably no concern for the distinction even if they do know, it may be wise to use the futuristic and easily understandable credit as our human-friendly unit. Do others agree that credits as a unit of account has a desirable futuristic connotation? Will smime.p7s Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
By culturally neutral I mean we avoid deliberately invoking a cultural reference in the name. For example satoshi would be a reference to Japanese culture just for being a common Japanese name regardless of who Satoshi turns out to be. Mike Sent from my iPhone On Apr 20, 2014, at 1:20 PM, Christophe Biocca christophe.bio...@gmail.com wrote: Culturally neutral? bit in French phonetically collides with slang for phallus (bitte, with a silent e). Apparently it means louse in Turkish as well. Not that this really would be avoidable with any short word (all the short possible words are usually taken), but it's not neutral. On Sun, Apr 20, 2014 at 2:43 PM, Oliver Egginger bitc...@olivere.de wrote: Hello, just my two 'cents': Terms arises by itself. Just as most people speak of coins when they mean bitcoins. I do not see that bitcoin is currently in common use except for speculation. Therefore no term for smaller units has established yet. No problem in my eyes. Time will tell. - oliver -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
delurk What about ubit, pronounced YOU-bit, representing 1e-6 bitcoin? Easy to say, tied in a visual way to the metric micro, leaves the required 2 decimal places for the marginally numerate.. What more could one want? /delurk Also, hi. My first post; plan to get involved over the southern hemisphere winter if I can learn enough. On Apr 20, 2014 4:32 PM, Mike Caldwell mcaldw...@swipeclock.com wrote: By culturally neutral I mean we avoid deliberately invoking a cultural reference in the name. For example satoshi would be a reference to Japanese culture just for being a common Japanese name regardless of who Satoshi turns out to be. Mike Sent from my iPhone On Apr 20, 2014, at 1:20 PM, Christophe Biocca christophe.bio...@gmail.com wrote: Culturally neutral? bit in French phonetically collides with slang for phallus (bitte, with a silent e). Apparently it means louse in Turkish as well. Not that this really would be avoidable with any short word (all the short possible words are usually taken), but it's not neutral. On Sun, Apr 20, 2014 at 2:43 PM, Oliver Egginger bitc...@olivere.de wrote: Hello, just my two 'cents': Terms arises by itself. Just as most people speak of coins when they mean bitcoins. I do not see that bitcoin is currently in common use except for speculation. Therefore no term for smaller units has established yet. No problem in my eyes. Time will tell. - oliver -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Start Your Social Network Today - Download eXo Platform Build your Enterprise Intranet with eXo Platform Software Java Based Open Source Intranet - Social, Extensible, Cloud Ready Get Started Now And Turn Your Intranet Into A Collaboration Platform http://p.sf.net/sfu/ExoPlatform___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
My impression: Good because it is short, memorable, and pronounceable by speakers of most languages (though to most of the world that would be oo-bit, as u being yu is mostly an English thing) Downsides include the fact that μ is not a U, it just resembles one. It is a lowercase M in Greek, a live spoken language also studied by many, and calling it a U conveys a notion of global unawareness. And the potential for XBT to be 1e-6 BTC on the world stage would be huge, worth pursuing. Mike Sent from my iPhone On Apr 20, 2014, at 6:16 PM, Justin A allp...@gmail.commailto:allp...@gmail.com wrote: delurk What about ubit, pronounced YOU-bit, representing 1e-6 bitcoin? Easy to say, tied in a visual way to the metric micro, leaves the required 2 decimal places for the marginally numerate.. What more could one want? /delurk Also, hi. My first post; plan to get involved over the southern hemisphere winter if I can learn enough. On Apr 20, 2014 4:32 PM, Mike Caldwell mcaldw...@swipeclock.commailto:mcaldw...@swipeclock.com wrote: By culturally neutral I mean we avoid deliberately invoking a cultural reference in the name. For example satoshi would be a reference to Japanese culture just for being a common Japanese name regardless of who Satoshi turns out to be. Mike Sent from my iPhone On Apr 20, 2014, at 1:20 PM, Christophe Biocca christophe.bio...@gmail.commailto:christophe.bio...