text:
Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 125887
kernel 2.2.6-1.427 causes HARD system hangs / FREEZES!
Last modified: 2015-01-04 17:07:00 EST
A few days ago my system completly froze while burning a cd, this was
with 2.2.6-1.406. I thought this was just bad luck, even with good
hardware once in a while a bit falls over. But when I tried to burn
the same CD again (this time running 2.2.6-1.406) my system froze
again. The third now running the official update 2.2.6-1.427 my system
froze again!
After downgrading to kernel-2.6.5-1.358 I've managed to already burn 3
CDR's succesfully without any problems.
On a related note I've also noticed that with the 2.6.6-1.xxx kernel
some commands take a very long time to complete, for example doing an
rpm -e on an old kernel after succesfully booting the new one takes
atleast 5 minutes (after 5 minutes I started doing soemthing else),
when this happened in top I had around 90% wa CPU usage.
My system is:
-Asus Athlon slot-A MB with irongate North bridge and VIA southbridge
-Slot-A Athlon 600 Mhz
-2x 128 Mb 100Mhz SDRAM's
-2x 6.5 Gigabyte ide disks, both master doing udma 33
-Adaptec AIC7860 single channel narrow ultra scsi controler without BIOS
-Sony CDU 76s 4x speed SCSI cdrom
-Yamaha CRW4416S 4x speed SCSI cdburner
-Matrox G200, using the default Xorg driver
I've just bought a new DVD-player, which also can play mp3-cd's and
when the frozes occured I was trying to copy an mp3 CD with Rock Ridge
extensions, to a new CDR with only Joliet extensions because the DVD
player doesn't seem to like RockRidge. I didn't want to make an image
for every mp3 CD so I decided to do it on the fly at 2x speed since
my CDROM player can only do 4x speed, and doing 4x speed burning from
a 4x speed source while remastering seemed to much to me, this
resulted in the following command used to burn the CD:
mkisofs -J -V mp3-006 /misc/cdrom1 2> mkisofs.log | cdrecord -v -eject
speed=2 dev=/dev/cdrom -tao -
I was logged into GNOME as a normal user, "su -" to root in an xterm.
Also notice that to make things even more interesting /misc is an
autofs filesystem. I must admit that I'm pushing my luck, but that;s
why I'm running a real OS, and besides I've already "remastered" 3 mp3
CD's this way successfully with kernel-2.6.5-1.358 .
Which leaves me wondering why RH has decided to release an official
update to 2.6.6 incorperating the 2.6.7 anonvma changes which haven't
even been released yet? If the purpose whas to get NX support why not
just ad that to 2.6.5-1.358 ?
I've got my screensaver disabled, so there was no 3D screensaver
kicking in doing AGP, that would make things even more interesting,
but isn't the case.
> Which leaves me wondering why RH has decided to release an official
> update to 2.6.6 incorperating the 2.6.7 anonvma changes which haven't
> even been released yet? If the purpose whas to get NX support why
> not just ad that to 2.6.5-1.358 ?
the purpose of the erratum was mostly to incorporate the hundreds and
hundreds of bugfixes made to the kernel since the 2.6.6-rc3 we shipped
in FC2.
Couldn't you have splitted out and reversed the anonvma changes? If
this one crashes for me you can wait for it to crash on others.
Anyways the reason for me to submit this bug was not to start a
discussion about RH's kernel release policy that was just a side note.
What I really want is to get this bug fixed. Not just for me, I'm a
seasoned linux user and can live with using 2.6.5 for now, but as an
active Linux advocate I don't want to see Linux crashing on new users,
thats bad publicity.
I think I've got some additional clues, the problem seems to be in the
aic7xxx driver. I'll attach a part of /var/log/messages containing the
last kernel-messages before a freeze. I've got 2 of these in my logs
(and I've had 3 freezes)
I'll also attach a simular message in 2.6.5, but this time the system
keeps running, I must notice that with 2.6.5 after this message my
CDrecorder was unusable, so I'm now running that latest FC1 kernel.
