I think it would be just as foolish to dismiss this outright, considering the " tantalizing hints that there may be something to it" and the developing theories as it would be to start dumping your life savings into Rossi's company.

No, not really. It's the "tantalizing hints that there may be something to it" part which pretty much screams bullshit. Fusion is not exactly subtle; if it's going on, it's not hard to detect, and hasn't been. Furthermore, according to the Wikipedia link, the device was covered up during demonstrations, actively hindering any kind of measurements. Add those together and shave with Occam's razor, and you get "conman".

Also, fusion is not really all that hard to achieve. For example, a fusor is simple enough for a hobbyist project. What's hard is a fusion device with a net energy output; we don't even know if Rossi's device is doing fusion at all, so why would we even begin to assume it's not only doing so but generating more power than it consumes?

So yeah, with the information we have, this seems like exactly the kind of thing that should be dismissed outright.

Compare this with (old copper based) pennies, where the metal value is more than double the face value at 215%.

I sense a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of pennies suddenly screamed out in terror and were melted down to scrap.

Write a robust system that has a sufficiently complex job to do, on time and on budget.

This is true of any imaginable language.

...starts dusting off the passport and packing some clothes and chloroform

Please, this is /. we know that no one reads the article.

One pundit called him the "Magic Negro"

Well, isn't that what he was voted into office as? "Hope and change" - if you vote for him, everything will miraculously be fine again, rather than continue crumbling. That it actually worked - twice - tells something about how desperate people are getting.

I recently listened to the excellent History of Rome podcast, and one thing that struck home is the politics of the old Roman Republic. It would be trivial to sort many Roman politicians into left-right.

Because they actually were or because the podcaster had already done so when preparing the cast? After all, every political idea can be fitted into a left-right axis, just like any point on Earth's surface has a latitude. That does not mean it's sufficient information to capture the essence of the idea.

The more complex the subject and the less certain the data, the easier it's to see exactly what you expect to see.

Will our sun collide directly with another star? Not likely. Will there be earth-like planets in the aftermath? Certainly so. Will those be the same planets as before the collision? I sincerely doubt it.

I wouldn't just want a band-aid.

That does not counter my arguments as to why that's exactly what you get.

It's entirely possible to close loopholes like this while making the tax code much less complicated,

Are you a lawyer who's actually read the tax code and has concrete ideas, or are you simply asserting this?

The problem is that if you insist on treating law as a computer program, which following it to the letter in essence is, you'll run into the same problem as actual programs: it'll start simple, but soon the first weird corner cases show up, and you add special-case code to handle them, and then more, and then more, until the whole thing is an utter mess where any chance is likely to have unintended consequences. And you just know that you should just rewrite the thing partially or completely, but of course the process simply repeats if you do.

The geometry of food has an effect on how we perceive taste, so it wouldn't shock me if chefs to specialize in molecular gastronomy started experimenting with novel structures once 3d food printers become commonplace.

A thousand quatloos to the first person to design creme bruleé shell with the texture of cotton candy, 3d printed in a popsicle form factor.

But for any other serious financial transaction, well, unless you are a mobster or a dope dealer or otherwise involved in something illegal, the real question is WHY DEAL WITH IT.

Define "serious financial transaction". How does it differ from a regular financial transaction?

But in any case, the reasons to use Bitcoin is: you don't need the approval or cooperation of any third parties. You don't need a credit card, PayPal account nor even a bank account. You don't need to pay fees associated with these nor care if a government or a lobby group disapproves of your business. You don't need to worry about chargebacks nor people stealing your card number. You don't need to wait until the next day to have your transaction verified. Your have privacy - no, even if I don't do anything wrong or illegal I still don't want a stalker watching me. And you don't need to worry about things like the recent bank troubles in Cyprus.

Bitcoin is simply superior in over-the-Internet transactions, especially multinational ones.

McDonalds, for over a decade, served their coffee at temperatures hot enough to instantly cause severe burns

Which is the proper service temperature for coffee.

McDonald's customers should be defended from having hazardous material hastily handed to them,

Which includes pretty much everything served at McDonald's.

and medical professionals should be defended from being duty-bound to treat everyone, even if there's no reimbursement for the expense.

Dunno how this fits in with the rest - is it a Slashdot comment equivalent of a rider? In any case, you're wrong - with great power comes great responsibility, no matter how much it might clash with anyone's political ideology.

Still, it's not a difficult problem to solve another way - simply use a single-payer medical system and the doctors get their reimbursement from the government.