Free as in freedom

I have created ripple.txt for my validator, following this instruction https://wiki.ripple.com/Ripple.txt.

https://xrp.ninja/ripple.txt

https://xrpcharts.ripple.com/#/validators/nHBTqw7vwjqrSMruoQNYmSXcrBmQHDquG7jgvrsQpurGaVELqdNx

I am going to have ripple employee change the validated domain name from rippled.xrp.ninja to just xrp.ninja.

The ripple.txt file can be validated here: https://ripple.com/build/ripple-txt-validator/

https://www.xrpchat.com/topic/7229-a-question-about-validators/?do=findComment&comment=69555

There are several degrees of damage, that trusted validators can do (if they decide to give up their hard-earned trust), in increasing difficulty order:
If a set of them, each of which only trust others in the same set, with less than 20% of them trust validators not in that set, decide to collude, they can create fork.If more than 20% of them decide to collude, they can prevent transactions from being validated.If more than 80% of them decide to collude, they can rewrite history as they wish. 
However, as pointed out by mDuo13@, creating a fork is easy, but making people accept it is hard.

http://www.coindesk.com/ripples-xrp-giving-third-largest-cryptocurrency-second-look/

It's not news that coindesk is very biased against Ripple. But publishing such an article is a bit crossed the line. This author either really doesn't know Ripple well, or he just wants to mislead people. It's a shame for coindesk to publish such a garbage.

I will refute some of the claims made in that article.
"Instead of using proof-of-work, it relied on a new, unproven consensus protocol." Calling ripple consensus protocol is unproven is a bold assertion. Yet it didn't even try to back it up. On the other hand, XRP ledger has been in use for years and there has been no reports that it doesn't work. And it has defended itself against Stellar's attack once.
"This protocol requires users to extend trust to validating servers that produce this consensus." False. Users only need to trust gateway. Users never need to trust validator. Validators need to trust vali…

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-30/understanding-cryptocurrency-boom-and-its-volatility

It says:

speculative booms eventually end and technologies mature into forms that solve real business problems in uniquely cheap and robust ways no other technology can match.

That said technology exists today. It is Ripple/XRP.

http://observer.com/2017/06/illinois-is-venezuela-and-the-solution-is-cryptocurrency/

What this article really is trying to say is, the "real" money is inflationary in nature and they are being manipulated throughout its not so long history and you have no control over that.

On the contrary, cryptocurrencies (e.g. Bitcoin) are not inflationary (XRP is even deflationary).

This difference makes the latter will increase in value in terms of the "real" money inevitably.

So, buy the fucking every dip of cryptocurrencies and HODL!

https://www.xrpchat.com/topic/6723-same-ol-xrp-use-case-fud-or-legit-insider-warning/?do=findComment&comment=64164

Using any other thing would be stupid.

The MM (ILPconnector) will hold XRP.

The MM will buy any fiat currency with XRP if they need to pay in that currency, and it will sell any fiat currency for XRP if that currency is not immediately needed.

One argument against this is MM can hold USD.

I disagree. Because:
USD is inflationary, XRP is deflationaryXRP has some features which make it a better bridging currency on ILP:Autobridging https://ripple.com/dev-blog/introducing-offer-autobridging/Escrow https://ripple.com/build/amendments/#escrowXRP reduces cost, see this graph