Not that I'm any expert on language, but I aim for "clarity" and "expressiveness" with my pedantry.
Examples with everyone's favorite word, "hack":
"He hacked into Sony's password database." Perfectly clear what "hacked" meant in the context of a computer break-in.
"That's a clever hack." When looking at code, it's obvious that this "hack" is unique from what befell Sony.
"He hacked up the turkey." Again, unless your'e autistic, you'd understood what's meant when presented with a clumsily carved bird.
So, "hack" has at least three distinct meanings, all discernible from context. This increases the expressiveness and clarity of language; the people arguing "it can mean two things, but three is too many!" need to get a life.
Where I'll disagree with Stephen Fry is the misuse of "disinterested" (impartial) versus "uninterested" (couldn't care less). Yes, you can usually tell which meaning was meant, but if everyone cluelessly uses "disinterested" to mean "uninterested", we've now lost a perfectly good word for "impartial." Unlike "hack", we can now express fewer things, and language is poorer for it.
He's some dirtbag who thinks that freedom should be for everybody - except for pregnant women. Those, he believes the state should force into involuntary servitude.
His successful campaign against Gammage surprised local Democrats, who had expected to retain the seat easily due to the Watergate scandal. Gammage underestimated Paul's popularity among local mothers: "I had real difficulty down in Brazoria County, where he practiced, because he'd delivered half the babies in the county. There were only two obstetricians in the county, and the other one was his partner."
You think (L)ibertarians are in any way happy that a telecom duopoly is about as competitive as it gets in America? Fix root causes, rather than pretend turning that duopoly into a monopoly will magically make things better.
They've always done a good job of being platform independent in their web banking
I've had good experiences, mediocre experiences, and failexperiences. My BoA credit card is getting cancelled because they keep trying to sell me "credit protection" and reporting services, and their calls and junk mail are getting annoying.
The most over-self-diagnosed conditions on the planet, thanks to the perceived ability to explain social awkwardness and claim a special area of brilliance.
That, and taking Aspergers frees up stat points for you to allocate elsewhere.
Rumor had it that they outsourced development to China. Chocobos were, for a while, horsebirds, but this was later corrected to "chocopo". (Ads on the linked site NSFW).
Better yet, the collector's edition included a tumbler which could be "damaged" by "items including salt and solid materials, carbonated beverages, milk or other dairy beverages, fruit juices, etc." Not sure how that made it through QC.
Then again, Sankaku Complex just really doesn't like China, so it's possible Squeenix just dun goofed. Perhaps after (more than) 14 final fantasies, this was their game design. Anyone who knew for sure what happened met seppuku.
Why on earth would you backup to a solid state drive? I think the only way you could spend more money per gigabyte of backup involves robots.
For everyday use, I'd not recommend SSD's except as a boot/application installation for launch speed, however the OS and software (eg photoshop) need to be configured to use a conventional drive for scratch/swap file space since they will rapidly wear out a SSD.
Any who believes asymmetry is a good thing is an enemy of the free market; a thief and a brigand.
How efficient is a market where people want to play a game but can't for lack of a translation? Voluntary, self-interested transactions are the foundation of a free market; it has fuck all to do with "symmetry."
I'd say that makes it very different, when a corporation uses volunteer labor for a pay only product, that's fundamentally different from when a corporation makes money off a freely available product.
Why? If Valve is "exploiting" volunteer translators, then Red Hat is "exploiting" volunteer coders.
The NDA keeps me from saying anything interesting, but you're wrong on just about all accounts. TOR has more in common with KOTOR than WoW, and has done some pretty interesting things so far.
I know "it's a secret" isn't all that convincing, but give 'em a chance to release it before judging too harshly.
"Inflation" describes a currency's value, not how much is in circulation.
Besides, TFA points out that inflation was negative from 2008 to 2009. The fact that you didn't lose half of your wealth over that time frame should tell you that the rate of inflation wasn't 100%.
Inflation is about a currency's value, not its quantity. At least according to TFA, bitcoin has been undergoing deflation, which makes sense given that there's an upper limit to how many bitcoins there will ever be, and producing new ones gets exponentially harder as time goes on.
