Linux Flourishes In 200-Year-Old Gold Markets 195
tbarkerload writes "H-Online [a spin off of a major German daily] reports on a gold trader managing over 15 tonnes of gold, worth $660m, with a platform built on open source tech. BullionVault operates a 24-7 electronic market in gold bullion open to both retail and professional traders. Their systems handle thousands of daily transactions from both human traders and bots operating through their API. If Linux has reached the world of hundred year old assaying firms, and Swiss vaults buried in mountains, can final world domination be too far away?"
how much? (Score:3, Insightful)
Pitiful.
Hey, guess what OS the stock exchanges of NY, London, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Tokyo, etc are built on?
If you REALLY want to talk about world domination, I'd start there instead of some two-bit (ok, 5.3 billion-bit) gold exchange.
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Not to mention server!=desktop. I think there's a natural ceiling on the server market. Somewhat larger than we have today, something less than IPV6 addresses available.
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I think there's a natural ceiling on the server market.
Five, or thereabouts?
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I won't. Gnome is even more limiting in practice than Windows.
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Huh? I run Gnome. It does what it needs to do and keeps out of the way the rest of the time. What more could you ask for?
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heh, I submit, I submit!
I agree with pp. I did over-generalise; thank you to all those other suggestions of how I should use(utilise?) my OS -- I may keep them in mind as I use my KDE & WM desktops in future.
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Hms, cloud computing... Not really sure about that... Seems like another bubble waiting to burst.
Avarage users don't know about it. Power users don't want to deal with the speed of it. The current internet infrastructure makes it too expensive for anyone but the people in Japan to use it.
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Didn't atleast one of those suffer major down time after switching from unix to windows?
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I said at least 1. from here [pingdom.com]
September 8, 2008: London Stock Exchange
The London Stock Exchange had to stop trading for more than seven hours due an issue with its new trading platform, co-developed with Microsoft.
They had specificially chosen windows for reliability [linux-magazine.com]
The incident could prove to be particularly embarrassing for Microsoft who at the end of 2006 launched a huge advertising campaign stating that the London Stock Exchange had chosen Windows over Linux because of reliability issues. An opinion obviously not shared by the New York Stock Exchange who has been using Linux and AIX for over a year without any outage at all.
note the NYSE is has been running for years with no major outages (even most 'major' outages last an hour not a day)
june 3, 2008: OMX Nordic Exchange and the Oslo Stock Exchange
The OMX Nordic Exchange and the Oslo Stock Exchange opened five and a half hours late due to a problem with the trading system. Just the day before, the start of trading had been delayed by 40 minutes due to the same problem. Stock exchanges in Stockholm, Copenhagen, Helsinki and Oslo were all affected (they use the same backend system).
oh OMX = NASDAQ OMX, but finding out what software they're running is a bit tricky unless microsoft are gloating about the switch (as they were in with LSE)
Re:how much? (Score:5, Insightful)
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The NY stock exchange has been Linux for a long time, without any problems... until Microsoft came about a year ago?
Two major crashes have happened, with only one (the firts one) being a Microsoft fault.
Microsoft made promotion with it, but due to the two crashes it became a major backlash.
Now, TFA is about what is possible and proved with Linux. It's not an indicator for how much world domination it has...
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Yeah, and how did the current economic slide start? That's right, New York crashed. Sure London went down a bit later, but that was only because of the crap coming out of New York. So Red Hat crashed first
Suck it up Lunix Looserz!!11!!!!
This is such a F***in' LAME story I just had to start a flame war....
Anyone else hoarding gold? (Score:4, Interesting)
Quick question: Is anyone else buying up physical, in-your-possession gold? Given all that's been going on, it seems like it's virtually impossible for major currencies *not* to get severely devalued. The massive underfunded pension tidal waves, medicare programs, new spending, banks that will be unable to pay back loans...
