PPLNS shares have a shelf-life.  For p2pool, that's either 8640 shares or 3 times the average work of finding a block (i.e. 300%), whichever is lower.  It's that way for every PPLNS pool.  For example, kano's pool is 500%.  It's what makes the pools resistant to pool hopping - you get a ramp up and ramp down time for your work. 

I fully agree.  I gave only one of the sword's edges in explaining the higher variance.  You provided the other edge.  Miners feel it both ways... hash rate too low and you've got shares dropping off the chain before they're paid.  Hash rate too high and you've got blocks found where you've got no shares to be paid.

Your solution mitigates this by creating the sub-pool.  Yes, a miner sacrifices some of the decentralized freedom using this model;  however, it gives miners a less variant payout.  To date it's the best solution that's been provided to the problem.

In a nutshell p2pool doesn't scale.  Unlike the centralized pool model where the higher the hash rate of the pool the lower the variance for the miner, here because of the share chain concept the higher the hash rate the greater the variance experienced by miners.

He's stating that unless you're examining the data being sent to your miner how would you know?  You still have to create transactions to distribute the block reward and that data is part of what your miner is trying to find the hash.  So unless you're looking at exactly what data your miner is hashing you wouldn't know.  Of course even if you did you'd still have to determine the fraudulent distribution.

As you can see miners place a bit of faith in the pool operators

P2Pool has the best chance of avoiding fraud because of its decentralized nature.  Sure a node operator could charge ridiculous fees on his own node, but nobody would mine there.

Centralized pools could easily skim off the top.  Generate a percentage of coins to your own address.  Would the average miner know if he's missing a small portion of a payout?  He'd probably explain it away as bad pool luck.

Apparently too much for the current owner to bother keeping it up to date.  You want good stats?  Check out windpath's site: minefast.coincidence.com

It depends on the implementation.  As you saw p2pool pays you directly from the generated 25BTC.  Other pools pay you from their wallets when coins mature - Kano does this.

No.  1TH/s of block erupters is the same as 1TH/s from an 5 overclocked Antminer S1, which is the same as 1TH/s from an underclocked S5.

The network has a perceived hash rate based upon the time to solve blocks.  Every 2016 blocks the network adjusts itself to say, "what would I have needed the difficulty to be to make the last 2016 blocks take exactly 2 weeks?"

The variant hash rate reported by sites like bitcoinwisdom and others reflects this.  Sure, there might be new hardware added, and some turned off.  There's also just the inherent swings due to block solve times.

Spondoolies partners with Genesis Mining, so there's at least known hardware there.  Their prices are a bit higher than others, though.
HashNest/Umisoo are Bitmain.  Like SP-Tech, you know there's actual hardware behind the cloud.

Purchasing your own hardware and having it hosted in a professional datacenter is an option as well.  You buy the hardware and have it shipped to the datacenter.  They usually charge you based upon a rate of electricity consumption (i.e. something like $90/kWh/month - I made that number up, each provider has their own rates).

Do some looking around and see what appeals to you the most.  As has been mentioned, be very careful with cloud mining operations that seem too good to be true, because chances are exceptionally good that they are .

Because nobody maintains it.

Very cool... you could add that to your service offerings (like your escrow service).  NastyApps.  By the way, if you've not yet coined that, I'll expect royalties

Um... 64gb of what?  I've got to assume you mean RAM... what about CPUs, disk, network?  As has been mentioned if you intend for this machine to mine... you're 3 years late.  If you intend to host a pool, it'll work.

You also need to be registered as an Apple Developer for iOS, and any app you create and submit must meet with Apple's approval before being allowed into the App Store.

Wouldn't that be true of any randomization algorithm?  You execute it enough times and you'll get the result you want.

OK... so you have a list of numbers and you want to pick one of those numbers.

Try this: https://www.random.org/lists/

Just put your numbers into the text box and click the randomize button.

Earnings calculators show you what you'd make in an ideal environment.  Mining is anything but an ideal environment.  You might want to take a look at the pool's official thread to understand their payout method.  Also, you need to understand that your share of the coins is very much dependent upon your accepted contributions during shifts and how the pool as a whole is doing luck-wise.

I don't have a clue... what is "Giveawayseekers" and is it some kind of crypto?  I don't understand your question in the OP at all.  You have some 10 digit number and want to give something to somebody based on that number?

What does this possibly have to do with Bitcoin technical support???

Fair enough distinction .

Glad I could help.  Looking at your edited requirements list, you're still limited to USB miners as your total power draw can be no more than 15W.

In regards to payment for my contributions, I respectfully decline accepting.  If anything, I would ask that you donate any proceeds you were going to send to me to some worthwhile charity.

So that's why SP-Tech has been keeping quiet on the new hardware announcements... they've been expanding their revenue stream with TV productions!

Hey Guy, you going to be at the Inside Bitcoins event in NYC at the end of the month?