Actually, I was originally going to say if you burn a $100 bill.

And the solution to that is the same as it always was.

It turns out growing up as a social outcast is a bit of an advantage for some things in life.

To me anarchy means the exact opposite of chaos - it means spontaneous order, productivity, and the ability to build a satisfying life.

I'm an anarchist because I believe in spontaneous emergence of order.  Trying to destroy that spontaneous order is what causes chaos.

I like that one as well, and it has a nice logo.

I honestly use a lot of terms to describe myself.  Forgive me but in some contexts I still call myself conservative - but I do so pointing out how the "conservative" politicians violate all that I ever believed was conservative, and point out how a consistent application of the values I believe in (usually the values of the person I'm addressing, if I am using this term) leads to libertarianism/anarchism.  Then again in other contexts I'll say I'm not a conservative (usually when the person I'm addressing uses the term "conservative" to mean a particular set of coercive views that I don't hold - examples being imperialism, the war on drugs, coercion to enforce religious values, etc.)

I call myself an anarchist, an anarcho-capitalist, a voluntaryist, an anti-statist, a libertarian, a freedom-lover a conservative, a paleoconservative, and probably others I can't think of at the moment.  Whatever term I'm using at the moment, it's an attempt to explain my belief that we are all better off if we reject coercion, reject the state (as an institution of coercion), and cooperate only on a voluntary basis - and that doing so is the only right and moral way to behave and build a society.

Right, all you'd need to do is defend your rights.  You could do that collectively+voluntarily, or individually - each person could use his efforts and resources as he sees fit.

No need for a government - just institutions that defend rights without using coercion.  If one of those institution or some other institution starts infringing rights, you handle it in the same way: start a new one.  (Or individually if you believe that will work out better.)

Have you actually done the PPLNS computations to verify that you are getting paid honestly based on your shares submitted and the blocks the pool has found?

Noticing that people with a lot of hashing power are in much better shape than us little guys doesn't look inherently disrespectful to me.  I like how you guys are fortunate enough to have these problems, too, and I hope I can join you some day!  YES I'd question it if I was in your position, and I'd want to find the answer.

BloodWine is new to this (as am I) and to me it looks like he was just chatting - not faulting you for questioning the numbers.

I stand corrected (I just posted to the contrary, before reading this).

And there's where the rest of us fall over on the math!   Seriously, organofcorti is absolutely the man when it comes to statistical analysis.

Virus In Numeris => do the math!

Figure out how many shares you are submitting (you can verify this).
Figure out the hash rate of your pool (you can't really verify this, but you can check if it seems consistent and believable).
Figure out how many blocks your pool is generating, and which ones.  (You can verify this with sites like blockchain.info)
Figure out how PPLNS works (I am betting this is where most people fall over.)

This is how you can verify your mining income is what you are supposed to be getting.

I am sorry if you don't want to do the math.  You will forever be at the mercy of others in your life, financially speaking, whether you use Bitcoin or not.  I'm thinking of the old Cosby Show episode where Bill Cosby claims his son will be broke since he doesn't know math -> the son explains he'll be fine because he'll have an accountant; the father asks if the son will be able to verify the accountant's math, and when then son answers know, he says "Then you'll be broke."

Bitcoin is all about math.  It is not a crime to choose to remain ignorant of math, but in the Bitcoin world it comes off looking as very out of place.

Prior to ASICs, I was not mining Bitcoin.  Now I own ASICs and am hashing away.  At least from my point of view that means less centralization of Bitcoin.  I would assume lots more small players like myself have been able to get into Bitcoin thanks to ASICs, but maybe I'm wrong.

I didn't read him as saying that - just that he was marveling at the difference in scope.

If you lose a $100 bill, you won't touch it for 50+ years.

lol, true.  I'd love to be mining 5 bitcents a day.  But then again, I haven't paid the hardware outlay that I'm sure he has.

Suppose I give you 10,000 Testnet Bitcoins for a pizza.  You and I both think this is a great idea, the exchange is made, I get my pizza, you get your (worthless) Testnet Bitcoins.

Other people pick up on this and start exchanging Testnet Bitcoins.  Testnet Bitcoins gain value.  They start exchanging for real Bitcoins, for USD, for North Korean Yuan, for gold and silver and litecoins and crapcoins and stocks.  And pizzas.

The Bitcoin developers do not want Testnet Bitcoins to gain any monetary value.  In the past they have reset the testnet with a new genesis block to avoid this.  The current testnet is actually testnet3 because of those.

Suppose the Bitcoin developers get wind that Testnet Bitcoins are rising in value, and take action to prevent it.  They reset the testnet, create a new genesis block, make changes in the client to start a new chain off of the new testnet genesis block, there's a newly released client, and we have a testnet4.

But - suppose you and I and many other people really like our pizza, and we really like exchanging Testnet3 Bitcoins for pizza and other things.  Maybe we are irrational.  Or maybe we are enlightened.  Regardless, we really want to continue the economy we have built up on the Bitcoin Testnet, and the decision the developers have made would reverse all that.

So, we continue to use the original client, the one that still runs off Testnet3.  We ignore Testnet4.  We don't use the new Bitcoin client.  Eventually some of us take the Bitcoin code and release a new Testnet3-only client.  The testnet3 economy continues, thanks to our decentralized action.  We are not at the mercy of the developers at all - we can do whatever we want, whether other people like it or not.

That's decentralization.

This is addressed in the Bitcoin FAQ:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/FAQ#But_if_no_more_coins_are_generated.2C_what_happens_when_Bitcoins_are_lost.3F_Won.27t_that_be_a_problem.3F

When somebody threatened to compromise the anonymity of actors on the Silk Road, Dread Pirate Roberts (allegedly) ordered a hit on their life.

Was he morally justified?

I don't think so.  My feeling is that if you want privacy and security and anonymity, you have to bear the expense of it yourself.  If Bitcoin can be tracked, and you don't want to be tracked, you need to take the steps to prevent being tracked.

In this case, nobody seems to be advocating use of force against these three.  Avoiding associating with them is probably a good step to avoid being tracked.  But consider that if these three are working on tracking you, others probably will as well.  So boycott alone is probably not sufficient to protect anonymity.  And even if you did cross the line and use or advocate force against them, there could be others out there tracking you that you don't even know about.  If they can do it - so can someone else!

Bitcoin mixers might be a good step to take to preserve anonymity, along with avoiding services that gather information about you.  (Not just these guys - all of them.)

Another good idea might be Zerocoin.  I'm personally hoping that in the near future an altcoin will show up that implements Zerocoin, and it will become possible to exchange between that coin and Bitcoin.  Assuming the ideas behind Zerocoin are sound, that would bring about the anonymity that most of us feel is desirable.

Best reason ever for buying a Bitcoin.

Be sure and read how the PPLNS system works.  Whenever a block is found, the payment from the block is divided amongst all miners who have submitted shares in the last 10 shifts.  After 2-3 hours, you haven't completed 10 shifts yet (nowhere near it), so you haven't gotten all the payment you might receive, yet.  If more blocks are found a couple shifts down the road, you will get paid for them as well.

This results in a "ramping up" effect that is confusing, and also means that mining for a few hours doesn't give a figure that you can use to estimate what you would make mining over a longer period of time.

If you watch the shifts page and the expected per block value on the account details page, you'll see that as you do work in more shifts, your expected earnings per block rise.

Then, if you have a day like I'm having today and have to turn your miners off, you can watch that number slowly creep down.  I actually earned payment from the last two blocks bitminter found, even with my miners turned off!  But I didn't get as much reward as I would have if I'd been able to keep them on.  (Down for 4 shifts now, going on 5...)