Created attachment 101134 [details]
last messages before crash with 2.6.6
Created attachment 101135 [details]
same messages, this time without a crash with 2.6.5
I can confirm this random freezings with kernel 126.96.36.199-427 & 1-435
They appear whith normal use of the box under Gnome. The system
becomes unresponsible, sometimes you make a click on a button and the
action takes several minutes to actually take place. If you drag a
windows over the screen, the screent doesn't refresh properly, and
everything becomes cluttered. It seems this affect Nautilus more than
other applications. When this kind-of-freez is taking place, if I go
to a text console and the go back to the graphic console, all the
icons from the opened windwos dissapear.
Sometimes it's possible to work normally within an already opened
gnome-terminal during the freezing.
I also note strange audio problems running the 435 kernel. If I point
to a little (28k) .au file in a Nautilus window, Nautilus will
"preview" the first 2 or 3 seconds, and start over again, in an
infinite loop (until I move the mouse pointer of course). If I boot
with the original 358 kernel, the .au file is played only once, and in
its full lenght.
I can go to a text console w/o problem, and work normally from there
during the freeze. There isn't any suspicious process eating resources.
Sometimes killing the X-server solves the problem for several minutes
(then it pops-up again).
Sometimes if you kill the X-server it won't start again (the gdm
session hangs).
The problem is very reproducible in my box: I only have to boot any of
these kernels, and do some work. After a few minutes, the freezing
takes place. Sometimes it goes away alone after a random period of
time (seconds or even minutes).
Nothing of this happens with te original FC2 kernel (2.6.5)
I've noted several posts in the fedora-list in the last two weeks;
from what I've read, this not affect Pentium IV boxes. Only AMD Athlon
Different people is reporting differnt problems, but all of the seem
related to something in the 2.6.6-1.* kernels. Here are some relevant
(it seems that some people solved the problem turning acpi off; this
is NOT my case. I've tried that, with no luck).
My configuration:
- AMD Athlon XP 1700+
- mobo: Asus A7N8X Deluxe (nVidia nForce2)
- HD: IDE ATA/133 80Gb (Maxtor)
- Video: Abit Siluro Geforce4 MX
- Video driver: Standard XOrg "nv" driver
- No 3rd party / unnofficial packages.
- FC2, fresh install, updates as of June 25th.
-I only get freezes when I use my cd drives which are attached to my
adaptec scsi card
-My cd drives also don't work as advertised with the 2.6.5 kernel
-I don't have acpi (according to the kernel my bios is too old)
-I do have an Athlon
So this bug really are 2 bugs:
-freezes on Athlon with 2.6.6
-problems with adaptec aic7xxx scsi, which are also there in 2.6.5 and
which trigger the generic Athlon freeze in 2.6.6
I think the first bug might be to do with the nautilus and
gst-thumbnail. If I open a directory that contains some .asf/.wmv
files I was getting issues similar to those described in #7. I was
able to telnet in from another machine on several occassions and run
top and found either a large number of pdflush processes running or
one very memory hungry gst-thumbnail process - using 90% of my RAM and
90% of my swap. I also have an Athlon processor on an ASUS motherboard.
I have experienced the freeze in any sort of directory, even in
directories with no multimedia content. In fact, I've experienced the
freeze with no opened Nautilus windows at all (f.i., writting an
e-mail in Evolution). I have failed to identify any suspicious process
during the freeze.
I played a bit more yesterday with the 435 kernel, and noticed that
many of the system sounds (gnome's event sounds) are changed whenever
I boot that kernel (i.e., the sound when I launch and application is
different (heavily distorted?) on a running 435 kernel). Weird. Very
weird!. This is a constant issue (and has no aparent relationship with
the actual freezings).
If it were Nautilus (or any of the Gnome components), how come it goes
away booting the 2.6.5 kernel? Unless some new code in the 2.6.6
kernel broke gnome.
All of us are using gnome?
I'll test the 435 kernel with KDE, and report later.
Ok, now if I start KDE the problem is quite different:
- I couldn't reproduce the random freezings I get with Gnome;
- I have no system sounds at all;
- Any application that deals with sound in some way, either hangs
completely or don't play any sound at all;
As with Gnome, if I boot the original FC2 2.6.5 kernel, KDE has sound
again, and everything work just fine, without having to touch any
It would be interesting if any other with this problem can confirm a
different behavior using KDE...
