Mortgages will probably never be denominated in bitcoins, unless they reduce in value over time. Debt is a terible thing to hold in a deflationary economy.

I am buying. Christmas 60% off sale. Happy Holidays to me, thank you very much.

College students are allergic to studying. It gives them hives and agida.

You mentioned the soaking, so I am sure that you read it, but your outrage indicates that you missed it. I am very confused.

I soak beans to soften them, and then I cook them to detoxify them. Lentils you don't even have to cook. Most people soak beans to prevent flatulence. I soak them longer, to get them to soften. They still have plenty of texture.

I think the confusion lies in the fact that I am essentially sprouting beans whereas you probably haven't soaked beans long enough for them to really start sprouting. You do not have to cook sprouted beans very long at all.

I am growing high-density kale in a grow bed sitting atop a fish tank, in a south-facing window. I spent some change on this project, but it can easily be done for just a few dollars (or free if you are decent at scavenging).

For that matter, why not mushrooms? Cheap to get into, but very valuable to sell. There are several varieties of mushrooms that sell for upwards of $10/pound, even $20/pound. Of course, if everyone does it, the price drops, but that is obviously not happening. Why not? I'd do it in a heartbeat if I wasn't fortunate enough to be making more money doing something else.

It is pretty well-understood that antioxidants encourage cancer growth if you have it. This is because the body uses oxidative pathways to kill cancer cells. Antioxidants interfere with this.

There may be risk of harm. There may be great benefit. The studies you posted are quite contrived, and do not represent normal multivitamin consumption. If you have to go to extremes in order to be harmed, then I certainly am not worried and I find it obnoxious that you are frightening people away from multivitamins with nonapplicable research.

Why do more people not grow their own food, simliar to the Urban Roots movement in Detroit? Many cities have these sorts of things, but the number of people actually doing this is shockingly small, compared to the number who desperately need to eat.

OK this is a really stupid question, but why not join a food co-op? Trade labor for food and possibly shelter? Something like what the Urban Roots movement in Detroit is doing. These movements exist in a many cities all across America, and are active through the year (including in the wintertime).

On those weeks, I never wash the crock pot. I just restock it with more beans, rice, and spices and let it keep cooking.

Even faster than McDonalds, and probably half the cost.

I live in the Northeast. There are several things in season. Potatoes and squash are very much in season and fairly cheap to boot.

There are a multitude of dishes to cook with beans and rice, not just chili. Heck, there are a multitude of ways to cook just chili.

I never cook beans for 4 hours. That's just stupid, not to mention wasteful of energy. I soak them for 12-24 hours, then cook them for 20 minutes. If I'm feeling monied, I throw in a touch of wild rice. If not, then white rice.

20 minutes before dinner time, I start heating the soaking beans. While that heats, I put together a second pot with water, beans, and rice. The second pot goes on the back of the stove, to soak for a day. I then chop up any vegetables I have and drop them in the (now hot) first pot of beans. Add spices. Browse Slashdot. Serve.

Easy, quick, simple, cheap. Free shipping on a vast variety of beans from Amazon, or even cheaper at local discount foods stores such as Aldi's.

There is no excuse to eat at McDonalds. If you care about your health, you make time to prepare your own food on a budget.

Not really. Vitamin absorption is a complicated topic.

For example, in the case of just calcium:

* Phytic acid (whole grain cereals) inhibits uptake
* Long chain fatty acids (animal fats, including butter) inhibit uptake
* Vitamin C promotes uptake
* Vitamin D promotes uptake
* Protein promotes uptake

Now calcium-fortified cow's milk is very interesting. Because of the need to buffer animal protein with an alkaline buffer during digestion, drinking milk -- including calcium-fortified milk -- tends to actually remove calcium from the body. This is not the case for human milk because the calcium/protein ratio is different, but if you need to supplement calcium, consuming cow's milk is not a good method.

On the other hand, regarding iron:

* Calcium (and zinc, eggs, tea, coffee) inhibit uptake
* Vegetable protein inhibits uptake
* Vitamin C promotes uptake (same as with calcium)
* Copper promotes uptake

Iron is divided into two types: haem (from hemoglobin, i.e. animals) and non-haem. Haem iron is considerably easier for the body to absorb, but if you supplement non-haem iron with vitamin C, you get a very similar absorption rate as haem iron without vitamin C.

Nutrition is a very complicated topic. Every nutrient is different.

It seems that eating a balanced diet (including animal protein but not much animal protein) is actually a pretty good way to obtain most of the vitamins and minerals you need. If you need to supplement, you should definitely look up what factors promote or inhibit absorption.

Yes, many multivitamins contain non-digestible forms of vitamins. My favorites are iron oxide (rust) and calcium carbonate. Those are essentially non-absorbable forms of those minerals. Cheap vitamins have iron oxide and calcium carbonate. Expensive vitamins (sometimes, occasionally) have better forms. Generall, minerals in the form of an ionic salt are barely usable by the body.

I am unaware of the body becoming lazy with regards to absorbing vitamins, so I can't comment on that. However, it is a good idea to stop taking all vitamins at least once a week. If there is a "memory effect", this will help to reset things so the body does not become acclimatized/insular to a certain nutritional profile.

It is better to consume low doses of vitamins over a long period of time, than to sporadically consume large quantities. If I only ate fresh produce one week out of 3, I would consume a multivitamin over the course of the second two weeks.

It is a good idea to mix up multivitamins. Not all are the same, and your body's nutritional needs change over time. Semi-regular changes in multivitamin formulas can help satisfy any low-level deficiencies that might otherwise accumulate.

