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Suicide is irreversible.  I know that is stating the obvious, but think of it this way: if you choose suicide today, and tomorrow life would have changed for the better, you've made the wrong choice.  If you choose to wait to see what tomorrow brings, you've lost nothing, as suicide is always still available.  Waiting to commit suicide is always the best logical choice.

Besides, if life feels to be its lowest point, it can only go up from there, right?

You've probably already been here, but in case not, this thread is likely the most detailed information you'll find:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1721.0

FYI, I found that the OpenCL implementation included with OSX Lion gave me a drastically improved hashrate compared to Snow Leopard.

The difficulty should still be automatically adjusted to maintain an average rate of one block every ten minutes.

It's doubtful you'll hear any news in this thread.  If there were any substantial information about this, it would already be the most discussed topic on the boards. 

I'm not surprised to hear that Google employees are aware of Bitcoin.  I believe the Bitcoin client for Android (based on the BitcoinJ library) was coded by a Google employee in his spare time. But of course that is far removed from Google itself taking any official stance.

Slow it down everybody!  My Dwolla transfer still has a day or two.   Save some sub-$10 coins for me!

I agree.  It is encouraging to hear someone is undertaking such efforts.  Good luck and keep us updated on the progress of your endeavor.

Is your corporation registered in the UK?  To me, that alone inspires more confidence than one based in Nevis.  While I still prefer to keep the bulk of my coins offline, I may consider your service for small day-to-day transactions. 

In developing a rating system, I think we should distinguish between merchants and banking services.   

A Yelp-like service could work well for merchants.  After a successful transaction (received goods) a rating/review could be written.  We would however have to invent a way to deter fraud in the rating system itself.  A determined fraudster would attempt to spam the rating system with good reviews for his fraudulent shop bad reviews for competitors.

Banking systems however would not lend themselves so well to such a rating system.  There is no way to conclude that the service provider is not a thief.  The best you could do would be to leave a review that says, "I haven't had my bitcoins stolen. Yet."  Insurance seems more appropriate than ratings for banking services.

This could be a (poor) attempt to quell market anxieties, bolstering the price, so that the thief could then more profitably unload coins onto the market.

At least he didn't get $14/BTC for them.

Most Bank of America ATMs that accept deposits also count and validate the bills inserted.  I haven't yet noticed other banks employing this technology, but it does indeed exist.

But the average user need not participate in the Namecoin economy to benefit from Namecoin.  The typical use of Namecoin would simply be hostname-to-IP lookup to resolve .bit domain names.  This could be accomplished by simply changing the user's DNS server to a Namecoin-to-DNS bridge.

Is anyone aware of a whitepaper covering Namecoin?  (something appropriate to cite for academic research)

Watch the mining difficulty drop dramatically following the release of Diablo III...

This thread had some talking points:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=31005.20

I'd focus on success stories.  Meze Grille, for example.  Focus on the benefits to local businesses and that viewers can expect to see and hear more about bitcoins in the months and years to come.

No need to endorse any particular exchange.  You could just say that exchanges are popping up like daisies around the globe.  Although if you feel you must mention an exchange (and you are in the USA), I would be inclined to mention CampBX.  

If the conversation steers towards prostitutes, drugs, etc, point out that bitcoins are designed to function similarly to cash, and that like cash, their uses can vary wildly.

It seems to me that there could be issues if Blizzard does indeed facilitate (or even sanction) selling of items for USD.  That means that in-game profits are then directly connected to real-world profits.  It opens the door for the IRS to tax game play, concerns of money laundering, etc.  Blizzard would have to start issuing 1099 forms to players.  I always assumed this was the reason they explicitly forbid selling of WoW gold.

Sounds like a likely way to get mugged.

I'm going to let this go too, since a discussion on the merits of evolution and science in general is well outside the scope of this thread.

I'm still interested in determining whether or not a US political candidate or PAC can legally receive anonymous contributions.  To me this seems no trivial matter, either way.

TY, well said.  I still share many common philosophies with Paul.  I just don't hold him quite as high in esteem as I did prior to having seen that interview.