It works as a soft fork too.  Just define every fourth block as being in the same chain.  Transactions are only allowed to be in block N if the last 2 LSBs of the UTXO's digest match the block height.

This would split all current outputs 4 ways over the sub-chains.

  We are developing a new technology; A way of doing things differently than they have ever been done before, with the Blockchain and Bitcoin. 

  It is obvious that as we progress further down the path that Bitcoin and it's blockchain concept allow, complexity will give rise to a sort of entropy of method because of the availability of many more disruptive technologies; Technologies such as hashes, cyphers, Homomorphic encryption, Magnet links, etc.
 
  This allows us to create Blocks within Blocks linking to Blocks of information on not just one but multiple Blockchains linked together or transactions linked together. Information simply being itself, linking and forming as it is most apparent.

  What am I talking about? Megablocks: Blockchains with separate information perogatives linked to other dynamically generated Blockchains, Hyperchains: Transactions linked across Blockchains, and Proxy Blockchains: Blockchains secured by other Blockchains, different than Mergemining, Ephemeral Blockchains: Blockchains created inside Blockchains.
  With this, new forms of Blockchains will arise linking their state, referencing each other in a secure decentralized manner, forming dynamic minichains, hashing of blockchains into blockchains for security, Magnet linking blockchain states, a multistructure web of Blockchains.

You mean something like this: https://github.com/codler/Bitcoin-phpMiner
What is the real reason you want it for?

Nevermind I don't wanna know....

I thinking in more abstract terms here than purely the computation of hashes; hashing power can be thought of like stake, in that the more hashing power you have, the more invested you are in the network and the more control over the consensus you have.

Maybe I'm not stating my question correctly.

This is entirely a theoretical question, so imagine there are no blocks, but we still do have hashing power on the network (or stake, for a POS chain) in order to be able to reach some kind of consensus.

Under these broad assumptions, is the optimal confirmation time (fastest possible time to form a robust consensus) simply the time it takes for >50% of the hashing power/stake to agree on any given transaction, or is it more complicated than that?

Yes I run a full node at home 24/7. Just doing my bit.

How accurate are fingerprint scanners?  Ive never used one.

I'm thinking this device is for more day to day use and not for storing large amounts of bitcoin?  Not sure if I'd feel safe putting 20+ coins in one and putting it in my safety deposit box.  I'll give it some thought though.  Looks very cool.

I've never heard of this celery exchange their partnered with to buy and sell coins though.

Please don't waste your time, no collateral = no loan for newbie

Despite spending months of my life trying to figure out the legal and tax implications of it and even moving to Switzerland for three months, I was always against the ether sale and wanted to take VC money. It made a hell of a negotiating point for valuation, but introduced a terrible moral hazard of having no fiduciary responsibility behind the enormous sum raised. Also no formal due diligence process would be applied to the core team.

If there was to be a sale, then I wanted two organizations to form with a VC funded for profit building the initial protocol and then a sale at the time of launch to fund a foundation with a separate board managing it. This would create a clear separation of concerns and avoid conflicts of interest. Second, the risk to ether purchasers would be substantially less and would have eliminated the need and justification for a premine altogether. Obviously that didn't happen and the project decided to use the sale to fund some sort of bizarre swiss NPO funding a pesudo for profit in England two months after I left in early June.

Since then they've apparently spent or lost 14 of the 18 million raised and have missed two launch windows for a command line barebones version of the software. Second, they've experienced terrible mission creep with a mandate to re-invent the internet as opposed to simply giving the space a much better foundation to build cool blockchain centric applications and protocols. I'm honestly not sure what ethereum is anymore? Whisper, Swarm, Golem, Holons, Open Org, 4 new programming languages, DAOs???

In any event, don't blame people you've never met for things you know nothing about. Ethereum would be a very different project if I was still there. I'm not and they don't even have me listed as a founder nor did Mihai even mention me once in his history of the project. Thus I suppose I never played a meaningful role. 

Im not sure what it is really, but I invested. How could one not with the amount of btc they raised!

All that does is being prone to being hacked 24/7, since you'll have it all connected to the same wifi, and once a hacker gets into your fridge, he may jump in your computer. I dont know, not convinced by this shit myself as well.