Cheer Up, Uncle Ken

I am reminded of a one liner that I read someplace: "Cheer up", they said, "It could be worse." So I cheered up and, sure enough, it got worse.

When Obama was elected the first time, I was frequenting a site that had a lot of conservatives on it, and there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth. I was no fan of Obama, but I thought those guys went way over he edge when he got elected. There was even one group that believed it was the fulfillment of a Biblical prophecy that said something like, "When you see the abomination that makes desolate, then you will know that the end is near." What set them off was a joke that somebody had made about the US now being an "Obama nation". Myself, I wasn't too worried when he got elected the first time but, when he got re-elected, I threw up my hands in despair and cried, "Any country that would elect Obama twice is not worth saving." Nine years later, we're still here, so I guess it wasn't the end of the world after all. The chances of us Beaglestonians being around nine years from now are not as good but, if we are, I'll bet we'll all be saying that this wasn't the end of the world either. Then again, if we're not still here, it will have been the end of the world for us, although not likely for everybody else. The world was here before we were, and it will probably still be here after we're gone. If not, we won't care anyway because we'll be dead.

Does anybody know anything about bitcoin? I had heard of it before but, when it came up on the last episode of "The Big Bang Theory", I had to go look it up because I didn't know what they were talking about. The Wiki article I read was full of techno-babel, so I still don't know what they were talking about. I understand the basic concept of alternate currencies, but this one involves something called "mining", and that's the part I don't understand.