This arbitrary fabrication precisely mirrors how Bitcoin started. There will eventually be 21,000,000 in existence. That number was completely arbitrary, as was the original degree of subdivision and nomenclature. The proposed subdivision and nomenclature is equally arbitrary yet functionally equivalent. The method by which Bitcoins are transferred and verified would essentially remain the same.

If there are too many Bitcoins lost (e.g., in the secured wallets of dead people), then further dividing Bitcoins into smaller fractions will have little effect besides slightly increasing liquidity. Any psychological effect would come from people misunderstanding the nature of the system.

If this hypothetical scenario is worrisome to you, you should already be worried about the "fabricated" nature of Bitcoin. Because, fundamentally, nothing changes with OP's proposal.

Nice try, but this is a red herring.

If you're living paycheck-to-paycheck, your money doesn't sit around long enough for inflation to have a meaningful effect.

Middle-class retirement planning may be affected, but there are already a number of options for those investments. (Granted, they aren't as nice as the upper class options.)

I think this is your real concern. Expand and clarify on it however you see fit, but leave the other garbage out.

Fiber is provider-agnostic. Which electrical wiring to run? Most phone companies provide service over twisted pair to the house, and most cable companies use coax. Fiber is essentially a universal medium, and the telco will provide (or spec out) compatible equipment to be installed in the home.

Fiber is the future. Most major telcos have some sort of next-gen internet offering based on fiber. And everyone's fiber service is better than their copper/coax service. Since most of the cost is digging up and filling back in, you might as well spend a little extra to make it worthwhile. There is no reason to tear up the entire neighborhood just to install some obsolete technology.

Fiber is easy. In the past, running and splicing (aka, fusing) fiber was very difficult and therefore expensive compared to copper/coax. This is no longer the case. Fiber has outgrown its early-adopter and premium-price taxes for the most part. Experienced techs are now commonplace. You no longer need a huge box mounted on a pickup truck with a generator to splice fiber---there are handheld units. The tech has matured.

Running copper/coax now is like building a cobblestone road. You certainly could do it, and it would essentially work. But this is not something you should do anymore unless there is a specific requirement to do so.

Idiot.

First, this is likely to improve over time. Second, whatever raw data is used to determine if you're present could also be collected and stored indefinitely.

Actually, if both of those are true, they could go back and review the data with their improved algorithm and retroactively figure out whether you've been there.

The point about cloud-connected home management is that once they have data, they can do whatever they want with it. That includes the cloud provider, their sponsors, and anyone else who can access their data.

Except for the part where MS security researchers asked the Tor devs if this type of installation was normal, and they said "No."

That's why the tinfoil hat moniker came about in the first place: to identify FUD and other nonsense.

At the end of the day, the malware got removed, and there was no public outrage from people losing their legitimate Tor installations---because only the bad ones got wiped.

If you don't run a Microsoft security product and don't choose the Malicious Software Removal Tool from Windows Update, then nothing happens. Granted these are both default options, but if a user doesn't understand enough to choose alternatives that user probably needs both of these tools.

It was mining bitcoins on the slave machines.

At a minimum, there is an increase in electrical consumption. Also, potentially: slowdowns, overheating, bandwidth overages (some countries have metered internet), misc compatibility issues.

Bloatware leads to one of two conclusions. Either:

1. The user doesn't understand what his OS and applications do, and so he needs someone to secure his computer for him.

OR

2. The user understands the software on his machine, and he can remove what he deems unnecessary.

The presence of bloatware strongly indicates the person falls into category #1, at least for Windows machines. I also have no problem with the idea that a person could be a guru on one system and a total noob on another.

The decision to"secure it yourself" vs "let someone secure it for you" includes time, effort, and expertise as considerations. If most people decide to have someone else secure the system, that is probably better anyway. After all, a vast MINORITY of users are IT professionals.

You make the most important distinction that is typically overlooked.

Dependence on other companies should be avoided if possible. Anyone complaining about the disappearance of an unprofitable beta service deserved to fail.

Both iOS and Android are established platforms with established SDKs and a profit model based in part on the success of 3rd-party developers. Those market characteristics make dependence on their platforms a reasonable risk to accept.

Basing an entire business on Google Wave or Schemer is simply moronic in comparison. Cutting edge =/= profitable, cool =/= wise.

This is the big underlying problem.

In the FOSS world, if enough people care about an app that needs to be updated to run on a new kernel, someone will probably update it. In the closed source world, the copyright holder needs to have the capacity and desire to update it---and even then, users will probably have to pay for the new version.

Because of this fundamental difference, the closed OS developer has more constraints.

In both XP and Vista, Microsoft broke compatibility quite drastically and suffered slow adoption rates partially because of it. Broken applications and immature drivers are unappealing in any circumstance---it's even worse if you expect you'll have to pay money to resolve the problem.

Installing an unsupported OS cannot void the warranty.

The manufacturer may not offer support for another OS, or they might insist on restoring the factory software to diagnose problems. But a hardware warranty is still effective.

When in doubt, contact the manufacturer directly with your question. Most consumer tech sales are handled by illiterate loons. You only get decent info at the SMB and enterprise levels anymore.

Using market dominance in one area (search, email) to gain an unfair advantage in another area (social) is anticompetitive. If the degree of market dominance and anti-competitive effect are sufficient, anti-trust laws come into play.

A perfect monopoly is not required for legal intervention, but I doubt there will be an intervention at all because the legal system barely understands IT. The lawyers, economic experts, and judges would have to realize that these are entirely different markets before they could consider an antitrust suit.

We had electronic banking and medical records for decades before SOX and HIPAA addressed a number of glaringly obvious concerns.
Social media is maybe 5 years old? Yeah, they'll have it figured out sometime after Facebook or Google+ is dead.

If memory serves, Netscape vs IE should be the perfect example. Legally, Netscape demonstrated that Microsoft hurt it. Unfortunately, Netscape was crippled and killed in the time it took to prove it.

Here is an article that outlines their plans:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iP4VHSEkqJnn_6xvHvC58umph8mw?docId=CNG.b1cf7bba53e09623c881384352cd6325.b81

Why was this even submitted and posted? I found those details in about 15 seconds. It is over a year old.

You can also plug "urban relocation" into Google or Wikipedia for more general information. What kind of slashdot user has problems doing a web search?

I like seeing good questions, but anything that be answered with basic search in under five minutes is just crap.

He essentially answered the question. New buildings and infrastructure are made at the target location, and various policies are set to drain businesses and residents from the source location.

A city or state has a number of options depending on regional laws: tax credits, rebuilding/relocation of existing structures, government purchase of the land, condemnation of endangered properties, government seizure of the land, relocation assistance programs, tiered/progressive zoning restrictions, and probably a lot of other options I can't think of now.

All of those options have been used in the United States by cities reclaiming land for the purposes of safety or redevelopment. That said, OP should have used Google. This article does not need to exist.

If they can design the hardware, they can ask for the source and supply the quote themselves.

If they can't, then OP needs to understand they have no practical design capabilities and plan on paying someone else to design it---before paying these guys to manufacture it. Or he can search for a shop that can handle both the design and the manufacture.