I don't think you understand what a "store of value" is. You can put dollars into a bank, take them out again, and spend them just as you could before.
Also keep in mind that the current inflation rate is 3.6%, not 1200%. By your definition, there wouldn't be any "stores of value" left in the world.
RTFA again. Nowhere does Krugman say bitcoins are a "lottery ticket" whose value might soar - their value has soared. His point is that this is problematic - massive deflation leads to hoarding, rather than spending, a currency.
The proper role of government here would be to regulate prices and access in a similar manner as the other 21 "developed" countries. This would give us lower prices, higher quality and better access.
We call it "Medicare." Parts of it (like Diagnosis Related Group-based reimbursement) are remarkably similar to the Netherlands' Diagnosis Treatment Combinations (DBCs).
It's been around for awhile; I wonder why no one deciding the future of healthcare has heard of it.
A grammar nazi set you off? You must really be new here. Take a deep breath and cherish this opportunity you were given to learn to speak English, since you evidently don't know what a "mass noun" is.
It is designed for rewarding early investors. It even has a built-in diminishing return per investment
Bitcoin "mining" is about preventing counterfeiting. The longest set of bitcoin blocks is the "valid" one, and "mining" lengthens that chain. It favors early adopters because lengthening an already long chain is more difficult than lengthening a short one, and your own individual efforts contribute relatively less as more people mine.
You're encouraged to find new investors in order to drive up the value of your (meager) holdings (and the substantial holdings of early players).
That's true of anything people care to speculate on, including gold, the US dollar, and beanie babies.
Once it bursts, there will be little to no value to recover, because there are no real assets reflecting the investments
You seem to have confused "bitcoins" with "real estate." They're money. Like they teach in econ 101, bitcoins have value for the same reason dollars and euros do - because they serve as
You might not think bitcoin is destined for much success as a currency, and it probably isn't. But that doesn't make it any more of a "con" or a "pyramid scheme" than, say, Timucua scrip.
Slashdot Mirror
Interesting article. I had no idea "verbal" originally meant "in words", as opposed to "out loud."
Not that I'm any expert on language, but I aim for "clarity" and "expressiveness" with my pedantry.
Examples with everyone's favorite word, "hack":
So, "hack" has at least three distinct meanings, all discernible from context. This increases the expressiveness and clarity of language; the people arguing "it can mean two things, but three is too many!" need to get a life.
Where I'll disagree with Stephen Fry is the misuse of "disinterested" (impartial) versus "uninterested" (couldn't care less). Yes, you can usually tell which meaning was meant, but if everyone cluelessly uses "disinterested" to mean "uninterested", we've now lost a perfectly good word for "impartial." Unlike "hack", we can now express fewer things, and language is poorer for it.
He's some dirtbag who thinks that freedom should be for everybody - except for pregnant women. Those, he believes the state should force into involuntary servitude.
He's an OBGYN. He won one of his early elections because he had delivered just about every baby in a county:
You think (L)ibertarians are in any way happy that a telecom duopoly is about as competitive as it gets in America? Fix root causes, rather than pretend turning that duopoly into a monopoly will magically make things better.
S'actly. I was pretty sure its memehood was sacrosanct around these parts.
Mirroring is the easiest form of backup.
*giggles*
Or Might and Magic! The World of Xeen ending explaining why the world is round blew my mind.
They've always done a good job of being platform independent in their web banking
I've had good experiences, mediocre experiences, and fail experiences. My BoA credit card is getting cancelled because they keep trying to sell me "credit protection" and reporting services, and their calls and junk mail are getting annoying.
The most over-self-diagnosed conditions on the planet, thanks to the perceived ability to explain social awkwardness and claim a special area of brilliance.
That, and taking Aspergers frees up stat points for you to allocate elsewhere.
Rumor had it that they outsourced development to China. Chocobos were, for a while, horsebirds, but this was later corrected to "chocopo". (Ads on the linked site NSFW).
Better yet, the collector's edition included a tumbler which could be "damaged" by "items including salt and solid materials, carbonated beverages, milk or other dairy beverages, fruit juices, etc." Not sure how that made it through QC.
