I have merely a passive interest in economics, but my two cents:
There was an (anonymous) article a while back from someone who ran an [I believe a small] exchange, whereby he could manipulate the buy/sell prices to his advantage (driving up BTC price) - and I can see that happening very easily; I don't know what sort of algorithms Mt Gox (or any exchange) runs for it's immediate buy/sell spot price, but a simple variation of the weighted average over the past hour * 1.05 would easily provide a price that is always rising, unless a user manually gives a lower buy / sell price - and even then that would have to be beat the current price by 5% to make any impact on the spot price. Hell, you could just inflate the prices you show to users by a certain % to create that sort of meteoric rise, even if they do place lower/higher bids - those bids are somewhat based on what the value they see in that moment.
Is this a bubble? We just don't know. Currently there are people who are willing to part quite a lot of money for a scarce virtual currency, so by all accounts if there's a demand - the value will rise, especially if supply is limited (not just now, but there will only ever be a finite amount of BTC).
Even with the hiccups (0.8 vs 0.7 double spending, Mt Gox crashes) - and a price crash in it's history - surely anyone would think twice before putting down $200 per BTC, especially when it was worth only $15 three months ago.
What's convincing these folks to invest, I just don't know. Maybe they see something I don't, but at the moment I just see a very overvalued bubble just waiting to pop. A part of me fears that it's being overrun by folks who don't trust private financial institutions to hide their (illegitimate) wealth, as I don't think the average Cypriot has the wealth, nor there are enough Cypriots (or average / middle/working-class Europeans) altogether to create the demand which would push the price where it is now. Maybe someone can run the numbers; average salary, savings, investments, total # of folks who are tech savy enough to buy BTC, compare that with the uptake in Mt Gox (or other exchanges) signups, volume, traffic etc and put together a more substantial assessment.
BTC is something the world needs badly, and over the next decade I can see it becoming incredibly prominent. But the sort of rise we've seen in the past 3 months should've taken at least 3 years; and even then it's an incredible run for what's nothing more than a digital, limited commodity.
It is decent advice but to be taken with a grain of salt - I've worked with developers who just dive in to the project, no plan in their head and just figuring out as they go along. What you're left with is a mess of code, hacks and workarounds - it works, definitely does, but maintaining or extending it is a nightmare.
On the other hand you have projects with incredibly detailed architectures all mapped out, way too much time discussing / planning / envisioning what to build, when to build it and how best to go about it. Not a single one I can think of actually followed the plan (you will always get kinks in the road), and as such these things are always over due and over budget.
I guess it's more about finding a balance with what works - perhaps keep an end goal in sight; with a simplistic high level overview of the project/feature, thus giving you the freedom to move around any problems that may arise, but also not tying you down to a detailed plan / architecture that almost certainly will need changing. Iterate fast, stay flexible(?)
But one thing I definitely agree with - and that's to get started immediately; whether that's to plan or to code - just start. It will always take longer than you think, and that last 10% is equivalent to first 90%, if not more.
The only thing that irks me here is how the cost of fuel is deducted from the cost of the lease:-
If I'm paying $1200/mo for a lease, and any fuel / maintenance costs are on top of that amount. If I get an S-Class for $1200/mo, the fuel would be (for example) $200/mo on top, the total being $1400/mo. Increment accordingly for maintenance.
Tesla S is $1200/mo. I don't need fuel, hence I don't pay anything on top. It doesn't magically become $1200 - $200 = $1000/mo. You're still paying $1200/mo. Plus the cost of maintenance and electricity.
Is it just me or the title is a bit sensationalist? Surely they could done it a bit better: "Facebook registration doesn't allow dates before x" - which is somewhat understandable, and yes this does indeed force her to "lie" about her age, but to make it on the Times with such an accusatory article makes me question the motives/credibility of the author/reporter.
Used your site a few months ago and have been recommending it to everyone since! Can I make a request for "best Solutions" & possibly more exercises? Its been the best resource I've found for getting the basics down, thanks!
+1 on the custom molded in ear monitors - usually have my iPod volume on the 2nd or 3rd bar (15%?) and that drowns out pretty much everything - crying babies on flights, annoying co-workers etc.
If no music is need / just silence - industrial foam plugs (30-33db attenuation) + gun-range ear muffs on top; and that should only cost about $25 in total too.
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With foam plugs - many folks just stick them on top of the ear and think that's it - you have to squash them into a thin roll, quickly insert them into the ear so only about 1/3 of them sticks out. They expand in your ear in about 10-15secs, and are usually more than enough to dull out most annoying sounds.
Precisely - I still fail to understand this need to constantly add the overheads for supporting multiple mobile platforms / devices.
Pinch to zoom / double tap are amazing features made precisely for this - if the text, image or control is too small I just pinch or double tap; takes a fraction of a second and I still get the whole website experience as it was meant to be.
Actually - Hydrogen storage isn't that much of a step above the precautions already needed for LPG; which is now incredibly popular in developing countries. Shanghai, if I remember correctly, made it illegal in 2000 or 2001 to sell petrol scooters in the city - they all run on LPG.
