Lets assume that a taxi driver wants to earn £10 an hour. That'd be a good but unambitious wage. For a 15 minute drive in day time in my town, I'd expect to pay...maybe £6 or £7. So let's call that £20 an hour in revenues, less the dead time between fares.
So, by removing the driver's salary from the equation, you could cut taxi fares in half. I'd consider "half" a big saving. While private car ownership might still work out a little cheaper in the long run, suddenly being a permanent taxi user is starting to look a lot more competitive on price terms. And depending on your perspective, taxi use has other advantages over car ownership too (no responsibility for maintenance, repairs, no risk of theft or vandalism, etc.).
And if you're willing to mix taxi use with public mass transit (buses and trains and whatnot), which are inherently cheaper, you might, might be able to tip the cost argument in favour of non car ownership.
Better drivers. Better hardware support. Improved API sets. Improved platform awareness in the big software houses. Better cross platform and porting toolkits. Larger userbase for the basic OS tools (which means more unintentional bug-hunting and more amateur developers). More money sloshing around at Debian HQ / Canonical / whoever.
Sounds good to me. I don't believe anyone's going to be confiscating my existing FOSS stuff because of any of the above. Just more good things on top of what I already have.
And, most importantly for me, if Linux really does become a new home for PC gaming, I can finally get rid of my last pesky Windows dual boot. It is literally the only thing keeping me hanging on to the platform outside of work.
Loads of companies (perhaps even a majority of retailers) already do issue "their own currency"- in the form of in-store credit vouchers. In principal there's no reason why you couldn't go down to your local convenience store and pay for a loaf of bread and bottle of milk with iTunes vouchers- a currency which is "backed" by "real goods" (i.e., the currency can be redeemed at any time at the "central bank" in exchange for useful goods (music and whatnot), in the manner of a gold-backed currency).
The fact that nobody does this tells you a lot about the majority of the population's attitude towards corporate controlled private currencies. To most people, they seem like a completely unnecessary way of abstracting on top of an already perfectly valid currency system. There's no reason to assume people would feel any differently towards "Amazon Coins" than they do towards Amazon gift vouchers, regardless of the techy details behind it.
I still remain deeply sceptical that BitCoin is anything other than an enthusiast's curiosity and/or "get rich quick" scheme, and can't imagine it going the distance. I've been wrong plenty of times before, but...well, I'm not changing my mind on that one yet.
Basic rocket science- if you have a lot of fuel onboard, you have to burn more fuel to carry the weight of the extra fuel around. 1 US gallon of petrol (according to Google) weighs about 6 pounds. A fuel tank might carry what, 10 or 15 gallons? So by only carrying 5 gallons of fuel around with him, he is not carrying up to 60 pounds of extra weight around with him.
No idea how much this affects things, but maybe it'll be the difference between 1 mpg or so either way. If you did that for a whole year, the savings would probably add up to something small but non-trivial.
If British Airways (or whatever) run 400 flights per year from London to New York, it is because they think they will have enough passengers to basically fill 200 planes. If 1% of passengers stopped flying, British Airways might conclude that they can make 396 flights this year (perhaps meaning that somebody is forced to take an evening flight rather than a morning flight on the day they wished to fly due to lack of choice but they will get over it). That's 4 tanks of aeroplane fuel that is not burnt that year. You argue that BA would simply lower the ticket price to encourage extra passengers, but they will still need to cover all their costs (aviation fuel, airport fees, crew salaries, etc.)- there is a floor which ticket prices can't sink below; and margins are notoriously slim for many airlines.
Those numbers are obviously fictionalised, but you take my point. There is no reason to assume that British Airways (or your carrier of choice) will continue to run exactly the same flight schedule forever, regardless of how many people are booking flights. They're a business, and are very good at matching supply with demand. And even a very small percentage of "very large numbers of people" is "a lot of people".
