You guys are focusing too much on the game. The Minecraft, as an icon, is valuable in and of itself. Disney has Mickey. Nintendo has Mario. Sega has Sonic. Microsoft could possibly be buying Steve. If Steve, as an icon, can last decades into the future, it will be well worth the price tag to Microsoft.

Think Nintendo has made at least $2 billion off of Mario? They certainly didn't make that much off of Mario Bros. or even Super Mario Bros., but has an icon, I'm sure Mario has been worth way more than that.

Your logic is ridiculous. Incarceration isn't a violent act, and more so, the damage that this guy did is real. It's really not that different from arson. An arsonist might cause many millions of dollars in damage, just so that he can have a moment of entertainment. Should arsonists go unpunished?

I switched for the cash. I don't consider it pathetic at all. The quality of the web results are on par with Google. Image results seem to be slightly behind, but for the $8/month I make, to me it was clearly worth it.

I know that there will be a lot of negative comments here about Bing, but when Microsoft started paying people to use Bing, I switched. The web results seem to be just as good as Google. I can't tell the difference. The image results seem to be slightly behind, but for the ~$8/month I make, I don't mind at all. :)

Hopefully not.

But seriously, when Microsoft started paying people to use Bing, I switched and haven't looked back. The search results are pretty good and I've already made $6.53 in the past month. :)

Dwolla isn't in any way a competitor to Bitcoin. Dwolla, as you pointed out, is an online payment system. It is a competitor to PayPal, Google Wallet, credit cards, and other forms of online payment. Payments in these systems are done in dollars and other forms of currency.

Bitcoin is a currency. It's not competing with Dwolla but the US dollar.

I checked out the beta. I'll reserve most judgment for now, but I'm thoroughly disappointed that the Slashdot Poll format hasn't changed. It's a shame that a site like Slashdot continues to use plurality voting. We should switch to ranked voting (or at lease approval voting).

This isn't a Republican vs Democrat thing, but it _is_ very political. Planet Money had an explanation of the economics of car dealerships and how dealerships and politicians prevent sales directly to consumers.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/02/19/172402376/why-buying-a-car-never-changes

Not quite true.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#Cable_plugs_.28USB_3.0.29

Agreed. I read the articles. The story has nothing to do with the game at all, yet the articles (and Slashdot) highlight the game in their titles and pictures because the guy plays the game at times. If the guy happened to have a collection of postage stamps, would the media write their headlines as "Teenage Stamp Collector Jailed For Months For Facebook Joke"?

You mean the renminbi. _A_ yuan is the unit of _the_ renmimbi currency in the same way that _a_ dollar is the unit of _the_ dollar currency.

A garage door opener!

I know a few Democrats that were superromneyphobic.

Once Skynet becomes self-aware, this is one of the first devices that it will take possession of.