Ah, I was making an allusion to the 'use a firewall' solution for the problem listed in the article. But as a general rule, your outline is 100% correct.
Not the point. I was refuting the suggestion that somehow oil certificates made more sense as money than gold, because oil has an 'intrinsic value'. Ridiculous.
My point is that there are equal (if not superior) intrinsic practical values for gold beyond its monetary uses, regardless of its historical role.
This is like having a conversation with the insane. Or Rush Limbaugh. Maybe both. Yes, I pay taxes - I live in what is generally considered a 'high-tax' area - but taxes have absolutely NO bearing on dollar demand. The concept is ludicrous.
OF COURSE the federal government pays debt with taxpayer money! What else would they use? The debt incurred by the Federal government - good or bad - is on the taxpayer's behalf. It's not some third-party 'Federal' debt - it is your debt, incurred on your behalf by your elected officials. That's how representative democracy works.
I'm not even going to touch the 'Fed loans money which drives up demand for US dollars' argument because it is so nonsensical it makes my head hurt. This stuff is covered in any decent college level Money and Banking course.
"...better, because they have an intrinsic value."
And gold doesn't have an instrinsic value? It is a critical component in the manufacture of electronics and telecommunications - it is used for medical purposes because it is non-reactive and hypo-allergenic. It is an integral part of many catalysts. It could be argued that the intrinsic value of gold is much more than oil - it certainly will retain its value long after the petroleum economy is gone...
"...required to convert to dollars and pay taxes..."
The dollar is 'proped up' by the fact that it is the generally accepted medium of exchange throughout the world - and it is considered to be a safer way to hold fiat wealth than any other medium. US tax receipts are a miniscule percentage of the total US $ transactions recorded every day and have little effect on the desirability of the currency. If you are looking for a Federal culprit, maybe you should consider that the overwhelming majority of debt and equity securities are dollar denominated (Federal debt being one of the biggies) - this has a much greater affect on dollar demand.
"...that give off formaldehyde, among other things, for years and years."
Not to be flippant, but I live in a house built in 1905. There isn't a speck of pressboard or plywood in the place. In fact, the only environmental hazard I can find (building-products related) is lead paint.
Solution? Buy an old house. Kinda helps on the whole overdevelopment / landfill / pollution stuff too...
"It compares today's US tech firms to the Big Three Automakers of the 70's, while saying the overseas tech firms are similar to the Toyotas and Hondas of the 70's."
Of course,
- now the Big Three, Toyota, Honda and the rest all own each other
- a sizeable portion of the Hondas made in the world are assembled here
- the economy that spawned all those Toyotas and Hondas has been in the crapper for 15 years
- the economies that tried to 'out-Toyota Toyota' (Korea and the other little tigers) have been in the crapper for 5 years
Maybe their prospects aren't so great after all...
I used to work for a company that made x-ray film digitizers (basically scanners for big photographic negatives) and we had one hospital site that was repeatedly blowing the fuses on the scanner mainboard. Strangely enough, the blown fuses always occured between 4:30 and 5:00 pm on Friday afternoons...
We later discovered the hospital tested its emergency diesel generators on Friday afternoons - they just forgot to take the damn things off the grid. I wonder what those voltage spikes did to the MRI....
That perfect, reliable, fast, open architecture printer with great software support and competitive sourcing for toner already exists - it's called a LaserJet 4SI.
Of course, that's not very helpful to HP's bottom line today...
Why buy kid's books from shmucks like zoobooks when there are plenty of quality, local bookstores with Internet presence - and acceptable privacy policies - throughout the US that would love to help you?
It's like spam - it quits working when no one buys.
Bah. 'RMS' doesn't give you any more information. It's like saying a car can go 100 MPH - is that up a hill? Off a cliff? With a trailer attached?
You need at least three more items to make sense of the RMS rating:
1. Frequency range (i.e., 20hz - 20khz) that the measurement was made at; 2. Flatness of the frequency range - do they say '-10db at 20Hz'? If they roll off the bass response they can get more out of the amp before clipping. 3. Some sort of distortion spec. Yes, it might be able to do '505', but is that listenable?
Of course, even if the specs are good, it may still sound like bollocks...
In fact, it seemd to me that the specifications routinely used with PC audio ("peak power", "maximum SPL", etc.) are much like mobile audio back in the mid 80s. Based on misperception, myth, and hype.