I recently bought at Bullion Direct [bulliondirect.com], a few Canadian Maple gold coins. Well, Bullion Vault just got some free advertising, because it looks like they offer a better deal on an ounce of gold. But I think you're best off buying in coin form since you may have some defense in the even the government decides to seize gold; it will probably exempt some small amount for "collector's purposes", which wouldn't apply to bars.
Re:Anyone else hoarding gold? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why not hoard a commodity whose price is more stable? I'm amazed that in this day and age there are still people who think gold has inherent value and will suddenly be the default currency when everything goes Max Max Real Soon Now.
Let me guess, you bought a bunch of Ron Paul Liberty Dollars from NORFED too.
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What is the "price"? Most people think of price in nominal terms, EG: so many Dollars/Pounds/Marks/Sheiks/Yen/Whatever.
But when the amount of money available on the marketplace fluctuates, then the "price" of commodities fluctuates.
Gold, as valued in dollars, has fluctuated in price internationally roughly as much as other internationally traded commodities such as oil and iron, indicating that it's not the price of gold that's fluctuating so much as the value of the money used to buy it. On the surface, th
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Where are the indication that we're seeing stagflation? I see mainly indications of deflation.
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First, stagflation can result when an economy is slowed by an unfavorable supply shock, such as an increase in the price of oil in an oil importing country, which tends to raise prices at the same time that it slows the economy by making production less profitable.
Does that sound familiar? The price of crude oil doubled between 2004 and 2008.
Anecdotally, food and other daily necessities are f**king expensive now compared to 10 years ago, while wages have stayed relatively stagnant. The official inflation figures posted (for Australia) are ~4.5%, but in terms of actual buying power it's much much higher. I earn maybe 1.6x what I earned 8 years ago, but prices for most commodities are up by 2x or more. Despite my higher wage I have less buying powe
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Sure, there's been inflation over a 10-year time span, especially if you have your cutoff in 2008. But stagflation is inflation concurrent with economic stagnation. That, I don't see: since the current major recession began sometime in early to mid 2008, there has been small to negative inflation. The price of crude oil has plummeted by 70% since mid-2008, the price of many food staples is down significantly over the past year (corn down 50%), etc. Where do you see the inflation concurrent with economic sta
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No object in the world has inherent value, just the subjective values due to people's wants.
Food and drink has true value.
Without it, you would die.
You don't need to eat gold on a daily basis nor use it to fuel the trucks that bring the food to your table nor power the water plants to filter the water and pump it to your tap (or bottled water).
Beyond that it is more likely subjective.
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But, it's all shiny?! :S
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"Why not hoard a commodity whose price is more stable?"
Hummm... I propose sea water.
Re:Anyone else hoarding gold? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not hoard a commodity whose price is more stable?
Which commodity are you recommending here? What's more portable, has better liquidity, or has better value density? What doesn't corrode or rot? You can take a piece of gold to any pawn shop or jeweler and get money for it -- try doing that with wheat or oil.
I'm amazed that in this day and age there are still people who think gold has inherent value and will suddenly be the default currency when everything goes Max Max Real Soon Now.
I'm surprised you didn't know that gold has been the most valuable commodity to any society that could get their hands on it. Why has gold been a universal currency for the past 5,000 years? Gold was valuable to the Incas, who had no connection to the east or west, until they were conquered by the Spanish.
What commodity is more easily transportable and has a better value density? Why is the word for 'money' or 'coin' or 'value' in many languages literally 'gold'? What do people take with them when they have to flee a country? What do people put in their safe deposit box? Why were ancient treasures filled with gold? Why does Fort Knox hold a bunch of gold? Why did kingdoms and governments use gold to back their paper currency -- which really does have no inherent value -- with gold, until very recently? If it truly has no inherent value, how come it's never completely lost its value, unlike paper currency, or tulip bulbs?