@gmail.com wrote: Culturally neutral? bit in French phonetically collides with slang for phallus (bitte, with a silent e). Apparently it means louse in Turkish as well. Not that this really would be avoidable with any short word (all the short possible words are usually taken), but it's not neutral. On Sun, Apr 20, 2014 at 2:43 PM, Oliver Egginger bitc...@olivere.demailto:bitc...@olivere.de wrote: Hello, just my two 'cents': Terms arises by itself. Just as most people speak of coins when they mean bitcoins. I do not see that bitcoin is currently in common use except for speculation. Therefore no term for smaller units has established yet. No problem in my eyes. Time will tell. - oliver -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.netmailto:Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.netmailto:Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.netmailto:Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Start Your Social Network Today - Download eXo Platform Build your Enterprise Intranet with eXo Platform Software Java Based Open Source Intranet - Social, Extensible, Cloud Ready Get Started Now And Turn Your Intranet Into A Collaboration Platform http://p.sf.net/sfu/ExoPlatform___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
Something tells me this would be reduced to a single syllable in common usage I.e. bit. My 2 cents goes for bit. Because: Bitcoin is a digital currency, BTC starts with bit, bit refers to a small amount of something in its regular english usage and lastly 99.9876543% of people on the planet don't know what a digital bit is yet ... Gavin On 21/04/2014, at 9:20 am, Mike Caldwell mcaldw...@swipeclock.com wrote: My impression: Good because it is short, memorable, and pronounceable by speakers of most languages (though to most of the world that would be oo-bit, as u being yu is mostly an English thing) Downsides include the fact that μ is not a U, it just resembles one. It is a lowercase M in Greek, a live spoken language also studied by many, and calling it a U conveys a notion of global unawareness. And the potential for XBT to be 1e-6 BTC on the world stage would be huge, worth pursuing. Mike Sent from my iPhone On Apr 20, 2014, at 6:16 PM, Justin A allp...@gmail.com wrote: delurk What about ubit, pronounced YOU-bit, representing 1e-6 bitcoin? Easy to say, tied in a visual way to the metric micro, leaves the required 2 decimal places for the marginally numerate.. What more could one want? /delurk Also, hi. My first post; plan to get involved over the southern hemisphere winter if I can learn enough. On Apr 20, 2014 4:32 PM, Mike Caldwell mcaldw...@swipeclock.com wrote: By culturally neutral I mean we avoid deliberately invoking a cultural reference in the name. For example satoshi would be a reference to Japanese culture just for being a common Japanese name regardless of who Satoshi turns out to be. Mike Sent from my iPhone On Apr 20, 2014, at 1:20 PM, Christophe Biocca christophe.bio...@gmail.com wrote: Culturally neutral? bit in French phonetically collides with slang for phallus (bitte, with a silent e). Apparently it means louse in Turkish as well. Not that this really would be avoidable with any short word (all the short possible words are usually taken), but it's not neutral. On Sun, Apr 20, 2014 at 2:43 PM, Oliver Egginger bitc...@olivere.de wrote: Hello, just my two 'cents': Terms arises by itself. Just as most people speak of coins when they mean bitcoins. I do not see that bitcoin is currently in common use except for speculation. Therefore no term for smaller units has established yet. No problem in my eyes. Time will tell. - oliver -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Start Your Social Network Today - Download eXo Platform Build your Enterprise Intranet with eXo Platform Software Java Based Open Source Intranet - Social, Extensible, Cloud Ready Get Started Now And Turn Your Intranet Into A Collaboration Platform http://p.sf.net/sfu/ExoPlatform ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Start Your Social Network Today - Download eXo Platform Build your Enterprise Intranet with eXo Platform Software Java Based Open Source
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