Have also experienced frequent slow response in KDE, as well as hard
lockups overnight, with kernel-smp-2.6.6-1.435 on Tyan S2462 Thunder
K7 MB with Dual Athlon MP 1800+. Not doing any multimedia normally
but sound works for .au and .wav files (despite ALSA error messages at
startup). Screensaver is blank-screen. Have a SCSI disks and CD-RW,
which has not been used lately but will bang on it and report any new
data. Nothing obvious in logs after hard lockup. Will provide any
additional info that might help on request.
[root@radar0 root]# lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-760 MP [IGD4-2P]
System Controller (rev 11)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-760 MP [IGD4-2P]
AGP Bridge
00:07.0 ISA bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-766 [ViperPlus]
ISA (rev 02)
00:07.1 IDE interface: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-766
[ViperPlus] IDE (rev 01)
00:07.3 Bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-766 [ViperPlus] ACPI
(rev 01)
00:07.4 USB Controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-766
[ViperPlus] USB (rev 07)
00:09.0 RAID bus controller: 3ware Inc 3ware 7000-series ATA-RAID (rev 01)
00:0c.0 Multimedia audio controller: Creative Labs SB Live! EMU10k1
(rev 07)
00:0c.1 Input device controller: Creative Labs SB Live! MIDI/Game Port
(rev 07)
00:0d.0 SCSI storage controller: Adaptec AIC-7899P U160/m (rev 01)
00:0d.1 SCSI storage controller: Adaptec AIC-7899P U160/m (rev 01)
00:0f.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation 3c980-C 10/100baseTX NIC
[Python-T] (rev 78)
00:10.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation 3c980-C 10/100baseTX NIC
[Python-T] (rev 78)
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon R200 QL
[Radeon 8500 LE]
Just finished burning FC2 CDs 1 - 4 at 20x on Yamaha CRW2200S using
K3B without incident. Played the "horse race" sound on completion.
SCSI CD writing seems not to be an issue for me.
I just installed FC2 yesterday, fresh install. I did a
up2date and installed all updated packages, including kernel
2.6.6-1.435.2.1. The system runs fine, at least for now, in
kernel 2.6.5, but I had two freezes when trying to boot into
The same hardware configuration ran fine for many months with
I just tried 2 times to boot 2.6.6, so I haven't had any
KDE or Gnome running, I don't want any system corruption stuff..
Hardware :
Asus A7N8X motherboard, Athlon 2400+, 512MB samsung PC2700.
Geforce4 Ti 4200
Soundblaster Live!
Canon Lide 30 scanner
HP laserjet 4+
Logitech 300MX optical mouse
Logitech keyboard
3com netcard, driver 3c59x
Seagate barracuda IDE 80GB hdd
Asus CD-rom
Lite-On DVD burner.
This bug may be related to the one I posted in 126391 - it's hard to
tell from this end; however, both do involve problems on athlon
systems using the aic7xxx driver, and both include system hangs or
So fwiw I was asked to post a note on this bug referencing the but I
had posted.
I have been having this problem since fc2 test. All kernels seem to
have the problem for me. Total X lockup. Only the mouse will move and
no keyboard response. Ctl-Alt-BkSp non-functional. I have no scsi,
just IDE drive and GeForce3 Ti 200 card using standard stock
fedora/xorg drivers. Can go to another computer and log in using vnc
with no problem and restart or shutdown system and/or X. Observe via
vnc the X process is running about 97% cpu with 3% memory when locked.
CPU is 500 Mhz athlon. Memtest works fine on overnight tests. See
nothing in logs indicating a problem. Ctl-Alt-(keypad)/ or (keypad)*
enabled in xorg.confg but do nothing during lock. Have reported this
several time on list. Have completely updated fc2. At times has seemed
to be fixed but alway occurs eventually (several times a day to once a
week when x heavily loaded with lots of windows to just a few). Have
seen with kde and gnome.
