"TOKYO (AP) ― The Mt. Gox bitcoin exchange in Tokyo filed for bankruptcy protection Friday and its chief executive said 850,000 bitcoins, worth several hundred million dollars, are unaccounted for.
The exchange's CEO Mark Karpeles appeared before Japanese TV news cameras, bowing deeply. He said a weakness in the exchange's systems was behind a massive loss of the virtual currency involving 750,000 bitcoins from users and 100,000 of the company's own bitcoins. That would amount to about $425 million at recent prices." <more> http://news.yahoo.com/tokyo-bitcoin-exchange-files-bankruptcy-102841684--finance.html On Thu, Feb 27, 2014 at 2:15 PM, Jed Rothwell <[email protected]> wrote: > Jones Beene <[email protected]> wrote: > >> >> Can you spell “Yakuza”? I can’t, but my spell-checker helps J > > > やくざnowadays, but supposedly it comes from 八九三 which are the numbers 8, 9 and > 3. (That would be yatsu, ku, san but it could ya-ku-zan or za in card-shark > lingo, as 2 in English is "deuce.") > > Apparently there was a card game similar to blackjack, only the object was > get 19. If you were dealt an 8, a 9 and then a 3 that's 20 and you were > wiped out. So it means a bad hand, or useless, or garbage. > > It is probably a folk etymology but the sentiments are real enough. > > - Jed >
