Dial +1 646 480 0703 for #Bitcoin

Allow me to display before you the complete dearth of opportunity plaguing the actual Bitcoin community :

jurov Yesterday I emailed to prospective investor (more politely) "I don't want to become a bridge between VC and people around MPEx, pls read my blog, otherwise you're in for cultural shock". I can now link them to ho's today performance.
mircea_popescu Why wouldn't you want to ?

jurov So far I never succeeded to explain to anyone what's this about, I gave up. And that was in person. And they wanted to talk by phone which I abhor for other reasons.ⁱ
mircea_popescu Well phone wouldn't likely work for you, sure. I suppose you can sell bitcoin-assets protection services.

jurov What services?
bounce Veeceesⁱⁱ like to fone. So, where's the #bitcoin-assets voice-to-irc perpetual fone meet?
mircea_popescu This is an idea.ⁱⁱⁱ Moiety you got a phone number ?^iv

bounce OTOneH I've had that thought for ages, irc to voice, though voice to irc would perhaps be a bit of a challenge. Also the plusvees. OTOtherH this made me realise I perhaps really shouldn't want to try and find out.
mircea_popescu Nah, not automated. Handmade.^v

bounce Can get a DID on a SIP for free, though the number will likely be spendy.
kakobrekla So you can also call and go "read to me for a while".
moiety I do, mobile not landline though.
jurov And you'll be able to reason about how MPEx works and why?
mircea_popescu Would you be amenable to being our receptionist ?

moiety I would be amenable, I'd like to be clear on what you'd like me to say.
mircea_popescu I do not want you to say anything specific. We'll publish your number, anyone calls with a question you answer to the best of your ability, as per your knowledge assimilated here. If you don't know the answer, you either ask here or else if not possible cause you're in the bath or w/e, you excuse yourself, promise to call them later, and do.

kakobrekla mp, best to get a dedicated throwaway number for that.
mircea_popescu Well the implementation details after the concept agreement.

kakobrekla Yes but that was so far unspecified!
moiety My number is disposable. Only two people know it. What about call backs? I'm not in a position to call internationally.
mircea_popescu You'll get a budget.

moiety Well, reception is what I do so I'm happy to do it for you. I don't make personal calls so I can keep records. I'm not sure how you feel about it being a mobile number?
mircea_popescu Can you get skype ? It's definitely cheaper than any plan Vodafone'd sell you.

bounce "Bitcoin is mobile". If it's a problem can put sip service [in front|instead]
moiety I have skype. Funny you say that im PAYG Vodafone.
mircea_popescu Lol. Ok, so here's the deal, you get 1 bitcent an hour for now, I'll prepay you 100 hours. As an extra, you start a blog, keep a log of your calls there. Time, very short summary of conversation. No publicly identifiable info. "A guy called from Citi" is ok, "Joe Doe called" is not.

bounce Separate skype thingy? "bitcoin_assets" or something?
mircea_popescu Bounce the whole thing would be #bitcoin-assets reception service. She's only working for me in the sense that I'm the one to pay her first. Otherwise, she's a public woman :D

bounce Just wondered if its own identity brand thing wouldn't be a good idea.
mircea_popescu You mean other than #bitcoin-assets ? It's a community type of service.

moiety My account is called moderncuriosity, I'm happy to make a new one, whatever works best.
bounce No, not other than. I ment skype:#bitcoin_assets not skype:moderncuriosity. s/_/-/ or whatever skype takes
mircea_popescu Moiety yeah, make a dedicated skype. I thought skype actually took numbers. You can't get a 1-500-43987543985 sorta thing ?

bounce Plenty places where you can get a DID (Direct Inward Dial, a phone number). Even free ones, like +44 870 (IIRC), which is not quite a 900 but not regular either.
mircea_popescu That'd be good.

bounce Get a possibly free SIP acct. somewhere and put one or more of those in front. Can't always get caller ID outbound matching though.
mircea_popescu Bounce mind helping her out ? Practically rather than theoretically I mean, I don't think she'll comfortably manage the tech stuff on her own.

jurov I'll gladly help, too.
bounce Sure. Not that I know much, I tried to set it up once before and horribly failed (something funky with the nokia voip stack and passive-aggressive RFC handling), but I'll be glad to help. I'm having to stop slacking soonish today though, but tomorrow and onward is open.
mircea_popescu Cool.

