Recently in Dug's random musings Category

Je trouve quand même étonnant que le dico internaute propose une définition du verbe "blackbouler" sans en expliquer l'étymologie anglaise.

Le mot vient de l'anglais "black ball". Cela viens d'une façon de voter dans les associations privée où l'on admettais ou rejetais un candidat en déposant sa bille dans un chapeau. On avait le choix d'une bille blanche ou—pour rejeter le candidat—une bille noire (black ball)

The problem would appear to be the small issue of the fraction in the fractional reserve system or in other words, the difference between the amount of real money the US government has to hand and the amount of monopoly money created by the banking system

From goldmoney.com

The key point of Russell's essay can be summed up in the following paragraph: "I say fantasy because the central banks are able to create money at will, with no discipline to stop them. This I believe - is immoral, even evil. The current system allows a central bank to create money out of nothing - whereas I and my fellow Americans have to work for that same money."

This process of creating "money out of nothing" is made possible by fractional reserve banking. As its name implies, banks keep a reserve, i.e., assets, for only part of their liabilities. For that portion for which they don't keep a reserve, they can create money (i.e., bank liabilities) out of nothing.

I've been trying to catch up on the fractional-reserve system and make my own mind up where I stand on it. Tricky really as aggressive growth does look good when it works...

While wikipedia often fails in the accuracy stakes, its talk pages are a great window into the sides of a particular issue. The wikipedia talk page on the FRS is just that.

I learnt a lovely new word today:

Copasetic

Frankly, it's easy for me to go to washington and be somewhat divorced from people's day to day challenges
--John McCain 9/11/08

Is this being taken out of context or are we witnessing the birth of a new teflon don?

This just in from Billy:

Finally, Kiloh discovered that Boris's full name is Boris de Pfeffel Johnson so we came up with an ad campaign based on the Dr. Pepper approach: 'Boris de Pfeffel, what's the worst that could happen?'

Doctor Pfeffel, I like it :-)

I love it that The Lecture List is still running (thank you thank you Chris) and that people are still posting this kind of event: Did we really land on the Moon?

In this talk, using real Apollo video footage and a series of simple demonstrations, we will take a closer look at the science behind "moon hoax" claims, and ask whether we really did land on the Moon.

Well, I don't know about you but I'd sure like to find out :-)

Complete Video of the SIPA-World Leaders Forum with the President of Iran from the Columbia World Leaders Forum

Apparently the campus got pretty heated but ultimately everyone did the right thing...

This just in via twitter+gtalk:

twitter: bbcvideo: Hundreds of people in Peru are reported to be feeling sick after an object from space crashed to Earth. http://tinyurl.com/2kp6er

...I have four fivers in my wallet. When was the last time anyone actually had one--let alone four--fivers in their wallet?!

You know, I was gonna comment on the Skype blog Heartbeat (no, not on the bit where if they had decided to use computers equipped with a proper operating system their crash and subsequent total meltdown wouldn't have happened in the first place) (and no, not on the bit where for the same reason they can't manage a reliable single-customer view grrrr) no, I was going to comment on the email I received earlier today:

As a goodwill gesture to all you faithful Skype Pro, Skype Unlimited, SkypeIn or Skype Voicemail customers, we're adding an additional seven days to your current subscription, free of charge. And even if you didn't miss out on using Skype last week - you can still have a week free on Skype, on the house!

So my first reaction is that

1. customers that aren't those listed above can just fuck off
2. a customer worth building a relationship with is one that commits to a financial transaction with your brand. Gosh, how 80/20 nineteen-eighty-seven of you...

But then I thought to myself, you just nicked the nine quid I had in my account three weeks ago. True, you did explain that you had to, and you did make it theoretically easy for me to protect my dosh while giving me ample and repeated fair warning.

But you know what, if you clean out the balance in your customer's accounts that's all they're gonna see.

Come on, this is sooooo not a modern approach to marketing. Your empty gesture has left me with exactly the same balance I had just before your meltdown--zero.

Niklas Zennström, you're a smart guy, my guess is you can do a lot better (and you can start by giving me my money back)