[kwlug-announce] Meeting Monday: Bitcoin, Ripple

[Paul Nijjar]

Is there anything in this world more wonderful than money? It
certainly is my favourite thing. It is so useful! You can exchange it
for valuable goods and services such as good health, friendship,
happiness and love. 

But money is kind of inconvenient. It makes your wallet bulge with
heavy coins and bills. Keeping it under your mattress makes your bed
lumpy and uncomfortable. You can use debit or credit cards, but
then your purchases can be easily correlated and tracked, and then
people find out about your embarrassing purchases (all those donuts!
all that pizza!) and you have to wallow in shame. Wouldn't it be
better to have some form of exchange that was lighter than coinage but
more private than credit cards? 

This month, Stephen Paul Weber will tell us about two such
initiatives. The first is Bitcoin, a peer-to-peer currency that is
based around an open source cryptographic protocol.  The second
initiative is Ripple, a trading protocol that allows you to conduct
transactions across many currencies, without depending on a central
authority for the transactions.  Stephen will explain how these
systems work and what makes them interesting/useful.

In other news, the Makers have been up to their shenanigans again, and 
have made a Waterloo Mini Maker Faire, to be held on Saturday June 
15 at Kitchener City Hall. For more details see 
http://makerfairewaterloo.com


This month's meeting will be held at the usual location:

St John's Kitchen 
97 Victoria Street North
(at Victoria and Weber)
Kitchener

There are maps and photos at http://kwlug.org/node/709. Doors open
around 6:30pm (and setup helpers are super-welcome), and the meeting
starts at 7pm. 


- Paul
-- 
http://pnijjar.freeshell.org
I'm speaking at http://ignitewaterloo.ca : June 13