Lifeboat Foundation

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.

Continue reading “U.S. Government Nastygram Shuts Down One-Man Bitcoin Mint” »

The Future of Skunkworks Management, Now! By Mr. Andres Agostini

This is an excerpt from the conclusion section of, “…The Future of Skunkworks Management, Now!…” that discusses some management theories and practices and strategies. To view the entire piece, just click the link at the end of this post:

Peter Drucker asserted, “…In a few hundred years, when the story of our [current] time is written from a long-term perspective, it is likely that the most important event those historians will see is not technology, not the Internet, not e-commerce [not so-called ‘social media’]. IT is an unprecedented change in the human condition. For the first time ─ literally ─ substantial and growing numbers of people have choices. for the first time, they will have to manage themselves. And society is totally unprepared for it…”
Please see the full presentation at http://goo.gl/FnJOlg

By WILLIAM ALDEN

A venture capitalist, a former regulator, a lawyer and a pair of entrepreneurs — Bitcoin evangelists all — gathered on Tuesday in the private dining room of an upscale Manhattan restaurant to discuss their vision of a world in which the currency plays a role in mainstream finance.

It may be a far-fetched notion — Bitcoin, despite the attention it has received in recent months, is still largely a plaything for speculators online, with stomach-turning price swings — but it is one that these men have bet millions of dollars can be achieved.

Continue reading “Bitcoin Believers See a Role for Wall Street” »

Applied Omniscience in Transformative and Integrative Risk Management! By Mr. Andres Agostini

This is an excerpt from the presentation, “…Applied Omniscience in Transformative and Integrative Risk Management!…” that discusses some management theories and practices. To read the entire piece, just click the link at the end of article:

Please see the graphic at http://lnkd.in/dUstZEk

Womb-to-Tomb Management! By Mr. Andres Agostini

This is an excerpt from the presentation, “…Womb-to-Tomb Management!…” that discusses some management theories and practices. To read the entire piece, just click the link at the end of article:

Please see the graphic at http://lnkd.in/dbD4G7e

This is an excerpt from the conclusion section of, “…NASA’s Managerial and Leadership Methodology, Now Unveiled!..!” by Mr. Andres Agostini, that discusses some management theories and practices. To read the entire piece, just click the link at the end of this illustrated article and presentation:

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:

1. Given the vast amount of insidious risks, futures, challenges, principles, processes, contents, practices, tools, techniques, benefits and opportunities, there needs to be a full-bodied practical and applicable methodology (methodologies are utilized and implemented to solve complex problems and to facilitate the decision-making and anticipatory process).

The manager must always address issues with a Panoramic View and must also exercise the envisioning of both the Whole and the Granularity of Details, along with the embedded (corresponding) interrelationships and dynamics (that is, [i] interrelationships and dynamics of the subtle, [ii] interrelationships and dynamics of the overt and [iii] interrelationships and dynamics of the covert).

Continue reading “NASA's Managerial and Leadership Methodology” »

This is an excerpt from, “Futuretronium Book” by Mr. Andres Agostini, that discusses some management theories and practices with the future-ready perspective. To read the entire piece, just click the link at the end of article:

“…#1 Futuretronium ® and the administration and application of the scientific method without innuendos and in crescendo as fluid points of inflections ascertain that the morrow is a thing of the past…”

”…#2 Futuretronium ®, subsequently, there is now and here available the unabridged, authoritative eclictation and elucidation of actionable knowledge from and for the incessantly arrhythmic, abrupt, antagonistic, mordant, caustic, and anarchistic future, as well as the contentious interrelationship between such future and the present…”

“…#3 Futuretronium ®, a radical yet rigorous strong-sense and critico-creative «Futures Thinking», systems approach to quintessential understanding of the complexities, subtleties, and intricacies, as well as the opportunities to be exploited out of the driving forces instilling and inflicting perpetual change into twenty-first century…”

Read the full book at http://lnkd.in/ZxV3Sz to further explore these topics and experience future-ready management practices and theories.

By BRIAN COHEN

Thanksgiving day, while many of us were eating turkey, The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) published JPMorgan Chase’s (Chase) patent application 20130317984, “Method and system for processing internet payments using the electronic funds transfer network.” The application was filed with the USPTO on August 5th, 2013.

Without mentioning Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies at all for that matter, Chase appears to be building a competing centralized network to Bitcoin. The application defines the problems that legacy banking has with online transactions and then provides a detailed explanation how Chase will address these problems with this new technology. The application states that Chase’s technology is a “new paradigm.” Moreover that it permits the creation of “virtual cash” (also referred to as “web cash”) with a “real-time digital exchange of value.”

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The leader of the payments business looks to the future and says Bitcoin is a good idea — but not yet actually a currency. Tap-to-pay, meanwhile, is a dud.