Main article: Monetary policy
Monetary policy is the process by which a government, central bank, or monetary authority manages the money supply to achieve specific goals. Usually the goal of monetary policy is to accommodate economic growth in an environment of stable prices. For example, it is clearly stated in the Federal Reserve Act that the Board of Governors and the Federal Open Market Committee should seek “to promote effectively the goals of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates.”[11]
A failed monetary policy can have significant detrimental effects on an economy and the society that depends on it. These include hyperinflation, stagflation, recession, high unemployment, shortages of imported goods, inability to export goods, and even total monetary collapse and the adoption of a much less efficient barter economy. This happened in Russia, for instance, after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Governments and central banks have taken both regulatory and free market approaches to monetary policy. Some of the tools used to control the money supply include:
currency purchases or sales
increasing or lowering government spending
increasing or lowering government borrowing
changing the rate at which the government loans or borrows money
manipulation of exchange rates
taxation or tax breaks on imports or exports of capital into a country
raising or lowering bank reserve requirements
regulation or prohibition of private currencies
For many years much of monetary policy was influenced by an economic theory known as monetarism. Monetarism is an economic theory which argues that management of the money supply should be the primary means of regulating economic activity. The stability of the demand for money prior to the 1980s was a key finding of Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz[12] supported by the work of David Laidler[13], and many others.
The nature of the demand for money changed during the 1980s owing to technical, institutional, and legal factors and the influence of monetarism has since decreased.
History of money
Main article: History of money
The first golden coins in history were coined by Lydian king Croesus, around 560 BC. The first Greek coins were made initially of copper, then of iron because copper and iron were powerful materials used to make weapons. Pheidon king of Argos, around 700 BC, changed the coins from iron to a rather useless and ornamental metal, silver, and, according to Aristotle, dedicated some of the remaining iron coins (which were actually iron sticks) to the temple of Hera[1]. King Pheidon coined the silver coins at Aegina, at the temple of the goddess of wisdom and war Athena the Aphaia (the vanisher), and engraved the coins with a Chelone, which is to this day as a symbol of capitalism. Chelone coins[2] were the first medium of exchange that was not backed by a real value good. They were widely accepted and used as the international medium of exchange until the days of Peloponnesian War, when the Athenian Drachma replace them. According other fables, inventors of money were Demodike (or Hermodike) of Kymi (the wife of Midas), Lykos (son of Pandion II and ancestor of the Lycians) and Erichthonius, the Lydians or the Naxians.
See also
Numismatics Portal
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Look up Money inWiktionary, the free dictionary.
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Money
Category:Money
Economics
Coin of account
Counterfeit, for Counterfeiting of Money
Credit money
Currency market
Electronic money
World currency
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Fractional reserve banking
Full reserve banking
Labor-time voucher
Local Exchange Trading Systems
Numismatics — Collection and study of money
Seignorage
Standard of deferred payment
Sunday, 24 February 2008
Money supply
Main article: Money supply
The money supply is the amount of money within a specific economy available for purchasing goods or services. The supply in the US is usually considered as four escalating categories M0, M1, M2 and M3. The categories grow in size with M3 representing all forms of money (including credit) and M0 being just base money (coins, bills, and central bank deposits). M0 is also money that can satisfy private banks' reserve requirements. In the US, the Federal Reserve is responsible for controlling the money supply, while in the Euro area the respective institution is the European Central Bank. Other central banks with significant impact on global finances are the Bank of Japan, People's Bank of China and the Bank of England.
When gold is used as money, the money supply can grow in either of two ways. First, the money supply can increase as the amount of gold increases by new gold mining at about 2% per year, but it can also increase more during periods of gold rushes and discoveries, such as when Columbus discovered the new world and brought gold back to Spain, or when gold was discovered in California in 1848. This kind of increase helps debtors, and causes inflation, as the value of gold goes down. Second, the money supply can increase when the value of gold goes up. This kind of increase in the value of gold helps savers and creditors and is called deflation, where items for sale are less expensive in terms of gold. Deflation was the more typical situation for over a century when gold and credit money backed by gold were used as money in the US from 1792 to 1913.
The money supply is the amount of money within a specific economy available for purchasing goods or services. The supply in the US is usually considered as four escalating categories M0, M1, M2 and M3. The categories grow in size with M3 representing all forms of money (including credit) and M0 being just base money (coins, bills, and central bank deposits). M0 is also money that can satisfy private banks' reserve requirements. In the US, the Federal Reserve is responsible for controlling the money supply, while in the Euro area the respective institution is the European Central Bank. Other central banks with significant impact on global finances are the Bank of Japan, People's Bank of China and the Bank of England.
