I Google or Yahoo rewarded minor bugs. They should care about 404s or a tool tip bubble with no tip. I find minor bugs on all major websites all the time.

Problem is, minor bugs like a 404 don't majorly impact their operations as much as being able to get into someone else's email or reset someone else's password. Typos aren't worth anything when it comes down to impact to business.

That's an interesting article. I enjoyed it. Ahh usenet, the good ol days.

I have a noob bitcoin question. Even after all the bitcoins are mined there will still be a need for "mining" for all the active transactions, correct? How does that work?

There are two ways to get bitcoins from mining.

The block reward, which halves every once in a while, eventually hitting 0 after all are mined

And then the transaction fees. Basically if I want to send a BTC to somebody, I send the coin to them, and also sign over a small extra amount as a transaction fee. A miner who solves a block (ie, a bundle of transactions) can send those fees anywhere they like (their own account).

So in a long-run situation, mining effort will balance out transaction fees to come to some sort of equilibrium.

My student loan debt is completely oppressive. Educating myself was the stupidest thing I've ever done. Oh the horrible irony.

I hope they don't mess up the PC port on this one like they usually do.

Indeed. Now that a lot of sites allow you to sign up with Facebook, I use my fake Facebook account almost as much as my real one.

I'm in the same boat. In the hospital, on the day of my birth my mother looked at me and said "college". Needless to say I did not do the proper cost/benefit analysis at the age of 17. I'm hoping my debt gets forgiven after 25 years. Being 80 years old and making student loan payments does not sound fun.

What a loaded comment. Guilt by association is almost always rubbish.

Somebody please endorse me with the "Dismissive of Linkedin Endorsements" skill...

I'm surprised the French were successful despite the technology and engineering Da Vinci brought to the table.

It was largely his employer's fault.

Ludovico Sforza, Leonardo's employer, was actually a regent ruling in the stead of the rightful Duke of Milan. When the young Duke came of age, Ludovico refused to hand over power, so the rightful Duke got the King of Naples to support him.

In an unfavourable position, Ludovico panicked and appealed for help from outside Italy, inviting the French in with promises of support for their King's claim on Naples. In the ensuing chaos (which included him turning against the large French army), his challenger (the real Duke) was poisoned and the King of Naples (the real duke's sponsor) died. It looked good briefly, until the French king died. His successor, Louis XII, turned out to be related to the recently-assassinated young Duke (which importantly meant he had a hereditary claim to Ludovico's position).

Ludovico had by now irritated almost everyone. He had set a precedent for French inclusion in Italian warfare, irritated most of his neighbours (including the Pope) and betrayed the French army he had promised to support.

When the French -- already a dominant military power -- came for Milan, they had the backing of both Venice and the Pope. Ludovico just fled, Milan barely attempted to defend itself.

Leonardo stayed in French-occupied Milan for a while, before fleeing to Venice to take on some work there. Ludovico would be captured later, during an attempt to re-take Milan from the French with mercenaries.

Edit: The point involving Leonardo is that even if he had been capable of coming up with something crazy that made Ludovico more likely to win a few battles, the political situation was just too poor for victory to seem plausible. Ludovico sensibly fled rather than struggle against poor odds, Leonardo was never called on to help him fight the French.

Wow, what a great response. Thank you for sharing that...

Indeed, if Leonardo's weapons were so superior, how comes we could defeat them and capture the duke? :-)