No. The dot come bubble was all about public markets and demented IPOs and insane stock price. Now the game is different. In most of these startups you couldn't invest even if you wanted. Call your broker and tell him you want to buy shares of Dropbox, you'll see.

Well there's crowdfunding also but then you don't get equity, you basically prepay for a product you may never get.

I don't know. Have you seen those savings circles in poor areas like Central America or Africa? Basically people pool a small amount of money each month and one member gets the whole pool each month. It may look like a zero sum game, but the people who get the big sum of money can invest in farming or cooking equipment, and the productivity of the whole group increases each month a lot more than if they just kept their small savings.

A dollar is not always just a dollar. It depends on the context.

The matter is settled, then. Thanks for your valuable input!

This reminds me of that joke about two guys driving downhill in a car with no brakes; one of them is not nervous at all so the other one asks him why he is so calm in such a dangerous situation. The first guy replies: it's ok, there's a stop sign at the bottom of the hill.

I'm surprised that this hasn't made the list of common misconceptions on Wikipedia yet.

Of course it's people that built the pyramids. But the pyramid scheme itself was designed by aliens posing as gods. They came to Egypt for cheap labor and sure, they exploited people for a while, but then there was the Arab spring when people used Facebook and the Stargate to get rid of the corrupt alien leaders. People, get your facts straight!

Nothing at all. Greece is like Venezuela, but without the oil. There's nothing to be done until they decide to stop their social experiment. The world shouldn't subsidize that.

What's the real downside? Migrants? Western Europe is already experienced at stopping poor people on their borders, and it's not like Greece has a direct migration path. A Greek that wants to sneak into Europe has to cross the land of the vodka people, or try to swim to the south-east part of Italy. That's quite a convenient buffer, just like Mexico is a convenient buffer for the USA.

Europe managed to survive two world wars, plenty of civil wars, the plague, three Inquisitions, etc. I think they will survive the bankruptcy of a country that hasn't played a significant role in history since before the first edition of the bible.

The house of cards is different now. The bulk of the investment market is moving towards private equity, where things are less regulated and more difficult to game.

The only danger with this private equity trend is if all those billions invested in Silicon Valley startups don't turn up profitable. But how could that happen? There's an infinite customer base for freemium and ad-supported step counting widgets. That system could never fail like the subprime mortgage thing, too many people Like it on Facebook.

If you think I'm kidding look at numbers on crunchbase. Just for the last week the amounts invested by VC in startups is higher than Greece's monthly bill.

Why would anyone use those? There's no discount. A $25 gift card just entitles you to spend $25 worth of whatever that company has to sell. What's the point? To show someone that you know that they like coffee, so instead of giving them $25 you give them a $25 Starbucks gift card? It's not really more thoughtful than giving cash yet it's far less convenient for everyone involved. And why would you even refill those for yourself? Because you don't trust yourself with your own money?

And a Starbucks gift card is not like those gas credit cards, the last resort of degenerate gamblers, junkies and broke-ass idiots who offer you to fill up your car using their card in exchange for $20 cash. At least those are convenient if you happen to stop for gas at the right place and the right time.

Fuck gift cards.

Interesting stuff, but I still struggle with putting in the correct amount of water when I prepare Kool-Aid, so cold brewing Arabica beans ain't happening anytime soon. In the meantime I'll keep buying my coffee at Starbucks.

If your words were source code, it wouldn't compile.

I'm sure changing strategies will allow them to make up for the slow progress since the last change of strategy.

Action movies with female leads have been a recipe for a while now.

Look at Tomb Raider, Ultraviolet, Salt or many others. They are basically a Steven Seagal movie with a sexy chick instead of Steven Seagal. If that's the price to pay to see an action movie without being a dinosaur, I'm okay with it. Long live feminism!

And thinking of it, if Steven Seagal was to star in a chick flick instead of Jennifer Aniston, that would be a sign of true gender equality. I don't think we are there yet, and it's probably better that way.

He would get even more frustrated if he knew that neither Slashdot editors or readers can decide on how to spell his name.

Baghdad Bob, is that you?

Easy: a Buffer.com account using a prepaid credit card.

Don't let death stop the conversation! Prepare right now years of meaningless babbling that people will Like, Share and Retweet.