SEJARAH ALAT TUKAR

Sejak zaman dahulu perekonomian merupakan salah satu bagian penting dalam masyarakat. Hal ini menyebabkan perkembangan dalam perekonomian semakin cepat. Transaksi merupakan salah satu bagian penting dalam perekonomian. Alat transaksi tersebut juga mengalami perkembangan yang pesat hingga saat ini. Apakah pernah terbayang di benak anda bagaimana transaksi yang dilakukan dahulu ketika mata uang belum dikenal?Mari kita telusuri lebih lanjut mengenai hal ini..

Perkembangan alat tukar di dunia semakin berkembang dari zaman ke zaman. Hal tersebut dilakukan untuk mempermudah transaksi antar dua pihak sejak zaman barter sampai penggunaan kredit card seperti pada zaman sekarang. Berikut adalah tahap perkembangan alat tukar.

Sebelum manusia mengenal penggunaan uang sebagai alat transaksi,perekonomian berjalan dengan menggunakan sistem barter.Barter adalah pertukaran barang yang telah disetujui oleh kedua belah pihak yang berpartisipasi dalam transaksi tersebut.Benda - benda yang umum digunakan dalam barter adalah hasil kerajinan.Hasil bumi atau hewan ternak juga sering digunakan sebagai alat barter.

Uang pertama kali ditemukan dipenghujung millennium ketiga SM di Mesopotamia. Bentuknya seperti tablet yang terbuat dari lempung kemudian dibentuk koin, bertuliskan huruf paku. Lalu beberapa puluh tahun kemudian mata uang bangsa Mesopotamia berubah memakai koin perak.Melalui fase sejarah yang berliku dalam ribuan tahun, uang berubah dalam bentuk lain. Setelah ada koin perak, perunggu, emas, tembaga lahirlah uang kertas, tentu saja kertas klasik. Pertamakali muncul di Cina. Penemunya Ts’ai Lun yang hidup di negeri kuno sekitar abad kedua Masehi. Lun konon membuat kertas pertama dari kulit kayu pohon murbei yang daunnya sebagai pakan ulat untuk industri sutra Cina.Sejarah yang lain mengatakan, jauh sebelum Lun orang Mesopotamia juga sudah pernah membuat uang kertas. Namun berulangkali gagal karena bahan baku yang dipakai tidak sekuat bahan yang digunakan Lun. Di Cina pada jaman kaisar Tsing 300 tahun sebelum Lun juga pernah dicoba oleh pegawai kerajaan. Namun kandas sebab bahan bakunya mudah sobek. Baru setelah tahu bahwa Lun menemukan kulit kayu murbei adalah bahan yang kuat, dan Lun sendiri berhasil membuktikan bahan itu layak menjadi bahanbaku mata uang, akhirnya para birokrat kerajaan Cina memproduksi mata uang kertas pertama di dunia. Uang kertas cukup lama beredar di Cina dan di negeri lain tetap memakai uang koin. Baru setelah Marcopolo singgah ke Cina pada abad ke-13, bangsa lain mengenal uang kertas dan meniru kreasi bangsa Cina itu. Uang koin maupun uang kertas tetap digunakan sebagai alat transaksi pada berbagai mata uang di seluruh penjuru dunia. Keduanya masuk kategori uang tradisional, sebab kini kita sudah mendapatkan uang dalam bentuk baru, yakni uang elektronik. Uang elektronik banyak bentuknya ketimbang uang koin maupun uang kertas. Kita mengenal istilah uang dalam beberapa jenis, seperti e-cash, e-money, cyber cash, DigiCash, cyberbuck, dan entah berapa banyak lagi. Jack Weatherford mengatakan, “uang elektronik menyerupai bentuk-bentuk uang primitif yang beraneka ragam-kulit kerang cowrie, gigi binatang, dan manik-manik.”


Fakta lucu mengenai uang di Indonesia:

Pertama perhatikan gambar Kapitan Pattimura dan arahkan pandangan anda di kancing baju yang bawah dekat dengan golok/parang, kalau susah pakailah kaca pembesar atau mikroskop. Yup anda betul bukankah itu si Mr. Smiley Mungkin sebenarnya si desainer uang ini tidak bermaksud demikian, tapi yang terjadi adalah bentuk Smiley ini tercetak di semua lembaran uang seribu rupiah yang beredar....

I’m not going to over-simplify and proclaim that making a good ninja movie is the easiest thing in the world. But I never would have guessed that doing so is as difficult as James McTeigue’s Ninja Assassin makes it appear. This is a big-budget movie with a top-flight crew and a star blessed with undeniable magnetism, not to mention the R-rated freedom to provide the copious blood and gore that so many genre fans crave. Yet it plays no better than a cheap direct to DVD feature. Ninja Assassin is a forgettable throwaway, a waste of creative talent and the audience’s time.

