Lite nodes are reduced security any business with significant volume across both chains will need to be running both nodes.  When MtGox starts trading LTC for example they aren't going to run a LTC lite node.  No they are going to have a full node running for BTC & LTC.  Still realtime bandwidth is not the critical resource for crypto-currencies.  Bandwidth you don't use is just wated but storage requirements are eternal.  Yes storage capcities will rise but so will bandwidth and storage & CPU capacity will remain the bottleneck.    People complain about how long it takes to sync Bitcoin full node now, sometimes up to 24 hours.  6GB in 24 hrs = 70 kbps.  Obviously most people aren't running on sub 70 kbps links.  The bottleneck isn't bandwidth.

Hmmm ....

Now who didn't smile thinking about going to work shooting down drones.  At the very extreme if anyone hasn't read Neil Stephenson's "The Diamond Age" it is a good read.  "Drones" are at the nano machine level.  Entire communities have drone swarms (think trillions) which act as an immune system hunting and disabling unauthorized drones much like your body hunts down infections. 

That would be the answer.  If people didn't have the skills or capabilities to defend themselves from private property drones I am sure the free market would think of solutions.  Some companies might do it just for salvage rights.  Personally I have no problem with limited governments in theory.  The problem is that technology should have made governments more limited over time.  There is less and less need for the government to solve all problems.  However over the past say 100 years we have seen the exact opposite.  In the US the government share of GDP has continually rose for the last 50 or so years and so has number of agents employed by the government and the government's ability to spy on its own citizens.

Name a price and number of contracts you would be interested in (100 BTC blocks).

If I was a reputable options dealer I would direct you to my brokerage site.  However I am slightly more than a random noob on a forum.  You decide if it is worth the counterparty risk.  

BTW $120 is a lot different than $150.  I mean if the premium on a $145 call was low enough you could potentially collect a massive % if the price hits $150.  The fact that you are now talking about $120 (which profits $120.01+ instead of $150 is a good sign IMHO.  I guess I talked you down some.

Did you ever think that maybe something else if using space?  If you uninstalled the client and the datadir (path above) is empty then bitcoin is not using any space on your drive.

On a windows machine the only two places that the QT client writes to are:
C:\Users\your user name\AppData\Roaming\Bitcoin
C:\Program Files x86\Bitcoin

The alarming thing is he hasn't mentioned a single thing about BTC (or the lack of BTC due to double trading).  If there is no issue with the BTC then open the site up to only allow withdraw of BTC.  Simple.  Suddenly the average exposure for most users is cut in half.  I would also be a good faith effort.

The fact that he hasn't done this (and has from his limited responses just ignored the concept of BTC completely) is suspicious.  My guess (just a total guess based on prior history)
a) he can't because BTC owed is > BTC available.  If true he should announce that now.  It has nothing to do w/ frozen Euros so get the truth out in the open.
b) he doesn't intend on returning the BTC.  If true I hope some users in Germany have good lawyers.

Wow didn't even notice that FUD. 

Here is another post about the whitepaper (2008-10-31):
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.encryption.general/12588/

No idea.  It really depends on how distributed and casual mining was early on.  If the people who downloaded the client, solved a dozen blocks, and then turned it off and forgot about it is large then the lost coins probably are large also.  If I had to guess I would say 20% to 50% of those early (i.e. difficulty 1 period) coins are lost.

Well roughly 1/3rd of them have.  Maybe not at $1 but the portion moved would be worth a significant amount at $10, or ~$32 (prior peak), or $266 (recent peak).

Remember Bitcoin is in BETA.  All developers have expressed ideas for how to build a fee market place however it needs to be built.  Since most tx can be sent with no fee and until recently the min mandatory fee was a rounding error most development time has been spent solving other issues.  

The min fee was never intended to subsidize mining.  The SOLE purpose of the min mandatory fee is to prevent spam/DOS attacks on the network.  Remember high priority tx are not required to pay the min mandatory fee.  So obviously a network of all high priority tx would net miners exactly 0 BTC.  Voluntary fees will replace the block subsidy as it declines.  You can't force miners to include any tx in a block, you can't verify if miners are processing tx first in, first out.  Bitcoin was never intended and is incapable of working that way.

Users are free to include a fee of any amount (including nothing).
Miners are free to include tx they choose in a block.
The fee economy meets in the middle.

