Shifting the decimal point does not create new coins, it only alters the representation of the coins in the client.  Every bitcoin is already divisible to 8 decimal places, shifting the decimal point over two places simply resulting is a trade unit that is accurate to 6 decimal places.  Everyone still has exactly the same measurement of value as they possessed before the shift.  The only effect is that it might be easier for people to understand.

Actually, I'm not positive, but my own understanding was that all generating nodes calculate this independently.  Whatever differences that could exist would be very small, not likely to cause rejections.

For a time, yes.  But that is how it works already.  Bitcoin is a parallel currency, that's not a future condition, and it's not the end result either.  IF you think about it, there are already many currencies that function in parallel with fiat currencies, but are not those currencies themselves.  One good example of this is Paypal.  They may express a user's account balance in their own national currency, but that balance is most certainly not that currency in any real form.  Paypal uses bits and bytes as much as Bitcoin does, but Paypal ties those bits and bytes to a currency, and takes the exchange fluctuation risks unto itself, which is one reason that Paypal must charge as much as a credit card company even though Paypal doesn't have the overhead of maintaining a massive transaction network itself.

I could give a dozen other examples of parallel currencies also pegged to the national currency, but in every case there is no harm to the national currency because it's pegged, and users think about their value in relation to the national currencies.  In this regard, Bitcoin is different.  There is neither the need, nor the realistic ability, to peg a bitcoin's value to any other currency.  So as laymen begin to discover and use it, their thought processes on value calculations change; from using a national currency as their sole common reference of value, to using more than one reference of value.  In doing so, it becomes impossible not to compare those frames of reference, and one will appear "better" to each individual.  If Bitcoin appears "better" than the fiat currencies, and is useful in this regard, then those fiat currencies begin to fall out of favor.  And it is favor alone that supports their value.  At this point, the values of those same fiat currencies crash, and then there is no more parallel currencies, or there will be, but they will be expressed in Bitcoin as their common value reference instead of the national currencies.

This process could take decades, but I doubt that it really will.

The difficult is a multiple of the minimum difficulty level, which is just an arbitrary 64 bit binary integer that the hash must be less than to qualify.  The leading zeros thing is an approximatation of the method, but not entirely accurate.  If the clients were just counting leading zeros, then the difficulty could only increase as a log of 2 ( each additional leading zero doubles the difficulty).  Basicly, the 'target' is a 64 bit integer that the binary interpretation of the sha-256 hash must be less than, and the target number is adjusted up or down by a process similar to a 'fuzzy logic' type of system; always seeking it's balance.  In this case, the balance point is 6 block per hour, and every two weeks or so, the system makes a calculated guess as to how much the target must be raised or lowered based upon the average blocks per hour seen during the prior two week span.  All of the clients make this calculation independently, but because it's a deterministic calculation based upon a shared set of data, they all come up with the same answer.  The clients don't use the 'difficulty' at all, but use only the 'target'.   The 'difficulty' is just a metric devised to allow us humans to make sense of it all, because for us to look at the targets, it would be difficult for us to draw useful information from the target or it's changes over time.  Since the difficulty is expressed as a ratio (number of times more unlikely for a given hashing attempt will produce a hash below the target) it makes it easier for humans to look at the difficulty number and prior difficulty numbers and derive useful meaning from it.

There are probably network admin who use bitcoin for benchmarking, or idle time.  Bitcoin is ideal for Condor in a commercial network environment.

Could be done, but it would be expensive, and still very risky to the actual participants.

If a 'big fish' like you describe were to jump into bitcoin, such as Warren Buffet (unlikely), they would be wise to not announce that fact until well after they have accumulated as much as they intended to.  Considering that much of the reason that such 'little fish' follow 'big fish' is that they are perceived to be wise in matters of money, I would be shocked to find out that any such 'big fish' openly advocating for Bitcoin before they were well entrenched.

Considering that I'm a strong INTP also, I accept your conclusions as correct, intuitively.

Doubt it.  Despite popular opinion, it's not illegal to posses uranium in small quantities.  Regulated, yes.  Prohibited, no.  That's just Hollywood.  Much like firearm suppressors.  Difficult to get, and expensive, but not prohibited.

u-232?  I'm not familiar with that one, it must be rare.  U-235 is depleted, and I've held it in my hand.  It's not particularly dangerous, but I made sure to wash my hands before eating.  U-238 is the hot stuff.

Where are these 9mm ammo boxes located?

The immediate issue that I have with this statement, is that privately ran public safety organizations have existed in the US in the past, and in many places they still do.

But I am a dick, can't change my nature.  It was a snarky way of me expressing my doubts.

Nobody's perfect.

He's lowballing, but your offer is still too high.  There is just too much risk because 1) you have no reputation here and 2) paypal is rife with fraud.  The risk premium would be high enough that if you accepted it, then anyone would be suspicious that you were using a stolen paypal account.  Paypal isn't the way to get started in Bitcoin.

Looks like MtGox's server got pwned.  Here's hoping that he did regular backups!

Honestly, MtGox isn't in your country, and must abide by the laws within the country that it's owner resides; which I believe is the US.  Regardless, he would still be liable in the US for civil actions if he was aware of theft or fraud and did nothing.

Anyone who can't get Ubuntu Linux to work should stop trying to install it onto their toaster and surrender their 'mancard'.  You do know that you need a computer to put that card into, right?

Providing liquidity is neither saving nor investing.

Considering when the lecture was recorded, it'd entirely possible that Satoshi had already heard this before releasing Bitcoin.