Did you read the Wikipedia article? "It is estimated that there are 300,000 pieces of space junk ranging from 1cm to 25cm, and on average one satellite is destroyed each year." I'm not sure why 23 more pieces would cause us to lose space.

7 updates to a franchise in 14 years is anemic compared to other game franchises.

Does this guy read Slashdot? How does he know that people who are good with software could have such poorly informed and ridiculous opinions on matters of scientific interest? Makes me want to give the guy a high five!

If one person's personal bad experience with T-Mobile is news, than perhaps it's newsworthy that I use T-Mobile and am completely happy with it. Recently I switched to the two lines unlimited data with Hotspot for $100, it's great. My wife and I use a lot of data and there's no throttling or any problems at all, and the hotspot works well (we both have problems with internet sometimes not being available at work).

It works great in other countries, it's free to use data in Mexico (but with 3g) and in Asia (or anywhere, really) you could call people over wifi just like a normal phone.

The only problem is that reception in hilly forest areas of the Bay Area is sometimes spotty, often with no data. AT&T is better at that.

Speaking Empirically:

1) People thought bitcoin was anonymous, and therefore a good way to buy drugs/steroids. If people didn't believe this, other people wouldn't have to constantly be pointing out that Bitcoin isn't anoynmous. Nobody points out that American Express isn't anonymous, because it's COMPLETELY FUCKING OBVIOUS. Even Ross Ulbricht apparently didn't think through how traceable bitcoin is.

2) There isn't a company that is able to block/refund payment to drug dealers/steroid users. Once the money is transferred, it's as good as cash.

3) There is a fair amount of self-sustaining hype about bitcoin, where people just get one or two as a fun investment, or they're curious to check out what all the talk is about.

Give me a fucking break. You really list "17 year olds can use it!" as your first reason why it's popular? Children are not the driving force behind crypto-currencies.

Dividends go to people who own the stock. All your talk of insiders here doesn't really make any sense. If they decide IBM will no longer be profitable and it makes sense just to liquidate the company and have every last cent go into dividends, it still wouldn't benefit insiders, it would benefit stockholders, the owners of the company (and of course IBM is widely held). Bully for them.

The guy who lied about having a PhD from Stanford, and of being an early Apple employee? Who 20 years ago had a humor column in a now-defunct magazine, before John Dvorak took it over?

That's not what this is. Some riders are assholes, these riders are less likely to get picked up by a taxi. You don't have to fawn over Uber on Yelp or whatever.

It's nice and snappy on my $200 netbook...

WTF? Of all the anti-US drivel on slashdot, this is some of the stupidest. Tipping is custom, not corruption. It isn't for the right to get access to government service, it's something done in private businesses.

Two party system is wonderful. Take a look at the recent election Greece, where the far left party forms a nonsensical coalition of the far-left and far right. Or in England, where party that received the most support is kept out of power by a similar coalition.

And the economy of Europe is being pulled up by Northern/European counties? Have you read a paper in the last year or two? Europe's economy is in the shitter and going down.

Is the US not getting things done? It has the highest rate of worker productivity, the economy is growing, it has the largest manufacturing economy in the world by a large margin, top colleges are basically all US, Nobel prize winners are more US than elsewhere, government patent filings are mostly US, and the US has won the world series for like 20 years in a row. The lack of government subsidizing of ethernet to some bumfuck exurb is just a sign that the US doesn't treat broadband as an inherent right of being a citizen, and personally I would agree.

WTF? If you want a super portable game machine, buy a gameboy.

Western Europe, where 5% of the global population thinks they are most of the world...

Nonsense. Every carrier offers a bring-your-own-phone plan, and T-Mobile doesn't offer a discount, they just don't offer a subsidized phone option at all. WTF why are you ranting about something you clearly know nothing about?

Just because pull-down menus are a great idea for Turbotax, doesn't make them the best idea for a webbrowser. The "good" one wastes screen space on stupid pull-down menus that will never get used. For a program used on occasion, yes it is a very good idea to follow standards strictly. But plenty of people do basically nothing on their computers but use the web-browser and Office. I think it's best to optimize these programs interfaces to actual use, irrespective of general standards.

I just spent 2 seconds to turn on the pull-down menus to my browser...and a File menu? WTF? How often do you need that?

I can not believe anybody would suggest that WWI marked the begin of the strength of the British Navy. You know absolutely nothing about history and you shouldn't be talking about it with an air of authority. What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.