While the threat of a 51% attack may be blown out of proportion (a pool sells their cut of the coins that are mined and it is in their best interest that the coin remain as valuable as possible - attacking a coin would be counterproductive), some altcoin developers have stated that they will change their coin's proof-of-work algorithm if ASICs are developed for it. Vertcoin and Execoin's developers have both stated they'll do whatever it takes to keep ASICs out.

Most of the speculation that fuels the pump-and-dump world of altcoins is based on the belief that Bitcoin may not end up being the cryptocoin that average people use to buy pizza, pay their bills, etc.

Agreed that it's not in the summary, but as you correctly note, it's just a "summary". Anyone who reads the underlying blog post will read this among the facts on which the court based its opinion: "The public was allowed to search by keyword. The search results showed only the page numbers for the search term and the number of times it appeared; none of the text was visible."

So those readers who RTFA will be in the know.

Yes, chargebacks are a potential fraud risk for business owners. As a customer, though, being able to perform a chargeback is an important safeguard against a seller that doesn't make good on their part of a transaction.

While having your bank/credit card information on file at PayPal is also a potential security risk, it's still significantly less of a risk than trusting every business you allow to directly process your credit card.

Bitcoin does solve the issue of being able to electronically pay people you may not trust, but so does PayPal. Bitcoin transactions are slow to confirm, you have no protection as a buyer to perform a chargeback (for example, you buy tickets for a concert that turn out to be counterfeit) and the price of Bitcoin is extremely unstable. Bitcoin also is not really free of transaction fees, either. You will pay a fee to an exchange when buying Bitcoin with fiat.

Bitcoin's deflationary design also makes it lousy as a currency, since why would you use it to buy two pizzas today when that same amount a few years from now might buy you a Tesla Model S?

Cryptocurrency probably does have a place in the future of commerce, but it will probably be something that addresses Bitcoin's serious shortcomings.

The point is, if the situation is dire and serious, the message should be as well. Think about it for a second, if someone on here posted "Don't buy an iPhone because Apple wants to lick your balls!" it would be moderated as troll in the blink of an eye. It works for Southpark because the objective is to get you to laugh. When you're pointing out an injustice being committed by the government, you should be trying to get people to think.

Southpark has already done plenty of political satire peppered with dick and fart jokes. If Snowden doesn't want to come across as a tinfoil hat loonie, he should probably tone down the juvenile humor a notch. It's frequently said that those who resort to insults do so because they can't hold an intelligent debate.

You're welcome.

Not only does the iPhone have the frequency bands the asker wants, but it is one of the easiest phones to purchase completely unlocked and off-contract in the USA (so long as you purchase direct from Apple). Most other contract-free phones here are still sold locked to the carrier, and generally require several months of paid service before the carrier will provide an unlock code.

Other less expensive options for a world phone would be Google's Nexus 5 or Motorola's Moto G (if you don't absolutely need LTE).

We're not even remotely close to running out of places to install PV panels, where they'll never see the business end of a vehicle tire. PVs are presently just too damn expensive, even when you're not engineering them to withstand being constantly run over.

The news story here is really that fools are still being parted from their money.

No, it's time that would've been spent at home scratching your ass. Tesla pulls this same crap too in their marketing, by claiming your time spent pumping gas is wasted income. Your time is only worth something if you actually would've spent that time earning money. Why else do you think we call it "free time"?

Road delays do waste fuel, but that's more easily solved with improved vehicle technologies, rather than expensive pie-in-the-sky tech roads.

I'd take this a step further and require that juries be picked only from 12th graders and retirees. That way, no one can complain about missing work. You may think it's a bad idea to use teens and the elderly, but I think they may actually do a better job than a bunch of people who don't want to be there in the first place.