Dan's experience with his hair standing on end is an indicator that lighting is going to strike. It's possible that lighting struck nearby, and the sound could have knocked him down I suppose.
That's my read as well. I once found myself suddenly squatting in my room when a lightning hit a steel coal stack full 80-100m away. If you're standing or walking there's no controlling that reflex.
I always knew that Dan's mockers knew almost as little as he did, but it's staggering how little effort Jeff put into actually understanding the subject.
Coin mining cannot use less energy. Even if dedicated hardware becomes more efficient, there will just be more mining done per unit of energy. It will always use all energy available until the cost of energy isn't justified by value mined and this is unlikely to happen ever. If it goes completely out of hand, we will have household energy rationing all around the world. Actually a mandatory steep progressive energy price is justified already (and it could help solve other problems too).
@lazyaza: To me it looked rather like the end of the tutorial stage, complete with the amnesia analog - finding yourself in the junkyard stripped of abilities.
Genuinely suprised that Vinny doesn't know what Terra Nova actually is. I was fascinated by the demo all those years ago, but it was a time when buying games in my country was prohibitively expensive and CD burners weren't yet widespread either.
qrdl's comments