Downside : a normal coffee brew process generates 6-12 cups of Joe.
I guess we could all switch to a press... but that's a bit messy and requires a stand alone heating method (I've not the space to keep a proper tea kettle on my office desk)
Keurig provides a clean single-cup solution
You can put in less coffee and water, you know. I have a small coffee maker (4 cups) and just grind the beans and brew. It tastes better than Keurig, and is less wasteful. And it's so low-tech that some company can't maximize their profits by preventing me from minimizing my costs.
So what we have is a bunch of startups who think they know how to be like a bank, but are failing utterly.
Is this is a systematic flaw in Bitcoin itself, or Schadenfreude by companies who have yet to learn they are nowhere near ready for holding onto something like this?
There is another possiblity: that these exchanges are operating as designed.
Who can most easily rob a bank? The people running it, of course.
I don't presume to know how close you've ever been to full-on drug addiction,
but in my own admittedly small sampling,
many an addict's confinement is the only time in their adult lives they're not using. A great friend passed last year at the ripe old age of 48, but his life was probably extended a decade by frequent periods of abstinence as a guest of the County and State.
I have been very close to addiction. I have watched a good friend put heroin into his arm, and had another die of "massive organ failure" after many years of drug use. There was a time when at least half of my friends were in AA. I agree that some people need confinement to stop using, at least temporarily. But I think that's what we have inpatient rehab for. Confine someone if you must, but don't put them in jail. Prison is not an environment conducive to improving one's mental and physical health; it just makes things worse.
It's pretty rare that "self-harm" only harms the person doing it, especially with addictive substances. They may be the only one suffering the physical effects, but there's emotional, financial, social, etc, etc effects that radiate out to their family, friends, co-workers and more. It's not as obvious as second-hand smoke from cigarettes, but the detrimental effects are still there.
That's true and good to recognize, but not an argument for continuing the war on drugs. The answer to the question of how to deal with such people is not to throw them in jail, compounding the problem, but to actually help them with the aim of getting them to a healthy mental and physical state. Unfortunately, out society seems more interested in punishing people than helping them.
Venezuela is a hole. Democracy may not be the best solution but what they've been doing for the last 14 years isn't working either.
Thanks for making my point. More FUD about Venezuela with no actual data or argument. It is a hole in what way?
Democracy is not the opposite of socialism. In fact we have some socialism in our democracy (republic) right here in the US. Of course, the powers that be also want to conflate democracy and capitalism, making people think they are somehow related. They are not. But again, they are trying to prop up the fabulously profitable system they have constructed. Can't have information, or an informed citizenry getting in the way of that!
Unfortunately, other electric car manufacturers have been thinking "eco freeks in their underpowered compact and mini cars" and building underpowered electric powertrains.
Like who? My Nissan Leaf has excellent pick up.
Compared to what? From what I can see, the Leaf does 0-60 in about 9 seconds, with a power output of 107 HP. That's adequate, but not all that fast compared to a lot of cars out there.
Right now the social networks are flooded with alleged "discoveries of fraud", according to which the opposition is spreading pictures from protests elsewhere as being from Venezuela right now. It's interesting that the original photos are very easy to find in the internet, but the ones supposedly shared by the venezuelan opposition are nowhere.
Either the venezuelan opposition is dumb enough to get pictures that are widely available and spread them as their own or there's some seeding taking place in hopes that the opposition will get framed by spreading a false pic that was given to them by someone else.
The powers that be really do not want anyone in the US thinking that what is going on in Venezuela is at all okay. I don't know if it's the socialist angle, but all we hear are bad things about Venezuela. We hear about how horrible their living conditions are and how corrupt their government is. Hugo Chavez was constantly demonized in the media. We even tried to overthrow him back in the early 2000's.
The US has a long history of disrupting successful socialism in South America. I figure that's what's going on here as well. Our government doesn't want anyone getting the idea that socialism could work to raise up a people. Capitalism has to be seen as the only way; in order to prop up the fabulously profitable system the oligarchs have constructed.
