The point is for a block to "equal" ~10 minutes of computing time at a power equal to the size of the network. If blocks were found more quickly, an attacker could generate more blocks quickly, but they would represent the same amount of computer power. Additionally, network propagation must be taken into account. I think 10 minutes was chosen in part because it's more time than is necessary for a message to propagate to the entire network. This helps prevent constant forking of the block chain.

As far as I can tell, the Forum Admins (sirius, theymos, and gavinandresen) have yet to post official guidelines on using the Reputation system. Please provide a link if I'm mistaken!

In my opinion, reputation should be based solely on quality posts vs. non-quality posts.

A quality post should possess some of the following attributes:

• contributes to discussion
• on-topic
• well-organized
• thoughtful
• interesting

Non-quality posts could be described as one or more of the following:

• troll
• flamebait
• off-topic
• illegible -- hurts my brain to read it

Basically, we should be striving for a higher signal-to-noise ratio. I've seen a lot of threads get derailed by off-topic conversations and emotional disagreements where the same points just get repeated over and over by a small handful of users. It's time-consuming to read through and puts a damper on meaningful discussion. If users were aware that they might lose points, they might think about starting a new thread or requesting a moderator to split them from the original thread.

It would also be great to provide a comment for a +1 or -1. If someone bothered to embed a URL to an article they mention in a post, you should be able to say, "thanks for the link to X -- good read!". When people know their effort is appreciated, they'll keep putting in that effort.

I think this could really improve the quality of discussion on these forums, but we'll need the admins to officially define guidelines for using reputation. Otherwise it will be meaningless.

Clearly not all of them.

Good news for me anyway  , they sold me the project for $5k to recover some of their cost. I now technically own the wallet files and other software I was working on with them at the time. For legal reasons I can't blurt out who the investors were or the banks, companies, etc. they were representing basically (unless I won't to land in court forever), but I think I made a wise investment. It's still going to take a while to get my wife on board as she still doesn't understand the whole BTC concept, but everyone here knows and I know what it means. She was really skeptical about my purchase this week.

I'll probably take some of the backup advise here too, why have a few backup copies when you can have many on different media types spread around everywhere (all encrypted of course this time).

Thanks for the advise everyone!

But if they are changing rapidly in value, U$D is down 10% yoy to gold for last 10 years ... and that will likely be accelerating in the near future as the money printed the last 3 years blows the system apart, then why keep using a useless measuring stick?

If gold or bitcoins become the next international reserve currency, you will likely know roughly how much purchasing power 6830 ounces of gold or 6830 bitcoins would have.  Because you would be conditioned to think of value in reference to gold or bitcoins, as you have be conditioned to think of value in reference to the national fiat currencies.

Well, using US dollars to compare is always going to problematic because it is going to hell in a basket and is inflating way too fast to measure anything sensible against it.

How about you use gold grams (or ounces) since it will still be around when bitcoin matures and won't have inflated much by then.

Imagine Jimmy Rogers 95 yo and still going, crustily popping up on financial TV clip ;

"Ah, today I like the hard monies, gold, I'm buying gold, I'm buying bitcoins, I like bitcoins, also I'm buying silver .... , the hard monies are going to be the place to be in for the next little while, we all remember what became of the dollar in 2012 ..."

What is your stance on things like:

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade

Products or services illegal in US or Japan are not fit to be listed here - such links will be removed immediately. Any attempt to get those links up again will result in the account being blocked.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade_R

http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=7064

Would it be acceptable to cease using bitcoin.it wiki due to controlled censorship and to instead make use of your wiki and not fear your control and censorship capabilities?

Personal Statement
You may consider adding an opening statement here that would say something about why or how you came to choose the things you chose to talk about in this paper. It just starts, seemingly abruptly. - Agreed.

There is a place in Lake Forest Park called the sand pit. It is essentially an abandoned quarry filled with sand, a forgotten place where my friends and I would hang out a lot and play games like "Ghost in the Graveyard" or "Capture the Flag". Along the quarry wall are some fairly tall cliffs where the erosion creates twenty or thirty foot drops onto sand piles. We decided to jump off of them and see how high any of us dared to go. Of course, one kid wanted to go off the 20+ foot cliff and dared everyone to jump off after him. I was more reluctant. It was really high and I had never been one to do dumb or dangerous things for no reason. But after everyone had jumped down, they all dared me to jump and made fun of how fearful I was. I ended up jumping - not because I wanted to, for intrinsic reasons, but because I wanted to fit in and be one of the guys. Of course, knowing me [I don't know you, so explain], I landed on a flat area and wasn’t able to roll down like everyone else. I ended up breaking my right foot, receiving a les franc fracture (a rare and hard to heal injury). This is a perfect example of what following the pack did for me. [What did it do for you, exactly?] - Agreed, need something more to explain.