Obviously for a fee economy to work and the client to be able to provide the user with useful information the following needs to be known:
a) all tx waiting for a block and their fees (all full nodes should have a copy of the memory pool)
b) historical record of recent prior blocks (tx included, tx excluded, size of block, average fee, etc).
c) (optional) fee policies of major miners (possibly passed out of band)

With that information a client could give the user a recommendation:
0.0001 BTC for 95% chance to be included in the next 24 hours (144 blocks)
0.0020 BTC for 95% chance to be included in the next hour (6 blocks)
0.0050 BTC for 95% chance to be included in the next 10 minutes (1 block)

If the grocery store makes you wait 48 hours before they receive funds from your credit card won't you be late for work?

None of which has anything to do with the protocol.  If people find MtGox doesn't provide value they will leave. If people keep using it they are voting with their wallets.

Actually Bitcoin could use a little less mass media exposure in the short term.  I would take 300 people reading TechCrunch over 10,000 cluless "Bitcoinz are going to $1B next week so dump all the money you can into it" any day.  The later has (and will in the future) blow up in your face.

Bitcoin isn't ready for mainstream but it is certainly ready for more VC funding and that could lead to Bitcoin being ready for mainstream in 4-6 years.

Death of PCs doesn't mean that PCs will no longer exist.  It simply means the PC market is in decline.  There will ALWAYS be PCs.  Still if a tablet has a usb port someone could write mining software to control external ASIC miners connected by usb.

Well I don't think anyone wins, not even Gox long term.  Every scandal, every theft, every loss of depositor funds undermines confidence of current and future adopters.   I think it was completely unrelated unless the operator simply saw a massive amount of wealth pour in, over a version short period of time, and decided to run with the money.  Like someone making $50K a year accidentally being given a paycheck of $50M might decide to do the wrong thing.  I hope I am wrong.  We should find out "soon".

This. Predictions beyond 20-30 years become highly dubious.  In 1800s someone trying to make railroads future proof would likely have laid down 4 or more tracks in parallel to ensure sufficient train bandwidth and dumped billions into researching a way to build a tunnel under the Atlantic ocean.  Obviously trains will be used for everything so best to prepare for the future.  It will be massively expensive but then we will be future proof.

In hindsight that would have been a horribly bad idea because technology caused innovation to branch into directions the planners in 1800 could possibly have imagined.

There are pros and cons to that but it is highly unlikely (as in IMHO impossible) the core principals of Bitcoin will be changed this includes things like
* tx are irreversible
* so called "lost coins" are stolen (a variation of reversible txs)
* the mining reward will be altered
* the 21M BTC capped will be removed or raised

Bitcoin may be patched for improved functionality and better security but due to the need for a consensus it is highly unlikely anything controversial change will ever be adopted.  The good news is Bitcoin is open source.  You can always make a competing coin and let the free market decide.

This.  +1 rare for noob to get it that accurate.

To expand upon what Infinity said ...

Any block interval is a compromise.  10 min, 1 min, 60 min, etc.  There is no right or wrong.  It is a compromise.  Remember the actual block time will vary.  When blocks can't propagate the network fast enough and competing blocks are produced that results in orphans.  The % of orphans direct reduces the security of the network.  Currently Bitcoin w/ 10 minute blocks (and relatively small blocks) has about 1% orphan rate.  That means 1% of hashing power is wasted and doesn't improve security.  As blocks get larger the orphan rate will rise (although faster CPU and higher bandwidth connections improve the orphan rate).

10 minutes is a compromise between confirmation times and network security.  Really unless you are accepting 1 confirm txs faster block interval won't make tx validate faster.  If you wait for 6 confirmations on a 10 min block chain then with equivalent hashpower you should wait 24 blocks on a 2.5 min block chain.  If you are willing to accept 4 confirmations on a 2.5 minute blockchain then 1 confirmation on a 10 minute blockchain provides equivalent security.  

Really a shorter block interval only helps if your business accepts 1 confirm txs (because 1 confirm is always more secure than 0 confirms regardless of the block interval).

Well blocks are currently <25% full due to a limit to prevent a blockchain split until a super majority is on version 0.8.1.    Higher fees won't magically make more space available in the block but it will reduce using that space for idiotic things (like making 10,0000 tx to Satoshi Dice for an average of $0.12 each in order to gamble on blockchain vs. deposting funds gamble until you lose it all or win big and then cash out).

When people talk about the tx fee rising we aren't talking about the min mandatory fee (which is designed to prevent spam attacks on the network) but rather competition will require users to pay more to get included in a block.