Wow.  This is the largest example of mental masterbation that I have seen in a long time, and I read a lot on the Internet.

This is an unresolvable disagreement, simply because both sides talk past each other because neither can really agree on the definition of critical words.

I have a question...

Whatever it may be called, and based on the given that, whatever it is called, basicly every "Western" society largely shares the majority of characteristics of the same whatever.  Do you believe that your lifestyle today is better, worse or about the same as your grandfather's?

My mistake.  Thanks for pointing this out.

That's not entirely true, as there are other steps that can be taken to mitigate such risks without access to a local blockchain.  Yet, the client does not attempt these other methods at of yet, so your statement is practically true at present.

You have a higher tolerance than I.

Bitcoin is not tailored for anyone, but nor does it discriminate for anyone either.  That alone means that Bitcoin is a more favorable monetary system for third world nations than anything that the UN or the US has presented them with thus far.  Your claim about electricity is false, as there are forum members who have reported very low power costs in Russia, Iceland and elsewhere.

If you have 200 different investors, you are going to want to standardize the payment methods.  Otherwise you are going to be spending too much actual labor time sending the payments each month.

I highly recommed the body cavity search if you are into that kind of thing, but the cost of loosing all of your cash certainly makes a visit to an S&M brothel the greater value.

I've already explained it.  Please read the thread.  If you are just thinking about what you personally gain from mining, then it is pointless to you.  If you consider the altruisic value of mining, particularly in a crisis event such as an ongoing attack upon the blockchain, then it's not unwise to have every possible cpu still have the ability to mine.  Even if there is no possibility of profit.

Unless you are mining, eight is more than enough.  It probably is even if you are mining.  Unless you are determined to get more, it's likely not worth the effort of tracing down the blockage.

I think that is a workable solution.  Such an agreement pretty much removes investor currency trade risks.  Would the USD be in MtGox $, PayPal $, or some other method?

That is the general idea.

It's not useless.

Looking again, I see that the startup messages refer to a GeForce 4, which is probably too old to make the cut.

Thanks anyway guys, I just thought that it would be worth checking.

Although there will be 'lightweight' clients in the future, most likely those will be on consumer devices without the capacity to support a full client.  Future users of Bitcoin are as likely to have a client running on portable devices and home computers.  There is no reason to expect that future users are going to prefer lightweight clients on personal computers.

Yes.  Like raindrops form a river.

Can I mine using this GPU?

What you are proposing is essentially a one year business bond.  The problem is that it's unsecured and includes currency risks.  3% isn't enough interest.  However, I also understand the concern for yourself, because if the difficulty shoots to the moon, you might not be able to pay back the installments.  But I think that I have a solution.

Start by bumping up the APR to something more in line with a high risk bond, say 12%; but include an escape clause.  For example, an agreement to the monthly payment, but if the difficulty is set to a number higher than a certain limit, all future payments are waived.  This protects you from a spike in the difficulty, while also permitting the investor (myself) assurances of a reasonable profit margin.  It works because there is a strong corollary between the difficulty and the market price trendline.  So if the limit is breached in six months, I only receive half of the bitcoins but it is a fair assumption that the trade value of that half of bitcoins had significantly increased during those six months.  At this time, I'd be willing to set the high difficulty limit to 250K, roughly triple the difficulty at this point.  Run your math, if you are interested, to judge your risks.  On risk to me is that it's possible for the bitcoin price to decouple from the difficulty, but I would say that the odds of that occurring within any one year period are remote. 

I like the idea, but not the terms.  Even at a 3% ROI, Bitcoin is still inflating at about 40% APR.  There is still room for great losses.

That was quick.

Pity, I would have loaned that much, to a forum member with your history, for 32 bitcoins in two weeks.

5 bitcoins interest is about 16% in two weeks, or an APR over 400%, roughly ten times the inflation rate.

Even 2 bitcoin would have been a harsh rate of about 6% in two weeks, or over 150% APR.

We need a bitcoin version of Prosper.com for a short term bitcoin credit market, as it seems we really are approaching the point that is viable.

Most likely cause of the price of bitcoins falling is that the growth rate of the userbase/marketplace has stalled while the rate of new bitcoin creation continues at a rate roughly 40% APR.  This is a high inflation rate, that won't settle down until 2013 or later.  Until that time, the value of a bitcoin is subject to wild swings.  This is not yet mature technology.