Created attachment 104823 [details]
/proc info
I forgot to add that when the X server is tying up a CPU, it is
looping thusly:
ioctl(8, 0xc0286429, 0xfef9e980) = -1 EBUSY (Device or resource
--- SIGALRM (Alarm clock) @ 0 (0) ---
sigreturn() = ? (mask now [])
ioctl(8, 0xc0286429, 0xfef9e980) = -1 EBUSY (Device or resource
--- SIGALRM (Alarm clock) @ 0 (0) ---
sigreturn() = ? (mask now [])
ioctl(8, 0xc0286429, 0xfef9e980) = -1 EBUSY (Device or resource
ioctl(8, 0xc0286429, 0xfef9e980) = -1 EBUSY (Device or resource
and if I read it correctly, lsof says that file descriptor 8 is:
X 10717 root 8u CHR 226,0 65536
Fedora Core 2 has now reached end of life, and no further updates will be
provided by Red Hat. The Fedora legacy project will be producing further kernel
updates for security problems only.
If this bug has not been fixed in the latest Fedora Core 2 update kernel, please
try to reproduce it under Fedora Core 3, and reopen if necessary, changing the
product version accordingly.
Thank you.


text:
"For me, five years is like a dream…it has been a dream come true."
- Rob Pate
Last month marked the five-year anniversary of Rob Pate and Cindy McDermott as a couple and as the bluegrass duo Blue Ribbon Healers.
"We feel like that's a significant milestone," says McDermott. "It's a great time to reflect on everything that we've done in the past five years, and that includes a lot of traveling, a lot of songwriting, and a lot of new experiences."
She says she and Pate met because of music. "It was just the most natural thing for us to play music together and be together. It all kind of happened at once—from the beginning, it was all wrapped up together."
The duo's influences include "a lot of different flavors from the Southeast and the Delta region," says Pate. "Our main concern is songwriting, but we have a voracious appetite for a lot of different styles."
He equates incorporating a musical smorgasbord with the diversity that is required of top chefs. "If you're a chef, you want to know the styles of the world, and if you're a songwriter, you don't want to serve up the same dish every night."
The Blue Ribbon Healers travel extensively, which hasn't left a lot of time to record their next album. But they've released a live album every year and are currently in the studio with former Allman Brothers Band bassist David Goldflies at the board.
Whether you catch the Blue Ribbon Healers as a duo or with a full band, they will be having a good time. "Making friends on the road, that's one of the best parts about traveling," says McDermott. "You've got a whole network of friends anywhere you go. And music is the best way to make friends. It can say a lot more than you're capable of saying in words."
Pate admits to "itchy feet" when he stays in one place for too long, "When you go out on the road you get saturated by all of these outside influences. If you manage to stick around in an area or region that you're unfamiliar with, all these wonderful things start happening to your outlook, to your approach, to whatever your craft is. Your songwriting changes—everything changes."
No matter how far they travel—from Florida to California to Spain—the couple feels they will always make their way back to the beach.
"We both grew up down here," says McDermott. "We both have family here. This is home. This is always going to be home."
McDermott equates the past five years to a Grateful Dead tour. "Deciding to leave everything and just go follow the Dead, because that's kind of how it felt for my life," she explains. "Everything changed for me in the best possible way. I would say that the five years for me is a long, strange trip. And I'm not getting off any time soon."
Discover more at blueribbonhealers.com.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Five things for pharma marketers to know: Monday, October 2, 2017
1. The FDA sent letters to 75 immediate-release opioid manufacturers, in which the agency told the drugmakers that they must fund voluntary training of healthcare providers who prescribe their drugs. (Reuters)
2. In its first Phase-III trial, Zogenix' experimental treatment for a rare form of epilepsy, ZX008, reduced the frequency of seizures in children and young adults.