I was just thinking, if I wanted to create enough fear that our my enemies would be looking over their shoulders everytime they used the internet, nothing would work better than creating the belief that I was omnipresent on the web. One the one side, people are certain that the government in incapable of managing the simplest of programs or managing it's own affairs, but when given the notion that that same government could orchestrate a massive campaign of internet monitoring and targeted strikes again individuals, most seem to have no doubt of it's validity. Every other week there is a new revelation of the widening scope of the NSA powers to peer into every aspect of our lives and yet when asked, people still believe that same government is buying $400 toilet seats. Perhaps the biggest conspiracy is that the NSA isn't omnipresent, but wants you to think they are.
The Government is not one thing, and can therefore be incompetent and quite competent at the same time. I don't think anyone doubts that our elite special forces soldiers are quite good at what they are trained to do. And I don't think anyone doubts that the ACA website was a disaster at roll out. Same government; effective in one area, ineffective in another.
And the $400 toilet seats were money laundering in action, but people still seem to think some bureaucrat was dumb enough to pay $400 for a toilet seat. Whether that was money laundering or simple corruption, it was certainly not incompetence.
As to "sheltering" Snowden, it seems he was in contact with the Russians before his arrival in Moscow, and that his arrival was no surprise. In the view of a number of former Soviet bloc intelligence officers, Snowden was collaborating with them for some time.
Trafficking in suggestion and innuendo now are we?
And Domonique Strauss-Kahn. Just a few months after challenging the supremacy of the U.S. Dollar, he suddenly decided to become a rapist (the NY prosecutor even went as far as calling it a "Rock-solid case"). Then, literally *3 days* after his successor was sworn in at the IMF, suddenly the prosecutor decided that he wasn't a rapist anymore. WHAT an amazing coincidence!
I loved the DHK case. It was so transparent. When that case broke, I said to a friend of mine, "He must have pissed off the wrong people." It was so clear that he was targeted. I figured it had something to do with him seeking the French presidency, but it's always hard to tell the real motivations behind these things.
Let the CIA and FBI pick up their responsibilities and disolve the NSA altogether. They are a waste of money, a waste of manpower, and are wasting our liberties.
What makes your think the CIA or FBI would be any better?
Very good point, and I'm in total agreement. 1913 was a disastrous year for the country. The 16th and 17th amendments were ratified, and the federal reserve was created. That was the year that the people gave the government the ability to destroy the country.
This is why I don't get wrapped up in who is adding how much debt. The debt only goes up; it's built into the system. If it's not the government doing it, it's the citizenry. It's not a Republican or Democrat thing, it's a money power thing. I think we can all agree that neither party can be described as fiscally responsible. At this point the debt is so large, neither party can be responsible. It's only more debt from here on out, it's just a question of how quickly it grows. But that's just another way of saying it's going to blow up, it's just a matter of when.
Note the recent scheme the FCC was going to try, putting bureaucrats in the newsrooms of broadcasters to "study" the reporting of news. Which got quickly withdrawn soon as word got out.
Your post is full of learned helplessness. It shouldn't require a huge wasteful social movement to maintain the public interest in telecommunications or other things. Neutralizing Glass-Steagal didn't require any such thing.
You need to read his post more carefully. He said, "Even in the best of times trying to force Congress to pass a law that benefits the people is nearly impossible." Passing laws that benefit wealthy individuals or corporations is decidedly easier. To get movement out of Congress requires large numbers of people or dollars. People are hard to organize and keep engaged, never mind agreeing on an agenda. Money, on the other hand, is easy to organize and direct for the people who have plenty of it.
The funny thing is -- considering how we just print more money --- is that the Arabs and Chinese are eager too take our funny money as payment for oil or electronics.
250 million Chinese toil away in factoriies for some greenbacks hastily printed in the USA with numbers like "$100" or "$1000" on them.
Quite a racket we are running --- let us hope it lasts!
American: "Can I buy a tanker of your oil for this suitcase of paper --- I mean dollars?"
Oil must be purchased in dollars. That alone guarantees demand for dollars, since everyone needs oil. The US makes threatening gestures, and sometimes much more, towards anyone who seeks to change that relationship. I don't think it is a coincidence that countries that challenged that arrangement (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Venezuela, etc.) ended up on Washington's shit list. I'm not saying it's the only reason, but it is an important factor that no one talks about in public.
Well if we're going by what congress spends, then we need to start counting at 2007 when Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid took over. They are responsible for the spending handed to Obama. The last Republican budget signed into law had a deficit of 161 billion.
