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[2009-04-02 13:59:14] - pierce: Vinnie works on the cardboard standard. Unfortunately, as we discussed last Friday there's been a sudden drop in the commodity prices related to said cardboard which has the entire economy in a bit of a disarray. -- Xpovos
[2009-04-02 13:59:00] - xpovos: exactly as abstract, no more, no less. if (for the sake of argument) fiat currency is a viable concept, it'll be just as viable as electronic currency. I mean hell, I basically never use cash as it is, and I pay all my bills online. - pierce
[2009-04-02 13:57:41] - pierce: I had a full page of posts waiting for me when I got back from lunch, so it looks like the bar works even if the whole page is new - vinnie
[2009-04-02 13:57:18] - nevermind ddr, vinnie... surely you have the energy to tell us what you think about the gold standard! - pierce
[2009-04-02 13:57:00] - vinnie: Your head was feeling weird and you still wiped the floor with me in MtG? Sad for me.
-- Xpovos[2009-04-02 13:56:00] - Personally I think any standard is doomed to fail in an electronic society. If paper money is an abstraction, what is electronic money? -- Xpovos
[2009-04-02 13:55:42] - I'm skipping ddr again this week.
my head's been feeling weird since last Thursday, and I haven't had the energy for ddr or basketball. seeing the doctor next week - vinnie[2009-04-02 13:54:58] - pierce: I'll agree if the government collapses then all bets are off regardless of whether it's gold standard or fiat, which is why I make my stance on it more towards the benefits of restricting government mischief. - mig
[2009-04-02 13:54:48] - Pierce: I like your marker feature. I wish I was hitting F5 on the right page. If it's buggy, I haven't noticed it. -- Xpovos
[2009-04-02 13:54:11] - kind of politicking. Clearly it hasn't worked. The FED is just as political if not more so, and worse, it is so without any inherent checks or balances. The beauty of a standard (any standard) is that it forces a modicum of stability and is impossible to politicize... minus the crosses of gold -- Xpovos
[2009-04-02 13:54:10] - I at least have an excuse... I needed to drum up some controversy on the message board to test my new marker feature. - pierce
[2009-04-02 13:53:35] - how about we all make a pact. if any of us ever becomes a nobel laureate in economics, we are each forbidden from mentioning this conversation. I feel pretty sure we've all been mostly talking out of our butts. - pierce
[2009-04-02 13:52:31] - pierce: I'll change tack and agree that a major problem with fiat currencies is the use to shape policy rather than to provide a stable economy. The problem is that as long as politicians have control of the economy, it will inherently be used for political purposes. Human nature again. Setting up the FED as an independent bank was supposed to prevent that ... -- Xpovos
[2009-04-02 13:52:15] - so you know what side I fall on. - pierce
[2009-04-02 13:51:56] - but that's not a failure of the fiat system in general, but instead of our implementation of it. I fully believe that the gold standard would collapse under its own weight (pardon the pun) under the pressures of our economy. - pierce
[2009-04-02 13:50:50] - a: Actually, yes. Freaky. -- Xpovos
[2009-04-02 13:50:39] - I think, as I said before, that our biggest problem is that we manipulate the fiat system to shape our economy instead of to stabilize it. we use it to prop up bubbles when they're about to burst, but not to suppress bubbles so they don't get to that point. that's a major failure and one we should address. - pierce
[2009-04-02 13:43:42] - paul: and let's face it, if the U.S. government collapsed the average American would have much more significant problems than the backing of their currency. A gold certificate for Fort Knox wouldn't be much use if the guardians of Fort Knox are gone. - pierce
[2009-04-02 13:42:03] - paul: the power of the fiat currency is the power of the government that backs it. hyperinflation is the mark of a collapsing government, and the recovery happens because a new government takes its place. that may not be a comfort if you live in central africa, but first world governments are stable enough to effect their currencies even during bad times. - pierce
[2009-04-02 13:41:18] - *** Paul tags Xpovos in
[2009-04-02 13:41:10] - Xpovos: You can take over for me, since I actually have a meeting to go to. -Paul
[2009-04-02 13:38:46] - a: it *will* be...... - pierce
[2009-04-02 13:37:37] - was it a crime of passion? ~a
[2009-04-02 13:36:49] - Aw, I missed some of the fun. Had to go tell a criminal he couldn't work for us. Yay! -- Xpovos
[2009-04-02 13:36:31] - Pierce: But I don't see any way that a fiat currency could ever easily recover. Once everybody loses faith in the value of a fiat currency, the only place for it to fall back to is the price of the paper itself. It would seem like it would take decades of winning back the public trust to re-establish a fiat currency. -Paul
[2009-04-02 13:35:17] - Pierce: "tangible resources are not immune to bubbles, but are less able to recover after one pops" Wait, I think I entirely disagree with you on that. Tulips had a bubble, which popped, and then presumably prices went back to where they were before (recovered). I imagine the same would happen with a hypothetical gold bubble as well. -Paul
[2009-04-02 13:33:49] - Pierce: Fiat currency has "worked" during the past century, at the cost of rampant inflation, painful boom-bust cycles and (at least for the US) crippling national debt. Would a gold based currency do better or worse? There's no way to be certain, but you know what side I fall on.
-Paul[2009-04-02 13:32:29] - paul: my point about the tulips is that a thing doesn't have to have practical applications in order to be overvalued, and that the same insidious accumulated inflation can happen to tangible things over time and quickly collapse. tangible resources are not immune to bubbles, but are less able to recover after one pops. - pierce
[2009-04-02 13:31:22] - Pierce: So, if I understand you correctly, you're saying that gold was valuable back then because it was easy to use as a means of bartering? If so, then I agree. I just don't know why that would be any different in modern times. -Paul
[2009-04-02 13:29:09] - gold has seemed stable too, but I would suggest that that's mostly because it wasn't subject to the economic pressures of being the backing of our currency during these changes. - pierce
[2009-04-02 13:27:52] - fiat currencies have worked during the unprecedented industrial development of this past century, and while they've taken beatings at time they've been adapted to more realistic models. - pierce
[2009-04-02 13:26:31] - the raw number of commercial transactions cannot be compared between then and now. moreover, we're no longer self-sufficient so the reliability of commerce is far more crucial. - pierce
[2009-04-02 13:25:14] - Pierce: Also, although I was aware of the whole tulip mania thing before, I'm reading more about it now. It sounds like people these days no longer think of this as some cataclysmic economic or speculative bubble. In fact, the more I read about it, the more I think of this as something like Beanie Babies.
