I like "Rune". It's simple, easy to remember, and relatively easy to market. Also, I can imagine people actually using a cryptocurrency called "Rune" in the real world.

NO: "Your order comes to 4 Boolberries, ma'am."
YES: "Your order comes to 4 Runes, ma'am."

Also, your revulsion of "Rune" due to your subjective association of it with D&D and neckbeards says more about you than it does about the name itself.

I like the idea of a page like that. With proper design and marketing, it could draw in donations from people outside of the current cryptocurrency ecosystem. There are plenty of privacy advocates, libertarians, technologists, etc. who are uninterested in the messy world of cryptocurrency "investment", but may nonetheless be willing to support what's marketed as a relatively NSA-proof, anonymous, very important, new technology. People should also be able to donate fiat.

Is it still profitable to mine?

There is no exploit. It was a FUD attempt.

The price hit bottom and is already rebounding.

Will Windows users notice any performance improvement in 7.0?

+1 Rune

I also agree with the previous posters who said "Ring" could be a good name as well.

As a miner myself, I would support a small mining tax. We could see how a crowd funding approach works first though.

As to credibility, he's found exploits before, and used them before. However, he also likes to come on the forum and pad his ego.

It must be nice knowing that someone thinks so highly of you. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, after all.

I largely agree with all that. I'd also add that AnonCoin has been around since June 13, 2013, practically an eternity in the altcoin world, yet has little to show for it. There's no infrastructure to speak of. The community seems to be passionate, but passion doesn't create code. At the current rate, it would take ANC several years to get to the same place Monero has taken a few months to get to. That said, I have a few ANC too, "just in case."

That doesn't mean IBM is making their own cryptocurrency. IBM is probably forking it for their "internet of things" blockchain.

One dev said that they will not. There are downsides to BBR's approach.

I believe the network effect at this stage of the game is overblown.
Bitcoin has a $6.2 Billion market cap, which is peanuts. And the infrastructure consists of some amateurish exchanges, several large websites, some enthusiastic nerds, and maybe a few dozen ATMs.

All cryptocurrencies are bordering on impossible to use for 95% of people. This will improve across the board in coming years. And really, I doubt any one coin will ever be much easier to use than the others.

I don't know of many people who would want the authorities to know about their transactions. Why do most brick and mortar businesses prefer dealing in cash? Because people prefer to cheat on their taxes if they know they can easily hide their income from the authorities.

Indeed. We're nearing the end of the golden age of Monero Mining.

MYR certainly deserves a place amongst the most well distributed coins. There was no premine and the coin has been free of scandals/scams/shadiness in general. It's easier to mine now than ever, and anyone with a PC could be mining significant quanities. And yes, it's very cheap now.
The downside seems to be a lack of direction and leadership. The devs are all competent enough, but it seems like each one is just working on his own pet project.

If Bryce Weiner pulls through on the Liberdade end, this coin could potentially explode. I think it's worth holding some just for that.

If you want a decent discussion, you should probably have a moderated thread, as this thread is already 85% trolling/nonsense.

Anyway, as a Monero holder myself, here's what I think about the issues you raise:
1. Yes, and there will likely be more attacks in the future. The team has handled the attacks very swiftly and professionally so far though.
2. Yes, and hopefully they can get all that sorted out. Bringing in outside help like Peter Todd was a good idea.
3. Agreed
4. This seems like a non-issue. As far as I'm concerned, all crypto-currencies are virtually unusable to non-geeks right now anyway.
5. There have always been private miners, and mining programs with varying degrees of efficiency. Monero still had the fairest launch of any coin to date, as far as I'm aware.
6. The price has been approximately the same since launch. I don't know of any pump.
7. Blockchain bloat gets really overblown. The same arguments were being used against bitcoin several years ago. Decreasing memory/storage costs, increasing processing power, and unforeseen innovations will keep the blockchain manageable.
8. There are so many reasons not to join the SuperNet, this would require it's own post to explain properly, but (1) The Monero devs may not have wanted to join. It's not simply a matter of being chosen, the coin devs have to work with James. (2) He says that he need so work out some "business" things with the coin devs. What he asks for may be unacceptable. (3) The Monero devs may be not want to give any control to an outside organization. (4) The SuperNet seems to be partially centralized and tied to at least one for-profit corporation. (5) Not enough details are known about James or the SuperNet project. (6) A relatively high market cap coin like Monero would see less benefit from the SuperNet. Monero is one of very few coins poised for explosive growth, and possibly even challenging bitcoin directly as the dominant crypto-currency.

I think he quoted the wrong post.

The more I've thought about it, the more this last point seems possible.
Bitcoin seems to really be getting away from it's roots and is seemingly poised as a Visa/MasterCard competitor, rather than a currency competitor. Also, the fact that it's not truly anonymous makes it's utility as "e-cash" limited.

I would be absolutely shocked if the NSA and other 3-letter agencies didn't already have automated tools that make tracing bitcoin transactions back to individuals a trivial task. The IRS and other tax agencies around the globe won't be too far behind.