$.15/MB is cheaper per byte than text messages are. The publishers should be thanking Amazon for that.

The assumption that the longest one is the oldest and most reliable is invalid, Since anyone can peer, there's no reason that a peer can't fake itself as 20, 30, 100 peers, and, working on a very fast machine, produce a longer chain quickly than an older peer.

Yeah, just wait until the bot herders get a hold of this. I'm sure they would have no problem either generating huge chains, or just flat out generating coins faster than anyone else.

Probably for the same reason it's called the "Department of Defense" rather than the "Department of War"

I enjoyed your explanation of "doomsday computation." It sounds like something out of HHGTTG.

There are 5 references to "anthropic computation" on Google. It as well sounds like an interesting concept. Can you provide any references? Or is it better known as something else?

The best part of the article is the random "All Your Base" reference.

Researchers are still discovering more about the H5 port; the Nature article indicates that perhaps certain human mutants have lungs that do not listen on the H5 port. So, those of us with the mutation that causes lungs to ignore the H5 port would have a better chance of surviving an Avian flu infection, whereas as those of us that open port H5 on the lungs have no chance to survive make your time / all your base pairs are belong to H5N1.

The book was 'Debt of Honor' by Tom Clancy, in case anyone is interested. The event also factors heavily into the sequel, 'Executive Orders'.

Anybody want a peanut?