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When Newport Beach City Council candidate Michael Glenn thinks of freedom, that includes the freedom to choose how to donate — be it with dollar, peso or bitcoin.

Glenn claims to be the first local politician to accept campaign donations in the esoteric digital currency. He is running against businesswoman Diane Dixon and Harbor Commissioner Joe Stapleton for the Balboa Peninsula’s 1st District council seat.

Glenn’s announcement comes just weeks after customers used bitcoins to pay for a Tesla, and then a Lamborghini, from a Costa Mesa dealership.

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Online retail outlet Overstock.com will start accepting Bitcoins as early as the end of Q2 2014, according to CEO Patrick Byrne.

They will be the first major online retailer to do so. The news was first reported on newsBTC.

Byrne told us by phone this afternoon that he considers himself a believer in the Austrian economics school, which says fiat currency, like the U.S. dollar, is fundamentally flawed since it is prone to inflation and manipulation. Bitcoin, like gold, is immune to this, since there is a fixed supply.

Philosophically, we support Bitcion,” he said.

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While the rest of us are messing around with our PayPals and Amazon Payments, some folks in Argentina have created the first crowdfunding platform in America to take Bitcoin.

The platform, called Idea.me focuses primarily on artistic, musical, and retail projects although, as evidenced by the project photos, many campaigns have a philanthropic bent. The platform was “born in Argentina” wrote Pia Giudice and is now in seven countries in Latin America. It is the area’s only regional crowdfunding platform. The platform has seen $750,000 in funding and should be raising $2.4 million in March 2014 in a Series A.

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by Jeremiah Budin

Bitcoin is a somewhat mysterious, fairly confusing type of digital currency that, until recently, you could use to buy large amount of drugs on the internet. But now you can use Bitcoin for something (arguably) even better than drugs: New York City real estate. A tipster recently sent along a listing for a $2,580/month one-bedroom sublet in 99 John Deco Lofts, accepting Bitcoin, which hit the market last month. And today, online apartment search marketplace RentHop announced in a press release that it will be accepting Bitcoin from people advertising NYC apartments on its site.

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By Robert McMillan

One of the top software engineers behind the Bitcoin digital currency wants to launch it into space.

Last month, Jeff Garzik floated the idea of Bitcoin in space on an internet discussion forum, pitching it as a way to always keep the system up and running — even if it’s attacked by malicious hackers.

The plan is to send up a Bitcoin computer on a tiny inexpensive satellite and have this machine communicate with terrestrial Bitcoin computers via radio. Garzik — who works at Bitcoin payment processor Bitpay and helps shape the open source software that drives the digital currency on thousands of machines across the internet — says that the satellite node could help the Bitcoin network fight back something known as a Sibyl attack. This is where malicious computers flood a node on the peer-to-peer network with bad data. It could give criminals a way of spending their bitcoins more than once, and it’s also part of the so-called selfish miner scenario that Cornell University researchers described last month, saying it could bring down the entire system.

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Transleadership! By Mr. Andres Agostini

TRANSLEADERSHIP
This is an excerpt from the conclusion section of, “…Transleadership!…” that discusses some management, leadership and futurism theories and practices and strategies.

To read the entire piece, just click the link at the end of article:

EXCERPT. Ensuing:

(…SUMMATION OF WHAT A TRANSLEADERSHIP LEADER DOES AND IS …)

# 1 – Is An Actionable Statesman.

# 2 – Thoroughly moral and ethical in deed and spontaneously projected example.

# 3 – Happily located and navigating through Century 21.

# 4 – By far, focused on solid and increasing education and perpetual mind expansion, chiefly those acquired by solving truly complex problems systematically.

# 5 – Self-Pedagogue forever. Teaches to self-tech to his / her crew for Life.

# 6 – Leads, Co-Leads, Follows, Co-Follows, Executes, Co-Executes, Builds, Co-Builds, Envisions, Co-Envisions, Paves and Co-Paves Never-Thought-Of Pathways.

# 7 – Intuitive, Counterintuitive, and seamlessly blends both of the above.

# 8 – Takes all – encompassing curiosity as it is operated in real time – beyond known and unknown extremes.

# 9 – Makes every mistake – own or that of the competitor – into his / her won victory.

# 10 – Doesn’t care how fluid and amorphous the limits, contexts and the dynamics of his / her blurred theater of operations are.

