Holy infringement of free speech, Batman! Can I assume that the school administrators and police involved were appropriately punished?
Nope, there was no retribution. Though at least in the end (and a few weeks later) the charges were dropped, and the expulsion was revoked. He was subsequently allowed to wear the shirt, and several other students at the school wore the exact same shirt in order to express solidarity.
It means your entire family would have sell the house and move, and potentially even change jobs.
No, usually there are charter schools available pretty much anywhere, and are funded as part of the normal education system. Many of these charter schools are there for that exact reason. After a year or so they could remove the expulsion after demonstrated good behavior.
I think it has more to do with the message that if you're a minority, it's ok to fail and to exhibit the worst traits of society, because if you do it's not your fault, it's the racist man's fault. You share no burden. That message needs to stop, and this problem won't go away until it stops. You can't go on with the situation that just because you're a minority, you are artificially given lower standards for success due to affirmative action laws.
In only a few words, this is what you call being politically correct.
I think this probably happens the most in places like NY, because in those places the message I just described above is where that line of thinking is espoused the most.
Unfortunately, this isn't going away any time soon. In fact, I think it is getting worse over time. Dr. King had some words of wisdom when he said to be judged by the content of your character. How on earth is this judging somebody by the content of their character? Too many blacks who see themselves as the underdog at every turn either didn't get that message, ignored it, or just plain rejected it. Same thing with those who believe in affirmative action.
I was arguing with a black guy on youtube about this subject, and he told me that we need affirmative action to make sure that blacks, hispanics, and asians get the head start that they need to keep up with whites who are too privileged. Huge mistake. I let him in on the not so secret secret that affirmative action explicitly throws asians under the bus, and deliberately places them below white people. He sort of stopped responding to me at that point. I hope that planted a seed into him that he just might be on the wrong path, and to reconsider his viewpoint.
Asians are a perfect example of what I described above, by the way. They tend to come from a background that is highly dignified, respectful, and disciplined. This is, in my opinion, why they succeed disproportionately high. Yet we have institutions that tell them that they are far too successful and must be punished accordingly.
I don't think you paid any attention to what I said. I very obviously didn't lump every black person into that category; my second paragraph pretty clearly notes where the divide lies, and does the opposite of what you accuse me of doing.
Something tells me that you're so politically correct and smug that you enjoy the smell of your own farts because clearly anybody who doesn't think like you must be a racist.
Hmm...good point, though I don't think it is quite as bad.
I actually spent quite a bit of my childhood experiencing that divide. I spent grades 1-5 at a pretty nice school, which while full of minorities, most of them had no issues.
In 6th grade I moved to a nicer neighborhood, but the closest school was in "the hood". If you'll actually believe it, being white was looked down upon there. Being called "stupid white boy" was common, with every other text book I had the previous owner wrote "brown pride" and "FWA" in it, which is an abbreviation for "fucking white ass". Gangs were also very common there, whereas they were practically non-existent at my previous school. When we had a gang discussions, I mentioned how my last school didn't have any gangs, yet my teacher insisted to me that all schools everywhere have gangs. Apparently it is so common there, that even the faculty don't know any better. If there were gangs at my old school, they were at best just little cliques. And this school wasn't even in a rich neighborhood, just the ordinary suburbs.
That said, I've been the victim of racism, and it sucks. And stupid groups like the unfair campaign are dumb enough to believe that only whites are racist, and I'd even go so far as to say the entire democratic party feels the same way, or at least all of their politicians do. (Note: I'm not a republican.) Anybody who feels that way can go to hell with their politically correct bullshit.
Actually what I think is happening is probably the opposite of evaporative cooling. When you sweat for example, it makes you cold because as the water molecules are evaporating into a gas, it takes heat energy with it.
Now condensation on the other hand results in the opposite. The heat from the water molecule is then put into the system (i.e. the glass of beer) so the water molecule sticks to it because it no longer has the energy it needed to remain in its gas form.
In which case, wiping the condensation off doesn't reduce the temperature. In fact, it might actually be counterproductive because that water is no longer there to evaporate again, resulting in the cooling effect.
I've seen overblown punishment before in many cases, for example a few weeks ago a student being expelled and then arrested for wearing an NRA shirt. When I was in school, nobody would have made a second thought about it. Really really disproportionate reaction.