3. The FDA approved Novo Nordisk's fast-acting mealtime insulin, Fiasp. The drug is a new formulation of Novolog.
4. Medicare lost $1.5 billion on defective pacemakers and other devices, according to a report released by the inspector general's office for the Department of Health and Human Services. The report discovered that nearly 73,000 Medicare patients had one of the seven defective devices replaced. (NYT)
5. ICYMI: Lobbying group PhRMA said it supports a seven-day limit on first-time opioid prescriptions for acute pain. (BioPharmaDIVE)


text:
Get yourself good knives – the best you can afford – and learn to use them safely; it makes prepping ingredients much easier. Learn how to regulate heat: to caramelise something the pan must be hot but not smoking; to sweat vegetables, release their sweetness over a gentle heat. You can transform a meat dish with a pan sauce: remove the meat and splash in wine or stock to deglaze the pan, scraping up all the sediment, which is packed with flavour. Simmer, reducing it to a syrup. Once you're comfortable with these skills you can experiment
Look for reliable recipe books, with dishes you know are really going to work. For beginners, Delia Smith's recipes never fail. I started by using old cookbooks, particularly Marguerite Patten's Cookery in Colour. It had hideous mustard-coloured pages, but she covered great classic recipes, especially those for baking. I still use it today
Use whatever motivates you, be it a cookbook, foodie magazine or website. If you're looking for some really advanced ideas, try Claire Clark's book Indulge for desserts and puddings, Tom Kitchin for great new ideas, or the cookbook Pier, from the eponymous Australian restaurant, for amazing seafood recipes
We have some great food writers in Britain, but it is also exciting to read magazines from other countries, particularly America, New Zealand and Australia. Keep hold of their recipe ideas for when the season comes round in Britain. You won't always find the same ingredients, but it will inspire you to think about what you can replace with what
If cooking feels like a chore it will remain a chore, so try doing it with friends, or get your children involved. Feed off other people's experiences – what have they tried, what has worked for them? With a bit of interaction and banter you are no longer on your own just trying to feed the family; you can be having fun
Things go wrong for everyone – you just need to learn what happened when a dish fails. It might be a very small and simple thing that is easy to correct, such as adjusting the seasoning . There are plenty of books out there that give solutions to cooking problems. These will help you to analyse your recipes – a great skill to possess
Cooking is inherently spontaneous. Ingredients are interchangeable. Armed with your basic knowledge you can shake up your regular, fail-safe dishes. Take a simple crumble: once you've learnt the technique of rubbing butter into flour, and you know the ratio of dry ingredients to fat, you can replace some of the flour with oats, or use granola with nuts and spices. Make an omelette into a frittata; it's still just cooking eggs, but once you know how to cook an egg, and why you have to cook it gently, you can transform it completely. Be prepared to end up with a result that might not be quite what you wanted, then try something different next time
- Leiths School of Food and Wine, London W1 (leiths.com)


text:
Students who complete this course are able to: demonstrate knowledge of planning requirements for establishment and maintenance of an organic horticultural production system; demonstrate knowledge of organic soil management; describe pest control in organic horticulture; demonstrate knowledge of factors that affect disease control in organic horticulture; demonstrate knowledge of weed management in organic horticulture; and demonstrate knowledge of companion planting in organic horticulture.
This is a practical course where students will learn how to prepare and apply compost teas liquid fertilisers.
Students learning how to recognise and encourage both earthworms and compost worms, build and maintain worm bins.
Students learn and practice the principles of hot composting, bokashi using effective microorganisms and how to use biodynamic compost reparations.
On completion of this course students will be able to describe the basic structure and function of plants and plant nutrition.
Students learn how to describe soil formation, basic biological, chemical and physical soil properties and how soil properties and organic fertilisers can be managed to optimise plant growth. Students will also be able to assess and modify soil using sustainable practices, manage organic matter and maintain long term fertility. The student will also undertake basic soil analysis and take samples for soil tests.
Students will learn the principles of seed bed preparation, direct sowing and transplanting for a range of vegetable, green manure and cover crops grown at the BHU organic farm. Both hand and mechanical methods will be demonstrated. Students work as a group in the year 1 intensive gardens under the tuition of Bob Crowder. Produce is sold at the BHU weekly market on campus.
The shelter course aims to provide students with the theory and practical knowledge to select, plant, prune and maintain healthy shelter trees. Students will practice hoe to plant, maintain and coppice the mixed species shelter plantings and Food Forest at the BHU.
This course is a mixture of theory and practical, looking at the basics of managing and maintaining a healthy hive organically as well as how to maximize the value and benefits of having bees in organic horticulture.
Students completing this course will be able to: describe the principles of permaculture; outline procedures used to analyse a site for permaculture; create a permaculture plan for a selected site; and describe considerations when implementing the permaculture plan. Students develop a plan using permaculture principles for a site of their choice.
Students who complete this course are able to: describe the basic relationships and characteristics of an organic system; describe the development of modern organic horticulture; describe the schools of thought that are credited with the development of the modern organic horticulture movement; describe the principles of a selected range of organic movements; and describe the roles of key organisations that have a strong influence on organic horticulture.