Like a relic from old Hollywood, only with a lot more blood, the film exists as a would-be star-making vehicle for the Korean actor/pop star Rain, who impressed the Wachowskis and producer Joel Silver while working on Speed Racer. The biggest surprise of this film is that, with respect to their estimation of Rain’s potential, Silver and the Wachowskis weren’t out in left field. Rain has the raw physical prowess to make a career as an action star, and while there’s nothing in Ninja Assassin to say he can actually act, his strong silent persona here should be enough to carry a film or two.

Then again, it doesn’t carry Ninja Assassin. But I’m not sure anything could.

Legend has it that this shooting script is the result of J. Michael Straczynski rewriting a previous script draft in 53 hours. That feels generous; I would have guessed he penned the movie over lunch. What we’ve got is the origin story of a ninja, played by Rain, and the intertwining tale of two Europol agents who attempt to investigate and bring down a modern clan of shadowy killers in black pajamas. The story is merely an excuse for bloodshed, a fact underlined every time the agents Mika (Naomie Harris) and her superior, Ryan (Ben Miles) pause to cough up inane dialogue.

The overly grim bare-bones story doesn’t kick in until after a bait and switch opening promises more gratuitously gore-soaked action than the movie is able to deliver. A ninja attacks a room full of Yakuza wankers; the first swordstroke cuts a man’s head in half. The slice is an adrenaline jolt; that execution of an unflinching dismemberment plan is all we’re really here to see.After that cut, the gets very little right. A few shots effectively compare the ninja clan to xenomorphs in James Cameron’s Aliens, and there’s a neat turning point where a force of ninja are reduced to cannon fodder when floodlights are turned their way. Ninja work in shadow and silence, and they shouldn’t be invincible in any condition. But that’s all I can check off in the positive column.

Slapdash plotting and subhuman dialogue delivered with po-faced determination by incapable actors: these are not elements that are foreign to the genre. They’re so not foreign that they’re not even deal-breakers. Competent acting and scripting is always welcome, but this is a ninja movie. All that counts is the choreography, the complementary effects and the camera that catches it all.

After that first kill, none of the action is brought to life with any verve. There’s no fun, no ideas. Torrents of CGI blood and limbs lead to an easy comparison to the films of Ryuhei Kitamura, but the big point of comparison is what Kitamura’s movies have that McTeigue’s lacks: energy and attitude. By all the common standards — scripting, acting, film craft — Kitamura’s Versus is a bad movie, or at least a very amateurish one. But it has buckets of ideas and boundless energy, and just a little of each would have made Ninja Assassin infinitely more entertaining.

The film is grim and gritty, overly dark and thinner than the rice paper in a shoji screen. Rain’s backstory is wasted on a love story the film has no hope of selling (yep: the ninja hero is in love with some chick) and the modern sequences are full of dreary Europol agents. Mika and Ryan may be the least memorable cop duo I’ve ever seen on screen. I’d rather watch Turner and Hooch fight ninjas. (Actually, I do want to see that.)

The photography is terribly dark. The reason is irrelevant; the result is that McTeigue shoots nearly every moment of combat with the participants drowning in shadow. At times, that is ideal, as when a few ninja are flitting in and out of shadow. Generally, however, it’s counter-productive. It may have eased pressure on the budget, but the blanket of darkness thrown over the movie makes each fight scene play like a spastic parody of martial arts. The choreography, perhaps impressive on set, looks on screen like a bunch of stuntmen frantically waving their arms. All the CGI swords and blood are very apparent as later additions.

I really suspect the dark is meant to hide a severe lack of imagination. Star-making intentions aside, the only real reason to make this movie is if you have a notebook full of ideas for shredding the human body. But both Rain and his enemies just slice and slice and slice. It’s numbing enough to put a guy to sleep. If Joel Silver wants to make a star out of Rain, you’d think he’d start with coming up with something for him to do.

Pinnacle of Friendship

Some say,we never meant to grow up
I'm sure we never knew enough
At times,we never realize that someone's wathcing our back
Now it's all too late

I wasn't looking for it, but somehow it came, and found me.
Before I had a chance to react, it wrapped it's warmth around me.
Like a thief in the night, it has come and gone.
I have nothing, but that vision to reflect upon.

Until chance comes again, I'll let my thoughts dance upon the wind.
All day long, in my mind, I walk love's lonely street.
Like a tired man that longs to sit, but just can't find a seat.
Then, there it was again, up ahead, to light my way.

Only to vanish once more, just like all my yesterdays.
Until chance comes again, I'll let my thoughts dance upon the wind.
I don't know where I'm going, and where I've been isn't much to speak of.
I just know my heart is always showing, leading me to some far off love.

Just when I give up the fight.
Here it comes to make the bad things good, and the wrong things right.
Only to leave me lost and lonely again.
Drifting away as my thoughts dance upon the wind.

It has a name, I think they call it friend.