While those of us who once admired CNN’s Jake Tapper as a rarity in the mainstream media — an honest and objective journalist, have been shocked by his transformation into a dishonest, sanctimonious, left-wing virtue-signaler, we assumed his lying an…
Month: October 2017
Dershowitz: Mueller Is ‘Very Zealous’ – Won’t Be Happy Until He Gets to POTUS or People Close to Him
On Tuesday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom,” Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz stated Special Counsel Robert Mueller is “very zealous.” He later added that Mueller won’t be content until he gets to President Trump or those “very close” to him and this is the danger of special prosecutors. Dershowitz said that both parties are guilty of arguing that everything they disagree with is criminal and this behavior started with Republicans during the campaign with Hillary Clinton and then continued by Democrats. Dershowitz then recalled his experience with Mueller. He stated that he talked to Mueller about prosecutorial and FBI misconduct and Mueller stated “It’s a non-starter to talk to me about FBI misconduct or prosecutorial misconduct. It’s a non-starter. He doesn’t want to hear about that. He is in the business of protecting the FBI, protecting prosecutors, at all costs. I don’t suggest he’s unethical, but he’s very zealous.” He added that this makes Mueller “effective at his job, but the job of a prosecutor is to do justice, not to get as many notches on his belt as possible.” Dershowitz further stated Mueller is “not going to be satisfied until he gets to the president, or people very
Hillary Clinton Considers Dressing as the President for Halloween
Failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has joked about dressing as the president for Halloween. Whilst at event in Chicago to promote her new book What Happened, Clinton was asked what costume she was planning to wear for Halloween, “I have to start thinking about it,” she said. “I think I will maybe come as the president!” On the topic of her defeat to Donald Trump, Clinton admitted that “there were times when I was tempted to just pull the covers over my head.” Despite allegations recently reemerging that confirm Peter Schweizer’s account in his bestselling book Clinton Cash about the corrupt tactics behind Clinton’s approval of Russia’s uranium deal, Clinton added that the U.S. was now in “a new kind of cold war” with Russia. “The Russians are still playing on anything they can to turn Americans against one another,” she said, adding that sites such as Facebook and Google need to be “part of the solution and not part of the problem.” Follow Ben Kew on Facebook, Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at bkew@breitbart.com
Roy Moore: Doug Jones Supports Kneeling Athletes ‘but Can’t Be Bothered to Stand Up for the Military’
Republican Alabama Senate candidate Judge Roy Moore’s campaign on Monday hit Democratic candidate Doug Jones over his support for kneeling athletes but not yet taking a stand on strengthening the military.
Paul Ryan Ignoring National Reciprocity for 43rd Consecutive Week
It is October 31 and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) is ignoring national reciprocity legislation for the 43rd consecutive week.
Actor Jeremy Piven Accused of Sexual Assault by Reality TV Star
Actor Jeremy Piven has become the latest Hollywood figure to be accused of sexual assault, after reality television star Ariane Bellamar accused the actor of groping her on the set of a television show in a social media post Monday.
These International Bitcoin Communities Are Rejecting SegWit2x
The hard fork part of the New York Agreement is scheduled to take place within about two weeks. This incompatible protocol rule change is set to increase Bitcoin’s block weight limit, to allow for more transactions on the network — if everyone adopts the change. Otherwise, it will create a new blockchain and currency that may or may not be considered to be “Bitcoin.”
The list of signatories of this agreement includes several of the largest Bitcoin startups and mining pools that, together, claim to represent a majority of users and hash power. Yet, it is far from clear that this 2x part of SegWit2x proposal really has much support outside of these signatories. Most of Bitcoin’s development community, a significant number of other companies, some mining pools, user polls as well as futures markets suggest otherwise.
And now, a growing list of international Bitcoin communities is putting out public statements against the SegWit2x hard fork as well.
An overview…
Seoul Bitcoin Meetup
On October 12, 2017, the Seoul Bitcoin Meetup — the largest and longest-running Bitcoin meetup in South Korea with over 1700 members — was the first user community to put out a statement on SegWit2x. More precisely, in their own words, the group voiced its “staunch opposition to this November’s proposed hardfork.”
In its statement, the Seoul Bitcoin Meetup places emphasis on the manner in which the agreement was made. Typically, changes to the Bitcoin protocol go through the Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) process where it is peer reviewed by developers across the ecosystem, whereas SegWit2x went through the New York Agreement, which was forged at an invite-only meeting among about a dozen company executives.
The Seoul Meetup states:
If a select group of CEOs and investors, no matter how benevolent their intentions, can unilaterally make decisions about the consensus rules without public comment and force these changes upon the network regardless of overall consensus, then Bitcoin will have lost the properties that make it valuable in the first place.
