Just posted a blogpost looking at the sample cheque I received - there are also 2 codes for a sample cheque available for the first 2 people to tweet a link to the article*, cc'ing @exmosis in their tweet. Here's the post:

http://bitcoinlife.wordpress.com/2012/07/30/cheque-this-out/

* Check it out, I'm like a social media guru or something.

Fascinating and well-needed thread. The other day I was asking a local trader about the local currency in their town, which has ben around for a couple of years. The 2 main problems were 1) she couldn't spend the local currency on "useful" stuff like paying bills or parking, which meant 2) she had to traipse up to the (physical) currency HQ to convert notes into GBP. Being a sole trader, that meant either closing the shop, or using up free time.

Bitcoin is digital and revolutionary yadda yadda sure, but has the same problems - 1. It's a good way of moving value around the world, but hasn't (yet) got it's own traction - it's more of a common medium than a currency within a (self-contained) group, IOW the transport protocol is (currently) more important than the economy. 2. Switching between "traditional" value protocol (USD, GBP, etc) and BTC is still more hassle than it's worth if your main economic activity takes up enough of your time already.

Philosophy will lose out to functionality every time. Coinhub looks really interesting and bitpay is a major step of course, but BTC is going to need even more smooth, professional transaction interfaces and services sitting on top of it to really become a currency. Talk of what people "can" do given an API needs to be backed up by a whole host of non-technical reassurance.

Will watch this thread with interest. Are there any lists of which epayment systems are/could be supported, and possibly who'd want to use/fund development on them?

Not one I can test here, but some ideas to try:

• Sounds like some kind of race condition or lock condition maybe, possibly caused by too many things trying to access the same resource. The jsonRPCClient code doesn't seem to close it's stream neatly, but don't know if that would matter. You could try adding "fclose($fp);" inside jsonRPCClient.php, after the line "$response = json_decode($response,true);"
• More extreme version of the above: Can you edit the script to destroy the jsonRPCClient object and construct a new one each loop? Might help to totally reset any open connections.
• Can you isolate which RPC call is causing it by commenting out the sendtoaddress line? It might be the effect of many RPC calls, or one specific one.
• Are you running the right bitcoind version for your PC, i.e. 32-bit vs 64-bit? Any improvement if you "downgrade" to 32-bit if you're running 64-bit?
• Alternatively, is your PHP version up to date?
• 25% is a weird number - are you running a quad core and maybe the bitcoind hits a CPU limit in one core?

Thanks for the donation, CA - I'll keep it away from satoshidice I think I do a fair bit of dev work on Windows Server and then deploy to a Linux box, so I'll keep an eye out for this one in future...


Pretty sure the big bearded dude in the sky could pull a MITM attack if he wanted to. Does God have root?

When I mouseover that link in the original page, the URL I get is actually a different affiliate redirect link: http://affiliate.godaddy.com/redirect/1CAD129D78936A01B2EA2848DC9C4E44

This redirects to the URL you give above, with the IAPtno17 ref which seems to be a generic godaddy coupon code.

Awesome - my 'tweak stuff til it does something different' approach works again... PM'd.

Now just got to figure out why php on osx hates anything https.

Does curl_error() give you anything? http://php.net/manual/en/function.curl-error.php

Looking at the curl_setopt() page has some things you could try (http://php.net/manual/en/function.curl-setopt.php):

Try using basic auth with:



Try using different SSL versions:


The manual page says CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST can be either 1 or 2 with 2 being the default, so try 1 (instead of 0):


Otherwise maybe it's something to do with encodings being used - see the CURLOPT_ENCODING option. If there's a way to show the headers you're sending, you could try comparing what you're sending across different machines, and if one works, what difference in headers there are.

Cf. The Mexican HSBC situation recently. Bitcoin will get this more and more as it gets bigger. Growing pains as it starts to *really* piss people (companies) off.

All makes total sense to me; the sister did for the butler because he knew about the secret illegitimate child, and she made sure the station master knew exactly what time he saw her at.

One thing puzzles me: if BC were brought in to deal with a known level of lax security, was the site running purely on hope before that? And if security was generally poor, what are the chances of a keylogger or similar trojan being out there from the start?

Man. And I thought Eastenders was stressful to watch.

I'm now seeing 0 transactions and 0 BTC in my wallet. Oop.

PM me if you're interested in any of the following sets (prefer not to split), otherwise they'll go on ebay in a week. All issues in mint condition, most in plastic bags. Buyer pays shipping. Open to reasonable offers for the lot.

