I wish.  It took me most of a year to push through to real liquidity (although technically that is unproven until I do sell at least a portion, hmm).  I do believe it would go faster the second time but to arbitrage it would require something less than a month for me to be comfortable and more like a few days to really crank it up.  I might take a second smaller lot in just to try; they did indicate that I wouldn't have to take a full $25K in since I'm already established.  If I do then I will report back.

I am reluctant to take out any of what I've got in already for fear of missing a jump up while goofing around trying to get it back in.  I am as long-minded as one can get.  That said, I've got as much of my total wealth in already that I'm comfortable with.  $70.90/$42.60 is a crazy huge spread and very tempting.

Play at a table where someone is betting bigger than you; bet against them.  When the house pushes the button to screw the big better than you will win.

The very best strategy is to be the house.

... making it into heaven.  Oh, you meant here on Earth?  Contentment/peace.  I feel successful when there is contentment/peace abounding around me.

Money represents a memory of a debt.  I will tutor your kid in mathematics if you give me a dozen eggs is too specific.

Fame is an illusion/fleeting.  Oh, do you mean fame or legacy?

Power; meh, service to others is the higher road.

I run a full node (it is my pleasure to provide this service to the community; besides which it is apparently to my advantage to participate in order to help keep Bitcoin viable to help keep my Bitcoins valuable).

Which variant will be best for me to run?  Pruned seems less helpful.  Full seems good but full with archive seems best.

Should I ever hope to be paid for being a full node with archive?

I do wish I could get a handle on how Segwit pulls this off.

I *really* like limiting inputs.  It is very easy to defragment your wallet in small steps to avoid needing a ton of inputs.

Some miners *might* want to keep blocks small but I just bet they mostly want to make money.  Can they make more money with small blocks and higher fees *or* bigger blocks and smaller fees?  My gut tells me the more people in Bitcoin the better.  One of the original selling points of Bitcoin was low/zero fees.  Are those days truly gone now forever?  If so then we need to reset expectations to avoid disappointment.  If low/zero fees are so compelling then some folks might gravitate to altcoins.

I am a user and do use existing offchain solutions already.  My brain (or sometimes a piece of paper).  My son and I just keep track (roughly) in our heads how much we owe each other; I buy the ski lift tickets; he buys lunch; ...; eventually we settle on chain.

I, for one, wouldn't mind removing the block size limit (well, there will certainly be some practical limit) *but* we absolutely have to address the quadratic scaling topic first.

If only all transactions were the same.  One transaction might be small, another huge.  The 1MB block size limit acts to constrain huge transactions.  Increasing the block size limit let's larger transactions through.  That might be ok *if* the huge transactions scaled.

Suppose a small transaction has 2 inputs and takes only a microsecond to verify.  Put 2000 of these into a block.  2000 * 1us = 2000us = 2ms.  Easy.  No problem.  Double the block size limit and we can jam 4000 of these bad boys into a block and still the processing time is only 4000 * 1us = 4000us = 4ms.  Heck, my smart phone could do that.

Now suppose a large transaction has 4000 inputs (just right to fill the original block).  How long will it take to verify?  4000/2 * 1us = 2000us = 2ms, right?  Wrong.  For some reason I don't understand yet, apparently it takes (4000/2)² * 1us = 4000000us = 4000ms = 4s.  Ok, yuk, but that's still doable.  Oh yeah, we want to double the block size.  Great, we are given an 8000 input transaction beast.  What's it take to verify it?  (8000/2)² * 1us = 16000000us = 16000ms = 16s.  Ouchie.

We must give up on simple views of "scaling".  1MB gives us 3TPS (maybe).  2MB will give us 6TPS (maybe).  It might if all we ever pack in there are small 2 input transactions.

Keep those ideas flowing.  There could be a winner in it.  Be prepared to be dismissed/ignored but if you see potential value then for goodness sakes get it out.  Take each protest to your ideas seriously; argue *for* that protest as if it were yours; own it.  If you are seen as the strongest debater against your idea and still it comes out on top then you will be respected.

It is much less about being agreeable and more about being collaborative.

Would it kill us to just *announce* an intent to release a version with 2MB (or even just 1.1MB) block size limit?

Would it kill us to reveal some of the development and testing details showing the readiness of Segwit for primetime?  What is our contingency plan if the deployment is less than perfect?

Rage quitting is a clear sign of people not being heard/appreciated.  Passion is undeniable/desirable but *before* it comes to a boil, everyone should take a moment to argue the other side to demonstrate we all want Bitcoin to succeed.  Hmm, unless that isn't true; who in here wants Bitcoin to fail?  Disruptors.  Those unwilling to compromise for the greater good.  Those who argue/believe they are right and anyone not agreeing/adhering can't possibly have understood.