That said, I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that this is race related. Is the punishment overblown? Yes. I'd say expulsion should be fine considering how dangerous it is to make an explosive that releases caustic liquids. However a criminal record is stupid. I guarantee you that each one of these cops, teachers, and prosecutors have set off a bottle rocket or made a dry ice grenade when they were a teenager, and the world didn't end.
Anyways, lesson learned, now you have to go to a new school. Is race why it is overblown though? In my opinion, not a chance.
I'm probably going to be crucified for this, but I think he has a good point. There's nothing anywhere to indicate that blacks are genetically more prone to violence on any level. There is nothing anywhere to indicate that they are inherently inferior. However one thing that does stand out is black culture in the US. Note how different it is in the US compared to everywhere else in the world.
First generation or recent generation black Americans tend to be some of the most dignified people I know, and that includes blacks who have served in the military. But the ones who have been here for numerous generations, especially the inner city ones, are more often than not a bunch of douchebags. Many among them literally call having good grades "acting white" and look down upon it.
Again, the mere fact that they're black doesn't predicate them into being that way. However they themselves are equally guilty of establishing the stereotype that they behold. To blame everything on white people doesn't do anything to fix the problem, not to mention is just an asshole thing to do.
Or it could just be a case of two different prosecutors having different standards, one happening to preside over a white person, one over a black one.
I've had similar shit happen to me before, and race didn't have anything to do with it. I remember recently hearing about some black dude not being allowed to seat in first class on an airline because he was wearing a hoodie and their dress code forbids that. It just so happened that a white guy came in there wearing a hoodie and he was able to be seated.
I already know from personal experience that this is the result of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing. I always wear regular clothes to the airport, and usually I save money by buying standby tickets. One of the benefits of standby is that if they run out of coach seats, they put you in first class. On the way there that happened to me, and I just wore regular t-shirt and shorts. On the way back, the same thing happened again, only they said that if I wanted to sit in first class, I had to wear slacks. So I had to go shop around the airport until I could find a pair of slacks. When I was seated, somebody else on the plane was wearing shorts. Yay me.
Same airline both ways.
It's just one of those things where sometimes it doesn't end up getting enforced. But one of those times it happens that a black man was enforced and a white man was not? STOP THE PRESSES!
Have read at least the first few paragraphs of that, then go to the first page and read some of that. Then recall not long ago that incident where that couple were beaten severely after just passing through a black neighborhood, and the newspaper they worked for chose to not even report it.
Personally, I don't mind that the media isn't interested in it. If anything, it's a mark against the anti-racist crowd who is willing to look the other way when reverse racism happens, and they know they're asshole fucks for doing so, but it's ok because we already knew they were asshole fucks and nothing has changed.
But what does piss me off is when they pull the race card needlessly, such as the scenario I described above. It pisses me off when they go out of their way to try to make me feel guilty for being born white. I'm looking at the unfair campaign.
That's not intrinsic value. Gold has intrinsic value because it's an attractive, non-tarnishable raw material that can be made into jewellery.
Bitcoin gains its value for the same reason gold ultimately does: It takes an effort to obtain it, and it is in limited supply. Snow literally falls out of the sky, you can get it anywhere. Bitcoins are scarce though.
Many cultures have gone through currencies for the same reason. For example, pacific nations for a long time used sharks teeth as currency. The reason is simple: they are (or were) rare and hard to obtain, however they aren't so hard to obtain that there aren't enough to go around. That is their intrinsic value. Snoflakes, UUID's, are a fail analogy. Beanie babies are likewise a fail analogy.
And, I don't think you realize just how powerful the drug trade is. It's estimated that globally there is more than 750 billion USD going into it every year. If BTC became the standard bearer for trading in that (e.g. conventional means of distribution go away) then it isn't going anywhere.
All your nonsequiturs about Keynes and government control just mark you out as a Libertarian, and underline how appropriate my sig is.
Well here's the thing: I'm making money on bitcoins. In addition to actually obtaining more of them at very little cost, I already have realized gains far in excess of what I have put into it (that is, converted the bitcoins into real world valuable items.) Even if the whole thing were to fall apart tomorrow (it couldn't any easier than the US government could suddenly collapse,) and even if you subtract a dollar figure on the actual time I've been working on it, I'd walk away from the table with a net gain. And I'm a libertarian. So tell me, how is your sig appropriate there?