Furthermore, you say that only mass action can make changes. Well, any mass action is comprised of individuals taking action for their own reason. People can spontaneously decide to change their own behaviour completely in private, and unknowingly become part of an overall trend in changed behaviour. People "thinking green" is hardly a fringe activity these days- if everyone makes the changes to their life that they're comfortable to make, it can all accrete together until it looks like a mass movement, and has the same affects as one.
That's the most depressing comment I've read all day.
I live a 10 minute walk from the supermarket. I walk there every week (sometimes with my wife, sometimes on my own), and carry back things. You know, with my body. I have been shopping this way for 5 years, and I've never bought more stuff for one normal week's supplies than two people can comfortably and easily carry.
Specifically, a backpack on one's back and two normal carrier bags in each hand means we can easily manage 10-12 carrier bags worth of groceries in a single trip.
On those occasions where I know I'm going to buy something heavy (such as a lot of beer and soft drinks for a party), then I'll drive. But that's a pretty small minority of occasions.
That IS what's going on, in the case of TFA. Traditional execution drugs like pentobarbital and sodium thiopental are both manufactured in the EU. They are both used in general medical practice in hospitals. The companies that make the drugs have said that if their drugs are used in executions, they will have to stop importing the drug to the US full stop (under EU law). Which would be A Bad Thing.
If you want to execute someone, you now have to use only drugs that are made in the US or another country that carries out executions- no-one else will consent to import them.
I would guess that when you were under for the surgery, you were administered an anaesthetic such as pentobarbital or sodium thiopental. Those are the drugs which are no longer available, hence the soul searching in TFA.
If you had sufficient anaesthetics to put someone under adequately to operate on them, then execution by poison injection would be possible too (and the much simpler of the two options).
Also- heart surgery is difficult and gruesome; no self-respecting doctor would allow themselves to take part in such a horrible spectacle. And I dread to think what a mess we would be in if we let "enthusiastic amateurs" do it.
For the record, I work for a bank and there is a branch on site at our head office (and I've spent time in and around other branches too, over the years); I can assure you that they service them throughout the day as and when they need servicing (as a disabled ATM is disuptive to business). When they access the machine other than to access the cash box they seem to do so in pairs- one person to complete the work, the other to keep a beedy eye on them and the public. The cash box is only opened when the Securicor (or whoever) guards are around, as far as I can tell.
The machines we use (that I've seen serviced) are front-accessed- the whole front panel of the machine is hinged and opened with a key, to expose the inner-workings (except for the cash).
If I assemble a computer for my own use, it is not for sale and is therefore worth nothing. Things are only worth what people are willing (and able) to pay for them, so something that is not for sale has no inherent value.
I can sit on my ass and read and no-one will pay me anything, or I can assemble a computer for my own use and no-one will pay me anything. I could probably find some activities that would pay me in the evening (get a second job, become a telemarketer, whatever), but I can more or less guarantee that I wouldn't enjoy any of them enough for me to consider it downtime. And I need downtime- I have a well (enough) paid and (moderately) important job that I do all day for a salary, and I definitely need a break from work when I get home.
Following my logic, by the way, only works if you actually enjoy assembling computers. If you think that sounds like hell, you should put that in the "work" category instead, and should definitely not allow it to eat up your downtime. Each to their own, of course.
I could sit on the sofa all evening watching telly or reading books, or I could assemble a computer. Does one have more worth? As long as I enjoy either, does it matter which I pick for my downtime?
And I definitely won't be working all evening. No one can (or should) work every waking hour of the day- if you do, I pity you. Everyone has downtime- you can pick which hobby you want to fill that time with to your heart's content.
Why is the USB "auto-running", rather than waiting for the user to log in with secure verification (maybe a hard-token) and prompting the USB to load? Why is the OS willing to run a firmware update which isn't signed with some sort of trusted protocol?
You're right that it isn't the OS's fault per se, but it is the fault of the software/OS as it was set up. There should be no reason why Windows can't be set up sensibly to prevent these issues, and there's definitely no reason why Linux couldn't be. Someone who wrote or set up that software cocked it up, pure and simple.
