In short: Although Bitcoin may have some admirable features as a medium of exchange, why do you suppose that it can represent a popularly desirable store of value when there are so many other excellent alternatives?
Note that a successful currency requires both features. Absent a reason to store value in bitcoins, people will keep their stock of wealth in other assets and then exchange them into bitcoins only when they need to engage in a transaction. But in that case, the real value of a bitcoin will be approximately zero; it will be slightly positive if the market deems its virtues as a medium of exchange to exceed those of other currencies, but beyond that, it will be zero.
Okay, so it doesn't apply to anybody on/., but for plenty of people, the idea of carrying their primary computing platform in their pocket is awesome. All they need is the ability for it to play nicely with a wireless keyboard/mouse and their big-ass TV, and they've suddenly got a home computer, with all their data stored up in the cloud.
Unfortunately, your understanding of the figures is a little off.
Growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was negative in 2007:Q4, slightly positive in 2008:Q1 and 2008:Q2, and again negative in 2008:Q3.
Growth in Gross Domestic Income (GDI), which is logically identical to GDP but is measured differently and so can come up with slightly different figures, was negative in 2007:Q4 and 2008:Q1, slightly positive in 2008:Q2 and negative again in 2008:Q3.
Even more telling, payroll (i.e. employment) figures peaked in December 2007.
You can see all of this in the NBER business cycle dating committee's report here.
It's probably reasonable to assume that the small and temporary blip up back into positive territory in the middle of 2008 was a result of the first fiscal stimulus. It's also reasonable to assume that whatever caused it, that temporary respite saved the NBER and the Republican Party from an enormous headache. If the 2008:Q2 figures had been even slightly negative, there would have been significant (and reasonable) pressure for them to declare the recession in the middle of the campaign.
The complexity of code, just like any system, increases exponentially with increases in functionality.
On top of that, complexity also increases exponentially the more interaction there is between systems, which is exactly what people have been scrambling for - they want their email client to integrate seamlessly with their web browser and their private thingamie collection.
Both of these simple facts make it staggeringly difficult to predict the impact of even small changes. The small software houses are able to fix their products quickly because they face neither of these problems - their software is, by definition, relatively small and simple (however ingenious it may be) and almost never attempts to integrate itself with every other application on the computer.
"Australia retains the flexibility to implement the Agreement in a way that meets our domestic circumstances, for example, providing a mechanism to introduce public interest exceptions in relation to technological protection measures."
Australia is bound by the Kyoto protocol to control its emissions
Sadly, no. The Australian government has steadfastly and repeatedly maintained that they will not ratify even the revised Kyoto protocol until the United States does.
Actually, taste and smell are enormously inter-related. If I remember correctly, one of them is really 80% the other - I just can't remember which way around it is.
The bit that really cracked me up though was this:
Prostitutes whose clients refuse to wear condoms could find discreet protection, as could women at risk of catching sexually transmitted diseases from philandering partners.... "If we're successful in this, that would be for me the dream of my life."
When the Washington Monument, National Mall, Washington, D.C. was completed, a one-pound chunk of aluminum formed the very tip of the monument. Reasoning: it was a precious metal at that time. It was akin to placing a gemstone there.
So precious, in fact, that the Russian Czar (I forget which one), stunned his court by giving his new-born son an aluminium rattle!
Mid last year my company was in a bind. We had a large amount of development to do, and not enough people to do it. The solution: off-shore outsourcing. We basically handed these guys all the specs, gave 'em a rundown and let them go. The end result can only be described as crap. I mean really, really bad. If you can think of a negative thing about out-sourcing, it happened. In the end I just re-wrote the lot.
The next attempt:
Late last year my company got another large project. Once again we did all the analysis and design, but didn't have the resources to code it in the time frame we had. Once again, we used an off-shore development house (the same one, even!). But this time, we sent two people over in a team leader / advisory role (I was one of them). This time it went much better. Here's a few of the benefits we saw:
Because we had an interactive role with the outsourcers, we could identify any potential issues before they happened.
We were able to teach them our coding/documentation standards and enforce them on a day-to-day basis rather than every other month. We did regular, on-site code reviews to make sure we didn't get sloppy code.
Many of the out-source developers were hopelessly inexperienced in our development environment and the technologies used. We were able to identify the guys who were struggling and give them the extra attention they needed to keep up.
Any specification ever written contains vaguries and some ambiguity - basically the issues for the programmer to figure out. If it didn't, then it's a waste of time - the person that wrote the spec may as well have written the code. Since we physically there, we could answer any questions that the guys came up with on the spot rather than waiting half a day or longer for email. This prevented huge amounts of potential misunderstanding.
We were able to give consistant, regular feedback to our management on the state of the project. This was a big one. One of the problems with outsourcing is that the people you give the work to, because they're hanging on your money, are almost always hesitant to admit that they're struggling. With us there talking straight back to our management, there was none of that.
The end result: Quite simply, it worked. My company didn't get it at the absolute basement price they might have without sending people over to be part of the team, but it still turned out cheap, and the code worked.
Slashdot Mirror
Felidae - the OS X problem
It is to "hone in" on something, not to "home in".