Then again, Sankaku Complex just really doesn't like China, so it's possible Squeenix just dun goofed. Perhaps after (more than) 14 final fantasies, this was their game design. Anyone who knew for sure what happened met seppuku.
Why on earth would you backup to a solid state drive? I think the only way you could spend more money per gigabyte of backup involves robots.
For everyday use, I'd not recommend SSD's except as a boot/application installation for launch speed, however the OS and software (eg photoshop) need to be configured to use a conventional drive for scratch/swap file space since they will rapidly wear out a SSD.
No, they won't.
If they really gained nothing, they wouldn't do it. It's the same kind of "warm and fuzzy" feeling that brings the world Wikipedia and fansubs.
I was quoting the parent, but goofed my HTML. Should've previewed.
Any who believes asymmetry is a good thing is an enemy of the free market; a thief and a brigand.
How efficient is a market where people want to play a game but can't for lack of a translation? Voluntary, self-interested transactions are the foundation of a free market; it has fuck all to do with "symmetry."
I'd say that makes it very different, when a corporation uses volunteer labor for a pay only product, that's fundamentally different from when a corporation makes money off a freely available product.
Why? If Valve is "exploiting" volunteer translators, then Red Hat is "exploiting" volunteer coders.
So it's win/win. If things were the other way around, I'd happily translate Spanish or Japanese into English.
The NDA keeps me from saying anything interesting, but you're wrong on just about all accounts. TOR has more in common with KOTOR than WoW, and has done some pretty interesting things so far.
I know "it's a secret" isn't all that convincing, but give 'em a chance to release it before judging too harshly.
At least not when the "Buy from us, we're cheaper" types give nothing back to the communities they extract their billions from.
By the definition of "cheaper", I think they actually gave more back.
"Inflation" describes a currency's value, not how much is in circulation.
Besides, TFA points out that inflation was negative from 2008 to 2009. The fact that you didn't lose half of your wealth over that time frame should tell you that the rate of inflation wasn't 100%.
Inflation is about a currency's value, not its quantity. At least according to TFA, bitcoin has been undergoing deflation, which makes sense given that there's an upper limit to how many bitcoins there will ever be, and producing new ones gets exponentially harder as time goes on.
I don't think you understand what a "store of value" is. You can put dollars into a bank, take them out again, and spend them just as you could before.
Also keep in mind that the current inflation rate is 3.6%, not 1200%. By your definition, there wouldn't be any "stores of value" left in the world.
RTFA again. Nowhere does Krugman say bitcoins are a "lottery ticket" whose value might soar - their value has soared. His point is that this is problematic - massive deflation leads to hoarding, rather than spending, a currency.
The proper role of government here would be to regulate prices and access in a similar manner as the other 21 "developed" countries. This would give us lower prices, higher quality and better access.
We call it "Medicare." Parts of it (like Diagnosis Related Group-based reimbursement) are remarkably similar to the Netherlands' Diagnosis Treatment Combinations (DBCs).
It's been around for awhile; I wonder why no one deciding the future of healthcare has heard of it.
A grammar nazi set you off? You must really be new here. Take a deep breath and cherish this opportunity you were given to learn to speak English, since you evidently don't know what a "mass noun" is.
It is designed for rewarding early investors. It even has a built-in diminishing return per investment
Bitcoin "mining" is about preventing counterfeiting. The longest set of bitcoin blocks is the "valid" one, and "mining" lengthens that chain. It favors early adopters because lengthening an already long chain is more difficult than lengthening a short one, and your own individual efforts contribute relatively less as more people mine.
You're encouraged to find new investors in order to drive up the value of your (meager) holdings (and the substantial holdings of early players).
That's true of anything people care to speculate on, including gold, the US dollar, and beanie babies.
Once it bursts, there will be little to no value to recover, because there are no real assets reflecting the investments
You seem to have confused "bitcoins" with "real estate." They're money . Like they teach in econ 101, bitcoins have value for the same reason dollars and euros do - because they serve as
You might not think bitcoin is destined for much success as a currency, and it probably isn't. But that doesn't make it any more of a "con" or a "pyramid scheme" than, say, Timucua scrip.