I would presume that you wouldn't want to put the USB in the cash safe so that someone could perform maintenance on the machine without having access to the cash. Making the assumption that the cash is the most important thing in the machine (and bearing in mind that ATMs are in exposed public places, where maintenance staff are vulnerable to mugging), you'd want to minimise the number of times the cash box is opened.
You could make a good argument for locking the USBs in a separate lock box. However the front panel of the machine would undoubtedly already be locked with a key, so the designer might have considered that overkill. The real issue, in that case, is that the ATM's front panel is too easily damaged.
Well, no- I suppose the real issue is that the software was so vulnerable to a malware-infected USB. One can only assume the damned thing was "auto-run" enabled. It doesn't get more stupid than that.
Pro-tip- most ATMs (I work for a financial, so have seen a few) have only a single locked front panel that is opened up to gain access to the internals (with only the cash in a more secure safe box inside that). ATMs in busy areas will be serviced pretty much every day. If you want a good look at where the various internals are (including any USB ports), all you'd need to do is hang around the ATM until someone comes to service it- everything you need to see will be right there on display. Take a snap with your smartphone and study it at leisure.
Not that I'd disregard an "inside job"- servicing ATMs is hardly highly skilled work, and most normal branch cashiers at most banks will be trained in it. Certainly possible that the thieves are former (or current) bank employees.
Good for you, frankly.Like I said, I'm not naive about it, nor am I trying to moralise- I personally wouldn't want to be involved in weapon design, because I don't like the thought that I have no control over what is done with my work. I am enabling others to do bad (and good) things, and have absolutely no say in it after I put down my tools; considering the nature and implications of weapon design (over and above other forms of product engineering), that doesn't sit well with me. Instead, I work in a field where my work can only really be used for good, neutral, and extremely minorly bad things- and I find that more comfortable. But each to their own.
For the record, I'm not a complete pacifist- I'd be willing to change my views if the situation were other. If we were at total war, for example, I'm sure I'd change my tune.
And presumably you've heard of Stalin? Not exactly a nice chap. History is hardly black and white.
Like I said, I'm not moralising too hard. I wouldn't want to work in weapon design because the thought of my handiwork being used in ways I object to would bother me- I'd have no control of what people did with my creations, and I'd find that unpleasant. HOWEVER, I don't think that's a universalist morale argument- other people are free to decide for themselves.
And unless you're being deliberately obtuse- the AK-47 wasn't invented until after the war (47 = 1947, two years after the war concluded. While work started on the design during 1945, that was the dying days of the war when Germany was practically defeated. The AK-47 was a weapon of the Cold War, of Communism-vs-The West, not of WW2.
You can kill people with a Ford, but it wasn't designed for it- intentionally running people down in a car is something the designer would be horrified at. The AK-47 was designed exclusively for killing people- it has no other serious use; the designer intended to make the best killing implement possible, with the intention of killing as many "people my nation doesn't like" as possible, as efficiently as possible. There's a big ethical difference.
I'm only saying this in fairness to the OP- I'm not really naive enough to make an argument against weapon designers in that way. But I am serious that it is a legitimate ethical choice. I can't see myself working in weapons design, because the ethical consequences of my actions would bother me.
In a way, it's an argument related to the old debunked Nazi death camp soldier "just following orders" defence (albeit it much less extreme). If every talented engineer refused to be involved with weapon design, weapons would be considerably less effective that they are today. Therefore, every talented engineer who gets involved in weapon design has to take personal responsibility for what they're enabling.
The inflation rate in the US is what, 2% per year? 3%? 4? And when was the last time it suffered serious deflation? The difference in value between what I can buy in a shop today and what I can buy in a shop in one month is likely to be a fraction of a percentage point different.
