1963: Operation Empty-the-purse ("vide-gousset")

It was also by warship that De Gaulle planned to conduct "Operation Empty-the-purse" in 1963, the code name for the repatriation of French gold deposited at Fort Knox in the United States (1). More than 1,150 tons—the result of converting French dollars into gold, a decision made by De Gaulle in response to the lax monetary policy of the United States—were being used to finance a growing trade deficit through the printing of money.

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, then Minister of Finance, recounts (2): "De Gaulle was getting impatient and asked me at every meeting: 'So, has that gold finally come back?' One day, he told me: 'We need to move much faster: we're going to send the navy cruiser 'Colbert' which will bring back all the gold that's still there.'" “I told him that if we did that, we would alienate American public opinion forever.” Ultimately, De Gaulle abandoned the Colbert plan, and French gold returned from the United States in small quantities. Not for very long, it's true. The events of May 1968 and the ensuing monetary crisis depleted the reserves, which fell from 4,650 tons to 3,150 – 1,500 tons had crossed the Atlantic again to defend the franc, which De Gaulle refused to devalue.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47561989

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

Want to bet 100 MB? 1 GB? Is it unthinkable?

20 years ago, a 49 MB home page was unthinkable.

But the author has a point. Combine it with some approximate country-level geolocate of the web client and this would work perfectly 99% of the time modulo edge cases like VPN users.

Well, isn't it expected? If I were a double agent, faking that I was so computer illiterate that I ask my emails to be printed out would be the perfect cover for my hacking =:-)

"""

Great question! Here are a few things to consider:

If you walk: It’s only 50 meters, so it’s a very short distance—less than a minute on foot. You’ll avoid getting your car dirty again on the way to the car wash. It’s a quick way to stretch your legs and save a tiny bit of fuel.

If you drive: It’s so close that driving might feel unnecessary, but it could save you from carrying any supplies (like vacuum cleaners or cleaning products) back and forth. If the weather is bad (rain, extreme heat, etc.), driving might be more comfortable.

Verdict: Walking is probably the easiest and most practical choice for such a short distance, unless you have a specific reason to drive. What’s the weather like where you are? That might help decide!

"""

As an Android user, I truly don't understand this "pressure". I exchange SMS/MMS with various users, some Android, some iPhone. I am in group chats with both Android and iPhone users. I feel there is no major issue. It's interoperable. We all see each other's emojis/photos/videos/etc. There are only minor technical rough edges: for example an iPhone's user emoji reaction sometimes (not always?) shows up as separate text instead of the emoji appended at the bottom of the text bubble... And I am pretty sure videos are sent in a lower quality. But is any of this really enough to cause a "blue bubble pressure"?

I asked ChatGPT to explain but only got this vague answer: "Group chats with a mix of iPhone and non-iPhone users can be less seamless (e.g., lower video quality, no read receipts, or issues with group chat features)."

I had to open my texts to check: I indeed have read receipts when texting Android users, but not iPhone users. And this is funny but up to this very second, I had never noticed this difference... because, at least to me, read receipts is such a minor feature that I rely on very infrequently.

This leaves me still as perplex: why the "blue bubble pressure"?

You can conceptualize Rayleigh scattering exactly like you did so it doesn't conflict with my explanation: as light hits the "surface" of nitrogen and oxygen molecules, it "reflects" (scatters) blue wavelengths.

Because it's the color of the atmosphere, specifically nitrogen and oxygen! It's technically correct to state this.

Gasp! But aren't nitrogen and oxygen usually described as "colorless"? Well, yes but... If they were perfectly colorless, the sky would be black. It's technically more correct to describe them as nearly colorless and very slightly blue. Very slightly because you need to see through kilometers of atmosphere to perceive the blue. It doesn't matter if the color is caused by absorption, or reflection, or (Rayleigh) scattering of certain wavelengths. The "color" of an object is simply the color you perceive with your eyes. If you perceive blue, it's technically correct to say its color is blue.

It's like saying plants are green because green is the color of chlorophyll. And in the case of chlorophyll, the color is caused by absorption not by scattering. But the physics is irrelevant. Green is its color.

Q: But sunsets/sunrises are red & orange not blue! A: the simplest answer is: color of an object can change under different light conditions. Specifically in this example, when seeing the sun through not kilometers but hundred of kilometers of atmosphere, all the blue-ish wavelengths have been scattered in random directions so only the red-ish wavelengths remain, thus the atmosphere is illuminated by progressively redder and redder light as the photons travel longer and longer distances through the atmosphere.

Note that technically my link is a slightly longer sightline (longer by 7 km).

Edit: to be clear the difference stems from our coordinates. Our starting points are:

41.059167,77.683333 (me)

41.0181,77.6708 (you)

And our end points are:

36.295364,78.755593 (me)

36.314,78.7654 (you)

Also I calculate the distance assuming the Earth is spherical (which gives 538 km) not the standard geodesic (which would give 537 km).

And in the DEM data I measure the distance from the center of a cell to another (not the edge), while measuring from edge to edge may explain a difference of at most 0.1 km as the DEM resolution is 3 arcseconds.

So clearly we disagree on the coordinates of the exact actual sightline as we have a 7 km difference :-)

Edit #2: clearly the error is on your side. I should have checked this first, but the coordinates you give for the "To" point (41.0181,77.6708) land in a valley with the south view completely blocked so it's impossible to view 500+ km south as you claim. Look at where the marker lands on this Google Maps Terrain: https://maps.app.goo.gl/PgBWxi31WZC6vk3V9