The Euro Essay examples -- essays papers

The Euro To most people in the United States hearing the word Euro brings about blank stares. Ask this same question in England or another European country and it means bringing Europe together under one common currency. The Euro can be defined as the common monetary system by which the participating members of the European Community will trade. Eleven countries Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Finland and Italy will comprise the European Economic Monetary Union that will set a side their national currency and adopt the Euro in 2002. A new National bank, based in Frankfurt Germany, will be constructed and the interest rates that control the economies of these nations will be in the hands of this new system. It is indeed a great experiment, being masterminded in Frankfurt, one that will be felt through out Europe as well as the rest of the world.1 The combined countries, now more commonly referred to as Euroland, will fall under one national bank. This bank, the European Central Bank, will determine the economic fate of the entire â€Å"Union†. The merging of eleven currencies is a daunting and somewhat lethal task. The ECB is comprised of seventeen members, each having one vote within the governing council. What has most Europeans concerned is the ECB’s secrecy of conducting business. There is no voting record nor will there be published minutes of the meeting that take place. Wim Duisenberg president of the ECB and a native Dutchman stated that he wanted the ECB to be one of the most open banks in the world.1 When BBC reporter Steve Levinson confronted him about this in Frankfurt Germany Wim replied I reconcile these two positions by not defining openness as publishing everything that will be available, but by defining openness as explaining every decision, every consideration. Also the pros and cons and to be very open about that and to be frequent and immediate in that openness. (Livinston, Euroland 3) Why does the ECB operation so much secrecy? Is does not want economic policy moved by political influence. In January of this year the Bank of Ireland became a regional branch of the ECB. Morris O’Connell, its governor, supports the ECB’s tight lips stating I don’t think it’s appropriate that you should be announcing how each person may have voted. I think you’re creating other p... ...ause they cannot gauge the governing council’s true thinking. The fourth concern of the implementation of a solitary currency in Europe is that of who is in control?4 Officially the ECB is independent and answers to no political nation. But can one council possibly have the ability to control and balance eleven different economies at the same time? Some say no, but if it can even succeed only a little bit what is good for one economy may not be good for another. This leads into the final concern: Does one economy fit all? When the economy is in the basement the first thing that politicians ask for is a cut in interest rates. In the beginning this may give the desired results but in the long run may entirely destroy an economy. It becomes macroeconomics versus microeconomics.4 What is good for the economy as a whole may not be good for every sector and region. What one can conclude by the scheme of things that the Euro is going to happen. What the out come will be and what effects it will have towards the economic world can only be speculated. The entire world will be watching as the largest economic experiment of our time unfolds before in front of us half way around the world.

Is Scientific Progress Inevitable? Essay

I read the article â€Å"Is Scientific Progress Inevitable?† which was written by Andrew Irvine on 2006. It was published in the book In the Agora: The Public Face of Canadian Philosophy. The main idea of the article is scientific progress is not inevitable. At the first part of the passage, the author used his own his experience that he took his daughter to see a medicine wheel; he used what he saw to let us know these structures have been there for thousands of years and human beings are fragile. Furthermore, he used some facts that ancient people may use their unique ways to record summer solstice rather than today’s high astronomical knowledge. As he said â€Å"scientific knowledge is not inevitable† (para.12), there is no guarantee that scientific progress will keep increase, as long as we have the belief to live better, the scientific progress is not essential or necessary. Critique This article was written by Andrew Irvine who is a professor of UBC at department of philosophy (Irvine, 2012). The title of the passage makes readers to think of scientific progress is not inevitable, however, without technology, we cannot live in this highly developed world. The book In the Agora: The Public Face of Canadian Philosophy was edited by Andrew Irvine and John Russell; it is a book which collects many Canadians philosophers’ article and enriches our world by their Philosophical thought (University of Toronto Press Publishing, 2013). However, we are living in a developing world, as long as we want to live better, the scientific progress will remain non-inevitable. Electronic products for example, cellphones have been part of our live for few years, everybody has a cellphone to communicate to each other conveniently. But ancient people can only communicate each other with their voice or gesture, they cannot reach somebody who is far away from them. With the scientific results, we can use electronic products to talk and see people thousands of miles away from us. In the article, the author mentioned that some ancient culture may use their own way to figure out summer solstice like the sun dance (Irvine, 2006, pp338-339).

Using the PHP Rand() Functions to Generate Random Numbers

The rand() function is used in PHP to generate a random integer. The rand() PHP function can also be used to generate a random number within a specific range, such as a number between 10 and 30. If no max limit is specified when using the rand() PHP function, the largest integer that can be returned is determined by the getrandmax() function, which varies by operating system.   For example, in Windows, the largest number that can be generated is 32768. However, you can set a specific range to include higher numbers. Rand() Syntax and Examples The correct syntax for using the rand PHP function is as follows: rand(); or rand(min,max); Using the syntax as described above, we can make three examples for the rand() function in PHP: ?phpecho (rand(10, 30) . br);echo (rand(1, 1000000) . br);echo (rand());? As you can see in these examples, the first rand function generates a random number between 10 and 30, the second between 1 and 1 million, and then third without any maximum or minimum number defined. These are some possible results: 20442549830380191 Security Concerns Using Rand() Function The random numbers generated by this function are not cryptographically secure values, and they should not be used for cryptographic  reasons. If you need secure values, use other random functions such as random_int(), openssl_random_pseudo_bytes(), or random_bytes() Note: Beginning with PHP 7.1.0, the rand() PHP function is an alias of mt_rand(). The mt_rand() function is said to be four times faster and it produces a better random value. However, the numbers it generates are not cryptographically secure. The PHP manual recommends using the  random_bytes() function for cryptographically secure integers.