Refined gold is still a commodity, and it actually goes through a purification (refining) process. There is no such thing as refined natural diamonds; unless that is how you call being cut and polished, but even that is not done by De Beers.
The symbolism of a diamond standing for love and commitment is purely a De Beers invention. Want to impress your wife? Give her a new Mercedes. Love her forever? Give her a diamond!
My point exactly
Have you ever seen anybody advertising a commodity before? "Gold is Forever", anybody?
Every. Goddamned. Day. I work in finance...
It is a commodity, and is advertized as such on financial markets. It is not advertized to the general population on MTV.
These guys produces a flawless artificial diamond for use in technology, and got death threats over it.
[citation needed]
Although you can Google it, we don't know who the threats came from, so it is irrelevant. I would assume De Beers don't need death threats to destroy a startup, they can just acquire it, and it is possible that they did, but death threats can be extremely helpful when the owner refuses to sell.
If the price went down it could revolutionize semiconductors industry.
The price is currently a few dollars per carat, in powder form.
The stated reason why Apollo Diamond was trying to grow large artificial diamonds was not to undercut De Beers, but to be able to manufacture a CPU on a 1x1 inch diamond wafer. [citation]
Clearly a diamond powder does not cut it.
diamonds is not a product, it's a mineral (aka raw material, commodity)
that people value not because it's particularly rare, but because it's just uncommon
and what is the difference between "rare" and "uncommon"?
... enough to be a status symbol.
It is not a status symbol because it is rare or uncommon -- it is a status symbol because De Beers adverised it... as a brand! "Diamonds are Forever"???? Have you ever seen anybody advertising a commodity before? "Gold is Forever", anybody?
Various substitutes can look and act similarly, so the high prices aren't justified by an actual need for the product.
Excepts this product is needed practically everywhere in technology, if not for De Beers having a chock-hold on the market and inflating prices.
These guys produces a flawless artificial diamond for use in technology, and got death threats over it.
Rather, the need is for the brand itself, and the company creates and perpetuates the value of that brand by limiting supply. They ensure there's just enough supply to meet demand, but not enough surplus to impact the prices people are willing to pay.
Steve Jobs understood this concept well.
Yes, they turned a commodity into a brand, by monopolizing 90% of supply. The problem is -- it is a commodity, a raw material needed everywhere in technology. If the price went down it could revolutionize semiconductors industry. It can also be artificially produced from graphite, but looks like that technology is going to be squashed by De Beers, much like the electric car was destroyed by the oil industry.
A printed gun openes a can of worms known as "gun control". This event is most significant as a failure of any future attempts at gun control by the state than any specific technologies involved with this particular event.
1. A bazooka can do a lot of damage, but hardly more than any of the mass shootings in the history of US (and abroad), most of which were done with regular semi-automatic guns.
2. At the same time I would not trust a stranger with a single-shot musket. There are some pretty strange wierdos out there, and some of them get their hands on guns now and then.
It says something about "well-regulated militia" in the comstitution, something that is being omitted and forgotten most of the time. By "militia" I understand "a group of volunteers, well trained and instructed on safety, who gather twice a year for a weapons drill.", hopefully with some system to filter out dimwits who give guns to children as birthday presents
TOS:
...
279. By visiting this page you explicitly grant permission for our page scripts to run, regadless of the purpose, on your machine.
There. Any responsibility avoided. Furthermore, lately they are trying to push laws in the US that braking TOS is a federal offence, so blocking the "agreed-upon" scripts makes YOU a criminal!!
I want licensed big media content. They want my dollars.
No, they don't. Web has been a major thorn in their side for many years. Big Media wants 100% control or they want it to die. They want you to go back to their $100/month cable TV with 50% time dedicated to ads, 40% garbage that you WILL watch because of no choice, and 10% heavily censored and biased information they call "news". They want you to pay $16 per music track (with another 9 "filler" tracks). They want you to read stuff they approve you to read, not some "out of print illegal to distribute" editions.
Big Media has been working on control of the Web relentlessly, buying legislators, pushing international agreements on unsuspecting countries, sneaking into UN and Trade agreements. At this point of time the ISPs are at their command (for free, mind you), and so are file share and video streaming. The only area where they did not mark until now was the "Open Web" standards....
