Fuck, I'm getting senile. "before a cursory glance" should be "beyond a cursory glance" of course.

It's been explained to me that this is standard MO for the USPTO. They never check patents before a cursory glance, and only when it is challenged do they actually look into the merits of it. Apparently this is because they just don't have (anywhere near) the amount of manpower they would need to keep up with the vast number of incoming patent applications.

Anyone know how true this is?

I'm not sure why this is modded Funny. It's exactly what's going on here! Patent trolling is a protection racket; it's extortion pure and simple.

Well there's your problem...

Nobody's commenting on someone being called Jill Bates? Really?

Without reading the comments I'm certain this very comment section will form a live demonstration of some of the major problems with attracting women to tech...

What's the betting that the site will one day suddenly disappear, taking all the outstanding donations which happen to be on their accounts with them?

So I indicate to you, by using AdBlock, that I hate advertising and do not wish to see any (from which you could deduce that showing me advertisements would be useless at best and counterproductive at worst), yet you choose to force ads down my throat anyway? Well fuck you then.

Sorry, that should be 60/6 Mbps of course.

I live in the Netherlands. I have a 60/6 MBps cable Internet connection, in combination with digital HD cable TV and telephone service, for € 54 ($73) per month. This is with "unlimited" bandwidth (they do have a "fair use" clause, but I've never heard of anyone hitting it). For the Netherlands this is pretty typical.

Why would they? The one has nothing to do with the other. If anything, since providers can now be payed at the back end as well, they could in theory lower prices at the front end. In theory.

Obviously this must be an alien pod buried millions of years ago and patiently waiting for its pilot to arrive riding the lightning. We were bound to stumble across them some day!

Exactly. In other words, without a lot of scientific research you can't conclude from the fact that the Eurozone did worse than the US for the last few years economically that the ECB therefore did a worse job of making monetary policy. They could have just been dealt a much worse hand. Ultimately I don't think you can make comparisons like this between the Eurozone and the US anyway. The Eurozone is not one country, which makes a huge difference in practice and invalidates all kinds of comparisons.

I have to disagree again. It can't maintain its value against other currencies if it is to be a success. There will only ever be 21 million bitcoins. If it ever becomes a large and stable economy then the bitcoin will have to be worth much more than it is worth today against other currencies. That's what I'm banking on anyway... ;)

This makes no sense whatsoever. Why on Earth would China want to destroy the US economy?! China is not at war with the US. On the other hand China has huge financial interests in the US (I believe China owns most of the US these days), and even if it didn't, the hit to the world economy if the US economy collapsed would be so large that China would be dragged down as well. There is no reason for China to want to harm the US economy and every reason for them to want to bolster it.

Could the NSA really not have come up with a more believable story?

I don't agree with that at all. The Euro has consistently remained strong, even during this so called "Euro crisis". Whether the way the Euro is being governed is good for the economies of the individual countries of the Eurozone is an entirely different question, but reality shows that it was good for the Euro and that the ECB is doing a good job of keeping its independence. There just is no comparison whatsoever (which the original poster was doing) between the Euro and the way it is governed, and Bitcoin.