When gold is used as money, the money supply can grow in either of two ways. First, the money supply can increase as the amount of gold increases by new gold mining at about 2% per year, but it can also increase more during periods of gold rushes and discoveries, such as when Columbus discovered the new world and brought gold back to Spain, or when gold was discovered in California in 1848. This kind of increase helps debtors, and causes inflation, as the value of gold goes down. Second, the money supply can increase when the value of gold goes up. This kind of increase in the value of gold helps savers and creditors and is called deflation, where items for sale are less expensive in terms of gold. Deflation was the more typical situation for over a century when gold and credit money backed by gold were used as money in the US from 1792 to 1913.
Money
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
For other uses, see Money (disambiguation).
"Dinero" redirects here. For the obsolete Spanish currency, see Spanish dinero.
Various denominations of currency, one form of money.
Money is any token or other object that functions as a medium of exchange that is socially and legally accepted in payment for goods and services and in settlement of debts. Money also serves as a standard of value for measuring the relative worth of different goods and services and as a store of value. Some authors explicitly require money to be a standard of deferred payment.[1]
Money includes both currency, particularly the many circulating currencies with legal tender status, and various forms of financial deposit accounts, such as demand deposits, savings accounts, and certificates of deposit. In modern economies, currency is the smallest component of the money supply.
Money is not the same as real value, the latter being the basic element in economics. Money is central to the study of economics and forms its most cogent link to finance. The absence of money causes a market economy to be inefficient because it requires a coincidence of wants between traders, and an agreement that these needs are of equal value, before a barter exchange can occur. The use of money is thought to encourage trade and the division of labour.
Jump to: navigation, search
For other uses, see Money (disambiguation).
"Dinero" redirects here. For the obsolete Spanish currency, see Spanish dinero.
Various denominations of currency, one form of money.
Money is any token or other object that functions as a medium of exchange that is socially and legally accepted in payment for goods and services and in settlement of debts. Money also serves as a standard of value for measuring the relative worth of different goods and services and as a store of value. Some authors explicitly require money to be a standard of deferred payment.[1]
Money includes both currency, particularly the many circulating currencies with legal tender status, and various forms of financial deposit accounts, such as demand deposits, savings accounts, and certificates of deposit. In modern economies, currency is the smallest component of the money supply.
Money is not the same as real value, the latter being the basic element in economics. Money is central to the study of economics and forms its most cogent link to finance. The absence of money causes a market economy to be inefficient because it requires a coincidence of wants between traders, and an agreement that these needs are of equal value, before a barter exchange can occur. The use of money is thought to encourage trade and the division of labour.
Crude futures jump above $100 on supply worries
Crude futures closed for the first time above 100 U.S. dollars a barrel Tuesday, driven by concerns that OPEC will cut output and geopolitical tensions in Venezuela and Nigeria.
The "Inca", a ship carrying 276.000 barrels of Venezuelan crude oil is seen as it arrives at Puerto Sandino, 44 miles (70 km) west of Managua Feb. 17, 2008. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)Light, sweet crude for March delivery rose 4.51 U.S. dollars at a record 100.01 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after earlier rising to 100.10 dollars, a new trading record. The previous high was struck on Jan. 3 as London Brent crude settled up 3.65 dollars at 98.56 dollars a barrel. An explosion Monday at a 67,000 barrel per day refinery in Texas also underpinned prices. Officials said they were expecting to partially restart the plant in about two months. Analysts said there was growing speculation that OPEC, which supplies about 40 percent of the world's oil, would cut output at its March 5 meeting in Vienna. Further price support came form a threat by a rebel group in Nigeria to escalate attacks on the nation's crude oil infrastructure. The rebels were acting in response to rumors that the government had killed a captured leader, whom authorities later said was safe and well. Militant attacks have cut about 20 percent of Nigeria's crude output in recent years. Crude prices began to rally last week when Venezuela cut exports to Exxon Mobil after the U.S. company won court rulings to freeze 12 billion dollars of OPEC nation's assets as part of an arbitration battle. Worries about the economic health of the United States and the falling dollar had caused a rush of speculative investment in oil and other commodities, which helped push up prices in the asset class. Other energy futures also jumped Tuesday. March gasoline jumped10.93 cents to settle at 2.6031 dollars a gallon, and March heating oil rose 11.45 cents to settle at 2.7614 dollars a gallon. VietNamNet/Xinhuanet
