Re: Wall Observer BTC/USD - Bitcoin price movement tracking & discussion
Is your time here part of a funded research project? If so, what are the predicted benefits to those of which have funded you? Is the funding private or public?
I am a full professor of computer science at a public university, with a fixed salary, light teaching load, a few grad students, no admin duties at the moment, a foot in a slow-going research project, and freedom to choose my research topics. And also occasional public advocate on social things like electronic voting.I believe that bitcoin is a terrible investment at this time. I think I owe to the people who pay my salary to tell them so, and why. But unfortunately the salesmen are knocking at the door (in the last two weeks, warm "news" articles about bitcoin suddenly appeared in all the major media - usually without mentioning MtGOX, Neo&Bee, China bans, the falling price, ....)
As to "freedom to choose my research topics":
How can you justify to yourself to take money from the people at gunpoint to research bitcoin for hundreds of hours? How about researching wasteful spending by tenured professors?
If Bitcoin is as important and/or valuable as we think it to be...having someone take the opposing side like this won't hurt. Spending hundreds of hours researching and scrutinizing something that some of us think will be worth trillions is peanuts in comparison, and in my opinion: a valuable deed on behalf of Prof Stolfi.
I'm all for going to the moon and such, but having regular reality checks from people like Prof. Stolfi keeps my belly kool-aid free and prevents my head from going too far up into my colon.