How much money have you made fighting against bitcoin by the way? You've certainly put time into working against it it (for example, the time spent writing these posts.) And further, why are you so interested in seeing it fall? I'll tell you why: because you're afraid of what might happen should the worlds governments lose their titans grip on trade. You're afraid that we might all become free, because if we did, then we'd all be libertarian.
In April, within 7 days Bitcoin dropped 70%. I was just taking issue with you believing in the days since then, Bitcoin had become stable.
And I'm just taking issue with your statement that real currencies don't do this. They have, they do, and they always will. And in many cases, they come out of those stages and stabilize. Not even just gold, I'm talking about currencies that are controlled by a central bank.
Precious metals have intrinsic value. Bitcoin has none.
That is a line from Paul Krugman that the popular media has been spreading around. It's a load that he pushes around because he's ideologically opposed to bitcoin, mainly because he strongly believes in currencies that are strictly government controlled. He holds this view because he believes in the core Keynesian theories. The Keynesian model thrown out over 30 years ago when stagflation happened because it is impossible under that model. So far the Friedman model has been fairly accurate, yet Krugman continues to reject it and modify the Keynes model every time something happens that goes against it.
Bitcoin has an intrinsic value - or at least, it has the same intrinsic value that gold has in that there are people who value it enough to exchange it for other goods. The only thing that bitcoin doesn't have is the ability to pay your taxes with it, which means that you inevitably have to convert it to the dollar at some point. This is what Krugman identifies as the ultimate intrinsic value. But it doesn't hurt to have to do that very much though because the dollar is always losing value, and will always continue to lose value because it was engineered to do exactly that when it converted to a fiat currency in the 70's. Because of that, you'll invariably come out on top.
There is one particular reason why I am absolutely certain that bitcoin is here to stay though, and that reason is the silk road.
Also another thing - bitcoin is extremely unlikely to see hyperinflation like many real - yes REAL - currencies have seen on numerous occasions. This is due to its fixed quantity.
Well yes they do, actually. That isn't far off from what precious metals have done ever since they have become a commodity that we actually use to make stuff, rather than just something used for the purpose of jewelry. Precious metals, I hope you know, are used as a real currency.
In fact, during April gold dropped $200, or 17% in value within the period of a few days. Again, gold is a real currency, one that has been used since time immemorial in fact.
Personally, I am not placing my bets on bitcoin, but I do recognize that it has strengths of both fiat and metal currencies. It is like fiat in that it isn't a commodity, and like metals in that it is finite.
It very well could, actually, and there are many reasons why.
First, we've been moving heavily in the direction of increased fuel efficiency. Not through act of government either - muscle cars died off because people couldn't afford to feed them. So, brands like Toyota came and stole the show. It wasn't due to decreased production though, it was actually heavily caused by OPEC deciding to take advantage of their oligopoly.
That can be taken a step further though. For the first time ever, we're beginning to see practical cars that are entirely electric, as well as an infrastructure to support them. Should that trend continue, you'll see consumption drop heavily, regardless of oil production.
Notice that coincides with the global collapse of communism, which meant a sudden increase in global GDP. However notice at the end where we reach China's peak, it begins to decline, and that trend is continuing.
As ever in these speculative bubbles
It's kind of hard to argue that it remains a bubble when the panic button already hit and is past, and now it's relatively stable. Paul Krugman is wrong on this one. If his predictions were true, it would have collapsed already. Nobody is in any sort of a rush to buy bitcoins, which is what is accompanied by a speculative bubble. Instead people are simply trading them like they would any other form of currency.
Ebay is currently contemplating accepting bitcoins, by the way. As somebody whose business IS small trades on a large scale, I think just the fact that they are considering it goes a long ways towards showing its potential, even if they decide not to.
What increased consumption? Consumption (in the US at least) has remained relatively constant for decades, mainly due to massive fuel efficiency increases as well as reduced transportation needs.
Also, I'm a libertarian, and so far I've made a lot more from bitcoins than they have cost me. I've paid about an extra $5 per month in electricity costs for mining over the last 4 months since I started, and I've already acquired about $200 worth of goods bought from bitcoins. It sort of helps when you already have a bunch of GPU's laying around from gaming, but I've since bought two used one with high MH/s for how cheap they are.
I think liberals just hate bitcoins because it further diminishes the relevance of the Keynesian economics model which they base their philosophy on. And the Keynesian model was pretty much debunked during the 80's anyways due to stagflation, which the Keynesian model says is impossible.
