started with .0001 BTC to a Blockchain wallet on the 9th, followed by a .01 BTC transaction to the same wallet on the 15th or so. It took until the 22nd for both to be included in a block. Fees were included with both (.00004096 BTC for the first, .01 BTC for the second).
Well there's your problem. Transactions less than 0.01 BTC require a minimum fee of 0.0005 BTC to be accepted by most miners, and a fee of 0.0001 BTC just to be relayed on the chance that some miners will accept transactions with less than the required fee. I'm surprised this transaction ever got confirmed at all. You must have gotten really lucky and got a direct connection to a miner willing to process transactions that don't pay the required fee. That's the only way I can see that transaction ever confirming. |
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Is it recommended to download the whole block chain before receiving or sending bitcoins?
It's not just recommended, it's required. Because transactions are stored in the blockchain, the software does not even know how many bitcoins you have until it the blockchain is downloaded: if someone sends you bitcoins, the bitcoins will not show up in your balance (and you will not be able to spend them) until your blockchain download has reached the block in which that transaction appears. At that point you can spend the coins before it finishes downloading the blockchain, but the transaction will be labeled as unconfirmed until the blockchain is downloaded, even if it actually is confirmed since the software has no way of knowing that without the blockchain. TL;DR: If you're expecting a payment but haven't received anything, or your own payments appear to never confirm, make sure your blockchain is complete and up to date before panicking. |
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When starting Bitcoin after not using it for a while, it can take a while to reconnect to the network and catch up with recent transactions. Whenever you have transactions that aren't confirming, always be sure to wait until it has finished synchronising before panicking.  |
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The major news of Bitcoin 2 is that they will replace the proof of work with proof of laziness.
What? We have to prove our laziness now? But I'm too lazy to bother proving my laziness! |
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Yup, just got a Null-modem connector and it works like a charm. I can't believe how ridiculously easy it is to use serial ports! (at least, in Linux).
Yes. In Linux. Windows versions later than XP do not support serial ports.  |
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What? You mean all those things are sins? My God*, what sort of horrible person am I? Is there no hope for me? Oh wait, you said "with bitcoins". Well, I haven't committed all of them with bitcoins, so I guess I still have a chance for redemption. I've just got a few things on that list to check off first...
*I don't actually believe in God, but I refer to Him in my exclamations anyway. I hope that's not a sin too...
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Has your Bitcoin client fully syncronised with the network? Assuming you're using the standard client, you will see a green checkmark in the bottom right corner of the window when you are synchronised with the network. If you see yellow circling arrows, it means your client has not yet synchronised with the network, and your transactions will not show up until it has. This process can take several hours (note that you must have Bitcoin running the whole time, though it will pick up where it left off if you close it before it finishes), so be patient. It also says Not Yet redeemed on the left had side
"Not yet redeemed" simply means that you haven't spent the coins yet. |
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No! Hows that?
How's this: you're wrong, and everyone who has a copy of the Official Monopoly Rules can clearly see that you're wrong. The correct thing to do in a situation like this is either admit that you're wrong or explain why you still think that you're right. Both of these options allow you to appear to be an intelligent individual who just happened to be mistaken about one particular detail. But just saying "No!" makes you instead look like a complete idiot. You don't want to look like a complete idiot, do you? |
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Paper money that is theoretically unlimited; if the bank runs out of money the players must make do with other markers, or calculate on paper. Additional paper money can be bought at certain locations, notably game and hobby stores, or downloaded from various websites and printed and cut by hand (one such site has created a $1,000 bill for the game; it is not one of the standard denominations). In the original U.S. standard editions, the supply generally starts with $15,140.
When the game is played normally you can actually RUN OUT of money. But theoretically... yes you can print up money and play like the "Big Boys". I was not talking theoretically. There's nothing "theoretical" about it: the official rules specifically state that you are allowed to do this. This is the normal way of playing. The bank cannot run out of money when playing using the official rules. Please read the rules rather than quoting Wikipedia out of context. |
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In the game of Monopoly, they use a set amount of money. The "banker" is not allowed to print up more. Fiat money used in every day life is less honest than the game of Monopoly. Bitcoin goes up to 21 million and there will be no more.
Say what? If the Bank runs out of money, the Banker may issue as much as needed by writing on any ordinary paper.