Very soon you will find yourself in the DRM'd Big Media Interwebs, where you can [ONLY] watch Disney Channel or FOX upon payment of a modest $100/month premium, never mind the advertisements that you will also HAVE to watch. Everything else will be declared infringing non-approved, taken down by FBI or otherwise dissapear under questionable circumstances.
Bitcoins suffer from the same shortfalls that gold does
And what shortfalls are that? I don't see any similarity between bitcoin and gold, sorry. It is more like fiat currencies: no intrinsic value, based on trust and nothing else, except no government can manipulate its value so easily, which is a good thing. [well, with present bitcoin market cap any large entity can manipulate its value simply by trading, but that's beside the point]
Gold was a successful currency for many centuries, and shortcomings I see are
1) wear and tear,
2) heavy use in jewelry and tech industry, which created a problematic disparity between value for industry use and value as a currency
3) Gold Standard fell because it fixed values of world currencies, making it impossible to have free currency exchange
I use my phone as a killer ebook reader/ebrowser that fits in the pocket, always on, connected, and with me. I need it to be as big as possible but still fit in the pocket comfortably, lest I will need to carry a man-purse for it. My estimate is 6 to 7 inch diagonal will fit the bill. I really dont care what it looks like when used as a phone:)
Just checked from the roof of a 22 story bulding, the view North is over East River, but nothing to be seen there. I guess New York is not famous for astronomy discoveres with all the smog and lights.
Stronger human beings have been killing weaker human beings throughout history. Firearms changed that, so they must be a good thing. Welcome to the XVIII century!
Swiss Delegate: Ah, Mr. Abootman. It's the global world summit leaders. We want to talk to you about the strike.
Stephen Abootman: You... You do? You wanna negotiate?!
French Delegate: No, we were just wondering if, when you're all dead, we can use Newfoundland for a new global theme park.
[Mr. Abootman drops the phone and begins to weep. He walks away with his hands over his eyes]
Kyle: [picks up the phone] Hello? Will you just give this guy something, please?!
Swiss Delegate: Excuse me?
Kyle: [Mr. Abootman leans on the door, crying] He just doesn't wanna look like an idiot, so he wants everyone to think the strike was for something. Ehjust, just give him anything!
French Delegate: Well, we could give Canada some small consolation pirize
Kyle: If they give you something small, will you end the strike?
Stephen Abootman: Well they... act like they're giving Canada a lot so everyone thinks I did a good job?
Kyle: Can you act like you're giving him a lot?
Swiss Delegate: Well, why not?
[Canada, moments later. Mr. Abootman steps outside to the podium and makes an announcement]
Stephen Abootman: We have won! [no one reacts: they're all too tired to]
Lumberjack: Well how much did we got?
Stephen Abootman: Well, we uh, we didn't get everything that we wanted, but... we nogotiated hard and... we got these... [holds up some coupons] coupons to Bennigan's! And... [holds up a bag of sweets] free bubblegum... for every Canadian. [his aide steps forward and claps really fast. Other Canadians begin to clap their hands] These coupons entitle every Canadian to a free meal at Bennigan's. With the purchase of a meal at equal or greater value, of course.
Aide 1: We did it! [aide 2 steps forward and claps really fast. Other Canadians begin to clap their hands]
Stephen Abootman: My friends. This is the greatest victory in Canadian history. [headlines follow: The Canuck Reporter has "Canada Wins The Strike." Canadiety has "Strike over! Canada Victorious!." Canada Today has "Strike Victory Party Set For Next Week."]
[http://www.spscriptorium.com/Season12/E1204script.htm]
1. Turbulence increase, making air travel uncomfortable
2. Rice fields drying up worldwide, resulting in mass starvation and war for resources, with prime overpopulated countries having access to nuclear arms.
Not sure which one worries me more... nuclear holocaust vs coffee spilled on my crotch... Nah let our children figure out the mess, load up those coal power plants!
War is about achieving specific objectives by force.
That's a very Bush Jr. definition of war. You do not need to look any further than Iraq, and you will see that your "definition" falls apart, as they did not "achieve" anything by being invaded (aka "at war"). Next time you need to define something try opening a websters' dictionary or something.
Terrorists have just taken control of an oil tanker in San Francisco's bay....