And no, I'm not contributing to carbon output. My area is powered by both nuclear and hydroelectric, but mostly nuclear, which environmentalists are by and large against even though it is both safer, cheaper, and contributes less to pollution than just about every other form of electricity generation, and unlike other renewable sources, its use is practical no matter where your geographical location.
You know all groups who have formed movements off of that premise have ultimately fallen, without even any outside interference from those ideologically opposed. Take the Icarians for example, who literally had an entire city pre-built just handed to them for basically nothing (Nauvoo, IL.) Even with those nice things just handed to you, in order to keep them nice you have to work. When there is no freedom to make money, people get lazy and shit falls apart, just like the Icarians did. They were never persecuted or harassed, they just fell apart on their own, along with every other group like them.
The only way to prevent shit from falling apart with no money incentive is to establish a command economy where somebody tells you what job you'll have, and you'll like it. If you don't like it, you are either excommunicated, jailed, or executed.
History has proven time and time again that putting heavy burdens on free markets results in a declining society. Russians figured out in the 50's that people eventually wouldn't work for free, so even they started setting up a very limited form of capitalism, which only allowed them to scrape by for 30 more years before the whole thing fell apart. China figured that out in the 80's when Deng Xiaoping declared: "To get rich is glorious", and their standard of living has grown dramatically ever since.
Every country that officially still holds the same belief that you just expressed in that one sentence is in third world living conditions. I say "still" because no collective population is ignorant of history enough any more to try it on a large scale, which is why that ideology has been in constant decline for a long time now. Nonetheless, people with your line of thought think that it'll work if only we tried enough, completely oblivious to the fact that it has had hundreds of large scale genuine implementations that even Marx himself would define as a perfect commune.
Marx himself was somebody who had shit just handed to him his whole life, and when daddy stopped giving him money he started the communist movement thinking that it would all work out fine if everybody just handed everybody else everything. From each according to their ability, to each according to their need.
It basically sounds to me that you believe every government agency who doesn't toe the same line that you do clearly must be privately owned for that reason and that reason only.
Excel will pop an error if you throw that into a mathematical formula. The dependent cell will show #NUM, which indicates a problem exactly like the one you describe, and it's plainly obvious too because that message cascades.
If nothing was dependent upon the cell that you made the error in, then the reader will simply see whatever the person typed, and it isn't excel's job to second guess that unless you tell it otherwise (namely by using the data validation options) otherwise you'd have to deal with a major annoyance every time you need to input data that is mixed with numbers and text.
This article is making a serious mistake though. I guarantee you that the $1 billion they claim was lost due to lost tax revenue wouldn't have been dumped into the education system. Maybe some of it would have, but for the most part the other government agencies would be sticking their hands out, and many of them would probably have first dibs (namely stupid-yet-loved items like paying sports franchises to keep teams there - not that this is what is happening in Washington, but these kinds of things tend to take priority over education, I shit you not.)
Blaming that billion dollar education deficit on microsoft is just plain stupid. The politicians would love you to believe that though, because then if you blame microsoft, they'll still get your vote even if it was their fuckup. I can almost promise you that it is more of a result of pork than anything else.
The problem was somebody made some serious mistakes when they were inputting the data.
That wasn't an excel error. Excel did it's job exactly as it was supposed to (not joking, it really did.) Excel can't tell you when your data is wrong, rather only what your data amounts to as per your parameters. Garbage in, garbage out.
Both TFA and TFS in that case made mistakes of their own when they blamed Excel, and TFE (The Fucking Editor) didn't catch it.
Iron Sky could have been worse. It could have been directed by Uwe Boll.
If you haven't heard of Uwe Boll...well, let's put it this way: They say James Cameron turns everything he touches into gold. Uwe Boll is the opposite, he turns everything he touches into dog shit, only unlike other directors who realize at the end when they just created dog shit, he actually thinks his shit is good.
Sort of goes with the territory of the job title I guess. Very high supply of labor (especially people willing to work for peanuts with the expectation of rapport) with not nearly as high of demand.
Slashdot Mirror
Holy infringement of free speech, Batman! Can I assume that the school administrators and police involved were appropriately punished?
Nope, there was no retribution. Though at least in the end (and a few weeks later) the charges were dropped, and the expulsion was revoked. He was subsequently allowed to wear the shirt, and several other students at the school wore the exact same shirt in order to express solidarity.
It means your entire family would have sell the house and move, and potentially even change jobs.
