Hoverboard, e-cigarette, Note 7, and you're got that "tribute from district 12" Halloween costume nailed.

It's more-or-less Rayman Jungle Run (they even copied the "wall hopping" mechanics, which I can't recall being present in any classic Mario game). It came out FOUR FREAKING YEARS AGO. But I guess Nintendo won't be sued by Ubisoft, because, well, they're Nintendo.

...it's the app America deserves.

I've seen enough Batman movies to know it's a bad idea to be a vigilante. Also, bat nipples.

It probably looks like this. Nature is violent and gross. Ever hear of cookie cutter sharks? They're basically vicious little living hole saws, and they chew gaping holes into the flesh of pretty much anything they can get their mouth on. Oh, and then there's the mantis shrimp, which literally smashes its prey to death. I'll close with some appropriate song lyrics from The Lorax:

Well there's a principle of nature (principle of nature)
That almost every creature knows.
Called survival of the fittest (survival of the fittest)
And check it this is how it goes.
The animal that wins gotta scratch and fight and claw and bite and punch.
And the animal that doesn't, well the animal that doesn't winds up someone else's lu-lu-lu-lu-lunch (munch, munch, munch, munch, munch)

I'm blowing my chance at moderating this story, just so I can say this: There's not a damn thing you can say or scientific study you can point to that will make me stop eating meat. Even if it meant becoming a "second amendment person" (thanks, Trump) and hunting animals, I would. I could watch a PETA "Meat is Murder" propaganda video while chomping down on a burger and it wouldn't faze me in the least. Like religion and most republican policies, my decision to eat meat isn't based on reason or logic. It's based on a deep carnal desire to devour animal flesh, compounded with my belief that it's also delicious.

If you truly were satisfied with your lifestyle choice, you wouldn't feel the need to seek validation by attempting to convince others to come to the same conclusion.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go put a "I'm with Her" sticker on my economy car, and then order some meaty Tuscan pasta on my iPhone from Pizza Hut.

I've been using the same $35/mo plan with Cricket since back when they were AIO. Unlimited talk, unlimited text and 2.5GB high speed data (plus throttled-back-to-the-stone-age unlimited). T-Mobile has nothing that can touch it, coverage (Cricket uses AT&T's towers) or price-wise.

Also, it seems Cricket is also beating T-Mobile's unlimited pricing if all you want is a single line. They're offering unlimited data for $65/mo, with autopay. Yay for competition.

If you actually use this phone in the real world, it will be glitching like an old school Nintendo game when dust, dirt and corrosion get between the contacts of all the "modular" components.

Honestly, every time I've ever purchased a newer mobile device, the old one seemed to have become equally deficient across all its specs - RAM, flash storage, screen size/quality, and camera resolution/quality. I've never once thought "Gee, it's awesome to be rocking Ice Cream Sandwich, a 480x800 3.7" display, 512MB RAM, a 1GHz single core CPU, and 8GB of flash, but man - this 8MP camera sure is killin' me!"

Sure, repairability is a nice feature, but it's not difficult to replace the display assembly on a modern iPhone (I've done it myself, and it takes less than 5 minutes if you've got the proper tools). You're likely looking at an entire replacement phone anyway if you've killed the motherboard (example: water damage), or smashed the housing up too badly (fell in a blender, 50' drop, etc.)

Spec wise, this seems similar to the unlocked Blu phones Best Buy sells. If you're not making a "flagship killer", you're caught in a very competitive race to the bottom. I get that this is supposed to be better for the Earth or conflict regions where rare earths are mined, but there's got to be a way to ease your conscience without such pathetic hardware specs.

The problem with Bitcoin is not that is has no value, the problem with it is that it has significantly less utility than legal currencies, can have significant shifts in value, and that things like this "innovation" can affect the value in a way that isn't representative of any economic indicator.

You missed one of the largest problems with Bitcoin: It was designed to be deflationary. Most fiat currencies are designed to be slightly inflationary, which encourages people to spend or invest it (the economy, in a nutshell), rather than hoard it or invest in it on speculation that it might be worth more in the future. Unlike investing in a business, precious metal, or commodity, when you buy Bitcoin you're not putting your faith in peoples' ability to turn a profit, the labor and costs involved in mining and extracting a rare element, or something with intrinsic value. You're simply buying into a cryptocurrency modeled after a pyramid scheme.

To truly picture what's wrong with Bitcoin, think of a new iPhone release. Yeah, some of the people buying them are speculating that they'll be able to sell them for a profit on eBay. Perhaps some of the buyers on eBay are speculating they can re-sell the phones in their bodega cell phone shops. But ultimately, at the end of the line are people who just want to actually buy an iPhone to use it.

Bitcoin's utility is limited by the hassle of exchanging it to and from fiat, its unstable value, and extremely limited merchant acceptance. It's kinda like paying a fee to have someone hold your wallet and randomly add or remove some of your money, and most of the time tell you "no" when you ask if you can spend your money at a merchant. Doesn't look like such a great investment, does it?