I, for one, will try my very best to understand.  I will not stick to one and only one approach to the exclusion of all others.  I will do what I can to help the Bitcoin marketing messages be effective.

Many of the postings here and elsewhere are viewed by folks trying to take the pulse of Bitcoin.  They turn around and write blogs or articles for various news outlets.  They can't always tell (or don't care to) which postings represent the real action.  Controversy makes for exciting news.  If they see calm thoughtful debate then they will get the sense that Bitcoin is moving in a good direction.  Compromise, collaboration; these are the tools we can use to forge a positive attitude toward Bitcoin.

If not us then who?

Perception is reality.  Bitcoin would do better to present a united and polished marketing message.  I see value in Segwit (for goodness sakes get it freakin' right; oh and hurry up).  I see value in a larger block size limit *before* it becomes a crisis.  It really isn't Core vs. Classic, etc., that matters.  Rather, what matters is creating a perception that Bitcoin is healthy and moving in a desirable direction.

I run a full node.  So far I have alternated between Core and Classic and am interested in running Unlimited at least for awhile.  Is there *any* sense in running more than one at the same time?

Use your brain or get out a piece of paper and track your transactions offline until the Internet comes back (or is replaced) and then catch up.

A much more likely scenario is a partition where the Internet is separated into two or more pieces that can't reach each other, e.g. Chinese firewall, etc.  Both sides will continue to produce blocks, i.e. a hard fork.  The difficulty will drop on both sides.  If/when the they can reach other the "longer" chain will win and the "shorter" one will be orphaned (this is likely to make some folks unhappy).

This is easily tested; just disconnect a mining node from the network and watch how it behaves.  The difficulty is probably so high that it won't produce a viable block for ages but eventually it will and eventually it will reach the point where it can reduce the difficulty back down to where it will produce blocks on average every 10 minutes.  It will be very far behind the rest of the network when it is reconnected and all the work it did will be orphaned.

I want a way to consolidate many small pieces of Bitcoin together into larger ones (to avoid having to use larger transactions later).  I want to do this for free (or really low cost) even if it takes many days to go through.  Once my wallet is defragmented then I can use smaller transactions when I need them.

Until the capacity (not necessarily just by block size)  is increased (hurry please), higher fees are the only choice for getting transactions through (during high traffic periods).

Here's a problem with dynamic fee calculations; they are only valid at a moment in time.  Once the transaction is launched, if there's a burst of transactions then the fee might be too small.

I sort of do this manually now.  I review the list of Peers and disconnect some as I see fit.  For example, ones reporting terribly skewed clocks get dropped.  Honestly, set your clock.

Hmm, interesting.  Suppose the software were "enhanced" to establish out connection all the way up to a few less than the maximum allowed connections right away.  After that whenever there are near maximum connections, it would drop out connections to make room for some more in connections.  I suppose we would have to be careful not to drop our last few full connections; having only SVP connections might be some sort of problem.

The default is 8 out connections.  I configure my full node to allow 50 connections resulting in 42 in connections.  Would it be more helpful to configure more out connections?

I am truly unsettled; I have switched from Core 0.11 to Classic 0.11 to Core 0.12 to Classic 0.12 and it is totally possible/likely I will switch again.  Perhaps I will try using more advanced mathematics, above and beyond high school maths.

#0: Reducing unproductive contention in the Bitcoin community is a personal goal.

#1: Right now my top interest is in the vulnerability to transactions with lots of inputs that lead to long compute times for verifications.  One wonders why we don't see bad actors using this against Bitcoin relentlessly.  Maybe there are less malicious folks attacking than I hear about?  Maybe the bad guys don't know how much this can hurt?

#2: Secondarily I would like to see a concerted effort be made to 1) educate users about setting fees well to facilitate quick confirmations, i.e. to avoid long/painful/anxiety-causing commit times and 2) enhancing wallets to make it automatic and default to have high enough fees.

#3: Thirdly; I do highly prefer adoption much more than increasing fees which means to me capacity.  Increasing fees will have to come eventually but in the meantime I would happily sacrifice fees until adoption is really widespread.

#4: Fourthly; Is there something to the Bitcoin Unlimited stuff?

#5: Lastly; all of those other features/functions like transaction malleability, etc.  Perhaps these should be higher on my list but I haven't dug into them yet; sorry.

With those in mind;

block size limit, e.g. 2MB; helps with #3, hurts #1, we should resist doing it just because it seems obvious, obvious is not a reliable attribute

SegWit; helps with #3, hurts #1, introduces other complexities that might have subtle consequences

limit inputs: all by itself this is great for #1, seems simple enough, workaround is trivial, i.e. create multiple small transactions