Pull request is a github-ism.  It is essentially a patch or fork off the code tree.

I just clicked back through the chain until I saw a 9000 -> 8999 + 1 transaction around the right date.

Yes, exactly 8999 were lost.

http://blockexplorer.com/tx/eb5b761c7380ed4c6adf688f9e5ab94953dcabeda47d9eeabd77261902fccccf

Hmm.  Krugman isn't usually this eloquent.  Not usually this brief either.  I think that quote is from an impostor.

You are right.  I was thinking this morning that it had been many years since I looked into it, so I did some more checking, and found this paper on Quantum Resistant Public Key Cryptography.

I'm sorry you missed out on the goldrush, you can't get a bunch of free bitcoins, and you are bitter about it.  Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

Because each block contains the header of the previous block.  Right now we are on block # 127114.  No one cares if you come up with an acceptable replacement for block # 123000, which is what you'd get if you spent a month mining disconnected.  We've moved on.  We don't care any more.

If a decent implementation of Shor's algorithm ever shows up, it will be the end of all cryptography, not just bitcoin.  At that point, we will literally be carrying discrete milligrams and micrograms of gold around in our pockets, because nothing else will be trusted.

Opinions vary.  When I did the math, it gave the best Mhash/sec to $ ratio, and by a considerable margin.  Also, it was in stock almost everywhere.

Anyone that is thinking about mining needs to make a spreadhseet and list all of the options along with their hash values.  Then shop a bunch of sites, looking for the best price on each card.  From there it is a simple matter to find the best Mhash/sec per $ value.  Adding electrical costs (if such apply to you) to that spreadsheet is trivial.

1) Yes.  That is actually the reason that no node accepts a coinbase transaction as an input until it has been in the chain for 100 blocks.

As for your parenthetical question, let me back up and answer PRCman first.


This is a key concept that you must understand:  There is not one true next block that everyone is working on.  Each miner is allowed to create their own block, including their own coinbase transaction, and their own subsets of pending transactions that they wish to include in it.  Each miner is working on their own version of the next block.

The nodes communicate transactions amongst themselves.  Each one can make their own decision as to which ones are included in the block they are working on.  This is where the transaction fee comes in, in case you've been wondering about that little detail.  It doesn't come up much now, because generally each block contains all or most outstanding transactions in the global pool, but that isn't necessary.  Different nodes can pick different ones.

Say there are 7 transactions pending when block A is completed, numbered 1 to 7.  Say the node that creates block B includes transactions 1-5 in the new block, and the node that creates transaction X includes 1-3, and 7 in their new block.  When blocks B and X are done, the nodes will have different ideas of which transactions are done, and which ones are still pending.  The node working on B will think that transactions # 6 and #7 need to be put into the next next block (block C), while the X node thinks that transactions #4, #5 and #6 are still outstanding.

When block "C" comes around, the X node then rolls back all transactions, #1, #2, #3, and #7.  But the new chain includes #1, #2, and #3, so it can discard them.  It also contains #7, so it can discard that one too.  And now it re-broadcasts transactions #4, #5 and #6 as valid transactions.  The rest of the netowrk will pick them up (but probably knew them already) and work at including them in the next next next block.

As for question 2) from PcChip, I wasn't around back then, but the answer is no.  The validity of a block is based on the difficulty of that block.  If the earlier blocks were easier, it was because there was less computational power being applied to the system back then, so it balances out.  The odds of a block race are the same now (give or take a bunch for difficulty lag) as they were back then.

Yawn.

These stories come out every couple of months, and have for years, and years, and years.

The dollar has some big problems, as does the US in general, but there is simply no viable alternative, and no prospects for an alternative.  Also, nearly every man, woman and child on the face of the planet has a vested interest in preventing a full blown collapse.

You didn't search before you posted this, did you?

Also, there is no danger of hashing power getting too concentrated.  Anyone that has the ability to command that much computing power totally has better things to do with it.

Why would you want to do that?

More likely, the site is wildly inaccurate about the aggregate hashing speed, as it always is after a difficulty change, and it just subtracts the published hashing speeds of the various known pools from the horribly inflated global estimate and concludes that "other" is doing a lot of work.

I bet it'll look normal again in a day or two.

It would diminish our reward a bit, but not eliminate it.

Maybe.

Not all superconducting ring reduction systems are quantum in nature.

See this IEEE article.  The good stuff is on page 2.

Oh, heh.  I wasn't suggesting that we had consecutive invalid blocks.  There was one before, round 8.

Normally, yes, but you can set it in the conf file.

If that is all you want, you just need to edit your bitcoin.conf, and make sure the rpc port is available from the outside (forward the port on your router).

Looks like we got a second invalid block.

Any thought of rolling the shares from the invalid round into the next round?