Thats mostly because its funny I think. It has potential to become a short lived hype, which is great if they pull it off, but it has no long term future IMO.  Or not more than alpaca socks sold in dollar; perhaps Im underestimating that market I got no clue lol.

These sure do look great!

But also for the EU you will want to offer one with a compartment to store coins. Euro currencies means lots of coins, as they go up to 2 Euro coins and a gazilion smaller ones. OTOH smallest bill is 5 Euro.

You might also want to check if EU driver licenses fit, especially considering that here everyone always carries driver license, and identity cards. The new upcoming licenses are small (like our electronic identity cards) and I think ought to fit, but the current ones are pretty damn huge. Almost as big as standard international passport. If you need the dimensions Ill measure mine.

BTW, there is a slight irony to having a bitcoin wallet carrying legal tender and unable to carry bitcoins. I kinda like that

Look, I dont know you, or your history here, I dont even understand this gift card business (thats a US thing I assume), but its pretty clear you got it wrong when you thought any business would fly just because you take bitcoins. Asking people on a bitcoin forum if some sort of bitcoin business is a good idea, is by itself a bad idea. Of course most people will say "yes", they want bitcoins to take off. Thats no substitute for market research or common sense.

A business concept thats gonna fail in dollar is gonna fail in bitcoin. Exceptions might be specific bitcoin related services (exchange, bitcoin banking etc), but any real world trade in bitcoin is going to have to compete with the very same real world trade done in dollars. You might get small bonus from people here who are sympathetic to the idea and want to support bitcoin, if they are going to buy something they would buy anyway, they might prefer buying it with bitcoins so you might get away with tiny higher margins, but do you really think your store could possibly have worked if you sold in dollars? If not, you could have predicted the outcome.

Why do you want more people in to mining? There is already a built in market mechanism that regulates the amount of miners; more miners only means those miners will lose money as the amount of bitcoins to be made is fixed.

Btcoins doesnt need more miners, it already has a good system to regulate mining demand,  bitcoin needs more real trade to happen in bitcoins.

Just because we hate you? Or because you're selling something nearly no one wants?
Its not because you slap bitcoin prices on something that its gonna work.

Nonsense. The difficulty is -indirectly- influenced by the BTC trading price, not vice versa. BTC price is not influenced by the number of miners or difficulty at all; the number of BTCs created is constant regardless. The opposite is true, if bitcoin value goes down, more people will find their mining not profitable, stop mining and therefore difficulty will go down to. The same happens when bitcoin prices go up, although there is a ceiling, the number of miner rigs is not unlimited.  Either way, none of this influence BTC price.

Thats not say there is a bottom; because there isnt. Current bitcoin price is 99% speculation and 1% demand for actual trade (most of which is probably drugs). Until that changes and bitcoin becomes a real currency used for trade, there is no bottom. If it does over time become a real alternative to paypal&co, then there is no ceiling. Anything inbetween is pure speculation, guessing, hoping and fearing.

You got it right the first time
Im sure he is ordering a cable like this "Dual PSU 24-Pin Adapter Cable":


Guess what it does

No, that is the spot price. Speculation of future value fuels it, panic removes it. Results are endless booms and busts looking for an equilibrium thats based on its value as a transaction tool, since it has no other intrinsic value.

Amen. The whole notion that $4 or $5 is cheap while $30 would be high is, quite frankly, laughable. Its not a stock you can measure against P/E ratio's, its not a national currency you can measure against gross domestic product. There really isnt any yardstick.

Or maybe there is, its the amount of trade conducted with BTC. Any sustainable demand for BTC will come from trade (not speculation). At the moment, there is almost none. You cant buy a bloody thing with it, and next to no one uses it buy goods or services. As such, even $5 for a bitcoin today is probably way too high. $4.9 of that is speculation But its anyone's guess how much real world trade will be conducted using bitcoins over the next years. You can guess that fairly well with euro's or dollars, but no one can even have a clue  about BTC trade volume in 2013 let alone 2020. And that is what you need to know to make at least an educated guess about what BTCs should be worth. Give me that number and Ill tell you if $0.05 or $50,000 is high or low.

You sure about that?
Consider on average difficulty would go up slowly. If it takes you several months or even years instead of several hours to find a block wouldnt you on average suffer from a higher difficulty for each? The same concerns when we approach new reward era. 2013 may still seem very  far, but not if you are solo mining on a single videocard it isnt .

