lol -- this is my desktop -- dual Xeon 5680's on an EVGA SR-2 Classified mobo.  Got it to improve render times for Adobe CS apps.

Here's what my guimer looks like:

No math bug -- your score is increasing at the same rate as before because your hash rate is the same.  The total pool score is increasing by the total pool hash rate (and that can change as miners come and go during the round).  Not sure if you've seen this, but the latest audit for Slush's pool has this about the scoring system: http://organofcorti.blogspot.com/2012/08/42-slushs-score-method-and-miner.html?q=slush%27s+pool

Yeah, it doesn't seem fair -- had more than a few of them myself -- but how can the server tell if you're having a connection problem or if you've hopped?  How long does it take for the average mining operation to notice and correct a dc, and how could you account for changes in the chain?  Taking your case as an example, ten minutes is the average block time, so most likely a new block would start before reconnection, maybe even a new round -- where would you want to apply the shares you've started generating again -- the previous round or the current round?

Score resets to zero top of every hour for everyone, but shares are not reset -- you don't lose anything.  Score has to reset because on long blocks, the number could get big enough to overflow the registers and peeps would start asking about why they were seeing negative scores

I wouldn't speculate as to why "some miners probably left" and chalk it up to DIVERSITY and thank whatever powers be higher than me for it.  The world would be a very boring place if everyone did everything just to suit me -- I'm sure you would all agree.

I've looked at several pools now, including solo mining -- each has its own mix of API, scoring/reward system, and followers -- and I do my mining where I feel I fit in.  I suggest each of you to do the same.  Check 'em all out, pick one or two (or three or four as you wish) and get into it -- support the mining, the media, and the community wherever you fit in.  And if things change -- if your ideals and your chosen pool's activities don't seem to match anymore, then reevaluate all the pools and move on if you find something that fits you better elsewhere.  Change is another thing to be thankful for.

The algorithm:  make your own evaluations, seek advice when you need it, give advice when you're asked to, make your own decisions, stand by them until things change, repeat.

Yeah, I think you're right.

Well, that sucks.  Went through 5 minutes of filling out an erroneous detection report at Symantec, waited another five minutes while the stuff uploaded, and then got this:

Server Error
This server has encountered an internal error which prevents it from fulfilling your request. The most likely cause is a misconfiguration. Please ask the administrator to look for messages in the server's error log.

Using Norton 360.  Same thing happens when I restart the Litecoin client -- so perhaps a false positive.  I'll report it to Symantec and see if they flagged checkip.dyndns.org for something other than routine heuristics.

Received an email alert from Sourceforge that a 0.8.2 update to Bitcoin client was available -- downloaded and installed, then restarted the app from the installer finish button.  Welcome screen showed Bitcoin 0.8.2 BETA, then my AV kicked in saying it had blocked 2 malicious intrusion attempts from checkip.dyndns.org (216.146.39.70) on port 80.  It appears the attack was asking for routing data all the way in to the internal network IP of my PC.  Not good.

Ah, thanks -- looks like Bitminter is becalmed

Just getting started with Bitminter -- running in my 8th shift (7 shifts completed) and see NMC rewards for last 11 blocks found by Bitminter, but no rewards for BTC.  Do I have to run 10+ consecutive shifts in order to start getting BTC rewards?

Ok, understand 18264 scoring -- but still have the payout question on 18263.

More scoring/reward weirdness:

Current round shares submitted 4797 over past 1 hour 19 minutes, but estimated reward only 0.00000127 BTC

and 18263 showing 25% of normal payout

18263 -- 2013-05-28 16:02:36 -- 2:15:30 -- 21570361 -- 8816 -- 0.00296759 -- 238376 -- 25.11542000 -- 93 confirmations left
...
18259 -- 2013-05-28 11:17:00 -- 2:18:20 -- 21656874 -- 10248 -- 0.01178656 -- 238334 -- 25.41659740 -- 51 confirmations left

Like you, for the time being I have a workaround, but will be looking for an alternative ahead of my long-awaited Bitminers.  Don't want to buy another PC just to get 4 more built-in USB ports.

Difficulty should be set to 1 for workers hashing less than 2GH/s.  You'll still get work assigned (aka jobs) with difficulties greater than 1, but that's ok -- awarded shares = difficulty assigned for the completed job (aka accepted share).

If I take risk to mean the possibility of things happening that are outside of one's control, everything involves risk (e.g., my boss may default on a loan to the business and I'll find the doors locked and the pay I've earned gone when I show up in the morning).

Gain (or loss) on some risk-taking endeavor is always affected by those who make better (or worse) guesses than I, have better (or worse) timing than I, or do a better (or worse) job of scamming.  Still, I go to work in the mornings, I invest in the stock markets, I mine bitcoins, and I hope for more than enough profit in the long run to offset my losses.

Copy and paste your Dashboard -- mebbe forum members can see something wrong.  Mine looks ok (see below).


Dashboard

Your Current Hashrate
543 KH/s [It takes 20 minutes for your hashrate to be calculated up to full speed and is only approximate, go by your work utility in cgminer.]

Paid Shares [All submitted shares from previous rounds which are already accounted and paid for.]
Your Valid: 49640
Invalid: 578

Unpaid Shares [Submitted shares between the last 20 confirms block until now.]
Your Valid: 361
Pool Valid: 1037024

Round Shares [Submitted shares since last found block (ie. round shares)]
Pool Valid: 281205

Round Estimate
0.0100976 LTC

Account Balance
4.914196959999994 LTC

Stats last updated:
16:42:01 GMT
(updated every 120 secs)

Sometimes have to wait a couple of minutes for stats to sync up with whatever just happened.

I don't follow BTCGuild, but for many pools, like Slush's, mining is a back-end operation and continues even tho the Web site might be down.

Re Slush's luck, I can't complain.