<p>Today the usually solid NPR did a long story on the most idiotic topic ever. Some nonsense online currency that hardly anyone has ever heard of and that is doomed to failure. Anybody that put a cent into such a thing is just nuts to begin with–might as well order that tinfoil hat with your widget bucks or whatever it was called. must be slow at the “money” office with all that boring economic collpase and such going on.</p>
<p>What time was it? I often used to tune out just before the hour, when they would air what I called the “artsy fartsy” or lame human interest story.</p>
<p>Since it seems a shame for you to be alone in wanting your time back, here’s a link so that others can share:</p>
<p>[What</a> Is Bitcoin? : Planet Money : NPR](<a href=“Should You Bank On Bitcoin? : Planet Money : NPR”>Should You Bank On Bitcoin? : Planet Money : NPR)</p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>I think it’s a great idea–perhaps we can have a standard currency for buying magic swords and railguns in online games.</p>
<p>It was on around 9 in the morning and personally, I found it fascinating</p>
<p>9 in the morning eastern standard time sorry for the confusion</p>
<p>If it was just before nine, it was probably in the time slot usually used for a profile of a master of the Malian ear-flute who you have never heard of before and will never hear of again.</p>
<p>Speaking of NPR, I’m trying to find a link to something I heard this a.m. about why cell phone coverage was out during the earthquake but Twitter worked on cell phones. The 4-minute story about the earthquake isn’t it.</p>
<p>Did anyone else hear this? What was the reason?</p>
<p>I really like NPR, but sometime they waste time on some silly stuff…like when they spent half of a show talking about chutney.</p>
<p>I only started using PayPal a few months ago to buy goods from other countries. It is cheap, efficient, fast and convenient. I also read about currencies and keep an eye on exchange rates being a precious metals investor and sometimes trader.</p>
<p>Alternative currencies are interesting as they can be a threat to the established monetary order and they can be used to circumvent government monitoring that is done by banks today.</p>
<p>Youdon’tsay, I read the earthquake didn’t damage cell towers, but cell phones calls had issues because everyone tried to call at the same time. Voice calls take up more bandwidth than texts and e-mails.</p>
<p>Thanks! I thought it was bandwidth but didn’t want to say that and look like an idiot.</p>
<p>Why anyone listens to anyone but Rush Limbaugh escapes my inlaws entirely. Where they live, the majority favors a Constitutional Amendment banning NPR.</p>
<p>One of the reasons BitCoin is notable is the fact that transactions can be completely anonymous. The computer terrorist group “LulzSec” asked for (and received) many donations in BitCoin currency - the reason they used BitCoin over PayPal was because of the complete anonymity of those who donated. </p>
<p>I love random, interesting things like this, but unfortunately the media oftentimes fails to get (or report) on the more interesting sides of such things.</p>
<p>Half a show about chutney…wow, i have to start listening to NPR again!</p>
<p>Today’s “fill in the blanks” question:</p>
<p>Chutney is to Chutzpah as ____ is to ____.</p>
<p>I was thinking just yesterday that the podcast has allowed me to distill NPR down to what I consider its “best essence”. I have several NPR podcasts I download and listen to every week (Its All Politics; Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me; This American Life; Science Friday; Story of the Day; The Moth; Marketplace Money; On the Media; All About Books; Fresh Air; and StoryCorp). I listen to the news on the hour on the way to and from work, and might tune in longer if there is a big news story that day I am interested in. And I can skip the chutney stories (or any podcast that does not appeal).</p>
<p>The only redeeming part of the story was in the postscript–the fact that the guy they interviewed later had his account “robbed” and lost many thousands of potentially real dollars.</p>
<p>i love car talk too.</p>
<p>I don’t understand why you’d be upset about hearing about BitCoin just because it doesn’t matter in your life. It’s not like it’s totally irrelevant; it’s had a lot to do with the recent shenanigans of Anonymous and LulzSec. It has many other implications as well. </p>
<p>In the future, the news should probably do a better job of keeping you from hearing anything you don’t already know about.</p>