See him here, here and here.
In short: Although Bitcoin may have some admirable features as a medium of exchange, why do you suppose that it can represent a popularly desirable store of value when there are so many other excellent alternatives?
Note that a successful currency requires both features. Absent a reason to store value in bitcoins, people will keep their stock of wealth in other assets and then exchange them into bitcoins only when they need to engage in a transaction. But in that case, the real value of a bitcoin will be approximately zero; it will be slightly positive if the market deems its virtues as a medium of exchange to exceed those of other currencies, but beyond that, it will be zero.
Okay, so it doesn't apply to anybody on /., but for plenty of people, the idea of carrying their primary computing platform in their pocket is awesome. All they need is the ability for it to play nicely with a wireless keyboard/mouse and their big-ass TV, and they've suddenly got a home computer, with all their data stored up in the cloud.
Unfortunately, your understanding of the figures is a little off.
Growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was negative in 2007:Q4, slightly positive in 2008:Q1 and 2008:Q2, and again negative in 2008:Q3.
Growth in Gross Domestic Income (GDI), which is logically identical to GDP but is measured differently and so can come up with slightly different figures, was negative in 2007:Q4 and 2008:Q1, slightly positive in 2008:Q2 and negative again in 2008:Q3.
Even more telling, payroll (i.e. employment) figures peaked in December 2007.
You can see all of this in the NBER business cycle dating committee's report here .
It's probably reasonable to assume that the small and temporary blip up back into positive territory in the middle of 2008 was a result of the first fiscal stimulus. It's also reasonable to assume that whatever caused it, that temporary respite saved the NBER and the Republican Party from an enormous headache. If the 2008:Q2 figures had been even slightly negative, there would have been significant (and reasonable) pressure for them to declare the recession in the middle of the campaign.
I'm sorry for doing this, but the word you're looking for is 'affecting', not 'effecting'.
'Affect' is a verb, as in "search engines affect the quality of information on the web".
'Effect' is a noun, as in cause-and-effect: "the effect that search engines have on the quality of information on the web is ...".
Actually, I'm not sorry. They're two different words with two different meanings. What I meant is that I don't mean you any personal insult.
On top of that, complexity also increases exponentially the more interaction there is between systems, which is exactly what people have been scrambling for - they want their email client to integrate seamlessly with their web browser and their private thingamie collection.
Both of these simple facts make it staggeringly difficult to predict the impact of even small changes. The small software houses are able to fix their products quickly because they face neither of these problems - their software is, by definition, relatively small and simple (however ingenious it may be) and almost never attempts to integrate itself with every other application on the computer.
An overview
In particular, I quote:
"Australia retains the flexibility to implement the Agreement in a way that meets our domestic circumstances, for example, providing a mechanism to introduce public interest exceptions in relation to technological protection measures."
Sadly, no. The Australian government has steadfastly and repeatedly maintained that they will not ratify even the revised Kyoto protocol until the United States does.
The bit that really cracked me up though was this:
Prostitutes whose clients refuse to wear condoms could find discreet protection, as could women at risk of catching sexually transmitted diseases from philandering partners .... "If we're successful in this, that would be for me the dream of my life."
Oh, yeah mate. We know what you're thinking.
So precious, in fact, that the Russian Czar (I forget which one), stunned his court by giving his new-born son an aluminium rattle!
Mid last year my company was in a bind. We had a large amount of development to do, and not enough people to do it. The solution: off-shore outsourcing. We basically handed these guys all the specs, gave 'em a rundown and let them go. The end result can only be described as crap. I mean really, really bad. If you can think of a negative thing about out-sourcing, it happened. In the end I just re-wrote the lot.
The next attempt:
Late last year my company got another large project. Once again we did all the analysis and design, but didn't have the resources to code it in the time frame we had. Once again, we used an off-shore development house (the same one, even!). But this time, we sent two people over in a team leader / advisory role (I was one of them). This time it went much better. Here's a few of the benefits we saw:
- Because we had an interactive role with the outsourcers, we could identify any potential issues before they happened.
- We were able to teach them our coding/documentation standards and enforce them on a day-to-day basis rather than every other month. We did regular, on-site code reviews to make sure we didn't get sloppy code.
- Many of the out-source developers were hopelessly inexperienced in our development environment and the technologies used. We were able to identify the guys who were struggling and give them the extra attention they needed to keep up.
- Any specification ever written contains vaguries and some ambiguity - basically the issues for the programmer to figure out. If it didn't, then it's a waste of time - the person that wrote the spec may as well have written the code. Since we physically there, we could answer any questions that the guys came up with on the spot rather than waiting half a day or longer for email. This prevented huge amounts of potential misunderstanding.
- We were able to give consistant, regular feedback to our management on the state of the project. This was a big one. One of the problems with outsourcing is that the people you give the work to, because they're hanging on your money, are almost always hesitant to admit that they're struggling. With us there talking straight back to our management, there was none of that.
The end result: Quite simply, it worked. My company didn't get it at the absolute basement price they might have without sending people over to be part of the team, but it still turned out cheap, and the code worked.