Additionally, the Seoul Bitcoin Meetup argues that the hard fork is needlessly risky without offering sufficient benefits to warrant the risk. It also takes issue with the controversial decision of SegWit2x developers not to implement strong replay protection.
Bitcoin Meetup Munich
On the same day as the Seoul Meetup Group, the Bitcoin Munich meetup group also put out a public statement against the SegWit2x hard fork. This meetup group consists of over 2000 members — though only several dozen of them actually engaged in the vote whether or not the statement against the SegWit2x hard fork would be accepted. This statement itself was spread via photo on social media.
In its statement, the Bitcoin Munich meetup explains it opposes the SegWit2x hard fork in part because of technical concerns:
Another doubling of the block size so quickly after SegWit seems hasty and might cause further mining centralization.
The statement further argues that a hard fork requires more and better preparation and should include more improvements from the hard fork wish list, and it endorses Bitcoin Core as “the true Bitcoin client.”
Brazilian and Argentinian Bitcoin Communities
The biggest user community also published the longest statement against the SegWit2x hard fork so far. A combined effort between a significant group of Argentinian and Brazilian users and companies, published on October 17,2017, voiced “their deepest concerns over the upcoming November hardfork as mandated by the so-called New York Agreement (NYA), also known as SegWit2x (S2X).”
Not unlike other critics of the hard fork, emphasis was placed on the process that led to the SegWit2x agreement:
The very nature of an ‘agreement’ between a few parties in a decentralized consensus protocol can be interpreted as an aggression against the network.
Similarly, the statement addresses the lack of transparency from SegWit2x proponents, criticizing the notion of a “political compromise instead of a technical upgrade” and the “consensus imposition instead of consensus building.”
Other points of concern include the lack of replay protection, the rushed nature of the hard fork, misleading statements by SegWit2x proponents and much more.
Israeli Bitcoin Association
The Israeli Bitcoin Association is a non-profit organization that promotes Bitcoin and similar technologies in Israel, with an open membership. On October 24, 2017, this association put out its own statement on the SegWit2x hard fork.
Slightly different from several of the other statements, the Israeli Bitcoin Association emphasizes the right of anyone to fork Bitcoin and create a new cryptocurrency. That naturally includes SegWit2x proponents.
But importantly, the association adds:
A protocol change in the currency holding the name ‘Bitcoin’, especially one requiring a hard fork, requires overwhelming consensus. The SegWit2x hard fork does not in any way enjoy such consensus, and while this remains the case we cannot refer to the resulting currency as ‘Bitcoin.’
The SegWit2x currency will instead be referred to as “‘Bitcoin2x.’ ‘SegWit2x coins,’ BT2, B2X, S2X or any other distinctive term that the industry will adopt.”
The Hong Kong Bitcoin Community / Bitcoin Association of Hong Kong
The Hong Kong Bitcoin Community in general, and the Bitcoin Association of Hong Kong specifically, put out statements against SegWit2x on October 25, 2017.
While technically separate statements, both voice their concern about the lack of consensus for the hard fork. The Hong Kong Bitcoin Community — a group of Hong Kong–based companies — states that “the lack of enthusiastic support for this fork among the community is striking.” The association — which mostly exists to promote Bitcoin in Hong Kong — states that “the proponents of the hardfork should kindly ask the Bitcoin community to support them and then only proceed with the hardfork if there is widespread community support.”
Additionally, the Hong Kong groups speak out against the lack of replay protection in the SegWit2x fork.
Due to the combination of both a lack of consensus across the community and a lack of strong replay protection, we consider SegWit2x a reckless endeavor that will cause disruption and harm to the ecosystem.
The Italian Bitcoin Community
The Italian Bitcoin community, more specifically a group of companies, meetups, lobbying groups and other organizations, put out a statement against SegWit2x on October 31, 2017.
The statement is largely inspired by an earlier statement by the Italian blockchain research lab BHB, which rejected SegWit2x as “an attempt to perform a political takeover of Bitcoin.”
The statement by the broader Italian Bitcoin community is a bit more compact, but nonetheless touches on many of the familiar points of criticism regarding the SegWit2x hard fork.
It reads:
The opposition is especially strong against any action of this kind that could cause huge inconveniences for service providers and serious confusion for users, potentially leading to financial losses: unilateral attempts to appropriate Bitcoin name, logo or “ticker”, attempts to mislead light-clients and SPV wallets on alternative networks not explicitly chosen by them, attempts to launch new coins in a way which leave users vulnerable to “replay attacks” or address format confusion, attempts to attack the network with a temporary hashing-power majority in order to create disruptive reorgs or to slow down the normal activity.
French-Speaking Bitcoin Communities
Meanwhile, the French-speaking Bitcoin communities are voicing their concerns with the SegWit2x hard fork through a change.org petition. It is currently signed by over 1300 people and counting.