Yes, I we all know that the Terrorists is the only credible "military" threat that you can come up with. No, scary Terrorists is not what we have military for, and hopefully military is never called into a SF bay, but rather some specially trained police unit. When a neighbour kid steals your candy you don't deploy your "orbital ion cannon" either. Military exists to resolve _extrernal_ conflicts, and hopefully will only ever be used for those, because the only exceptions from that rule are either police state or civil war, and both are very ugly.
This is a very bold statement that sums it all up. The goal of management is to maximise profit, and a 0 sales increase translates into a loss. I understand that DRM is evil for an entirely different set of reasons, that the general public will hopefully understand in a decade or two and vote against DRM with their feet (wallets). Until that happens, it is all about maximising short-term profit, and if your statement can be proven with a bunch of marketing experiments then the simple truth will enter management textbooks and we are golden. I am not sure if it is true, though, but setting up some experiments should not be too hard.
Hello? Anyone home? It was still Hitler who attacked the Soviet Union in first place.
In the first place, Germany invaded Poland, and it happened after the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, which arguably is the official start of WWII.
Way to go, blaming the victim.
According to the pact, Stalin was planning to annex his part of Eastern Europe, and already started (and lost) war with Finland. Not exactly "a victim", is he? Also, as GGP mentioned he systematically executed Red Army officers, so when USSR was finally invaded, Red Army had literally only a mob with pitchforks and shovels to defend themselves.
The Chief Communist Party historian called from the 50's: your version of history is approved. Congratulations, comrade! However, if you are not afraid of spending the rest of your days at Gulag, check out some common knowledge
Funny that you ask, I just posted it in the thread above.
Mass outdoor spraying of DDT was abandoned in poor countries subject to malaria, such as Sri Lanka, in the 1970s and 1980s, not because of government prohibitions, but because the DDT had lost its ability to kill the mosquitoes.[79]
Slashdot Mirror
Refined gold is still a commodity, and it actually goes through a purification (refining) process. There is no such thing as refined natural diamonds; unless that is how you call being cut and polished, but even that is not done by De Beers.
The symbolism of a diamond standing for love and commitment is purely a De Beers invention. Want to impress your wife? Give her a new Mercedes. Love her forever? Give her a diamond!
My point exactly
Have you ever seen anybody advertising a commodity before? "Gold is Forever", anybody?
Every. Goddamned. Day. I work in finance...
It is a commodity, and is advertized as such on financial markets. It is not advertized to the general population on MTV.
These guys produces a flawless artificial diamond for use in technology, and got death threats over it.
[citation needed]
Although you can Google it, we don't know who the threats came from, so it is irrelevant. I would assume De Beers don't need death threats to destroy a startup, they can just acquire it, and it is possible that they did, but death threats can be extremely helpful when the owner refuses to sell.
If the price went down it could revolutionize semiconductors industry.
The price is currently a few dollars per carat, in powder form.
The stated reason why Apollo Diamond was trying to grow large artificial diamonds was not to undercut De Beers, but to be able to manufacture a CPU on a 1x1 inch diamond wafer. [citation] Clearly a diamond powder does not cut it.
They produce a product ...
diamonds is not a product, it's a mineral (aka raw material, commodity)
that people value not because it's particularly rare, but because it's just uncommon
and what is the difference between "rare" and "uncommon"?
... enough to be a status symbol.
It is not a status symbol because it is rare or uncommon -- it is a status symbol because De Beers adverised it... as a brand! "Diamonds are Forever"???? Have you ever seen anybody advertising a commodity before? "Gold is Forever", anybody?
Various substitutes can look and act similarly, so the high prices aren't justified by an actual need for the product.
Excepts this product is needed practically everywhere in technology, if not for De Beers having a chock-hold on the market and inflating prices. These guys produces a flawless artificial diamond for use in technology, and got death threats over it.
Rather, the need is for the brand itself, and the company creates and perpetuates the value of that brand by limiting supply. They ensure there's just enough supply to meet demand, but not enough surplus to impact the prices people are willing to pay. Steve Jobs understood this concept well.
Yes, they turned a commodity into a brand, by monopolizing 90% of supply. The problem is -- it is a commodity, a raw material needed everywhere in technology. If the price went down it could revolutionize semiconductors industry. It can also be artificially produced from graphite, but looks like that technology is going to be squashed by De Beers, much like the electric car was destroyed by the oil industry.
GP's post is right on topic.
