If you read posts from many Bitcoin supporters, you will discover that they actually believe that deflation is a good thing. They think that deflation will make the money in their piggy bank worth more, and thus they like it. They have a poor understanding of the overall economic impact so they believe it would be positive. They also tend to conflate the ideas of saving and hoarding so while Bitcoin encourages the latter, they believe that's the same thing as the former.

What's even funnier to me, is that these are often the same people that get mad about "the 1%". What they fail to realize is that deflation is something that would benefit the rich and the very most and harm the poor the very most. The more money you have, and the less debt you have, the better deflation would be for you. If you've got a massive bank account, more than you need for the rest of your life, deflation is great. You keep all your money in cash, spend it only as you need, and the remaining money gets worth more. You don't need to invest it or take any risk, just keeping cash increases your value.

On the other side, if you owe money, deflation is a big problem. A loan becomes increasingly difficult to pay back as your nominal payment stays the same, but the real value that you are having to pay out increases. It works to keep you poor and to make it more difficult for you to ever become financially self-sufficient.

Really what it comes down to is many Bitcoin supporters just have a very poor understanding of economics. They don't understand the downsides of Bitcoin, because they actually believe many of them to the upsides. Really, Bitcoin is a dream for the rich robber barons. They would love something outside of any government regulation, something that works to make the rich richer, something where there's no recourse if they take money from you, no chargeback that kind of thing. It really isn't something that the rest of us should be that interested in seeing.

The idea of a crypto currency is an interesting one, but Bitcoin is very poorly implemented from an economic standpoint, if nothing else.

Also there's a difference between saving and hoarding. What happens during deflation, in particular severe deflation is hoarding more than saving. Saving is setting aside some percent of your income for rainy day, and for later in life when you won't work. It's a negative feedback mechanism to put it in electrical engineering terms and, as with electrical circuits, it add stability to a system. With deflation what goes on is hoarding. People hold on to as much money as possible, spend as little as possible, because the money will be worth more in the future. That's very different than saving. While fundamentally yes, we're talking about spending less than you make it's a difference in attitude.

Money is only useful if it is spent, if it circulates. Money is not a magical force, it's not an end of itself, it's a theoretical construct to facilitate trade. So it only does it job if it is facilitating trade, and for that to happen it has to flow it has to be spent. Deflation runs directly counter to that since it encourages people, particularly those with more monies that are rich, to hoard as much as possible. Spend only what you need right now, because it'll all be worth more later.

Interestingly "Stephen Ward - the Musical" has just opened in the West End.

Personally, I can't wait for a musical version of the Lady Chatterly's Lover trial - perhaps featuring the cast of Mama MIa? (Cast of Umoja might be more fun!)

Perhaps you might want to visit the US and Europe. Churchill may have said "divided by a common language" but there is more to it than that.

Then I have two questions for you:

1) Why the heck are you still here? If you truly believe that the US is an oppressive police state, yet they are still clearly letting people freely travel across their borders (I just got back from Canada a couple weeks ago) then why are you not getting out now? If you really believe that the US has fallen in the police state, but it hasn't figured this out in isn't restricting the populace from leaving, then the logical thing to do is get the hell out before they do. That you would stay yet believe this is rather odd.

2) Why are you posting things against the government online? Again, if you believe that this is a police state and that the government goes after those that speak against it, why would you tempted by speaking against it online? It's not like a post like this on Slashdot is going to do any good, it won't start a revolution, or even change anybody's mind for that matter, so the only possible result would be the you would get in trouble. As such it makes no sense that you would call attention to yourself, with no gain it all.

Or, maybe, like so many people online you just like to whine and bitch, and you lack any real worldwide or historical perspective. If that's the case, please do us all a favor and quit it. It gets rather old hearing people cry that the US is evil, a police state, fascist, a dictatorship, whatever, and yet do nothing about it.

If you truly believe that this is the case, then you need to do something. If you want to stay, then you either need to keep your head down, your nose clean, and try to make yourself as invisible to the state as possible so you don't get in trouble. Or, you need to rebel you need to fight against the power, you need to try to make things better. If neither of those appeal to you, then leaving is the logical conclusion, since they aren't stopping you.

If I believe that the US was as bad as many of the whiners online do, I would leave. I wouldn't want to live in continual fear, I wouldn't want to live in a society where I couldn't speak freely, so I get out. I don't believe that's the case, as is evidenced by the fact that I speak freely online, so I'm happy to stay.

So please clarify what you believe, and don't just whine online.

That makes it harder to deal with.

What some people seem to forget is that we dealt with the easy stuff in medicine already. We are getting to tougher and tougher problems to tackle, hence why it takes longer and more research to deal with.

