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>> ^spoco2:

>> ^Jinx:
The Harrier is to the F35 as the Sopwith Camel is to the Eurofighter.
Ok, thats hyperbole, but the Harrier was pretty limited. I wasn't supersonic for a start, no stealth capabilities, fairly limited air to air/manoeuverability etc. No gun for ground attack either.
Personally I think its a pretty incredible feat of engineering. On the flip side its going to cost the US taxpayer $320billion.

It's a cool plane and all, but that number is absolutely insane.
$320 BILLION dollars.
Yeah, cut medical care, cut schooling, cut spending on space exploration, but don't touch the spending on making a fucking aeroplane for killing people.
And we wonder if countries have their priorities right when it comes to spending money.

But but but it creates jobs! But then so do oil spills.


Nasa's annual budget is what, about 18billion USD? Somebody smart and probably equally evil once discovered how to tap the limitless resource of fear. They got pretty rich.

>> ^ghark:

>> ^bcglorf:
>> ^ghark:


protesters demanding nothing more than the right to vote for their leader and the freedom to express their displeasure with their current leadership.?

Protesters? You mean the ones that sold $100 million USD in oil to NATO were simply doing so to "express their displeasure with their current leadership"?
http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/05/09/148413.html
with a little help from NATO bombs?
http://ozyism.blogspot.com/2011/05/nato-tries-to-destroy-eviden
ce-of-rebel.html
I'm not going to bother with the sarcasm tag, you sicken me.


I'm glad I sicken you. Anyone supporting a regime like Gaddafi's, and mourning it's loss is someone I WANT to hold me in contempt and disdain. Your ideas of what is best for the Libyan people is diseased beyond imagination.

>> ^bcglorf:

>> ^ghark:


protesters demanding nothing more than the right to vote for their leader and the freedom to express their displeasure with their current leadership.?


Protesters? You mean the ones that sold $100 million USD in oil to NATO were simply doing so to "express their displeasure with their current leadership"?
http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/05/09/148413.html

with a little help from NATO bombs?
http://ozyism.blogspot.com/2011/05/nato-tries-to-destroy-evidence-of-rebel.html

I'm not going to bother with the sarcasm tag, you sicken me.

"unauthorized mint"

See? It's unauthorized because it'd be competing with the USD. If I wanted to open my own phone company, would it be fair to have AT&T "authorize" my operation?

And no checks and credit cards still use USD, so they're not competing currencies. Follow the money. If at the end of it it's USD, then it's not a competing currency. It goes like this. I purchase a gift card for $20 USD. That gift card isn't its own currency with its own value, it's only valued in USD, so it's essentially $20 in USD. Watch me turn this US Dollar into a US Dollar! Abracadabra!

Lastly, not sure why you think the Liberty Dollar was counterfeit. They never claimed they were legal tender. Only a competing currency backed by a valued commodity: gold. But every monopoly hates competition, so the US Government decided to not only stop the Liberty Dollary, they also confiscated stole the company's gold reserves.

Not being hostile. Just bringing the slaps across the cheeks with my ball sacks.

>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^blankfist:
And he's right about the "governmentally fixed price for gold", and if it was legal in this country to offer competing currencies I don't think many people would care whether the USD was backed by gold or not. But because we're forced to use one central currency, it should at the very least be value backed.

The way I understand it, you can legally offer and accept another currency, it's just that you aren't allowed to refuse to accept dollars as settlement of debts incurred.
That's why it's legal to use gold, bitcoins, gift cards, frequent flyer miles, Xbox live points, WoW gold, etc. Even credit cards and checks aren't actually legal tender.


mo·nop·o·ly /məˈnäpəlē/ Noun
The exclusive possession or control of the supply or trade in a commodity or service.

So, two questions. 1. would you say the US government has "control" over the supply or trade of the commodity of monies?

2. If you can "legally offer and accept another currency" why did these guys get raided if competing currency is legal? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Dollar#Federal_Government_response

>> ^blankfist:

And he's right about the "governmentally fixed price for gold", and if it was legal in this country to offer competing currencies I don't think many people would care whether the USD was backed by gold or not. But because we're forced to use one central currency, it should at the very least be value backed.


The way I understand it, you can legally offer and accept another currency, it's just that you aren't allowed to refuse to accept dollars as settlement of debts incurred.

That's why it's legal to use gold, bitcoins, gift cards, frequent flyer miles, Xbox live points, WoW gold, etc. Even credit cards and checks aren't actually legal tender.

>> ^NetRunner:

"I do believe that every individual should be free to own, buy, and sell gold. If under those circumstances a private gold standard emerged, fine—although I make a scientific prediction that it’s very unlikely. But I think those people who say they believe in a gold standard are fundamentally being very anti-libertarian because what they mean by a gold standard is a governmentally fixed price for gold."
-Milton Friedman
Also:
http://delong.typepad.c
om/sdj/2009/03/the-earlier-you-abandon-the-gold-standard-and-start-your-new-deal-the-better.html


And he's right about the "governmentally fixed price for gold", and if it was legal in this country to offer competing currencies I don't think many people would care whether the USD was backed by gold or not. But because we're forced to use one central currency, it should at the very least be value backed.

