you prompted me to search online, and the accepted definition seems to say an order of magnitude is 10 times the original, 2 orders of magnitude 100 times the original and 3 orders of magnitude 1000 times (as you said).

i guess it was the first order of magnitude i had stuck in my head, although each oom is simply another increase by 10x, i just wasn't compounding the increases by factor of 10.

so 100 to 1000 times more efficient is the actual range quoted by the OP.  seems an awfully large range of performance estimate if they are so far along in the design.

i thought an order of magnitude was 10x generally, so that would be 20-30 times more efficient than a gpu wouldn't it?

vlad, what protections do investors have that their funds won't be used to subsidize the R&D, only to have the principles of the company accumulate personal mining hardware on the cheap, after investors have paid for the high entrance barrier to ASIC development?

i thought it was right around the time it came out/was announced that gavin was giving a talk at the CIA.

and a pony 

which is why the bulk of collected taxes should be surrendered to the state, and the states then pass on funds to the fed.  with the fed holding the purse strings, the states fall in line giving up constitutional powers.

i'm not sure who your calling a dummy?  if every decent sized bitcoin outlet got a cease and desist, like mtgox and bitcoin.org, telling them to stop using a trademark or legal actions will ensue...

anyone getting into bitcoin now is an early adopter.  just not the earliest adopters.

ok, so a non issue i guess.  i now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

http://www.virgin.com/travel/news/richard-branson-and-virgin-holidays-launch-new-currency-1



seems the branson currency symbol is very similar to the bitcoin mark.

your right.  apologies.

i don't understand what your saying.  if in your 50% not paying taxes, you include ridiculously wealthy individuals who pay a far far smaller percentage of their income, than yes.  or are you saying 50% of working age americans don't pay taxes?  i would be very interested in a link to a reliable source for that.

push comes to shove, the UK has a higher standard of education, has a healthier population with a longer life expectancy (which can be directly linked to everyone having access to healthcare), a higher percentage of the population going onto higher education, and takes care of their elderly after they lose the ability to support themselves.

for roughly the same amount of an average middle class income percentage wise, we get an incredibly large military spread across the globe.

personally i'd prefer my money provided myself, my family and my fellow citizens with healthcare and college than the tanks and soldiers.

there is this false theory that the mega rich are the job creators.  that's just false.  small business is the giant economic engine of this country.  i don't want them to pay anything extra.  i want them to pay the same percentage of their income as everyone else, which they absolutely do not do.

interesting bit of info...my wife is from the UK.  back when we were just getting to know each other (she still lived over there) we added up each of our individual costs/percentages in taxes and such.  for roughly the same percentage of income, they get "free" higher education and healthcare.

say what you will, but if the capitalist system we have in place was working like it is purported to, that should definitely not be the case.

yeah, in a diane sawyer nail him to the wall in a calm, professional, logical and reasonable kind of way.  i'd recommend not talking about tradehill at all, and just expressing concerns as a bitcoin centric business.  just my opinion.

make sure its recorded for posterity...and youtube.

he'll probably take the advice of his lawyer, and lawyers just about always advice not to speak about ongoing legal actions.

if anyone is attending though, it would be great if someone would question/press the dwolla guy about concerns about their chargeback policy, lack of notification about them, etc.

since mtgox controls almost the entire btc/usd market, as soon as they implement short sales, it will help mitigate volatility greatly.

would have been really cool if your first post told me the discussion is ongoing, and gave me those links.  your a spokesman for bitcoin.  i know how easy it is to get frustrated and take things personal, but nobody benefits from that kind of reaction.

yeah, i have stories from users that still wake me up in the middle of the night.

generally though, the ones that curl your hair are a smaller percentage of the user base (from my experience anyway), and i personally believe in designing for the majority, and i think the majority of people would remember their password.  i don't think its that hard to include a passphrase strength indicator.  if someone wants to be a dipstick and use 123456, and the bitcoin client tells them its a near worthless password, then bitcoin has done all it can reasonably be expected to do, and nobody is to blame but the user who is lazy.

i don't think i have the most correct answer.  i just think that security isn't as hardened as it could be, and there is at least one area where it could be relatively easily strengthened, and an open discussion would probably be beneficial.

see rjk, now the conversation is taking a more productive direction, which is, you know, more productive then taking things personal and/or being condescending.  i wasn't making any personal attacks, and am still genuinely confused why i got such a negative response.

i used to be a project manager for an iphone dev company.  i don't have the technical skills to give specific procedural suggestions, but i worked hand in hand with the designers to the programers.  there was a flow of ideas, and while it was down to the more technically capable members of the team to implement, everyone's thoughts and ideas were valued.  different perspectives from people with different skill sets lead to a stronger finished product.  best job i ever had btw.

as for the keylogger, as i said, i was referring to bitcoin doing all it could do to be secure.  obviously a user has responsibilities.  there is only so much that can be done to secure software installed on end user machines.  i just think its best practices to do some simple things like having the wallet encrypted (by whichever procedures and at whatever specific time in the installation/update process is deemed appropriate by those more technically inclined) to increase security.

julz, i can see some kind of nag screen pushing a user to encrypt the wallet being a better compromise between the two.  i just don't think a screen telling someone to enter a password and make sure they remember it, or having a password to begin with is such a show stopper.  i think the general population is very much used to entering passwords and remembering them for their bank account, their utility providers, email, netflix, facebook, etc.  i also don't think entering a password is more difficult or off putting than waiting for the blockchain to download.

wow.  so its your opinion that bitcoin belongs to a select few?  i must have really really misunderstood what bitcoin is all about. 

and your familiar with my efforts?  are furthering the adoption and developing business around bitcoin a valuable contribution?  is there a chart i can refer to or is an individuals non technical contribution evaluated by the select few on a case by case basis?

i understand nothing is perfect...ever.  the specific enhancement i suggested was to have the wallet encrypted from the get go.  gavin explained he thought the average user couldn't handle remembering the password they set it up with, so the decision was made to make it easier, but less secure.

i disagree with that decision.

i am still left confused by the hostility in the responses to a suggestion to increase security.