Cancer is very tricky. As you note it is a type of issue, not a single disease (much like the flu is a type of viral infection, not a single virus) and it really is the body turning against itself, it isn't an outside pathogen that can be dealt with.

Not in the Star Chamber into which he would be thrust. You assume that the people on the other side of the "debate" are honorable. That's an assumption that is, on its surface, laughable. I don't believe that lying to Congress is honorable. I don't believe that lying to the American people is honorable. I don't believe that unequal application of the law is honorable. Show me where the majority of the Executive Branch of the US Government has demonstrated honor, and I'll agree with you. From where I sit as a citizen, though, "honor" is conspicious by its absence.

And who guarantees he will get a fair trial, with a jury of his peers, before he returns? Who can give assurance that Snowden's attorneys can discover and submit all the evidence? If The System wants to be "fair" about this, then let them demonstrate their fairness by having a trial of those who violated the Constitution as exposed by the revelations to date. Will that happen?

Why hasn't US Attorney General Holder done anything yet about the violations? Because he's part of the problem, perhaps? (I'm a citizen, who thinks that with the current Administration there are legal "haves" and "have nots" in the USA today. Witness Fast and Furious as an example of the uneven application of justice.)

Problems with using social media aside, headhunters are fucking lazy morons. I've never personally had to deal with them, thankfully, but one of my friends, being a consultant, does often and they are universally wastes of flesh. They are not concerned with trying to find the best candidate for the job, carefully vetting resumes and checking experience. Rather they are interested in finding someone as fast as possible and mating them with a job so they can get their fee. They rarely have the faintest idea of what they are talking about in terms of technical requirements and so on.

So ya, I'm sure this doesn't help. Particularly since what people put on their social networking sites varies a ton. Some people have lots of work related things, some have none. Doesn't really translate to job performance, just to what they like to share or not share.

Sounds like more what they are doing, particularly based on the discrimination report, is finding people they think "look good" meaning largely white and particularly good looking female, and sending them on.

The "S" in SEC stands for Securities. It is their job to regulate that kind of thing.

As you say, Kickstarter is different. Not only are you not getting any equity in the company, you aren't getting any financial stake in the project or anything. It is an investment for creative return, not financial, and thus not something that would be covered.

You need to pay income tax on Kickstarter funds, of course, but that's all. They aren't an investment as far as the SEC is concerned.

It is just entering the consumer arena. Hence it is expensive. However since it is entering the consumer arena, we see companies like Youtube starting to support it.

put it another way: WinXP is still roughly three times as popular as Win8, and even Unity is probably more popular than WIn8 but no meaningful is data available.

1) That's not a US rule, that's a merchant/payment processor rule, because they are worried about fraud. Not saying it makes the most sense, but that is why it is. In Europe you'll find that ordering from some Eastern European countries can be difficult/impossible for the same reason.

2) Duh. That is true of all countries. In any country the authorities can legally compel access to things in the country. That is kinda part of being a country. The issue is them doing it illegally, or at least in ways that ought to be illegal. However complaining that they can legally access data is silly, since all countries operate like that. If you think that France cannot or does not get warrants to look at servers in their country when they suspect wrong doing, you are naive.

3) This one is a real problem, though I wonder how it stands in other countries. I know Canada can do it as well, I haven't looked in to the laws in other countries. Many may actually allow it. The US really shouldn't, but I fear it may not be alone in this.

I bougth a copy of Tannenbaum's book (still have it), but could not afford the mag tape. Free it was not!

Bon't forget VMS (Ptrobably an off-shoot of Druidism) or RSX (modern form of Nerthe).

CPM anyone?

Here in Europe, most Christians believe, in your terms, that the picture of God as an elderly jewish gentleman sitting on a cloud (played by Orson Wells) is a useful way of anthorpomorphising nature to explain the universe to children, and a more adult belief system is, as described in John 1: (to quote a previous AC) God is Physics. Physics is God. Immutable, with no beginning or end.. In the phrase traditionally translated as "In the beginning, the word was with God, and the the Word was God" the word for "word" in the original Greek is Logos, which does indeed mean "word" but also is our modern word "logic" and means, in modern terms, "the laws of physics and maths". Additionally, the Bible teaches that the creative force that determines which of many possible transitions occur, and when (explained in science as not specifically predictable, but only statistically so) is love, and that the way to happiness is through pleasing others. These are a useful thing to know in your every day life, but not learned in Science lessons.

About 47% of Europeans think that US Republicans have yet to descend from the apes. A further 40% think they have yet to descend from pond slime.