Personally I can't wait to hear from the Kazakhstani Prince and the $20 million dollars he's having trouble moving ....

Or to the rooftop mail room chute in a large office building that might contain hundreds of Amazon business customers. If you're picturing suburban doorstep delivery to un-prepared recipients, you're imagining the wrong scenario.

google broke into internet search with the page rank algorithm whose essential purpose is to combat "search engine optimization."

Yeah. They destroy legitimate businesses with their wonderful algorithms...

SEO isn't a legitimate business. If your website is getting pushed into the search-result basement, odds are you're doing it wrong.

I think most doctors believe its beneficial but I also think they somehow see acetaminophen opiate formulations as some kind of bulwark against abuse. Either because they believe it is so much more effective paired with acetaminophen and you'll be inclined to take less overall or that people "know" acetaminophen is bad in quantity and it will serve as a deterrent to excessive dosage, especially people with a history of drug abuse.

Also, the DEA watches doctors who prescribe opiates very carefully. If some government goon believes a doctor's handing them out like candy, the doctor's most likely going to be called in for some very uncomfortable questions. See chapter two of Three Felonies a Day for some examples.

The way scripts for opiates are handled is also quite different. My wife's oncologist was able to submit the vast majority of prescriptions to her preferred pharmacy electronically; they would be ready for pick-up a short time after. The one time she was prescribed straight oxycodone (or whatever opiate), it was printed on security paper to thwart attempts at altering or copying. It was signed, and some sort of DEA ID number issued to the doc was printed in the header. I had to deliver the prescription to a pharmacy. Her usual pharmacy didn't have it in stock, so I had to find another that did. Once it was filled, I had to sign for it in a logbook (similar to when you buy products containing pseudoephedrine).

1) First, the silliness with bill names really needs to stop; one imagines a giglling kindergartner sitting "playing" Congressman typing out stupid acronyms while lobbyists sit in the background actually crafting the legislative language.

2) Then again, there are so many vagaries in the language of this bill, it's almost comical that it would be presented as legislation.
First, the bill keeps referring to "asteroids in outer space" - WTF is "outer space" precisely? Anything ex-atmospheric? Above the Karman Line? Anything in orbit? Anything outside lunar orbit?
Second, I believe even astronomers are having Platonic debates over the precise meanings of such terms as 'asteroid', 'planetoid', and 'moon'. Heck, in wiki's intro to "asteroid", the bulk of the opening paragraph sort of dissolves asymptotically trying to grab specifics. This document constantly references asteroids without bothering even to define what they're talking about. It might include Ceres or Vesta, but could it include the Moon? How about Phobos? Pluto?

Of course, most people have comfortable working definitions of the above, insofar as they care. But when the first rover starts drilling into the Moon, or Mars, or heck, taps into an agglomeration of someone else's space junk asserting it's "space debris that's formed an asteroid" these sorts of vagaries cause massive legal issues.

More evidence - as if the US public needed it - that our congressvermin are just idiots.

Frankly, I have to say that this is even more Orwellian and pernicious than government-backed spying.

The idea that an ostensibly-objective source in the private sector - simply by the good fortune of it's overwhelming market power - can ensure that we all have happythink by subtly 'managing' the news feeds... is terrifying.

In all likelihood we should thank our lucky stars he did. There are Designers and then there are "designers". "Designers" unfortunately seem to value aesthetics well above all else, including usability. They are art school grads without any particular skill with engineering or and they appear to have slept through usability training. The interfaces I'm seeing lately tend to hide functionality that should not be hidden even when that makes it less pretty. I don't care if an interface is ugly if it maximizes functionality and ease of use. Form should always follow function.

There are excellent Designers out there but like truly good Programmers they are a relatively rare bird. Even at companies like Apple where they have a reputation for good design you can see many examples of varying skill levels between the Designers and the "designers".

...seems to be doing everything in their power to push Germany to be a regional power that DOESN'T NEED OR WANT the US.

