Although none of those definitions explicitely implies a fiat currency would be necessary, I wonder how one would pracically conceive "corporately owned" means of production or "accumulation and reinvestment of profits gained in a free market" with no fiat currency...
One can conceive a market economy with no fiat currency, based on barter. Capitalism implies another scale, and a fiat currency allows for such a bigger scale to be achieved.
> Capitalism doesn't require faith in the banking system. It doesn't require a banking system. It doesn't even require money. Capitalism could exist in a barter-based economy.
No. With no fiat currency, there's no real possibility to assemble large companies owned by lots of owners (that's capitalism per se).
You are mixing the concepts of market economy with those of capitalism.
One billionnaire is'nt a fully selfish guy, and understands the need for state financed infrastructure and services. How does this qualifies as stuff that matters? There are others in the same mood.
Is this place becoming a libertarian shout house or what?
Now: which police? You mean there's no police force, no traceability whatsoever in the beautifull bitcoin world? Nodoby will ever run after the bad guys? Is at least anyone sure that Mt. Gox Ceo hasn't fled with the stolen coins in a pocket? Too bad there's no state to guarantee anything there.
So I'll invent something new! For a small amount collected on each transaction, I promise I shall setup "bitcoin cop". Of course its use will be mandatory for all bitcoin users and enforced through closed source addons to the free client. And centralized too.
It won't cost much! I accept dollars or Euros to provide this service. Thanks for your attention, and your money.
P.S.: do not worry for all those cumbersome extradition and cross-border investigation procedures: bitcoin world does not care, neither do we! And send me the money, please, a modest 10% transaction feee will provide insurance : libertariancops@virginislands.freeasinburbon.kp
The situation is a bit peculiar :
- both the Police Nationale and the Gendarmerie report to the Ministère de l'Interieur. But Gendarmes retain a military status while Policiers are civilians: some differences in duties and in pay, but a strong difference on rights: les gendarmes are not allowed to go on strike or to publicly profess political preferences (as all soldiers here) while les policiers can do both.
- both forces have elite counter-terrorism teams, altough the most renowed one belongs to the Gendarmerie (GIGN). And both forces are requested to work together if need be, and regularly train together.
As for the police : Windows on the desktop, 80% Linux in the datacenters, with some AIX and windows.
Some believed or hoped that they would be less discriminated because they would have acquired this "right". But the fact is that anybody still distinguishes between "mariage" and "gay mariage", the former being related to the cult of fertility, and the later to "two consenting adults living together until divorce or death".
The atheists have just robbed the word in France too, and they have gained no respect for it, just the contrary. How sad.
P.S. : in France one has to "mary" by the mayor before being allowed to be maried in Church if one chooses so, and since the late 18th century.
I cannot help but feeling pissed of each time I buy one film and am forced to endure minutes of ads against pirating (But I even paid the bloody thing!) or for films I will not see or for violent films when the DVD contains a cartoon for the kids.
And have you noticed all those films on the walls for things you do not want nor ear about? They have been flourishing in Paris lately. They catch your eyes, because your eyes will look at moving things, however hard you try to ignore them. The ad industry has become a sheer nuisance.
Meanwhile, as a Free.fr subscriber, I am not so sure the move is smart, especially since it would be activated by default (one has to reboot the box to upgrade the firmware, and I do it twice a year or so, haven't done it yet).
I do accept some dose of advertisement on sites, but no flash by default, Flashblock is my friend. That suffices me up to now. Manwhile, I would appreciate Porn blocking, by default. All ads? Perhaps too bold a move.
Well, it is Hydroptère, and have a look at images from 2009 when they broke the 100 km/h barrier over 500m.
Here is the "records" page of the official site.
They plan to dash through the Pacific Ocean with that boat...
He strangely but really generates fanacism among his supporters, suppress their brain and have them vote for him. Very strange to witness first handedly. And quite frightening.
The heavy use of so called "sondages qualitatifs" (quality-driven polls ?) has surely something to do with it. Never has a president so much relied on them: he just chooses a somewhat homegeneous audience and delivers a targetted message to them, one that will suit them very well. After that, he can nearly say what he wants on other matters, they will vote for him.