If you want to start counting the debt, you need to go back to 1913.
This only works if you statistically cast Bush in the worst light possible, and Obama in the best. The fact remains that the national debt is now 17.3 trillion. Obama has spent far, far, more money that we don't have than any previous president.
Yeah, but it's all money we don't have. Once you learn how the American dollar works, and where it comes from, you will see that the debt can only increase. It can fluctuate, but the way our monetary system is structured can only lead to ever increasing debt, either by the government or the citizenry. Every dollar in existence is a dollar borrowed. All the talk about the deficit and the debt and paying it down and whatever, is only a side show. The debt only goes up; it's built into the system.
Here is your citation
As i pointed out risk free rates and inflation are independent. US treasuries are generally considered "risk free" since they are denominated in USD they can always print money to avoid default. Anyhow, you can find the yields here: http://www.treasury.gov/resour...
Hey, look at that! Okay, I see what you're saying. But to AK Mark's point, the current inflation rate is estimated at 1.5% while the yield on a 1-year treasury bill is.11%. So these will not keep you ahead of current inflation unless you tie up your money for 5 years or so. Or am I doing this wrong?
When you get a loan from a bank, that bank creates the money they lend you on the spot. It does not come out of anyone's account, or even from the bank's money.
When I loan you money it comes out of my pocket. When the bank loans you money they "create the money"?!? Say What?!?
You got that right number17! When you promise to pay the money back, they create a promissory note. That note represents your agreement to pay, say $300,000. Well, that note is now worth $300,000! It can be put on the books opposite the $300,000 they create and put into your account.
Read up on fractional reserve lending, and see if you can find a copy of Modern Money Mechanics. It used to be published by the Federal Reserve, and it explains how modern money works. You can find it in PDF format around the web.
Slashdot Mirror
However, it is neither greener, nor more efficient or even easier really.
The "Green Mountain" in their company names refers to the piles of green dollars that they are making with this crap.
Even that I don't understand. I have literally never had a cup of Green Mountain coffee that was worth the heat it took to brew it.
Downside : a normal coffee brew process generates 6-12 cups of Joe.
I guess we could all switch to a press ... but that's a bit messy and requires a stand alone heating method (I've not the space to keep a proper tea kettle on my office desk)
Keurig provides a clean single-cup solution
You can put in less coffee and water, you know. I have a small coffee maker (4 cups) and just grind the beans and brew. It tastes better than Keurig, and is less wasteful. And it's so low-tech that some company can't maximize their profits by preventing me from minimizing my costs.
There is another possiblity: that these exchanges are operating as designed. Who can most easily rob a bank? The people running it, of course.
Agreed, now someone tell the SEC...
Nah, they'll get suckered in by Mt.Gox #2 and will get to laugh at buttcoiners even more.
Buttcoiners? Are those like ass pennies?
I don't presume to know how close you've ever been to full-on drug addiction,
but in my own admittedly small sampling,
many an addict's confinement is the only time in their adult lives they're not using. A great friend passed last year at the ripe old age of 48, but his life was probably extended a decade by frequent periods of abstinence as a guest of the County and State.
I have been very close to addiction. I have watched a good friend put heroin into his arm, and had another die of "massive organ failure" after many years of drug use. There was a time when at least half of my friends were in AA. I agree that some people need confinement to stop using, at least temporarily. But I think that's what we have inpatient rehab for. Confine someone if you must, but don't put them in jail. Prison is not an environment conducive to improving one's mental and physical health; it just makes things worse.
I wish I had mod points today. Well said!
It's pretty rare that "self-harm" only harms the person doing it, especially with addictive substances. They may be the only one suffering the physical effects, but there's emotional, financial, social, etc, etc effects that radiate out to their family, friends, co-workers and more. It's not as obvious as second-hand smoke from cigarettes, but the detrimental effects are still there.
That's true and good to recognize, but not an argument for continuing the war on drugs. The answer to the question of how to deal with such people is not to throw them in jail, compounding the problem, but to actually help them with the aim of getting them to a healthy mental and physical state. Unfortunately, out society seems more interested in punishing people than helping them.
Venezuela is a hole. Democracy may not be the best solution but what they've been doing for the last 14 years isn't working either.