If bit had to be preceded by a letter I would nominate ebit or xbit (which could still be XBT) Those needing a definition for x could define it as coin/100. That said, I am still more in favor of bit. Xbit would just solve the problems others cite about ambiguity if they had to be solved without the resulting name being too long. Mike Sent from my iPhone On Apr 20, 2014, at 7:33 PM, Un Ix slashdevn...@hotmail.commailto:slashdevn...@hotmail.com wrote: Something tells me this would be reduced to a single syllable in common usage I.e. bit. My 2 cents goes for bit. Because: Bitcoin is a digital currency, BTC starts with bit, bit refers to a small amount of something in its regular english usage and lastly 99.9876543% of people on the planet don't know what a digital bit is yet ... Gavin On 21/04/2014, at 9:20 am, Mike Caldwell mcaldw...@swipeclock.commailto:mcaldw...@swipeclock.com wrote: My impression: Good because it is short, memorable, and pronounceable by speakers of most languages (though to most of the world that would be oo-bit, as u being yu is mostly an English thing) Downsides include the fact that μ is not a U, it just resembles one. It is a lowercase M in Greek, a live spoken language also studied by many, and calling it a U conveys a notion of global unawareness. And the potential for XBT to be 1e-6 BTC on the world stage would be huge, worth pursuing. Mike Sent from my iPhone On Apr 20, 2014, at 6:16 PM, Justin A allp...@gmail.commailto:allp...@gmail.com wrote: delurk What about ubit, pronounced YOU-bit, representing 1e-6 bitcoin? Easy to say, tied in a visual way to the metric micro, leaves the required 2 decimal places for the marginally numerate.. What more could one want? /delurk Also, hi. My first post; plan to get involved over the southern hemisphere winter if I can learn enough. On Apr 20, 2014 4:32 PM, Mike Caldwell mcaldw...@swipeclock.commailto:mcaldw...@swipeclock.com wrote: By culturally neutral I mean we avoid deliberately invoking a cultural reference in the name. For example satoshi would be a reference to Japanese culture just for being a common Japanese name regardless of who Satoshi turns out to be. Mike Sent from my iPhone On Apr 20, 2014, at 1:20 PM, Christophe Biocca christophe.bio...@gmail.commailto:christophe.bio...@gmail.com wrote: Culturally neutral? bit in French phonetically collides with slang for phallus (bitte, with a silent e). Apparently it means louse in Turkish as well. Not that this really would be avoidable with any short word (all the short possible words are usually taken), but it's not neutral. On Sun, Apr 20, 2014 at 2:43 PM, Oliver Egginger bitc...@olivere.demailto:bitc...@olivere.de wrote: Hello, just my two 'cents': Terms arises by itself. Just as most people speak of coins when they mean bitcoins. I do not see that bitcoin is currently in common use except for speculation. Therefore no term for smaller units has established yet. No problem in my eyes. Time will tell. - oliver -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.netmailto:Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.netmailto:Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.netmailto:Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Start Your Social Network Today -
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
Bit is simple phonetically, I'm for it. On Mon, Apr 21, 2014 at 1:34 PM, Mike Caldwell mcaldw...@swipeclock.comwrote: If bit had to be preceded by a letter I would nominate ebit or xbit (which could still be XBT) Those needing a definition for x could define it as coin/100. That said, I am still more in favor of bit. Xbit would just solve the problems others cite about ambiguity if they had to be solved without the resulting name being too long. Mike Sent from my iPhone On Apr 20, 2014, at 7:33 PM, Un Ix slashdevn...@hotmail.com wrote: Something tells me this would be reduced to a single syllable in common usage I.e. bit. My 2 cents goes for bit. Because: Bitcoin is a digital currency, BTC starts with bit, bit refers to a small amount of something in its regular english usage and lastly 99.9876543% of people on the planet don't know what a digital bit is yet ... Gavin On 21/04/2014, at 9:20 am, Mike Caldwell mcaldw...@swipeclock.com wrote: My impression: Good because it is short, memorable, and pronounceable by speakers of most languages (though to most of the world that would be oo-bit, as u being yu is mostly an English thing) Downsides include the fact that μ is not a U, it just resembles one. It is a lowercase M in Greek, a live spoken language also studied by many, and calling it a U conveys a notion of global unawareness. And the potential for XBT to be 1e-6 BTC on the world stage would be huge, worth pursuing. Mike Sent from my iPhone On Apr 20, 2014, at 6:16 PM, Justin A allp...@gmail.com wrote: delurk What about ubit, pronounced YOU-bit, representing 1e-6 bitcoin? Easy to say, tied in a visual way to the metric micro, leaves the required 2 decimal places for the marginally numerate.. What more could one want? /delurk Also, hi. My first post; plan to get involved over the southern hemisphere winter if I can learn enough. On Apr 20, 2014 4:32 PM, Mike Caldwell mcaldw...