"1000 watts Peak Power" gives me about as much information about the actual audio performance as "1.5 Ghz processor" tells me about the PC it's attached to.
They do have the right to do a credit check as a condition of employment.
They are required to tell you if something on the credit report caused you to NOT be hired; and then you have a right to a (free) copy of the credit report.
the cable / DSL operators will soon find out that trying to wage this battle through technical means will result in an arms race they cannot possibly win...
...which will, of course, result in their attempts to find more onerous legal solutions to the problem.
And obviously you are one of those gun-toting chain smoking cretins that I subsidize with my hard-earned money (although I expect your 'mobile sin' is an SUV rather than a sports car.)
If there are so "many" reports that show the inverse correlation (and aren't funded by a gun lobby), then why didn't you offer them up? I offer you a choice tidbit from the second source I cited:
"After controlling for poverty and urbanization, for every age group, people in states with many guns have elevated rates of homicide, particularly firearm homicide."
Yes, it's 'only' correlation, but who fucking cares? - Not my insurance company. If I park downtown where cars get stolen, they make me pay extra. No causation there...
I also pay extra for your bad judgement in bringing a gun into your home. I don't care what you do - just don't make me pay for your narrow-minded testosterone-poisoned belief system. Jesus, if you want to fuck up, do some Oxy-Contin - or buy a super-bike and ride without a helmet. The 'correlation' between you leaving this planet quickly with little or no additional cost to my wallet is somewhat higher than with your possesion of a firearm.
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Ah, I was making an allusion to the 'use a firewall' solution for the problem listed in the article. But as a general rule, your outline is 100% correct.
.
No, the Microsoft solution is to install some other company's Plexiglas in front!
Not the point. I was refuting the suggestion that somehow oil certificates made more sense as money than gold, because oil has an 'intrinsic value'. Ridiculous.
My point is that there are equal (if not superior) intrinsic practical values for gold beyond its monetary uses, regardless of its historical role.
This is like having a conversation with the insane. Or Rush Limbaugh. Maybe both. Yes, I pay taxes - I live in what is generally considered a 'high-tax' area - but taxes have absolutely NO bearing on dollar demand. The concept is ludicrous.
OF COURSE the federal government pays debt with taxpayer money! What else would they use? The debt incurred by the Federal government - good or bad - is on the taxpayer's behalf. It's not some third-party 'Federal' debt - it is your debt, incurred on your behalf by your elected officials. That's how representative democracy works.
I'm not even going to touch the 'Fed loans money which drives up demand for US dollars' argument because it is so nonsensical it makes my head hurt. This stuff is covered in any decent college level Money and Banking course.
Pons and Fleischmann say it enhances cold fusion, too!
"...based on the idea of what we think it is worth."
You have just explained the concept of the 'worth' of anything.
"...better, because they have an intrinsic value."
And gold doesn't have an instrinsic value? It is a critical component in the manufacture of electronics and telecommunications - it is used for medical purposes because it is non-reactive and hypo-allergenic. It is an integral part of many catalysts. It could be argued that the intrinsic value of gold is much more than oil - it certainly will retain its value long after the petroleum economy is gone...
"...required to convert to dollars and pay taxes..."
The dollar is 'proped up' by the fact that it is the generally accepted medium of exchange throughout the world - and it is considered to be a safer way to hold fiat wealth than any other medium. US tax receipts are a miniscule percentage of the total US $ transactions recorded every day and have little effect on the desirability of the currency. If you are looking for a Federal culprit, maybe you should consider that the overwhelming majority of debt and equity securities are dollar denominated (Federal debt being one of the biggies) - this has a much greater affect on dollar demand.
"...that give off formaldehyde, among other things, for years and years."
Not to be flippant, but I live in a house built in 1905. There isn't a speck of pressboard or plywood in the place. In fact, the only environmental hazard I can find (building-products related) is lead paint.
Solution? Buy an old house. Kinda helps on the whole overdevelopment / landfill / pollution stuff too...
"It compares today's US tech firms to the Big Three Automakers of the 70's, while saying the overseas tech firms are similar to the Toyotas and Hondas of the 70's."
