Casual payments are definitely one of the first uses that comes to mind.

I know that one of my firstbits addresses is 18tkn.  And I have memorized that address.  Now, no matter where I am, if someone needs to pay me bitcoins, we can hop on the website, grab the full address, and they can pay me.  I think this will work really great for casual payments, as FreeMoney said.  Businesses could also potentially use it for payments, maybe people meeting up for craigslist transactions might find it handy, and certainly non-profits that take donations could make good use of it.

Even at 2.85M difficulty level, bitcoins only need to be worth about $8.5/ea for it to remain profitable for me to mine.

PCMag writes about Bitcoins: The Currency of Hackers

Not much substance, but a notable source nonetheless.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2386812,00.asp

I do not have the knowledge to craft a response to that, but I would love to hear someone who does have said knowledge explain how much space it could save.

We'd still have the gbps limitation though... my internet is only 10mbps upload and 50mbps download - it wouldn't handle a proposed load of 8 gpbs.  And we're a long way off the point at which a residential connection generally would support that kind of load.

A couple things from this wiki that I'd like to respond to...

Spending $200 on a hard drive every 21 days is obviously impractical for the average user.  While it could be done by server-class nodes, ramping up transaction volume would server to centralize what is meant to be a decentralized currency.

It's going to be a while before anyone but a datacenter will have these kinds of internet speeds available.  Again, upping the number of transactions only serves to centralize what is meant to be a decentralized currency.

Right now, every client and user of bitcoin can be confident that the blockchain they are relying on for information is 100% accurate and reliable (it is on their computer and verified by thousands of other computers).  But as the blockchain is moved to server-class hardware, because that is the only hardware capable of running it, and people using bitcoins are forced to use a "lite" client version that connects to one of these server clusters, we would then be relying on these servers to provide accurate transaction data to us.  I don't like this, and neither should all the other bitcoin users out there...

I started this thread on another forum, but thought I'd post it here as well...  I believe that bitcoin, in its current form, cannot grow past about 4 million users, give or take a few million.

http://bitcoinforums.net/index.php?threads/the-blockchain-a-blessing-or-a-flaw.68/

I will not be continuing this idea.  With tradehill, and a couple of other very competitive-looking exchanges, as well as the potential legal ramifications of running one, it's just not something I want to get in to right now.

However, it's still a very viable idea for anyone else who wants to see another exchange out there.  So go for it! 

He's got a Porsche 911 Turbo.  I don't think putting together and managing 100 computers is the sort of thing he'd be interested in doing.

I have about 90 BTC to my name, and you can have every single one of them in trade. 

I'm profitable at any price above $1.70.

Nope, am not reconsidering it at all.  If anything, I'm still considering buying more.

xenForo is pretty slick, and very developer-friendly.  They have a nice API for it.  It's not open source though.

Different people like different things I suppose.  I can't stand the looks of this forum, or any SMF/vB-based forum for that matter, and how aged they look.  I love the refreshing modernness of a xenForo-based forum.

But, you're welcome to not like it. 

I'm open to anything Alex, just let me know what it is you want to do, and how it needs to be done.  Preferably, post on the other forum so it's easier to see/access the information.

JJG, that's why I like the mining investments.  It's virtually risk-free, since the ROI is so quick, and even if you don't hit it, the hardware can be resold for nearly as much as the purchase price, especially if you are a frugal shopper.  But yes, it's still hard to say what will happen in the world of bitcoins.  The price could drop below $1.70 tomorrow, which would make my mining unprofitable.  Who knows...

IMO, the 6990's are a terrible investment, unless you just don't have room to have several rigs.  Going with a midrange card, (ideally a 5830/5850/5870, though those are difficult to find for decent prices anymore) will generally give a much better MHash/$$$ rate.  As it is, you are lucky to get 1Mhash/$ with a 6990, but a card like a 6950, which can get 400MH/s with a bios flash, is nearly 2Mhash/$.  Of course, system costs must be taken into account, but with the spendy PSU's required for a 6990, I just don't see the point in spending the coin on them instead of a cheaper alternative that gets more MH/s.

Couldn't have had better timing.

I sold a quarter of mine (which is less than your hundred) for $24/BTC.  Good time to do it by the looks of things... now I'm thinking about buying as much as I sold at less than half the price.

This website is seriously starting to annoy me.  Are there any advertising alternatives yet?

I create two websites, both with 0 BTC minimum bids.  One of my websites gets two bids, but both end up at 0 BTC (they may have bid more than that, but since that's the minimum, that is all they are being charged).  Neither bid "outbids" the other, so I am not actually getting paid, even though I have two bids.  Also, both bids say "with a limit of 0.0X BTC".  But with them paying 0 BTC/day, neither bid will ever expire.

Because of this bug, I have changed both websites to have a minimum of 0.001 BTC/day.  And yet, the 0 BTC bids are still active - another bug.  I heard that if I cancel a bid, they are automatically banned from advertising on my website, which is not necessarily what I want to do.  A third bug.

So now I am stuck, with 0 BTC bids on both of my websites, despite the fact that they both have minimum bids requirements above 0 BTC.  I can't cancel them, or I might be banning potential advertisers from advertising on my website in the future.  I have no way to fix the problem...

Basically, this website sucks, badly, and need some serious attention.  I hope the developer sees this thread and spends some more time developing his site.  It's just not working in its current state.

So, are there any alternative bitcoin advertising/publishing enterprises I can turn to?

I would like to implement some features to help sort out the newbies from the people who don't want to see all the newbies questions.

Either a paid usergroup, or just having some subforums that are inaccessible until you have more than 500 or 1000 posts or something.  Maybe a combination of both.

3 more prizes paid out, 6 more to be claimed!

Congrats to My_Time, he's the first to reach 20 posts and win one of the 0.20 BTC prizes!

I'll take some tomorrow, thanks for the reminder.

Haha, gotta love Google's account verification.  My wife was complaining about the same thing last night.  We have cell phones, but have text messaging turned off and use a free app to message people.  Unfortunately, for whatever reason, Google's verification texts don't come through to the free text service, so there's no way to actually verify the account.   

bitlotto, thanks for the good wishes!  I have no idea whether a google group for Bitcoins exists... might be a good thing to start up as well though - certainly, different people have different preferences.