The "Inca", a ship carrying 276.000 barrels of Venezuelan crude oil is seen as it arrives at Puerto Sandino, 44 miles (70 km) west of Managua Feb. 17, 2008. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)Light, sweet crude for March delivery rose 4.51 U.S. dollars at a record 100.01 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after earlier rising to 100.10 dollars, a new trading record. The previous high was struck on Jan. 3 as London Brent crude settled up 3.65 dollars at 98.56 dollars a barrel. An explosion Monday at a 67,000 barrel per day refinery in Texas also underpinned prices. Officials said they were expecting to partially restart the plant in about two months. Analysts said there was growing speculation that OPEC, which supplies about 40 percent of the world's oil, would cut output at its March 5 meeting in Vienna. Further price support came form a threat by a rebel group in Nigeria to escalate attacks on the nation's crude oil infrastructure. The rebels were acting in response to rumors that the government had killed a captured leader, whom authorities later said was safe and well. Militant attacks have cut about 20 percent of Nigeria's crude output in recent years. Crude prices began to rally last week when Venezuela cut exports to Exxon Mobil after the U.S. company won court rulings to freeze 12 billion dollars of OPEC nation's assets as part of an arbitration battle. Worries about the economic health of the United States and the falling dollar had caused a rush of speculative investment in oil and other commodities, which helped push up prices in the asset class. Other energy futures also jumped Tuesday. March gasoline jumped10.93 cents to settle at 2.6031 dollars a gallon, and March heating oil rose 11.45 cents to settle at 2.7614 dollars a gallon. VietNamNet/Xinhuanet
Fest offers love duets cockfighting and more
The cold couldn't keep away the thousands of tourists who arrived for the annual Lim Festival, dedicated to quan ho (love duets) folk singing, which opened yesterday morning in the northern province of Bac Ninh.
Quan ho singers are one of the highlights of the Lim festival.The one-day festival, where takes place on the 13th day of the first lunar month, was held this year on Lim Hill in Tien Du District, 30km north of Hanoi, embracing quan ho singing, processions and folk games.
However, two days before the festival had officially opened, many tourists and pilgrims had flocked to the grounds to visit and pray for a prosperous and happy new year in the local pagodas and to purchase goods at the local markets, such as folk paintings, calligraphy works, bonsai trees and more.
Like other religious festivals, the Lim Festival goes through all the ritual stages, from the procession to the worship ceremony. Tourists had the enhance to experience the sacred and colourful environment when the festival began with a procession from Noi Due Village to Lim hill, and then with worshipping ceremonies at the Hong Van imperial tomb and Hong An Pagoda on the Lim hill.
Sweet songs
The Lim Festival has always been celebrated through many traditional games, such as swinging, human chess, wrestling, cock fighting and even a rice-cooking competition. But the quan ho folk song performances remain the most striking feature of the festival.
Quan ho singers from 26 villages sang songs about love and desire while atop the hills, indoors or floating along the village waterways.
Female singers wore colourful tu than (four-lapped dresses), while the men donned traditional costumes of their own.
Originating in Bac Ninh Province around the 13th century, quan ho is an antiphonal singing tradition in which men and women take turns singing in a call and response pattern.
The quan ho style of singing is currently being reviewed by UNESCO for consideration as a Humanitarian Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage.
The duet partners meet on the open hill. Groups of friends pass each other and the boys reach out to the girls, asking them to taste their betel leaves. If the girl accepts, it means she will sing with him.
In some cases, boys carry umbrellas while girls carry large palm hats with silk bands. They are all dressed in festival costumes specific to the region.
The festival ends only when darkness has engulfed the entire hill, and ritual songs are sung to wrap up the festival. Often the closing ceremony lasts for several songs, while people slowly begin to leave, one by one.
The Lim Festival is a special cultural activity in the North celebrating a unique folk singing style which has become a part of the national culture and well-loved within the Hong (Red) River Delta.
(Source: Viet Nam News)
Quan ho singers are one of the highlights of the Lim festival.The one-day festival, where takes place on the 13th day of the first lunar month, was held this year on Lim Hill in Tien Du District, 30km north of Hanoi, embracing quan ho singing, processions and folk games.
However, two days before the festival had officially opened, many tourists and pilgrims had flocked to the grounds to visit and pray for a prosperous and happy new year in the local pagodas and to purchase goods at the local markets, such as folk paintings, calligraphy works, bonsai trees and more.