The (French) text that accompanies the petition is mostly inspired by and based on the statement published by the Seoul Bitcoin Meetup. Like that statement, this petition emphasizes concerns about the manner in which the agreement was forged, while also noting the lack of replay protection and other problems.
Additionally, the petition includes a call to action to find alternatives for the companies that signed onto and continue to support the SegWit2x hard fork:
We would suggest avoiding the use of services of companies that support the NYA, and we hope to substitute them with alternative solutions.
Are they any more user communities that have put out statements against or in favor of the SegWit2x hard fork? Let me know at aaron@bitcoinmagazine.com.
The post These International Bitcoin Communities Are Rejecting SegWit2x appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.
Patriots Show They Believe Tom Brady About Playing Until 45 by Trading Jimmy Garoppolo
Tom Brady wants to play until he turns 45. The New England Patriots believe him.
Robomed Network Unleashes Linkages Between Healthcare Patients and Providers
The global healthcare
market is vast and complex, with equity funding to digital health companies
having reached $5.8 billion so far this year. Within this space, myriad models
of healthcare delivery are being employed as breakthrough technologies are introduced.
A concept that’s gaining
increased attention is the “patient-oriented medical network.” In this model, patients can manage and control their healthcare data
through a mobile electronic medical record (EMR) — information they’re able to
grant their doctors access to when requested.
This mode of value-based
physician-to-patient engagement is designed to impact care quality, cost and
patient access across an entire healthcare continuum. One company that’s making
a mark in this area is an innovative global digital platform known as Robomed
Network.
Robomed
is introducing a solution that allows the medical industry to replace the old,
prevailing ways of managing healthcare processes with new ones designed to
boost efficiency, effectiveness and transparency. This is achieved through the
elimination of non-value-added processes and clinical errors.
Robomed
Network is comprised of 23 clinics across the world. Through the use of this
ecosystem, patients around the globe have access to bureaucracy-free,
affordable and quality medical care targeted to their specific needs.
What drives all of this is
a medical network managed by a blockchain token, designed to provide the most
effective medical care. Robomed serves as the linkage point between health
service providers and patients, all tied to a smart contract built on top of
the Ethereum platform.
“Robomed’s
blockchain is designed to constantly expand available capacity for
record-keeping, transactions tracking and accumulation of a diverse database of
medical knowledge and clinical pathways applied to treating a numerous range of
medical cases,” said Robomed Network co-founder Philipp Mironovich. “We believe
that the scope of medical services rendered to patients is bound to grow with
the processes for obtaining these services streamlined.”
As a part of the Robomed
Network, participating in-network clinics utilize what is known as “Robomed
EНR,” a process-automation system geared for medical centers, which includes
unified medical data storage and health management tools. Its primary purpose
is to integrate all participating clinics into a single information space,
allowing various service providers to quickly interact without bureaucratic,
financial or legal barriers.
This
bridge between the patients seeking quality medical care and access to it is a
smart contact. This interactive digital mechanism allows patients to obtain
access to a chain of healthcare providers committed to delivering the best
medical care consistent with the digital clinical guidelines registered in
Robomed Network.
These
clinical guidelines are adopted via a constantly updated, competitive and
transparent voting process involving the medical and patient community. The
goal here is to utilize a diverse set of healthcare treatments and high
standards to fulfill patients’ expectations.
Robomed
Network issues its own tokens to drive the smart contract engagement between
healthcare providers and patients. This elevates service value by granting
token owners full accomplishment of clinical guidelines for cases.
Patients
engage with the Robomed Network via Robomed Mobile or Robomed Web. The
proprietary smart contract technology provides a unique opportunity to create a
single system of coordinates with clinical outcomes as a reference point.
Given
the possibilities and examples of using the Ethereum blockchain platform, the
Robomed Network team is excited about this decentralized, cross-border
ecosystem of healthcare providers they’ve created, based on an open smart
contract and cryptocurrency.
Robomed’s
history goes a couple of years back, to when co-founders Mironovich and Ivan
Devyatkov decided to combine their expertise from the IT and healthcare
sectors. Mironovich had been involved in the startup of several hospitals, and
Devyatkov was involved in scaling up the second-biggest healthcare laboratory
player in Russia. This is how the basic version of Robomed EHR emerged.
“Robomed’s
mission is to provide equal healthcare to the world,” said Mironovich. “This
means that Robomed aims toward constantly improving the effectiveness and
efficiency of healthcare services across its global platform.”
Note: Trading and investing in digital assets is speculative. Based on the shifting business and regulatory environment of such a new industry, this content should not be considered investment or legal advice.
The post Robomed Network Unleashes Linkages Between Healthcare Patients and Providers appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.