No, usually there are charter schools available pretty much anywhere, and are funded as part of the normal education system. Many of these charter schools are there for that exact reason. After a year or so they could remove the expulsion after demonstrated good behavior.
I think it has more to do with the message that if you're a minority, it's ok to fail and to exhibit the worst traits of society, because if you do it's not your fault, it's the racist man's fault. You share no burden. That message needs to stop, and this problem won't go away until it stops. You can't go on with the situation that just because you're a minority, you are artificially given lower standards for success due to affirmative action laws.
In only a few words, this is what you call being politically correct.
I think this probably happens the most in places like NY, because in those places the message I just described above is where that line of thinking is espoused the most.
Unfortunately, this isn't going away any time soon. In fact, I think it is getting worse over time. Dr. King had some words of wisdom when he said to be judged by the content of your character. How on earth is this judging somebody by the content of their character? Too many blacks who see themselves as the underdog at every turn either didn't get that message, ignored it, or just plain rejected it. Same thing with those who believe in affirmative action.
I was arguing with a black guy on youtube about this subject, and he told me that we need affirmative action to make sure that blacks, hispanics, and asians get the head start that they need to keep up with whites who are too privileged. Huge mistake. I let him in on the not so secret secret that affirmative action explicitly throws asians under the bus, and deliberately places them below white people. He sort of stopped responding to me at that point. I hope that planted a seed into him that he just might be on the wrong path, and to reconsider his viewpoint.
Asians are a perfect example of what I described above, by the way. They tend to come from a background that is highly dignified, respectful, and disciplined. This is, in my opinion, why they succeed disproportionately high. Yet we have institutions that tell them that they are far too successful and must be punished accordingly.
I don't think you paid any attention to what I said. I very obviously didn't lump every black person into that category; my second paragraph pretty clearly notes where the divide lies, and does the opposite of what you accuse me of doing.
Something tells me that you're so politically correct and smug that you enjoy the smell of your own farts because clearly anybody who doesn't think like you must be a racist.
Hmm...good point, though I don't think it is quite as bad.
I actually spent quite a bit of my childhood experiencing that divide. I spent grades 1-5 at a pretty nice school, which while full of minorities, most of them had no issues.
In 6th grade I moved to a nicer neighborhood, but the closest school was in "the hood". If you'll actually believe it, being white was looked down upon there. Being called "stupid white boy" was common, with every other text book I had the previous owner wrote "brown pride" and "FWA" in it, which is an abbreviation for "fucking white ass". Gangs were also very common there, whereas they were practically non-existent at my previous school. When we had a gang discussions, I mentioned how my last school didn't have any gangs, yet my teacher insisted to me that all schools everywhere have gangs. Apparently it is so common there, that even the faculty don't know any better. If there were gangs at my old school, they were at best just little cliques. And this school wasn't even in a rich neighborhood, just the ordinary suburbs.
That said, I've been the victim of racism, and it sucks. And stupid groups like the unfair campaign are dumb enough to believe that only whites are racist, and I'd even go so far as to say the entire democratic party feels the same way, or at least all of their politicians do. (Note: I'm not a republican.) Anybody who feels that way can go to hell with their politically correct bullshit.
Actually what I think is happening is probably the opposite of evaporative cooling. When you sweat for example, it makes you cold because as the water molecules are evaporating into a gas, it takes heat energy with it.
Now condensation on the other hand results in the opposite. The heat from the water molecule is then put into the system (i.e. the glass of beer) so the water molecule sticks to it because it no longer has the energy it needed to remain in its gas form.
In which case, wiping the condensation off doesn't reduce the temperature. In fact, it might actually be counterproductive because that water is no longer there to evaporate again, resulting in the cooling effect.
I've seen overblown punishment before in many cases, for example a few weeks ago a student being expelled and then arrested for wearing an NRA shirt. When I was in school, nobody would have made a second thought about it. Really really disproportionate reaction.
That said, I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that this is race related. Is the punishment overblown? Yes. I'd say expulsion should be fine considering how dangerous it is to make an explosive that releases caustic liquids. However a criminal record is stupid. I guarantee you that each one of these cops, teachers, and prosecutors have set off a bottle rocket or made a dry ice grenade when they were a teenager, and the world didn't end.
Anyways, lesson learned, now you have to go to a new school. Is race why it is overblown though? In my opinion, not a chance.
