It was /prized/ because it was rare and did not change over time. Everything else decayed in one way or another. That's back to the promise that it would be useful in the future
The /value/ varied. In times of famine food became more valuable than prettiness.
That's true of all notions of "value".
Why is a Rembrandt worth what it is? What's the *intrinsic* value of the canvas and oil pigments attached to it? It wouldn't even make a decent covering if you were cold or it was raining outside.
Aside from its value as a soft hammer, what's the value of a bar of gold? Perhaps to cast into "sinkers" to assist with weighting down a fishing line?
Even "food during famine" has a dubious value -- when you eat the last bite (and there's no more) it's priceless and without price (cuz you can't get any for ANY amount of "money")
The fact that cryptocurrencies have *no* value is hardly much worse than a piece of canvas "stained" with some oil pigments! Or a shiny yellow metal with a weight roughly comparable to that of lead!
The amusing aspect of cryptocurrencies is they are a perfect manifestation of the *market* setting an items value; having ANY value (without intrinsic value) is a pure reflection of the arbitrariness of assessments of value by those willing to "spend money".
As indeed they are, even if John Doe doesn't quite understand how that works.
As close as John Doe can come to a meaningful contribution - you can't expect much from a top-posting troll, and John Doe has a habit of delivering very little.
The country with the most experience wrecking South American economies is the United States
All those $1200 stimulus checks must have done it. Millennial buying avocado toast on credit. Welfare queens stealing the taxpayer's lobster. Hordes of murderous Mexicans forcing the Fed to print money at gunpoint. Antifa hacked the computers.
Selling Americans on the usual suspects is easy job. How did Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk get a trillion dollars anyway. The fairy godmother must have done it.
Biden's kinder, gentler Trumpism spells hard times ahead:
There's a left-wing conspiracy, mostly in the US as far as I can tell, that the super-rich collaborate with "unknown artists" to slap paint streaks on canvas and have the resulting work valued at 10 million dollars to dodge taxes.
The art world is a racket, but it's not that racket. Not sure why seems so many here are so willing to believe artists have it sooooo great. They saw that some modern artist got a $5,000 govt grant one time to put doodoo on a canvas and it got hung in a gallery, and they lost their minds.
Good for them, making super-square Americans clutch their pearls in horror is any honest artist's job.
My male parts, and my wife's female parts, seem pretty different to me. Our approaches to problem solving are very different too.
Maybe Sloman has different anatomy, and doesn't have any problems to solve. He certainly doesn't design electronics.
I have a cool new electronic-optical-thermal problem. I'd discuss it here but I'm not seeing a lot of interest in electronics here lately. OT gets more response.
Conspiracy theory, rather...we all know there's a VAST LEFT-WING CONSPIRACY to steal our precious bodily fluids...
Skeptical to the point of missing an obvious joke? The FRNs the genuine printing house produces are made of cotton and linen...
Best regards, Piotr
No doubt the margin is too narrow to contain it. ;)
Cheers
Phil Hobbs
It's sad what the internet has done to honest reporting and professional journalism. All we get now is snark, snide insults, partisan rants, and bad writing.
Not just online. The printed NY Times is just as bad; the intellectual rot is nearly universal.
Yes. Nobel-class economists are befuddled by complexity but still enjoy spinning big knobs. They have created zero interest rates, which allows government to borrow without penalty, and drives savings into the stock market and silliness like bitcoins, the new beanie baby.
The Fed is riding the tiger's back.
No, there is lots of local talent.
Oddly, that's not entirely true; black inks based on iron oxides are used for US currency, and attraction to a magnet is easily verified.
Also, the standard number markings on checks are in a machine-readable font, usually with magnetic ink. Probably scans nowadays are optical, though.
Sounds like something Andy Warhol would do. He was probably the most worthless excuse for art around. He must have hypnotized people or something.
I watched _TENET_ recently. In it, they describe "freeports" -- warehouses (typically at airports) which store items JUST PRIOR to coming through customs. (sounds feasible but I have no idea nor desire to investigate!)
In the movie, these have been embelished to be considerably more luxurious (it's a warehouse!). And, the ultra rich are targeted to STORE their valuables (particularly art) in them. They can then *visit* their art at any time. Yet, the art has never come through customs (no taxes, legal headaches).