1. A bazooka can do a lot of damage, but hardly more than any of the mass shootings in the history of US (and abroad), most of which were done with regular semi-automatic guns.
2. At the same time I would not trust a stranger with a single-shot musket. There are some pretty strange wierdos out there, and some of them get their hands on guns now and then.
It says something about "well-regulated militia" in the comstitution, something that is being omitted and forgotten most of the time. By "militia" I understand "a group of volunteers, well trained and instructed on safety, who gather twice a year for a weapons drill.", hopefully with some system to filter out dimwits who give guns to children as birthday presents
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state , the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
It's a short amendment ... you can't cherrypick and change it's meaning.
Sounds good
The second amendment is ... about keeping the state safe from foreign conquerors.
Hold on a sec..."foreign"? What happened to "can't change it's meaning"???
Do you think the British were "foreign"? Just distribute guns to draftees when anything "foreign" shows up, no need for militia for that.
TOS:
...
279. By visiting this page you explicitly grant permission for our page scripts to run, regadless of the purpose, on your machine.
There. Any responsibility avoided. Furthermore, lately they are trying to push laws in the US that braking TOS is a federal offence, so blocking the "agreed-upon" scripts makes YOU a criminal!!
I want licensed big media content. They want my dollars.
No, they don't. Web has been a major thorn in their side for many years. Big Media wants 100% control or they want it to die. They want you to go back to their $100/month cable TV with 50% time dedicated to ads, 40% garbage that you WILL watch because of no choice, and 10% heavily censored and biased information they call "news". They want you to pay $16 per music track (with another 9 "filler" tracks). They want you to read stuff they approve you to read, not some "out of print illegal to distribute" editions.
Big Media has been working on control of the Web relentlessly, buying legislators, pushing international agreements on unsuspecting countries, sneaking into UN and Trade agreements. At this point of time the ISPs are at their command (for free, mind you), and so are file share and video streaming. The only area where they did not mark until now was the "Open Web" standards....
Very soon you will find yourself in the DRM'd Big Media Interwebs, where you can [ONLY] watch Disney Channel or FOX upon payment of a modest $100/month premium, never mind the advertisements that you will also HAVE to watch. Everything else will be declared infringing non-approved, taken down by FBI or otherwise dissapear under questionable circumstances.
A Samsung Galaxy Note released a year ago offered superior network optionis
leaders of both parties are puppets of undisclosed entities who rule this country by pulling strings from behind a curtain
Bitcoins suffer from the same shortfalls that gold does
And what shortfalls are that? I don't see any similarity between bitcoin and gold, sorry. It is more like fiat currencies: no intrinsic value, based on trust and nothing else, except no government can manipulate its value so easily, which is a good thing. [well, with present bitcoin market cap any large entity can manipulate its value simply by trading, but that's beside the point]
Gold was a successful currency for many centuries, and shortcomings I see are
1) wear and tear,
2) heavy use in jewelry and tech industry, which created a problematic disparity between value for industry use and value as a currency
3) Gold Standard fell because it fixed values of world currencies, making it impossible to have free currency exchange
-- if anything bitcoin is the opposite of gold.
I use my phone as a killer ebook reader/ebrowser that fits in the pocket, always on, connected, and with me. I need it to be as big as possible but still fit in the pocket comfortably, lest I will need to carry a man-purse for it. My estimate is 6 to 7 inch diagonal will fit the bill. I really dont care what it looks like when used as a phone :)
Just checked from the roof of a 22 story bulding, the view North is over East River, but nothing to be seen there. I guess New York is not famous for astronomy discoveres with all the smog and lights.
tools designed exclusively to kill human beings
Stronger human beings have been killing weaker human beings throughout history. Firearms changed that, so they must be a good thing. Welcome to the XVIII century!
.
.
Swiss Delegate: Ah, Mr. Abootman. It's the global world summit leaders. We want to talk to you about the strike.
Stephen Abootman: You... You do? You wanna negotiate?!
French Delegate: No, we were just wondering if, when you're all dead, we can use Newfoundland for a new global theme park.
[Mr. Abootman drops the phone and begins to weep. He walks away with his hands over his eyes]
Kyle: [picks up the phone] Hello? Will you just give this guy something, please?!
Swiss Delegate: Excuse me?
