So I've refrained from replying to a number of your ill-informed posts. Everything you've posted so far in this article has been either an outright lie or you are so woefully misinformed as to be almost criminal. In either case, you should really purchase the smallest of clues before you continue to post about Bitcoins, because it's clear you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

A small sampling:

Your claim that only drugs and other illicit items can be purchased with bitcoins. Demonstrably false, too many to list.
Your claim that the money has to got to various other services and exchanges to get to your bank account. Demonstrably false, one example is direct to PP mining on the Eclipse pool (https://eclipsemc.com)
Your claim of various exchange-related losses, scandals and frauds. Also false. MtGox is the only exchange related issue. Even if true, this is different than other exchanges, how?
Your claim about the lack of features of a decent monetary system. Such as?

Etc... ad nauseum.

Please try to be at least marginally informed before posting. I know this is /. and all, but come on.

Good reply. The GP is one of those people who think that we should never advance ourselves because we can't do everything perfectly the first time, so we should just stay where we are. It's people like the GP that have kept us from going to space en masse and held the world back from advancing. They just can't understand that it just because you can't do everything at once to improve a system doesn't mean you shouldn't make incremental improvements. It's a sad, pathetic existence to be like the GP, always trapped in the past and unable to even comprehend the meaning of simple changes.

To this, I have only one thing to say... in a picture... which is worth a thousand words:

Callous Coin Does Not Care

I wish my sites had "No Users!" I'd be very pleased with the "No Users" count of 25 million.

I'm happy when there are 300 active users...

Wow, I can't imagine downloading the ~100GB - ~300 GB a month I use at home over a Wifi and only when I go to those places. I have automated processes running at home that handle that for me, I dont' want to sit at Starbucks for hours and hours downloading crap over a slow Wifi.

Yeah... replacing a wired broadband with mobile is not even vaguely practical. It would definitely have to be in tandem with wired broadband and in my experience it's not that affordable in Europe, though I've not been to every market in Europe of course. Again, if it's more than a couple bucks a month it's not affordable, it's excessive.

On top of that, your speeds are slower typically and caps are lower. Not really practical in any sense to replace it, price not withstanding.

There's a secret government project to convert all those servers into Bitcoin Mining Rigs.

You didn't really think consumers were responsible for the shortage of high end AMD graphics cards, did you?

And you would unfortunately be wrong. So hey, thanks for the lesson on how to look stuff up before obnoxiously correcting someone, but please learn to look something up and properly understand WHAT you've looked up.

Litigant is typically applied to the two (or more) parties involved, not the lawyers handling the legal aspects of the case.

Don't hate because you look like an idiot on the internet. But go on and hate because someone made you look stupid, it just reinforces the fact that you are, in fact, an idiot.

So is this the official turning point of Apple from a product innovator to a run of the mill "I'm going to sue anyone and everyone so I don't have to put money into R&D to make better products!" company?

Seems like it... when was the last time Apple came out with something innovative? iPad 1 I'd say. iPhone 5 is shaping up to be more of the same, iPad 2 is more of the same. Macbooks, more of the same... Can't think of anything recently that Apple came up with that others aren't doing already or doing better in some cases.

The iPad 2 is so lackluster that Apple is scared the Tab and Xoom might prove to be more popular with consumers since it is at least on par and in some cases exceeds the iPad 2 in functionality.

It's a shame Motorola and Samsung are charging so much... if they dropped the price by a couple hundred bucks...

What planet do you live on, BTW? It sounds nice.

Affordable broadband = free/included with my broadband service.

If I have to pay extra for that access then it's not affordable.

Let me know where that is that offers free 3G/4G, please! Cause I get "free" broadband on my PC already.

Yeah, you go ahead and try to get any real work done on that baby. Won't happen anytime soon. What can my full size box do that your little toy can't? Lets just bring up a brief list:

1. Have multiple windows open and displayed at once.
2. Connect to more than one screen.
3. Output that screen in a non-crappy resolution (Sorry Charlie, but 1920x1080p is a crappy resolution, don't even try to pass that off as anything but barely adequate)
4. Play high quality games. Sorry, Cut-The-Rope and Words with Friends are not high quality games. Popular? Yes. High Quality? Not even close.
5. Compile large projects in less than a glacial age
6. Write a novel. Sorry, taking 10 months to do what takes two weeks on a PC doesn't count.
7. Plug in all sorts of interesting peripherals.