# 11 – Can strategize and prevail through many operational frameworks at once without getting bewildered.

# 12 – Challenges every assumption, doctrine and dogma ruthlessly and relentlessly, beginning with his / her own ones.

# 13 – Learns something practical, meaningful, and decisively productive every day.

# 14 – Heightens crew’s sense of urgency and of focus.

# 15 – Re-adapts and re-invents resiliently and effortlessly regardless of whatever constraints and increasing pressures stemming from the frame of reference.

# 16 – Operates multidimensionally and cross-functionally.

# 17 – Constantly and boldly sets pre-conditions to maximize the likelihood of his / her triumphs.

# 18 – Always selects and develops his / her leadership constituency.

# 19 – Creates and applies his / her own – along with that of the team – body of knowledge.

# 20 – Does never ever institute “best practices,” but UNIQUE, premium-graded approaches.

# 21 – Carries on much swifter that “life cycles” intrinsic to products, services, challenges, and complex problem solving.

# 22 – Does not get concerned about his / her adversaries since the uniqueness and ever-upgrading quality of tactics, strategies and stratagems as applied.

# 23 – Harmonizes issues immediately.

# 24 – His / her leadership is always (and robustly so) linked to concrete and unambiguous objective and goals.

# 25 – Always updates his methods, approaches, techniques, tactics, strategies, especially using those that are extraneous to so-called and already disrupted “history.” (Which one, that wrote by winners or that stated by losers or that always failing to have sufficient objectivity?)

# 26 – Continuously learns lessons – and improves those – both from incurred mistakes and from captured successes.

# 27 – Extracts information and knowledge – to be shared and brainstormed with the crew – out of everything done, thought, as well as to be executed regardless of the incumbent.

# 28 – Wins only based on merit, principle, legitimacy and lawfulness.

# 29 – Strategizes the granularity of detail of everything. There is no such a thing as a leader that is not a strategist and visionary.

# 30 – Embraces leading-edge (even weird) science and its stemming technological derivatives immediately.

# 31 – Enjoys phenomena and prevails as he / she navigates through said phenomena.

# 32 – Is never commonsensical and always challenging long-held assumptions as he / she institutes the most unorthodox and exuberant novel practices (lavishly so).

# 33 – De-tools, tools, re-tools the amplification of the individual and collective intelligence within his / her crew.

# 34 – Instills how to operate autonomously and jointly – in pursuit of the same goals and objectives – to his / her followers and co-leaders.

# 35 – Learns from his / her mistakes, but empathizes to learn also from the mistakes of others.

# 36 – Fluidly shares experience and practical knowledge across every incumbent in the crew.

# 37 – Only thinks and performs a la unthinkable thinking.

# 38 – Disrupt the boundaries of unthinkable thinking, always going beyond such boundaries.

# 39 – Transforms new problems and old problems into actionable breakthrough opportunities.

# 40 – In his / her case and exercising this type of leadership, strongly and coherently insists on and applies three aspects: CIVILITY, CIVILITY, CIVILITY!

# 41 – Before chaos, he / she instills more and more chaos – of greater magnitude, scale and speed – to level off and outsmart the frame of reference targeted.

# 42 – Drives OPS with directness and / or indirectness, as well as with the loose/control hybridization mode.

# 43 – Shares of defined values

# 44 – Elicits conceptions of practiced futures to deal with and countermeasure way in advance.

# 45 – Fuses technology innovation with business strategy as a tool for competitive advantage.

# 46 – Conceives early and distinguishes it and exploits it strategic surprises attributable to competitors.

# 47 – Ascertains that there is not a single stone left unturned.

END OF EXCERPT.

Please see the entire presentation at http://lnkd.in/dP2PmCP

Vegas home selling in bitcoin: Great room

By Associated Press

The former owner of a Las Vegas casino says he’s willing to accept the online currency bitcoin in the $7.85 million sale of his home.

LAS VEGAS — A casino owner-turned-commercial developer is asking $7.85 million to sell a Las Vegas home, and he’s willing to accept the online currency bitcoin for the deal.

Jack Sommer said he got the idea to seek bitcoin for his 25,000-square-foot mansion from two of his sons, who’ve been involved in making and trading the currency.

“The advantage is that we’re expanding our market and adding some notoriety,” Sommer said.

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Trends Vs. Dynamic Driving Forces! By Mr. Andres Agostini

1

(Trends Vs. Dynamic Driving Forces, A Clarity-Driven Pathway Before A Universal Management and Scientific Blunder!).