I'm probably going to be crucified for this, but I think he has a good point. There's nothing anywhere to indicate that blacks are genetically more prone to violence on any level. There is nothing anywhere to indicate that they are inherently inferior. However one thing that does stand out is black culture in the US. Note how different it is in the US compared to everywhere else in the world.
First generation or recent generation black Americans tend to be some of the most dignified people I know, and that includes blacks who have served in the military. But the ones who have been here for numerous generations, especially the inner city ones, are more often than not a bunch of douchebags. Many among them literally call having good grades "acting white" and look down upon it.
Again, the mere fact that they're black doesn't predicate them into being that way. However they themselves are equally guilty of establishing the stereotype that they behold. To blame everything on white people doesn't do anything to fix the problem, not to mention is just an asshole thing to do.
Or it could just be a case of two different prosecutors having different standards, one happening to preside over a white person, one over a black one.
I've had similar shit happen to me before, and race didn't have anything to do with it. I remember recently hearing about some black dude not being allowed to seat in first class on an airline because he was wearing a hoodie and their dress code forbids that. It just so happened that a white guy came in there wearing a hoodie and he was able to be seated.
I already know from personal experience that this is the result of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing. I always wear regular clothes to the airport, and usually I save money by buying standby tickets. One of the benefits of standby is that if they run out of coach seats, they put you in first class. On the way there that happened to me, and I just wore regular t-shirt and shorts. On the way back, the same thing happened again, only they said that if I wanted to sit in first class, I had to wear slacks. So I had to go shop around the airport until I could find a pair of slacks. When I was seated, somebody else on the plane was wearing shorts. Yay me.
Same airline both ways.
It's just one of those things where sometimes it doesn't end up getting enforced. But one of those times it happens that a black man was enforced and a white man was not? STOP THE PRESSES!
http://www.lawschooldiscussion.org/index.php?topic=33733.50
Have read at least the first few paragraphs of that, then go to the first page and read some of that. Then recall not long ago that incident where that couple were beaten severely after just passing through a black neighborhood, and the newspaper they worked for chose to not even report it.
Personally, I don't mind that the media isn't interested in it. If anything, it's a mark against the anti-racist crowd who is willing to look the other way when reverse racism happens, and they know they're asshole fucks for doing so, but it's ok because we already knew they were asshole fucks and nothing has changed.
But what does piss me off is when they pull the race card needlessly, such as the scenario I described above. It pisses me off when they go out of their way to try to make me feel guilty for being born white. I'm looking at the unfair campaign.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBqWMblu_Ss
Fuck them. I hope they all go die in a fire and get hit by a bus at the same time.
That's not intrinsic value. Gold has intrinsic value because it's an attractive, non-tarnishable raw material that can be made into jewellery.
Bitcoin gains its value for the same reason gold ultimately does: It takes an effort to obtain it, and it is in limited supply. Snow literally falls out of the sky, you can get it anywhere. Bitcoins are scarce though.
Many cultures have gone through currencies for the same reason. For example, pacific nations for a long time used sharks teeth as currency. The reason is simple: they are (or were) rare and hard to obtain, however they aren't so hard to obtain that there aren't enough to go around. That is their intrinsic value. Snoflakes, UUID's, are a fail analogy. Beanie babies are likewise a fail analogy.
And, I don't think you realize just how powerful the drug trade is. It's estimated that globally there is more than 750 billion USD going into it every year. If BTC became the standard bearer for trading in that (e.g. conventional means of distribution go away) then it isn't going anywhere.
All your nonsequiturs about Keynes and government control just mark you out as a Libertarian, and underline how appropriate my sig is.
Well here's the thing: I'm making money on bitcoins. In addition to actually obtaining more of them at very little cost, I already have realized gains far in excess of what I have put into it (that is, converted the bitcoins into real world valuable items.) Even if the whole thing were to fall apart tomorrow (it couldn't any easier than the US government could suddenly collapse,) and even if you subtract a dollar figure on the actual time I've been working on it, I'd walk away from the table with a net gain. And I'm a libertarian. So tell me, how is your sig appropriate there?
How much money have you made fighting against bitcoin by the way? You've certainly put time into working against it it (for example, the time spent writing these posts.) And further, why are you so interested in seeing it fall? I'll tell you why: because you're afraid of what might happen should the worlds governments lose their titans grip on trade. You're afraid that we might all become free, because if we did, then we'd all be libertarian.
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lykz2dLCsL1qid5x9o1_1280.png
Yeah if they're looking to inspire investors, this is a horrible first step.
