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What does he actually do on those machines? I have no idea why somebody in the european parliament would want more than 8 GB of RAM. Apparently he runs Visual

by rb2k_ 15y ago

What does he actually do on those machines? I have no idea why somebody in the european parliament would want more than 8 GB of RAM. Apparently he runs Visual Studio inside a VM, but I'm not sure why he does a lot of software development.

kzrdude 15y ago
He's not in the European Parliament. The Swedish Pirate Party MEPs are Christian Engström and Amelia Andersdotter. Rick gets his salary as assistant to Christian. The current leader of PP, Anna Troberg, is also his assistant/paid staff.
- rb2k_ 15y ago
  Oh yeah, seems I misread that. Time for coffee :) I guess the original question still remains the same
henrikschroder 15y ago
> I have no idea why somebody in the european parliament would want more than 8 GB of RAM. 640kB ought to be enough for everybody? Seriously, why not? RAM is so ridiculously cheap these days there's no excuse not to get 16GB when you buy a new machine. If nothing else it'll be used as a disk cache.
- hamoid 15y ago
  You can mount /tmp in RAM, making the computer faster and avoiding ssd usage. I use it for rendering and manipulating large collections of files. Logs are there too.
gwern 15y ago
Maybe he manages his life savings that he put into Bitcoin: http://falkvinge.net/2011/05/29/why-im-putting-all-my-savings-into-bitcoin/ http://falkvinge.net/2011/05/29/why-im-putting-all-my-saving... (One wonders how that worked out for him; I'd find that answer a lot more interesting than his connection.)
- Falkvinge 15y ago
  About breakeven for the time being, but I also learned a scary lot about how trading works in the process.
- runeks 15y ago
  I've invested some dollars in bitcoins. But nowhere near my life savings. I'm regarding Bitcoin as a high risk investment (it is the very first distributed electronic currency after all) and I'm investing proportional to this assessment (ie., not a lot of money). Seems to me that investing heavily in bitcoins right now might be similar to investing in real estate. Yes, if you invested a lot of money x years ago you would be rich. If you invest money in it now, though, your odds are pretty poor. That being said, I think Bitcoin has a lot more room for expansion in price compared to real estate. But it's possible that buying bitcoins now is a bit like buying into a stock heavily after it has boomed. The ones who bought before the boom got rich. The ones who do so after the boom, not so much.
- GaryRowe 15y ago
  For anyone considering investing in bitcoins, first read this: http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/405/what-are-some-of-the-risks-of-speculating-on-bitcoin-value http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/405/what-are-some... And for the avoidance of FUD: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Myths https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Myths It is worth pointing out that Bitcoin does not require an investment to use it. Merchants can price their goods in bitcoins using a real-time exchange rate to limit their exposure to changing prices. Since transactions propagate (without confirmations) within a few seconds the merchant can accept the payment and later cash out to, say, USD/GBP/EUR via the exchange or some other mechanism (e.g. direct to a credit card). Alternatively, if part of their supply chain takes payment in bitcoins (e.g. a hosting service for their website, or a supplier of goods) then they can simply pay their overheads with them. Disclaimer: I am currently long on bitcoins and am using them as part of my long term retirement fund.

by rb2k_ 15y ago

kzrdude 15y ago

He's not in the European Parliament. The Swedish Pirate Party MEPs are Christian Engström and Amelia Andersdotter. Rick gets his salary as assistant to Christian. The current leader of PP, Anna Troberg, is also his assistant/paid staff.

rb2k_ 15y ago
Oh yeah, seems I misread that. Time for coffee :) I guess the original question still remains the same

henrikschroder 15y ago

> I have no idea why somebody in the european parliament would want more than 8 GB of RAM. 640kB ought to be enough for everybody? Seriously, why not? RAM is so ridiculously cheap these days there's no excuse not to get 16GB when you buy a new machine. If nothing else it'll be used as a disk cache.

hamoid 15y ago
You can mount /tmp in RAM, making the computer faster and avoiding ssd usage. I use it for rendering and manipulating large collections of files. Logs are there too.

gwern 15y ago

Maybe he manages his life savings that he put into Bitcoin: http://falkvinge.net/2011/05/29/why-im-putting-all-my-savings-into-bitcoin/ http://falkvinge.net/2011/05/29/why-im-putting-all-my-saving... (One wonders how that worked out for him; I'd find that answer a lot more interesting than his connection.)

Falkvinge 15y ago
About breakeven for the time being, but I also learned a scary lot about how trading works in the process.
runeks 15y ago
I've invested some dollars in bitcoins. But nowhere near my life savings. I'm regarding Bitcoin as a high risk investment (it is the very first distributed electronic currency after all) and I'm investing proportional to this assessment (ie., not a lot of money). Seems to me that investing heavily in bitcoins right now might be similar to investing in real estate. Yes, if you invested a lot of money x years ago you would be rich. If you invest money in it now, though, your odds are pretty poor. That being said, I think Bitcoin has a lot more room for expansion in price compared to real estate. But it's possible that buying bitcoins now is a bit like buying into a stock heavily after it has boomed. The ones who bought before the boom got rich. The ones who do so after the boom, not so much.
GaryRowe 15y ago
For anyone considering investing in bitcoins, first read this: http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/405/what-are-some-of-the-risks-of-speculating-on-bitcoin-value http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/405/what-are-some... And for the avoidance of FUD: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Myths https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Myths It is worth pointing out that Bitcoin does not require an investment to use it. Merchants can price their goods in bitcoins using a real-time exchange rate to limit their exposure to changing prices. Since transactions propagate (without confirmations) within a few seconds the merchant can accept the payment and later cash out to, say, USD/GBP/EUR via the exchange or some other mechanism (e.g. direct to a credit card). Alternatively, if part of their supply chain takes payment in bitcoins (e.g. a hosting service for their website, or a supplier of goods) then they can simply pay their overheads with them. Disclaimer: I am currently long on bitcoins and am using them as part of my long term retirement fund.