Thanks for making my point. More FUD about Venezuela with no actual data or argument. It is a hole in what way?
Democracy is not the opposite of socialism. In fact we have some socialism in our democracy (republic) right here in the US. Of course, the powers that be also want to conflate democracy and capitalism, making people think they are somehow related. They are not. But again, they are trying to prop up the fabulously profitable system they have constructed. Can't have information, or an informed citizenry getting in the way of that!
Cool, thanks for that. Dollar hegemony must not be questioned.
Unfortunately, other electric car manufacturers have been thinking "eco freeks in their underpowered compact and mini cars" and building underpowered electric powertrains.
Like who? My Nissan Leaf has excellent pick up.
Compared to what? From what I can see, the Leaf does 0-60 in about 9 seconds, with a power output of 107 HP. That's adequate, but not all that fast compared to a lot of cars out there.
Right now the social networks are flooded with alleged "discoveries of fraud", according to which the opposition is spreading pictures from protests elsewhere as being from Venezuela right now. It's interesting that the original photos are very easy to find in the internet, but the ones supposedly shared by the venezuelan opposition are nowhere. Either the venezuelan opposition is dumb enough to get pictures that are widely available and spread them as their own or there's some seeding taking place in hopes that the opposition will get framed by spreading a false pic that was given to them by someone else.
The powers that be really do not want anyone in the US thinking that what is going on in Venezuela is at all okay. I don't know if it's the socialist angle, but all we hear are bad things about Venezuela. We hear about how horrible their living conditions are and how corrupt their government is. Hugo Chavez was constantly demonized in the media. We even tried to overthrow him back in the early 2000's.
The US has a long history of disrupting successful socialism in South America. I figure that's what's going on here as well. Our government doesn't want anyone getting the idea that socialism could work to raise up a people. Capitalism has to be seen as the only way; in order to prop up the fabulously profitable system the oligarchs have constructed.
I was just thinking, if I wanted to create enough fear that our my enemies would be looking over their shoulders everytime they used the internet, nothing would work better than creating the belief that I was omnipresent on the web. One the one side, people are certain that the government in incapable of managing the simplest of programs or managing it's own affairs, but when given the notion that that same government could orchestrate a massive campaign of internet monitoring and targeted strikes again individuals, most seem to have no doubt of it's validity. Every other week there is a new revelation of the widening scope of the NSA powers to peer into every aspect of our lives and yet when asked, people still believe that same government is buying $400 toilet seats. Perhaps the biggest conspiracy is that the NSA isn't omnipresent, but wants you to think they are.
The Government is not one thing, and can therefore be incompetent and quite competent at the same time. I don't think anyone doubts that our elite special forces soldiers are quite good at what they are trained to do. And I don't think anyone doubts that the ACA website was a disaster at roll out. Same government; effective in one area, ineffective in another.
And the $400 toilet seats were money laundering in action, but people still seem to think some bureaucrat was dumb enough to pay $400 for a toilet seat. Whether that was money laundering or simple corruption, it was certainly not incompetence.
The NSA is in trouble for domestic spying. Are the targets here domestic? If not, then they are just doing their job.
Except this isn't about spying, it's about social engineering. Is that in the NSA's mandate?
As to "sheltering" Snowden, it seems he was in contact with the Russians before his arrival in Moscow, and that his arrival was no surprise. In the view of a number of former Soviet bloc intelligence officers, Snowden was collaborating with them for some time.
Trafficking in suggestion and innuendo now are we?
^^^ Oops, that should have read "DSK case"
And Domonique Strauss-Kahn. Just a few months after challenging the supremacy of the U.S. Dollar, he suddenly decided to become a rapist (the NY prosecutor even went as far as calling it a "Rock-solid case"). Then, literally *3 days* after his successor was sworn in at the IMF, suddenly the prosecutor decided that he wasn't a rapist anymore. WHAT an amazing coincidence!
I loved the DHK case. It was so transparent. When that case broke, I said to a friend of mine, "He must have pissed off the wrong people." It was so clear that he was targeted. I figured it had something to do with him seeking the French presidency, but it's always hard to tell the real motivations behind these things.
Let the CIA and FBI pick up their responsibilities and disolve the NSA altogether. They are a waste of money, a waste of manpower, and are wasting our liberties.