Whereas Bitcoin has inflated by literally thousands of percentage points over the last year, has recently deflated by about 200% in the last MONTH, and regularly moves 10% or more on a DAILY basis. I have literally no idea whether a Bitcoin in my metaphorical pocket will buy me 10x more or 10x less goods by value next month compared to this month. Unless that situation changes, that is simply not a workable situation. As a sort of grand online casino game Bitcoin is great, but as a currency it is an unworkable disaster.
There's a reason why every country in the world abandoned gold/silver/commodity linked currencies, and it wasn't because of a global conspiracy- it was because they were a disaster.
It's a game played all over the world. Just yesterday we here in Britain got to see the same debate play out between Vince Cable and Boris Johnson (look them up if you care), vis a vis whether the UK is too London-centric; cue the opinions that the UK would be better off without London and/or vice versa. And there's the minor variant of Scottish independence (based around exactly the same theme)- a referendum on which is due next year.
And Spain has the same thing with Catalonia (and others), and Belgium has got its Flanders/Wallonia issue, and so on and so forth. It seems people are never happy unless they're trying to split countries apart of merge them together in various ways.
I suggest you put the dollars you save through efficient light bulb usage to good use by switching your central heating on instead. Unless you have a very stupid central heating set up, a couple of dollars in energy costs should give you more heat through your central heating than it did through your light fittings.
Dangling your heat sources 5 inches from the ceiling has never exactly been the most sensible way of warming a room. Very efficient way of warming an area of ceiling with a radius of a couple of feet, perhaps.
Slashdot Mirror
Not that big of a saving?
Lets assume that a taxi driver wants to earn £10 an hour. That'd be a good but unambitious wage. For a 15 minute drive in day time in my town, I'd expect to pay...maybe £6 or £7. So let's call that £20 an hour in revenues, less the dead time between fares.
So, by removing the driver's salary from the equation, you could cut taxi fares in half. I'd consider "half" a big saving. While private car ownership might still work out a little cheaper in the long run, suddenly being a permanent taxi user is starting to look a lot more competitive on price terms. And depending on your perspective, taxi use has other advantages over car ownership too (no responsibility for maintenance, repairs, no risk of theft or vandalism, etc.).
And if you're willing to mix taxi use with public mass transit (buses and trains and whatnot), which are inherently cheaper, you might, might be able to tip the cost argument in favour of non car ownership.
So, what you're saying is, you know that all black people feel a certain way about something, your majesty...
FTFY, you dirty peasant.
Let's see...
Better drivers.
Better hardware support.
Improved API sets.
Improved platform awareness in the big software houses.
Better cross platform and porting toolkits.
Larger userbase for the basic OS tools (which means more unintentional bug-hunting and more amateur developers).
More money sloshing around at Debian HQ / Canonical / whoever.
Sounds good to me. I don't believe anyone's going to be confiscating my existing FOSS stuff because of any of the above. Just more good things on top of what I already have.
And, most importantly for me, if Linux really does become a new home for PC gaming, I can finally get rid of my last pesky Windows dual boot. It is literally the only thing keeping me hanging on to the platform outside of work.
Loads of companies (perhaps even a majority of retailers) already do issue "their own currency"- in the form of in-store credit vouchers. In principal there's no reason why you couldn't go down to your local convenience store and pay for a loaf of bread and bottle of milk with iTunes vouchers- a currency which is "backed" by "real goods" (i.e., the currency can be redeemed at any time at the "central bank" in exchange for useful goods (music and whatnot), in the manner of a gold-backed currency).
The fact that nobody does this tells you a lot about the majority of the population's attitude towards corporate controlled private currencies. To most people, they seem like a completely unnecessary way of abstracting on top of an already perfectly valid currency system. There's no reason to assume people would feel any differently towards "Amazon Coins" than they do towards Amazon gift vouchers, regardless of the techy details behind it.
I still remain deeply sceptical that BitCoin is anything other than an enthusiast's curiosity and/or "get rich quick" scheme, and can't imagine it going the distance. I've been wrong plenty of times before, but...well, I'm not changing my mind on that one yet.