#1 target group: old people, do not really know anything about the Internet, feel frightened, think the young guys of their time were better. They vote for him much more than the average Frenchman.
To put it another way: it just work.
Not all French politic personnel is equal. Mitterand, or Jospin, of even Chirac, independently of what you think of them, have not spent all their time in power to create or amend a law each time someting nasty occured. And many current opponents to Sarkozy would not do that either. I bet even tightwing députés are fed up with so many laws. Most of Sarkozy's laws have never been enacted, by the way: neither French administration nor even Sarko's own governement can cope with such an amount of baddly written (and badly thought) laws.
Do not put all politicians in the same bag please.
It is the firt time I find the multi-virtual-desktop thing usable : it becomes very practical to setup multiple virtual desktops for so many different tasks, and it is nice.
I had to customise it a little though, with the folowing extensions, right out from the https://extensions.gnome.org/ website:
- Coverflow Alt-Tab : Replacement of Alt-Tab, iterates through windows in a cover-flow manner.
- Dash Click Fix : Fix the dash's behavior when you click on an already running icon. The default behaviour is to switch to it, this extension changes that to lanch a new instance instead
- Places Status Indicator : Add a systems status menu for quickly navigating places in the system
- Power Options : Show Suspend, Hibernate (if available) and Power Off options in user menu.
- Remove Accesibility : Remove the accesibility button from the top panel.
- System Monitor : Add a system monitor to the left side of the message tray.
Hardware / software base : Debian "Wheezy" (testing) on a high end full HD laptop with an external monitor attached to it sometimes.
Usage : web / email / some games / office work / platform prototyping with virtual machines, modelling.
The external display behaves like a charm (with really minor glitches : le login screen will somtimes not appear properly if the monitor gets plugged off before one unlocks the screen, but it still work).
I miss the cube. I miss a screensaver, I miss the capacity to change windows themes and colours and the "control pannel" lacks several usefull features, but overall, it is very usable and properly translated in French.
And they are especially put at use when winter bites, so the net CO2 emission scheme may not be as brilliant as die Grünen would like to put it.
Meanwhile, France can only blame herself: EDF (Electricité de France) has promoted electric heating so much that peak demand cannot be provided by EDF... Similarly, we have seen a huge push for electric cooling systems in the last years (you will not feel warm nor cold with the Electricity Fairy !) wich also induces high peak demand when the Nuclear Plants are providing less electricity (many are closed for maintenance, and the rivers are warm and low, so the plants must tread light on water supply).
Strange to see how brilliant polytechnicians can make stupid blunders.
The Monge is an big scientific vessel from the French navy, conceived to track ICBM missiles during their re-entry phase and provide precise telemetry for validation purposes.
Have a look there (in French) : http://www.meretmarine.com/article.cfm?id=117220
Well it depends: Alcatel spent the money to acquire Lucent but the whole management is now American, and the jobs too are shored away from France at an accelerated pace (directly to Asia, no need to hire in the US either). So seen from the interior it seems the US company has bought the French one and proceeds as usual.
We French are apparently accustomed to be f***ed up hard by the US and we love it ! See the brilliant adventures of Renault, EDF with Constellation, and Executive life with the Credit Lyonnais, compensations 10 times lower for French citizens compared to US citizens blasted in the same plane, etc, etc, etc, the list is endless.
Spending money is not good for an economy. Spending money EFFICIENTLY is.
You're right, that's the optimal thing.
<quote><p>However time and time again governments (which account for a vast chunk of total spending) have proven themselves to be incapable of this.</p></quote>
First , it very much depends of the timeframe you're placing yourself in, or of the expenses you're talking of. For instance "government" overhead for managing medicare is apparently very small compared that of privately runned health insurance companies. Publicly runned health systems in Europe cost less and are vastly more efficient than the US private version... Then consider building a bridge : it will cost a lot and could possibly become profitable only in the very long run. Furthermore, many of its benefit are probably hidden. So there is no incentive for the private sector to build that bridge even though it may be very useful and profitable for society as a whole in the long run. And who would run an honest army for a profit ?