@swipeclock.com wrote: By culturally neutral I mean we avoid deliberately invoking a cultural reference in the name. For example satoshi would be a reference to Japanese culture just for being a common Japanese name regardless of who Satoshi turns out to be. Mike Sent from my iPhone On Apr 20, 2014, at 1:20 PM, Christophe Biocca christophe.bio...@gmail.com wrote: Culturally neutral? bit in French phonetically collides with slang for phallus (bitte, with a silent e). Apparently it means louse in Turkish as well. Not that this really would be avoidable with any short word (all the short possible words are usually taken), but it's not neutral. On Sun, Apr 20, 2014 at 2:43 PM, Oliver Egginger bitc...@olivere.de wrote: Hello, just my two 'cents': Terms arises by itself. Just as most people speak of coins when they mean bitcoins. I do not see that bitcoin is currently in common use except for speculation. Therefore no term for smaller units has established yet. No problem in my eyes. Time will tell. - oliver -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Start Your Social Network Today - Download eXo Platform Build your Enterprise Intranet with eXo Platform Software Java Based Open Source Intranet -
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
On Apr 21, 2014 3:37 AM, Un Ix slashdevn...@hotmail.com wrote: Something tells me this would be reduced to a single syllable in common usage I.e. bit. What units will be called colloquially is not something developers will determine. It will vary, depend on language and culture, and is not relevant to this discussion in my opinion. It may well be that people in some geographic or language area will end up (or for a while) calling 1e-06 BTC bits. That's fine, but using that as official name in software would be very strange and potentially confusing in my opinion. As mentioned by others, that would seem to me like calling dollars bucks in bank software. Nobody seems to have a problem with having colloquial names, but US dollar or euro are far less ambiguous than bit. I think we need a more distinctive name. -- Pieter -- Start Your Social Network Today - Download eXo Platform Build your Enterprise Intranet with eXo Platform Software Java Based Open Source Intranet - Social, Extensible, Cloud Ready Get Started Now And Turn Your Intranet Into A Collaboration Platform http://p.sf.net/sfu/ExoPlatform___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
I think we have two very good candidates both substantiated with arguments for their use in their context: bit - the word for everyday use XBT - the acronym to fit into the ISO currency set. both meaning 100 satoshis or 1e-6 Bitcoin. I am glad that I erred, and this list finaly cares of finance customs and average Joe’s. Regards, Tamas Blummer http://bitsofproof.com On 21.04.2014, at 07:41, Pieter Wuille pieter.wui...@gmail.com wrote: On Apr 21, 2014 3:37 AM, Un Ix slashdevn...@hotmail.com wrote: Something tells me this would be reduced to a single syllable in common usage I.e. bit. What units will be called colloquially is not something developers will determine. It will vary, depend on language and culture, and is not relevant to this discussion in my opinion. It may well be that people in some geographic or language area will end up (or for a while) calling 1e-06 BTC bits. That's fine, but using that as official name in software would be very strange and potentially confusing in my opinion. As mentioned by others, that would seem to me like calling dollars bucks in bank software. Nobody seems to have a problem with having colloquial names, but US dollar or euro are far less ambiguous than bit. I think we need a more distinctive name. -- Pieter -- Start Your Social Network Today - Download eXo Platform Build your Enterprise Intranet with eXo Platform Software Java Based Open Source Intranet - Social, Extensible, Cloud Ready Get Started Now And Turn Your Intranet Into A Collaboration Platform http://p.sf.net/sfu/ExoPlatform___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development signature.asc Description: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail -- Start Your Social Network Today - Download eXo Platform Build your Enterprise Intranet with eXo Platform Software Java Based Open Source Intranet - Social, Extensible, Cloud Ready Get Started Now And Turn Your Intranet Into A Collaboration Platform http://p.sf.net/sfu/ExoPlatform___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