-Paul[2009-04-02 13:24:58] - paul: scale and variability. I'll give you this: gold is simple. It worked well for two distant empires to use as an exchange medium when commerce could take months or years. Commerce, of course, was limited almost entirely to tangible goods, and among pretty self-sufficient societies. Simple, and if things go wrong well you can still slaughter a pig for dinner. - pierce
[2009-04-02 13:20:11] - Pierce: Pray tell. What complicated facets of commerce make it so that gold, which had no practical uses thousands of years ago and was still valued, can no longer be counted on as being valuable now that it has a practical (electronics) use? -Paul
[2009-04-02 13:16:43] - you guys keep saying this "thousands of years" thing as if it lends gold more credibility. maybe it's just me, but I think commerce is a little more complicated today than for the overwhelming majority of those thousands of years, in ways that could easily undermine gold's legacy. - pierce
[2009-04-02 13:15:38] - Pierce: In fact, it seems like every argument made against the gold standard is something that fiat currency is notoriously bad at. -Paul
[2009-04-02 13:14:39] - Pierce: The gold standard wouldn't be perfect, just like capitalism isn't perfect. There can still be inflation and deflation and bubbles and whatnot. I just haven't yet heard an argument against it which isn't far far worse with a fiat currency. -Paul
[2009-04-02 13:13:22] - government says that it is. -Paul
[2009-04-02 13:13:13] - Pierce: Sure, I already agreed that it's certainly possible for everybody to someday wake up and decide that humans have been wrong for thousands of years and don't want gold. I'm just saying that seems far less likely than people waking up and realizing that they are holding pieces of paper in their hand which are only worth something because a thoroughly bankrupt...
[2009-04-02 13:13:06] - paul: since I've offered you other ways that the gold standard could be delegitimized, there's no need to be sorry... I'm not asking you that. - pierce
[2009-04-02 13:12:12] - however, if there's anything salvagable about society during or after the collapse, a fiat currency can be adapted to the salvage effort. gold could not, because we can't produce more of it on demand. I suppose we could throw it in the ocean if that's the way we need to go, but it doesn't make a scarce resource more stable if you make it more scarce. - pierce
[2009-04-02 13:11:03] - Pierce: I'm sorry, you want me to calculate how likely it is that we at least double world gold reserves in a single day? Including the discovery, mining and processing? I'm sorry, I don't know if there have been studies done about that. -Paul
[2009-04-02 13:10:49] - paul: since gold has almost no practical value except in electronics, there would not have to be a supermine. a speculative bubble of any sort could cause the chain realization that gold is worthless, which would have the same impact as a supermine (or hyperinflation in a fiat currency). - pierce
[2009-04-02 13:09:23] - Pierce: I'm not sure how good the analogy is (tulips were a commodity and weren't really used as currency), but we're talking about a bubble that lasted for maybe two years, tops. Gold has been valued by humans for thousands of years. I think it's a little past the bubble stage. -Paul
[2009-04-02 13:07:41] - paul: that's a lot of "far"s for you to not have a citation about its likelihood. this is not unlike many arguments we've had in the past... in practicality, your print icon scenario wouldn't happen unless the U.S. was already crashing and burning for much more fundamental reasons (reasons that would be just as impactful on a gold currency). - pierce
[2009-04-02 13:06:12] - Pierce: I don't know how much gold there is in the world, but I find it almost incomprehensible that we could even double the amount of gold in circulation in a year, let alone the kind of increases you're talking about from Wednesday to Thursday. -Paul
[2009-04-02 13:04:12] - mig: there's nothing about the fact that gold is something that safeguards the economy or prevents enormous systemic failures. tulips were something and they did a fine job wrecking up the dutch economy. - pierce
[2009-04-02 13:03:33] - Pierce: What I don't understand is that you are pointing out issues that would affect basically all types of currencies and which are far far far more likely with a fiat currency where all that needs to happen (and has been happening for decades) is for somebody to print more money. -Paul
[2009-04-02 13:02:24] - Pierce: Ok, sure, a HUGE change in the supply of gold (the super-mine) that flooded the markets INSTANTLY might cause the cost of potatoes to go out of whack. I still maintain that something like that is FAR less likely than the government simply pressing the print icon and typing in: 1,000,000,000,000 in the copies field. -Paul
[2009-04-02 12:59:51] - paul: assuming a complete collapse, obviously the solution would have to be more complicated. but you can't do any kind of complicated maneuvering with a resource like gold. if the system collapses on the gold standard, it's collapsed for good. you'd end up having to pick another standard anyway. - pierce
[2009-04-02 12:57:18] - paul: I was giving that example over a short term where you should be able to expect stable value... if five potatoes = five gold on wednesday then it should be basically true on thursday too. however, fluctuations in one resource (gold) would have a seismic impact on the rest of the economy for no economic reason. - pierce