Kyle: [Mr. Abootman leans on the door, crying] He just doesn't wanna look like an idiot, so he wants everyone to think the strike was for something. Ehjust, just give him anything!
French Delegate: Well, we could give Canada some small consolation pirize
Kyle: If they give you something small, will you end the strike?
Stephen Abootman: Well they... act like they're giving Canada a lot so everyone thinks I did a good job?
Kyle: Can you act like you're giving him a lot?
Swiss Delegate: Well, why not?
[Canada, moments later. Mr. Abootman steps outside to the podium and makes an announcement]
Stephen Abootman: We have won! [no one reacts: they're all too tired to]
Lumberjack: Well how much did we got?
Stephen Abootman: Well, we uh, we didn't get everything that we wanted, but... we nogotiated hard and... we got these... [holds up some coupons] coupons to Bennigan's! And... [holds up a bag of sweets] free bubblegum... for every Canadian. [his aide steps forward and claps really fast. Other Canadians begin to clap their hands] These coupons entitle every Canadian to a free meal at Bennigan's. With the purchase of a meal at equal or greater value, of course.
Aide 1: We did it! [aide 2 steps forward and claps really fast. Other Canadians begin to clap their hands]
Stephen Abootman: My friends. This is the greatest victory in Canadian history. [headlines follow: The Canuck Reporter has "Canada Wins The Strike." Canadiety has "Strike over! Canada Victorious!." Canada Today has "Strike Victory Party Set For Next Week."] [http://www.spscriptorium.com/Season12/E1204script.htm]
1. Turbulence increase, making air travel uncomfortable
2. Rice fields drying up worldwide, resulting in mass starvation and war for resources, with prime overpopulated countries having access to nuclear arms.
Not sure which one worries me more... nuclear holocaust vs coffee spilled on my crotch... Nah let our children figure out the mess, load up those coal power plants!
War is about achieving specific objectives by force.
That's a very Bush Jr. definition of war. You do not need to look any further than Iraq, and you will see that your "definition" falls apart, as they did not "achieve" anything by being invaded (aka "at war"). Next time you need to define something try opening a websters' dictionary or something.
Terrorists have just taken control of an oil tanker in San Francisco's bay....
Yes, I we all know that the Terrorists is the only credible "military" threat that you can come up with. No, scary Terrorists is not what we have military for, and hopefully military is never called into a SF bay, but rather some specially trained police unit. When a neighbour kid steals your candy you don't deploy your "orbital ion cannon" either. Military exists to resolve _extrernal_ conflicts, and hopefully will only ever be used for those, because the only exceptions from that rule are either police state or civil war, and both are very ugly.
"Toilet Safety Administration"
DRM ... cannot increase your sales.
This is a very bold statement that sums it all up. The goal of management is to maximise profit, and a 0 sales increase translates into a loss. I understand that DRM is evil for an entirely different set of reasons, that the general public will hopefully understand in a decade or two and vote against DRM with their feet (wallets). Until that happens, it is all about maximising short-term profit, and if your statement can be proven with a bunch of marketing experiments then the simple truth will enter management textbooks and we are golden. I am not sure if it is true, though, but setting up some experiments should not be too hard.
Sorry a dog ate my html: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcffcR-lgtc
Is it like a "used gun"? (Lord of War)
Was about to post this link myself. This is something that should be common knowledge.
Hello? Anyone home? It was still Hitler who attacked the Soviet Union in first place.
In the first place, Germany invaded Poland, and it happened after the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, which arguably is the official start of WWII.
Way to go, blaming the victim.
According to the pact, Stalin was planning to annex his part of Eastern Europe, and already started (and lost) war with Finland. Not exactly "a victim", is he? Also, as GGP mentioned he systematically executed Red Army officers, so when USSR was finally invaded, Red Army had literally only a mob with pitchforks and shovels to defend themselves.
The Chief Communist Party historian called from the 50's: your version of history is approved. Congratulations, comrade! However, if you are not afraid of spending the rest of your days at Gulag, check out some common knowledge
Mass outdoor spraying of DDT was abandoned in poor countries subject to malaria, such as Sri Lanka, in the 1970s and 1980s, not because of government prohibitions, but because the DDT had lost its ability to kill the mosquitoes.[79]
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Carson#Criticisms_of_environmentalism_and_DDT_restrictions)