And, if they want their art moved to some other city (winter home?), it is transported (for a fee) from the current "freeport" to a freeport in the destination city. I.e., the art never enters the country -- any country.
Amusing concept.
Not sure if this is relevant but I know there were "free shops" of this kind, I remember one on the Bulgarian/Serbian border. I believe it was in "neither country" so no tax applied or whatever. Anyway, this is not what made me post. Tenet was very nice, I enjoyed it. Recently I watched "Cruella", now this was superb. Nothing nearly as good has been made for years.
Dimiter
Reasonable criterion, mine is similar. Only I don't get back to it if I stop it once because of fading interest. But I have always been extreme in what I like. A film is "watchable" if It manages to hold me watch it,then things go up until "brilliant" :-). (E.g. like the scene with the feeding machine in Chaplin's "Modern Times", it will be a century old before we know and is still unmatched; if you have not seen it recently look at it and notice not just how well it works but how meticulous the maestro has been for every detail in it).
If you expect to be entertained you won't regret it. And my guess is you do, once past our 20-s or at most 30-s most of us want just that, we've got a full belly of realism, "art" etc. by then. It is just very very well made and keeps you watching, smiling etc.
Dimiter
Many films take a while to "get going". So, I don't penalize them if they take "too long" to get up to speed. And, it doesn't "cost much" to hit PAUSE and walk away for some length of time, hitting RESUME at a later time.
Even "decent" films rarely hold my attention, uninterrupted (make something to eat, visit the bathroom, check on the progress of a download, etc.).
[And, if I've already seen the film, a second/third/fourth/etc viewing won't be as "spell-binding".]So, if it DOES hold my attention, it must be REALLY good!
I want to think about a film AFTER having seen it. Even if those thoughts are related to how the film was *made*. The idea in TENET was interesting -- "9 pieces" -- but the production aspects were far more interesting. Sort of like "bullet time" in _The Matrix_ series...
I also am particularly amused when a film "pokes at me"... challenging me to misinterpret something or testing my powers of observation. The most appealing is when a film makes me ask myself: "Wait! I think something just tried to slip by me, there!" and forces me to rewind a bit to reexamine a scene in greater detail.
A good example of this is early in _Buckaroo Banzai_... he has just driven a "jet car" THROUGH a solid mountain (by transitioning to the eighth dimension). After passing through it, the drag 'chute is deployed to slow the vehicle. The driver (BB) climbs out through the window as it is slowing to a stop.
Camera angle shows BB in the foreground with the jet car coasting to a stop behind him. Your attention is on BB completely filling the foreground. So, you have to listen carefully to hear the (super expensive, defense department funded, transdimensional) jet car "dieseling" in the background!
At another point (earlier in the same scene) in the "control bunker", after the jet car has started its run (but before passing through the mountain), there are many shots of the staff and equipment in the bunker. Camera angles change frequently so many of the shots are very brief.
There's a video display that shows a crude outline of the jet car that is often visible. The first time, you see an "envelope" surrounding the jet car somewhat larger than the car's outer skin. It is accompanied by the five characters "SINED". The next time you see the display, the envelope hugs the jet car more closely and the display now indicates "SEALED". A bit later, "DELIVERED" (as the oscillation overthruster engages)
You likely miss the "SINED". "SEALED" may catch your attention (subconsciously). But "DELIVERED" seems to awaken those previous "impressions" and makes you question whether or not you actually saw what you think you saw!
In a different vein, films like _Flushed Away_ are littered with lots of jokes intended at the viewer's expense. It is sorely tempting to single step through the film looking at all of the stuff in the backgrounds for such jokes.
The TV series _Futurama_ is littered with signs in some "foreign/alien" language. Taking the time to decode these (simple substitution cipher) often has chuckles hidden there.
Like the eye chart whose symbols say (something like) "stop squinting four eyes"
Or, the episode where Leela (voiced by Katey Sagal) parodies _Married with Children_'s character of Peg (also voiced by Katey Sagal).
Or, the entire Animaniacs cartoon series. The _Pinky and the Brain_ episodes are incredibly formulaic. And, corny. Ditto for the _Buttons and Mindy_ cartoons! The dialog of which is SO formulaic that they produced an episode in *french* and you didn't need the subtitles to know exactly what was being said!
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