To plagiarize from Douglas Hofstadter: Consider a record player X (DNA) that vibrates into dust if it is ever used to play the record, "I Cannot Be Played on Record Player X" (virus). Now build a new record player Y, that is immune to record X. It is now possible to devise some other record, "I Cannot Be Played on Record Player Y", that will have a similar effect on the new record player.

One of the aims of these researchers is to create an organism that is genetically immune to all viruses.

Someone needs to introduce these researchers to Gödel's incompleteness theorems.

You seem to be simultaneously getting my point, and not getting it.

But Bitcoin does not deflate. It inflates until it reaches stability and then stops.

You are talking about *now*, and you are correct that BC is currently in a planned inflationary period.[*] Whereas, I am talking about *later*, once the inflationary period is over. Also it doesn't just "stop" inflating. It reverses direction and deflates, for the two usual reasons:
* BCs getting permanently lost
* The money supply not growing with the economy, and/or the number of people participating in that economy.

Yes I know, there are really 2.1 quadrillion pieces of currency available for trade, not 21 million. I've mentioned that myself in another reply to this article. That doesn't mean that Monetary Deflation doesn't happen. It's no where near as severe as what the "ZOMG only 21million" crowd is crowing about, but it happens nonetheless.

The "deflation" people talk about is assuming the Bitcoin economy grows. If the economy grows and the currency doesn't, the coins become worth more.

You're right, that is the deflation that I was talking about. It's called Money Supply-Side Deflation. And it's a positive feed-back loop. That's why economists fear it.

It's a circular argument because if increasing value leads to hoarding, the economy will shrink and the currency will become worth less.

More like a bubble, then a crash.

Don't confuse price deflation with monetary deflation. Different causes, and different effects.

The libertarian in me likes the ideals behind BitCoin. But I think it would have been better with a small measure of permanent inflation built into the system. A little bit of inflation is actually a good thing; it promotes investment.

[*] Except if someone's harddrive gets corrupted and they lose some or all of their BCs. So lets call it a "planned inflationary period, punctuated by sporadic and unpredictable deflationary events of varying magnitude." This is possibly the 'erosion' you mentioned.

There are different kinds of deflation. Monetary deflation-- which is what the GP was referring to -- can lead to markets seizing up.

They are divisible down to 10^-8 parts. So there are actually 2.1 quadrillion separate entities available for trading. Still deflationary, but not as drastic as you paint it to be.

Been here since it was called Chips N Dips. In a way I welcome the decline, because I've found it drains my productivity less, now. :) (Back in '99 it seems I was refreshing /. every 10 minutes or so.) I think the problem is just a generational drift; you and I have a different notion of slashdot etiquette that seems quaint to all the young whippersnappers who refuse to stay off our lawn.

21 million, but divisible down to 10^-8 parts. So, consider it 2.1 quadrillion over 130 years; not quite so illiquid as BRKA. Agreed about the built-in deflation, though.

I can't answer for why your submission disappeared for you. I can at least tell you that your submission seems more appropriate for a comment forum on some mobile-oriented website. Slashdot does of course have regular 'Ask Slashdot' features, but for reasons I can't quite put my finger on, your submission doesn't seem to fit the mold of those. Maybe it is because you ask multiple questions... not really certain.

As to your questions from that submission:
* Not 100% certain about whole-disk encryption on a phone, but if you buy an Android phone and root it, than I cannot imagine why not.
* Depending on the particular phone you buy, the manufacturer may still retain some control over what you can and cannot do. Caveat emptor, do your homework before you buy.
* Both Apple and Google have both been in the news lately about their systems collecting historical location data, and possibly phoning home about it. Google the topic for more details, and what you might be able to do about it. And Google and Apple both have app killswitches, in case they find some apps distributed on their appstores turn out to be trojans. But generally, I think you have more to worry about individual apps phoning home, rather than the system in general.
* I have used my Android phone without a SIM card, and it works fine. You might expect non-GPS location to be degraded without a SIM card, because I believe that relies upon cell-tower triangulation. But I'm not really sure about that.
* There are VOIP apps in the Android market. At least one claims to work with WiFi.
* I have not seen a system-wide text resize feature on my Gingerbread Android phone. Some apps (like Kindle for Android) support this.
* State of the art moves really fast... but the Nexus One and Nexus S are both relatively recent, and amenable to rooting. I consider them to be the least ethically-challenged. (I have a Nexus One.) With CyanogenMod on a Nexus One, you can even get an FM radio. Both of these phones work on T-Mobile (well, for the time being, at least... I'm sure you're aware of AT&T's current attempts to buy them.) I expect, at the least, another year of use from my Nexus One before AT&T manages to yank the spectrum out

Better yet, use a binary tree. On each piece of paper, punch 1 hole at the top-center, and also a hole at both the left and right bottom corners. Tie a small length of string through the top hole, and then tie the other end of that string to the left-or-right hole of the appropriate parent paper, based on your key sorting criteria. Don't forget to rebalance the tree on occasion.

For added fun, use different colors of string for different search keys. This way you can end up with multiple binary trees, all sharing the same nodes!

For the purpose of retrieving items for reference, it is a stack. For the purpose of excising the too-old items, it's a queue.