Is that the greatest idea?

a) most peoples' computers are making so much noise (fans, etc) that the only way you're going to have a chance to hear the difference will be with $1000 totally-closed cup headphones - do a lot of people have them on their computer?
b) otherwise, even if their PC is silent, their speakers are usually craptastic 3" logitechs, *maybe* with a cheapo sub buried in the shag carpet (ie a somewhat sub-optimal listening environment)
c) finally, last time I checked *most* people are listening to relatively crappy lossy mp3s ripped from youtube videos. It really, truly, doesn't matter how lovely a board you're sending crap sound data through: GIGO.

So I guess these boards are still relevant to the microniche of audiophile enthusiasts that have a nearly-silent PC and hardware, floor-scale speakers connected to their system (or 4-digit $ headphones), and who listen to audiophile-caliber audio....meaning nearly nobody.

That might explain why Creative Labs stock ($36.63 in March 2000) is $1.78 today.

"A week or so later, I asked it about a Wells Fargo branch. It sent me to one about a mile away"

This is why you look on Wells Fargo's website for their location addresses and then put the closest one's street address into google's map for navigation.

You can't fix politics, until you fix the people voting for the politicians. We get exactly what we deserve as an electorate. However, there are signs on the wall (CANTOR), that given enough crap, voters will out vote incumbents even as they spend millions to hold onto a seat. I see more potential in the (R) side right now in outing politicians who deserve it. However, I don't see ANY such on the (D) side. There is no (D) grassroots with any power, including OWS (noisy, but otherwise ineffective) threatening Harry, Nancy, or any of the others who need to go as much as Cantor did.

But I actually blame the liberal mentality for this, because they like abusive power of Government butting into everyone's business and telling everyone how to live, rather than leaving us the hell alone. Liberal fixation on people like Sarah Palin (who doesn't hold an elected office), because she talks funny, while accepting Sheila Jackson Lee (a complete loon) is a prime example of duplicity that is amazing.

It is short sighted indeed. It is way more expensive to replace good workers than it is to retain them. But they don't teach this in Business school any longer.

That is not how money laundering looks like. Here is what Money Laundering Looks like

Illegal gained money is given to a Legitmate enterprise (Gambling) and is returned as "profit" or whatever from the enterprise. In a very simple case, mob money is put into a slot machine, and 98% of it is returned when the jackpot is hit. The gains, now washed (legitimate) are taxed and are clean for use elsewhere (deposit into a bank). Where if you just stuck the gains in the bank would trigger all sorts of investigations. This is part of the reason why deposits of $10,000 or more in banks are automatically reported to treasury, for an audit of the money trail.

The trick in money laundering is to hide the input (initial gains being laundered) well enough that it doesn't trigger the reporting requirement of transactions of 10K or more. A series of 5000 "high risk" transactions where you lose most of the time, but win big occasionally, is typically how money is laundered. The inputs are not traceable, and the earnings become legitimate.

The goal is always to hide the initial input, obfuscate the long trail of transactions and end up with legitimate money on the back end. The transaction you describe is used to obfuscate the buyer and seller from each other, and the authorities, not the transaction. Money laundering still has to occur with the seller, as the bitcoin to currency exchange still has dirty money written all over it.

No, that is not a show stopper for Bitcoin. It is what is going to drive Bitcoin to full currency status faster, where people trade money for the more usable Bitcoin.

Here is the issue, anything that makes something less utilitarian and causes restrictions will fall into disfavor eventually. Laws and Restrictions and fees and taxes all have the unintended consequence of driving economy deeper under the table. There is a whole class of people who now work off the books, bartering and trading and whatnot, and they don't pay taxes on anything they earn, simply because the government cannot track their activities. They work very hard at staying under the radar, dealing in CASH and trades, and as a result, have a better income than someone that is legitimate.

If I earn 2000 under the table, it is worth 3000-4000 in legitimate earnings that people pay taxes on. And as more people realize how much the government seizes in taxes, even on the "poor", this will start happening more and more. Bitcoin(and similar), has the ability to really change this equation faster than it is happening now.

The more they squeeze their fists, the more people will slip through their fingers (paraphrase of Princes Leia)

The problem is, it is going to be really hard for the Government to trace money laundering with Bitcoin, if the people take a few simple steps.

1) Use unique wallet for each transaction
2) Use a washing service every time one acquires new coins in a normal transaction.
3) ???
4) Profit

The government is going to try to regulate "coin washing", but since it is a decentralized currency, with no government boarders, it is going to be really hard to pull off well.