Regarding energy density - definitely agree, my own research showed me a 2 fold increase in consumption compared to LPG, which in turn increases consumption by 15% over regular petrol (note that these were estimates based on my data).
The lab had a "Hydrogen maker" - obviously it ran off electricity and in about 6 hours provided roughly 500 milliliters of compressed hydrogen (kept at 350 bar if I remember correctly) literally from air.
My concept was to be able to have a clean water tank (pure H2O) and electrolysis providing the Hydrogen to run the engine, and continue on in a closed loop; literally a car running on water. Obviously energy transfer, efficiencies etc make this almost impossible - but one can dream.
I was given a 2001/2002 Honda CB500 twin (I believe it had over 80,000 miles on it - really worn piston and chamber; hence "old" to me). The carb was removed but the top had LPG injectors on the side and I was feeding it oxygen rich air (this was one of the controls set on 30% oxygen at 300 kelvins).
I agree with the statement that electric cars are not the future, but for a slightly different set of reasons.
My MSc thesis / project was studying future engines and fuels - long story short:
- IC engines have efficiencies of anywhere from 70% to 5%; depending on a huge range of factors and types (rotax at 3000rpm on diesel vs v12 carb at 8000rpm on 98-ron, outside temp and pressure etc).
- Over 100 years of research has gone in to them.
- Almost the same time has been spent on building up our infrastructure around the production of fuel for IC engines.
- They can run on anything from ethanol to vegetable oil to human waste (after a certain amount of refining of course).
- Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. Not to mention the lightest. It just so happens to be incredibly flammable/volatile too.
My solution? Replace petrol with Hydrogen for internal combustion - much alike the conversions we already do for LPG.
I spent roughly half a year on the theory behind it, and then another couple of months actually in the lab with an old FI 500cc motorcycle parallel twin engine (they're tough as hell). I converted it to LPG, replaced all the tubings, modified the injectors and started pumping in various blends of fuel (5% ethanol, 80% 91-Ron, 10% LPG, 5% Hydrogen etc). On some blends it ran smoother, on others there was horrible knocking, one some it just kept cutting out.
Unfortunately I was only allocated a year and never got a chance to finish - the amount of trial and error involved day in day out was gruelling. Not to mention at least once a week I'd have to rebuild the whole engine.
The future for me isn't electric cars, not at all. They'll hit the same constraints of raw materials that you mention, and it's wether they hit that constraint just as the technology is getting to a point where mass adaption is possible. Not to mention the charge time, the life cycle of a battery etc etc. It is hydrogen powered cars - wether that would be fuel cells or IC engines I don't know, but I'm leaning towards IC engines.
Off topic but how is it more beneficial to add your name to the change.org petition vs the e-petition service offered by the White House (https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions) / Her Majesty's Government (http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/)? From what I understand the "official" ones at least guarantee your petition to be discussed by those in power once a certain threshold is crossed.
A feature that may very well make me finally jump over to RoR. I've recently built quite a large site, and the only current bottle neck is when a few emails need to be sent off at the same time with attachments, and to be able to add that into a "que" and let the user continue browsing the site instead of stuck on a loading page (if only for a few seconds) would make the current set up ideal.
Incidentally - if any one has any way of doing this in PHP without having to setup cron jobs (and not using node or its derivatives), I'm really open to any ideas!
A slightly off-topic question this brings up in my mind - considering the current availability of multivitamin pills, protein + carbohydrate bars / shakes, various iron/mineral supplements, is it not possible to sustain yourself using just engineered products? Without having to buy the staple food we currently do (breads, meats, salads).
From reading the article, it seems we're still a fair bit off lab grown food - but certainly for future generations it may just be the norm.
I quite like the new design, and I've been using it since it was in "beta" a couple of months ago.
It certainly provided a couple of frustrating days before I got used to it, but I find it much more soft on the eyes - to me the old layout now looks pretty harsh; giving the impression of being just "functional".
A lot of non-technical folks I work (and live!) with find the new design much, much more pleasing. Bear in mind these are the folks that use hotmail, yahoo etc - so they really are after the "eye candy" more than the functionality; and with google's new social push I can assume this is now the target audience.
My only complaint would be about the icons; regardless of wether you've used Gmail before - you will get caught out; a few days ago it took me a good few minutes before I could find out how to get to my contacts.
What trouble are you having with HSBC? I've just spent about an hour on the phone with them to open an account in Australia and all I'm required to do now is go to a Local Branch near me with my ID / documents - the account will be ready in a week, two weeks max.
"Living the life you want to live or one society expects you to?"
Fortunately I was given a severe life lesson not too long ago - certainly made me more selfish but at least it taught me to do what I enjoy, and ignore the nay-sayers.
I really don't know - it's an idea I've been thinking about.
It may have the opposite affect - having a monetary barrier will force applicants to only apply to jobs they want / are qualified for vs the current state where they apply to everything remotely close to where they want to work.
The number of applicants will definitely be 1/10 or even 1/100 of what it was before - but you will get folks who want the job enough to pay for it, and are definitely qualified for it.
Free for recruiters and you'll get plenty advertising their vacancies, which should entice more applicants.
Then again, the system now works and has been this way for decades - not sure if a role reversal would work at all.