Second : there are so many idle spendings in the private sector that are truly worthless that you're surely joking. Advertisement is one, vast sums hijacked by the financial sector are another, especially when the government bails it out...
I am all for efficient spending, from the government of from the private sector.
The record took place on the regular Paris-Reims line, which had just been built. Those new TGV lines are systematically built to avoid road crossings on the line and are equipped with high and sturdy fences to hold back big mamals from trespassing.
So yes, the catenary was especially tensed, the train was somewhat customised (bigger wheels) but the tracks were "standard" : they just choose the straightest part of the line to set up the record.
To come back to the Chinese line : how long does it take to accelerate and to brake from the top speed to zero ? Is that comfortable ?
The estimated cost relates only to the "no-workaround" option, if all the cards were to be replaced.
By the way : Symantec Endpoint Protection is affected by a 2010 bug too. SNAC users are not happy. http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/ent-security.nsf/docid/2010010308571348
Nelly Kroes from the EU just declared Victory to retreat faster. Please read and link the EU press release, there (English only): http://www.europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/07/1567&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en
- Any decisions as to wether Microsoft complies will be made by an English court, some day, with a rule probably but which one nobody knows. But - by Jove ! - those rules have just changed... More delays, more legal battles, more defeats for the good guys. - They have not settled about the fees... Or has Reuters more information? Or more disinformation? - The press release if filled with patent-talk (with consequences) even while software patents are still not recognised in the EU. In this respect, this IS a full blown victory for the huge patent troll that is MSFT, because the commission plays by US-UK rule.
Conclusion: the US corps rule the EU through proxies. It's as simple as that.
Next: more GM food, getting rid of all those bees, enforcing all those patents on living things created long ago. "Someone patented a one-click, so I patented a gene. And _I_ earn money with it! Waaaaa!!!"
Well. I especially hope he will not follow any advice to blow up Syria or Iran...
As for the Rainbow warrior "adventure" (Mitterand): this was most unfortunate. Hasty operation, bad execution, no luck and a dead photograph when the idea was to avoid human casualties...
On his side, Chirac has not really sent French troops in an Ivoirian "adventure": in financial terms, it very much looks like an expensive operation, but noting compared to Iraq... Politically, time will tell what will result from that mission. I am not that pessimistic about it, the latest news are rather encouraging. We can only guess what would have occured had Laurent Gbagbo and his wife continued their war with the northern part of the country (and possibly with their northern neighboors too): slaughters? Continued civil war? I am not so sure. The clashes have been very limitted, the war has stopped for now, let us hope his country will heal and that real elections will take place soon. French (and UN) troops have spent already enough time there. Time for a break, a reconciliation, a renewed prosperity and some genuine democracy... French losses have been very limited: the operationnal capacities have proven adequate for the task, even if their were lacks : no video before the Hotel Ivoire, faulty propaganda tools compared to the astonishing amount of lies propagated by the Ivoirian press of all sort are two. Non lethal weapon were used but were in short supply at the Ivoire, especially when the Legionnaires (with light tanks!) faced a hostile crowd of several thousands people: there were casulties that day.
Anyway...
As for Sarkozy: only God knows what his intentions are. And even He may be puzzled sometimes. But he is the Decider, the Renewer, a competent guy, full of energy wit, will, and so on. I nearly hate him and I strongly believe he will ruin us by sheer incompetence and affairism.
And here are the precisions:
- there would be only one publicly accessible and official source of data about all those orbitting objects, and it is provided by the US Space Command.
- this one does not provide information about "special" US satelites, but it does too often about others.
This is the unelegant discrepancy that may be corrected.
By the way, the article puts out a price for the system (only 30 million Euros!) and stresses that the French Graves detects objects while the German "Tira" would identify them.
One more precision is provided: the radar has apparently enabled the French airforce (spaceforce:-? to confirm a Chinese hit at another satellite, but apparently not in realtime.