>> ^Lawdeedaw:

>> ^heathen:
I think he meant it was fantastic that the money was won by someone who needed it, not that it was fantastic he was disabled.

Exactly.
Funny part is 65K pounds is what? 30 bucks? (I am kidding!)


The funny part it that the US dollar is currently weaker than the Canadian or Australian dollar.

65K Sterling is currently worth approximately 105K USD.

>> ^KnivesOut:

So did the entire market take a hit because one exchange as compromised?
On another note, is now the time to buy bitcoins?


Yes, but not much.

Mt.Gox is was the primary exchange with >95% of all BTC/USD trades taking place there. So it going down means:

1) All the active balances in USD & BTC are locked in Mt.Gox database until they reactivate.
2) If Mt.Gox decides that they can't cover their accounts they may go bankrupt, which means all the money in point #1 goes into legal limbo.
3) All trading has to move to a different exchange, probably tradehill.
4) Liquidity just disappeared for about 24hrs, which happens at least once a week in most markets, but BTC is accustomed to 24/7

Tradehill is already hopping, right now it's back at 15USD/BTC

>> ^DerHasisttot:

Somehow i highly distrust all this libertarian propaganda... why? Because it clearly is propaganda.
And they all seem like giant douchebags.

I understand that position, I agree that these folks tend to reek of "fuck you", but this guy is generally accurate in his description of how bitcoin works.

The real compelling application, which he didn't bother to mention, is that the transactional cost is extremely low and the system security is extremely high. If the market growth stabilizes to a slow deflationary curve against the USD, then it will become useful for what it was designed for, allowing people to make digital transactions of funds with a very small non-percentage transaction cost.

I am currently running a few GPGPU servers on the bitcoin network, which while not as profitable as straight speculation at least is a realistic stable business model which is not dependent on beating a bubble burst.

>> ^blankfist:

>> ^direpickle:
Can you explain what makes bitcoins worth anything? Why can I trust that I will be able to trade a bitcoin for goods and/or services tomorrow, much less in five or ten or forty years? I really don't get it.
Also, what's peer-to-peer money? Money that one person give to another person? Like... any money that's not credit card debt?

It's a competing currency. What makes it worth something are the people willing to use it. You can't be sure it'll be around, so you could lose everything you invest into it. That's how currency works. You can't be sure the US dollar will be around in another ten years either.
You can read up on how it works in greater detail, but p2p means that your coins are stored anonymously across multiple user's machines. It's kind of like bittorrent. Here's their wiki page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin


I concede that it is possible for the USD to stop being worth anything, too, but I think it's likely to be a smidge more stable. Even if the world goes nuts, *probably* the store down the street will still give me a loaf of bread for a dollar or two, at least for a little bit. I think that any event that makes the USD so worthless so quickly that it's worth drastically betting against it as a citizen (not a rich person) is also going to make bitcoins (and any currency, really) useless. Better off stockpiling whiskey and ammunition.

I don't know. I just don't buy it. I imagine a large portion of the current bitcoin users are just the equivalent of oil or real estate speculators, trying to make a buck on the run-up. How many have you bought?

I'm sure the actual prices are distributor enforced but the way they label it in USD is just shameless. A blatant attempt to mislead consumers into not realising that they are being IP screened and not actually paying US prices.>> ^Gallowflak:

>> ^Asmo:
To give some context to the cost of Brink in Aus (where Yahtzee buys his games), Brink on Steam is 89.99 AUD (making it ~95-97 USD) and can be found for 109.99 across some counters...
For a game that is essentially multiplayer only (Hell, Section 8:Prejudice had multi + single player campaign + class based for 15 AUD ffs...) this is a blatant fucking rip.
Given the poor reviews so far, I don't think I'll even bother once it hits the bargain basement bin...

http://www.steamprices.com/au
Yep. But the price of the game has next to nothing to do with the developer. If I recall, digitally-distributed games in Australia are kept at high prices to cut the Australian retail market some slack. Next stop: subsidies.
As for Steam prices, though, screw it. If an American happens to buy it for me as a gift, who's to know?

>> ^Asmo:

To give some context to the cost of Brink in Aus (where Yahtzee buys his games), Brink on Steam is 89.99 AUD (making it ~95-97 USD) and can be found for 109.99 across some counters...
For a game that is essentially multiplayer only (Hell, Section 8:Prejudice had multi + single player campaign + class based for 15 AUD ffs...) this is a blatant fucking rip.
Given the poor reviews so far, I don't think I'll even bother once it hits the bargain basement bin...


http://www.steamprices.com/au

Yep. But the price of the game has next to nothing to do with the developer. If I recall, digitally-distributed games in Australia are kept at high prices to cut the Australian retail market some slack. Next stop: subsidies.

As for Steam prices, though, screw it. If an American happens to buy it for me as a gift, who's to know?

To give some context to the cost of Brink in Aus (where Yahtzee buys his games), Brink on Steam is 89.99 AUD (making it ~95-97 USD) and can be found for 109.99 across some counters...

For a game that is essentially multiplayer only (Hell, Section 8:Prejudice had multi + single player campaign + class based for 15 AUD ffs...) this is a blatant fucking rip.

Given the poor reviews so far, I don't think I'll even bother once it hits the bargain basement bin...