Like other religious festivals, the Lim Festival goes through all the ritual stages, from the procession to the worship ceremony. Tourists had the enhance to experience the sacred and colourful environment when the festival began with a procession from Noi Due Village to Lim hill, and then with worshipping ceremonies at the Hong Van imperial tomb and Hong An Pagoda on the Lim hill.
Sweet songs
The Lim Festival has always been celebrated through many traditional games, such as swinging, human chess, wrestling, cock fighting and even a rice-cooking competition. But the quan ho folk song performances remain the most striking feature of the festival.
Quan ho singers from 26 villages sang songs about love and desire while atop the hills, indoors or floating along the village waterways.
Female singers wore colourful tu than (four-lapped dresses), while the men donned traditional costumes of their own.
Originating in Bac Ninh Province around the 13th century, quan ho is an antiphonal singing tradition in which men and women take turns singing in a call and response pattern.
The quan ho style of singing is currently being reviewed by UNESCO for consideration as a Humanitarian Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage.
The duet partners meet on the open hill. Groups of friends pass each other and the boys reach out to the girls, asking them to taste their betel leaves. If the girl accepts, it means she will sing with him.
In some cases, boys carry umbrellas while girls carry large palm hats with silk bands. They are all dressed in festival costumes specific to the region.
The festival ends only when darkness has engulfed the entire hill, and ritual songs are sung to wrap up the festival. Often the closing ceremony lasts for several songs, while people slowly begin to leave, one by one.
The Lim Festival is a special cultural activity in the North celebrating a unique folk singing style which has become a part of the national culture and well-loved within the Hong (Red) River Delta.
(Source: Viet Nam News)
What benefits can the Internet provides?
What benefits can the Internet provides?
According to Bocij et al. (1999 in Chaffey et al. 2003), the benefits of an Internet presence can be summarized using the ‘6C’:
1. Cost reduction. Achieve through reducing the need for sales and marketing enquires to be handled by telephone operators and the reduced need for printing and distributing marketing communications material, which is instead published on the website.
2. Capability. The Internet provides new opportunities for new products and services and for exploiting new markets.
3. Competitive advantage. If a company introduces new capabilities before its competitors, then it will achieve and advantage until its competitors have the same capability.
4. Communication improvement. This include improved communications with customers, staff, suppliers, and distributors.
5. Control. The Internet and intranets may provide better marketing research through tracking of customer behaviour and the way in which staff deliver services.
6. Customer service improvement. Provided by interactive queries of databases containing, for example, stock availability or customer service question.
Internet Marketing concepts:
Many companies, when starting to use the Internet for marketing, took the approach of simply re-publishing existing marketing materials in a new form. This approach, termed ‘brochureware’ or electronick brochures, was a practical first step, but is now discredited since it fails to acknowledge the differences in this medium (Chaffey, 2003):
§ The medium itself is different in that it is digital, interactive, and a greater depth of information can be published on a web site.
§ The demographics may be different
§ The culture of purchaser may be different;
§ The market may be different.
As a digital medium the Internet is quite different from traditional mass media in a number of aspects (Chaffey, 2003):
1. It is predominately a pull medium rather than a push medium
2. It is a digital medium that enables interaction
3. It offers potential for one-to-one or many-to-many communication
4. The medium changes the nature of standard marketing communications such as advertising
5. Changes to the distribution channel and marketplace enabled by the digital medial.
There are number of ways that the Internet support marketing communications?
1. The Internet most readily lends itself to impersonal communications such as advertising, PR and sales promotions since this sort of communication can be achieved simply by publishing existing documents such as brochures.
2. The Internet is of great value in advertising, as web sites provide the opportunities to give greater information on product features and benefits than do other media such as television and newspapers.
3. The Internet also offers great scope for PR and sale promotions. The Internet has significantly change the nature of PR, since a company web site itself can act a vehicle for PR.
4. Personal communications such as sales calls from the company to the purchaser are not really facilitated by the Internet, although it may be possible in the future if video conferencing becomes a routine business activity.
5. Of all personal communication techniques, direct marketing offers the most potential for use by the Internet.
6. Internet marketing can help enhance brand activities techniques which include: sponsorship, exhibitions, customer feedback, and co-branded content.
Recommended Book
Dave Chaffey, Internet Marketing
According to Bocij et al. (1999 in Chaffey et al. 2003), the benefits of an Internet presence can be summarized using the ‘6C’:
1. Cost reduction. Achieve through reducing the need for sales and marketing enquires to be handled by telephone operators and the reduced need for printing and distributing marketing communications material, which is instead published on the website.
