I've actually copied the blockchain before, and the two above files were all that I needed to get it to work.  I'm pretty sure that the others are checkpointing files, and it's not a bad idea to let the new client checkpoint the entire blockchain after a copy anyway.

I'm not certain, however, as that client was a while ago, and predates the checkpointing upon startup thing.

Actually, I disagree here.  Something fundamental has changed, the Federal Reserve has openly admitted to intentionally manipulating equities prices, as well as an intention to continue to do so while also directly supporting US Treasury Bond sales with $600 Billion in newly created US currency.  I think that this open intent to spur inflation has a lot to do with this Bitcoin rally, regardless of what national currency we are pricing it in.  Capital flows freely, after all.

They don't currently, but is there any reason that they couldn't?  If that was a common sorting rule for much of the network, in a future with much bitcoin traffic the everyday man running the Bitcoin client to heat his house in Siberia could 1) help the network at no additional cost to himself, 2) set his client to not require fees like ArtForz does and 3) still have a decent chance at collecting an additional fee from some major player who desires to have a quick confirmation.  So the end result would be fee-less transactions for the common man when the network has the time, with the ability to make a 'buck' off of those who can afford quick service; automaticly.

I think what ArtForz is doing is a positive thing, but there is no reason to expect that he (or others like himself) will continue to do so indefinitely.

Gavin is one of the developers, I believe.  And more involved in the forum than Satoshi himself.  If anyone can get action for this, I'm sure that it's him.

A very hard attack, one that depends on the attackers' ability to jump in and maintain a plausible block rate.  If the attacker has that much computional ability, there are more plausible attack vectors.  This may be an issue, I don't know.

Probably so, I'm not a code monkey so I can't say.  The block interval watchdog code should be relatively simple, however.  I understand that the simple nature of the watchdog code makes it imperfect, but it's something.

That's not the way it sounded.  Lets start over.  Hi, I'm Creighto, is English your first language?



I would think that having the option of a client that can truely 'nice' itself on demand would be a great thing, but I can't see how cutting down the contributions of the standard client to less than a tenth of it's current abilities can do anything positive for the security of the system.  It would give those with the ability to remove the governing code a huge generation advantage, however.

The total proof-of-work of the network is a major factor in it's overal security, equitable distribution of that proof-of-work is not so much an issue.  Intentionally limiting that proof-of-work is counter productive, IMHO.

I wasn't calling you ignorant, I was going out of my way to avoid that implication.  I was calling you new to the idea, which is different.  Regardless, it is still not the responsibility of others to do anything on your behalf. 


I was doing that, right up until you implied that according to you something was wrong and should be fixed according to you.  It is this arrogant statement that set me off.  Who died and made you the king of Bitcoin, to come in here and start demanding answers?  That is how you read to me.

The total proof-of-work of the blockchain is considered by the clients when deciding upon which chain is the "longest", so it's more complicated than the simple number of blocks solved since the genesis block.  Otherwise someone might be able to attack the blockchain by altering the target interval on a darknet and create a blockchain of greater block length with a much lower average difficulty.  Satoshi and crew have really vetted this one well.  This was one of my own misconceptions when I was new to this idea.

A similar fragmentation detection scheme was worked out a month or two ago.  The easiest way is to simply watch for an excessively long block interval.  Although one such interval is only suspicious, multiple intervals in a row that take 80% longer than the target increase the certainty of a network fragmentation, which could then either set off an alarm to notify the user of the risks or automaticly suspend trading in the case of automatic clients such as is used by the markets.  Another method is to selectively choose your peers, choosing peers who are representative of large sectors of the Internet that you are not; so that a lost connection could be taken as a sign of a possible fragmentation.  As far as I know, no one has been worried enough about it to write the watchdog code.

I think that it's a great script, if someone is willing to create the animation to go with it.

REsistive heating is 100% efficient, but heat pumps are 200% to 350% heat efficient.  They literally pump the heat from a cold space to a warmer space in the way a water pump pushes water from the bottom of the hill to the top; from a lower energy potiential to a higher energy potential.