The answer is, gold is probably the closet thing we'll have to a perfect currency. It's malleable, divisible, and meltable -- unlike precious stones -- which means you can pay in exact change, and take your small denominations of gold, melt it down, and create a single unit out of it. It can't be arbitrarily multiplied, as a currency can -- no hyper inflation, unless we perfect the art of alchemy. Human beings are genuinely tickled by it's color -- it's used in jewelry and decoration, literal representations of value. It's pretty, unlike, say, lead. It doesn't corrode, like copper or iron. It won't rot, and can't be eaten, like wheat or rice. It can't be 'used up', like paper, especially printed paper ( currency) or toilet paper. It's not toxic and it won't spill, like oil. It's got a good value density -- Would you rather trade a 1 ounce gold coin ( value ~$1,000 ) or 1 ton of rice ( value ~$1,000) for something? And, it actually does have industrial applications, in electronics.It has inherent value as a medium of exchange.
What commodity would you recommend?
Re:Anyone else hoarding gold? (Score:4, Funny)
Nuka-Cola Caps
Re:Anyone else hoarding gold? (Score:4, Insightful)
Silver was the `universal commodity' for most of the last 5000 years. Gold is a Johnny-come-lately from the last 400 years at best.
The actual `use value' of gold (as decoration, malleable flexible material, conductor) is about US$80 an ounce. The other $900 is fluff value we've assigned to it because a few currencies were based on it for a while.
And I say this as someone who did drill & blast for ten years in gold mines in Australia, and hence has a health appreciation of the dot-com mentality that periodically envelops the industry every time there's a run on the stuff. Driller's pay-per-metre isn't called `silly money' for noting.
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The actual `use value' of gold (as decoration, malleable flexible material, conductor) is about US$80 an ounce. The other $900 is fluff value we've assigned to it because a few currencies were based on it for a while.
How did you get this $80 figure?
I don't understand how one could separate use value and market value, since if you're using something, then you obviously believe it's worth at least what you'd get by selling it at the market price.
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It's a hypothetical of course, but it's not incoherent to consider the matter. Gold doesn't trade mainly as a commodity, but as a currency, so it's interesting to ponder what its commodity value is, if it weren't used as a currency. For example, what would happen to the price of all central banks sold their reserves of bullion? It wouldn't go to zero, because gold does have value as a metal--- it's in demand for jewelry and various industrial uses. But it would be considerably lower than $900/ounce.
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I think it is incoherent to consider the matter. Gold can't be worth $80 "for its use value" or nobody would pay $900 to use it!
As for what would happen if central banks dumped their gold, you're ignoring two effects:
1) Doing so would simulatenously kill the dollar/pound/etc, because the reserve banks would then only have government bonds as assets, placing the currencies on much flimsier foundantions, and devaluing the currency.
2) Because gold has so many alternate uses just waiting to be exploited (but a
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Gold can't be worth $80 "for its use value" or nobody would pay $900 to use it!
Sure they would; that's how currencies get value! People are willing to pay for something that they believe to be currency even if they don't think it has any inherent value. Paper dollar bills have close to zero use value, yet people are willing to trade commodities for them, purely because of their currency value.
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*sigh* I was using "use value" in the sense that you were originally using the term -- to refer to its "use value" in electronics. Let me rephrase what I want so we can avoid your clever equivocation:
"Gold can't provide less than $80/ounce of value in its capacity as a conductor, or nobody would pay $900/ounce to use it as a conductor."
Now, think up something clever again!
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That ignores supply/demand. Sure, there are a non-zero number of people who currently pay $900/ounce to use it as a conductor. But not nearly enough to account for the (rather large) supply of gold, so if its price stopped being bid up by people using it as a currency (and central banks artificially increasing its scarcity by hoarding it as currency), the price would collapse, because there is not enough demand for gold as a metal to support current prices.
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"Gold can't provide less than $80/ounce of value in its capacity as a conductor, or nobody would pay $900/ounce to use it as a conductor."
Because the price is so high, very few who need gold to use it need it enough to buy at the current prices, but of course some do. The real use value is the price it would have if everybody bought it to use it. If there were no competition from all those who buy it just because everybody else seems to want it, the price would be much lower.
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True that gold is over-inflated. Has been since the US left it in the 70's, when it was a very reasonable $35.