Of course, if there is a statistical difference because of that (Im not sure, Im too tired to think it through), its obviously noise compared to the inherent variability you face when mining solo, and just as irrelevant when you compare it to the fluctuations of BTC value (assuming youd cash out regularly).

Yep. eBay!

Ive talked in my game community about mining BTCs using BitMinter (through syndication) but as expected there is quite some resistance against it. There is the usual arguments that I can handle ("its a scam" and blah blah), but the biggest complaint surprised me somewhat, its that bitminter is closed source and they worry if it wont steal bitcoins or do other more nefarious things.

 I know this is a very deliberate choice for you, but I wonder if you shouldnt consider an opensource license thats more restrictive than GPL. The idea would be that people can verify what the app does, not allowing them to copy your code. Im no expert on open software licenses, but Im sure there are plenty of those. Is that something you'd consider doing?

If you look up any serious reviews of the PSU, it actually does very well, its getting top grades in all reviews Ive seen, including [H] and their torture tests. Here is the conclusion:
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/09/01/silverstone_strider_st1500_1500w_power_supply_review/9
I really dont think its a bad PSU, but you cant expect a PSU to deliver more than its rated for. To run this many powerhungry cards, he needs a second PSU, "1500"W (which is actually 1300W where it matters) isnt enough for his config. Ditch a card or buy a second PSU for the GPUs.

You are kidding right?



Not that it would matter a lot in this case, but that doesnt make you any more right.

I also think you missed the PSU is rated for 110A max combined on 12V.

FYI, this is what it says on the PSU:



Thats "only" 1320W on 12V lines, which is all that GPU's use.

Even at stock speeds (edit) 300Wx3 + 375W = 1275W for the GPU's alone. Granted, thats TDP, while mining at low memory speeds it might be lower than that, but you have other devices that need 12V, not in the least the CPU.

Ah, I guess it was you thx Now I feel guilty for depriving your community for what could also have been at least 5 minutes of server rental

Let me make it up to you; Im writing a FAQ on bitcoin that I intend to sticky in my community for people never having heard of it (which is most). Perhaps you find it useful to use on your site  (feel free to copy paste whatever you want), but if you'd read, do me a favor and check it for errors. Im rather new to bitcoin myself so Im sure I got some things wrong:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/18GP6spob897vPVtceTHjTaO6-SZfpOvnDDUfXHdKfJc/edit?hl=en_US

There are also some basics I dont fully understand myself,  you will probably notice me skirting around them, any corrections or additions are welcome, as Id like it to be factually correct even if the details might be irrelevant to the audience.

I dont think you get an electricity invoice every 2-3 days (and I hope you dont actually need the BCs to pay for them), so with the 150 free BTCs being handed out, you will almost certainly make more BCs per month on this pool. Dont get me wrong, Im also mining with just one rig, still waiting for the first "paycheck" so I know how it feels, but I bet it will feel better once that check comes in . Getting dozens of 0.01 BCs  from slush also gets boring you know, and still doesnt add up to a whole lot .

Yeah it could. But you want to make this as idiot proof as possible, as most people will already go "Hu? BitWHAT?".  Bitminter's miner is a great step in that direction, but with just a few minor changes, like a web launcher accepting parameters for wallet(s), no need for a signup  or even private wallet etc, it could become a real one click operation and that is what you need in this case.

And I also think its crucial the miner app has the looks or at least logo of your community or people will think they are making someone else rich. Which I guess is somewhat true, but still .

Oh and the default break interval definitely has to be modified (or configurable through parameter). It wont go lower than 10ms, but at 10 rather than 50 I see zero performance difference in hashrate, but my desktop is at least reasonably responsive again. It should probably be even lower than 10, closer to 1 (only tested on ubuntu).


You saying the idea is worth something ?

16xReozTM9DW9fvVM2WQbiQxAsh7UCyToA

:p

edit:misread. Let me redo my math.

Definitely under dimensioned PSU. At stock speed a 6990 requires 375W. When you flip the switch, it goes to 450W. A 6970 is rated at 300W at stock speed. Overvolted and overclocked its probably closer to 400W (power consumption increases exponentially with voltage), but lets say just 350W on average for all 3.

450+3x350=1500W

We havent even taken in to account the CPU, motherboard, ram, hdd. Nor have we considered the fact that most PSU's do not achieve their rated power.

Overclocking is a lottery. You can get lucky, or not.
930 Mhz is a decent overclock. Some cards can do more, some cant. Better cooling could help push a few % higher, but even thats not guaranteed. There is a reason they are sold as 850 MHz