[2009-04-02 12:55:06] - xpovos: that is true, but I think the main point of the gold standard is that the money is tied to something, and hence the money supply can be controlled, and more importantly, governments are restricted to live within their means and hence not capable of running trillion dollar deficits. - mig
[2009-04-02 12:54:56] - Pierce: I'm so confused. You're saying that the solution to a completely collapse in faith in our inflated fiat currency is to.... print more money? -Paul
[2009-04-02 12:53:17] - Pierce: The purchasing power of money fluctuates, I don't think even the most ardent anti-gold standard person would disagree with that. We're seeing this even now. Money, in general, can buy you more of almost everything now because so few people are spending money (ie, the supply is low). -Paul
[2009-04-02 12:53:11] - paul: you're begging the question. not everyone would have to realize that the fiat currency is inflated, just a few key people would and it would start the chain reaction. the same is true for gold, but once that chain reaction runs its course we can't exactly produce exponentionally more gold to match the new value. - pierce
[2009-04-02 12:49:27] - Pierce: So, wait, you are saying that a potato should cost one gold piece always and forever? First of all, that will be damn difficult to do (requires repealing supply and demand) and secondly that is a problem made infinitely worse with fiat currency (due to inflation). -Paul
[2009-04-02 12:48:33] - mig: that is of course the danger, and here's where I'll agree with you guys... we have not been vigilant enough about using currency as a stabilizing tool, rather than a shaping tool. the solution is not to abandon fiat currency as a concept, but to find a way to codify its role in the economy so it's not misused. - pierce
[2009-04-02 12:47:49] - Pierce: Again, I'm failing to understand how paper money is better here. What seems more likely? That everybody suddenly decides that gold is entirely worthless? Or that everybody realizes that paper money is entirely without value because it's been extremely inflated over the past 50-100 years? -Paul
[2009-04-02 12:47:01] - I've been a gold standard proponant pretty much my entire life. The past year has not convinced me otherwise, but it has really shook my confidence in the ideal as well. Manias, booms and busts, bubbles, they all occur regardless of currency. It's human nature, apparently. Being on the gold standard won't change that. -- Xpovos
[2009-04-02 12:46:39] - paul: the chances of government freaking out and increasing the supply of fiat currency tenfold overnight isn't likely either, unless (in my view) the system is collapsing anyway for much more fundamental reasons. - pierce
[2009-04-02 12:44:35] - paul: because currency is meant to represent wealth? because ten gold pieces should equal (five gold pieces + five potatoes worth one gold each) should equal ten potatoes, and that equivalency should be true tomorrow too. - pierce
[2009-04-02 12:42:31] - Pierce: Which is more likely? Some mythical "supermine" appears which somehow increases the supply of gold 10 fold instantly? Or that the government freaks out and start printing up trillions of dollars and throwing it into the economy? Hmmm...... -Paul
[2009-04-02 12:42:09] - pierce: the other side of fiat currency is that there is virtually no limitation or incentive to limit government spending. they can continually just print money till the system collapses, which they cannot do in a resource-based currency. - mig
[2009-04-02 12:40:35] - for an example of mass delusion related to a tangible resource, see also. - pierce
[2009-04-02 12:39:05] - Pierce: Why exactly do you have to base your currency on a resource that remains perfectly constant? I don't see any reason why there is any need to "balance slippage" and "tweak variables". Why is there some sort of need to fix the supply of money at a certain definite amount? -Paul
[2009-04-02 12:38:50] - the point I'm making, therefore, is that with a fiat currency we recognize that it's arbitrary. we can and must tweak it to reflect economic reality, and the only chance for catastropic failure is mass delusion. mass delusion is certainly possible (we're certainly getting a helping of it right now) but no more or less likely than with gold. - pierce
[2009-04-02 12:36:36] - Pierce: I would much rather have my currency tied to something valuable and relatively constant like gold than to have a fiat currency. Your currency is tied to the whims of the government, which I consider to be far more dangerous (and inflationary) than gold mining. -Paul
[2009-04-02 12:35:27] - and of course, with a resource-backed currency there's always that outside possibility of catastrophic fluctuation, such as the discovery of some sort of super-mine. unlikely as that seems, it would immediately destroy the meaning of all wealth in society and that's a pretty big risk to take. - pierce
[2009-04-02 12:33:35] - so unless you find a natural resource for which production almost perfectly balances slippage, you are forced to tweak the variables anyway, and the door is open to all the same abuses in the system as with fiat currency. that, or you allow the currency to desync from the wealth it's meant to represent, which is much more hazardous. - pierce
[2009-04-02 12:32:20] - paul: if your currency is tied to another resource, then you are subject to the fluctuations in that resource. if a new mine is discovered that increases world gold production by 4%, does that mean that goods are now worth 4% less than they were yesterday? of course not. - pierce
[2009-04-02 12:26:44] - Xpovos: I'm glad I'm not the only one who was confused what Pierce was arguing about.
