California Legalizes Bitcoin 162
jfruh (300774) writes "California governor Jerry Brown has signed a law repealing Section 107 of California's Corporations Code, which prohibited companies or individuals from issuing money other than U.S. dollars. Before the law was repealed, not only bitcoin but everything from Amazon Coin to Starbucks Stars were techinically illegal; the law was generally not enforced."
Re:Bitcoin's day has come. (Score:5, Informative)
Of course. Governments love bitcoin because it is actually traceable. And as an added bonus, the public perception of the bitcoin is that is totally UNtraceable.
Re:California also legalized using polished turds (Score:5, Informative)
Our AC is full of bull. Gold is more conductive than aluminum. However, the figures for the four top metals are grouped so closely that there isn't much to choose (other than heavy-duty power transmission, where the ratio of resistivity to density rules and cost matters greatly, so basically it's either copper or aluminum, and aluminum has a significant edge).
Resistivity in ohm-meters at 20 C:
Silver, 1.59*10^-8
Copper, 1.68*10^-8
Gold, 2.44*10^-8
Aluminum, 2.82*10^-8
Gold (or platinum) plated contacts are most desirable for circuits which carry very low to extremely low current, because it is free from corrosion, so surface resistance stays low. For circuits carrying significant current, contacts operate under much higher mechanical pressure, so wiping clears the corrosion at the points of contact. Platinum has more than TWENTY TIMES the resistivity of gold, yet it is still very suitable for contact plating. The resistance contributed by a plating only 1.3 MICRONS in thickness is utterly insignificant. In fact, you need a tin substrate under the gold plating to make it durable, and tin is only as conductive as platinum. But it doesn't matter, because the tin substrate only needs to be 1.3 microns thick, too.
The meat of the connector, relay or switch contact can't be silver, copper, gold or aluminum because none of them has any significant degree of springiness. Phosphor-bronze is good. Its resistivity is seven times higher than copper, but that is just a fact of life. The wires leading to the contacts form a current path many times longer than that of the contact itself, so the resistance of the contact is not very significant.