Fiat money is exactly like Monopoly money in every way. Be sure to tell this astounding fact to everyone you know. No, I wont... there is only a set amount available for the whole game. I will be sure to tell that to everyone I know. Although only $15,140 is included in a standard set, the rules explicitly allow for more money to be issued if the initial supply runs out. Go get out your monopoly set, find the booklet that says "Rules" and read it. The only things with a fixed supply in Monopoly are properties, houses, and hotels. Money in Monopoly is unlimited. |
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In the game of Monopoly, they use a set amount of money. The "banker" is not allowed to print up more. Fiat money used in every day life is less honest than the game of Monopoly. Bitcoin goes up to 21 million and there will be no more.
Say what? If the Bank runs out of money, the Banker may issue as much as needed by writing on any ordinary paper.
Fiat money is exactly like Monopoly money in every way. Be sure to tell this astounding fact to everyone you know. |
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it would also be reassuring to know satoshi had the biggest bag full of fairy dust. if he really had a million coins, at least then we'd know who's daddy.
For you maybe. For others it would just confirm their views that it was a scam all along. Indeed. It is so unfair that the inventor of a brilliant technological innovation might actually make money from his efforts. </sarcasm> |
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@AmpEater - Maybe you and I should spend a little more time researching our statements before posting and we can limit the abuse of techtrolls. In interplanetary space, it is believed that thin aluminum shielding would have a negative net effect.
Spacecraft can be constructed out of hydrogen-rich plastics, rather than aluminum. Unfortunately, "Some 'galactic cosmic rays are so energetic that no reasonable amount of shielding can stop them,' cautions Frank Cucinotta, NASA's Chief Radiation Health Officer. 'All materials have this problem, including polyethylene.'" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_threat_from_cosmic_raysIt was a show on PBS, possibly Nova, involving space travel. It's not possible I confused it for solar sails, though it is possible, I would concede propulsion for long term electrical generation. I still claim multiplication via GCR interacting with aluminum. Nope. The "net negative effect" you quoted refers to the biological effects of radiation, rather than the amount of physical energy involved. This occurs due to radiation changing into a different, more harmful type of radiation, while retaining the same energy. There is no radiation or any other form of energy created out of nothing, and the process is completely useless for cooling. There was a motor, a rotor/stator design built with permanent magnets, which doesn't produce heat while spinning, but produces cold instead. It was developed by a scientist from JPL and he was awarded a patent solely because of the novel effect it produced.
I have a motor like that in my house. It's called a refrigerator. Most if not all refrigerator designers are awarded patents for their inventions; that only means the design itself is novel, not the underlying physics. Although many different types of refrigerator exist, they all work by moving heat from where it's not wanted to somewhere where it's easier to manage. This process always requires energy and always results in a net gain of heat. It is impossible to make heat simply disappear. I only brought it up as speculation for cooling the 3D CPU stack, maybe a bit tongue in cheek, but now I'm defending anomolous physics claims.  You're not defending anomalous physics claims, you're taking ordinary physics and claiming it to be anomalous when it isn't. |
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Ok. Good developments. Deleted files, this time WITH the addr.dat included. (I was confused by the files "reappearing" that i forgot to delete the addr.dat). Wallet is synchronizing with the network right now. I have two questions: How did it become corrupted and how do I prevent it in the future? Also, why was I never able to open my backed up wallets? It makes me less than confident that they are actually backed up and my bitcoins are at risk of loss if my computer (or main wallet) does crash.
Wallet files are not meant to be opened like normal files, and Bitcoin currently has no way to load a wallet.dat file from an arbitrary location. Bitcoin will simply load whichever wallet.dat file happens to be present in its data directory, creating an empty wallet if one does not already exist. You can verify that your wallet is correctly backed up by installing Bitcoin on another computer (or another user account on the same computer) and copying the backup file there, then running Bitcoin and seeing if the displayed balance is correct. Note that you should not attempt to send money or create new addresses from your backup wallet unless your original wallet is lost, as doing so will cause the backup wallet to generate keys which are not present in the original wallet, which will eventually lead to transactions from one wallet not appearing in the other, resulting in incorrect balances being displayed, and it's a huge pain to try to sort out the resulting mess. So don't do that. From the fact that addr.dat was corrupted as well as your blockchain, it seems you tried to move your Bitcoin directory while Bitcoin was still running (possibly in the background). That won't work at all. Also, the blockchain will be corrupted if you move it to a different directory when the "Detach databases at shutdown" option is turned off. Turning this option on then shutting down Bitcoin will allow you to move the blockchain without corrupting it, however Bitcoin will take several minutes to properly shut down, due to the massive size of the files involved. This option is off by default, and allows Bitcoin to close without having to save huge files, but this has the side effect that the blockchain will be corrupted by moving it. |
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Ok. Now I'm feeling like an idiot. I deleted the files which moved them to the recycling bin. Then I emptied my recycling bin. I went to restart bitcoin and at the same time that the error notice came up, the files reappeared in the bitcoin folder. I deleted again and they reappeared again. I don't know what I'm doing wrong.
