12/Jan 2009 was first bitcoins ever spent transaction Block #170
"Huh. Well, we've been mining for a day, let's see what happens when we actually try to use this thing." |
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I've made a valid point: why should ASIC vendors sell ASIC's rather than mine with them? The only reply I got was a long-winded
waffle that strung several half-arguements together.
No, several people have explained this to you, in several different ways, and you still don't get it. Whether you physically can't understand, or you're just too damn stubborn remains to be seen. Point 1) All manufacturers have stated that they will not, under any circumstances, mine with their hardware before the hardware gets shipped to customers. Point 2) If BFL brings online 150TH, they would be >80% of the network. This is the exact opposite of the decentralization that makes the network secure. If one party owned 80% of the network, even for a brief period, faith in the network would crash. Sure, they could mine for a month straight at 80% of the network hashrate to mine the 75,000 coins it would take just to equal the $1million in preorders (at today's prices), but by the end of the month there would be no Bitcoin network outside of BFL, and those coins would be useless - literally worth pennies, if anything. Point 3) Even if BFL only brings online 10TH/s to avoid total network domination, it still doesn't make much sense. Sure, they'd be mining ~1000 BTC/day, but that's only ~$13,000. Compare that to the $1million+ in preorders, and it still doesn't make sense to mine. Point 4) The first manufacturer to start shipping ASICs, and proove that they can deliver a product within advertised specs, will get a lot more pre-orders from those who are caution or even doubters. They actually have a monetary interest in being the first manufacturer to ship. Other people have made other points on top of these, but you refuse to listen. Just because you can't see past your goose-and-the-golden-egg analogy, doesn't mean it makes sense in the real world. +1. Another one to add to the ignore list, I guess. Some people just can't look past their own nose to see the world around them. |
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I have a $10 GC. How much are you willing to pay?
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First Law: An ASIC manufacturer will only deliver an ASIC when it's sale price is less than the gross value of Bitcoins it can be expected to mine.
i.e ASIC manufacturers will do what is in their best economic interest.
Would anyone like to offer a reasonable and succinct refutation of this law? No prizes from tangled specuation about how "everyone will drop bitcoin" and
such witchcraft.
I really don't understand what point you're trying to make. An ASIC manufacturer would deliver an ASIC regardless of how many Bitcoins it can mine. That's the product they sell, thus they want to deliver said product to maintain their reputation and continue selling more of them. And if you're trying to say that ASIC manufacturers would mine on them instead of shipping them until they are no longer profitable, then you've completely botched your statement up. Currently, as it reads, you are saying that ASIC manufacturers will only deliver ASICs when they are profitable to the person they are delivering it to. Also, who in their right mind would buy an ASIC that isn't expected to profit? |
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So always get a receipt+MP pic/scan, match the MP public code to the receipt, and ensure that it was purchased with cash. Reject if not cash-purchased.
Seems like a fairly solid way to go about it...! As long as no store can give the user a refund and cancel the moneypak, anyway! EDIT: I would also be wary of refund requests made here: https://www.moneypak.com/RefundRequest.aspxIf they can prove they purchased the moneypak, and began a refund request after someone else had added those funds to their paypal account, would the service outright deny them the refund? Or would they withdraw the funds from the paypal account and refund the original purchaser? |
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Another question: Will the discussions/talks be record with quality cameras, manned by competent individuals? There should be no excuses for inferior productions. Who here has quality equipment and is planning on attending? Do you lack anything or have questions or concerns pertaining to the event? Exactly what do you need to make sure the recording process proceeds seamlessly?
As an A/V technician, professionally, I handle a lot of events like this. As a Bitcoin Foundation member, I will be attending with some solid HD gear. All I would request is for a good spot in the back and a direct XLR connection to the mix for high quality sound. I'm also a Newtek Certified presenter, and can run a TriCaster 8000 if we want to do this thing live over livestream.com to the world, which can simultaneously integrate live social media streams. Let me know! I don't think anyone would argue with you livestreaming the events! After all, that's what the community has asked for and attendees have promised, but not delivered on, for all the prior conferences. The question is, can you actually pull it off, unlike all the other who have said they would do so, only to have irreconcilable technical difficulties when push came to shove? @ Yankee or anyone else familiar with the conference proceedings - will reliable WiFi access be available in the events room(s)? |
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How many people in this community would be interested in a Bitcoin penny auction site? For those of you not in the know, here is how such a site works: - User buys bids with Bitcoins, usually priced at a small amount so multiple bids can be bought with 1 Bitcoin
- Every bid placed on an item raises the item's current price by 1 penny, or in this case a bitcent
- Winner of auction pays final price of item
- Item is delivered to user
Items put up for auction would be a mix of gift cards, additional site bids, Bitcoins, and potentially physical items. Obviously, the process of buying bids to place on an item generates the primary revenue for the operation the site. It may be misleading to some when they see a user winning 20 bitcoins for some ridiculously low amount, like 1 bitcoin. Thanks, I would like to hear the interest of the community. It's been tried already, and hasn't been very successful. mokimarket.com. I would suggest not duplicating your efforts TBH. |
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You guys don't even understand bitcoin and where the development is at, bitcoin network is in beta, if people aren't serious or don't believe in it they shouldn't be around it. Give them the testnet to "play" with. Honestly everyone complaints about it taking so long to download, should just quit bitcoin, they obviously don't have the time to dedicate to learning about it or patients to use it.