If it bothers you to use vulgarities, don't use them. Writing "p*ssed" instead of "pissed" just makes it look like you're trying to get around some nonexistent profanity filter. Or, maybe you were just using self-censorship to set the proper North Korea mood.

Either way, allow me to defer to the late George Carlin's thoughts on the matter of swearing.

The automobile was more convenient than owning a horse. MP3 is more convenient than dealing with CDs. Try actually using cryptocurrency and it rapidly becomes apparent that it's far simpler just to whip out your credit/debit card, or good old cash. If you're buying something online, PayPal's more or less got your back if the seller screws you over. Ordered an iPhone and received this instead? File a claim.

The only reason anyone bothers with Bitcoin is because they believe a bigger fool will buy the Bitcoins off of them at a later date, or because they're buying things (contraband merchandise) that they don't want legitimate payment processors knowing about. Most legitimate businesses that accept Bitcoin simply use a payment processor that immediately exchanges the Bitcoins for cash, and generally you're the one eating the transaction fees on both ends (unless you get lucky and Bitcoin fluctuates up in the time since you exchanged cash for your Bitcoins).

If you really want to live in the brave new world of electronic payments, get a phone with NFC and try using that for awhile. You'll quickly discover it's still more convenient to use a form of payment that's accepted everywhere (cash, credit/debit), rather than remembering which merchants have functional NFC equipment and fumbling with your phone.

Some people don't have the time to invest in practicing. You're working 40+ hour weeks and could be playing against prepubescent twerps who spend every waking moment on the game. Even game developers have realized this and added pay-to-win shit to some games. Grind or spend, baby.

I never really got into any of the online MMO or FPS games, but I do play Angry Birds 2 once in awhile on my phone. I've got a hack for unlimited in-game currency, and it gives a bit of an advantage in the multiplayer "arena", since I can play every battle with all the premium power-ups. Of course, this isn't really a cheating hack, since Donald Trump could easily do the same thing, if he traded his presidential ambitions for an Angry Birds addiction.

Thanks to T-Mobile's success in using newspeak to convince the public that subsidized phone contracts are pure Satan-piss evil, the major carriers in the US have all pretty much switched to a model where wireless service is sold on a "no contract" basis, but you finance the full cost of your phone.

Under the previous, 2 year contract arrangement, you'd pay the same for your wireless service whether you opted for the $0 Huawei Dolphin Fart Pro running Froyo, or the "$199" iPhone du jour. Might as well get the iPhone. However, now that carriers expect you to finance the full cost of your phone, there's some serious money to be saved going with a Moto G, ZTE Zmax 2, Blu Vivo XL, etc. All of those phones cost under $200.

Apple is certainly not doomed, but their glory days of iPhones flying off the shelves might be behind them.

You couldn't actually watch VHS quality video on a PC until circa 1995. Even then, you needed a video card with a dedicated MPEG decoder, or at least a Pentium 90MHz (that's 0.09GHz for you younger millennials) CPU and a video card that supported video overlay acceleration (if you wanted to watch it full screen without it getting choppy). But your bigger problem would have been the lack of broadband access - at the time, even AOL was still charging by the hour, for dial-up.

VGA, as it existed when it superseded EGA - well, it was good for looking at pixelated 256 color still images. Magazines (images and words printed on processed dead trees, don't see them much these days) still had the advantage when it came to clarity of what you were looking at.

Not just truck drivers - any job that involves moving someone or something from point A to point B with a human behind the wheel is a target for elimination. For the most part, a job in the transportation industry pays a livable wage. If transportation jobs are rendered obsolete by autonomous vehicles, we're talking a mind-mindbogglingly huge number of workers who will have to retrain for another career, or fight for the remaining low-wage jobs that are available to unskilled workers.

As much as politicians love scaring the American public with the specter of terrorism, it's the dropping value of an hour of unskilled human labor which should really be sending chills down peoples' spines. The point some members of the liberal camp fail to see is "minimum wage", is a misnomer. It's a minimum cost of labor, and raising it is akin to price fixing a commodity that is in obvious oversupply. Some municipalities have already done just that. Allow that to sink in: We have so many unskilled laborers willing to work for unlivable wages, that we've actually had to pass laws mandating they're paid more than the free market can bear.

Star Trek and and the Spaceship Earth attraction at EPCOT told us automation would provide us with a life of leisure, while we're free to pursue our dreams. You'd spend the day composing music, designing surfboards, painting, etc., while Mr. Roboto goes to work for you. In the real world though, Mr. Roboto works for the big corporations, and they see no need to employ *you*.

To paraphrase a line from The Incredibles, "When everyone is college educated - no one will be."

I'm not exactly thrilled at the prospect of living in a world where you'll need a 4 year college degree to bag groceries, because everyone in the transportation industry was put out of work by self-driving vehicles and drones. From the looks of things, we're not even that far off.