BTC also has several usability problems, like the long time to clear a transaction (with 6 recommended confirmations, it's between 15 and 30 minutes.)

Keep in mind that ACH transactions take upwards of 4 days to clear while your money is in limbo, and wire transaction fees are exorbitant (generally $50 or more). So bitcoin wins. Of course, this is a US problem...the rest of the world has faster and cheaper transactions.

We overvalued FB by some margin and then some, didn't realize we're essentially scryers looking into our crystal balls that display models that we built, for people like us, who believe these schemes to be true (and hence make them true, as long as petty things like market or reality don't butt in), we lost money because we're too dumb to realize our models have nothing to do with reality and once they hit reality they crumble.

But it's all Nasdaq's fault for doing ... uh ... what exactly? Not allowing us to blow away our money fast enough? Because that's essentially the "mistake" Nasdaq made. But hey, maybe that's required for the scheme to work, because the only thing that would've kept FB share values up was money artificially pumped into it to inflate it.

So yes, Nasdaq is to blame. They didn't let us play the market like we usually do, sue their pants off 'em!

When you're young, don't report the bug to the company in question or the authorities, report it to those that can make "good use" of them. Not only do they not have any problem with you being underage, you being underage also means you most likely won't be doing time if you get caught.

It's just so win-win...

Private corporations are concerned with immediate success. They need to show something in their next quarter report or their stocks will fall. Things like investment in future endeavors is rare, and only risked if there's a chance to gain some sort of perpetual patent. But why bother with high investments in basic research when it's far more profitable to whip up some trivial patent of something even a dumb fuck in middle management could come up with?

No, basic research, the research that actually does lead to groundbreaking results and exciting new technology is NEVER conducted by companies. Never. Remember the laser? You know, the thing that drives your DVD and BluRay drives? Think that was what the idea of Einstein when he whipped up the theoretic basis for it in 1917? Hell, even current patent laws don't allow you to milk it for a century. And no, this is NOT the suggestion that we should extend patents beyond the insanity copyright has already reached. But I ramble.

A lot, and I really mean a LOT, of theoretic and practical research was necessary, from great minds like Ladenburg, Kastler, Basov and Maiman, and still it took the last one 'til the 1960s to produce a working laser, more than four decades after the theoretic foundation.

You think any company on this planet would think in terms like this?

You think any investor would invest in something that could take half a century to produce results you can market?

Hell, it took 'til the 1980s to produce consumer grade lasers. And 'til the 1990s and even 2000s to make them cheap. Today, though, they're everywhere, from consumer electronics to cutting edge science, from micrometer distance measuring to touch-less cutting. And of course playing DVDs and BluRays.

Think we'd have any of those things if we left innovation to the market?

So you're that Nigerian prince who keeps sending me investment opportunities?

You're looking for someone who is incredibly good (able to offer a wide variety of programming languages, good enough to not create any bugs, anticipate them and/or find them very quickly), that is essentially someone who could pick and choose his job, but pay him like some intern.

Would you do it?

That's not what I said.

So? When THIS is what capitalism gets us, I guess socialism can't be so bad.

Agreed. For more than one reason, and from personal experience. I've had both, a crew of code monkeys and a small but incredibly efficient team of well paid but also very good programmers. To say that the latter were vastly outperforming the former (for less money in total, too) is an understatement.

Two people doing each 50% of work will not compensate for one person who could do 100%. Simply due to a lack of information. One person has, by design, all the information that person has. This is not true for two people who should do this one person's work instead. They have to synchronize and exchange information, and that invariably fails at some level as we all know, where you either lose efficiency by having to design an interface between these people or, lacking this, lose even more efficiency when their interface just doesn't work out.

In the end, you're better off with FEWER, but BETTER people than you could ever be with a truckload of code monkeys. Yes, even if they cost a multiple of the monkeys. A billion code monkeys with keyboards will never write the better OS.

And that's what's wrong with the USA today. Working simply doesn't pay anymore. Not working and having others work for you does.

In earlier days, we called them spongers and leeches, but in today's world where everyone needs a title, it's CEO.

Over 100 posts and not a single Super Mario reference...

Again, simple job creation isn't going to cut it, but there are quite a few things that could be improved in the country that requires workforce AND would improve the infrastructure and standard of living of many people.

So do I, and I was appalled when I went to the US for a few months. This was the big role model for economy, of growth and progress? The electric infrastructure (in California, not backwater hicksville) reminded me of our countryside in the late 1960s, and I found hemp isolation on the wires in the buildings. I was kinda wary to use the tap water for anything but washing hands, I didn't consider it impossible that they used lead pipes, too.

Fuck, I've seen better infrastructure in the former East Bloc, and those of you who've been to countryside Romania know what THAT means!

It's more likely to be invested somewhere, somehow. But that doesn't solve the economy problem, it adds to it. We don't need money on the supply side, we need money on the demand side of economy. That's the problem our economy is facing, a lack of demand. Look around you, does it seem like there is any shortage of any goods? Or any kind of service? The problem is that the stockpiles are full but there's nobody who could still buy the crap we produce, or request and pay for the service offered. That is the economy problem today.

We don't need more investment money. We need more spending money. Our economy needs consumers who want to and who can consume. That's a given. Now, our products are good enough that the consumers would want to consume, what's lacking is their ability to do it.

We need money on the demand side to restart our economy into its former strength. We need to SELL, people!