From the Vatican...eventually. Will the scientific community be more eager to do the same with LaMark?

BTW: Both Darwin and LaMark were correct. Genes' expression, dictated by experience and culture, can be passed on, activating an otherwise inactive gene in later generations.

Yes, I know you had kidding on your mind. I just wanted to get the science straight.

No, actually, I didn't. If that is so, what is the point of TFA? How did the loss of a HD result in a $4-million loss? Was the owner also ignorant of this?

I need a link to this info. Not that I don't trust you. Just that I trust me.

Here's my point: I retired in June. My computer broke moving to Oregon from San Francisco. My newly-bought motherboad does not have a PATA connection; my older backup hard disks were formatted PATA, so I cannot read them. I would be quite out of luck if I had my retirement funds in bitcoin on one of those PATA drives.

I live out in the beautiful countryside. My broadband makes 8 or ten over-the-air-hops from Medford to my house. That, combined with variable weather, makes my internet connection tenuous.

I'll guess you live in a hip, techy city where these requirements can be met; but, even so, I don't trust fiat currencies much and unproven, digital ones even less. Perhaps it is a suitable vehicle for wild value speculation, but, at my age, I have no desire to invest in so much risk.

We agree it acts like a currency now; is it still a currency without a computer or a net connection?

Bitcoins are infinite. I get it. What you don't seem to get is in reality it doesn't matter.

Bitcoins are not in reality until they are traded for something tangible. If no one with something tangible wants an intangible bitcoin, it is valueless regardless of its infinite divisibility.

See definition of liquid, liquidity. Compare with definition of infinite divisibility. See any difference?

And gold can be (theoretically) divided down to one molecule chips. So what does that change? 0.0000001 bitcoins =/= 0.(insert avagadro's number here) kt.

Truly, we are in the realm of satire here, by now, aren't we?

New gold is produced regularly through mining. Old gold is generally recovered and not lost. Gold has little utility, so the demand for it is for other purposes.

Bitcoins are limited in number forever. Lost bitcoins cannot be recovered like gold in watches or teeth can. Although Bitcoins have zero utility, too, they have near-zero liquidity at the moment in the physical world. I can sell my old gold Hamilton watch at any pawn shop in the world; what can I do if I need cash and I have bitcoins and no working computer? Or no net connectiity?

There is no comparison. Literally. It's comparing oranges to quarks.

Oh. This money is not kept in vaults, but on Seagates and WDs.

Keep a copy of SpinRite around....

And a USB-to-RLL/IDE/PATA/SATA connector for when standards and interfaces change.

Fools.

Thank you. It's not game theory to me so much as history. As Twain may have said, "History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes."

But if game theory worked for Russell, who am I to argue?

Dropping the atomic bomb on civilian populations in 1945 didn't stop the USA from leading the world toward outlawing "nuclear proliferation" decades later; why should this issue be handled differently?

According to my understanding of the article referred to, not a scientific peer-reviewed paper, there is a unique protein in the medium which causes the new (formerly a stop) function to include it in the dna. I oversimplify my misunderstanding of the oversimplified article, I am sure, but it appears that the stops inserted (transferred, introduced, modified, substituted, whatever the term) will fail to result in viable "dna" without this unique protein. I imagine the protein acts as sort of a "password" for a successful reaction.

What do you think?

Would this make it safer?

Then it follows you believe the Lexus ES3xx is a different car than a Camry.

To each his own (opinion.)

Fashionistas might like it. It goes well with the new Hasselblad-decorated Sony NEX7 http://www.dpreview.com/news/2013/06/10/hasselblad-lunar-now-shipping or the new Leica M decorated by Jony Ives and Mark Newsom.

Of course, some of a certain age might remember the last time Cadillac tried this, in the '80s, with the Cimmaron, a rebadged Chevy Cavalier with the addition of clear-coat paint and a hideous chrome-plated luggage rack on the top of the trunk lid. It nearly led to the death of the brand.

As an American and as a human being with a conscience, I don't know whether to root for a success here, or to well-deserved failure. Mebbe newly-rich Chinese and Russians are attracted to these, but even they will, eventually learn the real value of things. They'll spend a hundred bucks on a Ferrari baseball cap and call it a day.
 

Since the briefed reporters entered the room with the cameras in it for the press conference two minutes before 2:00:00.00, their appearance might have contained the information. F'rexample, eyeglasses off = no taper, eyeglasses on = taper; arms crossed over chest = higher rate, hands in pocket = lower rate, arms at side = no change.

OTOH, it wouldn't surprise me if corporations (and the NSA, CIA and DIA) had made breakthroughs in information transmission vs, time, either.

Ultrafast bots trading on minuscule changes by algorithm within a market sensitive to policy adjustments real or suspected by the Federal Reserve Bank, which admits it acts slowly, deliberately and without transparency or effective oversight, cannot end well.