Basic rocket science- if you have a lot of fuel onboard, you have to burn more fuel to carry the weight of the extra fuel around. 1 US gallon of petrol (according to Google) weighs about 6 pounds. A fuel tank might carry what, 10 or 15 gallons? So by only carrying 5 gallons of fuel around with him, he is not carrying up to 60 pounds of extra weight around with him.
No idea how much this affects things, but maybe it'll be the difference between 1 mpg or so either way. If you did that for a whole year, the savings would probably add up to something small but non-trivial.
If British Airways (or whatever) run 400 flights per year from London to New York, it is because they think they will have enough passengers to basically fill 200 planes. If 1% of passengers stopped flying, British Airways might conclude that they can make 396 flights this year (perhaps meaning that somebody is forced to take an evening flight rather than a morning flight on the day they wished to fly due to lack of choice but they will get over it). That's 4 tanks of aeroplane fuel that is not burnt that year. You argue that BA would simply lower the ticket price to encourage extra passengers, but they will still need to cover all their costs (aviation fuel, airport fees, crew salaries, etc.)- there is a floor which ticket prices can't sink below; and margins are notoriously slim for many airlines.
Those numbers are obviously fictionalised, but you take my point. There is no reason to assume that British Airways (or your carrier of choice) will continue to run exactly the same flight schedule forever, regardless of how many people are booking flights. They're a business, and are very good at matching supply with demand. And even a very small percentage of "very large numbers of people" is "a lot of people".
Furthermore, you say that only mass action can make changes. Well, any mass action is comprised of individuals taking action for their own reason. People can spontaneously decide to change their own behaviour completely in private, and unknowingly become part of an overall trend in changed behaviour. People "thinking green" is hardly a fringe activity these days- if everyone makes the changes to their life that they're comfortable to make, it can all accrete together until it looks like a mass movement, and has the same affects as one.
That's the most depressing comment I've read all day.
I live a 10 minute walk from the supermarket. I walk there every week (sometimes with my wife, sometimes on my own), and carry back things. You know, with my body. I have been shopping this way for 5 years, and I've never bought more stuff for one normal week's supplies than two people can comfortably and easily carry.
Specifically, a backpack on one's back and two normal carrier bags in each hand means we can easily manage 10-12 carrier bags worth of groceries in a single trip.
On those occasions where I know I'm going to buy something heavy (such as a lot of beer and soft drinks for a party), then I'll drive. But that's a pretty small minority of occasions.
Don't be a pedant. "Import to" or "import into" is a valid linguistic phrase:
http://www.daff.gov.au/biosecurity/import
http://www.cbp.gov/linkhandler/cgov/newsroom/publications/trade/iius.ctt/iius.pdf
http://www.bund.de/EN/Economy-And-Trade/Importing-to-Germany/Importing-to-Germany_node.html
Although I will admit that I would have used "export" if I had been thinking about it properly.
That IS what's going on, in the case of TFA. Traditional execution drugs like pentobarbital and sodium thiopental are both manufactured in the EU. They are both used in general medical practice in hospitals. The companies that make the drugs have said that if their drugs are used in executions, they will have to stop importing the drug to the US full stop (under EU law). Which would be A Bad Thing.
If you want to execute someone, you now have to use only drugs that are made in the US or another country that carries out executions- no-one else will consent to import them.
I would guess that when you were under for the surgery, you were administered an anaesthetic such as pentobarbital or sodium thiopental. Those are the drugs which are no longer available, hence the soul searching in TFA.
If you had sufficient anaesthetics to put someone under adequately to operate on them, then execution by poison injection would be possible too (and the much simpler of the two options).
Also- heart surgery is difficult and gruesome; no self-respecting doctor would allow themselves to take part in such a horrible spectacle. And I dread to think what a mess we would be in if we let "enthusiastic amateurs" do it.
My alternative hypothesis- sales of the game sucked, and the revenue they're making isn't enough to cover the cost of running the server.
Malice / stupidity etc.
