Get the government out of education by privatising/deregulating, allowing competitors to fight to offer the best quality education at the lowest prices.
A government feeding and clothing your children is not a sign of a prosperous society but a sign of poverty and control. Why then do you want them (mis)educating all children?
FIAT currency tends to be *backed* by something, like an economy, like USA or European Union or even China. What is this backed by?
Wrong. An economy is not a backing. It does encourage confidence that the notes of debt may be exhanged of goods or services in the future, but a backing is a guarantee (e.g. hard assets) and an economy is not a guarantee.
FIAT currency tends to be *backed* by something
WRONG! Fiat currencies may or may not be backed by something: fiat means mandated by law. Coincidentally, fiat currencies are almost never backed by anything. (Why would this be the case I wonder?)
Currency is IOU notes that devalue over time. It is not a hard asset, like coal or copper
Money, and not currency, should be:
Easily divisible
Fungible
Easily verified
A store of value
Your currency might be IOU notes that devalue over time, but this does not have to be the case. Gresham's law is often paraphrased as, "Bad money drives out good." Good money is out there, and smart people are storing their wealth in something other than government mandated and systemically devalued currency. You can keep collecting something that the government can counterfeit apparently without consequence to itself, but definitely with consequence to its citizens.
Back to Bitcoin: it may provide all of the qualities of money listed above (the only item in question is a store of value). If you look back to the early colonies of what is now the United States of America you will see that fiat currencies worked -- because their supply was limited and they held their value. In this way, because Bitcoin is guaranteed to have a limited supply, they could be the only modern example of an unbacked currency (fiat or non-fiat) to be a safe store of value.
So basically, this is like "collector items", not currency. A very scare "resource", if you can call it that. You get 50 BTC after few months, meaning that basically you've just spent $50 in electricity to get your "free" money.
It is often said that a Bitcoin is a store of work which is incorrect. It may take work to "mine" one (your mention of electricity consumption) but the value of a Bitcoin is not a function of the input: it is a function of its rarity and its usefulness (supply and demand). The cost of "mining" Bitcoins is not irrelevant, but is simply an expense in an individuals decision to enter the market for Bitcoins.
Anyway, another fad "currency". Might as well collect "ISK in eveonline" or "gold nuggets in WoW" - same thing.
These do not have guarantees on their supply. Also, they have little usefulness outside the virtual world. Bitcoins may not have a well demonstrated usefulness, but it does meet the requirements for general commerce in the real world. There is already a functioning economy trading in Bitcoin (albeit small) and the fact that its value is 1 USD today means that it will be much higher in the future as the economy supporting Bitcoin grows (and as the US declines *ducks*).
Lesson: your "money" is really currency; Bitcoin may indeed be money. Also, this is all before exploring the additional benefits of Bitcoin: anonymity of transactions (if chosen) and the inability of any individual (or government) to control or exploit the supply.
If you thought he got a lot of pussy now, just wait until he's on the silver screen, running from the Department of Defense like Harrison Ford in Patriot Games; chasing leads and evading trained killers like Liam Neeson in Taken; his loose hair moving around his face like Johnny Depp!
If you are designing anything bigger than a couple of gigabytes, you are in for some fun (or your users are).;-)
To be a good designer, there is no substitute for a thorough understanding of the subject matter. And you are a self-confessed n00b. Get an expert. Or study. Hard.
Never bought one. My brother (non-nerd) did and it had RAM errors manifesting as BSODs within weeks of delivery.
The laptops were always cheap. They "check all the boxes": i.e. they have all the on-paper credentials to compete with other manufacturers, on paper. But the build quality is crap.
Also I had one loaned to me for work and the keyboard's enter key stopped working, so I carried an enormous USB keyboard around with it for 3 months.;-)
There's no point sending any spam, if not your estimated 30 million messages, only to collapse the server and not relay the messages to the recipients.
The botnet operators probably think of this as an optimization problem and not good manners.
Are those living in tyranny without the safeguard of sufficient imaginary property rights! Never mind protected civil liberties: the new fight is for imaginary liberty!
I call bullshit on the troll moderation of parent (also my post).
This guy has a very niche problem that:
(1) should not be solved with virtualization,
(2) is only because of some arbitrary and tedious restriction on how Windows installs drivers, and
(3) does not belong on Ask Slashdot.
I'm sorry, I'm having a little trouble feeling sorry for people who support DRM (those who bought the game). They paid for it. They got what they wanted.
Find someone else's sholder to cry on.
Good call. As someone else pointed out above:
Why would this stem the awful DRM? They have the money, gamers are still going to play, life moves on.
The publisher has the customer's money. Support after payment is always awful. Until customers vote with their wallets, it will only get worse.
Slashdot Mirror
Get the government out of education by privatising/deregulating, allowing competitors to fight to offer the best quality education at the lowest prices.
A government feeding and clothing your children is not a sign of a prosperous society but a sign of poverty and control. Why then do you want them (mis)educating all children?
Amen! ;-)
Dirty liberals and their double standards.