-Paul[2009-04-02 12:25:57] - Pierce: There's a number of reasons gold is valuable (shiny, rare, useful properties, easily divisible, etc) and like Miguel said, it's been considered valuable for pretty much the entirety of human history. Could there come a day when it suddenly loses all value for some reason? Sure. But I still think that's better than a currency which is already at that point. -Paul
[2009-04-02 12:23:25] - Pierce: My point is that you're saying that it's ok that fiat currency has no value behind it because gold could suddenly become worthless. I'm arbitrarily choosing dog poo to represent worthlessness because it made for a fun sentence. I suppose you could argue that dog poo could turn into gold, but I find that as unlikely as paper money turning into gold. -Paul
[2009-04-02 12:21:27] - xpovos: they'll be too busy suing because by then we'll have switched to the mink fur standard to back our currency. - pierce
[2009-04-02 12:20:41] - xpovos: I don't have a problem with that. One trillion dollars, she is a lot of money. Hoooooooo-doggie. - pierce
[2009-04-02 12:18:21] - At least until 30 years from now when $1T won't have the same purchasing power thanks to inflation. I guess we'll be talking about peta-dollars then. Or will PETA sue? That could be ugly. -- Xpovos
[2009-04-02 12:16:55] - pierce: I have no idea what we're aruging about! I figured it came up because you were implying $1T isn't a lot. If you agree it is a lot, not just in relation to your or me, but also in relation to the U.S. as a whole, I'm content. -- Xpovos
[2009-04-02 12:11:03] - xpovos: see, this is where I have to make the point I was making to paul... which $1T are you referring to? sure, a trillion dollars is "a lot" in some vague sense but what conclusions does that lead us to? - pierce
[2009-04-02 12:04:05] - The GDP per capita (same source) for the U.S. is $47,025. $3300 is a lot compared with that, and as expected, also about 7%. -- Xpovos
[2009-04-02 12:02:45] - pierce: I accept the thought experiment as presented. So let's talk GDP. $1T is a lot. The GDP (2008 est.) of the U.S. is $14.3T. So $1T is roughly 7% of the entire U.S. GDP for a year. -- Xpovos
[2009-04-02 11:56:42] - ...I fully recognize, of course, that there are other moral hazards associated with that kind of taxation, and economic impacts that could make it bad for us overall anyway. - pierce
[2009-04-02 11:55:13] - well, may not seem as threatening (financially) to the people on this board. it might seem very threatening indeed to bill gates, but as far as moral hazard goes we could hike up the tax rate absurdly high and still leave him enough money to live an aggressively comfortable lifestyle. - pierce
[2009-04-02 11:53:12] - xpovos: well see, that's assuming a fixed allocation of that trillion. if you allocate it proportionally to wealth, or progressively to wealth, or any of those to income, you get a very different number which may not seem nearly as threatening. - pierce
[2009-04-02 11:48:01] - mig: as I understand it, the fact that "it's always been valuable before" has often been the argument for why it (instead of other resources) should be considered valuable now... an argument which smells fishily like a fiat currency in disguise. - pierce
[2009-04-02 11:47:16] - $1T is a lot of money, no matter who spends it. When the gov't spends $1T, it's still a lot. The only mitigating factor in any corporate or government expense is that it is inherently spread out over a larger group of people. So, yeah, $1T gov't is only $3300 to you. It's still a lot of money, just as $3300 is a lot of money to me. -- Xpovos
[2009-04-02 11:44:16] - mig: well since I doubt the ancient romans had many semiconductor applications, I feel pretty confident saying that it was a combination of perceived scarcity and "ooh shiny!", neither of which makes a particularly overwhelming case for it being a modern currency backing in my opinion. - pierce
[2009-04-02 11:40:07] - pierce: gold has been considered valuable throughout almost the history of mankind, i think it has a little more to do with just "percieved consistent scarcity" though that probably is a contributer to its value. - mig
[2009-04-02 11:24:15] - paul: how can gold "become anything" while dog poo can't? its practical applications are limited and not the basis for its "value" as a currency anyway. its only value is in a percieved consistent scarcity, and when you scale a mostly-consistent scarcity to the size of our current economy then the smallish inconsistencies can have a really huge impact. - pierce
[2009-04-02 11:17:01] - paul: well in fairness, your original post didn't say anything about waste. you were just saying "lookie a trillion dollars!" the topic of waste came after I'd already replied. - pierce
[2009-04-02 11:16:29] - Pierce: That seems to be very odd logic with regards to a gold-based currency vs a fiat currency. Here's a bucket of dog poo instead of a bucket of gold. At least with dog poo, you know it's crap, whereas gold can potentially become anything... it could even become crap! -Paul
[2009-04-02 11:14:40] - Pierce: If you never said that those people wasted money, then I am so confused as to what they have to do with a trillion dollars. -Paul
[2009-04-02 11:05:50] - paul: I would think that phantom wealth is a side effect of currency in general. pegging it to an arbitrary resource like gold has the potential to phantomize your entire economy if anything unexpected happens with that resource. at least with fiat currency it's recognized as arbitrary and so you can't even pretend it will stay stable without tweaking. - pierce
[2009-04-02 10:53:23] - paul: 1. I didn't say those people had wasted money. 2. I acknowledged the government as one of the sources of phantom wealth. Pre-empted! - pierce
[2009-04-02 10:51:01] - Pierce: "inventing phantom wealth where there's nothing of value backing it" It's interested that you phrase it that way because that's pretty much exactly what the Fed has been doing and it's one of the interesting side effects of a fiat currency. -Paul
[2009-04-02 10:50:48] - paul: it's a pretty short joke. it's not worth watching the whole daily show to catch unless you were going to watch it anyways. ~a
[2009-04-02 10:49:19] - a: I think I'm going to have to watch that tonight, I'm guessing it's blocked at work. -Paul
[2009-04-02 10:48:39] - Pierce: Ok, I guess I am wondering how those 400 wealthy people have wasted money, then. Last I checked, most of them were founders of companies that are quite valuable. Meanwhile, the government has wisely invested it's money in car companies that can't make money and in those very companies (AIG, etc) that you yourself claimed specialized in pure waste. -Paul
[2009-04-02 10:47:01] - stewart really dropped the ball on the interview last night, I think. got the guy's alma mater wrong, and then spent a lot of time just confused about terms that he really should've understood going in to the interview. I felt it was a missed opportunity to clarify those numbers for a lot of TDS viewers. - pierce
[2009-04-02 10:44:46] - a: whatever license you use will be fine. - pierce
[2009-04-02 10:43:39] - pierce: do you want your js file licensed under the gpl? ~a
[2009-04-02 10:41:49] - paul: i like jon stewart's way of visualizing $15 trillion dollars: skip to time index 2:30 (from last night). ~a
[2009-04-02 10:39:57] - vinnie: thanks! - pierce
[2009-04-02 10:39:52] - ...the money does still go into the local economy, so it's only a waste on the margins. - pierce
[2009-04-02 10:39:29] - there are, of course, different kinds of "waste". inventing phantom wealth where there's nothing of value backing it, whether done by the government or by AIG, is pretty much pure waste. on the other hand, money "wasted" on superfluous domestic programs is only wasteful in that it's not the optimal way to distribute that wealth... - pierce
[2009-04-02 10:36:08] - cool I like your new feature, pierce - vinnie
[2009-04-02 10:35:49] - paul: fine, I'll concede that. the 20,000,000 people who work for the government undoubtedly waste more money than a company with 116,000 employees. In related news, water main breaks waste more water than my leaky sink. - pierce
[2009-04-02 10:30:23] - Pierce: Yeah, this feel weird. I feel like I am arguing with somebody who hasn't said anything yet and needing to guess what he's going to say next.