For the record, I work for a bank and there is a branch on site at our head office (and I've spent time in and around other branches too, over the years); I can assure you that they service them throughout the day as and when they need servicing (as a disabled ATM is disuptive to business). When they access the machine other than to access the cash box they seem to do so in pairs- one person to complete the work, the other to keep a beedy eye on them and the public. The cash box is only opened when the Securicor (or whoever) guards are around, as far as I can tell.
The machines we use (that I've seen serviced) are front-accessed- the whole front panel of the machine is hinged and opened with a key, to expose the inner-workings (except for the cash).
If I assemble a computer for my own use, it is not for sale and is therefore worth nothing. Things are only worth what people are willing (and able) to pay for them, so something that is not for sale has no inherent value.
I can sit on my ass and read and no-one will pay me anything, or I can assemble a computer for my own use and no-one will pay me anything. I could probably find some activities that would pay me in the evening (get a second job, become a telemarketer, whatever), but I can more or less guarantee that I wouldn't enjoy any of them enough for me to consider it downtime. And I need downtime- I have a well (enough) paid and (moderately) important job that I do all day for a salary, and I definitely need a break from work when I get home.
Following my logic, by the way, only works if you actually enjoy assembling computers. If you think that sounds like hell, you should put that in the "work" category instead, and should definitely not allow it to eat up your downtime. Each to their own, of course.
I could sit on the sofa all evening watching telly or reading books, or I could assemble a computer. Does one have more worth? As long as I enjoy either, does it matter which I pick for my downtime?
And I definitely won't be working all evening. No one can (or should) work every waking hour of the day- if you do, I pity you. Everyone has downtime- you can pick which hobby you want to fill that time with to your heart's content.
Being a workaholoic is nothing to brag about.
Why is the USB "auto-running", rather than waiting for the user to log in with secure verification (maybe a hard-token) and prompting the USB to load? Why is the OS willing to run a firmware update which isn't signed with some sort of trusted protocol?
You're right that it isn't the OS's fault per se, but it is the fault of the software/OS as it was set up. There should be no reason why Windows can't be set up sensibly to prevent these issues, and there's definitely no reason why Linux couldn't be. Someone who wrote or set up that software cocked it up, pure and simple.
I would presume that you wouldn't want to put the USB in the cash safe so that someone could perform maintenance on the machine without having access to the cash. Making the assumption that the cash is the most important thing in the machine (and bearing in mind that ATMs are in exposed public places, where maintenance staff are vulnerable to mugging), you'd want to minimise the number of times the cash box is opened.
You could make a good argument for locking the USBs in a separate lock box. However the front panel of the machine would undoubtedly already be locked with a key, so the designer might have considered that overkill. The real issue, in that case, is that the ATM's front panel is too easily damaged.
Well, no- I suppose the real issue is that the software was so vulnerable to a malware-infected USB. One can only assume the damned thing was "auto-run" enabled. It doesn't get more stupid than that.
Pro-tip- most ATMs (I work for a financial, so have seen a few) have only a single locked front panel that is opened up to gain access to the internals (with only the cash in a more secure safe box inside that). ATMs in busy areas will be serviced pretty much every day. If you want a good look at where the various internals are (including any USB ports), all you'd need to do is hang around the ATM until someone comes to service it- everything you need to see will be right there on display. Take a snap with your smartphone and study it at leisure.
Not that I'd disregard an "inside job"- servicing ATMs is hardly highly skilled work, and most normal branch cashiers at most banks will be trained in it. Certainly possible that the thieves are former (or current) bank employees.
Good for you, frankly.Like I said, I'm not naive about it, nor am I trying to moralise- I personally wouldn't want to be involved in weapon design, because I don't like the thought that I have no control over what is done with my work. I am enabling others to do bad (and good) things, and have absolutely no say in it after I put down my tools; considering the nature and implications of weapon design (over and above other forms of product engineering), that doesn't sit well with me. Instead, I work in a field where my work can only really be used for good, neutral, and extremely minorly bad things- and I find that more comfortable. But each to their own.