Sandman Set - BTC2.25
'Destiny: A Chronicle of Deaths Foretold' mini-series, complete set #1, #2, #3.
'The Song of Orpheus' one-off issue
'Absolute Sandman Special' preview issue with bonus material
'Endless Nights Special' preview issue with bonus material

(Also have a copy of Wired with Neil Gaiman feature from Nov 1996 - PM for more info/quote.)

Aria Set - BTC1
Aria Jay Anacleto sketchbook #1
Aria Blanc & Noir #2 (monochrome issue)
'Aria Angela Blanc & Noir - Heveanly Creatures Part 1' (monochrome issue)

User Friendly - The Root of All Evil - BTC1
By Iliad

Jhonen Vasquez / Jamie Smart Set - BTC1
'I Feel Sick' #1 and #2 by Johnen Vasquez
'Bear' #1 and #2 by Jamie Smart
'Bodha Te' one-off by Jamie Smart

Misc Set - BTC1
'Batman - Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?' #1
'House of Mystery' #1
'Scarlet Traces - The Great Game' #1
'Dark Minds' #1

Cheers,
Scribe

Great stuff. I've recently made my first couple of BTC sale trades online (people finding me through localbitcoins.com), but today I've actually had an enquiry from someone in the same town. It's pretty fun chatting to buyers about bitcoin and life...

Another slight oddity in the Android App which hasn't happened to me before - I withdrew 5BTC from Intersango to my wallet (TX: http://blockchain.info/tx-index/12315903/2b83952cd981a415cc3fa831d13b1d4bc203793a2b029294e9acdbe00ed082fc) and while the increased balance *does* appear in the app, the received transaction itself doesn't.

The TX shows up in the web version of the wallet, and I believe I got a notification on my phone to say it had been received. I don't remember getting an e-mail about receiving the funds though, which I think I usually do.

Let me know if any more info is useful...

Depends on how much sleep I've had.

This is a great post.

Right now I'm sitting on the sidelines - I have nothing at stake in Bitcoinica, but do use Intersango on a regular basis. Right now, what Bitcoin needs to grow and succeed is a) people willing to put effort and wisdom into making Bitcoin usable and trusted, and b) people willing to take that trust and build on it. Yes, there's "real money" at stake, but at the same time that "real money" is based on a platform of openness and accountability.

IMHO, underscoring Bitcoin with lawsuits *will* increase accountability (why wasn't Bitcoinica open sourced? why is info on most sites' security practices and legal statuses still so hard to find?), but it's going to require some *very* dedicated and passionate people to step up to that. The question is where are they going to come from?

My own opinion is that 'shit happens'. I wish BC hadn't bothered taking on such a risk (as, I guess, do they), but that's the shit Bitcoin is in.

What does it mean for the future of Bitcoin? I have no idea - but I'm certainly more wary about telling other people how great it is. Relying on  a small number of decent services is a dangerous position to be in.

What's to say they "knew" at all? If the source was public and there were obviously duff security practices all round, wouldn't it be pretty straightforward to bruteforce LastPass with grepped strings from source and public e-mails?

Doesn't explain why the passwords were the same though. I guess laziness and hubris.

Probably related: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=40264.msg1027672#msg1027672

Blockchain has introduced a new mixing service, looks like someone has got busy with it... No reason why it needs to be on a phone though. Other than for fun, of course

I love the idea of these things, will see if anyone wants to co-sponsor with me though. Would they work just as well if shipped over to the UK/Europe?

Loving the service, and the Android app is great. A few suggestions would it make even better (sorry if I've just missed these somewhere):

1. Showing exchange rates for 1 BTC, as well as for your total wallet's value
2. The ability to scan a QR code or enter firstbits to look up current balance and other info
3. Protecting the wallet with a PIN on access

Also, the last 2 links under "About" don't work for me (icon by bitboy, and link to the Android Market App Page)

Otherwise amazing stuff. Tip on its way.

I'm not a newbie in particular, but have started up a blog that might appeal to newbies - and anyone else interested in using Bitcoin "out and about". Here it be:

http://bitcoinlife.wordpress.com/

I think "getting the word out" is really important to Bitcoin right now, so it's more of a look at using Bitcoin in "daily life" rather than trying to uncover Satoshi, explore mining, bring down the system. OK, it might touch on some of those at some point. I'm also hoping to post about Bitcoin cheques, my first attempts at selling Bitcoin, Bitcoin for businesses, and so on.

Please do subscribe and/or drop comments with any feedback. Would love to know what people new to Bitcoin are interested in most.

Ta,
Scribe