Bitcoin will recreate these files if they don't exist at startup. These new files are guaranteed to not be corrupted, which is why deleting these files (usually) fixes any problems. If Bitcoin is still crashing with nothing in its directory other than wallet.dat, then your wallet.dat file is certainly corrupt. Back up your corrupt wallet.dat file (but do not overwrite your previous wallet.dat backup(s)) in case it is necessary to repair it (though that's a long shot), then copy your good backup (the one you made before the problem started) into your Bitcoin directory, and restart Bitcoin. How do I know if my hard drive is failing and what can I do about it? Can I save the bitcoins in my wallet?
First, copy all your backed up wallet.dat files to a different hard drive or flash drive. As long as you do that, your bitcoins will be safe (unless all your wallet.dat files are already corrupted). |
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Ok. I deleted all files in the bitcoin data except the wallet and addr. Ididnt see the third you talked about. I attempted to restart bitcoin and got the same error notifcation.
addr.dat may be corrupt as well. Delete it. It contains IP address of peers you've recently connected to. Deleting this file will make it take much longer to connect to the network the first time you run Bitcoin, but is otherwise harmless. If it still crashes after deleting addr.dat (which is unlikely), then your wallet.dat is corrupt, in which case it's a good thing you have a backup from before the whole mess started. |
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It sounds like your copy of the blockchain is corrupt. Reinstalling Bitcoin won't fix it, as a new Bitcoin installation will look for and attempt to load the blockchain from any previous installation to save you from having to download it again, crashing unceremoniously if the files are corrupt. To fix the problem, it is necessary to delete the blockchain and download it again. Delete everything in %APPDATA%\Bitcoin except wallet.dat, addr.dat, and bitcoin.conf (the latter two files are not critical, however, and you've already backed up your wallet.dat), then restart Bitcoin. It will not crash, and will start redownloading the blockchain from scratch. Your transactions should show up immediately, but will be unconfirmed until the blockchain is synchronised.
Now, if you want to take another shot at moving your Bitcoin directory again, go into Options, and make sure "Detach databases at shutdown" is checked. This option is disabled by default because it makes Bitcoin take several minutes to close, but you cannot move or copy the blockchain unless this option is turned on and you wait for Bitcoin to completely finish after closing it. This is almost certainly what caused your files to be corrupted in the first place.
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Oh by the way, does satoshi dice use encrypted keys so that they won't have to wait for a block to be confirmed to make everything faster? After submitting a transaction, how much time does the block appear in the network on average?
satoshi dice and the double spending problem would be an interesting topic
Satoshi Dice uses a neat trick to accept transactions without waiting for confirmations while avoiding the risk of a double-spend. They simply include the output of the user's bet transaction as one of the inputs for the payout transaction. In other words, part of the payout consists of the exact same coins the user originally paid with. Since it is impossible to invalidate only part of a transaction, if the original bet transaction later turns out to be a double spend, or is invalid for any other reason, the entire payout transaction is also invalid. |
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It depends on what you mean by "predict". If you mean can he calculate the hash after creating the transaction, but before transmitting it to the network, then yes. If you mean can he somehow construct a transaction to have specific hash, for example, to create a transaction with the same hash as a previous transaction, then no. Hashes are essentially random and (unless the algorithm is completely broken) the only way to get a specific hash is by brute force (i.e. try all possible permutations of the data until you happen to find one with the hash you're looking for). Brute forcing hashes is "computationally infeasible", meaning that it would take a computer with 100% thermodynamic efficiency more energy than exists in the known universe to do so. |
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Java miners (which is what BitcoinPlus is) are considered malware since some people put them on their web sites to force visitors to mine coins for them, consuming their CPU cycles without their knowledge or consent. But since you know that your CPU cycles are being used to mine coins and the coins being mined are being paid to you rather than someone else, you can safely ignore this warning.
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