Bitcoin Trading and API Setup

So I'm sure you've heard about bitcoins, and how valuable they've become since their inception. The value of a single bitcoin was as high as $266 on April 9th, 2013, and is currently fluctuating around $115(according to the MtGox exchange). I assume you understand what a bitcoin is, if you have absolutely no clue, check out the FAQ on the bitcoin wiki.

There are different exchanges around the world that will take my USD or whatever currency, and let me invest in bitcoins. I can always mine bitcoins, but the focus of this post is on trading bitcoins. There's currently no licensing required to trade bitcoins, and no minimum deposit for a trading account. An exchange is just an organized market for trading. The most prominent exchange with the highest trading volume is MtGox which seems to be based out of Japan. Recently they've been caught in some trouble, causing the US Federal Gov't to get involved. There are other exchanges like campbx, but the price of a bitcoin between exchanges vary (arbitrage anyone?!). The price of a bitcoin at campbx may be a couple dollars off MtGox at any given time, and MtGox could trade at values that campbx never reaches just because there are more people trading on MtGox to move the price.

Before going any further it's important to note how much information I can see about the orders. Ideally I would want to see not only the highest bid and offer (seeing only the top bid and offer is the 'top of the orderbook'), but the second highest bid, and the third, and so on (seeing all orders would be full book rather than top of book). It also makes a huge difference to see the volume of the order. If someone puts an order in to buy bitcoins, I want to know how many bitcoins they're looking to buy or sell. There are 3 different levels of order insight in tradable markets, Level I, Level II, and Level III. They're described fairly well here at investopedia.

Ideally I would want Level III. I want to be able to see all the orders, the size of those orders, who's ordering, and I want to be able to put an order in at any time to execute a trade at the press of a keystroke. Unfortunately once I set up an account on any bitcoin exchange, the options given by the site UI are barely giving me Level I access, and it's all with the mouse(ugh). So trading is tedious and is meant to be for long term holding. I can only input one buy or sell order at a time, and it's extremely time consuming to flip through different pages of the exchange's site, trying to modify, cancel, or add more orders.

Luckily there's hope! All I have to do is write my own program, that connects to the exchange's API through a full-duplex websocket connection. A nice challenge would be to make an program that will make it easy to trade on multiple exchanges, all with a simple keystroke, such as with popular trading platforms for stock trading. There's a nice charting and Level II type resource for bitcoin that's publically available, and that's bitcoin.clarkmoody.com. If you want to dedicate a screen just to the chart, just go to http://bitcoin.clarkmoody.com/widget/chart/. As you can see the service only reflects prices on MtGox. It's nice just because the clarkmoody site uses the charts from RTBTC, and RTBTC is currently in private beta, so there's no real other way of getting these charts short of creating your own or begging RTBTC.

Resetting Your Address Bar Search Engine (Firefox)

Remember those sneaky AVG and Ask toolbars that are hidden in certain software installation wizards? There's others, but I've noticed AVG is extra invasive as it changes your default homepage and the default search engine for your address bar. The most recent time I contracted the AVG toolbar bologna there was no question. It was either my installation goes through with the AVG bar, or not at all.

These sneaky installations really benefits AVG, since they hijack your search engine option, every query sent through them gives them some money from yahoo or whichever engine they're routing to. It's funny but this is how firefox originally got most of its funding. The homepage for firefox is a google search bar, but every query sent through the firefox version gives mozilla a little coin. I recently found this nifty add on for firefox that puts all these sneaky settings back to default.
It's called SearchReset, https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/searchreset/

All this temporary add on does is change some settings in about:config

Mining an Asteroid

The idea of mining an asteroid is astonishing. Let's explore this idea a bit more.

Here's a video showing us that there have been more than 500,000 asteroids discovered orbiting our sun between Mars and Jupiter. The 'Asteroid Belt'.

Elon Musk, the same man who started Paypal and Tesla motors also started Space X. Space X seems to be focusing on commercial space flight. But there's also a company called Planetary Exploration, which is planning to send drones to mine asteroids. Strangely the founder of Planetary Exploration said the goal is not to mine minerals and bring them back to Earth, but to refine them where they are found, creating usable resources for a space adventure.

Here's a nice TED talk about how we would divert an asteroid too big to blow up that was headed straight for Earth. We could change its trajectory, and have it orbit our planet, or our moon, then mine it!


To see companies ALREADY hopping on this idea is mind blowing! Many of the asteroids in the asteroid belt are rich with all kinds of rare earth minerals and even water. Water can be broken down into hydrogen and oxygen on site to create rocket fuel. So imagine a space mission that will rely on fuel that's sitting on an asteroid, which we've pulled into orbit around our moon or mars. And the fuel has been mined and refined by drones sent there months earlier. It's like some sort of science fiction, and yet there are already billion dollar private companies turning these ideas into reality. Asteroid space stations here we come :O

Cat 5 Cabling Tips

Here's a nice video describing the wiring difference between 568A and 568B RJ45 modular plugs.



here's also a nice video showing how to properly punch down a cat5 into a 66 block.



I like the BlOG acronym for remembing the Blue, Orange, Green, Brown wire order. Always remember the white primary color; white blue is first, then blue, same for orange, and so on.

Here's a useful diagram:


It's also useful to note that PCs send information on pins 1 and 2, and receive information on pins 3 and 6. So you would need a 'cross over' cable if you wanted a PC to talk directly with another PC. 

PC to PC = cross over cable. Some machines are smart enough that such a cable isn't needed, but that can be our secret.

Straight through cables are for plugging to a jack, meaning both sides of the RJ45 cord are 568A or 568B. This is why you've probably had trouble connecting two PCs directly. With the straight through cable both PCs are sending on pins 1 and 2, and both receiving on 3 and 6. This doesn't work! PC 1 needs to receive on the send pins of PC 2! Thus the cross over cable is born! This means the cable is 568A on one side, and 568B on the other! Look at the above diagram again... notice how the Orange White and Orange wires from 568A on pins 3 and 6(receiving pins) are pins 1 and 2(sending pins) on 568B. It makes sense now right?

You also need a cross over cable between switches and hubs. PC to switch just needs a straight through cable. A mod plug adapter is used to turn a connection from 568 A to 568 B, or vice versa. Cheers!