However, they also lose their advantages quickly with an increasing temp gap, so in colder climates they are not particularly efficient.  They work best in temperate climates that don't spend more than 20 to 30 days below freezing a year.  They wouldn't effect the guy who lives in Canada|Siberia who has to heat his home anyway and has no access to cheaper heat such as natural gas or nuclear municipal heat.  It's this guy that heating with Bitcoin generation that will be generating even when it is not profitable.

And just like forum members here, there are always those on Mises.org who are going to point out the obvious.

That's irrelevent.  It's not like it's so bad that I'm never going to get past it, but it's still bad form to offend your readership, even by accident.

Let me sum it up.  I'm an Austrian Economist.  I don't find the implication that my peers and myself would have our 'heads spin' to be humorous.  I see it as evidence that those who write such things don't understand the ideas of those they attempt to belittle, in addition to a general case of inmaturity.  I have no doubt that some found this joke amusing, but it was posted on a public forum, presumedly with the intent of amusing forum membership.  Since I identify with the butt of your joke, I find it mildly offensive.

I could try, but others could do a better job on the details, but that is beside the point.  If you don't understand something, it is up to you to educate yourself.  It is not the responsibility of anyone else, and you have the authority to decide for only yourself.  I would say that the most common reason that no one has bothered to explain it to you thus far, is because those who do understand it get tired of trying to explain things to forum members with 'newbie' next to their name.  Go search the archives if you can't find the answers that you seek.  Only then, should that not help, do you politely ask the forum to explain the logic behind the current security features.


Most likely the same thing that would happen if any other such project were hacked or hijacked, the developer with the broken SVN/broken moral code would loose the trust they have earned in very short order, the majority would revert to earlier trusted code, and some other developer would advance more trustworthy code.

Much the same thing as what would happen should Satoshi die.


My problem is not with your concerns, but with the manner in which you present your concerns.

That's awesome!

I want stickers, real stickers.  Like a window sticker that I can put in the passenger window of my car.  I intend to accept Bitcoin via Flinc (or whichever p2p dynamic ridesharing app wins in the marketplace) and would like to plant the meme with my passengers.

No, not really.  Austrians don't have problems with double backing, which is what a gold currency with a fixed convertability into Bitcoin would be.  Austrians only have problems with currencies that arise in an unnatural manner, such as every fiat currency in the world.  A gold standard is better than an unbacked fiat, mind you; but the best answer is to remove the monopolies that 'legal tender' laws grant to a particular national currency and let the actions of the people determine what they naturally trust.

BTW, those of you who assume that others whom you interact with on an Internet forum think like yourselves, should try to remember that it's is highly likely that you are being offensive to the very people that you are trying to amuse.

Why according to you?  I understand why it is there, and generally how it works, and you do not.  Your approval is not neccessary, and it's not our concern if you use Bitcoin or not.  If you don't trust it, don't use it.  No one is going to attempt to convince you otherwise.

And although Bitcoin is safe enough without the blockchain benchmark, it's safer still with it.  And the blockchain benchmark doesn't constitute a central authority.  It is only an extension of the authority that we users entrust to the developers when we download and upgrade their code.  You can change it, or remove the blockchain benchmark altogether, and release a client without said code.  If others agree with your concerns and your fix, then they will download your version; and the will of the developers would be irrelevent.  For that matter, you could change the code so that the total number of bitcoins never stops, but you would still have to convince the majority of users that your version is better.  I think that unlikely.

No, you are not the only one.  You just stumbled onto Forth Turning social theory, but the full cycle is 80-88 years.  It's a well researched, and little known, theory about generational cycles.  Well worth a read, very enlightening.

Please do not add markups to my words when you quote them, unless you are willing to note that the emphasis is yours, not mine.  It could change the interpretation of the statement, once edited out of context and the emphasis altered.  You really shouldn't do this for anyone, it's bad form.