Difference in fee structure made the expected payoff for proportional higher than pay per share, plus I can withstand the increased variance over time.

Interesting thread.  Past performance doesn't indicate future "luck" and that is easily shown by the average number of shares taken (on average) to find the next block for a single user or pool.

Possibly the argument in favour of pool hoppers is that when they jump to small pools, their impact is proportionally higher.  Adding 1 Ghash to a 5000 Ghash pool has less impact than the other way around.  The flip side is that if 5000 Ghash hopped into a small 1 Ghash pool, then it would change the average finding rate (Poisson lambda) for that pool.  You also need to consider how long a hopper might stick with a "hopped" pool and that could be done on the basis of pool size over time.

Fundamentally, over time, any one returned share has the same probability of "finding" a block as any other.  Across all pools and all users, all the coins are distributed.  The ability to consistently get a higher payout is probably beyond the calculation ability of many, and if pool hopping makes them think it helps, then maybe they are not valuing their own time and effort properly.

Just for the record, I decided to join a larger pool and proportional payout rather than pay per share or a small pool/solo mining.  I know too much statistics to rely on luck 

C'mon - it's entertaining to see what predictions are being made with perfect hindsight and a graph to back it up.

It's also normal to make lots of predictions and only hold on to the one that works - that's what fund managers do when promoting great historic returns.  (and in really small type they add past returns are not an indicator of future returns = we got lucky and we make our fees irrespective of how much you lose)

Working on the volume - takes time, but there is some liquidity there

My 2600 died a while ago, but it would post 144Mflops in a boinc client cf 1000Mflops for a 4850 card.  i.e. slow.  Working backwards, if you're getting 250-300 Mhash from a 5850 rated 2+ Tflops, then the HD2600 should be worth around 14mhash.  (go forth and conquer the world!)

Hmmm, the thread is getting better (especially with the blood/body)

It might not need to be someone famous, but could be a team.  I follow the F1 motor racing (with a better JB participating) and they are great at spending money.  Some drivers seek sponsorship, at least one driver listed himself on the sharemarket a few years back.  If you contacted one of the "poorer" teams and said let your fans donate to your team in bitcoin, then that would make some interesting news.  Probably better examples, but that's one.

Why do you want parity?  It's largely irrelevant - PPP (purchasing power parity) sees to that.

lol - our respective points are proven

I guess b-ber will do b-ber-coin on his apple i-thingy

If b-ber got involved, I might have to dump bitcoin.

+1, that's some really interesting metrics - thanks.

Yes, has a better "feel" for the trade flow through the different stages.

Tested with a trade (1btc) - now have to build some volume.

Sorry to bring up the OP, but there were some interesting points missed in the discussion.

$31,000 for electricity for 13,300 Ghash is one value, but remember a short time ago (June) it was 1/3 of that, and a mere 12 months ago was 1 Ghash ($30/day world wide electricity!!)

The cost per transaction appears driven by more than just the transactions.  Given the right numbers, you can prove almost anything.

Sounds good, I'll give it a go.  Always useful to have different options.

Awesome (and scary)

Aside from the other posts, gold recovery from mobos and CPUs is hard, and not very profitable.  Hunt it up on the web and you'll see just how little you actually get.

http://www.tomshardware.com/picturestory/550-gold-motherboard-chemistry.html

What a neat idea.  (they probably won't do mining)

Oldest I have (working until the batteries went flat last year) is a Sharp PC-1211.  

This is the second time I've read this thread because the first time it was way to long to read sensibly.

What you are describing is like the currency exchange kiosks and banks scattered everywhere.  They run by charging a spread.  BITpiggy looks like +/-6% and most currency exchanges work on 3% to 10% depending on the liquidity and volatility.  (I did see an airport two weeks ago with a 30% spread on the yen!!!!! and a few more !!!!)

While anyone has access to the exchanges directly and easily, they can trade there fairly easily.  The reason ordinary people don't do that with GBP or USD or SGD is that they don't have access to the forex directly.  However, with BTC anyone does, and you need to have your cleared funds there in advance.

The problem is with the transaction fees for cross-border transfers of the spendable physical currency. BitPiggy can avoid that by accepting coin and paying direct via internet banking, or you could use a merchant service.  i.e. you trade directly out of you bank account or BTC wallet to the "exchange".  If you agreed to another benchmark price for pricing, and the operator is happy to take the swings to self hedge, then it could work.

I don't think that's the case, but mr OP (nagle) has his own special category.  I read his posts for humour value rather than information content.