My work laptop is a Macbook Pro 13'' also running Linux, so I feel like I can compare them. :-)
I maxed out a Darter. I am happy with it and it was much cheaper than a comparable featured Macbook. It is crazy fast and I was happy about the touch screen (I have a toddler who likes to play some edu games).
Build quality is good, there's no creaking. I love that it has an HDMI out (1.3 I think?) so I don't need any adapters. Same with Ethernet. The battery is really small compared to the Macbook, so don't expect the same battery life. I bought a second for conferences.
The trackpad sucks but I almost always use an external mouse for serious stuff. It's fine for web browsing. I don't miss the sharp metal edges of the Macbook.
Edit: the Galago's trackpad doesn't have the buttons or weird texture on it, so I bet it is much nicer to use.
They are toiling for this money. Specifically, the mining system exists in order to verify transactions, put them together into a block, and distribute that block to be added to every client's copy of the blockchain. The reward for performing this very important task is a certain number of Bitcoins "generated" at present, along with transaction fees that the miner can collect from any transaction which includes them.
The reason for centralising the Bitcoin network on the miners (and for each block, one particular miner) this way is simple - consensus. It's of paramount importance that every client on the network has exactly the same copy of the blockchain, otherwise double-spending can occur - causing one half of the network to believe that some Bitcoins were transferred to one address, and the other half to believe they were transferred to another.
The easiest way to do this is to build the network in such a way that one node holds an authoritative copy of the blockchain, and distributes that out to everyone else. But that goes against the concept of a decentralised network. So instead, what Bitcoin has done is built a system where every mining node races to solve a computationally hard problem, that they can prove they found the answer to, in order to become authoritative in order to add a single block to the blockchain. The incentive to do so is the "mined" Bitcoins, along with the transaction fees for every transaction included in that block.
Without this system, Bitcoin could not exist.
For the record - even though the miner is authoritative in adding a block to the blockchain, it cannot forge transactions. It can however refuse to add a transaction to the block, which sometimes happens if the offered transaction fee is too low. The transaction might be added to future blocks if other miners are OK with the transaction fee.
Moreover, how economically viable is it for the generation of currency to be proportional to wasted wealth (i.e. electricity spent mining coins)? Isn't money supposed to track created wealth?
I primarily use gnu/linux and I'm planning to upgrade my laptop. Any recommendation? rMBP, Zenbook, Carbon X1...? Long battery life and performance are the primary criteria.
I have a lenovo x230 that works great for me... It's not as high-res as an X1, but it is super easy to swap in 16G of ram and an SSD. I think the X1's ram is soldered. I also have an extra battery that snaps onto the bottom which will give me ~10-12hrs of total battery life when I'm going about my usual business.