This course will train students how to use hand pruning equipment, orchard ladders or stools, and maintain orchard equipment. Students will practice pruning techniques in the BHU orchards.
Planting to Retain Insects and Birds
This course looks at how to attract birds and other beneficial organisms, improve biodiversity and select and manage plant species with this in mind.
Students learn basic tractor maintenance, how to attach implements and drive a tractor in a safe and controlled manner. Students are able to practice on one of two BHU tractors on the BHU farm under the tuition of experienced trainers.


text:
For imMature Adults Only!
Red Peters is an advocate and the "go to" guy for adult comedy music. Besides recording his own best selling comedy albums (Oglio Comedy), "I Laughed, I Cried, I Fudged My Undies!" in 1995, containing the comedy classics, "Blow Me (You Hardly Even Know Me)", "How's Your Whole… Family?", "The Ballad Of A Dog Named Stains", "You Promised The Moon (But I Preferred Uranus)", and "Holy Shit, It's Christmas!", and his 2000 follow up, "Ol' Blue Balls Is Back!" featuring the tunes, "Let's Do It Doggy Style (So We Can Both Watch TV)", "The Spelling Song", the "I Wanna Polka Polka", "The Closing Song (Get The Fuck Outta Here!)", "Use Your Hand", and "You Ain't Gettin' Shit For Christmas!" . His subsequent singles, "I Can't Say These Things", which Howard Stern adopted as his anthem for his struggle with the FCC in the waning days before leaving terrestrial radio, and his popular follow-up, "When I Jerkoff, I Think Of You" with The Alan Pinchloaf Singers. In 2010, Red released two Christmas singles. "Have A Wonderful Hawaiian Christmas" and "The Christmas Gift", a tender holiday duet with Margaret Cho. He recorded another duet of his 1st big hit, "Blow Me (You Hardly Even Know Me)" with multi-media rocker, Todd Rundgren in 2014. Red entertained millions on his Sirius XM Satellite Radio program, The Red Peters Comedy Music Hour on Howard 101, showcased hidden, rare, undiscovered, uncut and uncensored comedy music talent. The Red Peters Song Snatch podcast features a new, funny and filthy song by a variety of artists from the US and Canada every week in about 5 minutes or less! Red's other albums include, "The Best Of The Red Peters Comedy Music Hour, Vol. 1", "Red Peters Presents- The Summer Song Sizzler", and "It's A Red Peters Christmas, Vol. 1".


text:
Reuters Staff
1 Min Read
Dec 15 (Reuters) - Buildingiq Inc:
* UNDERTAKING CAPITAL RAISING OF UP TO A$6.5MLN Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:
All quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays.
© 2018 Reuters. All Rights Reserved.


text:
Fuchs, D. Mock, D. Morgan, P and Young, C (2003): Responsiveness-to-Intervention: Definitions, Evidence, and Implications for the Learning Disabilities Construct. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice,18(3), 157–171
Longstanding concern about how learning disabilities (LD) are defined and identified, coupled with recent efforts in Washington, DC to eliminate IQ achievement discrepancy as an LD marker, have led to serious public discussion about alternative identification methods. The most popular of the alternatives is responsiveness-to-intervention (RTI), of which there are two basic versions: the "problem-solving" model and the "standard-protocol" approach. The authors describe both types, review empirical evidence bearing on their effectiveness and feasibility, and conclude that more needs to be understood before RTI maybe viewed as a valid means of identifying students with LD.
Click here for full text
Click here for full text


text:
Painter in Beloit
I paint all residential and some commercial. I also am a handyman. I do all kinds of jobs for a more then reasonable price. I have more then 20 years experience. I pride myself on Quality and do every job to the best of my ability.
Painter Details
|Email Address
|Phone Number
|608-314-... Confirmed
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text:
Many people have heard of Bitcoin and they may already have holdings of this coin. Yet, one of the most important tenets of successful investing is to try and focus on diversification.
Keeping all of your eggs in one basket leaves you quite exposed to situations in which market movements in a volatile asset can do havoc on the value of your portfolio. Currently Bitcoin and Ethereum reached record highs but they could just as easily correct on Monday.
