The vehicle was driven past the warrantied distance in only six years, but Hyundai also said that in this case there were lapses in communication regarding his service quote, and they were prepared to “resolve this situation by paying fair market value for his vehicle either in cash or towards a new Hyundai". I'm not saying Hyundai shouldn't be to blame, but there are always some lemons, even with ICE vehicles. This owner experienced bad luck, but it's unlikely to be representative of most EVs. Also, if you Google the cost of Ioniq EV battery replacement, it's not $50,000 Canadian.

Even after the cheaper fuel costs and no oil changes? I think the reliability issue will work its way out and flip ICEs on their heads.

Yep, even the configuration window says it's the default (link to a screenshot from elsewhere): https://msegceporticoprodasset...

The average (mean) BTC transaction fee isn't a very practical figure to reference without context. If you're doing settlement on a million dollars worth of BTC, such a transaction fee is no problem. The median fee is lower, at $3.58 right now, and you can get it significantly under a dollar depending on your urgency. Anyway, people are completely free to bloat another cryptocurrency's blockchain with their coffee transactions for a cheaper fee, and cheaper network security, if for whatever reason they really need that right now. There are second layer solutions being worked on that should lower the cost of smaller transactions. People just buying coffee shouldn't expect to be using (or need to use) the first layer of a trustless, censorship resistant value transfer system that stores the records of all transactions for all time on its blockchain.

"That number has come down to "only" 22k as a baseline, but that's due to low transaction counts."

If you look at the mempool charts, low transaction counts have been the norm, not the exception. The spikes in unconfirmed transactions are what have been the exception.

"The core devs have no plan to improve that figure."

That's false. There are multiple areas where they are working on scaling.

"The current average fee is $57 USD per transaction."

No it's not. I don't know where you're getting that figure. The current average fee is $4.91. But average fee isn't even the right statistic to look at, as that's skewed higher by transactions of very large dollar amounts, as well as large weighted transactions with many inputs from places like exchanges. The median transaction fee is better, at $2.84. Even the median fee doesn't imply that you have to pay that to have your transaction confirmed in a reasonable period of time, either.

"The current reward for mining a block is 25 bitcoin"

No it's not. It's been 12.5 since 2016.

Well, actually anything that requires censorship resistance, so not just ransomware, but more like sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

There are many libertarians who believe in a minimal state and real courts of law, but, yeah, if there are individuals in the cryptocurrency space crying for government intervention at the level of the protocol, then they're missing the point. You don't have to be a libertarian to see the usefulness of Bitcoin, though.

No need to create their own blockchain, though -- they could simply build it on top of the Bitcoin blockchain if it offers an efficiency for this purpose. See here for an example of that sort of thing: http://insidebitcoins.com/news...

There's also Tether USD: https://tether.to/why-use-teth...

Immutability and censorship resistance come to mind.

Your first question reminds me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

What illegal proceeds was he taking by selling them his bitcoins for their dollars? Their dollars were illegal proceeds? No, this wasn't a case of individuals with past illegal proceeds trying to cover this up by selling their dollars for bitcoins. IANAL, but money laundering generally refers to the process of making illegally obtained money look as if it was obtained legally. This isn't that. This transaction may well have involved legally earned dollars and legally earned bitcoins, unless proven otherwise.

Regular NTSC DVDs are 480i/p, meaning something like 720x480 when progressive scan, not 720p. 720p refers to something with 720 vertical pixels, e.g. 1280x720.

The More You Know
==============*

The difference is that Yog-Sothoth CAN really see from the specimens' points of view. Yog-Sothoth can do anything.

Here's my argument referring to what you said would be acceptable authorities on morality being objective: "One study found that most philosophers today accept or lean towards moral realism, as do most meta-ethicists, and twice as many philosophers accept or lean towards moral realism as accept or lean towards moral anti-realism." Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_realism