In April, within 7 days Bitcoin dropped 70%. I was just taking issue with you believing in the days since then, Bitcoin had become stable.
And I'm just taking issue with your statement that real currencies don't do this. They have, they do, and they always will. And in many cases, they come out of those stages and stabilize. Not even just gold, I'm talking about currencies that are controlled by a central bank.
Precious metals have intrinsic value. Bitcoin has none.
That is a line from Paul Krugman that the popular media has been spreading around. It's a load that he pushes around because he's ideologically opposed to bitcoin, mainly because he strongly believes in currencies that are strictly government controlled. He holds this view because he believes in the core Keynesian theories. The Keynesian model thrown out over 30 years ago when stagflation happened because it is impossible under that model. So far the Friedman model has been fairly accurate, yet Krugman continues to reject it and modify the Keynes model every time something happens that goes against it.
Bitcoin has an intrinsic value - or at least, it has the same intrinsic value that gold has in that there are people who value it enough to exchange it for other goods. The only thing that bitcoin doesn't have is the ability to pay your taxes with it, which means that you inevitably have to convert it to the dollar at some point. This is what Krugman identifies as the ultimate intrinsic value. But it doesn't hurt to have to do that very much though because the dollar is always losing value, and will always continue to lose value because it was engineered to do exactly that when it converted to a fiat currency in the 70's. Because of that, you'll invariably come out on top.
There is one particular reason why I am absolutely certain that bitcoin is here to stay though, and that reason is the silk road.
Also another thing - bitcoin is extremely unlikely to see hyperinflation like many real - yes REAL - currencies have seen on numerous occasions. This is due to its fixed quantity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation#Examples_of_hyperinflation
The Weinmar republic for example saw somewhere on the range of nearly 30,000% inflation in a very short time.
Well yes they do, actually. That isn't far off from what precious metals have done ever since they have become a commodity that we actually use to make stuff, rather than just something used for the purpose of jewelry. Precious metals, I hope you know, are used as a real currency.
In fact, during April gold dropped $200, or 17% in value within the period of a few days. Again, gold is a real currency, one that has been used since time immemorial in fact.
Personally, I am not placing my bets on bitcoin, but I do recognize that it has strengths of both fiat and metal currencies. It is like fiat in that it isn't a commodity, and like metals in that it is finite.
It very well could, actually, and there are many reasons why.
First, we've been moving heavily in the direction of increased fuel efficiency. Not through act of government either - muscle cars died off because people couldn't afford to feed them. So, brands like Toyota came and stole the show. It wasn't due to decreased production though, it was actually heavily caused by OPEC deciding to take advantage of their oligopoly.
That can be taken a step further though. For the first time ever, we're beginning to see practical cars that are entirely electric, as well as an infrastructure to support them. Should that trend continue, you'll see consumption drop heavily, regardless of oil production.
You're so near to answering your own question, why didn't you continue that line of thought?
Likewise, carry that globally and you see barely a 17% increase since 1980.
http://www.indexmundi.com/energy.aspx
Notice that coincides with the global collapse of communism, which meant a sudden increase in global GDP. However notice at the end where we reach China's peak, it begins to decline, and that trend is continuing.
As ever in these speculative bubbles
It's kind of hard to argue that it remains a bubble when the panic button already hit and is past, and now it's relatively stable. Paul Krugman is wrong on this one. If his predictions were true, it would have collapsed already. Nobody is in any sort of a rush to buy bitcoins, which is what is accompanied by a speculative bubble. Instead people are simply trading them like they would any other form of currency.
Ebay is currently contemplating accepting bitcoins, by the way. As somebody whose business IS small trades on a large scale, I think just the fact that they are considering it goes a long ways towards showing its potential, even if they decide not to.
What increased consumption? Consumption (in the US at least) has remained relatively constant for decades, mainly due to massive fuel efficiency increases as well as reduced transportation needs.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/9811
Also, I'm a libertarian, and so far I've made a lot more from bitcoins than they have cost me. I've paid about an extra $5 per month in electricity costs for mining over the last 4 months since I started, and I've already acquired about $200 worth of goods bought from bitcoins. It sort of helps when you already have a bunch of GPU's laying around from gaming, but I've since bought two used one with high MH/s for how cheap they are.
I think liberals just hate bitcoins because it further diminishes the relevance of the Keynesian economics model which they base their philosophy on. And the Keynesian model was pretty much debunked during the 80's anyways due to stagflation, which the Keynesian model says is impossible.