-Paul[2009-04-02 10:30:06] - that, by the way, is a nice side effect of the new marker thingie... it makes it easy to see if someone's posted something while you were typing. - pierce
[2009-04-02 10:29:32] - Pierce: If anything, I feel like that visualization reinforces for me that no matter how much money I think an individual (Paris Hilton) or company (AIG) is completely wasting, it absolutely pales in comparison to the capability of the government to waste money. -Paul
[2009-04-02 10:29:25] - paul: heh... you asked the question before I could preemptively address it. damn. - pierce
[2009-04-02 10:28:41] - paul: (yes, I know you didn't put that visualization in any particular terms, such as the new budget numbers or anything like that... I'm just pointing out that "wow, a trillion is a lot of money!" has different meaning depending on the context) - pierce
[2009-04-02 10:26:59] - Pierce: I'm going to be honest here, I think I am totally missing your point. Is it that some people have more money than others? Because regardless of that, I still think those hundreds of double-stacked pallets of $100 bills is pretty freaking big. -Paul
[2009-04-02 10:22:09] - I mean, if we were thinking about a trillion dollars in terms of net worth then the first hundred entries here are pretty close to fully covering that last picture. in other words, like 0.00005% of our population = that last picture. doesn't seem so big now, does it? - pierce
[2009-04-02 10:03:28] - (err, 302 million and four million) - pierce
[2009-04-02 10:03:00] - I think that visualization needs to also scale the reference dude to 306 million people. or more aptly, 302 slightly short people and four guys the size of the statue of liberty. - pierce
[2009-04-02 09:56:34] - http://www.pagetutor.com/trillion/index.html An easy way to visualize a trillion dollars. -Paul
[2009-04-02 09:54:15] - a: your call... I didn't want to just do it that way in case I noobed it all up, but it does seem to be working okay. only caveat would be that it kinda looks awkward on the threads with multi-line inputs. oh, and I haven't tested what happens if your saved "most recent" entry falls off the front page, but I think it'll work gracefully. - pierce
[2009-04-02 09:43:33] - pierce: that's cool. can/should i merge it into the main template? ~a
[2009-04-02 09:14:34] - Xpovos: For the record, my guess was based off of your estimate of how much work was required. I didn't even think about whether your time estimate would be accurate. -Paul
[2009-04-02 08:22:15] - aaron: Your price tag is much more in line with my initial estimate, probably becuase I'd unknowingly applied Hofstadter's law without knowing what it was. The incremental idea is a good one. Particularly if we can break this down modularly, we could spread the work and cost over a longer period of time. -- Xpovos
[2009-04-02 07:10:34] - oh, and the two source files for it are php and javascript. - pierce
[2009-04-02 07:07:00] - (requires js, by the way, but it should work like normal if you have js disabled) - pierce
[2009-04-02 07:06:04] - hey folks, I threw together a new msgboard feature, adds a horizontal line to mark your previous place whenever you load the message board. probably has bugs, but if you're interested you can view it here. - pierce
[2009-04-02 04:42:54] - if you guys haven't caught it, I highly recommend Better Off Ted despite its terrible title. ABC on Wednesdays, but the first few episodes are available for free HD streaming if you can stomach installing the ABC video viewer. - pierce
[2009-04-01 21:42:04] - HA! Google CADIE april fools. And INTERCAL is hilarious. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercal ~dewey
[2009-04-01 19:50:01] - sorry, it's Hofstadter's law, i misspelled it - aaron
[2009-04-01 19:14:13] - i've been using hofstadter's law at work when creating schedules. it's done me pretty well so far. some technical people laughed at my schedules at the beginning, but i haven't been hearing the derisive laughs so much recently. ~a
[2009-04-01 19:11:30] - . . . just as long as the gal knows what the final product will entail. springing the pdf support at the end would wreak havoc if she was caught unawares. ~a
[2009-04-01 19:10:14] - splitting the work up into multiple very small parts is a great idea. aaron's on the right track. ~a
[2009-04-01 17:48:43] - since it sounds like you're going with some independent guy, it would be better to find out sooner rather than later if you're unhappy with their quality of work - aaron
[2009-04-01 17:47:02] - also this is probably just the agile developer in me talking, but you might consider the agile approach of having them start by building you a dirt simple web site (maybe no PDF support) for some fraction of the cost, and build on top of it from there - aaron
[2009-04-01 17:43:03] - so, probably about 2-3 weeks... i don't know what freelance web designers charge for that, but i would guess $2000-$3000. but, i'm probably way off here since everybody else thinks it will be way less - aaron
[2009-04-01 17:40:37] - xpovos: Hofstadtler's law applies here... A good rule of thumb is to take the amount of time you think it should take, increase the time unit by one, and double it - aaron
[2009-04-01 17:35:11] - i probably answered "paul's 400-800 might be an ok amount" really way too soon. 400 might be insanely low (and 800 might be too high) depending on the requirements. ~a
[2009-04-01 17:18:08] - yeah; how many and what type of fields. are there 10 fields or 100 fields? are they all free-text? do you want some sort of template system (so you can change out the look-and-feel)? i've spent hundreds of hours (closer to hundreds of days) on the message board, and it's basically just one field, so even number of fields can be deceiving. ~a
[2009-04-01 17:06:59] - also this is assuming you want a dirt-simple, functional-rather-than-pretty form, like basically just text fields
- vinnie[2009-04-01 17:05:18] - xpovos: paul's estimate is probably about right, though I'd lean to the higher side. but I'd also count on having to spend more later based on whether you need changes done, things didn't turn out like you wanted, etc. having the requirements as detailed as you can is key for you to save money and time
- vinnie[2009-04-01 16:45:51] - Vinnie: Awesome insight, thanks. Any idea on approximate pricing--assuming your hours of work estimate is accurate? -- Xpovos
[2009-04-01 16:42:01] - so in your case, where the developer probably wouldn't be familiar with your environment, it could take a fair bit longer - vinnie
