It is not a completely good thing, because as you point out, a merchant or service that hold Bitcoins on behalf of customers can simply walk away with them. When you make a credit card charge, part of that $0.25+2.8% service fee is buying dispute resolution insurance. With Bitcoin, if you want such a service you must buy it separately from a third party.Credit cards force this bundling, Bitcoin does not.

The next release (0.6) will contain core features to facilitate escrow services.

We credit immediately (with 0 confirmations) but lock withdrawals and all forms of player-to-player transfers for about 20 minutes (2 confirmations.) So you can play immediately, but if you immediately have a big jackpot then you do have to wait for the deposited coins to confirm before withdrawing.

Paradoxically, we don't make any such locks on Bitcoins that are given to players, or winnings with those coins. We've always given out small amounts of Bitcoins for free, both as a way to let people try the game, and to promote Bitcoin itself. And yeah, we do have people that just come for the free Bitcoins and withdraw without playing anything.

Peak value was around $200M in June, and current value is around $32M. Using Bitcoins as an investment is a lot like gambling. However...
I can assure you that as a *currency* Bitcoin is wonderful. I run Dragon's Tale which is a cross between an MMORPG and a casino, and the game functions entirely in Bitcoins. Players routinely deposit anywhere from a few cents worth of Bitcoins to $100+ worth. Their account is credited immediately, they (and I) pay almost no transaction fees, there are no chargebacks to worry about, and when a player has a big win, they can cash out immediately.
Over the time that Dragon's Tale has been in development (we've been in open alpha for over a year), Bitcoin has been as low as $0.005 and as high as $32 each, and players who deposit still play for roughly the same USD amount. Our typical player deposits $1-$5 worth of Bitcoin to gamble with, and even if Bitcoin were to go back down to a half-a-cent, I'm quite confident that a typical deposit would be in the $1-$5 range.

The latest Gallup Poll shows 50% support for legalizing marijuana, but if you drill down the survey, you find that supporters of legalization already vote democrat, and so democratic candidates are better off to "capture the middle" by opposing legalization.

The solution to this is to hold our elections with Range Voting instead of the current plurality voting. With Range Voting a hypothetical candidate that is just-like-Obama, except on marijuana legalization, would beat him. Knowing this, Obama would likely change his position to align with the majority of his supporters (and in this case, the majority of Americans.)

From TFA: "Somebody sees something somewhere and we want them to be responsible citizens, report that and let us work it through our processes to abet the concern that they had when they saw something suspicious," said Paul Armes, TSA Federal Security Director for Nashville International Airport.

"Yes, I witnessed some people dressed in TSA uniforms at a weigh station, and I suspect they may be impostors. Could you send some agents over to check the situation?"

Bitcoins are infinitely divisible in theory, and divisible to 1/100000000 in the current implementation. We give away 1/1000 BTC units called "Bitmils" for people to try the game with. (And some just take the gifts and withdraw - not a big deal for such small amounts.)

Our new game, "Dragon's Tale," functions exclusively in Bitcoins. It's a gambling MMORPG based on the same technology as our previous game, "A Tale in the Desert." Choosing Bitcoins means that I never have to worry about PayPal freezing my account, or about $25 chargeback fees, or making Mastercard a 2.5% partner in my business.

When we started Dragon's Tale, Bitcoins were worth 5 cents, and people played for 100's at a time. When Bitcoins were $30, people played for fractions of a coin. Now that Bitcoins are $2.00 or whatever, they may spend a Bitcoin or two on a play session.

The point is that the exchange rate to dollars is irrelevant - players play at the level they're comfortable with, and our revenue (viewed in dollars) has been increasing steadily.

Porn is nothing new for PETA. This happened at Burning Man in 2006:

First off, when it comes to art at Burning Man, pretty much anything goes. However, PETA's "art" consisted of a film loop of pigs being beaten to death, shown on a 15-foot screen, complete with sound. They placed this on the Esplanade, Burning Man's "main street." My camp was next door, and while we didn't actually do any of the following pranks, thinking them up was great fun.

Our first prank was to go over with a plate of veal chops:

Us: "Hi, guys. We're from BBQ camp, next door, and ... we're full. Would you like some veal chops? We're just going to throw them out."

Our next prank:

Us: "Hi, guys. We're so glad that you've taken the first step toward a sustainable planet by becoming vegan. But we hope that you'll take the next ethical step like we have. We're from Fruitarian camp, next door, and we would like to invite you to join us in embracing a fruitarian lifestyle, and avoid all but fruit that falls naturally from the tree."

PETA: "If you guys are all fruitarians, how come you're all so fat?"

Me: "Well, I can only speak for myself, but I've been a fruitarian now for a month, and already I've lost over 50 pounds. I feel great, and expect to be at my goal weight in just 10 more days."

For our final prank, we planned to go masturbate in front of their pig-killing video:

Us: "uhhh. Uhhhh. UUHHHH, Oh Yes!"

PETA: "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU PEOPLE DOING?"

Us: "Oh, hey, sorry. We're from Bestiality Camp, next door. We were just enjoying the snuff films you guys are showing."

The article does all sorts of graph theory visualizations about the well-known 25k BTC theft, tracking flows of Bitcoins from one address to another to prove Bitcoin is not anonymous.

What they fail to do is identify the thief!

Perhaps the margin of their paper was too small to include the thief's name.

Posted as AC by mistake.

This "church" consists of about two dozen members, and about half of those are Fred Phelps' family. Yet they get tremendous amounts of coverage, usually with a "dangerous new trend developing" tone to it.

I should do the same - dream up some ridiculous position to advocate and then see if I can get CNN to cover it. Maybe I'll start a group demanding that gorillas get the right to vote, or that we execute illegal immigrants, or insisting that everyone adopt a strict fruitarian diet like this guy.

I bet I could pull it off. If I didn't have anything productive to do.

TFA doesn't explain what an "eFuse" is, but if it's anything like an actual fuse, then shorting it should be easy enough. If it's not protecting anything (in the traditional sense), then the equivalent of "jamming in a penny" should be safe and effective, and would allow hackers to tinker until it gets rooted.

Yes, but kudos to Google for pushing. When was the last time you saw a company even 1/10th Google's size do something "right" just because it's right? This is humiliating for the bureaucrats in China.

Not necessarily true. It's plausible that Asperger's syndrome was an evolutionary disadvantage millennia ago (also the food allergies that tend to go with it) , but an advantage today. (And it's no longer hard to avoid troublesome foods.) Furthermore, smart people tend to have kids with Asperger's, and people with Asperger's tend to mate with others with the same condition. This may not be run-of-the-mill natural selection at work - we may be witnessing speciation. How cool is that?!?