The face value of a coin may be driven down, based on the exchange value of the currency itself. A coin with a nominal value of 10 but, say, a specie value of 11, is literally worth more melted down than in exchange. This is the dynamic of the Law of Oresme, Copernicus, and Gresham (usually referenced simply as "Gresham's Law").
"The Law of Oresme, Copernicus and Gresham", Thomas Willing Balch
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 47, No. 188 (Jan. - Apr., 1908), pp. 18-29 <https://www.jstor.org/stable/983793>
More generally, when a product's exchange value differs from its production or use value, paradoxical results occur. Gresham's Law, Lakoff's "Market for Lemons", arguably the Jevons Paradox, the phenomena of wine and audio kit pricing divorced from any defensible consumer capacity at discrimination, and enshittification all seem to fit this with reasonable amounts of shoehorning. Also my own "tragedy of the minimum viable user".
> A coin with a nominal value of 10 but, say, a specie value of 11, is literally worth more melted down than in exchange.
And that means people will buy and sell it for the specie value. The specie value is the value.
Bullion coins like silver can be worth exactly what the metal is worth, or more. Never less than what the metal is worth.
Just because a gold philharmonic coin might be minted with a €100 nominal value, doesn't mean that it is worth that. If you think so, I'll gladly buy all your gold coins for their nominal value.
I believe that you two are not disagreeing in logic, just misunderstanding each others intended meanings.
When you said "a coin can never be worth less than the metal it contains", I think you meant "no matter what number is on the coin, its value is always equal to or greater than the value of the metal"; but dredmorbius misinterpreted your comment thinking you meant "the number on the coin must always be a higher value than the metal would be worth if it wasn't shaped like a coin".
AKA when carlosjobin wrote "be worth" you meant "value to sell", but dredmorbius thought you meant "value written on it".
I might be wrong, maybe it's me misunderstanding one or both of you - in which case please correct me - but I'm fairly sure you're both correctly thinking the same thing while incorrectly thinking the other person isn't.
"Value" one of those horribly conflated terms of economics. For starters there are the relatively well-known conflicts between production cost value, use value, and exchange (market) value. The discussion here adds another element: the distinction of notional currency value vs. commodity value of underlying specie or substrate.
The absolute nature of carlosjobim's claim makes it fairly trivially falsifiable, however. Since nominal value is a value, if the face value of a coin is lower than its specie value, its use as currency meets his absurdity condition, "Of course a coin can never be worth less than the metal it contains...", but that remains its legal tender face value. As money, that is, an exchange token socially recognised as having a universal value, the coin is exchanged below its commodity value.
As a commodity, that is, metal (or other material) specie, the same item may have a different and higher value, but in this case it's not one which is universally accepted within a given market, but rather is dependent on the specific local market supply and demand of that specie. The coin-as-commodity is also subject to differential valuation based on characteristics --- assayed purity, weight, etc. --- which must be assessed on an individual basis for each coin.
In practice, where specie coin was used it virtually always traded at a premium above the commodity value, known by the term seiniorage, which I interpret as the trust value imbued by the currency issuer. My (unorthodox) view is that seigniorage exists in all monies, and is efectively the total basis for value of fiat systems such as paper or credit-based financial systems. The value of such currencies is a market vote on the trust in the issuing entity (and/or the lack of viable or accessible alternatives).
But again, coin-as-money has a value equal to its notional face value. That the face value may differ from its commodity value can of course occur. My argument is that this makes the exchange one of commodity trade rather than financial trade, and that ascribing commodity value to coin or face value is a misdirection.
Some years back looking into what money is, I realised that the names for virtually all currencies can be traced to either weight (pound, peso, dinar, penny, shekel, kopek, livre, baht, etc.) or division (dime, quarter, cent); or quality (dollar, crown, royal, franc, renminbi), sometimes appears as a signifier of value, e.g., the florin, yuan, or yen. I'd classify toponymic names (e.g., afghani) as referencing quality. There are the odd exception, notably Bolivar, the Venezuelan currency named for Simón Bolívar, though that's arguably a quality signifier.