Silver is about on the money at $12. If I could buy silver without paying tax, I would. Added to that the fact that I can afford silver. I can't really afford to invest in gold; I simply don't have several thousand, but what I do have I'd like to keep in secure medium so when the GBP£ dies on it's arse, my wealth isn't with it.
Either which way, precious metals are the way. Gold is ea
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US gold coins were minted in coins as low as $2.50, 1/8 oz. That's about
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Ah, wasn't actually implying it should be at $35 today! Would be nice if it were, but it shouldn't be. Please also bear in mind it was legal to trade in the UK, where I am. I agree that $500-600 is a reasonable price right now.
Sadly it's inadvisable to be buying gold at the 1/8oz level, since the premium you'll pay for any coins/bullion in them amounts overrule any possible gains, and for safekeeping you're better off saving the cash till you can buy ounces, as indeed I am doing. I'd prefer silver thoug
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Ahem, do you know what the Roman aureus (from 1st century BC to roughly 4th century AD) was made from? Answer: 99% gold. So gold as a universal currency -- and the Roman Empire was about as universal as Europe ever got -- is a lot older than 400 years.
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Why has gold been a universal currency for the past 5,000 years?
Because it's pretty. That's about it.
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Because it's pretty. That's about it.
You're overlooking several things. First, gold is a metal. Metal currencies are better than other 'precious' things, because they can be melted down, recast, and almost endlessly. Gemstones are pretty, but the have problems as currency. For one, they can shatter, or break, and can't be repaired, which destroys value. If I want to trade 1/2 of my ruby with you, there's not an easy to do that. I can cut up a piece of gold almost endlessly and I don't ruin its value as gold.
It's a pretty metal that doesn't t
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I'm surprised you didn't know that gold has been the most valuable commodity to any society that could get their hands on it. Why has gold been a universal currency for the past 5,000 years? Gold was valuable to the Incas, who had no connection to the east or west, until they were conquered by the Spanish.
And the Spanish brought all the gold back to Europe was created massive inflation and ruined their economy...
And please stop the myth about gold being the universal currency for the past 5,000 years.
First
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Uranium might be quite valuable in near future. But be careful not to buy too many of it at once.
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Good answer.
The question should have included "easily countable," which is where they fall short. Diamonds are not as uniform in chemical composition as gold bars, malleable or otherwise easy to label or once their value is discerned, nor they stack neatly in piles for the purpose of heist-centered movies.
It's also far easier to steal a diamond than a gold brick- a terrible feature considering the security concerns involved when you're looking for something on which to base an economy.
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I'm amazed that in this day and age there are still people who think gold has inherent value and will suddenly be the default currency when everything goes Max Max Real Soon Now.
I am reminded of a scene in the Fist of the North Star anime in which the wasteland mauraders muder a family and steal their food leaving a suite case full of diamonds, gold, and money scatter like it was trash.
If the economy does cause such a world... Guns, ammo, gas, water, and food will be the commodities of the day.
I mean if you
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You're either stupid or joking - which one is it?
If gold had inherent value we'd be using it for something else than money, doh!
Gold is used for other things than money. Besides the obvious uses in jewelry, it is used for plating electrical connectors to prevent oxidation. It is also used for coloring certain glassware (red). I'm sure there are others I haven't even thought of.
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As someone experimenting with investing, and having bought some gold, I'm not libertarian.
This my friends, is an example of why bubbles happen in markets.
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Re:Anyone else hoarding gold? (Score:4, Funny)
Gold in hand is what you want not the "promise to deliver gold".
I have, in my hand, a Piece of Paper, signed by Mr. Bailey, whereupon he promises to pay me, upon presentation of his Note, the Sum of Twenty Pounds.
I am sorely tempted to present this Note at his Banca, in the hope of receiving Twenty Pounds Troy Weight of pure Gold.
It is my Suspicion, however, that Mr.Bailey will simply substitute the Promissory Note I currently hold for another bearing the same Promise.
K.