2. Capability. The Internet provides new opportunities for new products and services and for exploiting new markets.
3. Competitive advantage. If a company introduces new capabilities before its competitors, then it will achieve and advantage until its competitors have the same capability.
4. Communication improvement. This include improved communications with customers, staff, suppliers, and distributors.
5. Control. The Internet and intranets may provide better marketing research through tracking of customer behaviour and the way in which staff deliver services.
6. Customer service improvement. Provided by interactive queries of databases containing, for example, stock availability or customer service question.
Internet Marketing concepts:
Many companies, when starting to use the Internet for marketing, took the approach of simply re-publishing existing marketing materials in a new form. This approach, termed ‘brochureware’ or electronick brochures, was a practical first step, but is now discredited since it fails to acknowledge the differences in this medium (Chaffey, 2003):
§ The medium itself is different in that it is digital, interactive, and a greater depth of information can be published on a web site.
§ The demographics may be different
§ The culture of purchaser may be different;
§ The market may be different.
As a digital medium the Internet is quite different from traditional mass media in a number of aspects (Chaffey, 2003):
1. It is predominately a pull medium rather than a push medium
2. It is a digital medium that enables interaction
3. It offers potential for one-to-one or many-to-many communication
4. The medium changes the nature of standard marketing communications such as advertising
5. Changes to the distribution channel and marketplace enabled by the digital medial.
There are number of ways that the Internet support marketing communications?
1. The Internet most readily lends itself to impersonal communications such as advertising, PR and sales promotions since this sort of communication can be achieved simply by publishing existing documents such as brochures.
2. The Internet is of great value in advertising, as web sites provide the opportunities to give greater information on product features and benefits than do other media such as television and newspapers.
3. The Internet also offers great scope for PR and sale promotions. The Internet has significantly change the nature of PR, since a company web site itself can act a vehicle for PR.
4. Personal communications such as sales calls from the company to the purchaser are not really facilitated by the Internet, although it may be possible in the future if video conferencing becomes a routine business activity.
5. Of all personal communication techniques, direct marketing offers the most potential for use by the Internet.
6. Internet marketing can help enhance brand activities techniques which include: sponsorship, exhibitions, customer feedback, and co-branded content.
Recommended Book
Dave Chaffey, Internet Marketing
Fifth HOPE, Day 2
By Angela Gunn, USATODAY.com
NEW YORK — Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak's keynote punctuated the lively second day of The Fifth HOPE (Hackers On Planet Earth), the gathering at New York's Pennsylvania Hotel. The general atmosphere continued to be both elevated and festive, though a minor security incident did point out that even at a gathering such as this, some people feel bound to act out.
Wozniak, merry prankster
Another day, another keynote venue jammed to the rafters as Steve Wozniak took the podium to describe his life as a hacker, teacher and general prankster, including some of the highlights of his friendships with Steve Jobs ("Everything I ever invented in my life, he'd say, 'Let's sell it!'") and the fabled phone phreak John Draper (aka Captain Crunch). The crowd had a warm reception for his analysis of what makes a hacker: a sense of humor, the ability to derive pleasure from jokes and the unexpected, and a tendency to strive for internal rather than external rewards ("we're not motivated by the money; I don't see a lot of it in this room, and I gave mine away"). He described encouraging his students to hack each others' computers and reserved harsh words for the reasoning behind some of the past and current crackdown on computer exploration: "We're terrorists? Yeah, we're a threat to those who want to innovate with money rather than with brains."
Hogwarts for the real world?
Brains, hacking and the social order also concerned the day's most thought-provoking talk, a one-hour study and discussion on the prospects for a National Security College that could harness hacker intelligence, creativity and patriotism as the Peace Corps once harnessed the abilities of an earlier generation. Marc Tobias, a lawyer and expert on technical fraud and author of the leading textbook on lockpicking, raised the idea for general debate, encouraging attendees to describe what they thought might and might not work. The event was titled "Homeland Security and You: Harry Potter Meets Reality," and the idea of a Hogwarts for the real world clearly energized the crowd. Tobias also co-led a two-hour demonstration on lockpicking, a favorite topic in the hacker community.
Darker and darker
The mood was considerably gloomier in the Digital Rights Management talk given by Slashdot's Michael Sims, who painted a miserable picture of current entertainment and tech industry efforts to compromise what ordinary folk can do with their computers and home-entertainment gear. He compared their efforts to those of hackers who also strive to gain subtle yet pervasive control of others' machines. Sims concluded by saying he sees little light at the end of the tunnel, whereupon New Yorkers for Fair Use's Jay Sulzburger jumped up to tell the audience that Sims was being too optimistic. The ensuring discussion spilled into the hallways and continued for some time thereafter.