What makes your think the CIA or FBI would be any better?
Very good point, and I'm in total agreement. 1913 was a disastrous year for the country. The 16th and 17th amendments were ratified, and the federal reserve was created. That was the year that the people gave the government the ability to destroy the country.
This is why I don't get wrapped up in who is adding how much debt. The debt only goes up; it's built into the system. If it's not the government doing it, it's the citizenry. It's not a Republican or Democrat thing, it's a money power thing. I think we can all agree that neither party can be described as fiscally responsible. At this point the debt is so large, neither party can be responsible. It's only more debt from here on out, it's just a question of how quickly it grows. But that's just another way of saying it's going to blow up, it's just a matter of when.
The FCC is no more "independent" than the IRS.
Note the recent scheme the FCC was going to try, putting bureaucrats in the newsrooms of broadcasters to "study" the reporting of news. Which got quickly withdrawn soon as word got out.
Hey, that's the CIA's job!
Your post is full of learned helplessness. It shouldn't require a huge wasteful social movement to maintain the public interest in telecommunications or other things. Neutralizing Glass-Steagal didn't require any such thing.
You need to read his post more carefully. He said, "Even in the best of times trying to force Congress to pass a law that benefits the people is nearly impossible." Passing laws that benefit wealthy individuals or corporations is decidedly easier. To get movement out of Congress requires large numbers of people or dollars. People are hard to organize and keep engaged, never mind agreeing on an agenda. Money, on the other hand, is easy to organize and direct for the people who have plenty of it.
The funny thing is -- considering how we just print more money --- is that the Arabs and Chinese are eager too take our funny money as payment for oil or electronics. 250 million Chinese toil away in factoriies for some greenbacks hastily printed in the USA with numbers like "$100" or "$1000" on them. Quite a racket we are running --- let us hope it lasts! American: "Can I buy a tanker of your oil for this suitcase of paper --- I mean dollars?"
Oil must be purchased in dollars. That alone guarantees demand for dollars, since everyone needs oil. The US makes threatening gestures, and sometimes much more, towards anyone who seeks to change that relationship. I don't think it is a coincidence that countries that challenged that arrangement (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Venezuela, etc.) ended up on Washington's shit list. I'm not saying it's the only reason, but it is an important factor that no one talks about in public.
Well if we're going by what congress spends, then we need to start counting at 2007 when Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid took over. They are responsible for the spending handed to Obama. The last Republican budget signed into law had a deficit of 161 billion.
If you want to start counting the debt, you need to go back to 1913.
This only works if you statistically cast Bush in the worst light possible, and Obama in the best. The fact remains that the national debt is now 17.3 trillion. Obama has spent far, far, more money that we don't have than any previous president.
Yeah, but it's all money we don't have. Once you learn how the American dollar works, and where it comes from, you will see that the debt can only increase. It can fluctuate, but the way our monetary system is structured can only lead to ever increasing debt, either by the government or the citizenry. Every dollar in existence is a dollar borrowed. All the talk about the deficit and the debt and paying it down and whatever, is only a side show. The debt only goes up; it's built into the system.
Here is your citation As i pointed out risk free rates and inflation are independent. US treasuries are generally considered "risk free" since they are denominated in USD they can always print money to avoid default. Anyhow, you can find the yields here: http://www.treasury.gov/resour...
Hey, look at that! Okay, I see what you're saying. But to AK Mark's point, the current inflation rate is estimated at 1.5% while the yield on a 1-year treasury bill is .11%. So these will not keep you ahead of current inflation unless you tie up your money for 5 years or so. Or am I doing this wrong?
When you get a loan from a bank, that bank creates the money they lend you on the spot. It does not come out of anyone's account, or even from the bank's money.
When I loan you money it comes out of my pocket. When the bank loans you money they "create the money"?!? Say What?!?
You got that right number17! When you promise to pay the money back, they create a promissory note. That note represents your agreement to pay, say $300,000. Well, that note is now worth $300,000! It can be put on the books opposite the $300,000 they create and put into your account.
Read up on fractional reserve lending, and see if you can find a copy of Modern Money Mechanics. It used to be published by the Federal Reserve, and it explains how modern money works. You can find it in PDF format around the web.