[2009-04-01 16:39:29] - I've done simple forms like this for work where we had an environment I had already set up and understood, with a db rather than e-mail (which I think is less complicated), and it took closer to 2-3 days of my time. initial design was quick, but there's always back and forth about the look, requirements, and such - vinnie
[2009-04-01 16:34:46] - xpovos: I'd give less time for testing, more for coding, but I agree with ~a, seems too short a time. I'd say 8 hours min IF you have completely set up an environment for it to run on (your company needs to house this app?) and you have the requirements 100% fleshed out (which I have never found to be the case with any project). and that's without the pdf stuff - vinnie
[2009-04-01 14:17:33] - lol, good subtitle on the mboard today - aaron
[2009-04-01 14:02:17] - http://www.xkcd.com/563/ i used the population density for alexandria, virginia, and i decided on 50/year because a large portion of the population is abstinent for one reason or another: google's calculator came up with 250 meters. ~a
[2009-04-01 13:59:40] - xpovos: i would say considerably more time. if you're exporting to a PDF in code, then you might need to find an lgpl (or similar) pdf api. that could take 8 hours all by itself. though paul's 400-800 might be an ok amount depending on the customer (i've charged less per hour for poor-ass masters students). ~a
[2009-04-01 13:46:06] - Paul: Excellent. Thanks, that's less than I projected, which is good, because I'm sure a contractor will put in some fluff. It's the way things work. -- Xpovos
[2009-04-01 13:19:44] - Xpovos: I have no idea how much such a thing would cost, but if I had to pull a guess out of my ass, I would say $400 - 800? -Paul
[2009-04-01 13:16:58] - I can ping smtp.gmail.com from here, but I believe Thunderbird is set up to connect using port 587 (or some such), which is why I am wondering if that port is blocked. -Paul
[2009-04-01 13:00:45] - Any ideas on the price tag? I figure 2 hours for code and 5 hours for testing. A competent programmer familiar with the layout, it's almost certainly less than a day's work. -- Xpovos
[2009-04-01 13:00:09] - Hey, all. My 'company' may be in a position to contract out some programming work in a month or two. Specs look pretty simple, but I have no idea what the going rate would be. Secure web form with sufficient back-end logic to prohibit multiple bad common entry mistakes, upon submit format data and e-mail, perhaps data transform into pdf and store. No inherent DB work.
[2009-04-01 12:57:14] - you can also try to ping the smtp server on the command line to see if you're work has the address blocked. - mig
[2009-04-01 12:56:17] - either way in this case you could easily check to see if it's being block on your work's end by trying to send something via another smtp server. - mig
[2009-04-01 12:54:29] - if lending tree does have some sort of marketing spam i could definitely see that being the case. - mig
[2009-04-01 12:53:55] - by gmail. - mig
[2009-04-01 12:53:42] - it's possible the domain you are trying to access it from may be blacklisted. - mig
[2009-04-01 12:18:40] - mig: I am trying to figure out why thunderbird isn't able to send email using my gmail account when I am able to do it at home on my netbook (and I think the setting are the same). -Paul
[2009-04-01 12:17:57] - or i guess are you trying to do something like ssh to an outside machine or something like that. - mig
[2009-04-01 12:15:40] - paul: what do you mean port? like are you trying to run an ftp or http server? - mig
[2009-04-01 12:10:26] - haha that's a brilliant A1 joke - vinnie
[2009-04-01 12:00:09] - Is there a way to see if my work has a certain port blocked? Can't I use ping to test this? -Paul
[2009-04-01 11:47:43] - Aaron: I'm guessing it's an April Fool's Day joke? -Paul
[2009-04-01 11:46:37] - http://www.bugmenot.com/ bugmenot now requires registration
- aaron[2009-03-31 15:45:47] - Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November. And March. -- Xpovos
[2009-03-31 13:48:40] - wait, so it was march 31st, 2008? so, the customer got the date wrong? crazy. ~a
[2009-03-31 12:58:10] - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5077153/Man-foils-bank-robbery-after-assuming-it-was-an-April-Fool.html man foils bank robbery after assuming it was an april fool - aaron
[2009-03-31 09:42:16] - http://www.google.com/ventures/index.html Time to start up that company you always dreamed about. -Paul
[2009-03-31 02:56:23] - Did you guys look at the wikipedia about the Video Game Concert? Apparently there are interactive games in which a few audience members can walk away winners
~Dee[2009-03-30 22:20:25] - http://zarat.us/tra/offline-games/eversion.html eversion - a cool puzzle platformer game for windows - aaron
[2009-03-30 14:05:39] - vinnie: Thanks! S'ok. I had more fun just bustin' packs because. No special reason required. -- Xpovos
[2009-03-30 13:38:32] - xpvovos: your birthday was on Friday?? d'oh, should've wished you when I saw you! oh well, happy birthday belatedly - vinnie
[2009-03-30 13:36:33] - a: Nifty, but I don't know if I'd call that an algorithm. It's like an algorithm of algorithms. Works better for lists than for hedge funds, I guess. - Xpovos
[2009-03-30 12:46:56] - wtf! there is a new sorting algorithm?! introsort was developed in 1997? (by comparison, quicksort was 1962 and heapsort was probably in the 1950s). it's incredibly fast and has a better worst-case than quicksort. the stl uses introsort. java and c use quicksort. ~a
[2009-03-28 21:24:01] - a: I think it's tickets.com -- Xpovos
[2009-03-28 15:13:31] - do i get the directly from wolftrap, or what? ~a
[2009-03-28 12:02:10] - This weekend all lawn seats for NSO performances at wolf trap are $10 (plus charges)
[2009-03-27 19:59:14] - oh no, not my constitutionally-protected right to own a black car! how dare they?! - pierce
[2009-03-27 09:28:17] - http://www.autoblog.com/2009/03/25/california-to-reduce-carbon-emissions-by-banning-black-cars/ california looking to regulate the color of cars. - mig
[2009-03-26 16:16:04] - aaron: nah, sorry. ~a
[2009-03-26 16:03:16] - a: are you coming? it sounds like vinnie's backing out so i won't go unless you are - aaron
[2009-03-26 14:41:24] - a: I was just quoting the article there, not sure what numbers he was using. I still don't think .01% and .1% is a big difference, though. Either way it's chump change. -Paul
[2009-03-26 14:27:21] - or, more to the point: piu != ddr. ~a
[2009-03-26 14:26:46] - vinnie: ddr != piu.
