Um... those are examples of massive inflation, not deflation. You have that backwards. Inflation/deflation relates to the ratio of the amount of currency to the amount of valuable goods in an economy. In Germany and Zimbabwe, the respective governments printed masses of extra money. With more money chasing the same amount of goods, the nominal price of goods increases. (This doesn't really change how functionally wealthy you are... unless you're not the one receiving all this extra cash. If you're not, then you're screwed.) People need more Marks or Z$ in order to buy stuff. Deflation is just the opposite: the money supply decreases with respect to the supply of valuable goods. This can happen when the money supply stays constant while the supply of good increases (via more productivity, trade, etc). In Bitcoin's case, the money supply is ultimately finite, unlike any fiat currency like the US Dollar. It's growing now because the miners haven't mined all the possible BitCoins, but eventually they will, and mining becomes gradually harder over time. (BitCoin was explicitly designed this way.) If Bitcoins become a more accepted currency (ie: demand for them rises as they are exchanged for more valuable goods, including other currencies), and they do this faster than their supply increases, then they will experience a deflationary effect. Things will will cost fewer BitCoins over time. What happens when we have massive deflation? We're not really sure, because it doesn't happen very often (most economies are inflationary, and most rapid changes in money supply happen to be inflationary). The general fear is that, if the currency is increasing in value all on its own, that people will horde them rather than circulate them. This defeats the purpose of a currency (they're exchange vehicles, not investment vehicles). Here's what Wikipedia says on the topic.

Don't let your own knowledge & skill level be your reason to choose a MILC over a DSLR. The two kinds of camera are very similar in terms of their capabilities.

The major difference in the two is the way you view your scene prior to taking a picture. The "single lens reflex" in "SLR" means that you get an optical view of your scene through the lens you're using. As a result, what you see is extremely detailed (ie: almost as good as your eyes themselves). This is great for manual focusing. It doesn't suck any battery either.

The "M" in "MILC" (typically) means that you don't get this optical viewpath for composing your shots. Instead, you see your scene on an electronic LCD. This can be easier to view in some situations, but is far less detailed (ie: limited by the resolution of your LCD), so manual focusing is harder. Also, you need to drain your battery in order to see anything.

However, without the physical mirror & prism for the optical viewfinder a MILC can be much smaller and lighter than a corresponding DSLR. Typically, they also use smaller sensors, which in turn require smaller lenses. This further reduces size & weight, at the expense of image quality and optical performance.

That tradeoff is a fair one to consider. Let that be your decision factor, not your own knowledge. The techniques you use with each kind of camera will still be mostly the same.

It seems to me that you should end that battle before you give one of the belligerents a shiny new gun to play with.

• How much electricity (per unit of performance) does it use?
• How much heat does it put out?
• How much smaller can we make the chip and its supporting components?

This is a result of the highly-clustered, highly-mobile computing age we live in today. A single fast chip isn't as applicable any more. Give us tiny and low-power.

The user-applied fix isn't available for Mac or Windows 7 users. Those users are required to call into the Rogers tech support line to get the fix.

I did that, and had to wait on hold for over 30 minutes while the phone support waded through the (expected) deluge of calls. When I got through, I was told that I could either:

• Go to a Rogers store to get the fix
• Have a micro-SD card shipped to me (3-5 biz days wait) that contained a fix. (I don't know why they couldn't offer the fix for download).

I stopped in the Rogers store to get the fix. I waited for about 20 minutes while the customer support people (calling them "techs" wouldn't be accurate) installed the fix software on their in-store computers. Then I was told that the fix would wipe my phone. Did I have a backup? I said no; I haven't been able to find any evidence of Rogers-capable phone-sync software that works on my Mac (it's all Windows only). The store person offered to make a backup there, but after doing so he said that it only backed up my contacts, not my apps or settings (IMO the important parts). I walked out hoping that the SD solution will be better, but at best, I'm locked out of my wireless Internet service for 3-5 days.

It's hard to imagine how Rogers could have made this process worse.