Wrong. An economy is not a backing. It does encourage confidence that the notes of debt may be exhanged of goods or services in the future, but a backing is a guarantee (e.g. hard assets) and an economy is not a guarantee.
WRONG! Fiat currencies may or may not be backed by something: fiat means mandated by law. Coincidentally, fiat currencies are almost never backed by anything. (Why would this be the case I wonder?)
Money, and not currency, should be:
Your currency might be IOU notes that devalue over time, but this does not have to be the case. Gresham's law is often paraphrased as, "Bad money drives out good." Good money is out there, and smart people are storing their wealth in something other than government mandated and systemically devalued currency. You can keep collecting something that the government can counterfeit apparently without consequence to itself, but definitely with consequence to its citizens.
Back to Bitcoin: it may provide all of the qualities of money listed above (the only item in question is a store of value). If you look back to the early colonies of what is now the United States of America you will see that fiat currencies worked -- because their supply was limited and they held their value. In this way, because Bitcoin is guaranteed to have a limited supply, they could be the only modern example of an unbacked currency (fiat or non-fiat) to be a safe store of value.
It is often said that a Bitcoin is a store of work which is incorrect. It may take work to "mine" one (your mention of electricity consumption) but the value of a Bitcoin is not a function of the input: it is a function of its rarity and its usefulness (supply and demand). The cost of "mining" Bitcoins is not irrelevant, but is simply an expense in an individuals decision to enter the market for Bitcoins.
These do not have guarantees on their supply. Also, they have little usefulness outside the virtual world. Bitcoins may not have a well demonstrated usefulness, but it does meet the requirements for general commerce in the real world. There is already a functioning economy trading in Bitcoin (albeit small) and the fact that its value is 1 USD today means that it will be much higher in the future as the economy supporting Bitcoin grows (and as the US declines *ducks*).
Lesson: your "money" is really currency; Bitcoin may indeed be money. Also, this is all before exploring the additional benefits of Bitcoin: anonymity of transactions (if chosen) and the inability of any individual (or government) to control or exploit the supply.
Agent provocateur?
It's called democracy in action.
If you thought he got a lot of pussy now, just wait until he's on the silver screen, running from the Department of Defense like Harrison Ford in Patriot Games; chasing leads and evading trained killers like Liam Neeson in Taken; his loose hair moving around his face like Johnny Depp!
Call me. Steve not knowing what he's doing could only last so long.
If you want a long-term technology-business-plan, you're new-tech is out-of-touch-tech.
But they forgot to mention Mars warming.
If you are designing anything bigger than a couple of gigabytes, you are in for some fun (or your users are). ;-)
To be a good designer, there is no substitute for a thorough understanding of the subject matter. And you are a self-confessed n00b. Get an expert. Or study. Hard.
Database in Depth: Relational Theory for Practitioners.
Never bought one. My brother (non-nerd) did and it had RAM errors manifesting as BSODs within weeks of delivery.
The laptops were always cheap. They "check all the boxes": i.e. they have all the on-paper credentials to compete with other manufacturers, on paper. But the build quality is crap.
Also I had one loaned to me for work and the keyboard's enter key stopped working, so I carried an enormous USB keyboard around with it for 3 months. ;-)
Never. Buy. Dell.
The original Christian distribution: Jesux!
How much did the Government sell Telstra for in the first place? ;-)
There's no point sending any spam, if not your estimated 30 million messages, only to collapse the server and not relay the messages to the recipients.
The botnet operators probably think of this as an optimization problem and not good manners.
Are those living in tyranny without the safeguard of sufficient imaginary property rights!
Never mind protected civil liberties: the new fight is for imaginary liberty!
Is tagging this article !spoilerfree the same as !!spoiler and !!!spoilerfree and !!!!spoiler, and perhaps spoiler?
I call bullshit on the troll moderation of parent (also my post).
This guy has a very niche problem that:
(1) should not be solved with virtualization,
(2) is only because of some arbitrary and tedious restriction on how Windows installs drivers, and
(3) does not belong on Ask Slashdot.
Virtualization is not a solution to poor operating systems.
Your Windows sucks. Enjoy your monopoly product.
Why sign it at all?????????
Classic formula: introduce oppressive legislation; remove unpopular items due to public outrage; pass the rest into an act of law.
How about NO ACTA?!?!?!
Good call. As someone else pointed out above:
The publisher has the customer's money. Support after payment is always awful. Until customers vote with their wallets, it will only get worse.
Enjoy your intentionally defective products!
A new renaissance will be born!
Introduce oppressive legislation. People are upset about 1 item in particular. Pass all but said item into law. Repeat.
Keeping it secret is a matter of national security when the nation is controlled by private interests.
OMGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG! Why won't the Government raise our taxes and DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS!!!
This is because the US Navy are the initial authors of Tor. It was opened when they no longer withed to maintain it.
I thought the home was the last bastion of freedom from the government. Apparently not anymore!
Frog dropped in boiling water jumps out.