~a[2009-03-26 14:13:47] - paul: .1%, not .01%. big difference. ~a
[2009-03-26 13:47:20] - paul: I think we're basically in agreement. it sounds like you think since Congress was outraged at AIG, we should be outraged at Congress. I think nobody should be wasting their time to be outraged at anyone, in this situation
- vinnie[2009-03-26 13:44:57] - vinnie: yes! - aaron
[2009-03-26 13:42:21] - aaron: i am under the impression that it is both totally fake and christopher lloyd.
- aba[2009-03-26 13:35:33] - Vinnie: Agreed on it virtually being nothing, but that's also what the AIG bonuses ("a provision for AIG to pay contractually obligated bonuses of less than .01 percent of their bailout money") turned out to be and there was no shortage of outrage on behalf of congress and their "nothing" raise. -Paul
[2009-03-26 13:28:50] - hey, ddr today? - vinnie
[2009-03-26 13:26:37] - I think the outrage over the AIG bonuses took away time and attention on larger issues, but a 2.7% raise is really nothing. like ~a said, not even keeping up with inflation. bad timing, I'll grant you - vinnie
[2009-03-26 12:54:06] - a/Paul: Naturally I agree with you guys. I just think it's more populist chest-thumping. Meaningless in the grander scheme of things. The only reason I pay any attention at all is that it's just one more thing Ron Paul is against. "Dr. No." after all. -- Xpovos
[2009-03-26 11:37:14] - Xpovos: To me, it's not even necessarily the principle of getting a raise during a recession, it's that Congress has the gall to whip up such outrage over the Big Three using private jets and AIG paying out bonuses when they are no better. -Paul
[2009-03-26 11:29:23] - xpovos: it's the principle. everybody is on hard times, and the sens&cpeeps need to feel hard times too. on the other hand, +2.7% is still a pay cut after inflation. ~a
[2009-03-26 10:55:25] - Paul: A measly 2.7% raise? Pshaw. It's like $2.5M for all the Reps and Sens. If $170M of AIG bonus money is paltry... -- Xpovos
[2009-03-26 10:41:09] - mig: http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/stories/2009/01/05/daily8.html Looks like it. -Paul
[2009-03-26 10:40:16] - mig: Semantics.
-Paul[2009-03-26 10:39:00] - paul: has congress actually had a pay raise vote recently? - mig
[2009-03-26 10:25:04] - paul: i wouldn't say it's rich as much as it's fucking retarded. - mig
[2009-03-26 10:14:49] - http://www.thedestinlog.com/opinion/business_8493___article.html/good_works.html "It is rich that Congress, which ran up an $11 trillion deficit, bankrupted the country and then raised its own pay, tells others how to run their financial affairs." -Paul
[2009-03-26 09:28:09] - a: Most of my impression of her comes from the vice presidential debate, which I think she did absolutely horribly in. It could've been how she was coached, but it seemed like she answered every question with a random sound-byte of how McCain was a maverick and we need to go back to good old American values. -Paul
[2009-03-26 09:26:25] - a: My theory is that she isn't very intellectual, but she may (note that I said may) have a lot of what people might term "common sense". In RPG terms, it would be like having a low wisdom and high intelligence (or maybe it's the opposite, I can never remember). -Paul
[2009-03-26 06:31:04] - either way it's a funny premise - aaron
[2009-03-26 06:30:47] - aba: i don't get it - it looks totally fake, but it also looks totally like christopher lloyd - aaron
[2009-03-25 17:28:51] - http://www.gobstoppermovie.com/trailer.html - aba
[2009-03-25 17:05:05] - a: I think she manages to do both!