Of course,
- now the Big Three, Toyota, Honda and the rest all own each other
- a sizeable portion of the Hondas made in the world are assembled here
- the economy that spawned all those Toyotas and Hondas has been in the crapper for 15 years
- the economies that tried to 'out-Toyota Toyota' (Korea and the other little tigers) have been in the crapper for 5 years
Maybe their prospects aren't so great after all...
Ok, so it's popular trash literature - but did anyone else who has read Michael Crichton's Prey get a little uneasy after seeing this article?
I used to work for a company that made x-ray film digitizers (basically scanners for big photographic negatives) and we had one hospital site that was repeatedly blowing the fuses on the scanner mainboard. Strangely enough, the blown fuses always occured between 4:30 and 5:00 pm on Friday afternoons...
We later discovered the hospital tested its emergency diesel generators on Friday afternoons - they just forgot to take the damn things off the grid. I wonder what those voltage spikes did to the MRI....
That perfect, reliable, fast, open architecture printer with great software support and competitive sourcing for toner already exists - it's called a LaserJet 4SI.
Of course, that's not very helpful to HP's bottom line today...
Last week the SQL Server developers found out they might be liable for royalties...
Are users of this version control software next?
After you buy Microsoft, make all those millions, sock them away in the bank, and need to access those funds...
...don't use your ATM card.
Why buy kid's books from shmucks like zoobooks when there are plenty of quality, local bookstores with Internet presence - and acceptable privacy policies - throughout the US that would love to help you?
It's like spam - it quits working when no one buys.
Says Joe User: "So I would have to purchase the operating system to access the Internet to read the EULA on the operating system I just purchased..."
Posting on-line is an argument that ain't gonna fly.
Bah. 'RMS' doesn't give you any more information. It's like saying a car can go 100 MPH - is that up a hill? Off a cliff? With a trailer attached?
You need at least three more items to make sense of the RMS rating:
1. Frequency range (i.e., 20hz - 20khz) that the measurement was made at;
2. Flatness of the frequency range - do they say '-10db at 20Hz'? If they roll off the bass response they can get more out of the amp before clipping.
3. Some sort of distortion spec. Yes, it might be able to do '505', but is that listenable?
Of course, even if the specs are good, it may still sound like bollocks...
In fact, it seemd to me that the specifications routinely used with PC audio ("peak power", "maximum SPL", etc.) are much like mobile audio back in the mid 80s. Based on misperception, myth, and hype.
"1000 watts Peak Power" gives me about as much information about the actual audio performance as "1.5 Ghz processor" tells me about the PC it's attached to.
They do have the right to do a credit check as a condition of employment.
They are required to tell you if something on the credit report caused you to NOT be hired; and then you have a right to a (free) copy of the credit report.
the cable / DSL operators will soon find out that trying to wage this battle through technical means will result in an arms race they cannot possibly win...
...which will, of course, result in their attempts to find more onerous legal solutions to the problem.
I say - let the games begin!
when does the black guy in the red shirt get killed by aliens?
If you have to 'create an illusion' of something, is that thing real? If the 'illusion' isn't necessary, why create it in the first place?
Leave the FUD, vapor, and marketing-by-'illusion' to the corporate droids. No need for it here.
A description of the concept of vaporware - generally considered to be a bad thing.
How nice. Do you feel any obligation to keep the guns out of the hands of the children in the first place?
And obviously you are one of those gun-toting chain smoking cretins that I subsidize with my hard-earned money (although I expect your 'mobile sin' is an SUV rather than a sports car.)
If there are so "many" reports that show the inverse correlation (and aren't funded by a gun lobby), then why didn't you offer them up? I offer you a choice tidbit from the second source I cited:
"After controlling for poverty and urbanization, for every age group, people in states with many guns have elevated rates of homicide, particularly firearm homicide."
Yes, it's 'only' correlation, but who fucking cares? - Not my insurance company. If I park downtown where cars get stolen, they make me pay extra. No causation there...
I also pay extra for your bad judgement in bringing a gun into your home. I don't care what you do - just don't make me pay for your narrow-minded testosterone-poisoned belief system. Jesus, if you want to fuck up, do some Oxy-Contin - or buy a super-bike and ride without a helmet. The 'correlation' between you leaving this planet quickly with little or no additional cost to my wallet is somewhat higher than with your possesion of a firearm.