For the record, I'm not a complete pacifist- I'd be willing to change my views if the situation were other. If we were at total war, for example, I'm sure I'd change my tune.
PS: What's wrong with "therefore"? https://www.google.co.uk/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=therefore&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&gl=uk&gws_rd=cr&ei=grS8UvKKIpGThQfFwIGABw
And presumably you've heard of Stalin? Not exactly a nice chap. History is hardly black and white.
Like I said, I'm not moralising too hard. I wouldn't want to work in weapon design because the thought of my handiwork being used in ways I object to would bother me- I'd have no control of what people did with my creations, and I'd find that unpleasant. HOWEVER, I don't think that's a universalist morale argument- other people are free to decide for themselves.
And unless you're being deliberately obtuse- the AK-47 wasn't invented until after the war (47 = 1947, two years after the war concluded. While work started on the design during 1945, that was the dying days of the war when Germany was practically defeated. The AK-47 was a weapon of the Cold War, of Communism-vs-The West, not of WW2.
You can kill people with a Ford, but it wasn't designed for it- intentionally running people down in a car is something the designer would be horrified at. The AK-47 was designed exclusively for killing people- it has no other serious use; the designer intended to make the best killing implement possible, with the intention of killing as many "people my nation doesn't like" as possible, as efficiently as possible. There's a big ethical difference.
I'm only saying this in fairness to the OP- I'm not really naive enough to make an argument against weapon designers in that way. But I am serious that it is a legitimate ethical choice. I can't see myself working in weapons design, because the ethical consequences of my actions would bother me.
In a way, it's an argument related to the old debunked Nazi death camp soldier "just following orders" defence (albeit it much less extreme). If every talented engineer refused to be involved with weapon design, weapons would be considerably less effective that they are today. Therefore, every talented engineer who gets involved in weapon design has to take personal responsibility for what they're enabling.
Compared to it's year start value. Apologies, not the most sensible way of expressing it- the dangers of unqualified percentages and all that.
You understand my point though. Massive value moves in either direction. Not stable. Etc.
The inflation rate in the US is what, 2% per year? 3%? 4? And when was the last time it suffered serious deflation? The difference in value between what I can buy in a shop today and what I can buy in a shop in one month is likely to be a fraction of a percentage point different.
Whereas Bitcoin has inflated by literally thousands of percentage points over the last year, has recently deflated by about 200% in the last MONTH, and regularly moves 10% or more on a DAILY basis. I have literally no idea whether a Bitcoin in my metaphorical pocket will buy me 10x more or 10x less goods by value next month compared to this month. Unless that situation changes, that is simply not a workable situation. As a sort of grand online casino game Bitcoin is great, but as a currency it is an unworkable disaster.
Yeah, because the value of gold is totally stable:
http://www.bullionvault.com/gold-price-chart.do
There's a reason why every country in the world abandoned gold/silver/commodity linked currencies, and it wasn't because of a global conspiracy- it was because they were a disaster.
It's a game played all over the world. Just yesterday we here in Britain got to see the same debate play out between Vince Cable and Boris Johnson (look them up if you care), vis a vis whether the UK is too London-centric; cue the opinions that the UK would be better off without London and/or vice versa. And there's the minor variant of Scottish independence (based around exactly the same theme)- a referendum on which is due next year.
And Spain has the same thing with Catalonia (and others), and Belgium has got its Flanders/Wallonia issue, and so on and so forth. It seems people are never happy unless they're trying to split countries apart of merge them together in various ways.
I suggest you put the dollars you save through efficient light bulb usage to good use by switching your central heating on instead. Unless you have a very stupid central heating set up, a couple of dollars in energy costs should give you more heat through your central heating than it did through your light fittings.
Dangling your heat sources 5 inches from the ceiling has never exactly been the most sensible way of warming a room. Very efficient way of warming an area of ceiling with a radius of a couple of feet, perhaps.