Bitcoin is a protocol more than it is a currency. Everything about the bitcoin protocol is made to keep a record of value that cannot be faked or stolen (when implemented properly). It is a complicated technology and governments will take a while to grasp it - just as it took years for governments and people to grasp just what 'the Internet' was. A government can make all the regulations or limitations it wants about Bitcoin - but it cannot have any influence over the Bitcoin protocol unless it participates. Participation makes Bitcoin stronger. There are no specifications in the protocol that give government any more control over Bitcoin protocol than anyone else that participates. If one country makes it harder (or illegal) for its population to use Bitcoin, that country and their population will have fewer Bitcoins.

Unless the Bitcoin protocol is broken, Bitcoin will always have value. Bitcoin is a finite resource. The value will be determined by the marketplace.

There are other alternative virtual currencies just like there are other alternative network protocols. However, as with almost any technology, the first widely-accepted implementation becomes the standard. TCP/IP is far from the best network protocol - but it is good enough. Bitcoin is far from the best virtual currency - but it is the most widely accepted.

I think it's fairly stupid at this point not to have a small amount of Bitcoin just in case it really starts to be accepted.

I think this is the bigger problem. This.. and pretty much ignoring common sense across the board when it comes to any excuse to allowing the government to become more heavy-handed (and frankly, fascist). The media will report this like 'people doing the swatting' are the problem. But, bomb threats and other similar attempts at mayhem have been around since way before the Internet and the police used to respond to them in a sensible manner. I am not saying the police should ignore a 'swat' call - but I am saying they should have some common sense before they suit up 20 officers for warlike conditions and inject them with a 'spasmodic roid rage only-for-the-movies attitude.' I don't care what a random guy on the phone says - it does not mean the other party should forfeit all of their Constitutional rights and have their front door knocked down. In all of this, I would say the biggest problem is not knocking by the police. However, this all fits if you realize the purpose of police militarization and the ridiculously disproportionately expensive warrior on terror is to move us (the US) in a fascist direction since fascism benefits the people currently pay our lawmakers (ie.. the 1%).

"Colleges are largely powerless to deal with the havoc Yik Yak is wreaking." This assumes that Yik Yak is wreaking havoc. So far, the article itself does not even give any real example to 'havoc' being wreaked by Yik Yak. This whole article can be summed up by "A new disruptive way of anonymous communication is catching on amongst college students. Naturally, a bunch of Orwellian-type people are worried about their lack of control over it." Further, if any actual violence happens because it was first announced on Yik Yak, it would be no different than if actual violence happened because it was announced via email, Facebook, or someone yelling and screaming it at a crowd.

There is no free market when Verizon is granted an anti-competitive monopoly on property-owners' easements and given tax breaks for infrastructure that equal more than Verizon pays for infrastructure. Verizon needs to be held accountable for their failure to live up to taxpayer promises. They are hardly a private company.

I suppose you think Intel developed AMD64 instruction set too..

AMD is most certainly not a shit company ~ you have a shit opinion. AMD was pounded into the ground financially by Intel competing unfairly when AMD had the clear performance advantage. Intel made their agreements so companies like HP would actually save money if they went 100% Intel even though the market was clearly calling for AMD processors. This was made obvious when AMD offered to give free processors to HP and HP still refused. Since Intel is basically a monopoly and our regulatory agencies are run by ball-less cowards, AMD has a tiny research and development budget compared to both Intel and Nvidia. AMD continues to exist with research money being their only real limitation. History shows that AMD can create processors that outperform Intel with less than a quarter of Intel's research budget. AMD has nowhere near a quarter of Intel's research budget at the moment. As far as ATI/Nvidia competition, Nvidia tends to make things as proprietary as possible while AMD makes them more open. AMD's graphics hardware tends to be more advanced while having a simpler design than Nvidia. However, AMD's very limited software/driver development budget keeps AMD graphics cards performing less than optimally. Further, my experience of gaming on Linux a few months ago gave me no issues with the Metro 2033 Redux and my Radeon 7970.. so I am going to take this 'benchmark' with a grain of salt. Perhaps the latest driver is slow or has a bug - but they do tend to get fixed from my experience. Even if you hate AMD as a company, you can thank them for the reasonable prices of CPUs and graphics cards. Without AMD, both become extremely expensive.

No, it isn't. The entire market cap of AMD is less than the cost of building a new fab. Intel royally fucked AMD in 1999-2003 and AMD has been in a dismal financial position ever since. Intel does not play fair - and until Intel is forced to play fair, the best you can expect from AMD is for them to stay alive. Intel was forced to pay a fine that was about 5% of where AMD should have been financially.

I have to agree with this sentiment. As an automation programmer, I integrate new technology into existing systems all the time. No matter how old something is, there is usually an interface or way to make it communicate and work seamlessly with newer components. I'm sick of every goddamn writer saying generalized idiocy to the effect of 'we need more government for everything.' If there are enough 'sensors' on existing roads for humans to make good driving decisions, then there are enough sensors on existing roads for machines to be programmed to make the same decisions.

Gotta agree with your sarcasm. Se-yul is also saying the exact things US officials would want him to say if they're trying to justify a typical bloated 'cyberwarfare' budget and new laws that limit freedoms in the US. "OMG the scary North Korea and their elite hackers are going to bring the US (home to the programmers of most of the worlds' major software) to its knees!"

WTF does STEM even mean? To me, it sounds like someone who is so goddamn unfamiliar with anything technical that he is trying to find a word more generalized than 'anything technical.'

Holy shit what a fucking insightful opinion. Mod parent to 5! Nobody else thought this initially and had the bold cavalier mental fortitude to just fucking post it... without wondering if there's really any truth to this.

As a private citizen, you can do that without representing the neighborhood. The CIA tortured on behalf of the United States.

This is what the FBI should be doing with our taxpayer money instead of going after individual software pirates or trying to push for easier backdoors into consumer devices. Teachers often get handed expensive devices that they don't really need - and they get denied funding on simple things like books, crayons, and copies. Meanwhile, teachers get paid shit and county officials get paid 3-5x as much.. The FBI should be cracking down on these corrupt jackasses.

I loved this movie.. It wasn't perfect - but no science-based sci-fi movie is. It's up to us to figure out how to make the impossible possible. No one needs another engineer or scientist telling us what we cannot do. We need more people like Elon Musk saying what we can do - and going out and proving it. The laws of physics are there to be broken. Defy them. Prove them wrong. Einstein broke Newton's laws.. Someone needs to break Einstein's laws.

I'll take Interstellar over any one of the normal Hollywood we get fed to us.. (ie.. XMen, Random war movies, save-the-world CIA shit). So please tell me you think this movie was at least better than the typical Hollywood movie.

If engineers and scientists tended to be optimistic rather than pessimistic, engineers and scientists would be running the world. Obama didn't get elected by telling us what mankind cannot do.

you save all of your AOL cd's...