That is the philosophy I generally follow with multivitamins. I encourage you to read and learn as much as you can. The topic is immense. There is an unfortunate amount of bullshit in the field, but there is also plenty of good research.

I know your comment is well-meaning, but it is often not so simple. Many of these machines use proprietary dongles to ensure that they are being run on "Actual Hardware" as opposed to emulation. Furthermore, they often use proprietary interfaces that cannot be deciphered without tremendous effort and expertise. This is the unpleasant end of closed-source software.

A little more google searching will show that the police have strong incentives to underreport and misreport crimes, and the steady tick of news reports continues apace. It is whitewashed with typically British class, yet the troublesome misrepresentation of UK crime rates continues.

News reports like this http://www.express.co.uk/expressyourself/347592/The-guns-and-grenades-of-gangland-Britain and this http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/aug/30/ukcrime1 do not jibe with your pretty little idea of a peaceful Europe.

At least criminals here in the US are not using grenades.

Yes, considerably out-of-date. Folks have already taken the original Liberator design and added a metal sleeve to the barrel, dramatically improving its reliability.

Not to mention Solid Concepts just printed a full-size .45 caliber pistol which survived 500 rounds without damage. Expensive printer, but it won't stay expensive forever.

I think that the reason behind much of our violence is the drug war. We never really had any problem with violence until the Alcohol Prohibition. That period gave birth to Nascar, organized crime, and a wave of violence that this country has never shaken. We ended the Prohibition, but outlawed marijuana just 4 years later. The American approach to drugs has always been brutal and militaristic. Instead of reducing the supply, decades of drug prohibition has created a powerful black market backed by an enduring network of violence and crime.

Europe has plenty of problems, but not this one. You have largely prohibited drugs, but (correct me if I am wrong!) it is largely treated as a public health issue rather than a criminal issue.

Guns do factor very strongly in the violence we experience in the US, so it would certainly appear that removing the guns would remove the act of murdering. This is perfectly obvious on the face of it. However, I do not believe it is so simple.

It is important to look closer at how those guns are obtained. Most are obtained legally through straw purchases. Correct me if I am wrong, but most European countries do not actually outlaw firearms. Even the UK allows firearms for farmers and hunters. Even if we adopted European-style gun control, these straw purchases would still happen.

It is also important to consider that the black market for drugs is extremely strong in the US. This trade network currently supplies a tremendous variety and range of drugs, but it also supplies firearms. At this point in time, demand for black market firearms is low. However, American demand for firearms is insatiable right now. If the legal supply were cut off, I think any reasonable person would conclude that the demand would immediately shift to the black market (already in place).

I think we can conclude that guns are here to stay in the US. Furthermore, the criminal element will always have access to firearms through the drug networks even if all other means are cut off. I believe that any reasonable and objective consideration of the problem can come to no other conclusion. The rise of 3D-printed firearms will only exacerbate the situation.

Therefore, we cannot reasonably debate whether criminals should have guns. They have guns, and they will continue to have guns. Our utter inability to stem the tide of drugs is stark evidence of this. What we are debating is whether honest and law-abiding people can have guns.

If a criminal breaks into someone's home at night, they know the likelihood is high that someone is asleep. They come prepared for a confrontation. If the homeowner has a firearm, the criminal may be shot. If the homeone does not have a firearm, the homeowner may be killed. In this situation, I believe it is moral for the homeowner to act in self-defense. What do you think? It is more moral for the homeowner to risk being killed in his own home, or does he have a moral right to defend himself if attacked?

Now there is a grey area here. What if a criminal breaks into someone's home but has no interest in attacking the homeowner. Does he deserve to get shot? I do not think so. Indeed, there are many criminals who are confronted by an armed homeowner and who flee or surrender in order to avoid getting shot. I feel that this is the appropriate resolution to the situation. I do not feel it is appropriate that the homeowner be at the mercy of his attacker. Recently, a family in Connecticut was tied up, the daughters raped, and the entire family burned alive simply for the fun of it. Shouldn't they have had a chance to defend themselves instead of relying on the mercy of someone who is already breaking the laws of society by breaking into the home?

The statistics you found are pretty clear. We have a serious violence problem in this country, and most of it involves firearms. What do you think about this annotated graph of the homicide rate in the US since 1885? http://d1ovi2g6vebctw.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Homicide-Rate.jpg

Unfortunately, the largest component of BJS homicide statistics is "unknown." Additionally, drug- and gang-related homicides are largely both fueled by the drug war. Furthermore, the BJS lumps many drug-related homicides under the "Felony" category. Those statistics you found are the best I know of, and even they have some serious problems when trying to analyze this issue.

As for the "Arguments" category, it is remarkably rare that someone with a legal firearm shoots anyone over an argument. It does happen -- a few months ago, someone pulled a legally-carried gun and was immediately shot with another legally-carried gun over a parking spot -- but it is incredibly rare. The vast majority of these events are confined to the black communities in this country, who have been the target of divisive, destructive social policies for generations. The homicide may be recorded as "Argument," but what if the argument is drug-related? Could it be helped by changing our drug policy?

Here is the data collected in Texas for CHL holders (Concealed Handgun License): http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/rsd/chl/reports/convrates.htm In short, 2 percent of the population is reponsible for 0.2 percent of the crime. Unfortunately, this information does NOT consider legally-owned firearms that are not carried (i.e. kept in the home).

I hope this helps clarify for you some of the situation here in the US. I think there are a few factors that contribute strongly to the rate of gun violence. Privately-run for-profit prisons are probably a factor. The drug war is a huge factor. Race is a factor because of our culture that demonizes the black population and limits their ability to escape the cycle of violence and poverty.