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If one wishes to invest in gold merely as another financial instrument, like stocks, bonds, etc. but with different behavior, then the whole "OMG physical storage of gold!" angle offered by these guys, along with egold and their ilk, is merely overhead, the more abstract representations are fine. If one wishes to invest in gold because they think they'll be able to trade it for dog food and buckshot af
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Yes, but they haven't given it as much thought as you just did.
There are people who believe that the government wants to make it illegal to own gold because it 'competes' with the fiat money system, which they (the Fed'ral Gubbermint) use to rob you blind with inflation (via the Federal Reserve).
Most of these people don't have enough money to even buy one or two ounces of gold at a time, but they fear collapse so much and are tantalized by the prospect that it would drive gold prices higher so they 'invest'
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Come the locusts, I'd rather have the dog food and the buckshot than physical gold under my bed. If I survive, I'll be eating dog food and fending off the people who are starving because they can't eat their gold. Once they die, I expect they'll drop gold and other phat lewt. But just like the games, if every dead body is dropping gold, the value of the gold will plummet.
Of course your point is still valid -- the gold under the bed is still far more valuable than trying to trade with eGold.
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> Come the locusts, I'd rather have the dog food and the buckshot than physical gold under my bed. ...and given the value density of gold: you can have the monetary value of that stockpile fit in your pocket.
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BullionVault's founder used to carry around a gold coin to demonstrate to people just how difficult it is to pay for something with gold. http://www.nowpublic.com/tech-biz/interview-paul-tustain-founder-bullionvault-com-pt-2 [nowpublic.com]
In recent cases of hyperinflation, the market has resorted to paper currency from neighboring countries: Deutschemarks in Yugoslavia, rand in Zimbabwe.
In the post-WWII chaos in Europe, you could buy a Volkswagen with cartons of cigarettes. Forbes has suggested that bottles of Scotch coul
Re:Anyone else hoarding gold? (Score:4, Insightful)
Nope, but I sold mine recently, so thanks for buying it at nearly twice what I paid for it.
I'm no financial genius, but buying low and selling high. As Buffet puts it, "be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful." It means essentially the same thing. That said, gold seems to be rather high right now, while stocks are quite low. The only way it makes sense to pick gold over stocks is if you believe we're headed for Mad Max. Although personally, if that's the case, I'd rather have guns than gold.
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"I'd rather have guns than gold."
Hummm... gold guns, what an idea!
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The other thing that is neat about gold is that you can beat it into a very fine foil, from which you can make a neat hat to quiet the voices that tell you that the IMF and central banks (of which the IMF is NOT one) give a rat's ass about the price of gold. The price of oil, yes. The dollar, euro, and other major currencies, yes. But the price of gold simply doesn't matter in the world of economic stability that the banks and governments of the world care about.
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They are manipulating it - there are plenty documents available where they come right out and state it for the public record. Don't take my word though, as these folks have compiled a huge body of evidence:
http://www.gata.org/ [gata.org]
The Dollar (Score:4, Insightful)
Trust me. The dollar will not fail.
If China allowed the dollar to tank, the American economy would make the current crisis look like paradise. Oil would be unaffordable. Our reserves would be locked up for military use. The power vacuum left by a rapidly destabilized American military would fuck shit up. You'd probably have dozens of wars spring up, especially in the middle east, as Europe and Asia battle over the energy reserves currently under our control. Israel would probably end up dropping a pre-emptive nuke to make everyone think twice about moving in their direction. Who knows which way Russia would swing.
So, the world isn't going to let America fail at the moment, since no one knows how better or worse off they'd be. That's why the dollar is up since the crisis. China may have all of our money, but we still have more military power than the rest of the world combined.
And gold? Gold isn't going to get you to the border, or to any place of safety. You should buy a dirtbike and a shitload of ammunition if you think the dollar is going to fail. Gold won't buy much more than cash if everyone is starving.