This is an excerpt from the conclusion section of, “…Trends Vs. Dynamic Driving Forces…” that discusses some management and futurism theories and practices. To read the entire piece, just click the link at the end of article:

2
EXCERPT. Ensuing:

“…If you like where events seem to be headed, you may want to take timely action to preserve their positive trajectory. If you do not like where they appear to be going, you will have to develop and implement policies to change their trajectory…”

3
Futurology is the “…study or forecasting of potential developments, as in science, technology, and society, using current conditions and trends as a point of departure…”

4
“…The goal here [in the beginning of the third millennium] is to understand the enablers [the driving forces out of which some futurists comfortably depict so-called ‘trends’] for change [potential upsides] as well as the barriers [imminent downsides]…”

5
“…The law is recognizing the trend toward complexity of life and the inability of the average person to recognize and overcome risks associated with it … Whereas our forefathers could knowingly inspect the horseshoes a blacksmith nailed on their horses’ hoofs, the average person today cannot knowledgeably inspect a microwave oven or a car’s automatic transmission.…”

6
”…Welcome to the New Future. How are you going to cope with the most challenging business changes you have ever faced? What are the top trends you must know about today? How can you better plan for the future? The Institute for Global Futures provides an analysis of the top trends, scenarios and strategies that will shape the future of your enterprise. Whether that future is one minute or one year from today you need to be prepared to face the future challenges and risks.…”

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END OF EXCERPT.

z

Please see the entire presentation at http://lnkd.in/dC5qvcb

The Future of Management Wargaming, Now! By Mr. Andres Agostini
WarGaming
This is an excerpt from the conclusion section of, “…The Future of Management Wargaming , Now…!” that discusses some management theories and practices. To read the entire piece, just click the link at the end of article:

In addition to being aware and adaptable and resilient before the driving forces reshaping the current present and the as-of-now future, there are some extra management suggestions that I concurrently practice:

a) “…human knowledge is doubling every ten years [as per the 1998 standards]…”

b) “…computer power is doubling every eighteen months. the internet is doubling every year. the number of dna sequences we can analyze is doubling every two years…”

c) “…beginning with the amount of knowledge in the known world at the time of Christ, studies have estimated that the first doubling of that knowledge took place about 1700 A.D. the second doubling occurred around the year 1900. it is estimated today that the world’s knowledge base will double again by 2010 and again after that by 2013…”

d) “…knowledge is doubling by every fourteen months…”

e) “…more than the doubling of computational power [is taking place] every year…”

f) “…The flattening of the world is going to be hugely disruptive to both traditional and developed societies. The weak will fall further behind faster. The traditional will feel the force of modernization much more profoundly. The new will get turned into old quicker. The developed will be challenged by the underdeveloped much more profoundly. I worry, because so much political stability is built on economic stability, and economic stability is not going to be a feature of the flat world. Add it all up and you can see that the disruptions and going to come faster and harder. No one is immune ─ not me, not you, not Microsoft. WE ARE ENTERING AN ERA OF CREATIVE DESTRUCTION ON STEROIDS. Dealing with flatism is going to be a challenge of a whole new dimension even if your country has a strategy. But if you don’t have a strategy at all, well, again, you’ve warned…”

DYNAMICS

Accordingly, Andres likewise indicates, “…Transformative and Integrative Risk Management (TAIRM) is also implemented in order to prevent technological surprises to the savvy organization seeking this advice and service by TAIRM, but also to create disruptively technological surprises (managerial ‘…Sputnik Moments…’) for the enterprise’s competitors…”

Please see the full presentation at http://goo.gl/SUg18r and at http://goo.gl/8fdwUP

Robert McMillan

Mike Caldwell spent years turning digital currency into physical coins. That may sound like a paradox. But it’s true. He takes bitcoins — the world’s most popular digital currency — and then he mints them here in the physical world. If you added up all the bitcoins Caldwell has minted on behalf his customers, they would be worth about $82 million.

Basically, these physical bitcoins are novelty items. But by moving the digital currency into the physical realm, he also prevents hackers from stealing the stuff via an online attack. Or at least he did. His run as the premiere bitcoin minter may be at an end. Caldwell has been put on notice by the feds.

Just before Thanksgiving, he says, he received a letter from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FINCEN, the arm of the Treasury Department that dictates how the nation’s anti-money-laundering and financial crime regulations are interpreted. According to FINCEN, Caldwell needs to rethink his business. “They considered my activity to be money transmitting,” Caldwell says. And if you want to transmit money, you must first jump through a lot of state and federal regulatory hoops Caldwell hasn’t jumped through.

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