General notes
Most first-time HOPE attendees are pleasantly surprised by the tone of debate around here; in an era of news-television bloviation, most participants are somehow still able to express extreme disagreement without flipping out entirely… general conference behavior has been relatively good, though person or persons unknown were chided at one point for spilling or pouring perfume around one of the hotel rooms, and restrooms on one floor were closed temporarily on account of graffiti… the informal ch1x0rs panel (semi-officially titled The Women of 2600) drew an SRO crowd, at one point nearly erupting into a flame war as panelists described what it's like to be a female in the hacker community; it's hoped that next HOPE sees this panel elevated to main- or second-seminar status… the Kisses $1 lady who turned up in the vendor area on Friday was joined by a woman offering Free Hugs and a man offering Free Sex; if there were takers for any, some reporters don't want to know… sales of caffeinated mints rumored high… security staffers report that general mood continues peaceful, cite de-emphasis on live music as possible cause.
NEW YORK — Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak's keynote punctuated the lively second day of The Fifth HOPE (Hackers On Planet Earth), the gathering at New York's Pennsylvania Hotel. The general atmosphere continued to be both elevated and festive, though a minor security incident did point out that even at a gathering such as this, some people feel bound to act out.
Wozniak, merry prankster
Another day, another keynote venue jammed to the rafters as Steve Wozniak took the podium to describe his life as a hacker, teacher and general prankster, including some of the highlights of his friendships with Steve Jobs ("Everything I ever invented in my life, he'd say, 'Let's sell it!'") and the fabled phone phreak John Draper (aka Captain Crunch). The crowd had a warm reception for his analysis of what makes a hacker: a sense of humor, the ability to derive pleasure from jokes and the unexpected, and a tendency to strive for internal rather than external rewards ("we're not motivated by the money; I don't see a lot of it in this room, and I gave mine away"). He described encouraging his students to hack each others' computers and reserved harsh words for the reasoning behind some of the past and current crackdown on computer exploration: "We're terrorists? Yeah, we're a threat to those who want to innovate with money rather than with brains."
Hogwarts for the real world?
Brains, hacking and the social order also concerned the day's most thought-provoking talk, a one-hour study and discussion on the prospects for a National Security College that could harness hacker intelligence, creativity and patriotism as the Peace Corps once harnessed the abilities of an earlier generation. Marc Tobias, a lawyer and expert on technical fraud and author of the leading textbook on lockpicking, raised the idea for general debate, encouraging attendees to describe what they thought might and might not work. The event was titled "Homeland Security and You: Harry Potter Meets Reality," and the idea of a Hogwarts for the real world clearly energized the crowd. Tobias also co-led a two-hour demonstration on lockpicking, a favorite topic in the hacker community.
Darker and darker
The mood was considerably gloomier in the Digital Rights Management talk given by Slashdot's Michael Sims, who painted a miserable picture of current entertainment and tech industry efforts to compromise what ordinary folk can do with their computers and home-entertainment gear. He compared their efforts to those of hackers who also strive to gain subtle yet pervasive control of others' machines. Sims concluded by saying he sees little light at the end of the tunnel, whereupon New Yorkers for Fair Use's Jay Sulzburger jumped up to tell the audience that Sims was being too optimistic. The ensuring discussion spilled into the hallways and continued for some time thereafter.
General notes
Most first-time HOPE attendees are pleasantly surprised by the tone of debate around here; in an era of news-television bloviation, most participants are somehow still able to express extreme disagreement without flipping out entirely… general conference behavior has been relatively good, though person or persons unknown were chided at one point for spilling or pouring perfume around one of the hotel rooms, and restrooms on one floor were closed temporarily on account of graffiti… the informal ch1x0rs panel (semi-officially titled The Women of 2600) drew an SRO crowd, at one point nearly erupting into a flame war as panelists described what it's like to be a female in the hacker community; it's hoped that next HOPE sees this panel elevated to main- or second-seminar status… the Kisses $1 lady who turned up in the vendor area on Friday was joined by a woman offering Free Hugs and a man offering Free Sex; if there were takers for any, some reporters don't want to know… sales of caffeinated mints rumored high… security staffers report that general mood continues peaceful, cite de-emphasis on live music as possible cause.
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