Phoebus Have you guys watched fonejacker? Was on some british channel, 4 I think. Do something that that :P
fluffypony bounce, mircea_popescu
mircea_popescu Hm ?

fluffypony You can sign up for a service called Skype In or Skype Pro or some shit that gives you a dedicated number and calls to that come in to Skype.
bounce In fact I have a softphone with DID lying around, never really tested.
moiety Ok, can get a skype dedicated number for £4.03/month or £11.50/3months or I can just attach it to my mobile number.
bounce Yeah skype wants teh monies.
Phoebus Bounce, what are you using for it? Try freeswitch?
bounce Signed up for... oh feeding AWS a number or something and they didn't bite, arses. It's a sipgate.co.uk thingy, free. You set up just about any voip thing (phone, mobile phone, softphone, whatever) as long as it talks sip, and it should work.
fluffypony I'll pay the 4 Euro. I'll prepay it for 3 months, and if successful I'll keep paying it. GBP not EUR. Fail at reading today.
moiety Is google voice not free?
bounce It's a right pain to set up, need an existing US number to get in.
fluffypony Yes, but I think you have to be in the US for it?
bounce and a google account, and whatever else. you /can/ get such a DID if you're handy but
fluffypony There you go. Can we not just go for the simplest solution?
it's still a pain.
fluffypony I'm happy to pay the 4 EUR, and Skype is easy enough for this. Ffs, GBP, not EUR
* bounce isn't sure why you're so happy to throw bezzle at redmond-owned skype
fluffypony bounce: I can write it off as a business expense.
bounce You want business expenses to write off?
fluffypony Hah hah. In this instance it's for a valid cause :) Also for when she needs to phone people back, Skype calls are particularly cheap worldwide. And I don't mind throwing 20 GBP at it every time it runs low.
mircea_popescu ok, can get a skye dedicated number for £4.03/month or £11.50/3months or I can just attach it to my mobile number << how about a year ?

Phoebus mircea_popescu, if you don't mind twilio's charges, also another option. Fun API :)
fluffypony Phoebus: I'm still waiting for them to support voice in South Africa
Phoebus Uhh, kick them till they do.
fluffypony Seems like a really good service for text messages and voice.
Phoebus Yeah been using it for half a year, so far so good.
fluffypony Yeah I should probably pester them some more
Phoebus And get others to as well, if they see no market, no bother.
mircea_popescu in this instance it's for a valid cause :) << I'm impressed how well this works. Same thing happened with openbsd, people ended up giving them like 100k. And we don't even have a foundation! And we're not even CEOs of Bitcoin! Who the fuck could have imagined that if you aim to cook the point is to start heating the oil, rather than getting the proper hat.

fluffypony Lol.
moiety mircea_popescu: a year is £40.25 but wouldn't you rather see how it went?
mircea_popescu moiety no. fluffypony you paying the 40 or shall I ?

moiety Also where would you like this blog to be ?
fluffypony I'll do it.
mircea_popescu Cool. Moiety dump a btc address for your first shiny btc. And I would like the blog to be on anything that's not blogspot. Pankkake you offering hosting for noobs or not yet ?

fluffypony moiety: I've created a Skype account with the username bitcoinassets. I'm just busy organising number and skype credit and will give you the details.
moiety Thanks :] I did too lol, you can pick a sort of memorable one which is good.
fluffypony Are we going to do a US number ? Or a UK one?
mircea_popescu Prolly US best. UK is a shithole.

fluffypony KK. Any particular state? NY?
mircea_popescu Sure. WALL STREET CANARY BARF!

pankkake mircea_popescu: hosting wordpress is a liability. They're better off using wordpress.com, and move out if they really need it - everything is exportable so there is no lock-in.
mircea_popescu Aite. Moiety the French gods of tech hath spoken : wp.com

fluffypony Ok, moiety is up and running.
mircea_popescu O splendid. What's teh number ?

fluffypony +1 646 480 0703. New York Zone 1 bitches.
mircea_popescu Yay. Elaine's gonna be jealous of our 646.

fluffypony Someone needs to tell BitcoinBourse we just comped them, we *are* the Wall Street of Bitcoin :-P^vi

This is the blueprint. This is how the things that work work. But moving on : if you have any question about Bitcoin, or the things that matter in Bitcoin, call +1 646 480 0703.

1. He has a hearing impediment. [↩]
2. This sounds exactly like you'd say WC in Romanian, btw. [↩]
3. This is just how it works. [↩]
4. She gets called because she's known. She's known because she's sunk the time in to be known. Surrender your fucking self importance already, submit to reality already, ditch the delusions of self importance already and do what you're told to do. [↩]
5. This is a major problem, in that everyone wants to design software automation for everything. Not everything benefits from it! [↩]
6. We always were. [↩]