I can go on for quite awhile.

There's a reason the Mouse/Keyboard/Screen model has basically not changed in 30 years (ok, the addition of the mouse to the screen/keyboard model) - because it's the most efficient means of input for a great majority of things.

Will a new input method come along at some point? Probably, but that point is a long, long way off. Voice recognition? It will have to be flawless or so near to flawless as to be almost indistinguishable. Along with that voice recognition will have to come cognitive abilities to divine meaning and intention - that's even FARTHER off than basic flawless voice recognition.

Touchless interface you way? Probably not... at least anytime soon. Muscle memory typically requires a resistive force of some sort - a touchless interface does not offer this and thus hinders input in high volumes. There are probably ways around this and new methods to compensate or replace what's lost, but those methods and procedures are a long way off.

Direct neural input? Now you're talking... but you're talking decades in the future.

No... sorry, your little tablet is not and probably never will be suited for real work. Tablets are great toys and excel in some areas of business that is tailored to their form factor, portability and input method. Unfortunately, the real work works on data input and output methods not suited to the tablet. The tablet is the netbook of the current technological generation. It's flashy and cool, but will eventually fade to a device that has it's place in the hierarchy of technological goodness and tools that you pull out to fit a given situation. The PC is also in this hierarchy and is not going anywhere anytime soon.

I don't think that word means what you think it means. Perhaps you mean "litigious?"

Lawyers are a consequence of bad law, not the other way around. Lawyers are not the problem for the most part... it's the people you elected to office and passed the laws that make lawyers necessary.

Indirectly, it's more your fault than the lawyers.

Mostly, yes and most everyone I know does the same. I never call my car the VW or the Dodge unless I need to specifically differentiate between the two for some purpose. But I sure as hell don't say the "Dodge D150 RAM" when I need to differentiate. If there was some specific reason to differentiate his monitor between any generic monitor and an Apple monitor, then I could see the case for stating it's an Apple monitor. But for the purposes of the article, there was no reason except to be pretentious.

And if he had just said "Macbook" instead of "Macbook Air" then I'd agree with you. But tacking on "Air" is like tacking on 27" Apple to the monitor reference. I agree it's part of a greater branding effort from Apple and it shows why people who buy Apple buy into the bullshit and are a bunch of sheep who can't understand why people who aren't under the spell see what Apple products really are: Quality made products... nothing more. There's nothing special about an Apple product. It's just a well made product, like many of the other well made products. iOS is showing it's age, but beyond that there's nothing unusual, good or bad, about Apple products. So differentiating them when writing an article like the author did is nothing but pretentiousness.

But again, you aren't saying the "Playstation 3 60 GB" or the "Xbox 360 20GB" or even just "Xbox 360" unless you are differentiating between the original and the 360. You aren't going around saying "Kleenex UltraSoft with Aloe."

Just better than what? They are quality products, I agree... but they aren't exceptional. There are other quality products out there, some better than Apple, many worse. But that is really immaterial, there was no need to put that kind of crap in the article. I doubt few people call their cars "Kia" instead of "the car" unless there's a specific need. But yes, I would imagine there are more that call it the Mercedes, and those idiots would be just as big douchebags as the author of the article for saying 27" Apple Monitor.

It's not an offhanded comment. It's the author being a pretentious prick, just like every other Apple user. This is me expounding on the fact.

You, Mr. AC, are also a giant asshole for posting as AC.

I know this is completely off topic, but pretentious assholes like this writer are the reason people hate you Apple Fanboi idiots.

Did you really need to specify it was a 27" APPLE monitor? Did it add anything to that sentence, other than to underscore you're a prick? No, it didn't. The author could just as easily have said "the warm glow of my monitor." and had the same effect. But instead he had to underscore it was an APPLE monitor... like it was something SPECIAL and UNIQUE! Like he was COOL for having an Apple.

And the author does it again... couldn't just say "Laptop" or "Computer," but had to say Macbook Air! Again, like it was unique or special. News flash! Lots of people have those things and they can be acquired by anyone wishing to do so by traveling to your nearest web browser, Apple Store, Best Buy or other purveyor of overpriced shiny shit.

So just a note, it's exactly this kind of shit that makes people who haven't fallen under the spell of bullshit that Jobs has convinced hipster idiots that Apple products are so cool that they need to be identified separately from everything else. You are unique for using Apple Products, just like the other ten million (or however many) people who use the exact same product.