I'm unsure of how severely couriers are regulated and what their obligations are to ensure they aren't smuggling something. USPS, UPS, DHL, etc frequently deliver narcotics and other contraband, so they obviously aren't expected to catch everything. Will look into it when I have time... would have to be done in a medium-large city first as proof of concept since this service would have a major business disadvantage of not being able to hand off packages to other courier services. The service could be "standardized," though... or franchised - whatever works to increase the size of the network.

Other regulation I was thinking of would be state or local regulations on how long any merchant must keep logs/receipts of transactions for police. Tax compliance might be another sticking point. Would probably suck to go into an audit and not even be able to use the blockchain or keep local records. ... Or maybe couriers don't require special licenses? Could probably fly under the radar for at least a couple years if so.

Not much time - will keep it short.

Given US government (especially through the USPS) monitors mail to the extent of scanning and opening mail of private citizens, it would seem justified that a relatively private option exist. There is also the potential for some type of private, dedicated data thief to steal information on couriers' servers, or for the information to be abused by employees. The new "stealth mode" is awesome, but I can't eat data.

Theoreticourier should:
1) Not label packages in plaintext, instead using two QR codes encrypted with different keys. The sender should have the key to view the return address. The receiver should have the key to view the recipient name and shipping address. (how would they get these keys before the package is delivered while maintaining privacy?) Theoreticourier should erase this information immediately after delivery and purposefully fail to relay when a package is delivered, or relay as minimal of information as absolutely necessary. Ideally, it should simply not be provable that the package was delivered, with the tradeoff being the requirement that the sender waives all liability of the courier to deliver the package.
2) Enforce courier regulations at the absolute bare minimum, actively opposing intrusive searching methods.
3) Create a method of anonymous payment which does not require any sort of "broadcasting"*, allowing no return address and permitting packages to be dropped off at non-monitored "boxes" (similar to the many UPS "mailboxes").

*There should be a public Theoreticourier key, where unique payment data can be included via a QR code which Theoreticourier verifies before accepting the package. If no QR code with sufficient payment is included, delivery may or may not be attempted, with the receiver expected to pay the postage. If a return address is given, the package would obviously be returned to the sender.

Obvious questions:
1) Feasible?
2) Legal in at least a small handful of states? Required intrusiveness of package scanning?
3) Actually private?

yo u need ho test, get sum sexcoin

37 is proofread. Qwk usually waits for a group of people to release funds to, but neither Kieran nor myself have been submitting much at all in the past month. I should be back to proofreading around Jan 19th. Have been busy making home furnishings and wishing I bought a used snowblower earlier in the year (ETA: last year, I guess). Only have a couple chandeliers and a baker's rack left to assemble.

http://bitbrew.net/

Adding to the list since last time (mostly Overstock)....
*Office chair
*Bed frame & mattress
*Organization racks, baker's rack
*Towels
*Forks!
*Chandeliers (bolts don't match what's in my can, though )
*Custom wedding ring (not sure how I forgot about that last time)
*More granola & honey caramels (Christmas gift boxes from Bees Bros)

I don't think it's been asked before (though I only view ~1/10 pages here). Where do you suggest mining, tealover?

I'm not so sure we're "not there" anymore - at least not everywhere. Overstock's acceptance is pretty huge in the US. They have a wide-enough array of products (from food to cell phones to PC hardware to bath towels to large appliances to furniture) to make Bitcoin "directly convertable" to just about everything you'd need, though it won't pay the taxes or utility bills unless your landlord accepts gouda. Makes taking a second job for BTC much more reasonable.

B&M acceptance is still negligible unless you're in a major city (sometimes even then, still), though, but I don't use B&Ms except for fresh groceries, medical care (I think I just visited a doctor ~4 years ago), and gas. -And dog food. Unsure if there's much reason to worry about B&M adoption... going the way of landline phones and dedicated television service. By the time Bitcoin's relevant there, many of the stores won't be.

I keep cash from local BTC sales on property, but rarely have to dip into it. Hoping I can go a full year without having to buy more fiat, but property taxes make it hard.

No kidding. Western Union execs didn't just wake up one day and think, "hey, wouldn't it be great if our payment process was like being pulled over by a policeman for suspicious activity?" Government's lazy and incompetent, so law enforcement is offloaded onto businesses (banks and payment processors may's well be a proper law enforcement agency, which is wonderfully ironic given recent events), though this is okay in some ways... ensures costs are more usage-based rather than blanket fees subsidized by everyone (taxes).

