Not unless the rest of the network was willing to change their clients to permit it, and that isn't likely.  Consensus is hard even when it's actually a good idea.

It's not like that at all.  It's not a condition of diminishing returns, it's a condition of the highest level of security that the collective users are willing to pay for.  If the security is too costly, then the miners will start losing money and some will drop out; thus lowering the difficulty.  The result would be a cheaper network, but a weaker one as well.  New tech just permits new miners to operate more cost effectively.  If the new tech is efficient, but too costly, the mass of GPU miners with paid for "sunk" costs still have an advantage.  GPU mining isn't going to go away for the gamer who does part time mining while not gaming.  FPGA's may take over professional mining, but professional mining companies have to be able to undercut the amatuers with paid for GPU's in addition to pay for their electric and facilities costs and turn a profit.  I consider the idea that professional miners will take over the network to be rediculous, because there is no possibility that a mining company can be more cost effective than the gamer who mines when not at his computer and has to heat his tiny flat with baseboard electric anyway.  No possible way.  If 5% of the world's gamers turned their GPU's to this end while at work or asleep, the difficulty would be much higher than it is today even if every professional mining pool were to stop immediately.  Co-generation (the act of mining for profit while also utilizing the heat to contribute to space heating needs) will likely be a major part of the baseload mining into the foreseeable future.  Professional mining is still very profitable because the growth curve of Bitcoin economy is still so steep, so the exchange price stays well ahead of the difficulty.  When Bitcoin's market matures, this growth rate will slacken significantly, resulting in a much tighter profit margin that will permit only new miners with alternative sources of income (such as a professional miner with service contracts with major retail chains or banks) or individuals that do not need strict profitability (said gamer in an electricly heated flat) will be able to compete with those miners that have already paid for capital costs.

It needs to continue to be the worlds most powerful supercomputer.  New tech moves the bar a little higher.  Bitcoin must keep up with that tech.

Read the FAQ or the Wiki.  If you still have specific questions, come back.

But if there is a limit, then you can never know if it's the strongest.  Logicly speaking, any limit on the choice of tech will effectively result in a network somewhat less secure than otherwise.

Did you really intend to hotlink a hotlinking notice?

And no miners do not control my transactions, because all that they can do is refuse to process them, and there are thousands of others who will not.

Wait long enough, and someone will be selling plug&play PCI expansion cards and you won't have to understand anything about the tech at all.

Yeah.  It's the "these new advancements in technology are going to destroy the weavers!" issue all over again.

I'm not a programmer, so I don't know what I'm talking about here, but could such a linux binary permit graphics hardware too old to use the current miners to contribute at a respectable hash/watt rate even if they such at the hash/second rate?

You could easily accept it as a payment option without advertising.

Even if we could actually deterimine this, we shouldn't limit mining based on tech.  The goal is to make the blockchain as secure from brute force attack as is possible.  If we limit ourselves to certain tech, then there will be tech out there that is fundamentally faster at the task, and an attacker isnt' going to be so inclined to limit themselves to follow our rules.

Beyond that, a fpga card in a computer is a very useful thing.  If bitcoin mining encourages the wide adoption of fpga's into desktops then other programs are going to start making use of those same cards. 

They don't control mine.

I wonder if game consoles would make a good mining platform. 

The network doesn't track mac addresses.  Even if it did, pretty much every one of the concerns with IP based distribution applies equally to mac addresses.

IP rationing was considered early on, and rejected for other reasons.  There is no way to limit the miners based on their choice of tech, and even the FPGA's will be undercut by the first ASIC based PCI mining card to be released.  And if Bitcoin is even moderately successful, we will see such a card being sold publicly within three years.

Seems pretty real to me when I walk on it, eat it or drive with it.  Still, Bitcoins are not physical, so when you call the cops about being scammed in an online bitcoin trade ask yourself, "would the cops do anything if I had been scammed out of cash on the street?" and if the answer is "probably not" then the next question then becomes "should I invite the cops into my life if there is little chance of recovering my losses?"

Some people think of the cops with admiration, but they are not there to "serve and protect" the individual citizen.  They "serve and protect" the state.  If you really believe that would include yourself; are you happy when you see police lights in your rear view mirror because they are enforcing the law, or do you tense up and check your speed?

Or he could be in jail.

That's the one.

I ordered the ebook for .3 BTC, but the download didn't work for me.  I just ended up with a screen full of garbage data that I couldn't save to disk.

@instantBTC

It doesn't matter if he's making a profit off of this project or he isn't.  The only thing that matters is, can he get good quality printing done for less than you can?