I was out of commission for over 10 weeks, unable to walk for most of the summer and much of the first month of school. From that time on, I stopped trying to please my peers and did the things that I really enjoyed, not the things that would make them laugh. I found that I had real friends who actually cared about me and I enjoyed being myself, not the person others wanted me to be.

As I moved up grade levels, there was a particular event from my freshman year of Highschool that stands out. A classmate reached out to me, and we soon became friends. He made me re-evaluate my beliefs and question how I spoke, dressed, and acted on a day to day basis. Then one day, he told me he was gay. There is nothing wrong with that. What was wrong, was how I had consciously slurred him and many other people like him in public. I said things like “that’s so gay” and “what a fag”. Despite that, he be-friended me, and is still one of my best friends to this day. After he came out to me, I realized how much my words must have hurt him and made a decision never to use those slurs again.

This mindset [what mindset?] was really evident in high school, especially during my senior year. Drugs are more available and prevalent than ever. Many highschoolers are pressured into using them, but I’ve managed to stay drug free. Saying no is not easy, because there are many people who use drugs, and it is socially acceptable to smoke marijuana. I have seen many kids get into harder substances, and this inspired me to volunteer at S.A.M.A. (Science And Management of Addictions).

Need some sort of a conclusion... what is the question you are responding to? Also, colleges LOVE people who put their name in the paper - tell them why they would be proud to have you as a student there!

Pay close attention for added commas - there were many that needed to be added in. Just a note - in professional writing, you want to avoid using contractions (don't, I've, where'd, etc) as much as possible. Also, I noticed you use "a lot" a lot, which is a big no-no in writing. Just a couple things to keep in mind for the future. 

Personal Statement
You may consider adding an opening statement here that would say something about why or how you came to choose the things you chose to talk about in this paper. It just starts, seemingly abruptly.

There’s a place in Lake Forest Park called the sand pit. It is basically an abandoned quarry filled with sand. A forgotten place where my friends and I would hang out a lot and play games like "Ghost in the Graveyard" or "Capture the Flag". There are some fairly tall cliffs where the erosion creates twenty or thirty foot drops onto a sand(pile?). We decided to jump off of them and see how high any of us dared to go. Of course, one kid wanted to go off the 20+ foot cliff and dared everyone to jump off after him. I was more reluctant. It was really high and I’ve never been one to do dumb or dangerous things for no reason. But after everyone had gone down they all dared me to go and made fun of how scared I obviously was. I ended up jumping. Not because I wanted to, for intrinsic reasons, but because I wanted to fit in and be one of the guys. Of course knowing me, I landed on a flat area and wasn’t able to roll down like everyone else. I ended up breaking my right foot, receiving a les franc(spelling correct?) fracture (a rare and hard to heal injury). This is a perfect example of what following the pack did for me. [What did it do for you, exactly?]

I was out of commission for over 10 weeks. Unable to walk for most of the summer and much of the first month of school. From that time on I stopped trying to please my peers and did the things that I really enjoyed, not the things that would make them laugh. I found that I had real friends who actually cared about me and enjoyed being myself. Not the person others wanted me to be. {alternatively, you can say "being myself and not the person..}
As I moved up grade levels there was (As in past tense. It happened already.) a particular event from my freshman year of Highschool that stands out. A person(needs more description. Maybe "someone" or "a future friend" reached out to me. He made me re-evaluate my beliefs and question how I spoke, dressed, and acted on a day to day basis. He’s gay.(Perhaps be more desciptive? "After a while he trusted me enough to.." Theres nothing wrong with that. What there was something wrong with, is how I had consciously slurred him and many other people like him in public. I said things like “that’s so gay” and “what a fag”. Despite that, he be-friended me, and is still one of my best friends to this day. After he came out to me, I realized how much my words must have hurt him and made a decision never to use those slurs again.

This mindset is really evident in high school especially in my senior year. Drugs are more available and prevalent than ever. A lot of people are pressured into using them, however I’ve managed to stay drug free. Saying no isn’t easy, because there are a lot of people who use drugs and its socially normal (change to acceptable) to smoke marijuana. I’ve seen a lot of kids get into harder substances and felt inspired to volunteer at S.A.M.A.(maybe the dots? not sure) (Science And Management of Addictions). {not everyone knows what this is, like myself. May choose to describe this if it is acceptable.}

I don't like this estimation. It does not tell you anything and therefore has no meaning, if such situation is impossible. If Bitcoin replaced all cash, there wouldn't be much sense in using these currencies in any other form. I think better way of estimating how much Bitcoin would be worth if it replaced traditional money is to think how many people would use it and how much they would need over a certain period of time(interval between paychecks lets say). Whatever value you get, then you can increase it with respect to how much people would like to have and are able to obtain/hoard.
If bitcoin indeed replaced traditional money, it would be worth a lot more