So what if it's a beta? That means zilch with regards to increasing usability to the average end user. The average end user can't be expected to download the full blockchain, doesn't need to care about running a full node, and shouldn't have to have patience to use it. It's like you're looking innovation straight in the eye while it is laying on the ground bleeding to death, then giving a solid right-hander to the jaw-bone. Why? Just, why? I don't understand why you want so few people to use Bitcoin. Most people around here would really like more people to use it, but you seem insistent upon pushing everyone but the geekiest away. If your argument is that Bitcoin isn't ready for the masses, my argument is, lets work on making it ready for the masses! A good first step is not recommending that they spend 3 days syncing up the full blockchain... Hmmm... must be a while since you last tried it! Currently, there are no pre-requisites for Python runtimes or special command-line stuff - both Windows builds (whether slush's or mine) are 100% self-contained and run out of the box. Perhaps time to give it another try?  I'll post up the error screenshots when I get a chance. This is the text that confused me: Install PyQt4
Install Electrum-1.5.8.zip
execute 'python electrum' Since the executable was throwing me errors, I thought I might have to follow those instructions (which obviously didn't help!). Um, it was late at night... Then bitcoin.org should be much more straightforward about that before showing ANY download links. How about a simple choice in BIG typeface on the homepage, such as:
Do you intend to use Bitcoin as a regular user or do you want to run you own node (requires powerful computer / setup typically takes 48h+ / NOT recommended for most laptops)?
Regular user: offer links to Electrum, Multibit, and Blockchain.info
Full node user: offer links to Qt / bitcoind (+ optionally, Armory for extra security)
Completely agree. |
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Wouldn't hundreds/thousands of requests per second be deemed a DDOS attack by any semi-competent webhost?
Depends. What if you launched a big ad campaign and suddenly you get a mass of requests? You would not want your webhost to shut your site down because he thinks something is wrong. Granted, that many requests from a single host would be suspicious, but if the attacker has resources (i.e. botnet) he can spread those requests over many hosts. If you run your own server, you could lay traps. Like, letting file2ban monitor logs for requests for e.g. the infamous info.php and block that IP. If you absolutely have to store sensitive information on your webserver (data exchange, backup, etc) at least put it into a Truecrypt container and upload that one instead. you should go for a VPS.
Like Linode?  Alright, I'll keep that in mind, thank you! |
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. . . They want a piece of software that allows them to send and receive Bitcoins . . .
No I think the noobies that have a hard time with waiting, are in denial that they are serious about bitcoin. Who said anything about being "serious about bitcoin?" SgtSpike seems to be talking about people who just heard about bitcoin, and want to try it out. They have no idea if they want to be "serious" about it yet, they don't know much about it and have very little exposure to it. At best they want to purchase something and the seller/merchant has indicated that they are willing to (or prefer to) accept bitcoin for payment. If the "new user" can't quickly and easily accomplish the the transaction to gain exposure to the process, they'll never get to the point of learning enough about it to see the significant benefits it offers and become "serious" about it. Thank you, yes, this is exactly what I mean. When I first got into Bitcoin, I wasn't at all serious about it. I was trying out this new mining thing that had the potential to make me money, and it was intimidating (setting up QT and mining). I can only imagine what a non-technically minded person might be thinking as they go through the cumbersome process of attempting to run QT, especially now that it takes days instead of hours to download and sync. @gweedo, 99% of newbies aren't serious about Bitcoin. Why do you insist that they should be pushed away? The perfect solution would be a downloadable client with blockchain.info speed and ease of use.
that's the definition of Electrum  I love the idea of Electrum, but the install process is a pain on Windows. As far as I can tell, you need the Python package installed, then have to run some command from the command line to start it? Regardless, I couldn't get past an error about a missing .dll (which it was looking for in the install directory??) when I last tried installing it. It wasn't fun or easy, especially not for a newbie! Once you have it to a point where it is a standalone install (doesn't require anything but Windows itself), then I think you'll have made significant progress! |
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I agree that all disclaimers should be made, however, I don't see a problem with recommending an alternative client. I recently downloaded the entire block chain and it was incredibly slow to put it mildly. I think this will be a huge turnoff for those new to Bitcoin and some of the alternate clients can have alleviate that issue.
Explain to me why it is a turnoff? I think people like you just too lazy to read and learn about the benefit of a full node. Newbies don't care about running a full node. They want a piece of software that allows them to send and receive Bitcoins - anything beyond that is something they won't care about or want, especially if it adds additional inconvenience. If it takes them 3 days before they can even use it, OF COURSE it'll be a huge turnoff for them! Anyone who can't see this is simply in denial about it. People are turned away from QT every day because of the lengthy syncing process. We desperately need a newbie-friendly solution. I've been pointing people to blockchain.info, but it's not perfect. The perfect solution would be a downloadable client with blockchain.info speed and ease of use. |
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Didn't they turned off those options due to money laundering problems? And you guys want to propose Bitcoin to them??  |
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How many filenames could be practically searched for on the average server over, say, a month's time? Or how often can a person feasibly make an HTTP request?
