Are you talking about Bitcoin's deflationary tendencies? Bitcoin deflation assumes one thing, that people will continue to want Bitcoin, a "commodity" designed to be limited in supply. In other words, for the value of Bitcoin to rise people must remain INTERESTED in Bitcoin. If interest in Bitcoin falls, then the value of Bitcoin also falls, which just a roundabout way of saying "inflation".

I suspect the lack of positive or negative news about Bitcoin is contributing to the current downward trend of its value relative to the dollar.

2880? Wow, that's not even news. There are more things to worry about than what happens half a millenium after the Singularity or the Collapse of Civilization as We Know It. Presumably we'd be so advanced by that time that we'd know how to deflect any large rock that wanders into our cosmic backyard. Or we'd degenerated to such post-Apocalyptic backwardness all we can do is look up to the sky and watch the fireworks before we all die. (I mean we in a collective humankind way. I personally don't expect to be around by that time.)

All politics is a joke, until you get whacked on the head with it. I mean what kind of insanity will force you to smile even when you want to strangle the guy you're smiling/shaking hands with?

If the goal of patents is to encourage innovation, then the patent system is no longer necessary except for targeted fields where technological progress is slow. For example I'd welcome patents for a better rocket engine, a space elevator or a room temperature superconducting microchip. But for most information technologies, patents should be abolished altogether.

Think of it this way, patent protection makes sense in a world where there are only a hundred or so inventors, but not where there are tens of millions of inventors or makers, who are basically "inventors" without Edison's pretension of building something from scratch. Where there are millions of inventors, patents can only get in the way of further innovation.

Not the first time a computer geek has used a feline for nefarious purposes. In Japan.

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/...

Take a good look at the photo that accompanies the linked article:

http://www.newscientist.com/da...

There's clearly no support for the hands. The thumbs of the worker modeling the exoskeleton are clearly visible above the presumably heavy metal object that's actually being lifted by a a crane-like contraption that loops over his shoulders. The worker is only using his hands to stabilize the object.

Power suit this isn't. So no Ironman here yet.

Sad indeed. Sony should have learned something from their console business. It isn't so much the console as the games, it isn't so much the ereader as the ebooks. Now it seems their smartphone business is also going dodo.

However I'm curious about this part of your post: "The remaining alternatives to the Kindle (Kobo and various janky Chinese and Russian devices) routinely fall short". Does Russia really manufacture anything besides spyware, rockets, and killing machines?

For reference, here's what Obama said about Russia's manufacturing capability: "http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/03/us-ukraine-crisis-obama-idUSKBN0G30Q920140803"

But don't you know that piracy promotes terrorism? Or maybe the DHS got the wrong definition of piracy, you know, the one where people actually get raped and killed.

"I'm serious... I really want someone to explain to me why they think Windows 8/8.1 is so bad (once you get rid of the tiles/apps paradigm"

You nailed the problem, and you're asking why? Modern OS's are all about tweaking performance or conversely, making it worse. So you really can't design, a gee whiz, that's fantastic new GUI that's going to blow the pants off everyone and then expect it to be usable for day-to-day work. Take your pick, OS X style or Win 95 style. Desktop UI design was already perfected by the time /bin/laden terrorized New York.

IOS and Android are relatively easy to use because they're touch and small-screen optimized versions of OS X. The touch interface formerly known as Metro is a nice concept but deviates too much from the desktop UI "norm" that most people view it as unusable. A museum is a pretty place, but I sure as hell don't want to live in one.

Let's just censor the press and get it over with. /sarcasm

Saying things will be forgotten if it can't be Googled/Binged is like saying you won't get robbed so long as you don't post a sign that your door isn't locked. If a news outlet decides to "unforget" a person, then why not go after that media outlet, which is the source of the link that Google has indexed. I'm sure Google, even from a purely commercial point of view, won't keep serving dead links.

Technically you're style Nazi. Figures of speech aren't covered by grammar.

"Nonsense. Imagine Bilbo kills one of the dwarfs for no reason and they all laugh and continue with their business. That wouldn't make sense and you'd be immediately pulled back from the scene and think WTF am I watching? Why the director do that? The suspension of disbelief would be broken."

I imagine you haven't watched one of those violent kiddie cartoons?

Bad comparison (although I'm pro-driverless car), unless you're thinking of dedicated driver-free lanes that basically turns the supposedly autonomous vehicles into glorified train cars. You might as well say that driverless cars are as safe as elevators and when was the last time an elevator killed someone?

Right. I won't trust a defense contractor whose security gets compromised using phishing emails. If the intrusion is more low level than that (the mythical compromised routers), then they might have a good excuse. If the story is true, and the Israelis aren't just making it up as a cover story or honeypot to attract would-be cyber-attackers from other less technically competent nations (Iran, N Korea, etc), then the defense contractors should be banned from future military contracts.

WTF? It's fantasy with wizards, elves and dragons, and you're talking about suspension of disbelief? If it's an Asimov or AC Clarke adaptation maybe we can start talking about believability, but a high fantasy like this one? Anything goes, except perhaps when it comes to absolute immortality. Apparently "immortal" characters or monsters tend to have some sort of weakness that allow them to get killed by a determined hero or villain.