Plus, your fears about spending are basically groundless. During WWII we drove up our deficit to unbelievable highs - wars are expensive, that's why taxes should go up when a country goes to war. McCain said in 2003: "The tax cut is not appropriate until we find out the cost of the war and the cost of reconstruction." That was, of course, before he starting toeing the line for the real political power in the GOP.
We can afford national healthcare, stimulus packages, more education, and ponies if we reduce military spending, which is currently at a trillion dollars a year. Empire is what is bankrupting the country, not social spending.
China (Score:2)
I meant to expand on this, but China doesn't actually have all of our money, just the most out of any foreign country, along with Japan. I still think they hold enough to do some damage, though, if they switch entirely to Euros or something else.
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I meant to expand on this, but China doesn't actually have all of our money, just the most out of any foreign country, along with Japan. I still think they hold enough to do some damage, though, if they switch entirely to Euros or something else.
And who exactly would buy their dollars? China is worried about this, as they've recently come to the realization that they've been working on the cheap for America in exchange for nothing more than........paper.
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On the other hand, China only has $700 billion or so; at one point that seeme
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"If China allowed the dollar to tank, the American economy would make the current crisis look like paradise. Oil would be unaffordable. Our reserves would be locked up for military use. The power vacuum left by a rapidly destabilized American military would fuck shit up."
I see how this would be bad for USA (and western world, in general) but I fail to understand how can this be but good for China's government with its massive ammount of reserves and internal market. Oh! and while there is oil it won't be u
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From what I understand, a collapse of the dollar would immediately lead to the pricing of oil in Euros instead of dollars. Both Iraq and Iran and Venezuela have threatened to sell oil in Euros instead of dollars, but if I remember correctly, it is still OPEC policy to only sell oil in dollars. I've read that a war against the Euro is one of the reasons we were drawn so easily into Iraq, but I digress.
Once oil is sold in Euros, lets say 100 Euros per barrel, and the dollar craters in value, it would cost pos
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"it would cost possibly thousands of dollars to bring a barrel of oil into the United States."
Now I see. It is not that "oil would be unaffordable" but that "oil would be unaffordable... for the United States" (and then, given that USA is the greatest oil consumer, that would mean more oil for anybody else). Again, I see how this can be bad for USA but I don't see why this would be bad for China.
"China doesn't have the military capability to step in behind America."
Now I see too. USA economy being in bad
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Well, I do think the dollar is going to fail. Maybe I am to cynical and bitter about all the crap that has happened in the last 20 years, but that is the way I feel. I have zero faith in the U.S government.
You are entirely right about Gold. I have transportation, alternative fuel sources and energy, food, and medicine. Ohh, and a shitload of weapons and ammunition. Not to mention a place to go that is well o
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Too big to fail.... where have I heard that recently?
K.
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How equitable is the distribution? (Score:2)
More revenues for society to not mean the society is healthy, especially if wealth is being concentrated among fewer people. Plus, saying that revenues went up since we started cutting taxes in the 1980s is meaningless. If revenues didn't go up, you wouldn't be beating inflation.
Obviously, there is some point at which raising tax rates becomes damaging to an economy. Our rates seem to be just fine - we just need a simpler tax code that closes loopholes for corporations, since they pay some of the lowest eff
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Did you pay attention last month to what happened when the Chinese suggest we move away from the dollar as the reserve currency? China had just come to the realization that their supply of dollars might lose value very quickly, and it was worrying them. All the other bankers in the world were very quick to assure that the dollar was going to remain the reserve currency, and yet, quietly, they've been selling their own dollars
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My estimate is that by September we will be seeing some pretty hefty inflation.
Bet you a dollar we won't.
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Guns and ammunition also retain their value very well, so if things get way better you can always sell them, possibly at a small profit.
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My father-in-law works at a sporting goods store which sells guns and ammunition. They are wiped out of almost everything except cheap .22 cal and a few boxes of .40 cal. There is a national shortage ammunition and even parts like powder for reloading your own brass.
People are hoarding in the U.S. right now both out of fear that the current liberal federal administration will try to take their arms away and because of the potential of violent revolution in the face of complete economic disaster.