Slashdot Mirror
Although none of those definitions explicitely implies a fiat currency would be necessary, I wonder how one would pracically conceive "corporately owned" means of production or "accumulation and reinvestment of profits gained in a free market" with no fiat currency...
One can conceive a market economy with no fiat currency, based on barter. Capitalism implies another scale, and a fiat currency allows for such a bigger scale to be achieved.
I stand by my point.
No. With no fiat currency, there's no real possibility to assemble large companies owned by lots of owners (that's capitalism per se).
You are mixing the concepts of market economy with those of capitalism.
One billionnaire is'nt a fully selfish guy, and understands the need for state financed infrastructure and services. How does this qualifies as stuff that matters? There are others in the same mood.
Is this place becoming a libertarian shout house or what?
Except it does not work for French citizens : aggreements between Monaco and France were signed to explicitely forbid it...
I am not so sure this solves that...
Now: which police? You mean there's no police force, no traceability whatsoever in the beautifull bitcoin world? Nodoby will ever run after the bad guys? Is at least anyone sure that Mt. Gox Ceo hasn't fled with the stolen coins in a pocket? Too bad there's no state to guarantee anything there.
So I'll invent something new! For a small amount collected on each transaction, I promise I shall setup "bitcoin cop". Of course its use will be mandatory for all bitcoin users and enforced through closed source addons to the free client. And centralized too.
It won't cost much! I accept dollars or Euros to provide this service. Thanks for your attention, and your money.
P.S.: do not worry for all those cumbersome extradition and cross-border investigation procedures: bitcoin world does not care, neither do we! And send me the money, please, a modest 10% transaction feee will provide insurance : libertariancops@virginislands.freeasinburbon.kp
The situation is a bit peculiar : - both the Police Nationale and the Gendarmerie report to the Ministère de l'Interieur. But Gendarmes retain a military status while Policiers are civilians: some differences in duties and in pay, but a strong difference on rights: les gendarmes are not allowed to go on strike or to publicly profess political preferences (as all soldiers here) while les policiers can do both. - both forces have elite counter-terrorism teams, altough the most renowed one belongs to the Gendarmerie (GIGN). And both forces are requested to work together if need be, and regularly train together. As for the police : Windows on the desktop, 80% Linux in the datacenters, with some AIX and windows.
Some believed or hoped that they would be less discriminated because they would have acquired this "right". But the fact is that anybody still distinguishes between "mariage" and "gay mariage", the former being related to the cult of fertility, and the later to "two consenting adults living together until divorce or death".
The atheists have just robbed the word in France too, and they have gained no respect for it, just the contrary. How sad.
P.S. : in France one has to "mary" by the mayor before being allowed to be maried in Church if one chooses so, and since the late 18th century.
Each family member has an account, parents have RW access everywhere, kids are generally RO or have no access at all depending on the folder.
I cannot help but feeling pissed of each time I buy one film and am forced to endure minutes of ads against pirating (But I even paid the bloody thing!) or for films I will not see or for violent films when the DVD contains a cartoon for the kids.
And have you noticed all those films on the walls for things you do not want nor ear about? They have been flourishing in Paris lately. They catch your eyes, because your eyes will look at moving things, however hard you try to ignore them. The ad industry has become a sheer nuisance.
Meanwhile, as a Free.fr subscriber, I am not so sure the move is smart, especially since it would be activated by default (one has to reboot the box to upgrade the firmware, and I do it twice a year or so, haven't done it yet).
I do accept some dose of advertisement on sites, but no flash by default, Flashblock is my friend. That suffices me up to now. Manwhile, I would appreciate Porn blocking, by default. All ads? Perhaps too bold a move.
Well, it is Hydroptère, and have a look at images from 2009 when they broke the 100 km/h barrier over 500m. Here is the "records" page of the official site. They plan to dash through the Pacific Ocean with that boat...
He strangely but really generates fanacism among his supporters, suppress their brain and have them vote for him. Very strange to witness first handedly. And quite frightening.