There's no intrinsic reason balloon-framed housing has to be poorly insulated, and properly-insulated (and wrapped) balloon-framed construction is actually far better insulated than the "well-insulated" thick-walled structures based on stone, packed earth, brick, etc., which traditional half-timbered or masonry structures offer.
There is of course a large stock of extant housing which pre-dates best-standards insulation practices, though much of this can be improved dramatically at relatively low cost, especially by improving siding ("wrapping") and insulating attics. Thicker walls (nominal 2x6 rather than 2x4, or greater) can also be retrofit, either extending the exterior or interior wall dimension, though at considerably greater cost, and with trade-offs to either exterior or interior dimensions (lot size, environment, or reduced interior volume).
Petrified wood is stone. The stone matrix has formed around a wood structure, but the properties which remain are those of stone, not wood.
Wood is a composite material, strong under both compression and tension. It's the fibres in wood (lignans) which provide the latter. Stone (and unreinforced concrete) lack such fibre elements, and are strong only under compression.
With stone it's necessary to build compression structures such as arches and domes for heavy load-bearing, and taller structures must be significantly flared out at the base (or utilise buttresses, as with gothic cathedrals) for stability. Structures under tension can be far more lightweight and compact.
Steel-box construction and reinforced concrete both offer tension-based strength, but are also susceptible to metallic oxidation (rust), which limits the life of such structures. A nonmetallic fibre (natural or synthetic) might offer an alternative to this, and I've seen some work investigating this, though there may be other issues (e.g., depolymerisation of plastics over long periods of time).
One of my favourite cafes ... thirty years ago now ... the barista would set up my drink when she saw me walk through the door, by the time I'd reached the counter she was handing it to me with a big smile.
Tipped her generously on her last day there, got a big hug for it.
Use of fire considerably pre-dates H. sapiens, with anthropological evidence dating to 1.7 -- 2 million years ago. Sapiens diverged from common ancestors about 600,000 years ago.
"We" (Homo sapiens) did not invent fire. Our predecessor species were already using it.
Firestarting is harder to pin down and may be within the scope of homo evolution.
"iPhone" was an Infogear, later Cisco, trademark, for the InfoGear iPhone (1997--2000 / InfoGear, Cisco/Linksys 2006--2007), which was licenced to Apple.
I was at Cisco when the Apple iPhone was announced. It was rumored to be happening, so Cisco rushed out a Linksys VoIP(?) phone rebranded (it might have just been a sticker) as an "iPhone" so they could defend the trademark. They quickly reached an agreement with Apple. I remember they might have been getting their VPN included on the device. I'm sure there was a similar issue with iOS, and that caused me to get a lot of not-so-relevant emails from recruiters looking for mobile devs.
"Google will discontinue third-party niche search engine access to full-web search" would be far clearer.
Given that the title supplied is effectively editorialised, and the original article's title is effectively content-free ("Updates to our Web Search Products & Programmable Search Engine Capabilities"), my rewording would be at least as fair.
HN's policy is to try to use text from the article itself where the article title is clickbait, sensational, vague, etc., however. I suspect Google's blog authors are aware of this, and they've carefully avoided any readily-extracted clear statements, though I'll take a stab...
Here's the most direct 'graph from TFA:
Custom Search JSON API: Vertex AI Search is a favorable alternative for up to 50 domains. Alternatively, if your use case necessitates full web search, contact us to express your interest in and get more information about our full web search solution. Your transition to an alternative solution needs to be completed by January 1, 2027.
We can get a clearer, 80-character head that's somewhat faithful to that with:
"Google Search API alternative Vertex AI Search limited to 50 domains" (70 chars).
That's still pretty loosely adherent, though it (mostly) uses words from the original article. I'm suggesting it to mods via email at hn@ycominator.com; others may wish to suggest their own formulations.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Save_the_Cat!:_The_Last_Book_o...>
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