Hence, keeping all of your coins in only one cryptocurrency like Bitcoin can be risky from a diversification perspective.
Yet, which other coins should one invest in? Which coins can offer growth potential yet also be as secure as Bitcoin.
We will take a look at some of the most promising "Altcoins" in the space today. Altcoins are cryptocurrency that are not Bitcoin and are considered "Alternative Coins".
Ripple is currently in the number 4 slot in terms of market capitalisation for cryptocurrencies. This makes it a worthy contender for your money.
What is Ripple exactly and why is it different from many other cryptocoins?
Ripple is run by a large Fintech company called Ripple technologies. Unlike all of the other coins, they are not aiming to replace the banks but rather help them to harness blockchain technology to improve their services.
They are taking aim at the lucrative yet highly inefficient cross border payments business. This is currently run by the likes of Swift which handles all of these payments.
Ripple uses something called the interledger protocol to send these payments within milliseconds. From a bank account located on the other side of the world, a payment can be sent in an effortless transaction.
Moreover, the team at Ripple have been making a number of announcements recently including partnerships with American express and other large financial institutions.
The Ripple protocol works with a token called "XRP". These tokens are held by the Ripple Company and will be used by the banks in order to manage these interledger payments.
The Ripple token is currently sitting at about 0.25 and has reached levels of 0.3 previously. It is likely to increase in the next few weeks as more Ripple announcements are made.
If you were looking for a way to trade Ripple, you would need to get yourself a broker. There are normal CFD brokers that mark to margin. If you would like to trade instruments with asymmetric payoffs such as cryptocurrency option brokers.
Bitcoin Gold
A new entrant into the cryptocurrency scene, Bitcoin gold was a fork of the original Bitcoin chain. This means that it split from Bitcoin in order to make a new Altcoin.
The drive behind Bitcoin gold was to make "Bitcoin decentralised" again. They were of the view that the hashing algorithm in use with Bitcoin (SHA-256) was easily manipulated by ASIC mining rigs.
This will mean that Bitcoin gold can be mined using Graphics Processing Units (GPUs). These are mining rigs that are available to everyone and would mean that a large group of people could be involved in mining again.
This decentralising affect will also place more faith in a system that has been dogged by large centralised mining organisations.
Although there have been some bad headlines recently for Bitcoin gold in the way of phishing scams etc, the price has found a stabilising level of about $340 and has moved behind Ripple in coinmarketcap rankings.
If more investors start to realise the benefits of decentralised mining then Bitcoin gold is likely to rally towards the end of 2017 and into 2018.
NEO may sounds like a weird name for a cryptocurrency. Although it does sound quite Sci Fi, NEO used to be called "Antshares". This is one of the best known Chinese cryptocurrencies.
It has also been called "China's Ethereum". This is because NEO also operates on a smart contract based blockchain. The cryptocurrency has indeed termed themselves the "NEO smart economy".
Although many people would like to compare NEO to Ethereum, it has numerous other benefits in its own right. The team at NEO are looking to implement sharding technology into their blockchain.
Sharding is a concept that has been used for years in databases and is able to speed processes up markedly.
NEO also, like Ethereum, would like to become a blockchain that would facilitate the development of decentralised applications (dApps). In China, there have already been 3 ICOs off of the NEO blockchain.
NEO has also had quite a wild ride over the past few days. It has gone from below $30 and almost reached its recent all-time highs of $48. This was all drive by speculation of an important announcement in the works.
One could expect that if the NEO team was able to properly work on the technology and if there were more ICOs that decided that they wanted to raise funds on the blockchain, then NEO could indeed have quite a successful run in the next few months.
NEO is available on most exchanges but one of the best to trade on is Bittrex. They are based in Seattle in the US and have a range of other pairs to trade with numerous other Altcoins.
Technology Diversification
When it comes to cryptocurrency diversification, it is important that the diversification spreads across different technologies and use cases. In this way not one particular coin is exposed.
Hence, the above cryptocurrencies were chosen based on the completely different nature of their underlying technology. Some are payment solutions, others are decentralised currencies and others a decentralised "smart economy".
However, these coins are only a minor part of the larger cryptocurrency ecosystem. Do your research, take a look at the development team and place your trades in the most promising ecosystems.