she tends to pander, while at the same time, not making sense in what she says - vinnie[2009-03-25 17:01:48] - a: haha I was going to answer the subtitle with clippy - vinnie
[2009-03-25 16:41:58] - does she come off as an idiot? or does she talk down to the public? it can't be both, right? i have found, when talking to some conservative coworkers, that some people think she's actually very smart. i.e. down-to-earth smart. ~a
[2009-03-25 15:24:48] - I don't think I could stand even 4 years of 'you betcha's. -- Xpovos
[2009-03-25 14:42:55] - also I tend to think that when Palin speaks she comes off as an idiot, and talking down to the public... I dont know if that is something other people think but even if I agreed with her views I think that would be enough to make me dislike her. ~gurkie
[2009-03-25 10:58:09] - subtitle: clippy. ~a
[2009-03-25 10:57:26] - paul: i only use one application for email and i don't even use it all that often. i'm mostly a loner
~a[2009-03-25 10:42:38] - a: Of course, that could just be due to how the McCain campaign was utilizing her. Either way, even if I gave her the benefit of the doubt, I'm fairly certain there will be better options for me in the primaries and general election in 2012. -Paul
[2009-03-25 10:41:06] - a: I think Vinnie and Miguel hit it on the head. Palin may have said some things that would sound good to me, but from other things I have heard her say and do, I consider them mostly empty words. -Paul
[2009-03-25 10:39:45] - Xpovos: Like for people who use a web interface and thunderbird and a smartphone. -Paul
[2009-03-25 10:13:24] - Paul: Address books? -- Xpovos
[2009-03-25 09:48:17] - Does anybody here use vCards? Or, perhaps more to the root of my question, how do you all keep their address books sync'd? Or do you find it's not necessary? -Paul
[2009-03-24 19:37:54] - aaron: yeah, they hardly condoned bestiality. unless making jokes about something == condoning that thing. ~a
[2009-03-24 17:48:36] - a: they keep using the word "condone", i wonder what they think it means. i do not think it means what they think it means - aaron
[2009-03-24 16:33:58] - from the summary: "Even more offensive is Fox's view of Christianity. At a 'straight' meeting, the speaker talks to gays about Jesus and tells them, 'He [Jesus] hates many people, but none more than homosexuals.' You really cannot get the full effect of the show's portrayal of Christianity without watching the video ... You will hear the tone and sarcasm very clearly." ~a
[2009-03-24 16:30:14] - they're right, this was a very funny episode. ~a
[2009-03-24 15:54:54] -
-oldTitle[2009-03-24 15:48:20] - oldtitle: mine was better - newtitle
[2009-03-24 15:35:36] - Whomever set the title of "ceci n'est pas une title", you stole from me, "ceci n'est pas une message board" -oldTitle
[2009-03-24 14:11:56] - vinnie: not only did he run on cutting down the government, he also ran on a "no nation building" platform as well. - mig
[2009-03-24 13:48:16] - a: Dubya ran on cutting down government too, I think, in 2000. I can see why Libertarians wouldn't be fond of either of them now - vinnie
[2009-03-24 12:52:30] - i'm mainly talking about the stuff she said during the campaign. she was saying that the government needs to get out of our way, don't you know. lower government spending and fewer regulations. ~a
[2009-03-24 12:00:37] - a: Now, she is in the news for being against the stimulus, which is nice, but frankly all Republicans seem to be against the stimulus now and so it feels a lot more like pandering to polls than any real sense of principle. -Paul
[2009-03-24 11:59:38] - a: During the campaign, though, it seemed like she was a different person and I don't recall her saying much I agreed with. -Paul
[2009-03-24 11:57:35] - a: I think it depends on what things you hear her say. I know when McCain first announced her as his veep, I heard some decently favorable things about her (cutting down on pork, fighting corruption and special interests). -Paul
[2009-03-24 11:31:47] - a: Seriously? I'm going to have to call you out on that one. The closest I can think of is some of her rhetoric against government spending is somewhat close to what I (and speaking for Paul) and Paul are against. But in those cases, her track record doesn't track. -- Xpovos
[2009-03-24 11:18:16] - i'm actually kind of surprised you don't like sarah. she says lots of the kind of things i hear you guys say all the time. ~a
[2009-03-24 10:52:51] - a: Not necessarily (although that does have a certain appeal). It's more about what they are saying about him. -Paul
[2009-03-24 10:45:35] - guys: because dumb people hate him, you like him? seems illogical to me. that's almost a straw man. ~a
[2009-03-24 10:20:21] - Xpovos: Yeah, so far the comments have only made me more interested in him as a guy I could throw my support behind. -Paul
[2009-03-23 20:13:20] - Paul: The vitriol from the Palin supporters in the comments makes me think more highly of him than the article does. But he's certainly worth anther look later on. -- Xpovos
[2009-03-23 20:04:41] - a: Or random what-nots. Sure, it's not -getting- spam that bewilders me, but that Altera, a seemingly legitimate corporation with no real retail business even would be involved in spamming me. That makes no sense to me. Yet. -- Xpovos
[2009-03-23 17:31:18] - http://washingtonindependent.com/35222/conservatives-size-up-sanford-for-2012 I don't know much about Mark Sanford, but it looks like he could be an heir apparent to Ron Paul. -Paul
[2009-03-23 16:22:42] - or when spyware grabs your email address off of the computer of friends and family. ~a
[2009-03-23 16:21:08] - xpovos: the problem is when your friends and family give out your address to third parties. ex. evite, plaxo. ~a
[2009-03-23 13:40:39] - Paul: No, I'm getting spammed at my gmail address, and I only use my yahoo for online purchases. Generally the gmail is only given out to friends/family. -- Xpovos
[2009-03-23 13:13:45] - Xpovos: Could it have anything to do with stuff that you bought for your DVR? -Paul
[2009-03-23 13:05:48] - Does anyone know why Altera would be spamming me? I can't see the content of the spam because it's all images and I'm not going to invite even more pain by downloading them. But the rest is incredibly legitimate for spam. Has address, product names, everything to make me believe it's legitimate. -- Xpovos
[2009-03-23 13:03:41] - vinnie: Sorry for the loss, and more sorry never to have met him. Sounds like a great pet. -- Xpovos
[2009-03-23 11:54:23] - aaron: yeah I know. when I went back to my parent's house the next day, that was the first thing I noticed walking in, no toenail sound - vinnie
[2009-03-23 11:06:32] - that's terrible. he was such a good dog
it's hard to imagine your kitchen without hearing his toenails scratching around on the floors - aaron[2009-03-23 10:26:38] - Vinnie: Sorry to hear.
-Paul[2009-03-23 10:15:01] - vinnie: im sorry ~gurkie
[2009-03-23 09:56:31] - I'm sure a lot of you met Bandit, my family's dog. we had to put him down this past weekend.
he was almost 15 years old and he had a lot of health problems (including a severe one that happened last week), so it was for the best - vinnie[2009-03-22 16:28:12] - vinnie: http://www.wordsteal.com wordox is back online! yay - aaron
[2009-03-20 15:50:50] -
you'd think that "this conversation will be recorded for quality assurance purposes" recording at the beginning of the call would scare off the tomato smokers. ~a[2009-03-20 15:48:38] - solanum for those of us who had no idea what nightshade meant. ~a
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