The heavy use of so called "sondages qualitatifs" (quality-driven polls ?) has surely something to do with it. Never has a president so much relied on them: he just chooses a somewhat homegeneous audience and delivers a targetted message to them, one that will suit them very well. After that, he can nearly say what he wants on other matters, they will vote for him.
#1 target group: old people, do not really know anything about the Internet, feel frightened, think the young guys of their time were better. They vote for him much more than the average Frenchman. To put it another way: it just work.
Do not put all politicians in the same bag please.
It is the firt time I find the multi-virtual-desktop thing usable : it becomes very practical to setup multiple virtual desktops for so many different tasks, and it is nice.
I had to customise it a little though, with the folowing extensions, right out from the https://extensions.gnome.org/ website :
- Coverflow Alt-Tab : Replacement of Alt-Tab, iterates through windows in a cover-flow manner.
- Dash Click Fix : Fix the dash's behavior when you click on an already running icon. The default behaviour is to switch to it, this extension changes that to lanch a new instance instead
- Places Status Indicator : Add a systems status menu for quickly navigating places in the system
- Power Options : Show Suspend, Hibernate (if available) and Power Off options in user menu.
- Remove Accesibility : Remove the accesibility button from the top panel.
- System Monitor : Add a system monitor to the left side of the message tray.
Hardware / software base : Debian "Wheezy" (testing) on a high end full HD laptop with an external monitor attached to it sometimes.
Usage : web / email / some games / office work / platform prototyping with virtual machines, modelling.
The external display behaves like a charm (with really minor glitches : le login screen will somtimes not appear properly if the monitor gets plugged off before one unlocks the screen, but it still work).
I miss the cube. I miss a screensaver, I miss the capacity to change windows themes and colours and the "control pannel" lacks several usefull features, but overall, it is very usable and properly translated in French.
And they are especially put at use when winter bites, so the net CO2 emission scheme may not be as brilliant as die Grünen would like to put it. Meanwhile, France can only blame herself: EDF (Electricité de France) has promoted electric heating so much that peak demand cannot be provided by EDF... Similarly, we have seen a huge push for electric cooling systems in the last years (you will not feel warm nor cold with the Electricity Fairy !) wich also induces high peak demand when the Nuclear Plants are providing less electricity (many are closed for maintenance, and the rivers are warm and low, so the plants must tread light on water supply). Strange to see how brilliant polytechnicians can make stupid blunders.
The Monge is an big scientific vessel from the French navy, conceived to track ICBM missiles during their re-entry phase and provide precise telemetry for validation purposes. Have a look there (in French) : http://www.meretmarine.com/article.cfm?id=117220
Omnipotent means that God can do what He wants, but that does not mean that He always wants to control everything.
I bet He does not want it, for a simple reason: that would be no fun at all, not interresting at all, pointless.
One could even argue that free will is the Gift of God to mankind, you know, like in Tolkien's world...
Well it depends: Alcatel spent the money to acquire Lucent but the whole management is now American, and the jobs too are shored away from France at an accelerated pace (directly to Asia, no need to hire in the US either). So seen from the interior it seems the US company has bought the French one and proceeds as usual.
We French are apparently accustomed to be f***ed up hard by the US and we love it ! See the brilliant adventures of Renault, EDF with Constellation, and Executive life with the Credit Lyonnais, compensations 10 times lower for French citizens compared to US citizens blasted in the same plane, etc, etc, etc, the list is endless.
We love you !
A human is 80% water anyway. So it produces only 80% of the nominal foam quantity.
Spending money is not good for an economy. Spending money EFFICIENTLY is.
You're right, that's the optimal thing.
<quote><p>However time and time again governments (which account for a vast chunk of total spending) have proven themselves to be incapable of this.</p></quote>
First , it very much depends of the timeframe you're placing yourself in, or of the expenses you're talking of. For instance "government" overhead for managing medicare is apparently very small compared that of privately runned health insurance companies.
Publicly runned health systems in Europe cost less and are vastly more efficient than the US private version...
Then consider building a bridge : it will cost a lot and could possibly become profitable only in the very long run. Furthermore, many of its benefit are probably hidden. So there is no incentive for the private sector to build that bridge even though it may be very useful and profitable for society as a whole in the long run.