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The government would more likely refuse to pay their debts / print out 12 trillion dollars than steal gold.
From Liberty Dollar [wikipedia.org]:
The Liberty Dollar offices were raided by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the United States Secret Service on November 14, 2007. Bernard von NotHaus, the owner of Liberty Services, sent an email to customers and supporters saying that the FBI took all the gold, silver, and platinum, and almost two tons of Ron Paul Dollars.
-metric
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Cool stuff (Score:2)
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Yeah, Linux can take over... (Score:2)
If Linux has reached the world of hundred year old assaying firms, and Swiss vaults buried in mountains, can final world domination be too far away?"
Yeah, we just need a few nuclear exchanges. Linux and roaches, FTW!
Swiss vaults buried in mountains (Score:2)
Finally! 2009 shall be the Year of Linux on the Mountaintop!
Oh, FFS (Score:2)
Oh FFS, the year is 2009 not 1999. Linux being used for servers in big business and multinationals is not newsworthy. Linux is a mainstream server platform. This is a "dog bites man" story and isn't worth our attention.
thousands is nothing, really (Score:2)
ok, nice to get the press coverage but an iPhone could probably handle "thousands" of daily transactions. compared to exchanges processing millions per second, this is not so impressive. a lot of them are using linux (NYSE at least uses it for some stuff, although they use AIX or z/OS for lots of stuff, too). it should come as no surprise to anyone that almost all financial markets operate on some type of unix or linux platform. really, what else would you use?
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world's oldest profession [wikipedia.org]
worlds oldest ptofession ... painting? [wikipedia.org]
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The term profession is applied to those persons who have specialized and technical skill or knowledge which they apply, for a fee, to certain tasks that ordinary and unqualified people cannot ordinarily undertake.
While I'm not sure prostitutes need specialized and technical skill or knowledge for what they do (I could be wrong, if I am could some prostitute please correct me?). They do get paid, where I doubt Mister stone age Picasso got paid for what he did.
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I'm not sure prostitutes need specialised and technical skill or knowledge for what they do
There are always those without skill in any industry willing to get paid, but quality, D&D free sex workers put exceptional time and training both into their physical and social skills. Low barrier to market (no pun intended) always means more aggressive competition. Nobody makes or pays $500+ an hour without specialised skills. Nobody.
Prostitutes who don't play tabletop RPGs? (Score:2)
quality, D&D free sex workers put exceptional time and training both into their physical and social skills.
D&D? What does Dungeons and Dragons have to do with the sex trade?
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and in case you weren't just trying to be funny, D&D, D/D, or sometimes just DD free in 'personal ads' means free of Disease free (technically illness free is what people mean / intend to communicate, but people still say disease anyway) and don't to any Drugs.
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Sounds like (as with most other nominally 'victimless' crimes) prohibition has caused far more overall harm than simple regulation would have done.
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No. The cave artist didn't have any animals to pay cave prostitute, so he was trying to impress her by painting them.
I don't think so... (Score:2)
I could get around most of the constant need for IE by using Crossover Office or IES4Linux. However, more and more sites are requiring IE7 or plugins which don't work in Wine. Ru
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>I could get around most of the constant need for IE by using Crossover Office or IES4Linux. However, more and more sites are requiring IE7 or plugins which don't work in Wine.
That is a legitamate problem. But one that has nothing to do with Linux/FOSS and everything to do with companies designing proprietary websites.
>Running VirtualBox or VMWare works but drags the computer down way too much.
Nonsense. VirtualBox runs MS-Win faster than native MS-Win in every experience I have had with it. As long
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this is so weird. talking gold investing on slashdot? i like gold but this mainstream attention is driving me crazy - there is a bubble in every market and i can't figure out how much time in this gold bull run we have.
There is an unsaid (well its said often) rule in investing, that when Joe Sixpacks grandmother starts investing in something, a bubble is soon to follow.
In all reality, the price of gold is really determined by the next person willing to pay for it. It has no major utility (other than looking