it's 6-month high is ~484. it's currently ~269. as far as fluctuations go that is massive. using bitcoin for anything other than quick sales (cash -> bitcoin -> transfer) is really not smart.

not to mention, the entire market is in a constant state of algorithmic manipulation (yes, i know, so is the stock market).

that's funny. because with bitcoin, you sure don't have to worry about someone stealing the knowledge that you bought a six pack at the local grocery, but you have to worry about them stealing THE ACTUAL CURRENCY.

credit cards get a bad rap, but for the consumer, it's pretty low risk. it's in the companies' interest for it to be low risk, because they want you to keep spending money with it.

The garbage disposer shows a reference to the item...

Wow, spell-check with a level of indirection....nice.

This is the strongest rebuttal yet to the government assertions that people do not have an expectation of privacy in emails. If the Whitehouse and State Department staffs think that a private email account if secure enough for government business, then clearly the government expects that emails are private.

This the the best rebuttal to claims that the government has the right to root through people's emails (even just the metadata) without a warrant.

to bring the cheese. Most competitive tournaments are chock fully of expensive as hell lists. It's not like League of Legends where cheap unites are competitive. You'll get blown off the table by $150 Knight Titans and $90 Riptides if you bring an elcheapo army built from the starter sets.

You don't usually do car repair unless something is not working..

Or, maybeæ you knowæ crowfund it just because traditional investors are too scared to do new things

Stop right there. People don't "invest" on kickstarter. They have no ownership interest in the business. The people who fund in kickstarter take all the risk, while having no possible upside beyond the products that they buy.

I could make a political point about how kickstarter and its kin are a response to laws that limit risky investments by all except the wealthy and the effect of "the closure" in Venice in the 14th centuary.

and for about 20% it declines to ZERO.

To be fair, about 20% of an in-office staff also tends to be completely unproductive.

every 5th text was silently dropped :

Every 5th? Wow, that's good. With my T-Mobile service, most texts from AT&T are dropped. I suspect it is because my number was originally a Pacific Bell number and somewhere within AT&T is a database that still shows my number as one that is with AT&T.

Why in particular would it play U2? It ought to play whatever you were last listening to. It's not going to choose U2 (or anything else) on its own.

In the late 1800's sure.
But they were still bloodletting then.
And just discovering that keeping germs out of wounds/surgical sites/people would help them heal better/faster.
So, I don't know how much Doctors prescribing tobacco in that era means. :-)

My mom had a Dr recommend cigarettes to her. ( 1950's when she was a teen. )
So she would be "cool" and less anxious.
So, basically, irrational.

The reason we have ISIS is because we defeated Saddam Hussein without thinking much about what would come next.

I heard one theory that ISIS is really a creation of Bashar al-Assad. Before ISIS was around, the West was all for regime change in Syria. Now we are effectively supporting the dictatorship in Syria.

You are assuming rationality on the part of people.

Knock that off.

If people were rational, no one would ever start smoking.
Assume it is harmless. ( It's not, but for argument )
The benefit is non-existent to negligible at best, and the cost is too much.
Why would anyone start?

is "Race to the Bottom", not "competitive workforce". It's a matter of perspective really. You're one of the lucky winners. If you had the wind knocked out of you by a few more rounds of offshoring though things might turn out differently for you.