And who would run an honest army for a profit ?
Second : there are so many idle spendings in the private sector that are truly worthless that you're surely joking. Advertisement is one, vast sums hijacked by the financial sector are another, especially when the government bails it out...
I am all for efficient spending, from the government of from the private sector.
The record took place on the regular Paris-Reims line, which had just been built. Those new TGV lines are systematically built to avoid road crossings on the line and are equipped with high and sturdy fences to hold back big mamals from trespassing.
So yes, the catenary was especially tensed, the train was somewhat customised (bigger wheels) but the tracks were "standard" : they just choose the straightest part of the line to set up the record.
To come back to the Chinese line : how long does it take to accelerate and to brake from the top speed to zero ? Is that comfortable ?
The estimated cost relates only to the "no-workaround" option, if all the cards were to be replaced.
By the way : Symantec Endpoint Protection is affected by a 2010 bug too. SNAC users are not happy.
http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/ent-security.nsf/docid/2010010308571348
Absolutely, mod this up !
Nelly Kroes from the EU just declared Victory to retreat faster. Please read and link the EU press release, there (English only): http://www.europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/07/1567&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en
- Any decisions as to wether Microsoft complies will be made by an English court, some day, with a rule probably but which one nobody knows. But - by Jove ! - those rules have just changed... More delays, more legal battles, more defeats for the good guys.
- They have not settled about the fees... Or has Reuters more information? Or more disinformation?
- The press release if filled with patent-talk (with consequences) even while software patents are still not recognised in the EU. In this respect, this IS a full blown victory for the huge patent troll that is MSFT, because the commission plays by US-UK rule.
Conclusion: the US corps rule the EU through proxies. It's as simple as that.
Next: more GM food, getting rid of all those bees, enforcing all those patents on living things created long ago. "Someone patented a one-click, so I patented a gene. And _I_ earn money with it! Waaaaa!!!"
Well. I especially hope he will not follow any advice to blow up Syria or Iran...
As for the Rainbow warrior "adventure" (Mitterand): this was most unfortunate. Hasty operation, bad execution, no luck and a dead photograph when the idea was to avoid human casualties...
On his side, Chirac has not really sent French troops in an Ivoirian "adventure": in financial terms, it very much looks like an expensive operation, but noting compared to Iraq... Politically, time will tell what will result from that mission. I am not that pessimistic about it, the latest news are rather encouraging.
We can only guess what would have occured had Laurent Gbagbo and his wife continued their war with the northern part of the country (and possibly with their northern neighboors too): slaughters? Continued civil war? I am not so sure.
The clashes have been very limitted, the war has stopped for now, let us hope his country will heal and that real elections will take place soon. French (and UN) troops have spent already enough time there. Time for a break, a reconciliation, a renewed prosperity and some genuine democracy...
French losses have been very limited: the operationnal capacities have proven adequate for the task, even if their were lacks : no video before the Hotel Ivoire, faulty propaganda tools compared to the astonishing amount of lies propagated by the Ivoirian press of all sort are two. Non lethal weapon were used but were in short supply at the Ivoire, especially when the Legionnaires (with light tanks!) faced a hostile crowd of several thousands people: there were casulties that day.
Anyway...
As for Sarkozy: only God knows what his intentions are. And even He may be puzzled sometimes. But he is the Decider, the Renewer, a competent guy, full of energy wit, will, and so on. I nearly hate him and I strongly believe he will ruin us by sheer incompetence and affairism.
Regards.
And here are the precisions:
- there would be only one publicly accessible and official source of data about all those orbitting objects, and it is provided by the US Space Command.
- this one does not provide information about "special" US satelites, but it does too often about others.
This is the unelegant discrepancy that may be corrected.
By the way, the article puts out a price for the system (only 30 million Euros!) and stresses that the French Graves detects objects while the German "Tira" would identify them.
One more precision is provided: the radar has apparently enabled the French airforce (spaceforce :-? to confirm a Chinese hit at another satellite, but apparently not in realtime.