This is a great segue for the "pump and dump" scheme. Essentially you can create your own coin and mine it with your buddies. Then create a mini exchange for the coin and target the older, less tech savvy people - who won't be able to tell the difference between Bitcoins and a more obfuscated virtual currency. Basically you'll accumulate the virtual coins for free and sell them off for a profit. Maybe I'm missing something but it feels like all the ingredients are present.
Caffeine plays a big role for myself and a lot of my buddies that are programmers. I think it's appropriate for hacker news. But I'm sure you're content with the high quality instant coffee and Lipton tea that you drink throughout the day. Cheers hater, oops I mean slater*.
The equity markets are the fastest economic indicator. Yes there is a dicatomy between the economy and the equity markets but they should not be separated. Also the it seems like you might not be watching financial news often enough because the most common phrase is "we are seeing growth but at extremely slow levels," "the economy is still weak," and many more that have a similar undertone.
Forget the Dow. The point is that the markets are doing well, despite all the negative coverage it gets from the media and so called pundits. Corporate profits are near all time highs. Companies are becoming more lean and mean. Innovation and the proliferation of new technology is shifting the paradigms of every industry at an unprecedented rate. Europe is finally starting to see a bottom. China has enormous potential of becoming a consumer market not only for itself but for the rest of the world. South America (Brazil mainly) is taming inflation and spurring healthier economic growth. I'm not going to go through the list of countries that are doing better than they were 3-4 years ago, the BRIICS are doing better, to say the least. The trailing P/E is at 17.6 which is below an average of 18.7 going back to 1956. Of course the markets are going experience more volatility and turbulence at times, but that's inherent. The markets can retrace 10%, which seems to be the number everyone is focused on, sometime in the next 3-6 months. The market can also run up 20% in 4 months and retrace 10% in the 5th month. How are you going to win that game?