You'd probably want an intake PCI fan, which is pretty uncommon. This assumes your gfx card is "normal" and takes air in from the face of the fan, blowing it out the PCI vents. This is a double-slot one... there should be a single-slot version somewhere, but this is what you'd want: http://www.frys.com/product/4764059?source=googleps&gclid=CIuc4vjY9rsCFWRk7AodxVgAaQ

You usually can't effectively reverse the orientation of these kinds of blower fans, so you'd probably want one designed as an intake fan (else you'll need a creative DIY solution). You might not be able to get around wanting to put an "air pipe" in for the PCI vent, though.... this solution non-ideally takes air which will partially be what the GPU fans just exhausted, though it's way better to have more 22*C air over a 90*C component than less 18*C air over a 90*C component. Ideally, you'd want to create a plastic or metal air-tight pipe which has a mouth over the PCI vent(s) being used, then jutting out the side of the case so you're sure you're getting ~100% fresh air. If you get DIY like that, you'd probably want to mount another normal case fan over the end of the "air pipe."

Box fans are better when you want to move "fresh" air in and hot air out of a room full of rigs. They move a lot of air and aren't very "directional." It's kind of like using a full-size oven for one piece of toast. A PCI-slot fan would probably drop temps ~3-5*C and be much quieter and energy-efficient. Cheaper, too.

Just from regularly going grocery shopping as a cheap bastard, I believe that's false. I get sticker shock just from looking at a bag of potatoes anymore. Ramen, soda, water (both water exclusively and bottled water), cheese, celery, everything else - everything's ~2-4x more than what I remember as a kid.... and I'm 22. Why... I remember back in my day when you could buy eight microwave burritos for a buck, gas was under $1/gal (I actually only have one memory of this, and the station was having some kind of celebration), Ramen was 10/$1, and in-season corn was 20/$1. Now it's 2/$1, $3.50/gal, 4/$1, 8/$1.

You can take a look @ gov't BLS food data... pretty much everything shot up ~20-75% from 2010 to 2012. Meanwhile, BLS CPI-U (for everything -- I don't think they post food-only numbers) is right around 2.5% annually since around the time I was born. 1.025^22=172.1572%, which would accurate enough for 2010-2012, but certainly not be accurate for 1991-2013. By my guesstimates based on memory of old prices, the annual average increase for food alone is >5%, probably closer to 8-9% since I'm unsure "when" I started keeping mental notes on prices, which is much more in-line with SGS data, which would make the data much closer to "real" inflation from QE and "normal" inflation.

Anyway -- all that to suggest I don't think inflation wasn't factored into consumer prices, it's just I think the official numbers are either misleading or flat-out wrong... but my memory's notoriously bad.

No way. That can't seriously be what the CSR wrote. Maybe they decided not to train anyone and just forward "bitcoinsupport" to regular support.

Fwiw, did a couple transactions through O yesterday - flawless.

Mean (average) Time Before Failure. They're generally given on components with relatively short lifespans... rechargeable batteries, lightbulbs, solar panels, some computer components. Most computer components won't have MTBF listed because they generally outlast their usefulness and are subject to a huge variance depending on how they're used (a GPU in a mining rig will obviously have a much, much lower MTBF than a GPU in a "light-use" PC grandma uses to check her emails.... unless she smokes in a dusty house with cats).

MTBF is useful in guesstimating how long a given component will function at manufacturer specs, but it's always worth noting it's very luck-based, and if you have 100 GPUs hashing, the "MTBF" for one out of the hundred cards failing is 100x shorter than MTBF - so if a card has a "true" MTBF of 25 years, and you have 100 of them, you'll probably be replacing ~4 per year. This isn't quite accurate, though, since failures/time tends to make a bell curve. In this case, maybe failures are dramatically more likely to occur at the 10+ year mark, so before that ten-year mark, maybe you'll be replacing 1-2 cards of the 100 each year, and once you hit the ten year mark, maybe you're replacing 5 cards per year.

Yes. They ask the question, and if you say "yes," the ceiling opens up and balloons drop down. They also put a star next to your account name in their databases to give you the best customer service.

<90* on pre-200 cards is fine. <95* for the newest generation. 100* is generally the breaking point. Heat + time will reduce MTBF, but it's not too big a deal... MTBF will be waaaay beyond the lifespan of the card from technological progression.

There's a massive spread between order types, but all sellers appear to be stubbornly hodling onto what they have, asking prices (over and over and over) which nobody's paying. .1BTC/"fishstick" is the move price, +-.05BTC (I couldn't sell any yesterday asking .16, but bought a good few @ .14). I haven't watched new "pre-market" altcoins markets before, so it's all new to me.

Right. Market price is too low. Would rather wait to see this on an actual exchange than sell at a loss.

Price re-determined to be ~.1BTC/mil (+-.04BTC) based on overnight trades. Will be hodling today.

Buy price is .16/mil. .2*.16=BTC.032

Exchange is closed for the night. Back again in ~12h (+-3h).