A simple HEAD request would be enough for a scan. Speed mostly depends on your server: a good hardware and configuration can serve hundreds/thousands of requests per second. Of course if the scan gets out of control you'll notice because your site will start lagging and your logs will blow up. Even if you think you locked things down (like setting "Options -Indexes") you can run into problems eith e.g. a buggy script. If you pay attention you'll notice that security issues pop up all the time with the most common CMS, like Wordpress, Typo3, Joomla, Drupal etc. If an attacker finds a bug which makes a script return a directory listing you have lost. Simple fix? Never store files you want to keep private in a location that is accessible by the webserver. Period. Wouldn't hundreds/thousands of requests per second be deemed a DDOS attack by any semi-competent webhost? |
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On a shared hosting environment, it might be possible to use ssh and access the same shared web host, and look at your files that way.
Will keep that in mind, thanks! |
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They can be reversed. I have heard that if the person cancels the credit card transaction used to purchase the moneypak, then paypal will take away the value of the moneypak from your account. I have also heard that some stores will even allow you to return a moneypak, but that is unverified.
All I know is, moneypaks might be a little bit safer than using paypal directly, but certainly not fool-proof, and certainly still something that people can abuse.
Hmmm... that is a bit disconcerting.  I was under the impression you could only use cash to buy MoneyPak for some reason. Interesting... according to eHow, you are correct: http://www.ehow.com/info_8501613_can-credit-card-buy-moneypak.htmlAnd actually, I recently received a donation for my Minecraft community with someone who purchased a moneypak with their visa gift card (per my recommendation), then gave me the moneypak code. So I agree with D&T that some places allow debit card/cash cards to purchase moneypaks. |
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Regarding the wifi hotspot sharing, I thought AT&T was looking at web traffic used by devices, and if they found any non-mobile usage, they would automatically tag on the data plan fee?
Also, I've never liked the idea of carrying a phone much larger than the iPhone in my pocket... it just wouldn't fit well at all! Maybe if I went caseless, but that makes me nervous for the few times I manage to fumble around and drop it.
IP cameras is something I would love to do, just haven't had a chance (or money) to do it yet... someday! Aren't there IP camera viewers on the iPhone as well though?
Thanks for the input though! The iPhone 6 is probably coming soon, will have to be making a decision on that front...!
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They can be reversed. I have heard that if the person cancels the credit card transaction used to purchase the moneypak, then paypal will take away the value of the moneypak from your account. I have also heard that some stores will even allow you to return a moneypak, but that is unverified.
All I know is, moneypaks might be a little bit safer than using paypal directly, but certainly not fool-proof, and certainly still something that people can abuse.
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I just realized that I have in total about 20% more accepted namecoin shares compared to bitcoin shares. Not speaking of per round shares here, those will obviously be wildly different because the chains don't have same difficulty. Maybe I just don't understand merged mining well enough, but shouldn't the total share numbers be roughly equal? I thought every share is used on both chains.
Isn't that because NMC difficulty is lower than BTC difficulty? So a share that isn't good enough to meet Bitcoin difficulty might be good enough to meet NMC difficulty? I believe that applies for blocks only - each share should be accounted for in both chains, and then checked against the block difficulty of both chains. For example, if you submit a 1M/16 share, your target difficulty was 16, but the actual share difficulty happened to be 1M. That's not enough to solve a BTC block, but it does solve an NMC block. Because the share target was 16, that should increase your accepted share count by 16 for both chains. Whatever the block difficulty of both chains is, that shouldn't affect the amount of accepted shares in any way. Every share should increase the accepted share count of both chains by the same amount, unless I'm missing something here. Ah, yes, you are correct - I missed that we were talking about shares and not blocks solved, for some reason. Tis odd that there are more accepted namecoin shares then...! |
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Let me draw up a few assumptions then:
The directory is left "open" (i.e., all files within it are accessible as long as the URL to said file is known), but has an index page to prevent a directory listing. The file types are directly readable, and are NOT linked anywhere.
Would it be possible to discover the filenames of those files?
You could use an exhaustive search by trying all possible file names, or even a dictionary attack. If you name your files with long random characters sequences, such as '8s6g86sfshf7h0fdaf73toh3i3ih.html', then this would render an exhaustive search impractical. How many filenames could be practically searched for on the average server over, say, a month's time? Or how often can a person feasibly make an HTTP request? In your case if someone knows the directory name yes: http://www.bitcoinfeedback.com/images/You can disable this by removing the "Indexes" argument in the apache directory options. (and I would recommend that you do this) If you have an index.html in a directory, listings are disabled on most webservers, and the content of index.html is shown. Haha, this discussion did lead me to discover this... uh... problem on my own site.  I do not have direct access to the apache config, but hopefully I can find a way to indirectly accomplish this. At the very least, I could throw up an index in each directory. you probably can use .htaccess files to do it. Thanks, you're right about that..! |
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