And no, I'm not contributing to carbon output. My area is powered by both nuclear and hydroelectric, but mostly nuclear, which environmentalists are by and large against even though it is both safer, cheaper, and contributes less to pollution than just about every other form of electricity generation, and unlike other renewable sources, its use is practical no matter where your geographical location.
That is a very stupidly naive statement.
You know all groups who have formed movements off of that premise have ultimately fallen, without even any outside interference from those ideologically opposed. Take the Icarians for example, who literally had an entire city pre-built just handed to them for basically nothing (Nauvoo, IL.) Even with those nice things just handed to you, in order to keep them nice you have to work. When there is no freedom to make money, people get lazy and shit falls apart, just like the Icarians did. They were never persecuted or harassed, they just fell apart on their own, along with every other group like them.
The only way to prevent shit from falling apart with no money incentive is to establish a command economy where somebody tells you what job you'll have, and you'll like it. If you don't like it, you are either excommunicated, jailed, or executed.
History has proven time and time again that putting heavy burdens on free markets results in a declining society. Russians figured out in the 50's that people eventually wouldn't work for free, so even they started setting up a very limited form of capitalism, which only allowed them to scrape by for 30 more years before the whole thing fell apart. China figured that out in the 80's when Deng Xiaoping declared: "To get rich is glorious", and their standard of living has grown dramatically ever since.
Every country that officially still holds the same belief that you just expressed in that one sentence is in third world living conditions. I say "still" because no collective population is ignorant of history enough any more to try it on a large scale, which is why that ideology has been in constant decline for a long time now. Nonetheless, people with your line of thought think that it'll work if only we tried enough, completely oblivious to the fact that it has had hundreds of large scale genuine implementations that even Marx himself would define as a perfect commune.
Marx himself was somebody who had shit just handed to him his whole life, and when daddy stopped giving him money he started the communist movement thinking that it would all work out fine if everybody just handed everybody else everything. From each according to their ability, to each according to their need.
Damnit! Who typed a question mar on the TelePrompTer? For the last time, anything you put on that prompter, Burgundy will read!
It basically sounds to me that you believe every government agency who doesn't toe the same line that you do clearly must be privately owned for that reason and that reason only.
Last I heard, a leak suggests that office is being ported to android.
http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/10/microsoft-office-ios-android-roadmap-leak/
Excel will pop an error if you throw that into a mathematical formula. The dependent cell will show #NUM, which indicates a problem exactly like the one you describe, and it's plainly obvious too because that message cascades.
If nothing was dependent upon the cell that you made the error in, then the reader will simply see whatever the person typed, and it isn't excel's job to second guess that unless you tell it otherwise (namely by using the data validation options) otherwise you'd have to deal with a major annoyance every time you need to input data that is mixed with numbers and text.
This article is making a serious mistake though. I guarantee you that the $1 billion they claim was lost due to lost tax revenue wouldn't have been dumped into the education system. Maybe some of it would have, but for the most part the other government agencies would be sticking their hands out, and many of them would probably have first dibs (namely stupid-yet-loved items like paying sports franchises to keep teams there - not that this is what is happening in Washington, but these kinds of things tend to take priority over education, I shit you not.)
Blaming that billion dollar education deficit on microsoft is just plain stupid. The politicians would love you to believe that though, because then if you blame microsoft, they'll still get your vote even if it was their fuckup. I can almost promise you that it is more of a result of pork than anything else.
The problem was somebody made some serious mistakes when they were inputting the data.
That wasn't an excel error. Excel did it's job exactly as it was supposed to (not joking, it really did.) Excel can't tell you when your data is wrong, rather only what your data amounts to as per your parameters. Garbage in, garbage out.
Both TFA and TFS in that case made mistakes of their own when they blamed Excel, and TFE (The Fucking Editor) didn't catch it.
Iron Sky could have been worse. It could have been directed by Uwe Boll.
If you haven't heard of Uwe Boll...well, let's put it this way: They say James Cameron turns everything he touches into gold. Uwe Boll is the opposite, he turns everything he touches into dog shit, only unlike other directors who realize at the end when they just created dog shit, he actually thinks his shit is good.
Sort of goes with the territory of the job title I guess. Very high supply of labor (especially people willing to work for peanuts with the expectation of rapport) with not nearly as high of demand.